State of Mind of The Art

Spotted on: The Campus Word

This article looks at the impact that huge MP3 collections has on our perception and enjoyment of music, and really got me thinking.

Music has value because it moves us.  That special album that takes us back to some magic moment, or the songs we love to dance to.  What has people by albums us the love of the music.

MP3 collecting is similar to collecting baseball cards.  Grab an artist’s entire discography, and trade among your peers.   Our music collections expand almost as fast as the national debt, and often music sits on our hard drives unlistened, unappreciated, and unacknowledged.  We become overwhelmed with the amount of music we have to listen to, and start to lose our love for the music that touches us.

When music is downloaded and listened to only once or twice, it becomes a single serving item, like a hamburger.  The joy of music is in the artistic expression, and the way we are moved when we hear something we love.

Could the current frenzy of MP3 downloading (both legal and  illegal) be eliminating our love for music?  There’s a phenomenon known as information overload.  One way to look at the current consumption of MP3s is that music is in an information overload stage.

With so much music to choose from, both free and bought, and huge MP3 collections, the line between having music we love and having music because its there is getting blurred.

Most of the time, we relate to this in terms of album sales, and the music industry.  What if we looked it as a shift in the perception of music?  While music is always special, it’s apparent that  we are now starting to view it as a thing to have. What effect this will have on our appreciation of music is anybody’s guess.  Based on the habits of the general public, music is losing it’s intrinsic value as art, and becoming more like a piece of furniture.

Bottom line: We used to buy CDs because we loved the music.  It is starting to appear that we now collect MP3s because they’re accessible.

Spotted on: The Register
A fascinating interview with IFPI chairman John Kennedy about the future of music for independent labels in the digital realm

Here are some of tasty quotes :

“it’s always very difficult going from something that’s free to an industry to something that has a cost to the industry.”

“I think what we have to do is far more flexible about price. The industry has been very bizarre over the years – it’s essentially a one price industry.”

“I don’t want to destroy physical sales … We find physical and digital are both viable markets that people enjoy using. But clearly, there’s an opportunity for music on tap, and as a service, and it’s something we should explore.”

“I would like to see copyright modernized in 2008, with people enabled to do what they want to do, and those who profit from it allowing the practice [third parties] to be monetized. I’d like to see barriers taken away from the enjoyment of music.”

“I think P2P does have a discovery element to it, and it you may discover something on P2P that makes you buy a product. CD burning is much more domestic piracy, and is much more somebody avoiding paying for something.”

“I think the whole “DRM as a policeman” policy was doomed to failure – the independent companies never supported it to any extent whatsoever. We have never believed in putting obstacles into what the consumer wants to do.”

“We inhabit a mature industry that’s grown on a multi-territorial basis. And, frankly ,if you were reinventing it today you’d reinvent it way differently. It would be global, not territorial.”

“…[T]he market is in the control of one or two parties, and we don’t think that’s healthy.”

“The patrons are going to be largely commercial so brands that see an advantage to a certain kind of artist, and that is putting art far to close to commerce. That would mean marginal music wouldn’t exist, you’d only have music that had a commercial upside for sponsors. That’s a world none of us really want to see.”

Spotted on: Hollywood Reporter

“Music publishers, the record labels and digital music distribution outlets began a three-way legal wrestling match Monday over just how much songwriters and the publishing houses should get paid for digitally delivered music.”

At stake in this debate is mechanical royalties for internet streams. Major labels, Apple, and Yahoo want the royalty rate for artists to be lowered. The big publishing houses are currently promised nine cents a song, a figure that often gets negotiated lower, and the consortium against them wants that rate moved to 8%. Apparently, publishing revenues are up, while major label revenues are down. The Digital Media Association is upping the ante, pushing for the royalty rate to be dropped to 4%.

On the other side of the fence, the National Music Publishers Association wants the rates raised to 12.5%.

The driving concern here is the financial ‘burden’ that paying these royalties puts on the large companies that offer music. The claim is that streaming media should be treated like terrestrial radio.

Bottom Line: Without content, there is nothing to stream.

Spotted On: ArsTechnica

The RIAA’s head, Cary Sherman, wants to put encryption on our computer that will force us to decrypt music before listening to it. In other words, the filter will scan all your incoming data and then either allow or deny your ability to listen to it. since this idea likely won’t be popular (who’s going to willingly put a filter on their computer that blocks the files they are downloading?), the next suggestion is to put the filters in our modems.

Despite the predictable public backlash against these tactics (in an environment where the RIAA already has public approval that rivals the US Congress), some ISPs are moving ahead with these filters. The technical specifics are a bit thick, suffice it to say that various file encryptions can bypass these filters unless entire protocols are blocked.

Here’s a video of Mr. Sherman lauding the glories of filtering:

Bottom Line: Being out of touch with your consumers’ needs does not improve your financial picture, or your credibility.

Spotted on: Torrent Freak

Here’s something novel:

Dependent Records recently uploaded their entire catalog on Pirate Bay (Dependent specializes in aggrotech, electro-industrial and futurepop). Well, sort of. Apparently a group pretending to be Dependent posted the albums on the P2P site.

The quote from label head Stefan Herwig - well, an impersonator - is “I closed down my record label Dependent Records for good. But since I want my music to be heard by the people out there, everything I have ever published is now available on The Pirate Bay.”

While artists are turning to file sharing networks for promotion, it;s unusual to see a label do this (although there are some net labels giving away music, such as Kikapu and Lacedmilk).

Herwig (or his imposter) feels that P2P technologies are killing labels, not boosting sales. However, this article claims file sharing is a boon for new music. Perhaps availability adds to desirability.

Do you think file sharing is boosting or dropping album sales?