I have always loved the magical moment that follows the purchase of a new CD. Last week, I bought -M- (Mathieu Chedid, an excellent french singer)’s last album, Mister Mystère. The first thing I did when I got home was of course to insert my precious (as Gollum would say…) CD in my stereo. This is a moment that less and less people take time to appreciate. I wonder, will my children ever feel what I feel when I listen to a new CD? How will the next generations listen to music? In this article, the main question is:
What is the future of pre-recorded music?
The music industry has been changed these last years due to the impact of internet digital technologies. Today, who doesn’t own an MP3 player? I sure do! Who has never been tempted by downloading free music? I sure have! But that doesn’t make me a thief. I wouldn’t consume music this way if I couldn’t. In other words, why should I refrain myself from taking something that is made available to everyone?
As I type down these words, I realize that such a statement is questionable. If I were a musician, I honestly don’t think that I would fully appreciate seeing people stealing away, without my consent, what is my property.
No wonder why this debate faces such a mediatic craze!
For the moment, let’s lay down the main issues concerning the impact of internet on music and musicians.
Today the music industry is strongly struggling against new forms of consumption such as illegal music downloading. Our society is dictated by the cult of immediacy: thanks to the internet, everything is available right away and everyone at any time is free to copy, publish, or seize a file. The main protesters believe that the internet is killing our culture and by doing so, is jeopardizing intellectual property. Recently, many questions have been raised: when so many new technologies make music files available (burning CDs with downloaded music on your computer for example), who is the one to blame? The one who illegally downloads or the one who allows people to do so? When it comes to sharing intellectual property, is it considered as theft or not?
One of my leitmotivs is “move with the times”. I believe that one must adapt oneself to a society accordingly to the way it evolves. This applies to new technologies: instead of punishing the ones who illegally download music, it is the system itself that needs to be changed. Lately in France, there has been a controversy surrounding the “Hadopi” issue. Frederic Mitterrand, the Culture Minister, recently said: “The artists will remember that we have had the courage to put an end to the Laissez-Faire and to protect their rights against those who make of the internet the grounds for their libertarian utopia”. Which artists is he referring to? Let’s take for example the hardrock band Metallica.
In April 2000, the band sued the Peer to Peer network Napster that allowed the free sharing of MP3 files. "It is sickening to know that our art is being traded like a commodity rather than the art that it is," said drummer Lars Ulrich. Approximately ten years later, things have changed. Indeed, the heavy metal band has decided to end the war against illegal downloading. They have realized that the internet can be a very useful tool for the promotion of an album. Five months before the release date of their new CD Death Magnetic (on September 12th 2009), a vast marketing campaign was set up. Its intention was to arouse the fans’ curiosity by posting exclusive videos or tracks of the album in making.
By doing so, Metallica was sure to increase the CD’s purchasing chances in September. On the website, they also sold a special voucher allowing its buyers to download the album at midnight the day before the official release date.
The internet can therefore offer a concrete publicity to a CD. To me, this is the real future of pre-recorded music: an alliance with internet in order to counter the actual difficult economic situation. As I have said earlier, one must move with the times. This is to me an example of how to use the internet in a beneficial way.
The internet gives musicians the opportunity to diversify the media coverage of their music and therefore assure the selling of their CDs. Of course, this possibility is mainly addressed to popular bands and singers, but rising musicians have never used the internet as much as they do today. Myspace, YouTube, links on social networks… Many options are chosen for the promotion of one’s music. A real network of artists is born and, beyond the publicity that it can bring to them, it is a real sense of solidarity that now links artists to each other.
Because, after all, isn’t the internet all about linking, weaving, bringing people to one another?
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