Music Industry should embrace the internet….obviously
I have just read this article on news.com.au, which is titled Music Industry encouraged to embrace the internet.
Well, of COURSE we should. And we have. (On a side note, the article is about Midem, but never mentions it by name, instead referring to it as an “annual industry conference in France.”)
I believe the point that the article is getting at and the Midem discussion was getting at is the bigger companies and labels really need to stop trying to recreate the old models of the music industry and start focusing their efforts and money on researching new ways of monetising their content and artists, as well as generating new streams of revenue, rather than simply relying on CD Sales and blaming Piracy for their woes.
In 2008, some 95 per cent of the music downloaded from the internet, or more than 40 billion files, was illegal, leaving the overall music market down around 7 per cent on 2007, the industry claims.
With figures such as this, it really does bear thinking about which artists exactly are being illegally downloaded. My guess is the overwhelming majority are with the “Big 4″ Record labels. These really are the people who need to be looking to diversify, utilising their digital arms and making sure they are promoting these sales outlets as well as their CD sales. Luckily, they agreed to stop DRM (Digital Rights Management) on their tracks on iTunes, which was a major deterrent for consumers without iPods in the past. They should also consider putting their tracks on more outlets.
The article goes on to talk about all of the music websites and avenues that were being shut down due to companies and labels suing them and shutting them down, with the head of MP3Tunes stating that everytime one of these sites gets shut down, a door of opportunity is closed to forward the industry to the next evolution.
We at Musicadium believe that we are helping artists embrace using the internet to drive their promotion and sales. Read our e-book if you want any pointers on how to best use it to your advantage.
In another story I found on my internet travels, another one of HypeBot’s Daily D.I.Y. articles brings up a topic about “The Straddle.“ It talks about the artists best straddling the fence of online and offline promotions and relationships with their fans. One would hope that an artist would be using their online relationships to leverage offline relationships to create fans who genuinely want to go to the band’s shows and feel like they “own” the band.
