Who Can Stop Liquid Music?

FOR THE RECORDING INDUSTRY, THEY ARE THE NEW EDEN, FOR MUSIC ARTISTS THEY ARE MORE LIKE A VERSION OF HELL. HOWEVER YOU LOOK AT IT, STREAMING PLATFORMS HAVE CHANGED THE MARKET FOR LISTENING TO MUSIC

by Aura Bertoni and Massimo Maggiore
Translated by Alex Foti

Music has gone through its ultimate virtualization through on-demand music streaming services that reside on the digital cloud. Technological progress has thus brought about a radical innovation in the music market. 

Legal music streaming platforms have been welcomed by the recording industry reeling under the threat of piracy. On the one hand, these services counter illegal online sharing of copyrighted songs, and on the other give a new boost to certain genres, like classical music, which have seen a marked growth in revenues with respect to more traditional forms of music consumption. Not only that, but music labels acknowledge the important role of platforms in selecting emerging talent. According to this perspective, more than a distribution channel, platforms are poised to become digital libraries where the whole amount of produced music can be explored by users, while providing synergies for the sales of physical products and live concerts.

However, what’s positive for the recording industry is not necessarily so by musicians and songwriters. The dematerialization of music caused by streaming has also profoundly affected production and distribution.

Firstly, music is no longer a vector of identity. Liquid music, accessible without limits, develops a more promiscuous, less loyal audience, also because a given music choice no longer entails a significant monetary investment compared to CDs and LPs, and neither requires significant investment of time in the search for new music. The rise of the omnivorous user has caused a certain disconcert among artists, who see the risk of banality and superficiality with respect to the traditional model, where every hit was the byproduct of original creativity and hard-earned popularity.
 
How earnings are shared is the crucial and most debated issue, in regard to subscription revenues and paid ads. There have been several crusades by some artists fighting streaming services because they pay little to musicians. It’s a fact that aside from major icons, most musicians have seen earnings from content they create suffer. They know how much they are owed in fractions of cents each time we listen to one of their songs, but they do not know the  whole system of revenue sharing that music corporations have struck with web platforms in great secrecy.
 
As dissatisfaction rises across the industry, and mutual fingerpointing prevents frank debate, a way out could be more transparency. Last July a repost published by Rethink Music, a project by the Berkeley Institute for Creative Entrepreneurship, has recommended that all actors make the contracts and transactions of the music business more transparent, so that money flows can be simplified and the use of shared technology improved for the purpose of reaching more users.
 
If these proposals were deemed too radical to be implemented, a vital occasion to benefit from the existing technological revolution would be lost.