That’s right folks, just give it away! Don´t try and make money from music sales, make it available to everyone, for free! Or…don’t.

It is quite worrying when self proclaimed marketing gurus encourage musicians to not focus on trying to make money from their music itself (as this is a silly thing to do) but to solely focus on alternative revenue streams. This post is not criticising the wisdom of giving free samples away, this is the oldest trick in the book and a great way to introduce people to your music; but making things other than your music your primary revenue stream seems quite defeatist. The arguments for giving your music away free are understandable - putting a price on your music will drive potential fans away (since music is now free), people dont want to pay for music anymore (especially not yours), music is free like it should be! Get with it! - but these arguments are by no means conclusive.

The alternatives presented to not selling your actual music are to sell aspects of your music which cannot be “copied”, which is pretty much not to sell your music at all, but yourself. Get people to pay to be your fans and sell them stuff which non fans dont get, like behind the scenes pictures, interviews, limited edition merchandise, exclusive song releases etc. Fair enough, these revenue streams should be considered, but

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Has music been devalued? This is an interesting question, because on the face of it is seems counter intuitive and almost nonsensical. Let´s expand the question and see if we can make any sense of it.

Beginning from the understanding that music is intrinsically valuable, it is quite clear that music can never be valueless. Music is valuable, because, well, its music! Music moves people, it affects people’s emotions, it communicates feelings, perspectives, and ideas. Even bad music does this, in one way or another. With this said, no matter what external measure one puts on music, for example its price on a capitalist market, it does not really need this measure in order to have value in itself. One could rant about the fact that there is too much free music, mp3s, illegal downloading and the access to music is too overwhelming – but this doesn’t, or shouldn’t, affect the capacity of value a piece of music has to its listener.

So when people are talking about how music has been devalued, they must be referring to its economic value.  Now it is undeniable that the changing music environment is making it more difficult to extract economic value from music; the traditional market value of music is becoming redefined. Now the only people who really deserve sympathy in this instance are the artists; those who dedicate their life to creating music deserve to make a living from it. Artists are primary, those actors who have exercised their dominant position and used artists music to make themselves rich, with only a superficial concern for the artists themselves, deserve no sympathy at all. On the other hand, one should lend sympathy to those who truly wish to support artists and help them continue to develop their music; those who believed in music for the sake of music. However, it is an encouraging thought that these people are probably the ones who were smart enough to adapt to the changing environment, and are now directing their efforts to finding new ways for artists to make money.

So no, music has not been devalued. We are entering a new era where those who support the artists must find new ways for them to earn a livelihood from their creations. Rather than see this new environment as an obstacle, it would be wiser to see it as an opportunity.

Ok, time to grasp the nettle on one of the most controversial topics in music history, illegal file sharing. Now, let’s get it clear, there is a difference between illegal file sharing and music piracy. Music piracy is the illegal duplicating and distribution of music for individual financial gain. This, you must agree, is wrong. There´s one thing wanting to share some music with your friends, but to sell other peoples music to your friends and people you meet, is outright uncool.

So, illegal file sharing. This is when people share music with each other without the permission of the person who owns the rights to the music, whether this be the individual artist, or the label they are affiliated with. Now if an artist creates music without the intent of making any money from it, there is nothing wrong with sharing this music with all who want to hear it. But where it gets a little grey is when the music has been created with the intent not only for people to enjoy it, but also to make money from it. It seems quite fair for artists wholly committed to making music to ask for some sort of reimbursement from the people who get satisfaction and enjoyment from their creations. So yes, sharing and downloading music against the artists expressed disavowal, is wrong. It is perhaps less wrong to download and share music from someone who is super rich already, or if you are dirt poor (how would can you own a computer, then?)…but yeah, its still wrong.

This post is not in any way trying to protect the revenue streams of corporate record labels, nor does it condone the suing  of college students. Quite the contrary, we are expousing a view which we believe to be in the interests of small artists; we want them to be able to earn a living from a pursuit which we value very highly, music! If you really like an artist, buy their music! If you listen to music, buy it!

Should we pay for music in the same way that we pay for water? This is a question which is being debated by the music industry at the moment. The idea is that everyone should pay a kind of flat tax to music providers which will enable listeners to stream as much music as they please from their library. No longer a product, music will be sold as a service. There seem to be many merits with such an approach: all the music we can listen to for a flat fee, a proportionate distribution of revenue between artists, a way to overcome the DRM controversy, and a solid revenue base for the music industry. To see points in favour of such a system, this article by Gerd Leonhard is recommended, as is David Kusek´s article in Forbes.

However, there are still a few points to consider before being too enthusiastic about such a structure. Firstly, one could wonder where independent music would feature in such an environment. Andrew Dubber of New Music Strategies makes the observation in a very informative interview with MyMusic.dk, that this kind of broadcasting structure could result in a “globalised music administrative bureaucracy”. In this view, “the purpose of the flat fee ‘music-like-water’ system would be to reinforce, rather than eradicate, the current power structures of existing labels and media outlets” (ibid). Rather than going beyond the decentralised distribution environment which has dampened the controlling influence of centralised distribution conglomerates, this view has the potential of reinstating their power over the market. It would make the market harder for independent and unsigned artists to enter.

