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Hey just to let you know I have started a facebook page for this blog - there you can see more things cyber/politicalmusic/law. I started it in January 2013 whilst mucking around... so far I am the only person who likes it. Lol. https://www.facebook.com/OpenContentAustraliaResearchReview

Web Weavers of the Future

I attended the lecture given by Sir Tim Berners-Lee, developer of the World Wide Web held at Melbourne University on 4^th February 2013.

The lecture was titled ‘Web Weavers of the Future’ and was sponsored by, amongst others, iiNet and the Australian Computer Society.

To begin with Sir Berners-Lee spoke about the impact of existing systems on social structures and industries. In particular he spoke about journalism and how it is designed to provide filtered and yet accurate information about events and issues and that it is like a valve between society and events as it both effects and affects how we live. He sought to consider its core functions (sifting data and communicating information) and noted that in conceptualising core functions in any area one is well placed to then consider how structures and systems shape or direct the achievement of those functions. He noted that a present, with respect to journalism, the internet has undermined the ability of newspapers to sustain themselves and yet he stated that he is repeatedly told by people that the cacophony of information on the internet is too difficult to manage. So essentially there appears some work yet to be done to change the way newspapers are offered to consumers on the web.

Sir Tim Berners-Lee then went on to consider the decentralised nature of the internet and the impact of centralised systems such as Facebook. He suggested that the popularity of Facebook, and indeed other social networking software in other countries, was in effect a bottling up of the internet that taken to its extreme could impact on the availability or appreciation of the wider internet. He commented on the false positives that are emphasised by having a ‘like’ button but not a ‘dislike’ button and how the architecture itself did not facilitate true or all communication equally. Sir Tim Berners-Lee further noted the high quality content that users give to social networking sites in terms of their personal details, their day to day activities, their personal connections, photographs etc. and sought to acknowledge how these networks were placed in terms of their control over our lives and with respect to the level of detailed information they retain about us. What to us is a simple social connection, to them is a wealth of information that can be exploited in ways that we may not yet understand.

Sir Tim Berners-Lee then went on to speak about open education and in particular open access to academic journals. He suggested that the university systems was wrong in the way it ranked or rewarded publications, expressing a need and desire for universities to reward academics for publishing in journals that had open access. He characterised academic articles as in effect being Government data and as such should be as widely available as possible. Sir Tim Berners-Lee expects that the majority of journals will be open access soon and the bulk of new articles will be made available for free with back catalogues being released in due course. 

As an aside to the discussion about open access to journals Sir Tim Berners-Lee spoke in detail about Aaron Shwartz, a young ICT student in America that sought to access JSTOR and download as many of their journals as he could. He noted that as a student Aaron was legally able to access the articles, that he had only liberated or republished the articles that were already in the public domain and how the nature of the research that he was seeking to do, on metatags, genuinely required access to a large database of articles. Aaron was charged with a felony offence based on the law in the United States that specifies that any breach of the terms of service with an internet provider, in this case his university, was to be classified as cybercrime. Sir Tim Berners-Lee noted that there is a clear distinction between cybercrime and activism and that in this case the law was clearly wrong for not setting a clear enough distinction between the two. Aaron committed suicide rather than face the some 20-30 year jail term that would have resulted from a trial. He stated that this was a tragic loss and a sad reflection on the law and the politicians that passed it and the impetus for a new momentum for open access to journals.

Sir Tim Berners-Lee then went on to speak more generally about how it was unacceptable for Governments of today not to understand or to act as though they do not understand the internet. He noted that there are many well qualified people that can be consulted in the drafting of laws, that the social interest is paramount and that politicians themselves need to be using this technology as part of their own function in society.

Indeed society as a whole is yet to experience the true potential of the internet in many ways. One in particular that Sir Tim Berners-Lee referred to is the real time sharing of scientific data and the running of complex and large experiments.

Sir Tim Berners-Lee spoke empathically about the broader political effect that can and will take place using the internet. He said we can change the world with software.

