Check out this article from Tech Crunch writer Michael Arrington on the criticism of the idea of a "music tax".
While I don't agree with Arrington's belief that music should become entirely free and that artist's future income should depend on live performances (What if the artist doesn't want to tour? Who is going to pay to have these albums recorded and created?), I do agree that a ISP tax is not the answer.
Getting people to pay to have all of the music all of the time is the right philosophy. But their method of getting the music needs to be completely changed. If the music industry does this right, the concept of owning music will be dead. Forget a cd, no reason for a hard-drive full of music files, not even an mp3 player will be necessary. All of our industry's efforts should be placed on creating a service of convenience.
If everyone has the option to either spend their valuable time downloading, file sharing, organizing, burning, etc. to get music for free or to cut out all of that and hear whatever they want whenever they want on a new (read: not yet created) portable and multi-use device (goes in car, home, on-the-go) through a service, I believe that they will pay for that convenience. A global streaming jukebox, with an incredible interface, videos, suggestions, playlists, you name it.
Now, I understand that this isn't an easy overnight thing. The wireless networks (except actual Wi-Fi) are not advanced enough to carry this bandwidth yet. But the newer generations are faster and faster, and this capability will come. And I hope that this SERVICE (and whatever device that Apple or someone else creates to carry it) will come along with it, sooner than later.
Until then, this is certainly the winter of the music industry's discontent.
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2 comments:
The device that you speak of is being created but its more in tune to the digital cable boxes that you have on your television sets with devices that can connect to your digital receiver from anywhere.
In fact all the net neutrality issues stem from this. This has been in the works for upwards of 5 years.
The bandwidth you are speaking of is also existing and why you see companies like Comcast, Time Warner and Cox Communications spending billions of dollars to lay the infrastructure in fiber optics.
There are many companies out there trying to just follow the lead of sites like youtube and myspace etc but few of them really understand what is coming and the technology that is out there and how it will be used. Its frustrating that the music industry can't seem to figure it out but they are usually the last to get in on it and play catch up while grasping at straws to make their failing business viable again. It won't happen.
They need to be way more proactive on this. The internet is where its at, a subscription based model is more lucrative, internet promotions and technology (available now) will allow artists to promote to a larger audience than TRL without ever jumping on an airplane, perform in front of millions in one night and lock their works to avoid file sharing, torrents and P2P. Its all there.. right now. The entire premise of my business is based on this foundation to be in place when it pops and I'm a broke bitch from Nebraska. These guys have billions at their disposal to invest in their survival. I don't understand why they don't "get it".
I was wondering what your thoughts are on Rob Sheridan's very widely circulated article about the state of the music industry. He wrote it around the time Oink was shut down. Here's the link :
http://www.demonbaby.com/blog/2007/10/when-pigs-fly-death-of-oink-birth-of.html
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