VS. 
Ever wonder what the U.S. would be like if no one payed for their music.... well, welcome to China! I'm sure that you've all heard about the lack of effective patents/intellectual property rights in China to some extent, but did you know that the illegal downloads issue has literally become ingrained in the modern day culture? It's so bad that even sites that charge trivial amounts for access to open music libraries can't survive. What does this mean for record companies and music groups? Well, essentially that China is no longer a viable market (I guess you could say that the demand curve got shifted down). For some of you aspiring musicians this could be bad news. The U.S. has been sheltered from this to some extent, but how long can we hold out? The fact of the matter is that many people are already using free downloads, and while it seems nice to get something valuable for nothing, this could eventually erase any incentive to produce non-live music. Like it or not, this is the direction in which we are moving.
What does this mean for the future of the music industry? Is this an inevitability? Am I just being a naive optimist when I pay 99 cents on iTunes, or are those of you who download illegally just amoral fiends (you know who you are)?
Inspired by this great article that appeared in The Economist a couple months back:
http://www.economist.com/node/17627557?story_id=17627557&CFID=157628359&CFTOKEN=89819932
5 comments:
Mr. Ware the study released today shows you are being very optimistic by paying 99 cents on iTunes. According to this poll(it is a poll so take what you will)(http://technolog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/03/01/6162232-70-percent-find-piracy-socially-acceptable-says-poll), people are actually accepting of piracy, about 70%.
Personally I think piracy should only exist in a third world country as no one is out there to enforce such intellectual property. China is quite disappointing in that sense, willing to kill their own citizens, but unwilling to fix their intellectual idea problem.
People would like it more if music was 50 cents, but I think overall it is something that most people love and would be unwilling to give this habit up. Some may turn to piracy, but don't some people just like to break rules or steal. Most people probably do pay up for the "music oligopoly", as almost everyone charges 99 cents whether it be iTunes (though there are some at $0.69 with others at $1.29) or Amazon (which sometimes does give songs away for free).
This also means that unless the price is reasonable many companies will be missing out on the world's largest country in terms of population. A way to deal with this is introduce music at a much more reasonable price, when most of China is in poverty, this seems very unlikely. Microsoft introduced a strategy by selling Office Student and Windows 7 at $10 each in China, thus helping to curb piracy. Normally a copy would cost 10 times that, so that may be a solution (though $10 for a song is much too expensive).
By the way, read that article too, way back when. Very interesting article.
Illegally downloading music is just way too accessible (compared to legal purchasing, especially if you're a kid and you don't have money) and way too easy to get away with. It's also too socially accepted - consider that a current iPod classic can hold something like 40,000 songs, which would be worth $40,000 if it was all legally paid for one by one. Yeah, I don't think so.
Maybe it just means that musicians will have to look to concerts for more and more of their revenue.
I agree with Anthony. Downloading music illegally is more accessible and much more appealing because you don't have to pay for anything. Besides that, people don't really get caught for downloading music illegally so there's really no incentive to stop. As for musicians and the music industry, it sucks for them because this is money they could be getting but aren't. I do have a feeling that the United States is heading down the same road as China. And I agree with Anthony that musicians will probably have to find other ways to get revenue.
I think that while there are certainly some "negative externalities," as it were, this sort of development will not spell the end of popularly distributed music. Music artists have other sources of income, and they'll still going to produce music even if free downloads become so ubiquitous that buying records practically ceases. While the artists' revenue stream will decrease, they will still be able to make a comfortable living from concerts and merchandise. And, to state the obvious, humans have had music as long as they have had civilization. This kind of crisis will not spell the destruction of an entire art form.
There are some people who definitely lose, however. The people impacted by this change in trends aren't people at all; rather, they're the huge, monolithic record companies. They have no other sources of income, and a lot of this furor over piracy has stemmed from them, not the artists (with a few notable, vocal exceptions*). Although I pay for most of my music, I must admit that this trend doesn't bother me. The artists will survive, and the people who really lose are the record companies. Is that good or bad? I think it's good, but then again, maybe you don't. The concept of what an album is will likely change, and frankly, I don't see that as bad. Artists will continue to produce good music, and maybe even step up the quality of their live shows, since those will be more crucial to their income. Plus, there is, of course, the notion that artists will continue because they love music. But even from a pure profit perspective, even this doesn't hurt them very much, as there will still be plenty of income for them. Gene Simmons and the rest of KISS will not be very happy about it, but I would make the assertion that for most others, it isn't a big of a deal as it is for the record companies.
*In 2000, Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich launched an onslaught on Napster, an (in)famous file-downloading site, claiming that it wasn't fair and that it ate up his profits. He later regretted it and admitted that it made him "the most hated man in rock n' roll" (from "Some Kind of Monster.") Basically, it shows while that there are lots of musicians that are primarily profit-driven, more care about their art because it's their art.
You can read about Lars and his rantings here:
http://www.wired.com/politics/law/news/2000/04/35670
umm... it really just comes down to common sense and technology's advancements.
ex. why pay for plain white V-necks for 15$ a piece at H&M or Urban Outfitters when you can get the same looking plain white V-necks at Old Navy for a 2 for 10$ ??
Put it this way. Video Killed the Radio Star, and it was because of technology we don't got milkmen delivering milk anymore.
It's not like you're paying for knock off music.
I don't know about you guys.. but when an artist goes mainstream and money becomes the incentive rather than the passion for music, the quality of the music you once did love begins to deteriorate. Such an obstacle in making music may bring the quality of mainstream music up.
I think a lot of us have seen kanye west make that change.
-Raymond Lim
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