Whether a tree falls to the south or to the north, in the place where it falls, there will it lie

I’ve been thinking recently about music and its current state. The RIAA is out there suing everyone and their grandma because they claim to be losing money to all these rampant pirates that are stealing music and killing the music industry. They have their point of view, and while I’m sure there are many people out there that are stealing music with Peer to Peer (P2P) services like Limewire, Kazaa, etc., I got to thinking about some reasons why people have taken to stealing music in the first place.

Obviously, the first reason people steal, is that it’s free. Hard to argue that, so I’ll leave it alone.

Convenience and ease of use are probably some other reasons; Being able to use whatever music you have however you would like such as making a ringtone, in a home made movie, whatever.

Another thought that occurred to me for why people might steal music is the lack of choices available on the radio.
You might be thinking, what?

The Premise

I’ll try to explain it. Until recent years, most music available was probably discovered by the general public on the radio. Some DJ would get a song, play it, and people would either like it or not. If they liked it, people would call in and request it, if they didn’t, they wouldn’t. That’s a pretty basic explanation, but the general idea is there.

Well, as time has passed, radio stations were bought up by these bigger organizations like Clear Channel or whoever, and they started formatting music stations very similarly across different markets. Add some payola, and start limiting the music that is played, and very quickly you notice you start hearing the same 20-40 songs a day, a few times a day, every day. 

I listen to a particular morning radio show called Kidd Kraddick. On this particular show, during their music breaks within the last week alone, I can remember hearing the same songs almost at the same times everyday, a few times a day. It totally boggles my mind that this can happen.

So, my theory goes like this. The radio is no longer the place of discovery that it used to be. It is now an endless marketing machine for the top 40 or so popular songs from all genres, whether pop, rock, or country. The songs get played endlessly, but people latch onto new ones when introduced, because it’s different than what they’ve been hearing and that song becomes popular and the cycle continues.

Well, after a while, people will get tired of hearing the same thing over and over again. Instead of listening to the radio, they go out in search of new music. What’s the easiest way to discover new music for no fee outside of the radio? The most obvious answer is P2P services. While I’m sure some of the rookie users of these services will seek out the more popular music that’s played on the radio, once you have downloaded the same 40-50 songs you already hear for free, what then is the point? Eventually, you’ll seek out new music and new artists, because that’s why you turned off the radio in the first place; you were tired of hearing the same things over and over.

Current Situation

So, now that people have lost interest in listening to the radio and purchasing pop music, consumer spending on pop music has declined.

What I think has happened is that people are looking for new music, and P2P has been the best way for them to find it. Because P2P allows folks to download music that they have probably never heard before, it minimizes their risk of spending money on something that they may not like. With the radio, folks knew what a particular artist, or single sounded like, and were able to make a purchase decision without feeling like they were risking their money on the choice. Does that make sense?

Another thought then occurred to me had to do with subscription services. The RIAA has been pushing for companies like Apple to offer a type of subscription service for music despite the fact that many services that have tried to get off the ground have failed. They like this plan because you pay a monthly fee for the service (meaning there’s a steady flow of income) and music files contains DRM, which music labels love since it limits what you can and cannot do with the music. This makes it easier for them to charge you more money to say, make a ringtone out of a song (Ever wondered why you can download a song for $0.99, but somehow a lower quality 30 second ringtone can cost up to $2.50?). The great thing about subscription services for the RIAA is that because of their DRM schemes, once you stop paying for the service, you can no longer listen to any of the songs you may have downloaded. Sounds like a good deal, huh? Don’t buy a CD, just pay $12/month for 3 years, then in one month, when you stop paying, that $432 you just spent the previous 3 years is quite useless.

Solution

Here’s what clicked inside my little brain. Subscription services are an attempt to charge for a radio station, or at least what radio stations should be. I can’t imagine someone would be interested in paying $12/month to subscribe to music only to hear the very thing they can already listen to for free on the radio, they mostly want this type of service because they’re tired of listening to the same thing over and over.

It would seem to me, that if the music industry really wanted to turn around their business, the best way for them to do it would be to diversify the radio. Instead of working with radio station owners to promote and play the same type of music over and over on every station and in every city, if they spread their interests into more than a few mega stars and give more exposure to others. It seems like putting all their eggs in the superstar basket might finally be catching up to the Music Biz.

More Reading:
Payola
Real World Example of the dangers of DRM
Collusion and how the music industry is fighting against Apple to make life worse for you
State of the Music Industry by Paul Lamere