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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 think that this is something that everyone outside of the time/warner, sony, etc cartels who want to be in the music industry need to take heed of. If the big boys are consolidating, then maybe the smaller labels and distributors should put aside their personal ambitions and look at the larger picture...before they're written out of it.
Peter Gabriel has always been one of the music scene's most technologically advanced members. For instance with Genesis he pioneered the use of lasers during concerts.
MP3 Search Engine
Peter Gabriel was quoted as saying, "I'd like to hit the RIAA with a SLEDGE-HAMMER dunt-duh. After all, I've kicked the RIAA habit, (kicked the habit, whoo)"
Unknown host pong.
Sorry guys, OD2 is Win/IE only. No Mac, no Linux, no Moz.
"Lawyers are for sucks."
- Doug McKenzie
Durrr... I dig Peter Gabriel, and I dig this concept, but, uh, success? Can we have any stats to back that up?
In January, it seemed like the store had varying rights per label, delivering only Windows Media songs. Varying DRM'd files with fine print? Ok, I guess people were buying into it when they introduced that penny per streaming song thing.
Outside of that I've seen no press releases or 3rd party sites talking about OD2 as a "success". Are we qualifying it by the fact that they're still here after 6 months? The submission just feels weird to me.. I couldn't even find any stats thru google.
(again, I dig Mr. Gabriel, and I appreciate him and Mr. Eno coming up with a new concept. It's nice for iTunes to have competition.. but I need to see some numbers to endear a service with only DRM'd WM9 files servicing 3-4 countries of the EU as a "success". Even the BBC calls them a success with no numbers!)
This won't work for any artist other than mainstream artists, unless the indie artist gets airtime. Radio stations are still owned by big corporations, and like to shove thier music down your throat...until there are more places like IRL, then this model will probably not work for small artists. What Gabriel is suggesting is alot like communism...looks great on paper, but in the real world, other things need to change, not just how you buy the music. He is suggesting a change that will alow ANY artist to sell thier own works, but that really does need alot of help in the "Gabriel: Well you see, I think that a lot of artists aren't very good when it comes to marketing or accounts or doing a lot of the jobs that record companies do" area....and that doesn't necessarily mean that the RIAA can still have a job. Fsck the RIAA! I want to choose the music that I want to listen to!
You pirate! People like you make the internet a bad place. The RIAA will be subpoena-ing Slashdot to get your IP with evidence like that so freely available.
This idea was invented by Shampoo.
"For the quarter ended March 31, 2004 on a UK GAAP basis OD2 generated approximately $2.5 million in revenues, which represented over 80% sequential growth from the quarter ended December 31, 2003 and over 250% growth versus the prior year quarter."
Not outstandingly successful, but not terrible either.
Tiscali Music Club: System Check
In order to enter the Tiscali Music Club you must have the following on your PC:
* Internet Explorer 5.0 (or better) - Click here to download the latest version
* Windows Media Player 7.0 (or better) - Click here to download the latest version
* Windows 98, ME, 2000 or XP
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.
I recently discovered AllOfMP3, a Russian music store, because I was trying to find music by Eva Cassidy online and neither iTunes or Napster carry her music.
This site offers pay by bandwidth download of digital music, $10(US) per 1GB, and even allows you to select the bitrate and format of your download (including MP3, Ogg Vorbis, WMA, etc).
I was a bit wary at first, and I carefully reviewed the legal info provided on the site. I was reassured by the fact that they accept PayPal and are PayPal verified among other payment methods, I decided to risk $10.
I have been greatly pleased with the results.
My questions for the Slashdot community are: Can you see any legal problems with using this site? If so what are they? This is by far the best deal I've seen in digital music, and seems to be legit as far as my understanding goes, so I keep looking for the catch. If there isn't one, well enjoy the music!
And yes I know... in Soviet Russia digital music plays you.
Now I can hold up my MP3 player in front of my girlfriend's house and play In Your Eyes to win her back!
But if I actually had a girlfriend to win back, I wouldn't be posting on Slashdot, would I?
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