Our Digital Innocence Just Died. And David Lowery Killed It...
I've spent the entire afternoon reading and re-reading the storm of articles, comments, analyses and emails related to one impassioned and eloquent retort. The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Techdirt, Hypebot, Lefsetz, the Huffington Post. Thousands of words, hundreds of comments, dozens of emails, several proposed guest posts; I'm not sure I've experienced anything quite like this.
Because David Lowery didn't just touch a nerve this week, he may have single-handedly crushed years of post-physical, ridiculous digital utopianism. In one crystallizing, cross-generational and unbelievably viral rant.
And after a decade of drunken digitalia, this is the hangover that finally throbs, is finally faced with Monday morning, finally stares in the mirror and admits there's a problem. And condenses everything into a detailed 'moment of clarity'...
It doesn't work. In fact, shockingly few indie artists can pull this off, except for those developed at some point by the major labels (ie, Amanda Palmer) or a serious group of professionals. Most of the others that are managing to squeak out a living on the road are working non-stop.
Some people buys CDs. Less purchase vinyl. iTunes downloads are still increasing. But averaged across all formats and personal valuations, the recording has effectively become worthless. And that has had drastic repercussions for the music industry, and the lives of otherwise creative and productive artists.
Will Spotify ever put a meal on an artist's table? That's extremely speculative. Sure, it might eventually mimic Sweden-like penetration in the US. But that is not happening right now; it's not a fair solution for artists right now. Instead, it is shuttling people like CEO Daniel Ek towards stratospheric riches, enriching major labels, and potentially giving people like Goldman Sachs bankers another joyride.
Amanda Palmer may hold the world record, but there will be other Kickstarter stories. Some will come out of nowhere, most will involve previously-established artists, particularly those already developed by a major label or similar entity. This will not replace the vast financing once offered by recording labels.
It doesn't matter if you're singing directly into the ear of your prospective fan. Because they're listening to Spotify on Dre headphones while texting and playing Angry Birds. Some can cut through, but most cannot without serious teams or outside support, serious top-level marketing and media muscle. Justin Bieber ultimately needed the machine, no matter how beautifully his YouTube story gets spun.
Actually, we have David Lowery himself to thank for this realization. Because the implosion of the recording has impacted nearly every other aspect of music monetization (though certainly not music creativity itself.) And its replacement is generally a fraction of what a 'lucky' artist could expect in an earlier era.
Again, all great for fans like Emily White, but not so great for everyone else.
They gravitate towards free digital content, and occassionally pay for things like concerts when they have the money. Emily White isn't a fourteen year-old, she's a young adult that probably doesn't want the morality trip. And neither does anyone else - regardless of the generation.
If you really want to sell a marked-up bundle, make another Susan Boyle. It's still a market that doesn't revolve around free music and constant fan contact. But older people file-trade, they stream, they steal and they buy less than before.
Lowery is right. Google is not interested in protecting content creators; their interests lie elsewhere. Copyright is a nuisance to them, unless it involves their own code and algorithms. In fact, anything beyond the DMCA erodes their ability to serve customers, remain competitive, and make money. Which is why the Pirate Bay is one of the 'hottest' searches, and why adding 'mp3' to any artist search produces pages and pages of results.
Just because it's legal, doesn't mean it's helping musicians. It's not file-trading, but the payouts on Spotify, Pandora, Turntable.fm, or whatever else are shockingly low. It's a rounding error, towards 0. The paradox is that music fans are living in abundance, while artists are getting scraps.
It doesn't matter how brutal the war with Hollywood becomes; how many Dotcom mansions get raided. Music fans aren't going to start buying albums again; in fact, beyond the playlist, the concept of pre-packaged bundling will become increasingly foreign to newer generations.
It's not about who's right, it's now the world the entire music community lives in.
I've only heard a few people actually admit to file-trading: my close friends, Bob Lefsetz, and Sergey Brin. If you have an iTunes collection of more than a few thousand songs, you've almost certainly swapped, torrented, or swapped hard drives in your life. And almost everyone has a collection of a few thousand songs.
Niches are available and sometimes responsive; more often, top-down mass marketing wins. And most musicians are playing extremely bad odds.
