The Editorials

Digital Music Distribution - It's Time

Written by Jeff Krasky

The Internet has caused untold amounts of grief for record labels. There used to only be two ways to get a hold of the newest music. One was to go to the music store and purchase a copy of the newest release. The other was to find a friend who has already bought the album and bribe them into making you a copy of the material.

Now getting the latest music is as simple as connecting to your ISP. Napster might have lost its legal battle but online trading of music is still going strong. There are a number of file swapping services out on the Internet that have tons of music on them. All you have to do is install the free software, search for the song you’re interested and begin a download. It’s quite simple to obtain all the tracks found on new releases even on the day the album is released.

This free music for the masses theory sounds like a great thing. In a lot of ways it actually is. It allows unknown artists to get their music out there. It also helps break the strangle hold the music industry has had on who gets to be heard. The downside is that you’re stealing an artist’s work. You’re also taking away that persons paycheck. Artists do deserve to be paid for their craft. Living in this world isn’t free and if artists make enough money to survive they will all be forced to do something else with their time.

At the same time I can’t blame people for wanting to download music. When I look at the albums I’ve spent my hard earned money on this year there have only been a few that are worth the insanely high prices record labels charge for this stuff. Most of the albums leave me feeling like I just got ripped off. I’ve even purchased a few that were so bad I wanted to go back to the music store and demand my money back. Too bad you can’t do that.

Record labels need to wake up and realize a couple of things. The first issue being that this digital music revolution is not going away. People are going to continue to trade music like they did when they were making copies of cassette tapes. The only difference is the Internet has made it much easier to find the material you’re looking for. Not to mention the fact that many of these new file trading services are not owned by anyone. It makes it very hard to shut something down when there is no specific company to go after. Labels also need to realize that people are only going to pay 15-18 dollars for an album that contains a couple of good tracks for so long before they grow tired of it. In fact, that time has already come.

So what is a record label to do? Simple. They need to embrace digital music distribution. If they don’t, the artists will. We already see a number of independent artists making a substantial amount of money selling their albums over the Internet. If the record labels don’t jump in headfirst and develop a system to distribute digital music it’s only going to be a matter of time before they are out of business. Yet these companies seem hesitant to get involved.

Here is my proposal to the recording industry. To start with release albums both in digital format and in CD format. You have a number of well-established online stores ready for this task. Take a look at places like Amazon and CDnow. Offer each track of the album for a dollar a piece. This would get you a fair 10-13 dollars an album depending on the number of tracks. You could also offered color album liner notes in Adobe Acrobat format for a buck. People could then download these and print the album artwork on their color inkjet printers. This would give people easy access to the music they want. All they have to do is log onto the Internet, purchase the tracks they’re interested in and burn them to a CD-R disc.

You could still offer CD format material in record stores for your normal 14-16 dollar rate. People that don’t have a burner or don’t want to take the time to make their own albums would still be able to run out to the store and grab a copy. In fact some people might decide the convenience factor alone is worth a couple of extra dollars.

Now I doubt record labels will take me up on this. This plan would require that labels stop stuffing their albums full of filler material. If they were to do this they would have to release albums full of top quality tracks and that just isn’t their style. People would end up buying just the songs they like and that could really hurt the record labels financial position.

The change is coming regardless. Artists will find themselves encouraged to release better material and reap the profits of people actually paying for the music they listen to. Record labels would find the results positive as well if they would give it a shot. It’s time to be a pioneer or get left behind. A record label might be distant memories of a time since passed if they don’t get their act together.

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