Reconciling the Value of Music
Two weeks ago, I had the privilege to address a highly tuned-in audience of music industry folks at the Transmission music conference in Vancouver.
Transmission is quite a unique and inclusive music conference in giving participants a chance to voice their opinions on the current state of the music industry via roundtable sessions, but at the same time, I would certainly like to thank Tyl van Toorn and the organizers for giving me the stage to deliver my thoughts on the changing attitudes towards the value of music.
Whilst commercial music consumption has never been more widespread in the known history of man, and with the Internet offering the most capacious vehicle the world has ever seen to disseminate the near infinite body of musical works that exists universally to the greatest number of people, the existing music industry powers-that-be have yet to formulate a system to set this music free – even 10 years after Napster showed the way technologically.
And as elements in the music industry still continue to control the amount of legally accessible music to consumers, and only feed them the acts from which it can make the most money while keeping its vast catalogs in obviously porous vaults, other companies and intermediaries have capitalized on the clarion call to set the music free in all senses of the word. But some of these very companies and intermediaries are themselves simply in the game to enrich themselves via other ancillary services and products which use the pull of music and the accompanying audience, with minimal revenues trickling back to the very creators of the music.
Whilst this tug-of-war continues, one casualty is the increasing reference to music as a commodity,which is a gross misrepresentation of what music really is. Music is food for the soul which creates an emotional attachment with the listener and where it strikes a chord, an intrinsic value in the music is realized.
The industry needs to re-focus on this value in music that many seem to have forgotten, and which others have seemed to have contributed to its devaluation. I would thus like to share my thoughts on reconciling the intrinsic value of music based on my observations from my part of the world, as presented at Transmission below:
References:
Transmission Music Conference – Ensuring the Health of a Global Music Eco-system
Ian C Rogers – Middle Class of Artists
Seth Godin – Tribes
Bruce Houghton – Hypebot, MidemNet (Free Music Only Has Value…)
Bob Lefsetz – Lefsetz Letters (Britney is a train wreck)
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