Spotify and Facebook

There have been some major changes announced recently with the integration of music with facebook. With the recent launch of spotify in the USA I am particularly interested in the merger between it and facebook.

It was reported this week that spotify account holders are now required to have a facebook account. This seems like an odd requirement and one that could backfire with some people not wishing to use facebook at all. This seems to be a cross promotional arrangement and is likely to improve integration with the two services with one login password able to activate both.

Recent changes to facebook include the live reporting of user activity and the ability to share music with friends through facebook. Interestingly enough spotify users will be able to restrict the reporting of their listening habits through the settings in spotify - there has been no indication that such reporting restrictions are possible through the new facebook interface. Nor has there been reports that other music services to be integrated with facebook will have the same ability to restrict the sharing of listening activity. Indeed it has been reported that facebook are using cookies to track users activities even after they have logged out of the service.

There have been some negative developments for Spotify however with three independent labels withdrawing their catalogues from the service citing a lack of financial viability as the reason. Spotify suggest that this was an error on the labels part and were quick to point out that copyright holders are not paid for each time the music is streamed but rather are paid for allowing access to the music. This does seem counterproductive for labels that are most likely to need the exposure to new audiences to create momentum for independent artists. Two million paying subscribers are a large potential audience and this could be the case of shooting oneself in the foot.

Having said that, recent reports suggest that independent acts do make very little out of spotify. European band Uniform Motion suggest they get 0.003 EUR/play. If you listen to the album all the way through, they get 0.029 EUR. If you listen to the album 10 times on Spotify, they get 0.29 EUR. If you listen to it a hundred times, they get 2.94 EUR and if you listen to the album 1,000 times (once a day for 3 years!)they get 29.47 EUR! This does seem like a hard way to make money and at a fraction of the rate of downloads from iTunes for example.

Further Reading
Digital Music News, It Gets Worse: Spotify Now Requiring New Users to Have Facebook Accounts... (27 September 2011) < http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/stories/092611marriage > at 3 October 2011

TechDirt, Labels Dropping Out Of Spotify Are Totally Missing The Point (23 September 2011) < http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110922/11224716052/labels-dropping-out-spotify-are-totally-missing-point.shtml > at 26 September 2011

Digital Music News, The Facebook Effect: It's Time to Rethink How Music Works... (23 September 2011) < http://digitalmusicnews.com/stories/092211facebookmusic > at 26 September 2011

Digital Music News, Facebook's Extreme Makeover: It's Happening, Already... (22 September 2011) < http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/stories/092111facebook > at 26 September 2011

Digital Music News, Spotify Now Surpassing 2 Million Paying Subscribers... (22 September 2011) < http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/stories/092111spotify > at 26 September 2011

Digital Music News, Then, This: Another Indie Pulls Out of Spotify... (20 September 2011) <http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/stories/091911spotify > at 26 September 2011

Digital Music News, Spotify Defends Its Payout Structure... (20 September 2011) <http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/stories/091911spotifydefends > at 26 September 2011

TechDirt, How Much Does A Band Make From Various Music Platforms? (12 September 2011) < http://www.techdirt.com/blog/casestudies/articles/20110911/00284415891/how-much-does-band-make-various-music-platforms.shtml > at 19 September 2011

Digital Music News, What an Artist Really Gets Paid, Continued... (14 September 2011) <http://digitalmusicnews.com/stories/091311artistmakes > at 19 September 2011

Digital Music News, Facebook Admits to Tracking Logged-Out Users... (28 September 2011) < http://digitalmusicnews.com/stories/092711facebook > at 3 October 2011

Facebook Guide to Building Band Pages

Here is a great link from Digital Music News, it contains the facebook guide to building a band page. Since the advent of social networking, bands have been able to communicate directly with fans, I myself have 'liked' quite a few bands and love hearing about their adventures with lots of photos and dates for gigs. Those looking to embrace social media should start with this guide as it contains a lot of great tips for maximising band exposure and followers.

