music

Entropy 2.0

November 15, 2008 By Dan Thornton

Steve Rubel posted a risky bet on his personal blog, Micro Persuasion, yesterday, that ‘By January 2014 I will wager that in the US almost all forms of tangible media will either be in sharp decline or completely extinct. I am not just talking about print, but all tangible forms of media – newspapers, magazines, books, DVDs, boxed software and video games.’

While I don’t doubt he’s right that all forms of tangible media will have experienced a sharp decline, I’d differ slightly in my belief that most will continue as niche products – in the same way that vinyl exists for some DJs and collectors. And I’m not sure about the timescale.

Although he makes a compelling point with many great examples of how digital content is becoming increasingly mainstream, I think there’s a tendency to almost imagine one day when suddenly all the printing presses stop, and we all ‘go digital’.

This is the way the world ends

Not with a bang but a whimper. The Hollow Men, T.S Eliot.

Physical products won’t go out like that, despite the predictions I’ve heard since I started in online publishing almost a decade ago. Think of the concept of Entropy, the natural decay of all things – or the erosion of land by the force of the sea. Both are gradual, and yet completely unstoppable physical forces like the changing habits of consumers and the constant innovations in technology.

Yes, many companies, products and industries are in sharp decline, which is likely to be accentuated by the current global economy collapse, and there’s a desperate need for most to innovate new revenue streams. But there are still isolated cases of success in traditional media, and there are still sizeable profits being made, even by declining titles. Will these have been eradicated to the point on non-existence in 6 years? I think that depends on the age of the consumers of those titles, and the likelihood of them continuing to buy physical products from habit or affection.

The era of physical content distribution domination for print, audio, film and videogames is coming to an end, but there are still barriers to overcome. Rather than the UK increasing broadband speeds and bandwith caps, for example, the U.S. is instead seeing them introduced. That’s a major barrier to film and videogame downloads, which can be a hefty size to acquire.

But the item for me which is most likely to drive this transformation is missing from Steve’s otherwise comprehensive list. And that’s the smart phone (the iPhone for the sake of argument). For the first time there’s a consumer device which combines digital music, photography, telephony, communication, blogging, applications and almost everything else, and which is easily able to feed Flickr, download from iTunes etc, etc, etc. It provides an attractive and increasingly familiar conduit for digital content which isn’t as imposing as a PC for the non-geeky, and reaches those who don’t spend their working days on a keyboard. On my recent holiday, I cursed my lack of a smart phone when I had to constantly remove the memory card from an old digital camera to upload to Flickr. And when we lacked a GPS, or mobile internet access to look for a location. And the fact I couldn’t access Twitter or my blogs without using a PC old enough to have a floppy disc drive!

Personally I think the physical content carthorse will continue to plod along for a fair while longer – if I had to pick a date out of the air, I’d probably pick 2020 as the cut off point for physical products reaching the very margin of content delivery – but don’t make the mistake of thinking I wouldn’t advise any company to be investigating every alternative opportunity as if they’re life depended on it, because it certainly does.

A good plan these days is hard to find…

November 12, 2008 By Dan Thornton

Apologies for the title, which references Feargal Sharkey’s 80’s pop hit – I couldn’t face linking to it, so I went with the most famous track from his days with The Undertones.

Much better than reading his thoughts on stopping music piracy reported by the BBC, where his thoughts as Chief Executive of umbrella organisation Music UK made me wonder if he’d had a Teenage Kick to the head at some point.

“Who would have ever predicted five years ago that there would have been such a thing as iTunes, which now has an 80% global share of all downloads,”

Well, since MP3s became widely available in the early-to-mid 1990s, I’d have said it was pretty obvious it would become a dominant force in changing music distribution. And having witnessed how record companies responded (e.g. Jammie Thomas), I’d have also put my life savings on a tech company becoming the dominant solution.

“The music industry is often having to wait and see what works,”

No it isn’t. The music industry is choosing to wait and see what works because it’s scared of innovating and changing in the face of losing the reason for existing – physical distribution. Radiohead weren’t waiting to see what works, and neither were Nine Inch Nails.

“At some point, our song writers and musicians have to be treated with enough respect that they can at least carry on with some basic quality of life that will allow them to carry on creating and performing year after year.”

