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The Golden Age of Infinite Music
Over at the BBC, music journalist John Harris speculates on what may become of the music business now that we have entered the golden age of infinite music. "I've just poured the music-related contents of my brain into a book, and I would imagine that 30-ish years worth of knowledge about everyone from Funkadelic to The Smiths has probably cost me a five-figure sum, a stupid amount spent on music publications, and endless embarrassed moments spent trying to have a conversation with those arrogant blokes who tend to work in record shops. Last weekend, by contrast, I had a long chat about music with the 16-year-old son of a friend, and my mind boggled. At virtually no cost, in precious little time and with zero embarrassment, he had become an expert on all kinds of artists, from English singer-songwriters like Nick Drake and John Martyn to such American indie-rock titans as Pavement and Dinosaur Jr. Though only a sixth-former, he seemingly knew as much about most of these people as any music writer. Like any rock-oriented youth, his appetite for music is endless, and so is the opportunity..."
This is exactly why 'piracy' is such a good thing. Before, when there were tollbooths before all the artists of the world, we could only really sample the delights of a few. Now, there's no where on earth most of us could afford to pay for all the content we consume. How can we be convinced that it is GOOD to be able to only taste a tiny fraction of what is out there? The Big Music enforced tollbooths are a plague of this planet, and it is PIRACY, resolving the contradictions of digital content in the age of private property, that is the cure.
This is the age of infinite access to music that is considered popularly or culturally relevant. In times before recording, music was played constantly, but to see the critical acclaimed required one to buy a fairly expensive ticket. In the age since recording, the popular and acclaimed required purchase of a fairly expensive to make medium. Recently, the price of access to popular or acclaimed music has been some technical savvy. While DRM and legislative action may eventually curtail access to popular or acclaimed music, it will do no such thing to indy, modern or any un-acclaimed pieces or groups, because in such an environment enforcement will be expensive.
That kid is likely destined to become an "arrogant bloke who tends to work in record shops".
I'd rather put my money in a tip jar of garage bands in Japan, South Africa, Germany or elsewhere rather than spend another dime funding the RIAA's accusations that pretty much everyone who uses the Internet is a criminal. And funnily enough, every time I say this on Slashdot there always seem to be several replies telling me to check out some dudes and I end up doing just that.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
When you get down to it, it is quite surprising the kinds of music my generation will listen to when given the chance. As was stated in another comment, in the past it was limited to what they wanted you to hear. You would be limited to the selection on the radio and nothing more. Now, with piracy galore and plenty of music services, such as Pandora, you get a taste of other varieties and artists you would never have heard before. I can go from listening to Heavy Metal to Techno to Country and then into Classical. My taste is open, simply because of piracy and the free services available. As time progresses, it'll be interesting to see how this shapes. Mainly because of how much the various MAFIAAs are trying to kill piracy in its whole, without an alternative, and yet refuse to decrease the price of a media that costs 1/50th to produce and distribute as they charge for it in a retail store. They continue to push and shove for people who pirate music to pay hugely outrageous fines, and yet they dont make it available at a reasonable price. Imagine having to go to a store and pay $15 for a loaf of bread, simply because they can charge that much and get away for it. It's a matter of time until fat people galore go running out of the store with 8 loaves stuffed in their pants. It stuns many of the people I talk to when they ask how I can go from one genre to another without being phased, and enjoy it all just the same, and I answer that without being forced to listen to only popular media and having the ability to open my horizons more then most, I can find more music and movies to enjoy then most people would ever dream... well, except everyone here. Not that any of us would ever pirate anything in our lives... of course not. Yayyyy Piracy! I mean ... ehh, heck with it
Which indicates that either the domain is rather small or the semantics of 'expert' has changed dramatically.
With regard to "all kinds of artists" (which probably should read 'various kinds of musicians' — but probably it takes longer to become an 'expert' writer) I suspect the former, the latter otherwise.
CC.
TaijiQuan (Huang, 5 loosenings)
From Funkadelic to The Smiths?
From Nick Drake and John Martyn to Pavement and Dinosaur Jr.??
