Cloud Computing and Indie Music.
Websites dedicated to music blogs and the digital curation of new music have been emerging and gaining popularity since the beginning of the millennium. As discussed in my blog Promoting Indie Music on Social Media, this has become an effective platform for indie artists to promote and sell their work, because most of these are created and visited by music lovers. It is interesting to note that these platforms also serve as digital music magazines that have dedicated writers and generate a separate revenue stream. Because these sites have dedicated experts constantly writing about new trends and releases in the music industry, they also play an important role in building a reputation for an indie artist or indie band. New releases are shared, talked about and stamped ‘approved’ on such sites and are helpful for indie artists in expanding their fan-base and advertising new projects.
In light of the recent technological developments, record companies have been compelled to start adapting to the situation by utilizing the latest social media platforms to discover talent, potential stars and for promotions. They have had to form relationships with popular music blogs to promote their current signees. All of these alterations in their basic business model have been necessary for record labels to capitalize on new prospects. You can read about this in my blog Record Labels and Indie Music. Some famous record companies like Warner Music Group, worked at reinventing themselves as a “music based content company” rather than a traditional label. However, the personal managers are sceptical of the value of record companies, because of their shrinking resource base in the live music process.
Like the record sales of indie music, the live entertainment industry has also gone through several interesting changes in the new millennium. An article in the ABC News noted in the early 2000s that while music sales fell from $13 billion to $11.5 billion, concert revenues soared from $1.3 billion to $2.1 billion simultaneously. The relatively small size of the live music industry, though, indicated that the music business couldn’t yet be fully sustained by concert revenues.
Cloud computing is the latest introduction in digital distribution. Consumers can remotely store their music libraries and access them from virtually any device with an internet connection, through colud computing. Apple’s introduction of iTunes Match service in 2011, generated a revenue stream for Apple as well as record labels because of this technology. Apple’s website says that the service scans a users’ music library and matches their collection with songs available through the iTunes store. It then sends the information to the cloud, making their music remotely available on up to 10 devices. This means that even if a consumer has illegally downloaded a portion of their library, they will have access to a likely higher quality version of these pirated songs from essentially anywhere. For further expanding consumers’ listening opportunities, Apple charges $25 a year, a portion of which goes to the artists and record labels or publishers. Although this might not completely heal the damage from piracy, one former EMI Music executive described it as “one way to make someone pay for music they’ve already bought” in a 2011 article by Rolling Stone magazine. The fact that the service offers a way to charge for music that has been illegally downloaded may be even more important.
Both recordings and live entertainment sector of the indie music industry have clearly seen a massive transformation of the music business in the last dozen years. What’s more important is that indie artists and consumers both seem to benefit from the opened environment offered by the internet. However, in addition to piracy, record labels have been hurt by massive changes in distribution and promotion, and will likely have to take new form as they get a feel for the evolved environment. As discussed in my blog Digital Sales of Indie Music, promoting indie music on social media has taken an interesting turn today, with social media and promotion being deeply and intricately intertwined. Most indie artists are releasing some or all of their music online, free of charge and without needing a label or publisher to promote them. The free music published online is used to advertise relatively unknown acts which the consumers are not yet ready to pay for. These are also used by established groups or individuals around upcoming albums or tours, to build momentum. Digital distributors are increasingly playing the primary role in selling music.
In my next blog I am going to write about the impact of internet on indie music business as a whole. Please share your experiences and I will add them to my future blogs.
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