Essay 3 - The future of Music

I think that the future of the music industry looks very bright. This is because musicians now have completely new opportunities and possibilities to spread their music. The availability of services like MySpace and Spotify has totally changed the climate and made it possible for anyone to distribute music and reach an audience, anywhere on the planet. The middlemen’s (record companies and brick & mortar music stores) power is being reduced and musicians are able to market themselves in whichever way they’d like. I think that this will develop a more diverse music industry where sub-genres are exploding and ways in which to find music will expand even more. I think that honest musicians will appreciate this climate and by this they gain a chance to tour the whole world without being a Megastar.

The people who don’t like this new climate are the ones who lose money on illegal downloading, mainly extremely rich artists and the record labels. I don’t think people who have grown up downloading music will be ever be willing to buy a full record with approx. 12 songs and call it an album, the traditional way that labels prefer to distribute and earn money on their artists. This will have to change and has also been changing by the existence of iTunes etc.

I am familiar with Spotify and have used it for quite a while, and I believe that streaming services like this is a winning concept that will expand even more as people have internet access everywhere and as it also becomes more common to always be online though the cell phone. Through these services new artists can also promote themselves and have global access to potential listeners. MySpace is also a forum where artists really are able to promote themselves in whichever way they like. Since MySpace have lost many users to Facebook over the last years, I think that MySpace have become even more music dominated. This might make this forum even more valuable to musicians.

These channels are something that record labels have not considered or were late to recognize and take advantage of. Now, laws like IPRED are being considered and I don’t think it is the right way to go, if record labels had introduced high-quality legal online services instead of putting effort into criminalizing illegal downloader’s they could have gone winning out of this battle. Now, these actors are not coming out trustworthy or good-natured in many young customers’ minds. Instead I think that owners (Record labels etc.) should take advantage of the possibilities of novel technology and create value for customers instead of threatening potential customers. This could be done by creating more services that add customer value, like the iTunes, and customers will run to the service. Record labels (and maybe also musicians) should be able to add some value through considering the customer value of the physical product (a record) and turn it into a digital value, maybe by adding special features or online libraries, concerts etc. I think that the music industry should stop acting defensive and instead invite the consumer to new possibilities and I think that Spotify have succeeded in adding customer value in a legal way.