Your point may be good, but christ, these examples of infinity and endless appetite for music cover a really, really small range of what music is.
No wonder you were always so embarrased in the shop.
On second thought, I'm not sure point is so good.
On the evidence, the interwebz really just provide an opportunity to imagine one's broadened oneself by becoming even more deeply enmeshed in one little thing.
Choice under these conditions has been studied. The stndard example is something like, someone goes into a store to buy a new tv - is confronted by 50 models, can't choose and walks out again. Whereas going into a tv store where there's only 5 models available, quickly makes a choice and walks out with a tv. The point is, more choice does not neccessarily mean easier choices. I have this problem myself - I want to listen to some new music, refresh what's on my iPod, but confronted by this vast ocean of music, almost limitless possibilities, I get exasperated and end up either not bothering or downloading another album from someone I know. Now, however, I have a new name to explore - Pavement - I don't have any of thier music. Anyhow - the point of this story was to say that infinite music is not neccessarily a good thing. I personally find I listen to the radio more and more... leaving the music choices to someone else.
Certainly I can't argue with anything in the parent post: the youth of today are, often amazingly, and always re-assuredly, listening to music and learning about music that is "not of their direct experience" (which is, admittedly, a clumsy construct ... I'm not sure I really know how to describe what I mean by that; I'm hoping most people just get it).
I remember going to the "record store" when I was a young pup. Here I was, amongst a seemingly limitless array of music, and I was, I thought, emperor of all that was before me. All I needed was $9.98 and I was there. It was much better than a library, and much more interesting than a class.
Today, you need much less than ten bucks. You can sample what it took my money, or a friend's money, or an older brother's money, or a hip station to throw out there, today it costs what could be essentially described as "nothing but time". And time invested is not without cost, by any means.
I sense a hint of failure, or resignation: something along the lines of "I invested all that and kids get it today by investing much less."
But, that's what I enjoyed too, and so did the author of the parent. It's how he came about to know enough to write the book in the first place, a book his older brothers or his parents probably could not have written.
And the kids still need you; they still help to find what they enjoy in a similar way. What's different is they listen to what their parents like, whereas I thought my parents were musically bankrupt. They value the music, and from that they put a higher value on the investment in time to explore the music, whereas we still had to figure in a larger investment in earnings balanced by that time.
It is, in so many words, and example of what limited distribution cost us all; what the RIAA cost us by it's business model of days gone by, and what the music industry needs to learn to exploit, if it's to survive, rather than rail against.
It's a good thing.
I'm finding new music I like at a far faster rate than I was ten years ago. The biggest difference is that now, I have Rhapsody. (Just like the guy who wrote TFA mentioned that he has Spotify.)
I can find an artist I like, and there are links on the page. Hey, you like Genesis? Check out Steve Hackett, Brand X, and Mike + the Mechanics, and Alan Parsons Project and Yes; check out "Art & Progressive Rock"; check out playlists that other users made that relate to Genesis; in short there are literally dozens of links. Some of the links are tenuous and unlikely, yet I have used them to branch over to music I really like: Genesis to Peter Gabriel to Synergy (Larry Fast) to Zero 7 and Infected Mushroom.
Even if you don't sign up for a music service, you can do something similar with a large online store such as Amazon. You can only hear short samples, not the full song, but you can still navigate a web of connections.
It used to be that to even hear about obscure music, you had to subscribe to music newsletters or hang out in non-mainstream record shops or at least have a friend who did those things. Now you can click around from song to song, and if it takes you nine songs you don't like to find one you do like, you are still only out a couple of minutes. And if you are like me, and you listen to albums many times if you like them, it's totally worth spending a little time branching out. Add in a little bit of time looking bands up on Wikipedia and other sources, and you too can be as much of a music expert as someone who writes for a magazine.
The RIAA and the big labels fear this new world. They want to keep charging for music as if it were a scarce commodity. I read an interview with a guy from a studio, and he defended the high price of CDs: the price is fair because it's really hard to be a studio; you have to try to find new acts, and when you guess wrong, a whole bunch of CDs go into a landfill. Well, guess what: on the Internet, you can just provide the music, and if nobody likes it, it will just sit there; and if people do like it, you make pure profit. No CDs need be produced and then landfilled. The costs go way, way down with digital distribution. They want their costs to drop, while still charging the same inflated prices they try to justify on CDs; that won't work.
