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Peter Gabriel: Digital Music Downloading's Future
securitas writes "CNN International's Becky Anderson interviews musician and OD2 online music service co-founder Peter Gabriel about the future of digital music downloads. The interview covers Gabriel's motivations in starting OD2, how technology has changed the music industry business model in the favor of artists and away from the big record labels, and where the small, independent artist fits in. Gabriel's words have weight because of his insights as both a musician/artist and a businessman who guided a digital music on demand distribution (OD2) and download service to success."
I'm addicted to the iTunes Music Store, and since I have an iPod I'm not really going to switch to OD2. Though I really respect Peter Gabriel's work and music, he needs to get OD2 and iTunes together I'd think since they only support Windows from what I can tell, and that pretty much locks me out on my desktop or server OS platform of choice.
As a rock-in-roll Physicist once said, No matter where you go, there you are.
That's what's nice about things like Submerge
Basically, a bunch of small Detroit techno labels got together and put all their resources together for their own distributor.
To add insult to insult, look at the pop-up window that is displayed to "Launch the Shop". It features a screen shot of IE on Mac OS 9.
Downloading takes the critical distribution link in the music delivery chain away from the big companies. That alone gives the artist the biggest chance to break free that they've ever had. P2P file-sharing, not iTunes-style pay-per-download, weakens the promotion link in the music delivery chain to some extent as well. That is, it doesn't cost you anything to experiment.
Big promotions via radio and ad campaigns are a different matter. Pretty tough for the small artist to negotiate with ClearChannel for airtime. Also pretty tall order for them to finance a billboard in Times Square. But that's the case now, so perhaps we're looking at a future where small artists starting out have to look to viral marketing to get their name out there.
What must go is the big labels acting like dictators, oppressing artists and dumbing down music to fit their marketing models. They should shrink and shrink until they're like specialized ad agencies, marketing a product like every other firm on Madison Avenue does. Then successful artists can hire them just like they'd hire an accountant, retain a lawyer, or any other sort of specialized service.
It's still not easy for small artists to accomplish what a label does now, but with home-recording studios more affordable than ever, P2P file-sharing for free advertising, and accounting software like Quicken it's more possible now than it ever has been for the motivated indy artist to DYI their own success.
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
Unfortunately, Gabriel has missed a key point. Everything he mentions would be true and would provide a great way forward for musicians in the digital era, if only it weren't for one collosal problem.
Musicians live within an extremely complex community embracing music production, fandom, distribution, a major hype machine, journalism, radio and television, thousands of associated forms of business, professional institutions of various kinds, and a strong legal environment, all parts of which sustain each other and exclude anyone who does not play by their rules.
The vast vast vast majority of musicians *want* to play within this cozy hyped up environment, they want to get signed to major labels (it's a right of passage), they want to get interviewed by the label-owned magazines, they want to be on first-name terms with the best producers. With extremely few exceptions, they will NOT even consider going it alone, because that is tantamount to self-exile from their own community.
This is why we almost never hear any dissenting voices when the RIAA decides to shaft another few thousand fans. Musicians don't care, because all they see is their mother defending them, and nobody else complains apart from a few loons, so it must be OK.
Gabriel will get nowhere because he is being very careful not to rock the boat in which musicians lie peacefully asleep. The fans are not asleep, and that is why he has had some business success getting music to them. In contrast, the future about which he is now talking requires the musicians to awaken first from their slumbers (or maybe it's a total coma) and recognize that the values of everyone in their community are badly distorted and somewhat evil, and hence to want out. That however is not happening.
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
I'm not aware of 'varilight', but I do know that a friend of mine used to tour with Genesis and did their first laser shows (they *built* their own stuff, hardware, software and so on, practically between gigs). This is way back when Gabriel was still in charge.
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