In his 2007 novel “Spook Country,” one of William Gibson’s characters sums up the demise of the recording industry to a musician:
“In the early 1920′s, there were still some people in this country who hadn’t yet heard recorded music…Your career as a ‘recording artist’ took place toward the end of a technological window that lasted less than a hundred years, a window during which consumers of recorded music lacked the means of producing that which they consumed. They could buy recordings, but they couldn’t produce them.”
Gibson managed to distill, into a single paragraph, the angst of many a record company exec.
Three major labels — Vivendi’s Universal, Warner Music and EMI — last year started selling DRM-free music online, with Sony BMG widely expected to soon follow suit. And today, Napster said it will soon start selling music downloads as unprotected MP3 files. The industry is hastily reinventing itself as it comes to terms with the uncomfortable realization that companies like Apple and Amazon own their distribution, even as the RIAA tries to put the download genie back in the legal bottle.
Consider a similar chain of events in recent history: The evolution of the video arcade. In the late 1970′s, teenagers flocked to the arcade to play the latest video game. There the machines stood, side-by-side, identical wooden boxes, their only unique feature the garish paint jobs. Most had the same controls (Robotron and Missile Command aside.) For a while, the quarters flowed.
Consumers soon acquired the means of producing that which they consumed. Home computers and game consoles brought the gameplay into the house. The flood of quarters dried up.
Today’s arcade is a different beast: The machines are about the experience, featuring motorcycles, snowmobiles, elaborate headsets, boxing gloves, dancing pads, and so on. The arcade industry reinvented itself, making arcades about the experience rather than the content. Many of these controllers are following the consoles home, as Dance Dance Revolution pads and quiz-show buzzers and Lilliputian guitars.
The recording industry is undergoing a similar transformation. Games like Rock Band, Guitar Hero and Singstar take music beyond just the recording. This was the reasoning behind MTV’s purchase of Harmonix, and the subsequent release of Rock Band this holiday season. Marry this to Internet-connected consoles and storefronts like Microsoft’s XBox Live, and maybe music publishers can find ways to revitalize the musical experience.
And because of the work involved — annotating songs, splitting instrument tracks, and marking those elusive little stars — consumers will be hard-pressed to produce their own experiences. DRM won’t be relevant, because the content it protects is only a fraction of the experience the labels are selling.
I cannot see how the audio experience can be enhanced further. A high-end sound system is about the only way I can think of but unfortunately it is not accessible financially for most people and too esoteric in its nature. In my opinion, music will be the salad on our table but the main plate is going to be served by video and games…
http://electronrun.wordpress.com/
Thanks. Great POV. Makes me think of possibilities I hadn’t considered. Hope the rest of your day is as productive
Um, actually the end user cannot produce music in the same way a good engineer/producer can. Certainly the tools are now more readily available, but the “ear” and “skills” that it takes to record and produce a good sounding record are not something that can be learned easily. I’d say that it’s not dissimilar from the internet lowering the bar to publishing; certainly it makes it easier to gain entry to the mass market, but that doesn’t mean the world will all of a sudden be flooded with good literature.
Alistair, very good analogy with video games.
Definitively the music industry is transforming, and the death of DRM just illustrates that.
As you mention improving the experience is part of the game, and we can predict that Live performenaces will now take a bigger role in artist’s agendas.
http://tech-talk.biz/2007/12/25/how-will-music-industry-survive-internet/
http://tech-talk.biz/2008/01/07/music-drm-is-dead/
This post from Seth Godin’s blog provides a lesson- learnt from the music industry
http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2008/01/music-lessons.html
Consider also as a parallel the evolution from payphones to cell phones.
Michael
You used to be able to play audio at home, but not video. Radio. Records. That was a technological limitation, and that time has passed.
Now that movies cost $20, who wants to pay $20 for a CD? Movie prices dropped from as high as $200 to being rarely over $25, and that industry has thrived.
A lot of the record industry’s woes are self-inflicted — for instance, to raising prices at all times regardless of the ever-decreasing costs of the underlying technology.
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Its great to see a tech blog writer actually contribute a point of view that is actually on point for once.
You have are pretty correct that it is about the experience that is being sold and not just the songs. One thing you didnt really touch on that I thought you would is the packaging and artwork aspect. It follows right in line with your arcade games analogy coming in “better packaging” with a motorcycle to ride or whatever. The packaging and artowork aspect that goes along with the songs is what will help a handfull of artists maintain their vision and not just rely on single iTunes purchase and ring tone sales for revenue.
This still doesnt have too much effect on the top tier pop performers.., but those artists that try to focus more on the total experience will always continue to win fans over.
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I have dabbled a bit with the “easy-to-use software that makes everyone an instant engineer” and, as JB put it, it is in no way as good as the real stuff. It’s OK for fun mixing and, in my case, turning one-off LPs into a near CD-quality compilations for a family who recently lost their musician-grandfather. They loved it of course, but it was not a masterpiece by any means.