The Interweb and the music

How do you envision people buying music in the next 5 years?

[quick backgrounder for the uninformed: right now we have approximately 3 choices:

1. Buy a CD at a record store like the good ol' days

2. Buy online from services like iTunes

3. Download it off p2p and donate what you can to the artist

With all the hooplah about it these days, I'm just curious how people see things going.]

This presupposes there will be music worth buying in the next 5 years.

I favor the download and donate model, with the artists themselves acting as distributors. I have no idea how things will actually go because while I myself have no problem with music that exists only as a computer file, most of my friends are practically fetishistic about original liner notes and discs.

AHAHAHAHA...good observation.

I really can't predict what the RIAA maniacs will be able to do and I think it's mostly dependent on that.

I do think online buying will become big and music CD stores will die out somewhat (not totally) as internet availability and digital technology spreads. Also don't forget how many people STILL don't have access to a computer (or refuse to use them), let alone broadband to download music. I haven't checked the numbers recently but last I heard, the % of broadband users is very low.

BTW, I love the term "Interweb"!

Well, heres my $0.02-

I used to purchase CDs religiously. After moving and packing up 3 boxes of them, i decided it was time for them to GO. So i ripped all the tracks and gave the disks away to friends. Havent bought a CD since.
I love having my music in files, so when something i *want* to buy pops up its head (this is rare, anymore.), I head over to Itunes or equivalent and pick it up. Provided they have it- thats the rub.

I think in 5 years time, services like Itunes will be where its at. I havent purchased a cd in WELL over a year now. I just refuse to pay $18 for two good songs and 8 crappy ones, and I'm noticing more and more ppl feeling the same way.


As for whether the music will be worth buying in 5 years....there is always hope.

Five years from now jug bands are going to be all the rage. Unfortunately, most of the bands will be pretty lowtech and you will have to send off in the mail to buy cassette copies from the artists.

Good god, I hope not.

Well, not without some tweaks, anyway. I'm a classical musician and I listen almost exclusively to classical music -- if only because that's all I really know. And these online services are horrible when it comes to classical music, especially if you don't want whatever's topping the industry charts.

iTunes, though, is better than another online music service I've used, BuyMusic, at least from what I've gathered. I bought a couple of albums from BuyMusic, and they were low-quality (extremely, worse than dirty vinyl). *shivers*

Part of the problem when it comes to classical music is that it doesn't parse under the same "two good songs on an album" paradigm. When you buy classical music, usually you're buying it for complete works, which often come in multi-track form, so that when you visit a place like iTunes, each track of a multi-movement work costs you a buck, which is fine when you're talking about substantial works with a handful of movements like symphonies and string quartets, but makes no sense whatever when you're talking about operas, song cycles, collections of miniatures for keyboard, etc., where each track tends to be short and there tend to be more of them (like twenty to thirty).

With a service like iTunes, what you'll do then, instead of buying each track individually, is buy the album as a whole, which means you'll end up paying just the same as you would if you bought a CD anyway, or just about, only you won't get the liner notes (which are often very informative for classical works, especially opera) or the hard copy.

And then there's the problem of selection. Will Maslanka ever be featured on iTunes? And if so, will they have everything that he's recorded or just a couple of works? While the pop and rock sections of iTunes might have more than enough variety for their typical consumers, the holes in the classical selection are gaping. You can find more selection at a Barnes and Noble, and that's not saying much. That's why I find myself migrating towards arkivmusic.com and tower.com when I want to listen to something good.

That said, I find streaming radio and the low-overhead ability to listen to lots of popular music to be very appealling to me. My favorite utility on iTunes so far is their (not-so-)radio stations. And I like being able to browse through all the pop music on there -- it helps me to educate myself in the music that people are actually making and buying these days (as opposed to classical music. Which really irks me. I mean, what are we classical musicians doing wrong?). Even if I'm not willing to shell out even a buck to have my very own digital copy of most of those songs.

Here's what I think could save the CD if the record industry wasn't so completely moronic. Why they don't already do this is beyond me.

Every CD should have one data track in addition to the music tracks that contains all the liner notes, lyrics, credits, and whatever else in an industry standard format. The first time you play the CD in a compatible player it rips all the tracks and takes the data into a searchable database. Third parties can write database programs that will interface with the player. Want to hear everything you have that the Brecker Brothers played on? Just search and get a list of everything you have. Want to find a song you only remember a few of the lyrics from? Type it in and all songs in your library containing the words come up. If CD's had this kind of added value to them they'd survive. As it is currently downloading is more convenient than buying a CD.

Well scratch my outdated information! (Well, kind of)

'As of February, 39 percent of U.S. Internet users have broadband access at home, compared with 31 percent in November and 27 percent last March. The February survey found 55 percent have broadband at either home or work.'

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20040418/ap_on_hi_te/broadband_study_1

Still, only 2 out of 5 have broadband at home.

What does itunes charge for a "track"? $1? (that's too high especially if it's 0:58 long or something) Or is it time based?

The market should determine the prices of this stuff, not some idiot RIAA fools trying to hold onto a semi-monopoly.

Chip, wouldn't people rip and trade the data tracks along with the music? If your idea is a way to save the physical CD I don't think it would have an effect.

There's really nothing new under the sun in terms of media. From printed sheet-music to the player piano to the recorded album to radio to the home tape-deck to the VCR, the media-control regime of the day has always seen new technology as a threat and fought tooth-and-nail against it using any means at their disposal until finally it is widely adopted by the public and the regime ends up making an order of magnitude more money than it did with the old technology.

The iTunes model is where it's at. Apple is pretty good about making sure a good selection is available and adds new music all the time. They also have a great request system that actually works (They added a song I wanted ) and accept AND READ feedback. Album liner notes is a feedback I sent and hopefully more people will too. Plus iPods are super keen and shiny and have a fun touchy-wheely thing ... oooh.. shiny...

Yes, of course... but you have to remember that people who are technically inclined are in the monority. Way more people download than rip. If buying a new CD meant everything I owned was automatically cataloged in a searchable database I'd be more inclined to invest in CD's. Until they come up with some serious value add for buying physical copies they'll never turn the tide. And as it stands now they probably never will. An entire generation of people now thinks intellectual property theft is just fine and dandy and I don't know how that can be undone now.

Yeppers. But I think it's been getting worse. These idiots fighting back the new technology, IMO, are getting stronger over the years. But the REAL problem with the laws they want to pass (like DMCA) is the side-effects they create. I think there's consequences associated with the stuff they want to be allowed to do, and not just music related ones.