Digital Media May Keep Music Industry Alive

My fascination with the thinking of Gerd Leonhard continues. His views on the future of music are interesting if not radical. In
a paper titled “ Music 2.0 – formulating the future of music ”, Gerd
asserts that the music industry as it has been structured is headed for
dissaster. He sees its leadership as largely bogged down by its a lack
of digital clarity as well as lacking in people who understand the
cultural shifts that the world is undergoing. He
thinks it is wrong for an industry to block public access to music
because it cannot solve  it's business model problems. It is equally
cruel for the industry to convert otherwise law abiding citizens to law
breakers for its inability to serve them in ways they find convenient.

According
to Gerd, music is a social commodity and the world is evolving towards
sharing through social tools, these he sees as the distribution system
of the future , where music  creators and users meet and the content
user is given the freedom to share  music with others. So
how do the people who make music make money? He suggests several
business models, one where people are aggregated and their attention
paid for by advertising, these groups of consumers will also become
consumers for other music by products, from live gigs to merchandise,
and yes music sales . He sees the masses on social platforms  forming a
large peer to peer distribution chain for music creators if they develop
a financially rewarding system for consumers and themselves. He even
believes that consumers would be inspired to pay for content as a
result of their loyalty and feeling of “sponsorship” to artistes.

I
am no music specialist though I must say that most people around me
qualify as pirates of one peice of content or other. A visit to most
households in Kenya will reveal all manner of digital contraband even
in the the most law abiding.  From DVDs bought on the streets to
playstation games and compilation CDs. They are mainly in that
situation because they do not have alternative purchase options. The
pirate has proven better at distribution that the legitimate owners of
content. I agree with Gerd, that is not a moral or criminal issue, it
is a business model and efficiency issue.

The
cottage end of the music industry seems to be addressing this issue
better than the large scale end. Choirs and self promoting artistes
cutting CDs are selling them through real rather than virutal social
networks. Musicians sell door to door and person to person while the
choir will allocate each member a number of CDs to sell to their
friends. They keep their prices affrodable as well. To agree with Gerd
once again, it is hard to steal from someone you know. He
closes his discussion with a Chinese proverb . “When the winds of
change are blowing some people build shelters while others build
windmills”. Digital platforms may just help the music industry
instead of destroy it .

Frank Maina is lead Consultant at FMC and CEO at Mobile Agency  Sponge East Africa.