November 15, 1998
With a Click, a New Era of Music Dawns
By JON PARELES
EW YORK -- A specter is haunting the music business: the prospect of listeners getting the music they want directly from the
Internet, free of charge. Right now, all it takes to make a recording executive nervous is the mention of MP3, a powerful piece of
software that allows users to zap music all over the Internet, unchecked and untithed.
For utopians, MP3 is a way to liberate music from the clutches of gatekeepers and profiteers, and perhaps to return music to its
intangible essence. But the recording business sees MP3 as a Pandora's box of copyright destruction, unleashing anarchy and piracy
while robbing musicians of royalties and record labels of capital.
In effect, both sides are correct. There's bound to be serious legal scuffling between people who own
copyrights and people who believe in the hacker credo that information wants to be free.
Yet recorded music is considerably more than a corporate revenue source, and the implications of digital
distribution go far beyond the particulars of software and gadgets and royalty collection. For listeners,
music has never been about its physical form, but about what's in the grooves or magnetic particles or
digital pits; it's the information, not the plastic. Digital distribution can turn that sentiment into a reality.
And that shift could alter the way music is made, released, sold, stored and valued.
It will affect everyone from listeners to musicians to record-store clerks to manufacturers of CD shelves,
and it will certainly disrupt the routines that have grown over a century of recorded music. It means
listeners can have more choices while musicians may get away with making fewer of them. It means
recorded music will be more accessible but also, perhaps, less respected and inviolable. Music that isn't
in solid form may just not seem as significant as those antique CDs. It could move closer to the
spontaneity of live performance, but it will also demand less of a commitment. Instead of a lifelong
companion, music could be a one-click stand.
Music has been inextricable from technology from the moment someone tapped together two particularly
resonant sticks. And in the last century, the technology of recorded music -- microphones, cylinders,
78-rpm disks, LPs, cassettes, CDs -- has affected everything from the length of songs to the lineup of ensembles to the environments
that music is made for. Where would psychedelia be without headphones or hip-hop without booming car stereos?
The way music reaches the public also affects its development, because listeners as well as musicians are shaped by what they get a
chance to hear; in the past, that often meant songs geared above all to the perceived needs of radio programmers. The Internet has
already changed the prospects for listeners who might once have been condemned to the offerings of a local Top 40 radio station,
MTV and a few stores at the mall; now, Internet radio stations offer a world of options.
In the past, purchasing music has been a more serious undertaking than simply tracking it down. High CD prices discourage people
from owning music they might have liked, even if they can find the recording. But digital distribution almost certainly will change the way
people buy music. The new model could be like a jukebox, with listeners paying for each song or group of songs they download.
Better yet, it could resemble cable television, with subscribers paying a monthly fee for all the music they want to download, and
revenues distributed on the basis of popularity. (Of course, with MP3 around, other listeners may just head for free sites and nab what
they can.)
If monthly subscribers could download a song or an album on a whim -- not just to hear it once but to replay it often enough to
understand it -- general listeners' tastes could broaden and budding musicians could learn new vocabularies. The process wouldn't
necessarily build new Top 10 hits, which would still need mass broadcast exposure. But it could make all sorts of niche-music
purveyors happy. And it would be likely to prove that people's tastes aren't as constricted as radio formats pretend they are.
For people with the right kind of equipment, free Internet music is already here. MP3 is just one form of digital distribution of music; the
other two widely used methods, called Liquid Audio and a2b, offer more control to the people making the music files available, notably
by eliminating unauthorized copies. What makes MP3 appealing, however, is its absence of constraints; it puts users in charge.
MP3 (short for MPEG-1, Layer 3) is what computer types call a compression algorithm. It shrinks
packages of information, making it practical to send them across the Internet. Computer programs,
video clips or songs -- any digital information -- can then be decompressed upon arrival for
playback. MP3 is part of Windows 98, and it's widely available from sites on the Internet; it's on its
way to ubiquity.
While a standard music CD holds 650 megabytes of information, or about 77 minutes of music,
using MP3 the entire Beatles catalog can be packed onto one CD-ROM. The watchdogs at the
Recording Industry Association of America have found such a disk offered for sale, a blatantly
illegal bootleg. Still, MP3 music isn't by definition illegal. One enterprising company, MusicMatch
Inc., has packed 152 songs from independent (read: mostly unsigned and eager for attention) bands
onto a CD-ROM that's perfectly legit.
But the wider significance of digital distribution is that the actual CD-ROM will be unnecessary.
