Latitude

This post is part 1 of a 3-post series:

Part 2 – “Riding the Free Waves: the Most Audacious Experiment in Years (or, a Naive Approach)”

Part 3 – “Reznor’s Future Music Model: Streaming & Shareable?”

A Kind of Generative Laissez-Faireism

I like the people at our record company, but the time is at hand when you have to ask why anyone needs one. And, yes, it probably would give us some perverse pleasure to say ‘F*** you’ to this decaying business model.

Thom Yorke of Radiohead, to Time

More artists are moving away from major record labels to produce their work independently, and there’s a kind of generative laissez-faireism fizzling through the music industry with regard to money-making models. Some camps say, “Embrace it as the sustainable status quo; business models don’t come easy, and there will be a constant influx, from here on out.”

The flip side prescribes that the dust will settle eventually, and respective media industries will normalize to one (or limited) models for generating revenue, albeit structured by the content creators, influenced by the users, and refined as such through a continuous loop of interactivity.

The best case studies and critiques of emergent business models would seem to come from the artists who are now autonomous “entrepreneurs,” monetizing their own creations– a brand of ultra-motivated lead users.

If something happened where [the major record labels] finally woke and up realized what the consumers want, that could be a big paradigm shift. Now, in lieu of that happening, which doesn’t seem anytime close, because I know the people running these labels– and they don’t know what’s going on… we’re just trying to look at the climate out there and do what we think is the most reasonable and respectful treatment of the fan, and the artist.

Trent Reznor, Digg Dialogg

The Consensus

If it doesn’t seem fairly obvious to the average music fan, the corporate model of music production and distribution is outmoded, because:

1. Artists have long felt its injustice to both themselves and their fans. (At a Universal Music Australia concert in 2007, Trent Reznor, “who has been dubbed the Ralph Nader of the music industry” was so enraged with his record label’s inflated album prices that he instructed fans: ”Steal [the music]. Steal away. Steal, steal and steal some more and give it to all your friends and keep on stealing.”)
2. The explosion of the web gives a platform to more bottom-up means of promotion. Yes, Mr. Yorke, (at least for established bands), “the time is at hand when you have to ask why anyone needs [a record label].” (“What the hell else would we do? This was the obvious thing. But it only works for us because of where we are,” Yorke told Wired in a 2007 interview.)

Yet along with free promotion comes piracy. Despite other disagreements, Reznor and Yorke have both conceded the notion that “[music is] free anyway, you know, for anybody that wants to admit it– pretty much any piece of music you want is free on the Internet.”

But these artists are dealing with that reality, and building models around it, instead of futilely attempting to stop up the holes.

Part 2: Riding the Free Waves: the Most Audacious Experiment in Years (or, a Naive Approach)

In explaining the rationale behind “the most audacious experiment in years,” according to The New York Times, Yorke remarked: “every record for the last four—including my solo record—has been leaked. So the idea was like, we’ll leak it, then.”

Click here to read the full post for Part 2: Riding the Free Waves: the Most Audacious Experiment in Years (or, a Naive Approach).