Everyone’s saying it. It’s something worth celebrating. This really means something to people – in these darkened times, like so many before, people look to music to provide uplift, empathy, indulgence, inspiration. So shout it from the rooftops folks! Oh wait, most of those people (ie. people with half a brain) know this already don’t they? Let’s be more specific shall we? Get on the internet, identify a record label, and shout it out to them – email, phone, hack their site, get on down to their HQ in person. Here’s what you’re going to shout: “Despite you it has been a good year in music!”

The music industry has spent the last year telling us that the conditions, where it’s now easier and cheaper to access more music, hear more artists, love their work, is bad for music overall. How are we supposed to believe that the readjustment going on in the music industry is bad for us, when evidence clearly suggests otherwise? What we are paying to fund when we spend a tenner on a CD, is a bloated industry, desperately in need of streamlining and modernisation. Why should we bear that cost?

I read a depressing interview with French avant-guard/metal indie Season of Mist (home to Dillinger Escape Plan, Mayhem, Cynic among others) in this month’s Terrorizer. Through the years they’ve been committed to bringing innovative sounds to the market, but boss Michael Berberian says he’s not signing any new acts because their business cannot sustain them, until something is done to redress the balance. He goes on to suggest that the situation “is killing the the artistic side”. Depressing? Depressing indeed that such a defeatist and narrow view exists in a label that sees itself as cutting edge. Killing the artistic side? Oh wait, so everyone will stop making music because it got less profitable to do so, oh please. How is this helping all the bands out there? How is it helping the music fans hear the best new and innovative music? Really clever business plan mate, cos all the best businesses got through tough times by saying “let’s just hunker down until it blows over – if we complain enough something will be done”. I’ve got news for you friend, it ain’t going to blow over, and you will have 20 redundant staff on your conscience when you go under because of your lackadaisical attitude. Fuck you.

There are signs of hope out there. Earache-signed old school thrashers Gama Bomb just released their new album for download free of charge. Also Earache’s excellent and timely repackaging of the Peel Grindcore sessions (Grind Madness at the BBC) shows some real business and commercial smarts. British Stoner crew Taint have released their latest offering exclusively to buy on vinly, but have included a code to redeem a free download of the album online (you may remember me recently championing this approach).

This is the sort of thinking that’s going to help labels with the balls to deserve the business that they run trade through the tough times. Quite why the majority of the music industry doesn’t think it operates in the same economic environment as the rest of the business world is beyond me. Wake up people, because the music is happening without you.

It’s been a great year for music because the bands and artists made it that way, despite the harbingers of doom in the music industry.

Bands, you don’t need the record industry bringing you down, sapping your income to pay for accountants, useless, arrogant A&R men, and their £100 a day coke habit. You’re better off than you have ever been before as it’s easier than ever before to do things your own way. The world is waiting for you, so go out there and grab it!

I was in the unenviable situation this past week of not having a copy of the new Baroness album. This sort of situation is not usually a big issue, but this particular time it left me in an existential quandary that lead me to yet more pondering on the nature of music retail.

You see, I want the physical copy. Specifically I want the CD. This CD would immediately be ripped directly to MP3 and unceremoniously injected onto my iPod. But having a physical copy is still important to me. I place a certain value in this, not least with a band like Baroness who have such delightful artwork.

So having not had the forethought to pre-order and finding the HMV cupboard predictably bare I was left either having to wait a couple of days for a copy from Amazon, listening to it on Myspace, downloading from iTunes or ‘borrowing’ a copy from one of those lovely fire-sharing sites. Now, I don’t want to pay twice, and I simply cannot wait. Myspace isn’t an option as I need it on my iPod so I can listen on the go. Spotify is potentially an option, but I’ll have to use my iPhone for that, and the battery only last 73 seconds, and I need that for the making/taking calls. So I’m left with the prospect of having to ‘borrow’ it for a few days while ordering off the web. What sort of a situation is this to find myself in in the digital age?

What would be really handy is if someone would sell the CD online and then give me the MP3’s to be getting on with while I wait. I don’t want to be charged extra for this, I’ve already paid for the music. However, decoupling the music from the physical product has some interesting theoretical consequences. Let’s deconstruct this situation a little.

Basically, what I want is the music. To accompany that music I would like a physical item. In this case it’s a CD, but it could be a record, tape, USB stick, a tuneful midget with the music memorised, whatever. In the modern age, there’s no real need to have anything actually contain the music for an individual. The vast majority of people don’t need CD’s any more than they need the bottle containing the beer, it just so happens to be one medium for transporting the stuff inside.

So the situation that we’re in is that people choose to ‘attach’ a CD to their music purchase. Or put another way, they buy a CD which comes (conveniently) with some music on it. But why are obsolete (in the practical sense) music containing objects the only choice of ‘thing’ that comes as an accompaniment to the music? Why not t-shirts, posters, books, shoes, branded luxury leather recliner etc.? The record companies have a vested interest in getting you to buy stuff from them, and especially walking-billboard/culture items like t-shirts. This way they incentivise people to buy from them (rather than ‘stealing’ the music) as well as getting that person in a purchase cycle with them – which is potentially the most valuable aspect here.

So why not offer MP3 + CD packages? (and thus solving my immediate need) But also offer MP3 + t-shirt packages, or with records or hats or hat stands or gig tickets or books or comics or all of the above in a single transaction. Why not sell t-shirts in shops with a memory stick with the music. Hell, give the actual CD away with the t-shirt, but without the cover or any fancy packaging.

People could just go to iTunes and buy the album, but why not just buy a t-shirt and get the album for ‘free’? Of course you could make more money by selling both, but don’t kid yourself on how many folks would bother buying a t-shirt once they’ve bought the music, and if you ask me, a t-shirt sale is more valuable than a music sale.