Further Information
Digital Music News, Facebook's Complete Guide to Building a Band Page... (3 August 2011) < http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/stories/080311facebook > at 16 August 2011

Radio Berkman - Rethink Music Podcast Series I, II & III

I've spent today catching up on some podcasts from Radio Berkman which are being released as a Rethink Music series.

The first of theses was an outline of the Rethink Music conference to be held in Boston later in the year and being run by the Berkman Centre and Berklee Music. Allen Bargfrede, a digital music lawyer and Assistant Professor in the Music Business Department at Berklee, and Chris Bavitz, Assistant Director of the Berkman Center’s Cyberlaw Clinic and Clinical Instructor and Lecturer on Law at Harvard Law School discuss the nature of the conference as being solutions oriented. They talk about how digital distribution is becoming the default for the music industry, and note that the decision to be a musician these days is very different to what it used to be with the need to be committed to engaging with fans and developing an online community. They note that in the past ten years there has been around 120 music start ups on the web with only 5 of these currently being profitable. As such the conference and the associated competitions for a new business model and policy proposals seek to establish the road for musicians in the future and this is what sets them apart from the other conferences that are run in this field.

The second podcast was an interview with two artists, Amanda Palmer and Donald Glover. Palmer outlines her past with the Dresden Dolls and reveals that their signing to a major label was never seen as being financially beneficial but rather opened opportunities to develop a wider audience through promotions. She notes that these days as a solo artist she gives away her music for free because viral marketing leads to more people at her concerts. She states that musicians need to be realistic about making money and does not believe they can demand payment - she says that downloading her music is not a negative thing and it does not cost her any time and energy. When she released an album of Radiohead cover songs she charged 84c for the album - 54c of this went to Radiohead with the other 30c covering paypal transaction charges. She sees success as being able to support herself without a day job rather than the superstar lifestyle and encourages other artists to define their goals in this way. Donald Glover also releases music for free having released 11 albums without charge. He states that he is just happy to get his music out there for others to hear and does not believe there is any money to be made from selling music but rather that live concert performances are the best option for this. He believes information is fluid and comments on the reuse of music as being a positive, cyclical thing.

The third podcast is an interview with Nancy Baym of the University of Kansas on building genuine relationships with fans and the development on online communities. This is an interesting interview which explores participatory models where fans are encouraged to part take in decisions with respect to various musicians. Baym states that these days musicians are expected to be technologically literate and enabled and must be good at socialising online. She states that while there is no easy formulaic model for transforming an online community into something that can be monetised that it can be achieved in some cases. She would like to see further developments in online communities in the future - in particular the acceptance of decentralisation in the music industry enabling more remixes of songs, downloads, competitions for alternative videos for songs, fan fiction and fan based merchandising.

These were three great podcasts and worth the short time to listen to them - below are the addresses for each of the podcasts.

Further Listening
Radio Berkman 168, Rethinking Music, Part I – Creativity, Commerce, and Policy (19 November 2010) < http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/mediaberkman/2010/11/19/radio-berkman-168-rethinking-music-part-i-creativity-commerce-and-policy/ > at 17 February 2011

Radio Berkman 173, The Portrait of the Self-Published Artist (Rethinking Music II) < http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/interactive/podcasts/radioberkman173 > at 17 February 2011

Radio Berkman 174, Radio Berkman 174: The Neverending Concert (Rethink Music III) < http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/interactive/podcasts/radioberkman174 > at 17 February 2011

ACMA: technology developments in the digital economy

The Australian Communications and Media Authority have recently released a new report on technological developments in the digital economy available here. It is divided into three areas - Infrastructure, Smart Technology and the Digital Community.

Interesting data is presented with respect to social networking with the report stating that Australians spent the same time as the global average - 1 in every 11 online minutes at sites such as face book and twitter in 2009. In June 2009 there were 8.9 million unique visitors to social network sites - an increase of 29% in a 12 month period. In November 2009 it was found that Australians led the world by spending 29% of their online time on Facebook.


Further Reading
ACMA, Technology Developments in the Digital Economy (August 2010) < http://www.acma.gov.au/webwr/_assets/main/lib311925/technology_developments_in_digital_economy.pdf > at 6 October 2010

Ping Pong

Social networking has been with us for a number of years with MySpace and Facebook taking the lead in providing instant access to friends and "friends" around the world.

