July 13, 2010 On File-Sharing: Are You Smarter Than A 12th Grader?
I. Students Chime In
Back in February, I stumbled across an essay written by a twelfth grader named Kamal Dhillon. In it, he argues that file sharing may be illegal, but it is not ethically wrong. The essay had been entered into the Glassen Ethics Competition and Dhillon won. Out of eighty entrants in the contest, the essay that won the one thousand dollar prize and got republished in The Winnipeg Free Press, argued that yes, copyright infringement can be morally justified. Though the views that Dhillon expresses in the essay and the sheer intellectual resilience that he displays in it are not characteristic of his entire age group’s attitude towards file sharing, nor does his understanding of the issues seem to reflect that of most twelfth graders, it got me thinking. What happens when fans are not stupid anymore? What happens when there are high school students who happen to have a firmer grasp on the file sharing debate than some of the executives and artists who get quoted in the headlines?
I mean, they are smarter than a twelfth grader—right? Most likely not, I am afraid. Readers of blogs like Music Think Tank and TechDirt, who live to learn about and make sense of the impact of technology on the recording industry and have observed how file sharing has reshaped our cultural lives—i.e. you—are in fact, smarter than a twelfth grader. But, what about these out-of-touch executives, commonly relegated to “struggling dinosaurs,” whose only exit from this industry entails mass extinction of their kind and the destruction of the music empires they created? What about all those artists in recent years who have made off-the-cuff comments about file sharing, only to be criticized for their complete disconnect from the arguments? Better, how do Dhillon’s arguments stack up against some of the viewpoints that have been gaining traction in recent weeks?
The other day, audio engineer Jon Sheldrick sent in his thoughtful post “Why You Should Pay for Music;” it has been republished on The Huffington Post and Music Think Tank. In it, he argues that rather than “scaring people into buying music,” he advocates “a culture in which people actually want to spend money on music, because they understand the positive repercussions it has on the medium of recorded music, and the lives of the artists that produce it.” In contrast, Dhillon believes that society “has benefited overall from file sharing.” He, in a sense, argues that it is not that we do not need people to become active participants in their cultural lives, but that they should also be able to deconstruct the obfuscation of reality and the arguments that surround file sharing. He is realistic in his observation that millions of people engage in the act of downloading music and find the arguments against it to be “unfair, inconstant, and irrational.” How does Sheldrick fair?
II. The Value of Music
“The problem,” he argues, “is that many people just don’t value music in a meaningful way.” This is the first of many instances where I happen to disagree with Sheldrick. See, he makes the point that people value music “in the sense that they enjoy it, and love rocking out on their iPod.” However, “they don’t value it in the sense that they will willingly fork over $1 for a song,” enabling the artist to keep producing music. This argument is misguided; it fails to ask the more meaningful question. Is it that people do not value music? Or, is it that music has become in some way disconnected from its value?
Though it would take a whole other essay to establish the basis for that argument, it goes something like this: With the rise of corporatism in the record industry throughout the 1980s and 90s, executives disconnected themselves from what used to matter the most: the music. As the business evolved from the long-term career-building view that artist development allowed to the short-term hit-making machine that mass-media provided, they grew dependent on a business scheme that was never intended to serve fans as actual people who had a personal connection to their culture. Rather, the workings of the CD-Release Complex reduced fans to a mere collective of consumers. They were free to make meaning together—through top-down artist brands and their music—as long as they did so as identity seeking individuals. The artist “brand” replaced peer-to-peer human relationships with an abstract, corporate-created one, and functioned as the fan’s belief system; it employed mythologies, sacred rituals, and iconography that served as a substitute for the features of a real artist. This corporatization continued on to local radio stations and record stores and reduced the natural progression of music culture; it oversimplified the process by which real culture develops and evolves.
In a few decades, the music culture in which people participated became tilted toward the priorities and behaviors of the multi-national corporations and media conglomerates that were responsible for its planning. In the process, our culture became dismantled and replaced with simulations of culture—big-box retail outlets, commercial radio stations, and MTV—and as the record industry skewed itself towards their needs, the harder it became for real culture to thrive. The further people got from the process through which music is created and culture formed, the more disconnected they became from the value of it. And the more music culture became detached from its origins and exchanged for a corporate simulation of one—an existence meant solely to promote behavior that improves the profits of the corporations manufacturing it—the more that music became disconnected from its value and the material processes of its creation. By 1999, the height of the record industry, it was a nearly $15 billion a year business. At this point, most people’s relationships to the artists that they loved were mediated merely through corporations. Fans grew dependant on artist brands for self-presentation; consumption became participation in their cultural lives, their path to individualism. These paths, however, only separated and disconnected them further.
More than a decade later, we still identify with and are even more fascinated by the plight of these abstract corporations in the digital age than we are with the flesh-and-blood artists that they represent, now why do you think that is? Do you really think it is because “people don’t value music in a meaningful way” or are things a little more complicated? I would argue that they are more convoluted than Sheldrick leads us to believe. Has music become devalued to some degree, due to the social epidemic of file sharing and those born-digital who have embraced it? Sure. But, they have become disconnected too.
III. Misunderstanding Complex Events
Next, Sheldrick shares his experience of what is was like to download music illegally in high school, and then as a recording engineer a few years later, witness first hand the effects that the social epidemic of file sharing had on the very industry that he was attempting to enter. There were artists with sizeable fan bases questioning whether or not they could afford to record another album—even though there was obvious demand; musicians no longer able to afford paying recording engineers; and studios, big and small, all over New York City were shutting their doors. All of this, Sheldrick writes, “was a direct result of people not paying for music.” Okay, stop. First off, the problem with Sheldrick’s perspective here is that sometimes recording engineers like him forget just how vast the chasm is between them and real people.
