Wednesday, January 08, 2003
The State of Music on the Web, 2003
This is the way the music industry could use the web. Jimmy Guterman at business2.com reports that the neohippie band Phish has launched a commercially based download website for its live shows. For a fee, fans can download sets from their concerts and burn to cd. Even better, these fans can download and print cd liners, booklets, and artwork. You can even order jewel cases. It getting the products you would normally buy at the store, but having the option to not buy those parts you don't want. It's bulding a cd from the ground up - a truly groundbreaking ecommerce application and maybe a direction for the music industry to consider.
And don't think they are not stodgy to figure it out. The BBC reported today that RIAA president Cary Sherman admits that Illegal music download sites will never be eradicated, and that their aim now is "not to completely eliminate music piracy...As long as it is within a reasonable amount of control then we will be happy". New research shows that people are becoming more willing to pay for songs on the internet and RIAA backed services are rapidly growing.
On the other hand, don't think the recording giants have become ultra-progressive. At congressional hearings yesterday, artists and recording executives argued that the labels perform a valuable service - the filtering of bad music. Eric Bazilian, formerly of the rock group The Hooters, stated "There's an incredible amount of mediocrity." They Might Be Giants' John Flansburgh said that although record labels are fun to bash, they help filter music, work that now falls to the consumer to perform.
Is this a bad thing? There's an incredible amount of mediocity in even what is filtered thropugh the label. Ditto for television and movie studios. We're deluged with mediocrity as it is now. What are the chances that the opposite is true; without gatekeepers who determine what is "the next best thing", the consumer has the ability to see the full gamut of choices and find that which matches their own desires and needs. There's more tastes than what is currently considered popular, and many of these choices are pushed aside for the desire to make profit. And Bazilian is not the best person to make the comment above. If I recall, his band had only one top 40 hit, which means when he speaks of mediocrity, he's talking from personal experience.
------------------------------------------------