The RIAA’s lobbying and lawsuits all tell the same story: the industry fears its inevitable irrelevance.
In the early days, the recording industry played a functional role in the album-making process: they facilitated the recordings, and they paid for the production and distribution of said albums. Bob Dylan may have had the talent, but when push came to shove, he couldn’t go it alone because he didn’t have the means to distribute CDs across the globe.
But the times they are a-changing. Most artists can record in their apartments, or a friend’s apartment. And on those occasions when they need to go into the studio, they can do so without enduring as financial a burden as they needed to 40 years ago. And while recording has become cheaper, distribution has become all but free. With modern internet services, a nobody can record a song or a video, throw it on his blog, and have tens of thousands of hits. I know, because I’m one of them.
Now admittedly, I am not making money off of this sort of distribution, but the money comes differently these days. Mark Ellen, editor of The Word magazine, explains:
Five years ago people toured in order to sell records and called the name of their tour after their recording, and probably lost money in order to promote and extend the life of the album. That balance has shifted and now people put out albums to justify going on tour and charging more to go on tour.
Thus, if my intent is to make money, I’m doing myself a much bigger favor by appealing to such a wide audience at no cost to them than I would be a much more limited audience if I were selling my music. If any of these folks come to see me at my next live show, I’ll stand to reap far greater profits.
And for the big folks, the gain to be had only increases. Bruce Springsteen, DMB, Radiohead–these folks especially make far more touring than they do off of their albums. IFPI reports that the commercialized live industry was worth over $17 billion in 2006.
No matter how you cut it, modern technology has helped the musician at the expense of the executive producer. By and large, the profits to be had in the years to come are going to come from live performances, not from album sales. Musicians will need plenty of help planning their tours and selling out amphitheaters, but the album has finally been set into its rightful hand: that of the creator, the musician.
tags: riaa