Yes, it would be beneficial if more people had experiences like Sheldrick—such experiences are illuminating—but it is important to remember that it is real people, not recording engineers, who determine the fate of our culture. They may have the same experiences, but see them very differently. The reason for this, as I argued above, is that, sure, such experiences would help remind listeners of the significance and value of music. However, in reminding them, we are admitting something important to our understanding of this debate and the shortcomings of Sheldrick’s argument—not only is there an apparent disconnect between listeners and the value of music, but that the inherent value of music has, in some way, become disconnected from the music itself. Undoubtedly, over the course of the era of recorded music—approximately the last hundred years—people, in becoming more passive participants in their cultural lives, lost their connection to artists and to the labor that creates music. For some people, if not most, their participation begins and ends at consumption; they are not as sensitive to the material process of art’s creation as Sheldrick, nor do they have a vested interest in maintaining the barriers of music consumption and keeping them as high as possible. This is, perhaps, why the rift between real people and music industry professionals in general is so prevalent, because they are not committed to solving a particular problem, like financing and distributing recorded music. Therefore, when something like file sharing comes along and disrupts the process through which those operations occur, as well as, the business model of the record industry, it is important to remember that people are not committed to preserving the music consumption hurdles in order to keep the record industry’s solution viable. And, since it is people, not professionals, who determine the fate of our culture, we must foresee the web as an opportunity to reconnect them to the process through which music is made. That way, they have their direct experience of the labor that goes into creating music, and not just someone telling them about it.
In addition to this, Sheldrick falls into the cognition trap called “causefusion.” In Blunder, historian Zachary Shore argues that this trap pertains to “any misunderstanding about the causes of complex events;” it “leads us to oversimplify, often at our own peril.” Tell me Sheldrick, were these things that you witnessed a direct result of file sharing or were there other things happening? In my humble opinion—beyond the social epidemic of file sharing—it is more useful to consider the rise of the networked audience and the personalized music experience; the death of the CD-Release Complex and the fall of mass marketing; the fracturing of the media landscape into niches; the end of the format replacement cycle; the explosion of alternate and immersive entertainment options; the converging of top-down corporate media with the bottom-up participatory culture of the Internet; the evolution of social music; and the “broken” condition of the traditional music consumption system. Likely, these technological and societal shifts had much more to do with the tragedies that Sheldrick witnessed and file sharing played minor—if any—role.
After this, Sheldrick changes the topic of his argument and expresses his view on how recorded music “provides a listening experience that is unique and rewarding in its own right, and listeners should strive to preserve that.” Is this possible? I mean, can listeners strive to preserve the loss of the concerted sonic experience? Romantic notions such as this tend to forget that listeners do not program the mediums through which they play music. Therefore, the biases of the medium that they are susceptible to also are not under their control. Though many audiophiles likely thought about boycotting the wide-scale adoption of the iPod, the average person’s listening habits do change and they are not precisely “in control” of that. Mediums are biased; they promote different ranges of social behavior. If you want to live in the woods with your 45’s and listen to them on your record player, do it, but it is hard to say it is up to listeners to preserve the experience. In an ironic twist, Sheldrick follows this logic by making an assertion that aligns directly with thoughts that I have been exploring in recent months. He argues that fans need to buy their music, learn how to listen more closely and savor it, that by purchasing music and going through the process to obtain it—the waiting, the anticipation, and getting to finally own it—they will inherently enjoy the music more. Exactly. But, there is a problem with getting to a place where you can actually savor your music—you have to buy it first. If the arguments that I have made about the paradoxes of choice overload in culture are correct, then it is getting harder and harder for fans to decide what music to buy every day, their ability to savor their music is overtaken by the effect of overwhelming choice.
IV. The Morality Issue
“At the end of the day, it’s really a moral argument,” Sheldrick concludes. He concedes though, that in the music world, much like life in general, that “the moral road is not always the easiest route to take.” To understand the limitations of this argument, let us return again to the views Kamal Dhillon expressed in his winning essay, “Not Wrong, Just Illegal.” He writes that, “in many areas the world over, the action of uploading and downloading copyrighted material is illegal and people know this. Yet, they still download music without paying anyways.” Why then, are so many people choosing to simply ignore the copyright laws? “Part of the reason is that people question whether the law that forbids sharing of such material online is morally justified,” he answers. On the topic of the morality of file sharing, he rather convincingly argues that, “The fact that something is illegal doesn’t mean that it’s necessarily immoral.” He argues, that on a global scale “young people are questioning the merit of the laws that forbid them to share material.” They think that copyright laws are unjust and know they are easy to break without getting caught. Just as important, he asserts, is that most young people regard the act of sharing their music with others as morally acceptable. So, is it really a moral argument? “You’re talking about a non-violent activity largely in the privacy of your own home, or bedroom or dorm room, in search of great music that turns you on—that is inherently a joyful, if potentially addictive, activity,” music critic Greg Kot told me in an interview. “It’s also completely organic: The Internet, above all, is a tool for sending and receiving files. That music files would be part of that culture is only natural.” In the Copyright Wars, legal scholar William Patry has argued that the only reason the subject of morality comes up, in terms of the file sharing debates is that people use it “as as a way to cover up the inability to justify expansion of rights on economic grounds.”