One of the things I look at with these services is the way that musicians use them. Undoubtedly these services provide artists with a way to communicate with fans about a myriad of issues including recent releases, concert dates and every day activities. I am particularly interested in the way artists also use these services to communicate with fans about political issues and advocate participation in campaigns.

The difficulties arise with artists that do not have a strong financial backing who must spend time constantly updating and adding to their profiles - of course as well as MySpace and Facebook other services such as Twitter require ongoing maintenance.

Now days, instead of collecting the names and contact details of fans manually at gigs, these services are available on an opt-in basis for fans to "follow" the activities and events relating to artists.

To add to the mix, this month saw the introduction of another service, this time by iTunes, called Ping. Ping is best described as social networking for music. With access to the iTunes store, the connection between friends and fans is now closely related to song choices.

Released on 1 September 2010 in 23 countries it will be interesting to see how this service is used my both musicians and fans alike.

I have had a quick look around the service and it does seem to work very well with a very simple GUI. The link to Ping is on the left hand side of the iTunes page, listed under the iTunes Store.

It has only been launched this month and so far not many people have signed up to it - the John Butler Trio for example, has nearly 250,000 followers on Facebook but not yet 2,000 on Ping. Similarly Blue King Brown, one of my favorites, is not yet listed on Ping.

Further Reading
wikipedia, iTunes Ping (8 September 2010) < http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITunes_Ping > at 10 September 2010

Wired, Apple’s ‘Ping’ Social Network Is Already Too Big to Fail (1 September 2010) < http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/09/apples-ping-social-music-network-is-already-too-big-to-fail/> at 10 September 2010

Apple, iTunes - Ping: Social Network for Music (September 2010) < http://www.apple.com/itunes/ping/ > at 10 September 2010

MySpace Music Beta

MySpace has launched MySpace Music in Australia in Beta form. I've had a good look around it this morning and it all seems to be functioning well - the streams are good and not resource intensive, some of my favourite bands, all independents, have music available and so far it looks good. The playlist making software took me a little to get used to - no real instructions - if you are setting up a new playlist, drag and drop from the search menu, its easy enough. The music news section really doesn't support the artists I like but of course they have pages that are easy enough to visit. If you are not already on MySpace sign up here: http://www.myspace.com/ and take a look - Australia is always behind the United States and other parts of the world so this is not new in other places.

Specific Strategies

Toward the end of my presentation on whether political music is still being heard I raise five specific strategies that can be employed which will enhance the reception of political music.

These include:

Firstly, allowing dedicated space on digital music store sites for music with a social justice, environmental or political nature. This could be in the form of feature artists but I don’t think this is the most effective way of enhancing the reception of this form of culture.

Rather I propose combining the power of web 2.0 technologies such as blogs or wikis to allow users to develop themes therefore incorporating a range of styles and songs and compiling them together to provide more comprehensive access to political music. By bringing together the songs, their context and linking with other tracks that refer to the same issues, it is possible to remove the additional steps needed to research, find and buy political music.

eMusic and Yahoo have recently taken steps to incorporate Wikipedia pages and YouTube videos into their music sites, however from what I have read this appears to be limited to artist biographies rather than providing the context in which political songs were written or linking songs of a similar kind together.

Amazon and IMDB have also recently launched a music focused wiki called SoundUnwound that anyone can edit. While integrating YouTube videos, from the beta version of the site it seems that this will also be artist specific.

Secondly, discussion forums could also be linked to digital music stores to encourage greater participation in the discourse of political music. By increasing the discussion around songs of this nature a greater level of peer production can be achieved providing a context and a forum in which to express personal perspectives on the music. Many lyrics sites provide an opportunity to discuss the interpretation of political songs but are removed from the music.

Thirdly, search engines could also be developed which can search lyrics or imbedded tags to provide increased access to oppositional culture. This would enable users to search for themes rather than just genres or artists and provide results based on content.