(Think of the ecological benefits of having fewer plastic CD's or cassettes in the world.) Try an
Internet search for "MP3" and your favorite band, and you're likely to turn up MP3 songs just
waiting to be downloaded directly to your hard drive. Listen to them, save them or erase them; it's
no big deal. Some may be concert recordings or other rarities, while others come directly from commercial CDs, processed through
MP3 programs that are delicately named "rippers." At the moment, most home computer users still find MP3 unwieldy; even
compressed songs take considerable time to download through ordinary telephone lines and modems. But on college campuses and
other places where computers hook up to the Internet through fast T-1 connections, music via MP3 is a fact of life. The rest of us will
have to wait until we get cable modems, which speed up Internet connections.
For the recording business, true panic set in when a company named Diamond Multimedia announced it was bringing out a portable
MP3 player this month for about $200, the same price as the first Walkmans. Instead of carrying around a computer for playback,
MP3 users will have a pocket-size gadget; input the MP3 files and hit the highway or the beach. The recording-industry association
obtained a temporary restraining order on the MP3 player, charging that it was a bootlegging machine, but the manufacturers prevailed
in a higher court by arguing that it's only a playback device, not a recorder.
Sooner or later, the hardware won't matter. Digital players -- whether they use MP3 or some other format -- will be in people's
pockets, and songs will be instantly available.
Digital distribution is likely to revolutionize the economics of the music business.
Some advantages of large recording companies, like their centralized manufacturing and distribution and their
domination of retail display space, vanish if the Internet becomes the main outlet for music. With current
mail-order Internet stores like CDnow, an album on Kill Rock Stars Records can already have the same
visibility as one on Columbia or Atlantic. Of course, without the cost of manufacturing a recording and getting
it to a store, music could also be made available at lower prices. But that would cut profits.
Record companies fear that with boundless free music around, people are going to be less willing to pay $17
for 10 songs on a CD. Their worries may be slightly exaggerated. Up to a point, people don't shop for music
isn't like buying groceries; people are looking for a specific performer and a specific song; they won't change
brands for a better price. But if superstar albums can be duplicated and sent over the Internet via MP3, with
no way of collecting royalties or profits, who's going to finance the next million-dollar recording projects and
video clips? Expect recording companies to push their music even harder for soundtracks, commercials and other uses that will
generate licensing fees upfront. And expect the more greedy musicians to start thinking "hit jingle" as well as "hit single."
As the recording companies have contended since the introduction of the analog cassette, unauthorized copying could leach away the
investments that record companies have typically made in musicians and marketing.
The companies' edge, in the past, was that their product offered higher recording quality, better packaging and more convenience. But
digital copies are indistinguishable from originals. If one is available from Capitol Records for full price and another is available free
from, say, www.piratetunes.com, even a band's most dedicated fans may be torn.
With free copies available, legally or illegally, there's increased pressure to make music more affordable; a fan might be willing to
support a performer for 75 cents a song, but not for $1.50. At least one company, GoodNoise, has decided to sell music as MP3 files
for a low price, figuring that it will be paid for the first copy, if not the rest. It's following the model of computer software makers, who
have grown resigned to having their programs passed around.
Record labels could continue to offer music from their roster before anyone else had it, and they
could present themselves as reliable sources, free of viruses and true to the performers' wishes.
(There's plenty of computer software around for making music, which could lead to all sorts of
edited, bowdlerized and brutalized versions of songs. Why don't we remove that Mariah Carey
vocal and substitute my cousin? Or her cat?) Many albums now reach their highest position on the
charts the week they are released, and companies could hold on to that part of the market.
They could also remind fans that legitimate releases support the musicians who made them,
appealing to conscience or loyalty.
Another primary function of record companies is promotion: advertising, publicizing, getting music
played on radio and television and subsidizing bands on the road. That kind of clout will remain
important, especially as choices proliferate. Popular music needs stars, who shape and share a culture's fantasies while they contribute
to the bottom line. One of the genuine pleasures of popular music is knowing that you're not the only one listening to a hit but part of a
figurative community of fans who all have something in common, even if it's just liking the way Scary Spice dances.
Digital distribution, by providing many more choices, could well affect the magnitude of pop stardom the way competition from cable
television has affected the audience for network television. But the craving to be part of a phenomenon won't go away. While many
listeners will be able to delve into niches, the mass market that creates hits (which in turn subsidize projects like recording the classical
repertory) is used to having music sorted by MTV and radio programmers. Amid a bewildering number of options, the record
companies that can draw attention to their releases will still have an edge.