“Indeed,” Mike Masnick of TechDirt adds to the discourse. “Since copyright is intended as an economic right, the argument over copyright needs to focus on the economic issues…a properly calibrated system is one where there’s the greatest overall economic good and everyone has the greatest opportunity to benefit…” At that point, he rightfully asks, “[Where’s] the morality question at all?” There is not one. Those who claim morality in an economics discussion on copyright use it as a crutch because they cannot support their position. Masnick, then, firmly states, “There is no moral issue at all.” In other words, it is not that the moral road is a difficult route to take, as Sheldrick wrote, it is that, in debating the issue of file sharing, it is a route that should not be taken at all. Under scrutiny the argument just does not hold up. Masnick believes that those who use the morality foundation to support their arguments are wrong on two major points. “First,” he says, “is the idea that it means creators of content can’t make any money.” When, in fact, he argues, “nothing can be further from the truth.” Then, he argues that the second point revolves around the idea “that there’s a right to make money.” He maintains his position that this line of logic is completely false because economics is not a moral issue; it does not care about anyone’s ‘right’ to make money from his or her creative output. Therefore, neither should you. Andrew Dubber of New Music Strategies has summed up this argument quite well. He writes, “Making music is not (usually) a job of work. It is a creative act. You don’t have the RIGHT to make money from your music. You only have the opportunity. If you make music speculatively—that is, you create it in the hopes of making money from it, then you are a music entrepreneur. As such, entrepreneurship rules apply.” Even though many artists invest a good deal of energy, effort and expense in their creative ideas, they will probably make no money. The thing that most people forget is that nobody owes them the money just because they put the work in. Being a successful entrepreneur means that artists have to meet people’s needs and wants in a way that allows them to make money. Not by, as Dubber puts it, “making things that people will not pay for, insisting that they should, and then complaining that their morals are to blame.” He then poses this question, “Even if it was true that all the people you wish to target with your art are immoral thieves…why would you insist on trying to change their behavior as part of your business strategy?” After all, Mark Earls wrote an entire book on this topic called Herd, its lesson: “Mass behavior is hard to change.”
To be clear, my intention here is not to suggest that Jon Sheldrick is not smarter than a twelfth grader—not at all. He has written a very well thought out essay and it deserves the attention that it has garnered. However, we need to take a moment and recognize the implications of a culture where a twelfth grader is capable of understanding and expressing the arguments that surround file sharing. Chances are—out of the eighty entries in the ethics competition—someone made arguments that were similar to the points that Sheldrick argued, but they did not win. When presented with an essay like Sheldrick’s, as good as it is, someone like Dhillon is capable of finding his way through the maze of the issues and asking the follow up question that makes Sheldrick’s argument drop like a house of cards. He likely does not know about Masnick, Patry, or Dubber, but the information is out there. Fans are not stupid. Yes, file sharing might be illegal, but to them, it is not wrong. Therefore, making these outdated pleas—that focus around arguments that have, by and large, been debunked by leading experts—about why fans should pay for music is not going to resonate with these kids. You tell the right crowd that file sharing is a moral argument and they are going to think you are an idiot. Not only that, but responses to file sharing like this, they do not seek any imaginative nor creative insights. They do not help people understand the issues better. All they do is make other artists and employees in the cultural industries feel better—about themselves. Instead, of taking what could be a great opportunity to clarify the issues that surround this social behavior and helping the general public comprehend reality, I would contend that all Sheldrick has done is confused them further, turning the discourse into that of post-lunch student chatter.
Kyle Bylin — Editor of Hypebot and Music Think Tank — (@kbylin) — Get In Touch
Edited by: Jamie Johnson
Reader Comments (82)
Jason ('...people knowing more about me than about a song...') - that's fine, a version of old fashioned light entertainment based around personality, for the kind of people who used to buy Ethel Merman records. I suppose it's a branch of the music business... show business, perhaps.
Your pejoratives aside, Tim, I'll continue to make a living playing my music to people who appreciate it. And I'll continue to use the methods that work and discard the ones that don't. At this point, the internet has helped me connect with fans all over the world that dig what I do, dig me as a person, and are willing to give of their hard-earned money to help me continue to do it.
All this high-minded talk is interesting to a point, but honestly, nothing in this discussion is helping the working musician make a living. I attempted to give a bit of a different perspective to this discussion by sharing my real-world experiences and successes in the hopes that other musicians reading this thread might see that it's not all doom-and-gloom.
It can be done. it IS being done. All over the world the musicians who have found ways to use the internet to their advantage in finding and attracting fans are making a fine living. See Zoe Keating and Steve Lawson and Amanda Palmer. These people are no Ethel Mermans.
But if you want to call it "show business", that's fine with me. I'll still cash the checks.
Jason
OneWorkingMusician.com
There was a presentation a few months ago showing how quickly a music-creation application was being downloaded. As soon as I find it again, I'll post it.
The trend for everything on the Internet is participation. People creating their own blogs, uploading their photos, making videos, remixing songs, etc. Music creation will be pushed down to everyone, as well. Give people easy-to-use tools and they will use them.
And the trends are greatly effecting professional graphic designers, professional journalists, etc. There's a crowdsourcing trend that is opening up the creative professions to far more people than those to think of themselves as "professionals." The very recent discussion of "hobbyists" in music shows these trends. Most people making music have day jobs. They don't actually make a living at music, but they are creating music.