Yahoo has recently begun integrating full length streams to its standard search engine but the search parameters are limited to artist names and song titles. Up to 25 tracks can be streamed once each in a one month period.

Fourthly, grass roots political campaigns should be entitled to link to and use political music on their websites. Provided this was for registered charities or incorporated associations (genuine non profits) there should be no impediments to the use of music to educate, illustrate and empower members of the public.

Statistics in both the United States and Canada indicate that more people purchase music when they are exposed to it. Adopting this strategy requires an acknowledgement that not all free downloads or streams equate to a lost sale. For political music this would equate to radio air play or television exposure that this form of culture currently lacks.

While I dont think it is necessary, limitations could also be imposed such as restricting the number of songs each organisation could stream at one time or imposing an arbitrary limit such as 10,000 streams per song. This could most easily be achieved through an exception to copyright infringement under the Copyright Act.

At present there is a distinct separation between activism and protest music. Breaking down this barrier would result in both increased awareness of issues as well as greater exposure, consumption and use of political works.

When one looks at material relating to the civil rights era in particular as well as other movements from the 1960s it becomes evident that the protests and other campaigns that took place at the time directly integrated with political song with many works being performed and sung on mass as part of the protest. With the exception of the Get Up Mobs version of ‘From Little Things Big Things Grow’ which was a song recorded and released as part of a Get Up campaign at the time of the apology to the Stolen Generation, it is difficult to find examples in recent times when songs were linked directly to political issues.

Finally, another important change that would improve access to protest music would be the development of a central repository or archive. This should not be limited to works that have entered the public domain but should offer the public streams of content. This could be operated by a non profit association incorporated in numerous jurisdictions around the world and could integrate with wikipedia pages which discuss specific social events or concerns.

Further Reading
Digital Music News, eMusic Goes Under the Knife; Makeover Unwrapping Soon (17 July 2008) <http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/stories/071608emusic> at 18 July 2008

washingtonpost, Yahoo to open music to other services (11 September 2008) <http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/11/AR2008091101997.html>at 14 September 2008

Digital Music News, Yahoo Music Starts Opening Up; Early Blueprints Revealed (12 September 2008) <http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/stories/091008yahoo> at 14 September 2008

Digital Music News, Aaliyah to ZZ Top: Amazon, IMDb Launch Music Wiki (4 September 2008) <http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/stories/090308amazon> at 4 September 2008

Songmeanigngs.net <http://www.songmeanings.net/> at 10 October 2008

Yahoo, Yahoo hopes to boost search fortunes with new music search (19 September 2008) <http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080919-yahoo-hopes-to-boost-search-fortunes-with-new-music-search.html> at 21 September 2008

CNet News, Yahoo adds full-length music tracks to search results (18 September 2008) <http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10045466-2.html> at 21 September 2008

Get Up, From Little Things Big Things Grow Campaign (January 2008)
<http://www.getup.org.au/campaign/MakeThisAHit&id=329> at 10 October 2008

Digital Music Stores are on the right track

Some recent changes to the digital music scene are worth mentioning and relate to the discussion I raise regarding specific strategies that will help political music to be heard in the digital environment. Firstly there has been some integration between music services and external sources of content, secondly there have been some changes allowing more flexible use of general search engines and thirdly there has been some progress with respect to allowing the streaming of content prior to purchase.

eMusic was the first to announce and begin to integrate outside content into its service with Wikipedia pages and You Tube videos being made accessible from artist's pages. This was recently followed by an announcement by Yahoo that similar measures would be undertaken.

One of the central arguments of the presentation I will be giving in early October is that this sort of integration is essential to political music as much of the lyrics relate to specific events and social history. More immediate access to this information and the direct association of this sort of material with the music would remove many of the steps needed to establish the context in which oppositional audible culture is produced and thus enhance the exposure, consumption and use of this form of music. Unfortunately early indications suggest that the integration of these sources will not be comprehensive but rather limited to artist biographies and clips relating purely to the songs themselves.

