Do you pay for mp3s?
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“The whole of economic theory is the theory of scarce resources. If milk is scarce, the price is up: this is economic theory. But it doesn’t work for music; it doesn’t work for information as a whole. If I have a pot of milk and give it to you, I don’t have it any more. But if I give you a piece of information I still have it, I keep it. Which means that if I give something to you I create something new: abundance. And this means that economic theory doesn’t work for information, when that information can be separated from its material support — a CD, or whatever is the case today.” (Jacques Attali: 2001)
Quoted from a speech by Jacques Attali, the author of Noise: The Political Economy of Music, given at a Cybersalon Net.Music conference at the ICA, London, May 2001.
Given we accept mp3s as information rather than treating them as material commodities, existing outside traditional economic theory, how do we go about selling them? Using traditional models of scarcity, supply and demand, clearly won’t help us price music downloads, being freely copyable and distributable (despite music industry attempts to model mp3s as physical products by implementing DRM copy protection etc.). We can’t price them according to the time and energy that went into them (is an album that took three years to create more expensive than one that took six months to create?) or rely on manufacturing costs to set a base price. So instead the likes of iTunes and other stores price mp3s how they see fit, in comparison to good old CDs. Is that fair? Isn’t paying almost a quid a track a bit steep, seeing as though you’re paying for something that doesn’t exist? We can buy the proper CD for just a couple of quid more. Should we be paying much less for mp3s, or do we pay for the privilege and convenience of near instant delivery? After all, it’s not as though we can sell them on once we’re no longer interested in listening to them, as we can with our old CDs, tapes, vinyl etc., is it?
What do you think? I’d hope that we all still see it fit that we remunerate artists for their hard work in putting together an album, but as I see it, selling mp3s short-changes both the artist and listener. Surely the music industry wins once again if we accept the purchase of mp3s as just another media format (except a more disposable, ephemeral , lower quality format at that). I’d personally rather not create music that only exists in the fragile state as data on somebody’s hard disk, but would want to produce a physical document of my music. Isn’t selling mp3s simply a stopgap ‘fight fire with fire’ measure by the music industry to force a habit of purchasing mp3s onto consumers, clawing back mp3 sales to make up for the deficit in single sales, or is it the way all music will be sold in the future? I kind of feel as though illegal music file-trading has forced us down this avenue, and rather than celebrate mp3s as a novel, liberating future music format, it’s managed to turn music into something meaningless, like sand falling between our fingers while we scratch our heads and try and put a price on it.
Perhaps in the future we’ll enjoy ‘free’ music subscribed to as part of our internet connection service price, with a small fee trickling back to labels and artists (though this approach could be very dangerous, negating the need of innovation within the industry as labels continue to rely on the big names to rake it in). We might conclude that music downloads should be free and legal, and artists rely on performances alone to make money, relying on the scarcity and uniqueness of a live performance spectacle to create value. Or do we simply need to make mp3s a lot cheaper, and hope that listeners will find it just as convenient to buy music downloads as to head to the nearest torrent site?
But back to the question: do you pay for mp3s?
Tags: attali, economics, mp3, rant, torrent
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April 29th, 2007 at 6:39 pm
What I’m envisioning is a system similar to the way Google runs its business - all products are free, the only price is a bit of your attention towards advertising. Artists would get salary based on how much people enjoy their music - data which is derived from advertising statistics. The focus would shift from “how much money can I make out of this music” to “how best can I make people see my vision,” and may the best man become wealthy.
April 29th, 2007 at 7:41 pm
I like paying for mp3s as long as I’m allowed to take the music with me without too much hussle (no DRM crap). Half the price what you pay for a CD is reasonable. And for things I really like, I will go and buy a physical media as well.
It isn’t easy to get ahold of your music by physical means for me so I was happy to see both of your released albums available under reasonable terms.
But generally it makes me sad seeing the big labels trying to take away freedoms we have and make purchasing and music playback the most horrible experience. They should focus on finding better way to promote and sell music electronically. Last.fm with a dead-simple way to buy the music would make me spend a lot more on music than I currently do (as opposed to clicking to non-existant amazon links).
April 29th, 2007 at 10:04 pm
Haha. That’s true about the Amazon links on Last.fm - it really does look messy putting links up for non-existent products, especially when the rest of the site looks so polished. You would have thought they’d have a smarter system in place for that now, but I guess it’s tough to implement something that automatically creates links to products without Amazon also getting involved. Does Last.fm get some sort of referrer bonus with every CD sold through Amazon, do you think? If so then I guess it’s worth the inelegance.
Nice site by the way, Jakub - really easy on the eyes.
April 30th, 2007 at 12:06 pm
I don’t buy mp3’s. I only buy full albums on CD. I feel the practice of “cherry picking” songs without listening to them in the context of the album in which they were released devalues them somehow- It turns them into just another meaningless soundbyte to occupy one’s time for a few minutes, before rushing off to find the next meaningless soundbyte, ad infinitum. I know people who fill their entire hard drives with cheaply purchased and stolen mp3’s, and it seems their pursuit of MORE has undermined their respect for the artists and music they claim to be fans of.