Here's the video.
Everybody is a Music Maker
I agree that the labels shot themselves in the foot by not adapting to digital distribution, and finding a way to embrace P2P file sharing, rather than fight it. But as musician, I disagree that just because the technology now allows the sharing of copyrighted material with much greater ease than before, that all of a sudden something I created is now public domain, by default - and if I disagree, then I'm just a "music entrenpreneur". Fiie sharing does give the public access to an enormous volume of media that they would have previously been unable to afford to have access to - this inherently has a tremendous social benefit to the arts; to both artists and consumers. At the same time, I don't necessarily agree that it's moral, just because kids growing up now have become acclimated to illegally file sharing, and don't give a shit about the laws because they're impossible to enforce.
Fiddling about with Tonepad while you wait for your bus is the equivalent of picking a scab in creativity satisfaction.
It's statements like this one that make me feel less bad about the decline of music-as-livelihood.
Have you tigers melted into butter yet? I have this stack of pancakes, see...
Apologies to Jason for any hard feelings, I didn't mean to insult you (what's wrong with Ethel Merman?).
Jason, you are making a clear statement that, at least this stage in your career, your music is secondary to your online personality in your pursuit of success. If that was tempered with an 'as important as' I would understand. As it is, I kind of understand but wouldn't dream of recommending anyone do the same unless they were setting themselves up more as a personality (like Lilly Allen) who makes pop as well as presenting and Twitting and so on.
But you're right, whatever works for you is fine and, of course, you aren't necessarily advocating it's right for everyone.
There will be plenty of musicians who can hardly string two words together who won't (please!) be taking your path.
Suzanne, as ever, we won't agree on this or other stuff. I hope my tone wasn't too harsh - who knows, maybe you're right. I have a basic fear of folk music so I hope you're not.
Scottandrew, did you mean that Tonepad is great, leave it alone you bloody musos-and-people-who-make-money-from-music? Or that the statement reflected a certain luddite attitude? Or are you genuinely feeling a lot better about the absolute collapse of the music industry? I hope it's the latter as I was a bit upset, too, but I got over it.
Suzanne, as ever, we won't agree on this or other stuff. I hope my tone wasn't too harsh - who knows, maybe you're right. I have a basic fear of folk music so I hope you're not.
No, i'm fine with the comments here.
You guys have to understand that I got involved with helping musicians because some of them moved me to get involved and they were at the stage in their careers where they could use the help. I didn't charge any of them because at the time I got involved, they didn't have the money. Then they went on to have varying degrees of financial success. One band got signed to a major label and went multi-platinum. Another stayed independent and was grossing six figures. Another is a huge hit on YouTube.
What I see is an industry that has changed rapidly over the last 10 years (when I got involved) and is continuing to change. The reason I think fans are evolving is watching how audiences at shows have changed. They are paying less attention to the music and more attention to their mobile devices. Often the purpose of being at the show is to let their friends know they are at the show.
Then when you watch how many people are now uploading their own creations/art online, you see that people like to show off what they do.
Talk to a group of local musicians and you'll see that most of them are interested in promoting themselves. So what makes you think that other people with new tools will be any different? Nearly everyone wants to be a rock star, if given the chance. That's why so many people sign up to be on reality TV.
I can't watch American Idol. I hate to see the humiliation. What's funny is when musicians make fun of the people who try out for the show. I think to myself, "Those aspiring singers aren't all that much different than you guys." Most bands/musicians think they are going to make it, if they just have the right breaks.
So when I see articles telling everyone that the Internet has now opened up opportunities for them, I know we'll have even more people uploading music. The difference between those who do music full time and those who do it part time isn't always talent. It can be a factor of age, looks, family responsibilities, financial resources, etc.
Music creation software is interesting to me in a certain way. I remember in the 1990s all of a sudden everyone could make techno music if they got a ten dollar software (of course they could spend more & get a groove box or whatever). Does anybody know what effect it had on things in that field? Seriously, I don't know what the effect was & I feel like it could be an indicator for the rest of the industry....
Scottandrew, did you mean that Tonepad is great, leave it alone you bloody musos-and-people-who-make-money-from-music? Or that the statement reflected a certain luddite attitude? Or are you genuinely feeling a lot better about the absolute collapse of the music industry? I hope it's the latter as I was a bit upset, too, but I got over it.
Oh, it's definitely the former two.
I love mashups and remixes, I love 8-bit and chiptunes, I think Rock Band and karaoke are fun and awesome and more relevant to people than we care to admit. I love basement-recorded stuff and and I love that the barriers to creating music are now more about time and desire than money, equipment and (yikes!) talent.
I love that someone with kazoos and a Mr. Microphone can record one song and shoot to the top of YouTube, while consummate professionals wave their arms shouting: Wait! Stop! That's not music! It may not be relevant or interesting beyond that moment, but I love it all the same.
So yeah. I think it's awesome that there's a Tonepad for people to tinker with. I think it's more awesome that Tonepad users could form a community, write Tonepad-only music and create Tonepad-only bands. And mostest awesomest when Tonepad bands start stealing paying gigs from "real" musicians, whatever that is.
Even if I didn't think it was so awesome, I wouldn't complain. The same tools that have enabled amateurs to flood the system have allowed me to do my thing, when I want to, how I want to. If that means some people have to get day jobs, well, welcome to our world.
This pretty much sums it up.