With digital distribution, musicians at two extremes of the business -- steady-gigging live bands and established superstars -- could
choose to bypass recording companies entirely. Those whose music is based on live performance rather than studio assemblage can
record cheaply and quickly; those who have already bought mansions and soccer teams could finance their own studio time instead of
getting advances from recording companies. Either way, they could simply place their music directly on the Internet, as many
grass-roots musicians have already done. (Not using other people's money for recording could have another side effect: cutting down
on studio time and budgets.) Some musicians might put the music out free to make themselves known to fans, to entice people to buy
concert tickets and T-shirts or just for the fun of being heard. Recording music, already a do-it-yourself operation for many musicians,
could become synonymous with releasing music to the world.
That, in turn, could create a flood of 10th-rate material, doing for music what Internet bulletin boards and chat rooms have done for
literature.
When musicians had to depend on record companies to get their efforts to the public, they had to convince other people that their tunes
were worth preserving and marketing. Recording companies are notorious for missing innovations and pressuring musicians toward last
week's commercial directions. But they're not all bad. Despite the amount of junk they release, they also perform useful reality checks,
winnowing the vast numbers of hopefuls and helping musicians make the transition from basements or clubs to recordings that bear up
to repeated listening. Recorded music and live music work differently; the whiz-bang thrills of a live punk band, for instance, may seem
unsubtle and even monotonous the fifth time through.
For every musician like the Artist (formerly known as Prince) , who comes up with more good music than a traditional record company
can handle, there are dozens who should discard more than they do. About 30,000 albums are already released every year by record
companies large and small. Imagine how much music would emerge if no one was writing rejection letters.
As releasing music becomes a casual decision, the length of those releases will turn unpredictable. We're used to thinking that music
comes in two sizes -- songs and albums -- but digital distribution brings more flexibility. The limitations of Edison disks shaped the
three-minute pop song; the necessity of flipping over an LP built the habit of programming an album in two parts. In the long run, the
album is also a technological artifact, an artistic unit engendered by physical limitations.
When music is downloaded, packages no longer have to be uniform.
Musicians might release a song, or three, or 53, on any schedule; they could put out a song the day it was recorded. They could release
collections like commercial versions of albums and, simultaneously, as the musical equivalent of director's-cut films.
Musicians could also stop making a lot of tough decisions. They could offer alternate versions of songs; they could record every show
of a tour, digitize it and encourage fans to assemble their own sets. (Somewhere on the Internet, Phish fans are probably doing that right
now.)
But with digital distribution, musicians could no longer govern the package that listeners receive. Some fans would want everything,
including what used to be obscure B-sides from singles and alternate versions; others would just click on to the hits, ignoring a band's
less commercial efforts.
Downloaded music would encourage listeners to build their own programs -- album-length or not, one performer or many.
Listeners might riffle through a performer's whole career or pick through a favorite genre or put together an assortment of old and new
hits. Current record companies that have been heavily pushing soundtrack albums are already training listeners to concentrate on the
immediate pleasure of a hit song rather than taking the time to get to know a musician's full scope.
Listeners could also reshuffle their music at whim, since no collection would have to be permanent. If a song is always available
electronically, there's no need to hold on to a CD. With full-scale digital distribution, the Internet itself becomes a music library, and
home shelves can be emptied.
Listeners could download what they want, listen to it as long as they're interested, and move on. Music would stop being something to
collect, and revert to its age-old transience: something that transforms a moment and then disappears like a troubadour leaving town.
But there's a tradeoff for the convenience; the music might seem disposable. Musicians could soon come to miss the kind of sustained
attention that fans used to give to a brand-new album, playing it repeatedly from start to finish.
Downloaders have short attention spans, and like other Internet phenomena, digital distribution is a temptation to surf.
The notion of some centralized music archive, out of listeners' hands, is not entirely reassuring. There are dire possibilities of
surveillance; I could always pay cash at a record store for a Barenaked Ladies album, but I certainly wouldn't want some Internet
monitor to know that I was downloading it. Meanwhile, what happens when a control-freak musician decides to erase his inspired but
erratic early recordings, or some bureaucrat gets a court order to delete all the gangsta rap? At that point, the anarchic copying and
free circulation allowed by MP3 become a blessing. Somebody is bound to have the missing songs tucked away on their computer,
ready to be resuscitated and out of any company's control.
Other entertainment moguls may be quietly gloating over the music business's digital quandaries.
They shouldn't get too comfortable. After all, movies are next.
nytimes.com |
