The Hidden Challenges of Subscription Music

Nearly a decade ago, Rhapsody debuted its subscription music service.

Giving fans access to unlimited music for a monthly fee appeared to be the answer to the social epidemic of file-sharing that occurred, and yet they still seem indifferent towards it.

Rhapsody failed to break into the mainstream market, leaving critics to question if it ever will. Many companies including MOG, Rdio, Slacker, and Spotify have since entered the sector too, none of which have had better luck. While Apple’s iPhone gave services a second life, experts argue that they have failed to reach critical mass due to issues of consumer awareness, user retention, smartphone penetration, and software design.

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How Artists Can Profit From File Sharing

FACT: people download music for free.  

Sean Parker of Napster fame recently stated in an interview, “you look at the data, somewhere between 4 trillion and 10 trillion songs are illegally downloaded every year.  And we’re looking at maybe 4 billion or so legal downloadeds per year.”

Music will always surface on file sharing platforms and consumers will continue to download music for free, but recordings are even more important for artists than ever before.  There is a new purpose for recorded content; artists will no longer generate revenue directly from recordings, instead this will be the entrance point for consumers into a the brand.  Great music will generate revenue through merch or ticket purchases, or lead to sponsorships as major brands seek out artists to enhance the value of their own product. 

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Why is Music Cheaper Now? It's as Simple as Supply and Demand

About a month ago a blog post titled “Why Your Art is Cheaper Than a Latte” appeared on the Digital Music News blog.  In it, the post focused on the singer/songwriter Sufjan Stevens, and the reaction he and his label had to the declining price of music (CD or digital).  I’ll talk about Mr Stevens’ reaction later on here, but first discus why music has gotten cheaper these days.

Remember that economics 101 class you took back in college and the whole supply and demand graph?  I know, it was boring, but it can explain this reality.  If you never took economics, I’ll explain what I mean (I used to teach the class).  To refresh any memory, I put what the supply and demand graph looks like below.

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The Real and ONLY Reasons Why Fans File-Share Music

Thus far, we’ve looked at eight reasons why fans file-share music.

Mainly, they’re unaware of the number of legal and alternative options to consume music that are available; they want to hear music and grow to like the songs before they buy them; or they don’t know the artist, either not well enough or at all, or don’t trust them, due to recent line-up or sound changes. Rebuilding that trust takes time and isn’t easy.

As well, fans file-share music when there’s too many hoops to jump through on an artist’s website or because the offer that the artist made, whether by price, package, or delivery, was terrible. Next, we looked at the role that the biases of digital technologies play into file-sharing—the different ranges of social behavior they promote in audiences.

We also tried to understand how choice overload can cause decision paralysis, leading fans to become overwhelmed. To cope, they take the path of least resistance, attempt to explore all of their options at once, and end up committing to no decision at all.

Lastly, we looked at how fans employ their own Internet law of economics when buying music and end up file-sharing it to mitigate the risk purchasing with an album they wouldn’t have otherwise bought. A number of motivations were intentionally left out of this analysis. Let us now explore some of the more common reasons why fans file-share:

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4 Reasons Why Fans Are File-Sharing Your Music (And Why They Can't Be Changed)

Last time, we looked at four reasons why fans are file-sharing an artist’s music—that they can change. These are simple solutions that any artist can act on and ensure that their fans aren’t motivated to file-share their music for reasons such as being unaware of alternative and legal options to consume their music or unable to hear the entire album before they buy it. Furthermore, new fans may not trust the artist because they don’t have enough name recognition or the artist has since changed their sound. Lastly, there may simply be too many “hoops” or clicks to jump through before fans can download or buy their album, so they resort of file-sharing it because it’s a proven, effective, and easy to use interface that works every time and is only a few clicks away; it’s also habitual.

These are all causes of file-sharing that artists can acknowledge and take steps toward preventing. In some cases, it’s simple solutions that matter. Educate your fans on the ways they can legally access your music, for free; allow them to stream albums before they buy them; build trust with your current audience and potential fans; and ensure that buying your music from your website or iTunes is the most quick and easiest way to access paying for music. If these general needs aren’t met, it could lead fans to download music that they may not have otherwise. Trouble is, these aren’t the only reasons why fans file-share. Here’s the four reasons fans file-share that artists can’t change:

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Music, community & file-sharing: from Napster to Ping

The launch of Ping, Apple’s new Facebook-meets-iTunes service, has once again underlined the somewhat novel idea that people want to chat and interact to a greater degree about the music they like. If it succeeds, it will be because people don’t just want access to music: they want to belong to a music community. 

In making predictions, it’s wise to look to the past. The tendency towards community isn’t surprising to anybody who has watched file-sharing evolve over the past decade. 

A (very) brief history of file-sharing 

The first wave of file-sharing, Napster, was a lonely affair: users searched and downloaded music through the central hub with as much social interaction as a simple Google search - i.e. none. You downloaded from a computer - whether there was a person in front of it was irrelevant. 

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Dear Rock Stars...

2010 is - rather tragically - shaping up to be the year when Rock Stars (and old-industry millionaires) complain about the state of music on behalf of ‘the little people’.

Here are three examples: Peter Waterman, in an interview with The Times, said that Spotify was a terrible thing. It, he says

“devalue[s] our artists, they damage this country economically, culturally and morally”

Why’s that then, Pete?

“The big stars are a tiny percentage; the rest are broke, including a lot of well-known faces. Who is developing new talent? Without money, new acts are strangled before they mature. We all suffer.”

This, from the man who made a multi-million pound career of writing and producing ‘hits’ for soap stars

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