That's some assuming going on there, scottandrew! Any reason why it all can't exist side by side? Any reason why ANYBODY has to lose a job?
I was challenging Suzanne's prediction that these tools (apps, to be precise) were going to alter the way most people get and listen to music. I would never say you can't have musical fun with almost any object. You're reading someone who once did a two minute spoons solo at the Notre dame Hall in London.
Your one person kazooist can sit side by side with a clip of an orchestra playing Monteverdi, can't it? Doesnt it?
Being a professional amateur seems to have made you war-like - I can picture parades of Tonepad enthusiasts marching on the Royal Albert Hall to do battle with Crosby, Stills and Nash, bumping into each other cos as soon as they look up they lose their place (was it 3 dots or 4?).
The music box didn't chime for the end of pub pianists and the drum machine only made a minor dent on drummers. Some drummers even learnt how to program them.
True, your kazooist doesn't need talent as such, but there must be some defining feature about her tune on youtube to make it such a hit. Maybe the same could happen for Tonepad and, amongst the kooky community there might be a king of the Tonepads, or a lead player, a featured soloist. Eventually there might be two camps, those who have started to make a bit of a career out of it, playing Tonepad events up and down the country and those purists who think it should stay strictly amateur.
Truly, it's all complete bananas. I like to play with speak and spell machines and talk, too.
The same with recording music. Sure, a guy in the studio with years of training and expensive equipment probably will make you sound better, but if you learn you can do it in your bedroom with equipment you bought yourself</i?
With all due respect, like hell.
Deconstructing an entire skillset and moving it into a bedroom sounds easy peasy, but I can honestly tell you that the pain't by numbers kit and the like skills that accompanies it .. I. uh, have heard the results and you're welcome to them.
Can't have that great leap forward without dumbing it all down, can we?
*sigh* This is where you mount the "cranky old Luddite" argument and I listen some really good records. : )
Hey Tim,
I have nothing against Ethel Merman! Maybe I read into your comment about 'show business', but your response has clarified what you meant by that.
Nowhere did I state that my "music is secondary to your online personality in your pursuit of success." This is not the case. Were it not for the music there'd be no reason to exhibit an on-line personality at all. It's just another tool in the bag, as you say 'as important as' any other that I use.
For a little clarity, I'm a jazz trumpet player, so my audience is predominantly made up of existing fans of jazz music, many of whom only see my personality as secondary to the music as well. But I have found that while lots of people download my music for free, it's the one's that I know and that know a bit about me who are more than likely to pay for it. That's what I was trying to get across. Sorry if I wasn't clear.
And as you state, I'm sure my methods won't work for everyone. I just like to put out some positive experiences that I have had to counter the doom-and-gloom scenarios that are bandied about so often on the internet.
I know people think the little boxes can't replace "real" music, but classical music has become a niche. Jazz is a niche.
Most of today's songwriters are nowhere near Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, the Gershwins, etc. And most of them don't care. Their standards tend not to be the best musicians in history, but what they hear on the radio, YouTube, etc. And a lot of that can be duplicated pretty easily.
There's some truly great music being written/performed right now (e.g, Andrew Bird, Sufjan Stevens), but on the other hand, there's a lot of stuff (which has a lot of fans) that requires little real musical skill or training to put together. And now with increasingly smart, inexpensive machines, creating something like that is increasingly accessible to the masses.
Look at what people "should" listen to (based on training, complexity, etc.) and then what they "do" listen to and you'll see that fans aren't necessarily impressed with how hard the music might be to make. If it has a beat and you can dance to it, that is often enough. And better yet if it has a beat, you can dance to it, and you made it yourself on your own computer/iPad/iPhone.
I've been watching trends in games. Think of the skill it takes to make a complex game. But what is booming today? Social games that are relatively crude.
People like to play these little games on the computers and their mobile devices. It doesn't take much of a leap of faith that they may actually like to make their own music, too, even if it isn't great art.
Yes, Suzanne, but is it going to replace other ways of making and listening to music?
With the added dimension that one person bowing a saw will sound like they are scraping horse hair on metal and another will make a beautiful, etherial musical noise... Perhaps some of this onanistic music will be better than the rest, in which case won't it stick out and be found and become another genre or style?
I take real issue that a lot of what can be heard on the radio can be duplicated really easily: good pop music has all the subtleties of jazz and nuances of classical, which is why some people make great pop and others only strive. That is, of course, a totally subjective response to music and impossible to prove either way.
But are you really saying that people will be listening, for HOURS, to themselves?
But are you really saying that people will be listening, for HOURS, to themselves?
Well, I think the market will become even more dispersed. We've seen how TV viewed has been leaving the major networks and is now spread out among more shows. So I think music listening will be spread out among far more music creators. The number of people making music will continue to grow, and the number of people following each individual creator is likely to go down.
Instead of each musician being able to find their 1000 true fans to pay $100 a year to generate $100,000 for the musician, you'll have even more people playing for/with a small audience of friends and family. I participate on a local music discussion board. People are always plugging their own shows, and it's actually a bad place to do that because everyone on the board is likely to be playing somewhere themselves and can't come to other people's shows.
When you get lots more musicians into the marketplace, they are going to all be sending on emails/messages to everyone telling them about their latest music, etc. It gets very crowded and there are fewer fans, on average, per musician.
The amount of music consumed won't go down, but the number of people making it will go up and the average audience per music creator will get smaller. Even among hardcore music listeners, they are saying they download far more music than they ever listen to.