The future of music is: everything available on the Internet, at lower prices than if you buy CDs. Most artists will not bother to sign their fortunes over to big record studios; they will retain control of their music, and deal more directly with the customers. There will still be middle-men, but fewer of them, and they will make less money (which doesn't sound good if you are a middle-man but sounds pretty darn good to me). And absolutely nothing will go out of print. If an album sells two copies a year, it has paid back the costs of letting it sit on a server and it is already slightly in the black.
I remember, when I was in high school, how truly huge and popular certain bands were. Whether you liked them or hated them, you recognized Styx or Van Halen when you heard them. In the future, new bands may find it impossible to reach the same level of success and recognition, because everyone will fragment themselves into small sub-markets. It will be hard for any one act to capture everyone's full attention and hold it for more than a very short time.
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
Now he should try asking that kid about The Beatles. He may well find that the infinite music is not a continuum.
Price and quantity was *never* related to quality. Having access to more culture means they'll listen to more quality works, as well as trash. Discrimination will come from studying the subject and having a huge cultural background, as it always did.
Yes. The correlation between value and scarcity is only one theory of value, the one expressed by the neoclassical economics. There are more theories for value setting, including "use-value", which expresses a value based on "a certain relation between the consumer and the object consumed". Supply and Demand is just a theory, not a fact.
Of course he wouldn't. But if that's good or bad is a different matter.
So it was when Gutenberg invented the printing press. Are we worse because of that? I don't think so.
It's the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine. It's evolution, baby!
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For works published prior to 1978, and for works made for hire, "life" under United States copyright law is estimated as 25 years. But for works published prior to 1964, a maintenance fee was due in the 28th year, and this was not paid for a lot of works. "Unrenewed copyright" is the main source of relatively recent works in the United States public domain.
I knew loads of people who had rooms *full* of cassette tapes. You could record music off the (freely broadcast) radio and all the car boot sales sold pirate tapes.
The idea that:
a) Every downloaded copy is a lost sale
and
b) P2P has somehow changed the piracy game.
Is ridiculous.
Some people just copy/hoarde, period. They're not going to buy legally no matter what.
No sig today...
This only holds true in a free and fair market: where, given a free choice, people spend their money on Britney Spears, etc.
The reality is a music market where in practice a cartel of music companies limit choice to maximise the money made on certain artists. They prefer, instead of running 10,000 artists, to sell 10-100, advertising 10.
Companies like Sony-BMG, etc. ceased contracts with _profitable_bands_, as they maximize their profits when marketing costs are smaller, concentrated on a small number of "superstars". The chosen artist benefitted, but mostly the record companies benefitted; the consumer lost choice, and the bands they would have purchased from lost big-time.
For this reason, I consider the record companies anti-music, and am happy to see them go. Its only the advent of easy copying that makes them divert from this policy.
Similar arguments hold for professional sports, unfortunately.
Anyone who believes exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist
I like the way this article starts with "Over at the BBC", as if Slashdot is a publication of equal professionalism and reach.
We already have a form of "infinite music" - DJing. But so far, DJs can't do very much to the music. They can play with timing and mixing, and maybe do some scratching, but that's about it.
Now look at Vocaloid 2. Load up a singer model, a lyrics file, and a MIDI file, and out comes reasonably good music. (It's in Japanese; this was the #1 program for sale on Amazon Japan for a while.)
Currently, building a singer model for Vocaloid requires about a week of work by the singer. Working backwards from existing music to a vocal tract model and a style model isn't yet available. But as machine learning techniques progress, that problem should be solved.
When a DJ has the option to play any song with any musicians, then we'll have infinite music. The day may come when musicianship will be an archaic art like calligraphy and oratory.
(Even better, the RIAA can't stop it. These are "covers", even though they're machine-generated. You have to pay the small statutory royalty to the composer, and you owe the musician and the recording company nothing.)