Thoughts

The thoughts I've written about in my post about "Internet and making money" reach the issue of file sharing and the "Spectrial" (The Pirate Bay trial) as well.

First there's one thing I need to state clearly. In this modern age, music is considered a product. Personally, I don't consider music a product, at least not in this sense. In the days of the record industry's monopoly, one had to buy CDs for access to the music. They still stick to this idea today, although they've expanded so that one can buy a heavily restricted digital file (mp3, isn't it? I've never bought music digitally, so I don't know all the options). Now people no longer have to buy a whole mediocre album to get that one song they like. This must be a hard blow to the major labels. Another hard blow is the fact that today's easy access to information makes it easy for the small artists to reach out. Popular media is still dominated by "pop music", by which I mean music heavily marketed by the major labels. No independent artists or smaller labels can afford such advertising, nor do they really need it. MTV no longer needs to tell us what to listen to, because we can find absolutely anything we want on the internet. The reason CDs cost as much as they do is because they need to make up for the advertising costs, and managerial costs from its journey through the label's hierarchy. Another factor is the cost of engineering the album itself, with facilities and personell, but that's a logical cost that is necessary for an album.

I still buy CDs, as does practically every other person with an active interest in music. This is not simply for access to the music, it is also a way to prove one's connection to the band/artist. I'm a fan of The Prodigy, therefore I own close to all the albums they've ever released, and it's the same with e.g. Dream Theater and Bad Religion. CDs are "stamps". You can't call yourself a "true" fan of band X if you don't have any of their CDs in your shelf. Your shelf tells people who you are. CDs are products. The music on them is not. Band t-shirts are products. Concerts are "products" (or, following the definitions from my earlier post, concerts are Services). The music itself, as data/information, is something you can't control once it's public. This shows up in several discussions these days, like the "Rickroll" phenomenon. Quick link related to that debate. In my opinion, people being fooled to watch a cheesy 80's music video on youtube isn't something that should earn any kind of revenue. It has however renewed the song's attention, so maybe some more people actually buy the album now.

iPods have become a lifestyle product, perhaps even moreso than the Sony Walkman and such. "Everyone" listens to mp3. One can't get away from the fact that alot of the mp3 present on the majority of iPods is in fact downloaded "illegaly". This is the "free flow of information" in action. Of course, everyone wants to be paid for their work, but looking at it from another perspective, I would personally NEVER want people to have to pay to listen to anything I've created. When I make music, I make it for people to listen to it. Perhaps it's this agenda that spurred this whole post. I make music because I enjoy it, and believe others may enjoy it as well, not to make money or anything of the likes.

Making and distributing music is easier than ever. About 200 bucks is all you need to get started nowadays, and the internet is after all a repository of knowledge. You can really learn alot just from reading. Considering the "supply and demand" models, I can't see music as a logical product anymore. Anyone can make decent music on a hobby-basis now, which makes it easier to have a full-time job and still have time and resources for music. Of course, this is already standard practice, as artists usually don't make enough money from their music to get by without any other source of income. The exception is of course those who people believe to be musicians, but who are really just products fronting some music. Yeah, this means the pop idols who are "living the life", those you read about in your celebrity magazines.

I'm probably stepping on alot of toes now, especially since I'm not part of the music industry, nor do I make particularily good music. I'm active in several online communities centered around creating music, and there's talent all over the place. Most of these people are just hobbyists, still they make music good enough to fill any of my playlists. And their music is free, to boot! This must mean it's stealing potential earnings from the RIAA! These people must be stopped!

Seriously. FUCK the RIAA. While I'm at it, fuck the "I heart celebrities and want to know everything about their lives" pop culture.

[Edited in, from my forumpost on ocremix]
I'm getting very annoyed by the continued use of the "lost revenue" argument. Someone who's slightly interested, or maybe just curious about a product will not go ahead and buy it just like that. If you're very interested, you might go through the effort of going downtown to find a record store and listen to the album if they have it, but I think people do download stuff somewhat randomly because it might "sound somewhat interesting".

Most of the bands I listen to are bands I was kind of curious about at first, but not curious enough to look for a store online that has their albums (because most local record shops only have pop music).