@Suzanne,
I've been thinking about the "point-and-click" automatic song generators for the iPad/iPod/PC.
They only create music, not lyrics. That severely limits what kind and depth of emotion they can generate in a listener.
So the deeper human feelings, about love, life, ideas...will be missing.
And to any argument that computers will soon be add those quality ideas and lyrics to songs, I would disagree. Computers are nowhere near being able to think and relate as humans do.
THAT has been predicted since 1983 or so as coming "in the next 5 years". Always in the next five years. :)
I actually have an advanced computer science degree specializing in that area. And I don't believe that's gonna happen anytime soon.
Glenn
Actually, there are poetry and lyrics generators. I collected a few here.
Music Creation for the Untalented, the Untrained, the Lazy, and Those with Some Time to Kill
In some cases they are a joke. In other cases, particularly the poetry and story idea generators, they are sometimes used to help spur your creativity. What is likely to happen in the future is that you might plug in some themes and words and the generator will turn something out. Then you can tweak it. It will be a bit like Photoshop where you may have the basics and then you have computerized tools to help you improve it.
If you're not familiar with Xtranormal check it out. People are creating some really clever animations with no technical skill needed.
Suzanne,
Yes, I think technology will continues to absorb the "mechanics" of making music and art.
But the human will be needed to create the ultimate concept being put across.
And some humans will just be better at that than others: no doubt the ones that are willing to practice 10,000 hours, and who have a passion for it.
When computers can generate ideas that humans can relate to, they will also be writing forum and opinion posts that no one will be able to detect as coming from a machine!
I will check out xtranormal. Sounds interesting.
Glenn, I'm a big fan of singer/songwriter stuff, jazz, Great American Songbook stuff (i.e., Berlin, Gershwin, Porter), plus the best of the 1960s pop/rock/folk, so my personal tastes are exactly what you are talking about.
But looking at trends, I see us headed toward more smart-machine generated music. I hope classic music doesn't go away, but I'm just sharing a heads up that the music industry may be in more changes the way that low cost recording tools and distribution tools have changed the industry. Who would have imagined not too long ago that so many people would be doing home recording and then releasing the results commercially themselves? There have always been a few who have done it themselves, but now we have many more.
While I think some people are more talented than others, a lot of what I hear today could be done pretty easily with someone pushing a few buttons, particularly for music that doesn't have lyrics. And even then, often it doesn't involve much more than looping a few verses.
"Lookit me, ma! I'm a rekkid padoosah!" *click* *click*
*sigh*
American profit Über alles culture. The museum of not getting it.
Not one argument in FAVOUR of blithely deconstructing an entire industry that has brought about the iconic aspects of American culture, music and film has offered anything but a lot of linguistically overwrought, ideologically gymnastic, spologist, "hey, we gutted that fish, get over it" malarkey. Whatever it is you're in favour OF that requires that people steal what they should be paying FOR, I have little hope for the result you envision serving either art or commerce in any worthwhile manner.
This is an excellent article which supports what has been true since the beginning of time and always true in business-survival of the fittest. The music business is a business- which like all others needs to adapt to the times. When your model stops working you don't tell your customers why they should keep buying, you change your model so that they WANT to buy. Those who don't subscribe to this notion will feel the fate of the slowest gazelle and the buggy whip. Great job.
FW
Although I don't disagree with all of the points made in this post, and I find it has some great thoughts in it, it is too one-sided. The article clips arguments from the opponent's (Sheldrick) essay and argues against it. Which is fine. The article expresses an opinion, but this is just one side of the argument. And I find the issues that SHELDRICK brought up to be valid on an emotional level, but largely irrelevant to the topic.
And to clarify, I agree with Bylin that we need to move away from emotional observations, but we also need to move away from observations seen from entitlement and defensive postures. Closed minds lack a true unbiased understanding. This goes for BOTH sides of the argument. I urge everyone who read this to research BOTH sides of the argument deeply, with an HONESTLY open mind. Sheldrick's article, while interesting, does not count.
This is one of the problems I see in our culture today. Everyone reads and listens not with the intent to truly understand, but with the intent to reply. There is a big difference. This article, I will say, is not totally devoid of seeking a true understanding of both sides., and it seems to come from a genuine place. However, I find that it largely fails to present an unbiased manner.
A few sentences describing one person's (ONE sound engineer) views on the matter followed by endless paragraphs that expound YOUR side of the argument and your neighbors on the same side is hardly a balanced presentation on all of the facts and issues. There is a whole lot more to this than the article discusses. Granted many, many intelligent remarks about the state of music and our culture as whole were made, but in dealing with this specific issue it was largely biased with examples from those who are on your side of the fence.
Oh and another thought. It is up to artists to secure their own income. You can't sit back and hope your music sells at a time when there is no law in the land of the internet. You MUST get creative with your core product as well as your peripheral products. An online store with 2 t-shirts and a CD is total lackluster crap. No effort whatsoever. Yes, creating good music is a difficult, time draining task, but you cannot neglect diversifying your range of products. People do want to buy things, but you have to give them options that they can get excited about past your actual music.
Also, don't kid yourself, Justin. In the end, if artists cannot make a living from their art, they WILL stop creating great art. They may still create, but it will be a hobby -- not a full time job. Look at any country where artists cannot make money from their art, or are not allowed to create the art of their choosing. How much amazing music has come out of those countries? How many great artists out of the Soviet Union or Cuba? I still have yet to hear of a significant amount of great, envelope pushing music coming out either of those countries. How about from France's bureaucratized music industry nowadays?
