In response to: Thoughts on mesh conference 2008
“Why should I pay for music?”
I did answer you. You pay for music regardless of whether or not you actively consume it. That’s what sync/performance/publishing licensing is for. You’re concern is whether or not you will be part and parcel to mechanical licensing, which is up to question.
Casual and active consumers are becoming less of a stringent hierarchy as the modes of consumption of media of all forms diversifies and fragments. The challenge is not “how will you pay for music again” but more “how do we as a producer produce something worth consuming.”
That isn’t speaking to the quality of the product, but more to the modality of the product produced. I don’t think this is unique to music either. When you reduce it down to the basics, its not only the music business feeling a crunch because of the fragmentation of attention and the consequent dispersion of desire.
Movies, television, books, print media, photography and art are all feeling the same thing. Music is the most readily used example because its notion of “free” is so often linked to the notion of “just” from its long and sordid history of artist vs. label and label vs. consumer (which is unfortunate).
But those histories are there in other industries, just more hidden through the complications of how movies are financed, etc.
Anyhow, your question “Why should I ever pay for music again?” is not so simply answered. Why should you? Hopefully because you find something worth paying for. Why won’t you? If the music companies keep putting out product that is the same as is readily stolen for less effort than its purchased.
So OUR challenge (in the royal OUR meaning all media companies and content producers) is to figure out the theories, rationality, psychological reasons and such as to what the transition into a homogenized and representation-dependent, decentered and binary-data media system does to modes of consumption both active and casual, free and monetized.
The challenge for US as consumers is to push producers into modalities that are more in tune with our capitalistic, altruistic and opportunistic desires.
Thanks for taking up the challenge again, Ethan. I’m glad we could continue the conversation online.
So here’s the question, extended: aside from a few artists I’m a diehard fan of, why should I ever pay for music again? I used to pay for music, but the free, illegal product quickly became just as easy to obtain (if not easier) than the legal product, often of comparable quality.
I understand the music industry is going to make money regardless, but surely YOU (meaning all the labels, big and small) have a plan to get the casual (emphasis on casual) listener to start paying for legal music again.
Like I said: make compelling product.
Well said, Ethan. At the heart of everything is music worth paying for. Then you work out distribution systems that incentivize legal music downloads by [ making them easy to use / giving them more than just music / make them cheaper / fill in the blank ] and everything works.
Plus there is much more product besides simply the tracks that can be taken advantage of.
On another note, I was talking to you on Twitter about sending you my resume, what is your email address I should use?
Chris, I think you’re missing the point. If you don’t want to pay for music, you shouldn’t. But what Ethan is (correctly) saying is that the problem for the industry isn’t figure out how to get you to pay for music. It’s figuring out how to come up with business models whereby it can finance the creation of music and make a return on it.
That may or may not involve you paying for music.
And, if it does, it won’t be about you “paying for music.” It will be about you paying for something that you can’t get elsewhere and can’t get for free.
Mike: exactly. Too much of the mascination around music is about whether or not the artifact (as I call it) has value. That’s missing the point. That’s like focusing on the relative quality difference between a Toyota and a BMW. Its relative.
The focus within the actual industry (instead of those that just arm-chair music punditry *ahem arrington*) is not so much about artifact, but about how to create an economy around music that supports and nourishes its own creation.
To think just about “how to get a person to pay for a song” is too narrow. Music DOES have value. The iPod proves that. The proliferation of sat radio proves that. The Sonos, Hype Machine, etc prove that.
The problem isn’t the value of music, its that the hardware/software/web companies have made experiences which are of greater value than the content to which they are a conduit.
That is my focus (and consequently the tech department at WBR). How to create compelling experiences that inherently provide value to the content (music, videos, etc) that make that experience possible.
Plus its also about the reduction back into the art (ahem). Basically stepping back from the singularity of just a Song and back to the Artist and what they can and do produce (not just music)
See supernaturalsuperserious.com, missionmetallica.com, ninetynights.com, etc.
Ethan, I look forward to seeing what Warner Records does over the next few years.
I like what Mike said in closing: “And, if it does, it won’t be about you “paying for music.†It will be about you paying for something that you can’t get elsewhere and can’t get for free.”
Good point, Mike. I’m just curious to see if a record label like Warner can sustain itself when the casual fan is no longer paying for anything. It sounds like a fair chunk of their business is based on die-hard fans paying for something more than the music.
Chris,
Trust me, I’m about as skeptical as they come about the ability of the big record labels to adapt here. They’ve shown a long-term pattern of missing nearly every opportunity.
But I’m encouraged by what Ethan’s been doing, as well as some of the stuff percolating out of EMI. Universal, on the other hand…
On the question of whether or not there is a business for the major record labels, the answer is absolutely yes. As I keep repeating, every single aspect of the music business outside of selling plastic discs has been growing over the last few years, and that represents a huge opportunity — including for the major record labels.
The market is getting *bigger* if you define the market properly. Hopefully Ethan and crew can help WBR capture a sufficient portion of that market.
well said E