If Cloud Music Booms, Do Musicians Lose?
Last week, Hypebot reported on a study that suggests cloud music will boom in the next five years.
For consumers, this moment has be percolating for a decade and is only now being realized.
Unlimited music is "reportedly" what consumers have always wanted. Thus, once they're freed file-sharing and paying for digital downloads, they'll be better off.
Artists, on the other hand, may find themselves worst off.
ABI, the company behind the study, willfully admits that a cloud music boom will make it more difficult to make a living by selling recorded music.
To them, this is a price worth paying. If consumers don't have convenient and affordable legal alternatives, "they will simply enjoy their music by other means," ABI cautions. Put differently, artists are damned if they do join the cloud shift because it will further erode their ability to sell music, but will be also damned if they don't, because consumers will download their music for free if they refuse.
So, while artists certaintly have ways to leverage new scarcities, the cloud shift will force everyone to rethink how they make a living from music.
A Niche Product
Over at Tunecore, George Howard tells artists that, for better or worse, the cloud is upon us; it will reduce digital downloads to a niche product.
Nothing will make physical product and downloads relevant to consumers again.
In time though, Howard believes that artists who own their masters will be able to negotiate more favorable terms and reap promotional benefits from the increased access to their music. Andrew Orlowski agrees with Howard, at least in part.
"Creative artists who really do value their own work naturally shop around for the best deal from an intermediary," he says. "If one label can't offer it, they'll go to one who can. If a collecting society strikes a bad deal, they'll reason that they're better off without the collecting society." But Orlowski's optimism stops there.
In his opinion, the looming music cloud is much darker. The Internet revolution promised to free artists from exploitative corporations. Now, it seeks to simply enslave them to Internet companies instead. "How ironic," Orlowski muses.
Getting Prepared
The music that fuels cloud-based services is less profitable, but artists are still expected to create it, and many will. "As artists, it's imperative to prepare and capitalize upon this disruptive technological innovation," Howard writes. "In order to immediately begin the preparation process, be sure to affiliate with both a PRO (like ASCAP or BMI) and with SoundExchange." After that, he says artists must then "look for opportunities where you can extract value out of these streams."
To Howard, if cloud music booms musicians won't lose… if they're prepared.
Are you?
Music… A great hobby 5-10 years from now.
Define your niche, own your rights, set yourself up as a business entity (as a label, publisher, etc), build your team… The basic principles some of us have taught for years.
It’s also how some of us were able to survive without sweating piracy. Be prepared, but be ready to adapt, innovate, overcome.
Musicians will lose if they neglect cloud music.
If cloud music booms, which is most likely going to happen, then musicians have to embrace it. What other choice will they have if nobody puchases a la carte music?
It’s an ever changing industry. Revenue streams and artist royalties will change. Musicians have to keep making great music and simply be wise as to what is happening in the industry and where it is heading. It’s just a ride.
Musicians will lose if they neglect cloud music.
If cloud music booms, which is most likely going to happen, then musicians have to embrace it. What other choice will they have if nobody puchases a la carte music?
It’s an ever changing industry. Revenue streams and artist royalties will change. Musicians have to keep making great music and simply be wise as to what is happening in the industry and where it is heading. It’s just a ride.
Personally I just don’t see these cloud music systems taking that much revenue from artists who use traditional digital download services like iTunes.
Most of society was brought up on the concept of physical music purchases, then we migrated 10 years ago to the digital download concept pioneered by Apple and iTunes.
10 Years later people are comfortable with this system. People want physical tangible music on their computing platforms. Society has the desire and need to play and transport their music libraries to their devices: iPod, iPad, iPhone, Media Players, Mobile Smart Devices etc.
I believe that most Americans will continue to use the digital store and only resort to the cloud services when they are away from their physical libraries.
Cloud services require a connection with sufficient internet bandwidth, this means people will mostly be listening to cloud services while at work or while at home. Services like Pandora do work on Mobile devices over 3g but the quality of the music is not great. Services like Layla examined your computer Hard Drive library of music and uploaded it to the server, this took for ever! I tried it for a week and it still never finished. I believe the licensing issues will still be a major problem for these companies as well.
Personally I don’t see cloud services as a the major issue. College kids I believe will the main key users but not much more.
I don’t believe the hype. A study is an insight into the possible foreseeable future. If they interviewed kids ranging from 18-21 then I might be more convinced.
Great article.
I’m glad to see this issue being addressed at last … the miniscule artist payouts from the likes of Spotify have had much less publicity than Spotify’s plans to rule the world.
However, recent figures released by Nielsen for Midem show that the hype around streaming services is unwarranted, as most people aren’t interested in them.
So I don’t really know whether they’re going to be ‘the future’.
I think the major record labels, and possibly the bigger indie labels, are the ones who want the cloud-based streaming services to work, as they stand to gain revenues from multiple artists. But for the individual independent artist the payouts are little better than nothing.
the Days are Long Gone when an act/Songwriter/producer can just let some business people do all the collecting and admin work for them and just sit back and “PARTY”…if they do not “LEARN” understand and “DO” this work for themself,, they will be the “Creative Working POOR”…Keep “ALL” the Rights and Make all the Money Yourself!,, but No matter what you must Always keep Promotion and Exposure Going!,…
Nicoletti Consulting/Promotion p.o.box 386 Laguna Beach California #92652 USA ph 949-715-7036 musicbiz@cox.net
Whether streaming from the cloud is here to stay or not, the music industry has clearly changed. Artists, labels, and everyone in the biz needs to get creative on how money is made.
Here’s a piece I wrote on the topic:
When Old Is New Again: From Cassettes To Multicolored Vinyl
http://www.nicolecifani.com/2011/03/when-old-is-new-again-from-cassettes-to-multicolored-vinyl/
So frustrating that the excuse for theft is “well the industry has changed” rather than a reaction of how we can protect the creative class that is supplying all the content that the software developers are getting rich off of.
In what other industry is is legal and morally acceptable to take the natural resources that don’t belong to you and build your entire business model on providing something for public consumption in which you profit greatly, but do not share the profits back with the creators of your product?
It’s easy to say artist need to wise up and learn to harness next weeks tech or whatever else comes along. Artist are busy making art (not just “partying” as some seem to belive).
This push towards even greater business savy is highly disruptive to the creation of art, be it music or whatever else.
This kind of arrangement will only promote and profit the most mediocre music created by people who are better at the busniess than making music.