I’d suggest reading Kevin Kelly’s excellent post on how artists can exist with financial success in The Long Tail – 1000 True Fans. I’d also ask when respect started directly relating to being paid a living wage? And why my respect for a musician should be risked by a record company getting my Internet Service Provider to cut me off from what I consider a basic living requirement in the modern age?

Just like a Good Heart is Hard to Find, so is respect, because it is something which is earned – not an entitlement by releasing a record. If an artist earns my respect for their talent, then I’m happy to pay money directly to them – by going to their gigs, buying their T-shirts, buying their cds and constantly mentioning them. Like this chap for example.

And for some further reading, here’s my previous posts on the music industry: Behind the Music, More fuel for the record company bonfire, and Record companies are really screwed.

If the record industry wants to survive in one form or another, there are plenty of people who could lead it forward. Lawrence Lessig, Chris Anderson, or even someone with some professional musical experience as well as the vision needed, Jonathan MacDonald. Christ, offer me enough money, unlimited downloads and some gig tickets and I’ll come and sort it out for you. It’s pretty simple.

The current model will not be saved. Use the remaining profits to find the new model.
The size and power of record companies will never be the same. You screwed up by waiting this long. Get over it. I lost sympathy for you as a child when I read about how Stax was bludgeoned out of existence in the 1970s. Record companies will be much smaller, with fewer employees, and they’ll need to work harder. Like everyone else.
Innovate like crazy. Use the money you still have to throw 1000 quick and easy ideas out there. Give music away. Create better opportunities around live events and merchandise. Use ways to reach the truly passionate fans.
Embrace people that are pirating and sharing your music. They’re doing the same job John Peel did when he played an E.P made by The Undertones just as they were about to split up, and made them famous. If I found someone who was sharing music from artists with 1000s of people worldwide, I’d make him Head of Distribution!
Start hooking up with the people doing cool stuff without you – and hope you can bring something to the party to let you join. SliceThePie, Amie Street, Sellaband, Sonoma Wireworks, Blip FM, TheNextBigSound.

If I can find these sites as a music fan with a tenuous relationship to the music industry, what on earth are the people in your offices doing with their time?

Musical matters to cheer the soul…

October 28, 2008 By Dan Thornton

I admit to feeling a bit down when I got home from a reasonably pleasant day in the office last night. Not only had my car self-destructed at the end of my road, causing me to have to push it for 5 minutes to my house at the end of a long day, but then my internet connection decided to start playing up.

Still, two stories did brighten my evening considerably.

Brian Solis has a great write-up of what in reality is fairly inconsequential to the world at large – but fairly important to someone who protects his image and uses his fame to promote good causes. I do love the way the original Mail article tries hard to align his charity work with the scandal of being around teenagers, one of whom lists being a fashion party organiser as her occupation.

On a less scandously, and brighter note, when I wrote about the music industry recently (Behind the music, and ‘Why record companies are really screwed‘), I can’t believe I didn’t pick up on Riffworks. Fortunately there’s a good post about it on the Wikinomics blog by Anthony D Williams, which has a great quote about the free downloadable recording and software, the Riffworld collaboration tool, and how it means guitarists can find ways to play together without having to advertise locally and carry their gear around in an old car or van.

Behind the music…

October 14, 2008 By Dan Thornton

Sonata Music by jrossol on flickr (CC licence)

Apologies as I’m a bit tired, and this may descend into rambling, but I wanted to keep the music debate going, especially after some interesting comments on my first post, on why ‘Recording companies are really screwed‘.

I appreciated the comment from Michael, who rightfully pointed out that the most common examples of bands using social media and giving their music away for free are those who have already built a following – while I agree this is the most common case, these are still new tools and new revenue models, and there are some examples of bands coming through the internet – e.g. Soulja Boy. And the precedent comes from the underground hits of pirate radio and dance music, or the spread of 1960’s Stax Atlantic and Motown in the UK, which was mainly provided by soldiers and sailors from the U.S.

What forced me to respond was Eaon‘s valid questions about challenges and options beyond ‘big labels vs internet’. He’s right in saying that major labels are an easy target (not that this means we shouldn’t continue to targte them), but I don’t think he’s right in putting Murdoch’s Myspace against traditional record labels. This isn’t about a social network replacing a record company – it’s about social networks as a distribution mechanism, along with email, forums, blogs, podcasts, video streaming, and every other method of delivering music and entertainment in an electronic format vs the attempts of the traditional industry to retain models and methods that served the physical format.