It is pretty difficult to think of a day when artists will stop creating music from where we are sitting, as new music is everywhere. But if an artist cannot make some kind of full time living from their art (I'm not talking millions), then they will not be able to devote the time to it, and in turn will either stop creating or create crap.
This is an interesting debate, and to be honest, I think you hit the nail on the head with your first few paragraphs, albeit you may have not elaborated on the fundamental issues at play.
The fact of the matter is that younger, more tech-savvy users (myself, included) simply want things served to them differently, in ways that many music executives, and even artists, can never fathom.
It's easy to do market research and attempt to understand your target market, but at the end of the day, the paradigm has shifted so drastically (this is true in almost any industry that interfaces with the internet) that unless you grew up in the all-digital era (I first had AOL access at my house in 5th grade! I was 9!) you just won't be able to think through it in the same logical fashion as someone who has. It has irreparably changed our relationship with every type of content we consume.
Granted, nearly everyone has embraced the internet at this point, but for 40-50 year olds, and even many 30-somethings, the concept and the totality of the internet is still lost.
It comes back a lot to marketing. The idea of MARKETING has undergone a serious transformation over the last 5-10 years. Not too long ago, marketing was seen as the method in which to advertise your product. That's still true to some extent, but the method of doing so (advertising campaigns, print ads, television commercials) is dying (in my opinion). It's moving on, and it's in large part due to the internet and the ability for people to subconsciously block out advertisements at every turn. The messages are simply lost.
The same goes for music. It's now a battle of differentiation. Of straying from the "just advertise your album" era and into the new era that's built on connections.
Surely, if you're a top-40 artist on a major label getting massive radio play, there is an installed base of fans that will buy a couple hundred thousand copies of your album. The real question, though, is how do you succeed if you AREN'T?
It was put pretty eloquently on Twitter by one of my favorite MCs recently -- Phonte, of Little Brother, if I'm not mistaken (but then again, it may have been ?uestlove of the Roots) -- being a successful (independent) artist these days is about creating value for YOU as a PERSON and an ARTIST, not just for your music.
Going back to your original post, you skirted around the idea -- that there's too much damn music made every day for consumers to possibly pick which album to buy -- but, I don't think you dealt directly enough with the reason WHY file sharing is so easily justified.
The answer is because people don't feel a connection to the artists from whom they're stealing.
In this age, the digital, connection-based age, it's more about creating value for yourself, as a person, than it is about creating value in your music. Your music is replaceable, duplicatable, downloadable -- you, as a person, are not.
So, with that, I leave you with an anecdotal example of how to be successful with in music: If your friend is the guitar player in a great local band, and you've seen all of his shows. You've been friends for a few years and know each other well. You hang out regularly, you get the perceived "status boost" of being able to chat with him before/after shows (sort of like you're in the band -- kind of). Now, if this friend and his band finish their first CD and they're selling them at a show you attend, he'll almost certainly offer you one for free (you're friends after all). Would you take it for free as quickly as you would, say, download the latest RHCP album from a torrent site? Or would you rebut his offer, pull out your wallet, and pay him for the disc?
Chances are you'd do the second, and the reason is because you have a CONNECTION to HIM, as an ARTIST and as a PERSON. You've heard the songs 10000 times at their shows -- you're not buying that album to listen to it in your car. You're buying it because of that connection and your need to solidify that connection.
P.S. Although it doesn't deal with music specifically, the fundamental message of the book ZAG applies directly to how I perceive the issues that have arisen in the digital music era. It's a definite must-read for marketers (and self-marketers like independent artists).
Tim,
I WANT to believe.
But when I look at what the majority of listeners called "awesome" today, I figure computer apps will be able to churn out gobs of music just like what's on the radio and their iPods...and they will think it's just...well, AWESOME.
Hope lies in the audiences demanding musical statements that are "deeper" and more involved. Something more "sophisticated", if you will.
--- Glenn
@ Glenn - nothing is churned out, no more than an Archies tune was churned out in 1969. Pop music is crafted and created, mixed and remixed, knocked off and captured. And whoever (or whatever) makes this stuff needs some kind of inspiration or it won't work.
As an aside, would there be anything wrong in a computer being able to make music that lots of people enjoy? Does that fall into the test tube baby category of human experience?
@Tyler - that's a great point about the generational difference in interweb perception and I absolutely agree. But.
Does that mean teenagers and 20 somethings are less susceptible to advertising? Here's a list: any Disney film/Justin Beiber/Macdonalds/Starbucks/Lady Ga Ga/any summer action film/any rom-com film/any major computer game/sneakers/your favourite breakfast cereal/your favourite confectionary/rap culture/baseball/America/the UK Royal family/American Apparel
When the cool tastes of the small group of elite teens and 20s manifest beyond the tastes of the general public, when they're not just being used to sell more stuff and the positives of youthful open minds, brave intelligence and goofy humour (to name a few cliches) start to have a major impact on all of us, then you could say a small revolution is happening, as it did in some places during the 60s (apparently - I was too busy playing with my Mattel toys to notice). It's not happening now.
But I take your point about your mate's CD - I've seen that in action. It's cute. It's going to kill off the music industry as we know it, eventually. Technology will stand still. Videos will gradually look cheaper and cheaper. Pop stars will be unknown outside their local area. Young people will get together and sing along to old game themes, or play winsome songs on the ukulele whilst comparing beard lengths and friendship bracelets.
