Online music: what did Napster really change?
On Wednesday of this week I took part in a televised discussion on Spanish state broadcaster RTVE about the development of online music since the launch of Napster in 1999. My contribution can be seen on the program’s website, (in Spanish) from minute 1:32:36.
I would say that online music is in a much better place now than it was a decade ago, although that isn’t saying much. Ten years ago the music industry was still trying to pressure governments to introduce stricter laws to prevent people from downloading unlicensed content, and to punish those who did, while refusing to come up with any alternatives to their long outdated distribution model.
Nowadays, thanks to streaming, there are more channels available to access music online. As a result fewer and fewer of us feel the need to actually own the music we listen to and have adopted an attitude along the lines of “if you make it easy enough for me and I might be prepared to pay for it.”
In short, fewer and fewer people are now using P2P sites to download music, and instead use mobile devices and their home computers to access some kind of service such as YouTube, Spotify, Tidal, Playster, or Apple Music, all of which offer music either free, with advertising, or a range of pay services.
The question now is whether the industry has stopped trying to deny reality and has come to terms with it.
Questions such as what kind of service we want, the ability to personalize those services, as well as better and faster internet connections have all contributed to a new reality that isn’t about to change. In the future, the music we will listen to will be stored on the cloud.
Does this mean that in my opinion, no problems remain? Of course not. I still think the share out on the margins of the value chain are absurd; that we live in an age when the record companies have managed to unfairly consolidate their position; that their margins are vastly inflated and have nothing to do with what they bring to the party.
And of course, the musicians themselves are still not properly compensated. This is largely the fault of the record companies themselves, who continue to control the two main distribution channels — radio and television — but isn’t likely to change any time soon. If your are not signed up to a major label then you can pretty much forget about getting your music heard on the radio or television, which means nobody knows you’re out there.
And even when an artist or group does break through, for example on YouTube, the record companies move in and take over.
The logical thing here would be for new companies to emerge able to manage artists sell their product without taking a huge share of the profits. The only way a record company should be keeping so much of the money is if it is literally the brains behind the operation, having created, produced, promoted, and distributed the music. But when musicians try to find other ways to get their music heard, they find that the record companies have blocked access to the main distribution channels, meaning they either have to make major concessions or try to find another way. There are virtually no cases of artists who have made successful careers without having to deal with a record company, which in this day and age is little short of criminal.
In short, the problem here is who gets what. Using their back catalogues as leverage, the record companies have managed to negotiate deals with Spotify and Apple Music that allow them to hold onto the inflated margins at the heart of their business models, while throwing a few crumbs to the people who actually make the music. So when musicians complain that they make no money out of having their music on Spotify, they should be blaming their record company, which is part of a mafia that refuses to relinquish its control over the marketplace.
If a new player enters the market with the intention of changing this share out, they will find themselves denied access to the back catalogue. If a musician or group doesn’t want to play ball, then they won’t get heard on television or radio. And music fans are faced with the choice of free music with advertising or pay to listen; or try downloading music from P2P sites that are falling into disuse as broadband makes them a less practical option.
So, we seem to have little choice but to accept that there is going to be more and more music, and that we’ll be listening to it via more and more streaming channels using a range of formats, and that musicians will continue to struggle to make any money from their music.
Does this mean that after years of instability, calm has returned to the music scene? Of a sort: a kind of stand off has been achieved between the three parties involved: fans have access to more and cheaper music; musicians and composers are pretty much where they were before (still under the heel of the record companies), while the record companies, now down to three majors and some independents, have not only held onto their share of the pie, but in some cases increased it. The promise of internet that would bring musicians and fans closer together without having to involve the record labels, allowing for a fairer share out remains a dream. After the dust has settled, we can see that what could have been a transformation has simply produced more of the same.
(En español, aquí)