Yahoo, in partnership with Rhapsody, has also recently announced and begun allowing for full length tracks to be searched for through its general search engine. Again this is an important improvement simplifying the process of locating and accessing political music. However reports suggest that this will only allow songs to be searched for by artist name and song title. Whilst an improvement on what is available now, in order to enhance access and use of political music I argue that there needs to be more comprehensive search facilities which would enable the lyrics or embedded tags to be searched to locate material based on content.

Yahoo will also be allowing a limited number of tracks to be streamed once for free (25 per month) prior to the music being purchased. This is similar to the recently launched MySpace Music (only available in the USA at the moment) which will allow an unlimited number of streams of songs but will require purchase through Amazon in order to retain copies of tracks. In the case of MySpace Music the streams are ad supported with revenue sharing arrangements with copyright holders.

Whilst all music suffers from the pay-before-you-try model, as political music is commonly not accessible through mainstream media such as radio and television, this form of culture, and indeed many independent artists (if they are given equal access to these services), will benefit from this change of strategy.

The translation of political expression into social change requires interpretation and application. I argue that these efforts of allowing streams of songs are positive but for political music, greater exposure, consumption and use would more easily be affected through greater affiliation with legitimate non profit associations. I envisage allowing these sites the ability to stream related songs from their websites as one means to increase the communicative capacity of this form of music.

These steps whilst not across the board nor in themselves sufficient to ensure that political music is being heard, are nonetheless positive changes that can be built on in the future (if there is the commercial incentive to do so).

Further Reading
Digital Music News, eMusic Goes Under the Knife; Makeover Unwrapping Soon (17 July 2008) <http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/stories/071608emusic> at 18 July 2008

Yahoo, Yahoo hopes to boost search fortunes with new music search (19 September 2008) <http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080919-yahoo-hopes-to-boost-search-fortunes-with-new-music-search.html> at 21 September 2008

CNet News, Yahoo adds full-length music tracks to search results (18 September 2008) <http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10045466-2.html> at 21 September 2008

ArsTechnica, MySpace Music extends right hand of fellowship to Big Four, middle finger to indies (25 September 2008) <http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080925-myspace-music-extends-right-hand-of-fellowship-to-big-four-middle-finger-to-indies.html> at 26 September 2008

TechDirt, Independent Record Labels Missing From MySpace Music (25 September 2008) <http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080925/1530262378.shtml> at 26 September 2008

The Register, MySpace Music hears the antitrust song (18 September 2008) <http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/09/18/myspace_music_antitrust/> at 21 September 2008

Digital Music News, MySpace Music Goes Live; All Majors On Board (25 September 2008) <http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/stories/092408myspace> at 26 September 2008

Silicon Valley/Associated Press, MySpace rolling out music service (24 September 2008) <http://www.siliconvalley.com/news/ci_10548663?nclick_check=1> at 26 September 2008

The Register, MySpace Music hears the antitrust song (18 September 2008) <http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/09/18/myspace_music_antitrust/> at 21 September 2008

TechDirt, MySpace's Music Offering: Ignoring The Elephant In The Room (12 September 2008) <http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080912/1514312256.shtml> at 21 September 2008

360 Contracts and MySpace

I have been holding back on blogging about the recently announced MySpace Music initiative because the few articles initially circulating have been a little light on in definitive detail. However, as more information begins to emerge there appear to be some worrying issues.

At present there are reportedly around 5 million artists with MySpace pages.

Three of the major labels (not EMI as yet) are to form a separate company, owned and run by them as a joint venture, to work with MySpace to enable artists to sell music as well as a whole range of other products. This raises questions of the potential for anti-competitive practices and the impact that the domination of the labels might have on both signed and unsigned artists.

Signed Artists
In recent times and quite apart from the MySpace initiative, there have been reports suggesting that the very survival of the major record labels depends on their ability to alter the traditional contractual arrangements with artists. Recording contracts were already notorious for being unfavourable to the artist given the small royalties, the need to recoup advances, marketing, production and other costs prior to seeing any real money as well as their length and what many see as a loss of artistic control. In the past labels have recovered their costs and profits long before the artists signed to them break even. But as the trend continues whereby labels are increasingly unable to rely on the sale of CDs to sustain their business model, a new, much broader record contract has been developed.

