When The Music’s Over

Hot on the heals of Twitter’s co-founder publicly ridiculing Rupert Murdoch for attempting to charge for online content, it’s not surprising to learn that online music services are suffering a similar fate. But are “free” sites like Myspace or Spotify – one’s dependent solely on advertising revenue, fairing any better?

It’s been reported recently that Myspace (a Murdoch operation) might purchase Imeem, another ad-supported music stream service, and while most of these sites are struggling, they aren’t wasting any time blaming the music industry itself for the current quagmire. Sites that operate an “anything, anytime policy” are having to pay the record industry royalty fees that many think are excessive. And for an industry in turmoil, such as the music business, it seems people at the top just aren’t listening to criticism, or even common sense. The bosses of the business wonder why no ones buying music anymore, and yet they continue to charge £12 for a CD. How much does it cost to manufacture? And how much does the artist get? Pennies. That kind of blind avarice is on par with banker’s bonuses.

Perhaps what both the industry and the online services need to consider is how to create a more specialized experience for the consumer. Why not offer tickets to special gigs for fans that come with purchasable downloads? Or lyric sheets and posters? There was a time when alliances to artists meant something special for music fans. The ability to listen to any music at anytime is a powerful lure, but without context it eventually just becomes a digital blob in an Apple Mac. People are still going to gigs, which is an interesting paradox to the current climate of iPod shuffle anonymity – so it must mean that the passion is still there to make a connection; but how to control, and distribute a product that is now so easily made free, is something the industry will always be lost at.

They need to find new ways, creative ways, to bring revenue and a sense of collaboration and, dare I say, unity to both the artist and fan. This will involve “thinking out of the box” strategies and not the same old models of profit from the record, tour, sell t-shirts cycle. The online music sites are leading the way in new paradigms, they just haven’t ‘nailed’ it yet, and until they do, I’m afraid, many more start up’s will go under.