Ugh. Glad I'm old.
@Tyler Hakes
Thought-provoking post, thanks.
"In this age, the digital, connection-based age, it's more about creating value for yourself, as a person, than it is about creating value in your music. Your music is replaceable, duplicatable, downloadable -- you, as a person, are not."
hmm...beyond iyour example of immediate friends (obvuiosly a limited number), do you think connections can be developed with fans in their teens and 20s to the extent they will PAY for music? (While I agree with Randall that a diversified offering of "perpheral products" is vital, it sure woiuld be nice for artists to not JUST be in the merch business - though that may be virtually the case for most)
If so, how?
@ Glenn Galen
"Hope lies in the audiences demanding musical statements that are "deeper" and more involved. Something more "sophisticated", if you will."
Well, it worked in the 60s, as Tim points out, but not much evidence of a shift among younger listeners now...but maybe the pendulum will swing so far to the dumbing-down side (tho doesn't seem could get much worse, at least in commercial hip hop), that kids will wake up. Guess hope is the right word!
@Tim
Fair point, and I think I failed to specify my market. Almost all of the examples of advertising-driven campaigns are directed at one VERY specific group: Young children. Granted, some of those have many cross-over appeals, but by and large they're crafted by targeting young, impressionable children, adolescents and teenagers.
Secondly, a lot of those examples are also driven by other massive word-of-mouth promotion, rather than simply advertising. (Avatar was heavily advertised, but it was made the big deal it was because so many blogs/websites MADE it a big deal after Comic Con).
I honestly didn't follow your logic too well in the second paragraph, I'd like it if you ran that by me again. I'm interested to see your comparison/contrast with the 60's generation. Something I'm quite removed from, but fascinated by nonetheless.
@Dg
Absolutely. It's made to happen. The key lies in the very thing that's created the problems for music in first place: the Internet. While it's created proprietary problems, it's also created connection MAGIC. The internet (via Twitter, Blogs, Facebook, etc, etc, etc) is the missing link between fans and artists.
Again it's about a new set of benefits and desires of fans. People are beginning to EXPECT artists to be transparent, approachable and interactive. So, when big artists snub opportunities to connect with their fans via the internet, their music is much more likely to be stolen en-masse. On the other hand, artists whom embrace technology and use it as a way to establish a relationship with their fans, are generally rewarded handsomely.
Remember when music magazines were the most popular about 10 years ago? A lot of that has to do with (in my opinion) the fact that people only had 1 way to connect with artists. Now, there are so many outlets that music magazines are largely on the decline. Interviews are much less interesting than an actual blog written by your favorite artist.
Some examples of successful artists connecting with fans:
Radiohead - Their free In Rainbows album was marketed brutally honestly via the internet. And, even with a sketchy marketing plan and some hiccups along the way, they received a TON of support for an album that was being given away for free. But, they reached out to their fans, were honest with the scenario (record labels suck) and scored big time.
Erykah Badu - An exceptional case study. Her latest video (the one where she walked down the street, stripping naked on the street JFK was assassinated on -- for real, she did that) scored her MAJOR press. The campaign was spring-boarded off of a massive publicity stunt, but how did she REALLY capitalize on all of that? She took to Twitter and Facebook to connect with the fans who were sending her question after question. (No joke, Badu gained almost 100k followers in 1 week).
Questlove (The Roots) - Granted, for a major-label hip hop group, The Roots have experienced meager success in terms of sales. But, their latest album moved 30k copies in the first week -- which, is pretty damn good for a group that most hip-hop/commercial rap fans will probably call "boring". After all, for a conscious hip hop group to be pushing that kind of volume at all is huge (especially when you consider Def Jam has notoriously under-promoted the group's releases). This is driven by two key factors: Questlove has like 2 million followers on twitter. He tweets, all the damn time -- about everything. Of course, getting a spot as the house band on the late night show doesn't hurt, but they don't get a ton of promo (not to mention that's a poor demographic for their music). So, in my opinion, their success is driven almost entirely by Questo's accessibility via the internet, it's certainly one of the albums I lined up for on a Tuesday this year.
Just a couple examples, but the message is: You CAN and SHOULD connect with fans on an intimate level to be successful in today's music market.
@Tim,
You said: "Nothing is churned out".
Maybe it hasn't been churned out in the past. But today the audience is extremely happy with "loops" of specific riffs being combined according to established patterns. These "patterns" sell pretty well, and the audience calls them "awesome!"
There IS a craft of putting together a pop or hip hop song in this day and age, and computers can do it.
The entire hisotry of software is to take things that were done by people, analyze the task, and program a computer to repeat those actions.
Already in digital audio workstation software there are "track templates" that take the proven settings of equalization, reverb, effects, and stereo imaging used by talented producers. One click, and I can get "the sound".
If all the audience wants is "the sound", then you have just duplicated a hit. With software.
My point was that if audiences are reacting to simplistic patterns like this, then YES computers will be generating this stuff.
If the audience starts to want creative NEW sounds and harmony and melodies that take a human a few years of practice to master, then we'll still need humans to create it.
--- Glenn
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I really dont think is is causing any problems downloading music and streaming online. The artists are still driving around in flash cars and still live in massive houses so they must still be doing okay.
If file sharing and illegal downloading of music starts to hace an effect on the artists that much then they will stop making the music because they will be broke and have no money. Simple!!