The future of online music

II’m a big fan of Nine Inch Nails and enjoy reading interviews with Trent Reznor as he often comments on the recording industry, and his views regarding it are often aligned with my own. Nine Inch Nails have recently split from their label Interscope Records and as they are now free of a label have decided to release 9 tracks from their latest album, Ghosts online free of charge. I believe that distribution of music in the future will heavily involve the internet. Hell, it already does – although most of the traffic is illegal. Record companies don’t like filesharing as it means they are unable to raise a profit from it. However a market does exist for paid digital music as seen by the highly successful iTunes and more recently Amazon’s online music service. Rather than embrace technology and the benefits it offers, record companies have traditionally pitted all their resources against online music, suing thousands of people with bullying tactics. Industry officials make claims that all online filesharing is illegal and that it costs the industry billions of dollars in sales every year – using the incorrect assumption that everyone who downloads music would go out and buy the album if they couldn’t download it.While I can appreciate that musicians do need to make money from the music they create, in large the recording industry is alienating fans and stubbornly refusing to accept the internet as a potential way of doing business. The RIAA is totally out of touch with reality, as seen by their recent proposal that all internet users, regardless whether or not they download music or have even listened to a song in their life pay a $5 a month fee which would be redistributed to musicians. Whether or not this would actually reach musicians is debatable – the settlements from the mass lawsuits over the past few years have yet to be returned to artists. The introduction of the recordable cassette tape didn’t put an end to record sales. Only in recent times have some labels begun to offer the music of their artists for sale digitally. Harder still is getting record companies to accept that fans would like to be able to use their music in different ways – for example to copy CD’s they have purchased to their computer or mp3 player. The record industry believes this is illegal and would like you to purchase a separate copy of the music for each device you will listen to it on. Perhaps this is too little, too late. Many artists are now seeing the internet as a way to promote themselves without a label, and even distribute their own music. This has the benefits of cutting out the greedy record companies and giving the artist more control over how their music is available. There are practically zero distribution costs as there is no need for the manufacturing or distribution costs associated with a typical record. Add this to the numerous claims from artists that they make very little amounts of money from selling music online after the digital marketplace and the record company have had their share and online distribution of music becomes a very attractive option.Nine Inch Nails latest album Ghosts and Radiohead’s latest, In Rainbows both offered music digitally in various forms both free and paid, but also in physical form by ordering a record complete with extras such as printed books or signed album art. Physical copies can be ordered directly from the artist, again bypassing the label and allowing more money for the artist. I feel this is the best way for music to move forward and the results from Ghosts and In Rainbows seem to support this.Radiohead has not released actual download figures, but Thom Yorke has said “in terms of digital income, we’ve made more money out of this record than out of all the other Radiohead albums put together, forever.” Nine Inch Nails that Ghosts had sold almost 800,000 copies online, for a total of $1.6 million in one week (full article here).I don’t know what direction Heir of the Dog will head in if/when we have some recorded music, as that will be a decision for the whole band to make. Ideally I’d like to see some if not all of the songs available for download for free online. If people want to support the band then they can pay to see us live, buy merchandise or physical copies of the music on cd, which would have extras packaged with it. If people just want to listen to the band then they can do so for free. That way the music is easily accessible for everyone. I believe music should be created for people to listen to, and hopefully enjoy. Otherwise you might as well be just another guy sitting in his room with a guitar dreaming.

-Broon

Read more:

Interview with Trent Renzor of Nine Inch NailsNine Inch Nails dispute with Universal Music Group

RIAA keeps settlement money from suing fans

Weird Al wonders why he gets less money from label for online sales than cd sales

RIAA uses bullying tactics

RIAA says ripping CD’s to iPod NOT fair use

Music Industry Proposes a Piracy Surcharge on ISP’s 

~ by broon on March 22, 2008.