Musicians Who Are Taking Down the Music Industry

The advance of the internet has revolutionized the world, giving power to such online stores as Amazon.com and effectively eradicating the presets set by brick and mortar businesses. One of the most heavily affected sources has been the music industry, beginning with Napster, which eschewed copyright in favor of users sharing material without having to pay either the artist or the artist's record label.

While Napster is now a legitimate pay service, mp3s are still dominating the way music is purchased and enjoyed. Music is either stored on a hard drive, uploaded to a site, downloaded to a personal player such as an iPod, or kept on a USB drive. In fact, to promote the latest Nine Inch Nails release Year Zero, the band left USB flash drives containting a music single in a Portugal stadium housing a Nine Inch Nails concert. Trent Reznor, the source of the band, explained the marketing technique:

"The medium of the CD is outdated and irrelevant. It's really painfully obvious what people want - DRM-free music they can do what they want with. If the greedy record industry would embrace that concept I truly think people would pay for music and consume more of it." [1]

With the rise of the internet, the power has been taken from the record labels and given to the listeners. Musicians are eschewing the traditional route of playing various gigs and hoping to get signed in favor of posting their music on such social sites as MySpace and growing their fanbase in a grassroots, word of mouth style. As an article in Wired Magazine bluntly states, "The music industry is suffering". [2] In the same article Terry McBride, CEO of Nettwerk Music Group, states, "The future of the business isn't selling records...It's in selling music, in every form imaginable."

In the book The Future of Music: Manifesto for the Digital Music Revolution authors Dave Kusek and Gerd Leonhard envision a future in which music will be enjoyed more as a utility, like water. On the third page of the book they predict that laws concerning authorship and copyright will give way to fit this model "in a way that ensures the enjoyment and benefit of society as a whole, and that allows all involved parties to prosper." This is in contrast to the current climate, highlighted in another incident involving Trent Reznor. After he discovered that Year Zero was selling for an unusually high price in Australia, he chastized the label Universal Music Group on the official Nine Inch Nails website, nin.com.

Reznor noted that Year Zero was selling for $34.99 Australian dollars ($29.10 US) and Avril Lavigne's The Best Damn Thing was priced at $21.99 ($18.21 US). "No wonder people steal music," he wrote. Reznor asked a label representative what the reasoning was behind pricing the NIN album higher, and was told that the label knew Reznor had " 'a real core audience that will pay whatever it costs when you put something out - you know, true fans.

It's the pop stuff we have to discount to get people to buy.' So... I guess as a reward for being a "true fan" you get ripped off." Reznor went on to promise that he wouldn't release a European maxi-single for the song "Capital G" and would instead work on a remix album of Year Zero. As Rolling Stone's Daniel Kreps puts it, "Who would have guessed that Trent Reznor would emerge as the Ralph Nader of the music industry?" [3]

Reznor is hardly alone in his crusade. Prince gave millions of copies of his latest album Planet Earth away for free in a British newspaper. While his decision enraged retailers and record label executives, Prince explained that his free copy giveaway is "direct marketing and I don't have to be in the speculation business of the record industry which is going through a lot of tumultuous times right now." [4]

The pop/rock band Barenaked Ladies released of a USB flash drive of their album Barenaked Ladies Are Me containing music, video, pictures, and "other data" in November 2005. [5] They also offered two digital versions for download at online music stores and their main website.

Musicians and music fans are moving ahead with technology, and leaving the record executives in the dust. In an interview with New York Times in 2002, music pioneer and visionary David Bowie predicted the future of the industry:

''I don't even know why I would want to be on a label in a few years, because I don't think it's going to work by labels and by distribution systems in the same way,'' he said. ''The absolute transformation of everything that we ever thought about music will take place within 10 years, and nothing is going to be able to stop it. I see absolutely no point in pretending that it's not going to happen. I'm fully confident that copyright, for instance, will no longer exist in 10 years, and authorship and intellectual property is in for such a bashing.''

''Music itself is going to become like running water or electricity,'' he added. ''So it's like, just take advantage of these last few years because none of this is ever going to happen again. You'd better be prepared for doing a lot of touring because that's really the only unique situation that's going to be left. It's terribly exciting. But on the other hand it doesn't matter if you think it's exciting or not; it's what's going to happen.'' [6]

As Trent Reznor, Prince, or any modern music fan will tell you, it's already happening, and happening fast.

[1] Hamish Mackintosh, "Stars compose new ways to use music." The Guardian, March 29, 2007. URL: (http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2007/mar/29/pop.guardianweeklytechnologysection)

[2] Jeff Howe, "No Suit Required" Wired Magazine, September 2006. URL: (http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.09/nettwerk.html)

[3] Daniel Kreps, "Nine Inch Nails' Trent Reznor Slams Records Labels for Sorry State of the Industry" Rolling Stone Magazine, May 14, 2007. URL: (http://www.rollingstone.com/rockdaily/index.php/2007/05/14/nine-inch-nails-trent-reznor-slams-records-labels-for-sorry-state-of-the-industry/)

[4] BBC News, "Newspaper gives away Prince CDs" July 15, 2007 URL: (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/6899478.stm)

[5] Cory Doctorow, "Barenaked Ladies release album on USB stick" Boing Boing, November 16, 2005. URL: (http://www.boingboing.net/2005/11/16/barenaked_ladies_rel.html)

[6] Jon Pareles "David Bowie, 21st-Century Entrepreneur" The New York Times, June 9, 2002. URL: (http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?sec=technology&res=9B03E1DA113AF93AA35755C0A9649C8B63)