May 2nd, 2007 at 8:35 am
I can’t agree with quote, in any case when you share any information with somebody, you lose a part of information’s value
May 4th, 2007 at 4:15 pm
Interesting idea, though I’m not sure how you’d be able to guarantee a correlation between site traffic and ad revenue. Perhaps this could work for the larger bands, but then I’m sure not everyone would be best pleased to see their favourite band’s site turn into an ad billboard, despite the free tunes. MySpace seems to work this way though, albeit in a more limited sense as you can only download five tracks, in crappy quality.
But hey, if it paid for the necessary bandwidth with a little extra left over, then great.
May 4th, 2007 at 4:24 pm
Yeah, we’re more easily distracted than ever before with our huge mp3 playlists, and it can be tough to resist the urge to skip tracks with the amount of music we can access on xxGB iPods etc. I’m sure many folks who download music have quite a bit that they have yet to listen to, or have heard just once or twice. Is mp3 the cause or result of an easily distracted listener? Is it just a case of making the consumption of music more manageable in our (apparently) increasingly hectic lives, or are we becoming more impatient with our listening habits?
I’m sure there must be plenty of artists out there that insist on leaving out CD track markers on their releases, to force listeners to absorb the whole album. But then again, releasing only on vinyl would have the same effect, I suppose.
May 7th, 2007 at 2:31 pm
On the face of it, this seems to fall in line with traditional economic theory, equating scarcity with the ‘informed’. But you want as many people to hear your music as possible, so how do you go about disseminating your music without devaluing it as you do so? Perhaps mp3s just make it easier for us to see the worthlessness of mass-production, without the novelty of a physical product to cloud our judgement?
July 19th, 2007 at 7:38 pm
I don’t buy mp3 and rarely buy cd’s… most of my electronica collection (like you) is in vinyl.
If I download mp3 is only to listen perhaps an artist that I will not know and if I like his music then buy the cd or the LP (like I did with Dntel recently)
August 17th, 2007 at 1:32 pm
It may be simply that I am a southern girl from the U.S. (Atlanta) and have a different system of values. However, I still cling to cd’s like some sort of long lost treasure. While I am not obsessed with material goods, I love my cd’s. I love the convenience of technology as well yet it is lacking the same joy that getting my hands on a cd provides. I know people who carry their ipods around like life support but I just can’t get into it. I get vinyl when I can even if it is harder to obtain these days than a cd (and even more difficult to find replacement needles or an actual record player).
I feel it is a toss-up with giving away free music. There are plenty of benefits to getting your music out there to the general (or not so general) public. I find new artists any way that I can and purchase cd’s when I can find them and/or have the extra cash. I hunt on Amazon and in record stores for used cd’s when I can’t purchase them new. Yet, many people take advantage of the system - stealing off the internet and burning cd’s like crazy. I truly believe that the artists should be compensated for their work and don’t really see how mp3’s do that in the same way that cd’s do.
Lastly, I am happy to say that I recently located a new cd copy of Lemodie, which my local record store is ordering for me and that I will be giddy as a little girl when it is mine at last!
October 3rd, 2007 at 7:21 pm
I purchase mp3s (..and have.. many from bleep etc.) if offered at acceptable quality without “rights” managment. I have no need for hard media. I embrace the future of digital media with open arms. I can’t afford the kung-fu hi-fi it takes to notice enough difference in a lossless media recording vs. VBR or hi-q br mp3 so I could care less about being a stickler. I have an older pc system and CD’s only skip around when I am multi-tasking so they are not so appropriate for my current situation. I eagerly await the home MP3 bookshelf where art can be digitally displayed (nice with flash animated cd cover-art on display in the livingroom right?.. um hm) …anyway, …then I will convert and scan all existing albums… months to a year of work… in my collection and pack down the discs for those great grandchildren of the future. It’s inevitable… medialess environments are on the rise for connoisseurs of future music such as… Ochre.. et al
October 3rd, 2007 at 7:41 pm
I have tonnes of convenient…oops, i mean downloaded music on my external and it has not hindered my appreciation or enthusiasm to support those artists I feel worthy of support. Everything is always in rotation if I enjoy it. For instance, I just downloaded a downtempo minimal techno album from p2p.. it was nice.. i scrobbled it and the artist contacted me.. I sent him 18quid he had on his website. The only change is that I am taking the guesswork out of who is offering an album without filler. As I am sure there are many others like myself. Downloading Mp3’s is inevitable tide of progression and there are not enough dinosaurs out there to bring distribution of said information to extinction.
Oh,… many albums have no premeditated notion to acheive a context. It only appears this way because of the production and mastering of the tracks as one unit..so they “fit” together somehow and aren’t too wildly varying in level, etc. Some songs are composed yesterday and some composed at the beginning of the season and in a totally different setting with the tongue in the other cheek.. for example. To each his own in that respect I suppose. To your credit I suppose there are albums out there with real context which can be realised even without all the smoothing-out and sanding down in the final stages…however, so you know.. there are quiiiite a bit who could care less about making a big picture.
October 3rd, 2007 at 11:18 pm
That’s great Lou - glad you could track down a copy of Lemodie, thanks!