Leveraging the Sharing Culture
It is inevitable that piracy occur. My age group, the college student or young professional, almost exclusively acquires media through illegitimate channels. It doesn’t make sense to pay for what we can get for free, especially when downloading requires less effort and gives more immediate gratification. A trip to the record store: 30 minutes of your time gone. A download of a new album: 5 minutes of computer time gone. So, the clear choice is casual music piracy, a fact of modern American youth culture that the RIAA has yet to properly address.
- The problem: not selling records.
- The solution: not selling records.
As piracy leads to the commodization of popular music, revenue cannot be generated from sale of albums. Rather, popular music will be created for relicensing and branding. Commercial deals, inclusion in movie soundtracks, elevator music, radio royalties will be the primary source of income for records. Eventually there will be a “song” or “band” of Coca Cola company, ties between musicians, labels, and other corporations that deliver content to the public. It is these ties, not the content itself, which can be negotiated for money.
Conversely, selective cooperation with music piracy could lead to labels and artists reaping greater profits. As the revenue a song or album brings in becomes tied to its popularity, leaking a hot single before an album release becomes smart. Take, for example, the widely-released new single from Justin Timberlake, Sexy Back. It was released on MySpace, leaked to the torrent sites, and played all over the radio. While releasing singles before albums is not a new strategy, letting the internet believe they’ve stolen something hot, secret, and new will improve its appearance with the masses.
A song sampled in stolen solitude seems a lot better than something the industry is force feeding its market.
This entry was posted on Monday, July 10th, 2006 at 11:51 pm and is tagged with coca cola company, music piracy, elevator music, torrent sites, commercial deals, immediate gratification, justin timberlake sexy back, computer time, music radio, new strategy, youth culture, primary source, justin timberlake, riaa, royalties, solitude, new album, age group, commodization, coca cola. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback.
on July 11th, 2006 at 7:26 pm
it’s not even a choice, at times. Here in Australia, a new CD can cost $30. For what? One good song? That’s not my idea of a well-designed consumer product…
on July 13th, 2006 at 2:34 pm
I beg to differ, on multiple points. A revenue based on corporate branding and mainstream adoption would kill off nearly all non-pop artists. Sure, Sum41 and Beyonce would still rake in the cash - as thats what the populace likes to listen to (and thus what companies would want to form ties with.)
But the bands that are a bit of a more acquired taste would be left in the dust by such a revenue stream. Modern jazz fusion groups, French skaa bands, etc.
So while the rich bands would benefit, you’d eliminate 95% of all musical talent on the scene.