The newer flavour of record contract tends to allow the label to recover costs from other aspects of the artists business such as merchandising, concerts and sponsorship deals. Most signed artists realise fairly quickly that they are unlikely to make money from music sales and in the past relied primarily on these sources to support themselves. Naturally, as record companies are demanding more of this money, artists are left further financially disadvantaged.

Reports regarding this new initiative with MySpace indicate that it will not simply be music that will be sold through this avenue. Indeed it will be all of these aforementioned sources of income that will now be bundled together. This gives an enormous amount of power to the record labels to control all aspects of a signed artist’s career. One argument is that it benefits the artist because by limiting the infrastructure and coordination costs there can be a cost saving. The other side of this though is the possibility that individual artists will be worse off as they have no choice but to accept any deal offered by the labels. Without the ability to negotiate these aspects of the business independently and with the labels essentially controlling the distribution of music in this forum, signed artists may well face a much greater form of contractual slavery than they currently do.

Unsigned Artists
Around 40% of the music market (a proportion that continues to grow) are currently independent artists. One report suggests that the music service, whilst initially being developed by the major labels, will eventually allow independent artists to sell their music and associated items. Remembering however that this initiative will be owned and run by the major labels there are two points of contention. The first is that it is highly unlikely that independent artists will be treated equally. One can easily imagine a situation where the artists signed to the major labels are promoted ahead of independents, where bandwidth is prioritised in favour of signed artists or the possibility that independents may end up paying more for the privilege of having this avenue to sell their work. This later point raises a second area of contention. As the industry itself moves away from music as the primary product, it seems that paying the major labels to distribute the work of independent artists, allows them to access royalties by default. Without having to support the artist, coordinate their careers, cover the costs of their recording or marketing; major labels nonetheless will still be able to make money out of them.

The Public
Of course there are also flow-on effects to the public from this proposal. As I often note, an environment that is not supportive of the best artists inevitably results in the promotion of music that is commercially viable rather than socially advantageous. While, fortunately, not all people use MySpace and there will continue to be some competition from other music initiatives, this business model will further impede the movement to a collective licensing model. There are already suggestions that most of the music will be protected with DRM (with a possibility of some unprotected tracks). More importantly however, such a model continues to depend on the stifling of innovation through the continued persecution of file sharing technology and users.

One commentator concludes discussion of this issue by stating ‘Welcome to Feudalism 2.0’. Unfortunately this captures much of my sentiments regarding this proposal. In many ways this is much worse than the current market dominance of iTunes. It smacks of the potential for anticompetitive behaviour and does nothing to overcome the current difficulties of artists and the public in the digital music environment.

Articles
TechDirt, Major Record Labels Form Joint Venture With MySpace (3 April 2008)
<http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080403/111142739.shtml> at 7 April 2008

The Register, MySpace Music leaves creators cold (4 April 2008) <http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/04/04/myspace_music_coup/> at 7 April 2008

The Register, MySpace trumpets music service (3 April 2008) <http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/04/03/myspace_music/> at 7 April 2008

SiliconValley/Associated Press, MySpace starts music service with 3 major record companies
(3 April 2008) <http://www.siliconvalley.com/personaltech/ci_8796093> at 7 April 2008

Digital Music News, It's Coming: More Dealmaking Details Leak on MySpace Music (25 March 2008) <http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/stories/032408myspace> at 26 March 2008

Digital Music News, Fog Starts Lifting on MySpace, Major Label Discussions (21 February 2008) <http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/stories/022008myspace> at 25 February 2008

Digital Music News, Upstreaming Disrupted:Why Major Label Survival Depends on Transformed Deals (18 March 2008) <http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/stories/031708upstream> at 19 March 2008

Digital Music News, 360 + Change: Labels Pushing Harder on Broader Deals (10 February 2008) <http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/stories/021008change> at 19 February 2008