To Pirate or Purchase: Making Legal Music Appealing
The record industry is dying, according to…well, pretty much everyone.
The music industry, however, is most definitely not. If anything, the easy availability of music to the consumer has opened up the industry which was previously so dominated by the large (viewed by most as evil and tasteless) record companies who were filling the market with formulaic pop. Now, we as consumers have choices and our particular breed of music, whatever that may be, is much easier to access.
But yes- quite often this is accessed by illegal downloading.
While the record companies responded to this threat by suing everyone who dares to download- from high school students to families- research has shown that even with the threat of prosecution, the general public still don’t view music downloading as being ethically wrong. Aren’t we all such little rebels?
The industry is only now starting to come around to the fact online downloading is not going to disappear and are looking into new and inventive ways of capturing a audience and their cash. But how exactly do you go about getting people to willingly pay for something they can often get for free?
There have been many academic research papers looking into viable ways to encourage consumers to pay for their music. I have come up with 4 factors that determine a consumer’s willingness to pay for music legally. Take a gander at my lovely diagram below.
The first point I’d like to make is that the appeal of extra benefits offered with a legal purchase will increase a consumer’s willingness to pay. If bands offer a free extra, say, a free T-shirt with legal purchase of their CD, or legal download, this will increase the appeal of the legal purchase against the free option of an illegal download.
Take, for example, Radiohead’s offer of a limited edition “discbox” including a second disc from the recording sessions, vinyl and CD editions of the album and a hardcover book of artwork when consumers chose to pay over a certain amount to legally download “In Rainbows”. When I purchased tickets to see Daft Punk at the Riverstage in Brisbane, my tickets arrived with a lovely CD. More recently, if you pre-ordered Paul Dempsey’s album “Everything Is True” from iTunes you received an exclusive video of personal footage of Paul finishing the album. To put it simply, people love free stuff and are more willing to pay if they think they’re getting a bargain.
Point no. 2 on the pretty diagram: The higher the consumer considers themselves to be involved in music, the higher their willingness to purchase music products legally would be. This means if, for instance, you’re a musician, you have an understanding of the position of an artist and would not want to be depriving another of their livelihood. Nor do you want poor sound quality downloads if you are a massive fan of a band. Most music fans buy the music of their favourites as well as tickets and associated merchandise because the music forms part of their identity. Your identity is not something to take lightly, or cheaply.
- I kinda like my music….
The third, and perhaps most obvious point, is a consumer’s expendable income. If a music lover does not have a bank balance as great as their appetite for music, they are naturally going to lean towards the option of feeding this hunger for free and using their real money to buy 2-minute noodles. Research has shown that those on lower incomes are more likely to pirate rather than purchase to sample new music, but are more likely to purchase favourite songs legally, linking back to my previous point of a persons involvement with music.
Satisfaction with a sampled product is when a consumer trials an unknown artist/song by downloading it for free- be it legally or illegally. Depending on the level of satisfaction with the free, sampled music, this person will be more willing to pay for a related music product legally.
For instance, if you had a band recommended to you by a friend and then went and acquired the music by pirating an album. Through consuming and enjoying the music, you became a fan of the band, and you’d be more likely to pay to see them play if they came to your town and possibly buy their album at the show. If you had not sampled this music, you probably would not have paid for their album in the first place based purely on your friend’s recommendation.
One thing is for sure, there’s no going back. The industry must continue to move forward and embrace new business models, new ways of thinking, new ideas. It is by no means the end, but the beginning of a new kind of music industry where the consumer can help shape the change.
By Julia ‘Ju-ju Bean’ Bridger
October 2nd, 2009 at 11:50 am
Great blog! I just think you are missing one small outside factor - ’some people will never pay for music regardless of the above reasons’. When you can listen to it free (in practical terms for the consumer) on the radio it is difficult for some people to understand why they should have to pay to listen to it in other formats. Especially when you consider it is now completely legal to tape television programs off the tv (and with new technology) without having to even watch it at the time. I think you are correct in saying that the music industry do need to modify their current business model however, (to ensure they are able to capture the market of people who wish to legally download music online, that previously didn’t have the ability to do so ‘legally’) and I think this will significantly help them in combating piracy.
On a more global note however, millions of kids and teenagers see nothing ‘morally’ wrong with downloading music (or movies) off the internet (without the copyright owner’s consent), and yet they are also aware that this is ‘legally’ wrong. In my oppinion this could be extremely harmful to society as a whole - laws gain their importance in a society’s mind by being closely associated with the moral fibre of a society. So when you have a dischord in morals and legal obligations, it can i believe, result in a lack of respect (and in turn obedience) to the legal system as a whole.
Sorry if this dribbles on a bit, but there is a very interesting article on it somewhere, which i will link to if i can find it. Nice blog, Josh!
October 2nd, 2009 at 12:27 pm
Hiya Josh!
I agree with you in that some people will never pay for music regardless of the reasons I outlined. I’ve read a few articles outlining how the ease of access to consume music for free combined with the intangibility of it as a product, means that many people don’t see any real value in music and hence won’t pay for it. Ever. These people are usually ones that wouldn’t have bought records, tapes or CDs, let alone pay for online downloading. They are the lost causes.
I also agree with the legal-moral dischord regarding piracy. The guilt trip of the “You wouldn’t steal a CAR…” campaigns we have in Australia, and the prosecution of random downloaders in the US are both proving to be rather ineffective, creating more of a “stick-it-to-the-man” mentality especially among young people. Mind you, Jay-walking is illegal and I’m a serial offender… but I’m not about to go and rob a bank. I do see your point though.
Cheers for the comment! I’m interested to hear more thoughts on this!
- Julia
October 2nd, 2009 at 12:54 pm
To me, something that labels and bands need to focus on is making it easier to pay for music! I often spend exponentially more time and effort to get music legitimately, than it would have otherwise taken for me to just grab it via bittorrent. As someone who bills their time by the minute; if I have to spend 10 minutes fiddling with a band site, signing up for an account somewhere, confirming my account sign up etc etc. your $10 album download has now cost me $25.
It’s really important for bands to be able to get the details of the people who are buying their stuff, but the process should be as smooth as possible. Having your music available in more services than Just iTunes is a great start (yay Musicadium), but I don’t use any of those, I just want to buy some files and download them to my computer.
The best solution I’ve found for this is Bandcamp, who keep the time between “I want to buy this” and “Yay, I’m listening on my media player of choice” super fast.
Aside of that, I think the most important point you’ve made is “there’s no going back”. Despite all of the political stupidity, suing fans, trying to put trade sanctions on entire countries, and other stupidity the industry has been getting up to, there is absolutely no way to put the cat back into the bag. There are infinite cats, and thousands of people making faster, stronger, sneakier robot cat hybrids. It is utterly impossible for a handful of people to compete technically or socially with thousands of people who break encryption, build protocols, and share culture because they love it.
October 21st, 2009 at 8:56 pm
ill be playing your songs for almost everyday now.
November 7th, 2009 at 11:53 am
Great list! This is what I have been looking for since I switched to Firefox.
April 19th, 2010 at 2:25 am
Solar panels, in my eyes, are one of the best investments a home owner could make due to them lasting for many years and producing energy for as long as they last. The price of electricity will only go up so solar panels will only become a better investment.
June 8th, 2011 at 1:07 am
homemadesolarpanels…
I’ve not checked out your blog since summer and I am surprisedthatI can see so many something totally new. The content is great and the graphics and pictures just wonderful! I can not take my eyes from your blog Feel free to look at my site!…