Long Live Music, Let Technology Kill The Industry

• The music industry as we know it is coming to an end, and faster than we once thought.
• One can blame two main causes for this; the internet, and music becoming almost completely digital.
• This, folks, I don’t feel is a bad thing.  I see a future where musicians utilize their digital content by giving it for free, as promotional means to get fans out to live shows.
• In fact, this is the only way I see it working.  There’s really no stopping the viral nature of the web, because no matter what, people crave information, and they want it for free.  Developers will keep coming up with more innovative/harder to track techniques for downloading and consumers will continue to download these programs and applications to facilitate their need for more, new content. It’s a circle that will never stop, and not to mention, downloading music is proven to be a greener practice, which gives it even more credibility in this day and age.
• NY Times’ Charles Blow reported back in the end of July:

A study last year conducted by members of PRS for Music, a nonprofit royalty collection agency, found that of the 13 million songs for sale online last year, 10 million never got a single buyer and 80 percent of all revenue came from about 52,000 songs. That’s less than one percent of the songs.

• It’s quite obvious what’s happening.  Money should never have been the deciding factor on an artist’s credibility or success. Within technology, you can see the cultural backlash to this failing industry model.
• My Advice for artists is this; utilize the long tail of our current market and give your music away for free to develop an audience/following.  If your music is good, these people will pay you to play live shows.  That’s it, that’s music.  If you’re in it for any other reasons than that, you may want to reevaluate your intentions.