Monetising Music

There has been a couple of interesting surveys and statistics over the last couple of days about the take up of digital media.

On the one hand there is the survey showing just how widespread and prevalent piracy within the music industry is.

On the other are the most recent figures released by the Publishers' Association showing digital sales of books soaring.

This highlights a number of points.

First is the speed at which the two industries have adopted digital technology.

The music industry has been dragged very into a very reluctant relationship with MP3s. When they first appeared, the industry didn't really pay much attention until they already had a strong-hold. Then, rather than embrace the technology, try to adopt it and find ways for it to work for the industry, they tried to stamp it out, instead releasing CDs that couldn't be ripped or that installed malicious code onto your computer. The problem is that innovation just doesn't go away, especially when it has a number of very appreciable conveniences over the old format.

Even when they did eventually adopt the digital format, they tried to do so in the most inconvenient manner for the consumer, adopting all sorts of digital rights managements and protects which made the digital unit equally as inaccessible as the physical formats. And they still tried to charge the same. Quite how it is justifiable to charge the same price for a digital album which doesn't have the same print, production, transportation, storage and retail costs is quite a mystery. Unfortunately the industry still didn't learn and took a very similar attitude of anti-engagement with streaming services. It can hardly be a surprise then that piracy has such a stronghold.

On the flipside are books. Books have readily embraced digital. The publishers have seen the development as a way to maximise profits - reducing costs such as transport and bookshop premiums; and decreasing the price to encourage customers to consume more. They have made it as easy as possible to get books into your hands. Not only do the digital formats, in the same way as digital music, mean you can carry a much greater volume in a significantly smaller and lighter medium; not only do they give you the convenience of downloading where and when you want rather than having to be in the vicinity of the shop; not only have they passed on the cost savings achieved by such ease of distribution; but they have also enhanced the secrecy of the reader, allowing you to read things that otherwise you would have no intention of reading. And they have made it as easy as possible too - you don't even need to buy a bespoke reader, because you can download an app onto your smartphone. And the figures show it: with books, piracy simply is not an issue. And, rather than people simply moving from the physical to the digital format, they are actually buying more.

Piracy with books hasn't had a look in, mostly because the publishers sought out digital formats very early on, well before piracy had tried to take a hold. They actively sought out ways to make the technology work for them, tactics to actively encourage the customer to adopt their technology. They made it easy - far easier than buying a book - and that is why it worked.

Now, don't get me wrong - piracy is theft. There is copyright in the music, in the lyrics, in the performance and the production. And this is a valuable investment of someone (in fact many people)'s time. If they make it available at a cost, then to take it without paying that cost is illegal - it is breach of copyright. No matter how much easier (or rather how much more convenient) it is to obtain from an unauthorised source, or your misguided 'moral' objection to “paying for students to pratt around with a guitar”, it is illegal. I do a lot of work in copyright and intellectual property, and believe me these days it is becoming far more valuable an asset than a lot of the physical property within a business.

However, one of the other differences that certainly the piracy article highlighted was the difference in the attitudes between the artists; and it very much questions the motivation behind being an 'artist'.

Some artists speak out on piracy, very actively calling pirates thieves. And it is true, both from the view of intellectual property, and as a worker: these are people who make their living from their music, they deserve to get paid for their music. Art is as much a contribution to society as pure industrial endeavours, and they are due just reward.

But a lot don't see it like that. Ed Sheeran - whose album was highlighted in the first report - has sold 1.2 million albums. That's a lot of albums. But almost six times as many albums have been shared illegally, downloaded with no financial consideration coming back to him. And yet he is very sanguine about it: “My gig tickets are like £18, and my albums £8, so ... it's all relative”. Which is nice if you are selling gig tickets.

But that attracts a different commerciality to the album - essentially acting as advertising for the concert rather than the art in itself. If you're making money from the gigs and the merchandise and therefore don't care about the album or how widely pirated it is all is well and good. Once upon a time the same used to be said of radio airplay, that it encouraged people out to buy the track; nowadays the royalty cheque from PRS for the airplay is sufficient to keep some long-gone bands in the mansions they bought in their heydays.

But then is it art? Surely the moment that the commerciality takes priority over the artistry, the integrity of the artist is lost?

Take public art, for example. I don't have to pay a fee to enjoy it. If the artist were true about the artistic merit, surely they would just want people to enjoy it? Some bands very much take that attitude: they deliberately release their tracks free to obtain as broad an awareness as possible. Certainly earlier on in your career (probably when you don't have the backing of a corporate record label who need to make a return to pay their staff, invest in risky bands, and provide a viable business investment) this is a more frequently used channel.

But does that devalue the art or the freely accessible music? It almost certainly means that we consume more - because it is free - but does it mean that we dilute the good stuff? By exposing ourselves to so much information do we ignore the detail and just concentrate on the quick, immediate, overall impression, rejecting an analysed critique in favour of the next whatever? Or by exposing ourselves to so much do we stumble across things we would never have remotely considered before? I suspect this is a point for a much more involved moot.

My favourite way of consuming music is to go and see the small, start-up bands doing gigs down the local pubs - gigs which are normally free. I then end up buying all the albums they have released from them at the gig. The same is true of comedy - I would rather go and see the free gig and contribute what I thought was appropriate to a bucket afterwards. I do believe I should contribute some financial reward for the enjoyment that their music has brought to me; rather than that reward be paid for by a council or a quango or some other arts body as is the case with public sculptures and galleries. Not that I don't go to public galleries - on the contrary, I regularly go to the openings, which (ironically) usually includes free gigs from local bands.

So what else is there. Well, at the moment the Zeitgeist is crowd-sourcing. You can't move for articles where journalists believe they are the first people to be telling you about it or naming the 'K' website. But again, is that sustainable? How long before Kickstarter becomes overwhelmed by artists thinking their the next big thing? How long before investors take just one too many gamble that never amounts to anything? How long till people get bored of the CurrentBigFad and move on to the NexterBiggerFaddier site? Remember Draw Something? No, I thought not.

Ultimately music, and books, have to be treated as an art; and it is the manner in which the art interacts with an individual and the individual back with the art that is the crucial relationship. The internet has not killed off art galleries - it has actually caused them to thrive as people want to see the work in person, to involve other people in the conversation. And just as you and your friends can discuss the qualities of the latest album release on your social media site; there really is nothing like going along, enjoying a gig with a pint and then babbling incessantly about how amazing it was afterwards. Believe me - just look at the explosion in the number of festivals there have been over the years.

Digital formats are to feed the need. They are accessible for when the gig or installation isn't. They are another revenue stream, whether directly or by 'advertising'; but they are never - and have never been - the only way (or even the major way) to make money from it.

And let's face it - if there was no financial reward, the artistic industry would simply be unsustainable, or filled with toffee-nosed kids who can afford to be artists because daddy made a shed-load of money as the lead singer in a rock band in the 70s.