History, Trends and Digital Changes in Media

Digital Music News have taken RIAA data and produced an interesting animated graphic of the changes in music purchases over the last 30 years. We strongly recommend that you view this as it shows how transient some technologies are and how it’s not just the technology that changes but how people buy and relate to media.

It would be great to be able to step forward and predict what will happen in the next twenty years but many of us would be struggling to see further than the next five years.

What is interesting is that the base content hasn’t radically changed, a song is a song and a recording is a recording and music made decades ago now lives comfortable alongside that made yesterday. In some cases the technology actually impeded the quality of the recording and forced the extremes to be toned down to fit.

The other interesting thing is that emerging music format technologies cannibalised their predecessors. 

Cassettes replaced vinyl, CD replaced cassettes, downloads replaced CDs and now streaming is replacing even downloads. We are moving to music on demand which is either paid for through other means, or is on subscription. This changes the question of ownership, collections, sharing and of course the reward earned by musicians, writers and producers. It also can change how we protect or identify usage rights and copyright ownership and some would suggest that the new technologies are more secure than all the belts and whistles of the early music DRM days.

If we produced a similar graphic for books, newsprint, film, tv they all would be different and we need to understand why and what similarities there are. Film and TV are probably the closest to music in the technology step changes, but differ in many other upstream ways. Interestingly the original formats of books and to a degree newsprint aren’t going away and it is easy to see books as the most resistant to technology.

However, all bar newsprint, show very similar patterns to the consumer trend from ‘buying to own’ to ‘subscribing to access’. Yes, the sectors are often moving at different speeds and even different directions but the trend is clear. DRM as we know it today is transient and past its sell by date and will become increasingly irrelevant in a streamed world where it happens albeit less obtrusively.

Therefore some would suggest that the challenge for book publishing is not the latest tablet, ereader, smartphone, app, enhanced ebook, but how we accommodate subscribing to access alongside the traditional buy to own, enabling both to flourish and appeal and importantly reward creators.

   

Comes With Music

The music business is being constantly redefined by access and free to play. It seems an age since we first wrote about the SprialFrog service in the Brave New World report and the service is now live in the US. Others have followed the model and the most significant of these is Nokia with its ‘comes with music’ service.

They have clearly separated the content from the format from the device. Their focus is to sell mobiles and maintain their share of this huge market. To do so they must offer services that others can’t but unlike the iPhone’s lock in to service carriers Nokia is agnostic and will play with them all.

Nokia, is the first mobile manufacturer to push heavily into content but others will follow. Last week they struck a deal with Sony BMG to offer their catalogue to that of Universal which they secured last December.

Importantly Nokia, have decided to differentiate themselves by allowing users to keep all the music they have downloaded during their contract.

Nokia sold 146 million music phones last year and if all of those had included the "Comes with Music" bundle, just an extra $20 per phone would make Nokia's service bigger than the total digital music market. The sales of their 5310 and the 5610 top music models alone, were more than 4 million during the first quarter of 2008.

Ironically, the record labels hope that Nokia and others start to challenge the dominance of Apple's iTunes but the question remains whether they are merely bouncing from one offer to another devoid of strategy or have a master plan to restore their ailing businesses.

Now we must start to rethink who is the natural service, platform and what business model will work for the digital content we call books.

For What's it Worth

Today we read about that Oasis’ forthcoming single, Lord Don’t Slow Me Down, is to be released as a DRM-free MP3. Yesterday many bought the Travis new single plus 11 tracks with their Sunday Mail.

Now we find that Radiohead have followed that famous ‘honesty box’ ploy used by some restaurants where you pay what you believe the meal is worth. Radiohead are offering their new album ‘In Rainbows’ via an honesty box download which will be available 8 weeks ahead of the physical equivalent. You simply pay what you think it’s worth.

So the music industry finds itself trying to herd cats again. Forget Nasper, Kazza and the pirate P2P days, the artists are now leading the revolt and the industry appears but be like rabbits caught in the headlights. Who would invest in EMI and Universal today?

Radiohead are now seriously questioning their own relationship with their fans and the industry model. If you go to their site and click on the question mark beside the price field for ‘In Rainbows’ and it says, “It’s up to you.” Guess how many will pay more than a few pence? Guess how many will pay the full recommended price? In the restaurant trade the public often paid a fair price and often respected the approach and the fact that they were face to face with the staff. However, in the depersonalized world of the internet, decency may not be applicable and its down to what Radiohead fans think of Radiohead. Its going to be interesting to watch and irrespective of the outcome I would not like to be an executive at EMI, but again I never have.