Music delivery evolution in the digital age

By Pauric LD Writer

People who started listening to music in pre-internet times became used to the concept that you buy before you listen. Granted, there is mainstream radio but it offers little more than a promotion for what the music industry wants to sell you. College radio does serve up decent and less-mainstream artists but does not reach a wide audience. I won't even lower myself to discuss music magazines and "official" critics.

Music lovers' great thirst for finding new artists and new forms of music has been quenched by P2P networks (such as Napster 1.0 or Kazaa), online sampler tracks and internet radio. The industry seems to possess an innate fear of this new medium, this new delivery method.

Since the adoption of the internet by the masses, music companies have done the modern equivalent of trying hide the entire music industry in the virtual sand. Basically, their goal was to do everything and anything possible to restrict the flow of downloadable music (whether legal or illegal) and maintain the status quo of "you'll buy what we want you to buy."

That which we do not understand, we fear. It is a fear borne out of a mindset that music can only money while under tight control. Basically, they don't believe in the free market. Worse still, they don't trust us. It is easier for them to create and market an artist than to research and discover good music and promote it.

Music that is controlled within an industry that's determined to squeeze every penny they can out of their product has resulted in a refinement of "what makes money" and exclusion of experimental branches of musical genealogy that do not carry a predictable payload. This refinement of the musical gene pool has given us the generic banality we see at the top of the charts and no major branch of the mainstream since punk. One might say that the top 40 is the music industry's Royal Family (although Britney is definitely easier on the eyes than Prince Charles).

Music has an organic life of its own. Left to it's own devices music continuously changes and evolves to represent new things to new generations. Inspiring listeners to investigate and search out new forms of music. The digital age enables music to exist free from the constraints of an industry that no longer deserves to control it.

The operating model for the music industry as we know it today is coming to an end. There are too many options for consumers already. Enter the 'try before you buy' music delivery system. And this is not a prediction - it's here today. It works something like this:

1. You pick a genre of music. Anything, from classical to jazz to indie-trance-pop-metal-fusion.
   
2. The music that matches the genre becomes "available".
   
3. You can now save it to your hard drive.
   
4. You can put it on your iPod.
   
5. You can burn it to a CD and listen in your car.
   
6. You can stream it to a PC or networked music player.
   
7. You enjoy your music, on your own terms.
   
8. (read on, I'll explain in a moment)

Here's how it works: You find an online music streaming site. There's a wide variety of sources out there, lets take www.shoutcast.com system, as an example with just under 3000 stations to choose from. Its basic, its free, it works and there's something for everyone. (Editor's note: my personal favorite online music system is from Rhapsody - 14 day free trial, then only $9.95 month) Pick a station or genre you like then save the stream, including artist details, to your system. There are a number of applications that do this, typically classified as "ripcast" software (try this one from Xoteck).

Now you have access to thousands of artists and millions of tracks. You can listen in your own time, your own space, replay favorite tracks, research artists and, most importantly, purchase the music you like. This is the missing step 8, above.

Purchase music?

CD singles sales are in demise (and have been for years and years). People are buying entire albums often just to enjoy a few tracks, sometimes just one. Internet radio delivers a random sample, like a "taster", but not the whole album. With this "free music delivery system" as described above, the music industry can rejuvenate people's interest in music. And if they make it work well enough, with good quality, good services, and just a wee bit of trust, consumers will pay for it. Evidence shows that, all things being equal, most people opt not to steal or break the law.

Ok, I'm not a dreamer. I know the music industry is not going to let this slip by their lawyers' radar for long. It's not quite clear if its illegal or not, but I'm sure they'll take someone to court for something. Which is the real shame of it all, because it will just be another example of the industry ignoring an opportunity. They can actually get consumers searching for and discovering new music (at no cost), instead of turning away to other forms of entertainment which only harms the industry as a whole.

I also know the music industry isn't going to change its spots overnight (read this) but do I believe that good music will flourish in the digital age, that good labels will become even more profitable than they are today. With a little luck, someone, somewhere will realize we can be trusted to know what we like, and let us pay for it.