As The World Tunes
FMP3: Feat or Famine?
by Steve Bussey
GeoSynchronous Records
A recent advertisement claims that 3MP3 is now the most requested word on the World Wide Web search engines, replacing the previous favorite, "sex"! Thousands of web sites are offering free downloads of illegal MP3 versions of popular songs. Major record labels are filing lawsuits against these copyright infringers, while at the same time building their own MP3 networks that they can control and use for their own profit. Thousands of unsigned bands are uploading their own MP3 creations to free web sites, so even if you live in Japan you can hear the perfect garage band in Florida. Music industry trade magazines are predicting the end of the 3brick and mortar2 record stores. Are we about to see the starving death of the music world as we know it, or is it the beginning of a healthy new feast of free music?
First, what is MP3? Short for Moving Picture Expert Group (commonly abbreviated as MPEG) type 1 or type 2, audio layer 3, MP3 is a compression scheme that shrinks digital audio files to roughly one-tenth their original size while retaining surprisingly high audio quality. A listener with a computer and an Internet connection can download an MP3 file in a relatively short time, and can listen to the songs on his or her computer, or on one of the new MP3 players now available.
What are the concerns of this technological development? As you might expect, much of it boils down to money and control. It costs very little to buy an MP3 encoder, encode one1s favorite song, and place it on a web site for anyone to download. However, it is illegal to do that without the copyright owner1s permission. Several recent high profile arrests and lawsuits by major record labels and highly successful bands appear to be forcing the legitimate companies to legally license the music they make available for download. Still, there will be bootleggers, just as there always has been.
Some are concerned that the public will only buy and download their favorite song or two rather than pay for an entire album (CD) worth of material as is now the case. I am sure this will be the case, and I say this is good. Years ago the single was the way new artists were first established. If the single did well, then a full length album was produced. There are still a few CD singles released these days, but they mostly are loss leaders. MP3 singles downloaded over the Internet could be effectively and cheaply used to test the market1s reaction to new bands, well before any major recording and duplication expenses.
Some companies are worried that the public is being trained to expect anything on the Internet to be free. Why buy a CD when you can download it for free? Certainly there will be many people with this belief, but there will also be those who are willing to pay to get what they want. For example, in the early days of TV, many predicted the demise of the movie theater. But here we are more than a half of a century later, and movie theaters are still going strong. A similar prediction was made with the advent of home video recorders, but still the theaters are going strong. Why? The motion picture industry realized how to profit from these new technologies, and tightly controlled the releases for each medium: theaters, TV, home video, cable. They also created a huge buzz on each release making us think that we had to see it now, and also made the theaters nicer with elaborate sound systems and big screens to make going to the movies a major social event.
Of course, the recorded music industry is a different beast, but control and promotion of the music is still the right and obligation of the copyright owners. The courts will certainly uphold these intellectual rights, so unauthorized posting of MP3 files will be considered pirating and bootlegging, and will be subject to criminal prosecution. No doubt private individuals will trade MP3 files with their friends, but it is doubtful that this will be any more of a problem than when cassette and cassette recorders first appeared.
So what does this all mean? Will compact discs no longer be purchased? Will there be no more money to be made by bands? Or will the local garage band suddenly start selling millions of MP3 downloads world wide on the Internet? Will MP3 be a feast or famine for the music industry? Actually, my opinion is it will be both. The large companies with the marketing and promotion clout will continue to feast, and the smaller, independent companies will continue to mostly starve, with the occasional meal of success. The big boys will make the big money, and the little guys will make the little money. In other words, the medium may change, but the end results will stay the same!
About the author: Steve Bussey is a singer/songwriter/guitarist and is currently the owner and general manager of GeoSynchronous Records (http://www.pan.com/geosync, Listening Line 800 235 9193, ask for a free catalog), an indie label handling artists such as Les Dudek, Mike Pachelli, Bong Water Taffy, and Big Red & The Bus. Prior to this, Steve earned Bachelor's and Master's degrees in Electrical Engineering and Acoustics from Georgia Tech, designed sound equipment and guitar amps for Fender, and supervised design of communication systems for the Space Shuttle at Kennedy Space Center.