In the end I ‘borrowed’ the music and the bought the album on vinyl, which costs more than the CD that I would have otherwise bought. I’m struggling to see where Baroness lost out here….

Apparently there are trace elements of metal in bottled water...

Still the filesharing battles wages on, despite the fact that there is no war. Dom Lawson’s entertaining article on this subject apparently fell foul of Metal Hammer’s editorial scythe. We can only assume that they didn’t want to fall on the wrong side of this prickly debate. And who can blame them, why risk pissing off your superiors over a war that’s apparently being waged elsewhere?

I do wonder though, how many folks out there who are earnestly ‘trying’ before conveniently ‘forgetting’ to buy. Is this costing the music industry money? Maybe. However, that’s largely beside the point. The issue here is that music is no longer a commodity that can be contained and rationed. The commodities are the physical items that accompany the music – the CD, the cover, the box – these are tangible goods that should be exchanged for money.

It’s because music is freely available that this situation exists. I’m sorry to restate the obvious, but it’s worth thinking about this. Water is ‘freely’ available in the UK. We pay for that by way of taxes (rates). The only time you pay at the point of receipt of water is when you buy the bottled stuff, and then what you’re actually paying for is the container and the convenience (plus the mark-up of whatever establishment you purchase it from). The future model of music will resemble this, and take a look at Spotify to see this in action. The music industry already knows this and the majors all own a stake in Spotify. The problem with this is the margins are much lower with models like this, and until the majors can shuffle their operating models to account for this and pacify the investors, they’re going to carry on chasing rainbows with lawyers and politicians.

By the way, the words on this page are not a commodity either. By the time this piece makes it onto the blog it will have eaten at least an hour and a half of my time. This blog probably eats more of my time per month than your average unsigned band does of the band members’ time. Should you wish to take these and consume them in any way you see fit then please feel free to do so. If you want me to save them onto a CD and send them across to you I’ll charge you for the CDR, postage, packaging, and round that up for my efforts. If more people start to read this blog, maybe I’ll put some advertising on it and try and cover the cost of the server and maybe I’ll even get a bit extra. If you want to take any of my articles and make money out of them (god knows how you would do this) by posting them on your own, commercial, website, then you will have to pay me. If you do not I may take legal action. Will I try and charge you for simply reading this article/blog despite that is takes time, effort and money to run? Hell no! Readers are more important to me than profit, and without them I stand no chance of making any anyway. The printed media industries learned this years ago. These days, some newspapers are moving to models that they no longer charge even for the physical product, and make money from the extra advertising revenue gleaned from the larger distribution.

I don’t know why I’m telling this to you lot – you already know this. I also don’t know why I bitch about the fact that this debate is still happening, I actually quite enjoy it.

This is perhaps the best summary I’ve seen on the file sharing debate. As I stated previously, there really isn’t a debate at all, merely those who are adapting to the changing environment and those that aren’t. This is perfectly and amusingly encapsulated in this video – at the end of the day, it’s all about money. The way people view and consume music has changed folks, get over it already, PLEASE!

It’s still happening you know. Just as the majority of the world ignores the unfolding inevitability of global warming, the music industry continues bury it’s head in the sand with regards to the basic reality of file sharing. I’m going to keep it short, as I’m almost certainly shouting into the storm on this one (not to mention repeating what’s been said a hundred times before).

I’m not going to get into the morality or legality of file sharing or copyright ‘theft’. I neither indulge in nor facilitate illegal file sharing. The ethics of the issue are entirely beside the point. Here is the point:

To try to stop file sharing, or any other type of media sharing for that matter, is like trying to stop Niagara Falls using a sieve.

So here’s my open letter to the music industry. It’s mostly directed at the bigger players, but everyone has a part to play:

Dear Music Industry,

Your attempt to scare file sharers and ‘copyright thieves’ into submission with sporadic (and costly) guerilla legal terrorism is not working, and will never work. It’s an unsustainable strategy. The UK government’s plan to stop it at ISP level is not only too late, but it’s doomed to failure.

Understand this: the techies and hackers and media junkies that facilitate the technologies that enable the easy propagation of media are for the most part determined, distributed, sophisticated and well hidden. This is not like Vietnam for the music industry; it’s not even comparable to the war on terror – it’s a much harder war to win. Your enemy understands the terrain, the war, and the weapons infinitely better than you do. All you have is transparent politics and clumsy legality. Even if you do manage to shut down this cell or that, or contain a few types of technology, then more will quickly spring up in their place that are tougher and more elusive. You have not the skills, money or time to fight this and maintain a viable business. I make no effort to legitimise or glamorise what your enemy does, I’m just stating a simple reality.

Consider this: within the next decade it will be possible to contain all the songs ever recorded onto a single, portable device that can be purchased cheaply. This is not being developed to undermine your ability to do business – file sharing is the least important thing that such a device will do.

Now, I do realise that the legal onslaught from the music industry is largely a charade while you buy time to work out how they actually survive this conflict. Whether you, being the entities that currently occupy the music industry, survive or not matters little to the folks on the outside of it. This isn’t the death of the music industry. it’s also not a revolution or insurrection – nothing that dramatic. What we have here is an evolution, and if you want to survive this Darwinian episode then you’ll need to evolve – find new ways to monetize, commoditise, homogenise and abuse these technologies and trends – in other words, doing what you do best.

Please stop whining and just get on with it.

To those who are embracing the brave new world then true glory awaits you. Please let me know if there’s anything I can do to help.

Yours hopefully,

Alex

I’m aware that no-one in the music industry will read this, or agree, or care, but I feel better for having said it.