Busking: Pic by joeszilagyi on Flickr (CC Licence)

Eaon also said that the broad strokes of my previous post didn’t work for him, and I can understand that, but I’m a big fan of reducing things to their most basic, and starting with the essentials. And that tends to result in the broadest picture, but also the clearest view of what’s really necessary. So to take that to it’s ultimate conclusion:

Music is created. Either recorded or transferred into a digital format.
Music is published on the internet. Possibly with a video to accompany it, or a blog, website, Myspace page, Facebook fan page etc.
People who like the music download it, and if they like it enough, share it with friends and contacts via email, social networks, blogs. More mainstream media will gravitate towards that which gets a significant following.
The creator is rewarded with an audience of some size. Monetisation could follow with a physical release, gig tickets, merchandise.

That’s about as simple as it gets! Speaking as someone whose music career was limited to messing around with a 4-track home studio and a couple of sessions in a ‘proper’ studio to record a couple of EPs which never saw the light of day to my knowledge (perhaps fortunately), I’m hoping the more musically experienced will take a look and point out anything I’ve missed, but this seems the simplest, most direct, and most robust music creation, distribution and consumption model.

And I know it’s easier to say in a blog post than to achieve, and that the music labels still retain enough pull and advertising budget to be able to theoretically make every stage easier, more polished, and potentially more far reaching through their ability to book advertising in mainstream media and invest in the physical media and distribution with ready cash – but increasingly those days will fade. There’s no need for me to track down a rare vinyl album to establish my musical credentials with my peers as we pore over the cover and inner sleeve – unless I’m DJ’ing, it’s quicker, easier and just as good for my reputation to email an mp3 or a link to someone obscure or new. And whether you believe in influence, or emulation, if the conditions are right, that content will continue to spread, with or without support.

For instance, Youtube phenomenon OK Go had already achieved success via a major label and broadcast appearances – but did that do more than the $10 video released without record company knowledge that got seen 9 million times? Or the follow-up, which has now been seen 40 million times on the official profile on Youtube alone?

For a more recent, homegrown example, check out Ben Walker’s Twitter Song and the story behind it.A fun ditty aimed at Twitter users as a bit of a social media experiment gets viewed 272523 times at the time of writing, and leads to interviews on national radio!

And from a financial point of view, I’ve tried to find the quote that stuck in my mind as an aspiring musician, from guitar legend Joe Satriani. He revealed that although his major label albums had brought him more fame and publicity, it was his independently recorded and released records that brought him the income he needed.

I don’t think the record companies will cease to exist this week or this month. But I think the angle of decline will increase to terminal velocity pretty soon, and I can’t see any label making the moves needed to avoid it or even flatten it out. Instead I see sites like Slicethepie, Amie Street, Sellaband etc. And there’s the romantic notion that it revisits the idealised days of Stax Records allowing people to come together for the music first and financial rewards second. After all, the people with access to recording booths and vinyl pressing plants have had the power for long enough. If they don’t offer consumers and artists anything of significant value, they become redundant.

So who’s going to help me keep shaping this into a more in depth vision of the music industry? Where is the future taking us, and are there more examples of internet delivery and fame creating new success?

More fuel for the record company bonfire…

October 13, 2008 By Dan Thornton

Following on from my last post, I’ve just been reading the far more eloquent Lawrence Lessig’s ‘In Defence of Piracy‘, published on the Wall Street Journal. (Hat tip to Doc Searls).

I also heard on the radio this morning, that letters sent by Internet Service Providers about the penalties for illegal downloads have seen a 10 per cent drop in the total of illicit goods. I’ll find the exact figures etc later today, but the inevitable problem is that the 30 second report revealed that numbers of downloads amongst teenagers haven’t dropped at all.

So the older generation, which is still used to physical items to store music, and has far more to lose in a ridiculous court case (See the fine for Jammie Thomas) has stopped – and teenagers and digital natives are continuing as normal. Is that really a surprise?

It doesn’t really seem a success when you’re continuing to alienate the future of your business.