A major factor which will affect the outcome of this debate is no doubt consumer behaviour. Because the traditional supply chain between the producer and consumer has essentially been broken, how we consume music is still a very open question. At the moment, enforcing DRM encoding seems increasingly futile, and many people have got used to not paying for the music they listen to. The “music like water” system would compliment this, as music would in many ways feel free. Then again, some like  the feeling of purchasing a single track or album; it is in some ways a more personalised contact between listener and artist. The listener pays the artist because their music has a positive effect on them. And now that there is less distance between artist and fan (one does not need a Record Label to sell music), one can be sure that this money reaches the artist more or less directly. In addition, purchasing a track or album is more versatile.   “Music like water” services will presumably allow you to stream your music from a program as opposed to having the music file yourself; so until there is a single streaming platform on all music devices, audio files will be more versatile. These factors will surely play some role in the final outcome of this debate.

The debate, as you can imagine, is far more complicated than is presented here, but as a musician or fan it is worth having an opinion on this matter, for how the future of music will look will be directly influenced its outcome.

The Record Industry is losing money, this is no secret. EMI recently announced losses of a whopping $1.2 billion dollars, with revenue falling from $2.8 billion to $2.3 billion. But the truth is that record labels everywhere are generally experiencing reduced revenue streams. This is reducing the volume of records which are being put out, and means that more pressure to succeed is being put on the few records are that are being released. As Glen Peoples of Coolfer points out in this article, this is a climate which discourages risk taking. Record Labels are no longer willing to take risks on relative newcomers but would rather focus on bands which already have an established fan base and a few releases behind them. This same kind of risk analysis forces labels to focus on signing mainstream artists (which have a greater chance to make them money) than focusing artists outside the mainstream which are seen as a more risky investment.

This logic is understandable since their old revenue structure is being increasingly challenged by the changing music environment, but it doesn’t detract from the criticism that questions of risk and profitability are distracting them from brining us fresh records. This view was voiced by Epic Records U.K. managing director Nick Raphael who said at a recent musexpo meeting, “It’s about finding great music and great artists, and not getting distracted in the process”. But it seems they are getting distracted, distracted because they feel increasingly pressured by questions of risk and profitability. This fails the bands who are trying to forge new paths outside of the mainstream and at the same time the listeners who expect labels to innovate and keep the music industry vibrant and alive. If this trend continues, it seems like the onus is on the new music generation to fulfil their role and find the talent they will inevitably miss, and to provide the resources for bands who are considered “high risk” to have an equal chance at developing their music. With distribution and promotion channels becoming more accessible to the majority, and recording costs far cheaper, questions of risk and profitability will hopefully become less central and the conditions within the industry more democratic and inclusive.

The tendency towards cooperation is what separates the cultural animal from the wild one, but it is only in the last decades of technical development that new digital forms of cooperation have begun to erode the boundaries between producer and consumer” writes Magnus Larsson in an article for the Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter.

Suddenly there are lots of “prosumers” (a concept discussed in the groundbreaking book wikinomics). The activity of “prosumption” can be seen in the new forms of collaborative and “dynamic” internet enterprises that have begun to overtake their “static” counterparts. Wikipedia has outsourced the Encyclopaedia Britannica, Bloggers outsource CNN and Google maps Mapquest. User generated and essentially cooperative ventures are outclassing centralised domains created not by mass collaboration, but by the cooperation of the comparatively few. Those who consume information are the also the active producers of this very same knowledge, and this essentially collective knowledge is now showing its true potential.

The consequences for social collaborations like the production and enjoyment of music could not be more emancipating. The same developments in information technology which have initiated the above trends are changing the way we can create and enjoy new music. Within music, the distance between those who produce and those who “consume” has also fallen; digital music formats combined with the internet allow us to share our music more easily, and increases in technology allow us to create a good quality recordings from our bedroom.

This is an event which brings music closer to the authentic cultural expression it has always been, and within this new environment music is truly flourishing. With the new forms of collaboration and mass participation we see a window where the “static” gatekeepers of music production and distribution are outclassed by a vibrant and non exclusory celebration of music. This celebration is conducted within a sphere where everyone has the right to an audience, and this audience can exercise a new found power as the determiners of value. With global distribution of music readily available, and effective channels through which it can be promoted more accessible than ever before, music can at last be freed from the structural constraints which has for the last decades been its antithesis. It is nothing less than the digital music revolution.

The music world has changed and continues to do so without anyone really able to accurately predict how the future of music will look like. The good thing is that music is still being enjoyed and celebrated by people all over the world. It wakes people up in the mornings and gets people through their day, it allows people to relax, disconnect and reflect and transcend their environments in spouts of elation; it provides a life narrative and strengthens the self identity of many individuals while moving and uniting people in a common bond of shared experience.

This much has not changed. What has changed is that a large chunk of music which wasn’t available to the masses has now become available. Why be satisfied with mainstream hits when the horizons to discover new music are so broad? The problem for the music industry of 10 years ago is that many have been slow to adapt to these changes. They focus, and still do, on selling a huge volume of a select few artists, whereas those who listen to music these days are able to diversify their taste to such a degree that these select few artists are becoming less attractive (the thing to read here is The Long Tail by Chris Anderson). There is so much more music out there for people to listen to and buy.

It seems that the goals of the services of the new music generation are clear. First, we have to make as much of this glorious but neglected market of unheard “niche” music available to as many people as possible: we need to give it a fair listenership. Second, and perhaps the most challenging, is to make it easy to navigate this new diverse realm; to discover new and clever ways of filtering this world of music based on individual listener preferences. Thirdly, we need to provide a good way to support the artists in this new environment, to give them a way to make money so that they can continue to move us with their music. These are challenges which we at Record Union are determined to face, head on.