Conferences like MIDEM make money off this sort of Kool-Aid optimism. But I work in the music business right now; I was at a major label in the late 90s. And the reality is that this is the greatest time ever for fans, but definitely NOT the best time for those trying to make money from those fans. And as David Lowery so darkly described, it can be one incredibly depressing trip for even a 'successful' artist.
That's the reality we now live in, and you really have David Lowery to thank for making it obvious.
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Alex
Tuesday, June 19, 2012It makes perfect sense when you think about how music itself changed over the years. Music became simpler, easier and cheaper to produce or record, it reached more people than ever and...lost it's magic and, therefore, value. It's no longer exclusive, elite or else. Anyone can do it, with little investment and preparation. I got (okay, pirated, i admit) my first sequencer and sample pack as early as in 1999 with absolutely no knowledge of music theory or production, i just wanted to do it and i could. Now it is even easier, much easier. How's that adding to the value of the music itself?
Also the important issue is the evolution of home sound systems and audio compression tech - majority of the population listens to music on a systems which are unable to
reproduce and translate fine and tiny details of the mix and the
compositon, therefore devaluing the value of top class production and sequencing. And they listen MP3s as well. Great sound is no longer a major factor, because it is out of reach for the average listener. It's just got to be done properly and that's all. The competition dries out in this area, searching for other avenues to success. And here we are - only way to reach people is huge scale promotion which can get anything right to the top. I'll not even mention the term "art" because there's almost none or little known to majority - they are not interested. Music became something like a cell phone for modern day citizen. A common thing, a snack. Back in the days cell phones were exclusive, luxury, elite etc. But then - mass-production, cell phone became cheaper and more accessible and guess what - it became nothing special. You have a cell phone? So what? You make music? So what?That's why it no longer worth much to a lot of people. Now add enormous web-accesibility for sharing to the equasion and we'll have 2012.
I'm close to finishing my album at the moment, i'm trying to interact with people's imagination by providing them with a written story expressed in music form, leaving them the space to imagine and visualize it. I want to do it, but there's no hope of selling it realistically - most certainly i'll have to give it up for free and place a "please donate" button on my website...and i spent years of my life and loads of money for my setup and to learn to create and produce. I'm sleeping on the floor of my home studio and it won't change because there's no real value in what i'm doing for the dominant part of the society. There's more value in my meaningless dayjob at the local tv channel than in trying to make a world a better place by providing emotions through sound. It is modern day reality and we have to accept it.
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REMatwork
Tuesday, June 19, 2012I like a lot of your comments but I will quibble with the idea that "Music became simpler, easier and cheaper to produce or record, it reached more people than ever and...lost it's magic and, therefore, value. It's no longer exclusive, elite or else."
In the golden age of music, you had opportunities to buy music every time you turned around. It was sold in every department store, toy store, dime store, and even drugstores. Plus standalone record stores with great selection were on every corner. There was a huge yellow looseleaf book called Phonolog and the record stores could get any 45 you wanted that was in Phonolog shipped on the next truck, with practically daily deliveries.
And music was not devalued.
It was not devalued simply because it had a working ecosystem. A major feature of any ecosystem was that you could tell who owned what. The records I own were under my arm and the records you owned were under your arm. Develop a system for doing that today, in a way that is completely voluntary, and the ecosystem is on its way to repair.
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Visitor
Tuesday, June 19, 2012I think you are absolutely right, but i must point out that there are different aspects of music value - artistic and media-related. My point was that artistic simplification, widespread minimalism and everybody copying everybody devalues music (all of the aforementioned leads to greater reach and appreciation in the short term, i believe). The market became extremely huge and customer is spoiled for choice, in a bad way, hence the kick-in of the promotion machine. It is one part. Another part, which you correctly pointed out is ownership-related increase of value. I always though that the latter could be solved technically and i still think it will be, in one way or another. But that won't change the face of the music itself, which is also a part of a problem.
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Alex
Tuesday, June 19, 2012Oh, i'm sorry - forgot to sign my previous comment.
