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The Digger or the DRM

If Steve Jobs isn’t the musicians’ saviour, could it actually be Rupert Murdoch?

[Music]

The music industry is undergoing a significant shift as a result of Internet technologies. Not merely significant in the way that the development of the compact disc was significant. This is a much bigger and far more fundamental shift—closer to the shift that happened in the music industry when printed sheet music started to be replaced by recordings.

As a result, not only is there a great deal of potential confusion as to the best way in which to package, promote, distribute and sell one’s own creative output, it’s also a hugely important, lifestyle-affecting decision to make as a creative business. There are so many ways for people to buy music online—who do you trust?

Well, of course, there’s always Apple and its iTunes music store. After all, Apple is by far the biggest retailer of music online and has a very good brand name. That said, this is a company that is seeking to control the use of the word ‘podcasting’, which, aside from not even being an Apple brand, has surely entered the vernacular by now. It’s a company that insists on the implementation of its digital rights management (DRM) platform—called ‘Fairplay’!—to all the music files it sells, preventing them being played on any portable device other than Apple’s own iPod. Pick at the veneer surrounding entrepreneurial IT whizzkid-made-good Steve Jobs, and he starts to look like your common or garden-variety corporate monster.

So what about MySpace? It has recently gone from allowing subscribers to listen to music, to facilitating the purchase of that music on its massively-interconnected social network. Not only that, but enthusiastic fans will also be able to sell your music on your behalf without even taking a cut. So who’s behind it? Er … Rupert Murdoch and the man who invented the practice of copyright theft via filesharing, Shawn Fanning.

“It’s no coincidence that MySpace has started its own record label. It’s an automated and failsafe A&R setup: upwardly trending bands with enough traffic can simply be assimilated into the Murdoch music Borg. But there are alternatives for the ambitious and savvy independent music entrepreneur.”

Fanning’s new business Snocap is essentially peer-to-peer filesharing reimagined by the major labels, with every social interaction an opportunity for corporate revenue-gathering. These are the people making the engine for the MySpace DIY record shop.

It’s no coincidence that MySpace has started its own record label. It’s an automated and failsafe A&R setup: any upwardly trending bands with significant enough traffic can simply be assimilated into the Murdoch music Borg.

But there are alternatives for the more ambitious and savvy independent music entrepreneur. eMusic.com deals exclusively with independent labels, from the smallest to the very biggest. It is, supposedly, the second biggest online music retailer after iTunes, and there’s no digital rights management so users can do with your music as they wish (just as they can with CDs, records and tapes).

Local online music pioneer Amplifier is certainly worth a look. Not only is the site well thought-out and ‘feature-rich’, Amplifier also has a very good handle on customer relations and direct marketing. Its regular emails to signed-up members generate significant traffic and store browsing.

Putting your own music on your own website allows you to control your own message and manage your own brand.  There are companies that will cost-effectively build you a download store with built-in e-commerce functionality. Emusu.com is certainly worth a look, as is the DIY solution Easybe.com.

Of course, there are many other alternatives spanning the range from massive megastore to the online equivalent of a lemonade stand at the bottom of your driveway.

There are straight retail outlets, local and international. There are subscription services. There are aggregation services that will put your music into any and all of them—although record labels will know that the fragile link in the music industry chain is the distributor. They’re usually the first to run into problems when the market gets volatile—and in case I hadn’t made this clear: Music Industry Undergoing Profound Change.

Only two things are really certain: there is no solid ground ahead, and you’ve got to start walking because what you’re standing on now is crumbling fast. Tread carefully.

Andrew Dubber is a researcher, lecturer and consultant in online music, radio, new technology and media. Originally from Auckland, he is now based at UCE Birmingham, UK

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