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Sam Mendez
Tuesday, June 19, 2012David Lowry didn't kill anything. He just spoke the truth and truth is, You can't handle the truth!
So what are we going to do? I have an idea. And it's coming. Maybe we'll show it to DL first.
Or not.
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REMatwork
Tuesday, June 19, 2012Paul, your points sum it up perfectly. I am glad you are here to chronicle all this.
But about that ecosystem ("The recording is now effectively worth $0; its surrounding ecosystem has collapsed") ... we have not fixed it, only because we have not tried.
For example, I was told just today by an RIAA official in response to our Digital Content Exchange proposal: "We have been examining the concept of the use of trusted third parties to evaluate the nature of sites distributing music content. [Not our concept, by the way. Far from it]. In reviewing your proposal in more detail I could see your concept was actually much broader and comprehensive than that so I asked our technology expert to look it over. We have come to the conclusion that whatever the merits of your proposal, it involves matters outside our charter. As a trade association we have the authority to act on behalf of our members in matters relating to public policy advocacy and enforcement. Your proposal goes to the fundamental design and operation of the marketplace in the music business. Antitrust laws preclude us from engaging in business and marketplace matters on behalf of our members."
And then I was told on the phone in my follow-up phone call to the same guy that Victoria Espinel, whom we have been trying to get at for years, will probably never call us back because she only takes proposals from the copyright holders themselves. This despite the fact that she is "dutied by President Obama with the development and implementation of the President's overall strategy for the enforcement of intellectual property." In other words, she should be open to good ideas that work and save copyright. But instead, all she does is act as juror of the ideas of the exact same industry that has made every wrong decision it can possibly make for the last decade and a half.
So I am quite certain that as surprising as it sounds, no one with the qualifications to fix the ecosystem has ever been consulted by Ms. Espinel, by anyone in government, or by any of the stakeholders. I believe Jim Yates has the qualifications. He fixed a similar problem for the securities industry and that business method was sold to Thomson Reuters and is used umpteen times a second today. Do you think the securities industry would stand for an unthriving, uncompetitive and insecure digital ecosystem? That industry had their problem fixed decades ago. When new problems arise today, they fix them in nothing flat. But we, the entertainment content industries, do nothing, as if our content was not worth anything. (It is the "competitive" part that may be scaring away some segments of the industry. Where competition rules, the consumer is king and gets his price.)
So, I cannot say definitively that the DCE is the answer (although I believe that it is). But I can say confidently from places I have gone and the things I have seen that no one who may be looking at a wholistic solution is getting the time of day from any of the powers that be. They are all given lip service, but no real examination. (Again, a prime example how I know this is just from today, when we were told today by the RIAA official who claims that he and his technology chief examined our materials, that our system "embeds markers into content" even though slide 26 of our slide deck specifically says there are no markers, and no DRM).
~REM
p.s. Spotify is there to make money, not fix a problem. Spotify hopefully one day will be a valuable player in a thriving ecosystem. But Spotify will not fix the ecosystem. It will not because it cannot.
p.p.s just to give you one example of how far off base Google is, they recently stated at the All Things D Conference that they "invested a huge amount in Content ID." This will never contribute one iota the fixing the ecosystem, therefore, it was a huge waste of money. A fixed ecosystem will not focus on ID'ing content but on ID'ing ownership (which consumer has lawfully purchased or borrrowed what content, a/k/a voluntary registration).
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Ed Donnelly - Aderra
Tuesday, June 19, 2012Nice job summarizing Lowery's long winded thoughts.
None of this is new news. Move on and make some money with a realistic vision of what is possible. If fans want the music for free, give it to them. Then create something they are willing to pay you for.
P.S. I am guilty of trading songs, even way back in 1983 when I made U2 mixtapes for friends by recording off the radio with my boombox.
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Debbie Harry
Tuesday, June 19, 2012For all the bemoaning of the death of the industry, literally not one article I have read has offered a single solution or suggestion to change the situation.
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elias
Tuesday, June 19, 2012You could say the same for the comments section ;-}
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REMatwork
Tuesday, June 19, 2012What on the off-chance that the solution is longer than comment length?
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Andy
Tuesday, June 19, 2012
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