WTD Music Survival GuideWTD Music Survival Guide
What's The Download is a "comprehensive, research-based public education campaign designed by The Recording Academy (GRAMMYs) that recognizes the lack of dialogue between the music industry and the music fan." With a board of 12 in-the-know kids ranging from 20-26 years old, they aim to create coversations and offer insight among music creators and consumers through websites, K-12 lesson plans, PSAs and more.
After two years of research, The Board revealed their research and recommendations in a 70+ page report titled "WTD Music Survival Guide" (Full Report (PDF)). Thankfully for you (and me) the press conference summed it up into seven main points. These tips are aimed at the recording industry in an effort to help them cope with the changing landscape of music today.
#1 Educate To Eradicate Piracy:
Acknolwedging that record companies and RIAA lawsuits may be effective scare tactics, there is surely a better way to appeal to music consumers. Educating them on the amount of work and people involved in putting out an album is the first step. Who does pirating music hurt? What are the costs involved in publishing music?
My Take:
This is a great idea, though I laugh when I think how many other industries have to justify their prices? It be interesting if Starbucks had to justify their $4 lattes? If you could walk into a coffee shop and steal a grande no-whip, would the coffee shop industry be forced to do something similar? Personally, I would love to be educated a bit more about the costs associated with a CD to justify prices and what makes some CDs $10 and some $18. While marketing is a necessary expense, when consumers find out that 20% of their money went towards plastering NYC with posters and ads in magazines, will they really change their mind?
#2 Make Music Retail Therapy:
Besides being more convenient, people may be turning to piracy because it is easier to discover and sample new music. Creating a retail environment with knowledgable staff and the ability to sample whole records (like on listening stations) would help create more motivation to get out to a store.
My Take:
Again, I feel like this tip is a bit misaligned. Small record shops already thrive on the above advice, and are often gateways of discovering great new music whether it's just what's playing in the store or from advice from employees. I don't see larger retailers like Best Buy and Walmart having the economic motivation to hire a music-specialized staff, since music is a small slice of the pie whose sales are generated primarily by consumers there for other reasons. You can see the definition of music retailing expanding already as Starbucks' CD sales continue delivering explosive growth.
#3 Declare A Music/Tech Truce:
The industry isn't making it easy for consumers to use purchased digital music among their computers, digital devices etc. MP3s' interoperability is a key benefit of piracy, and the legal services need to be able to compete.
My Take:
While there are a few avenues to choose from that already go this route (Magnatune is the first to come to mind), there is definitely a lack of options. DRM is like lending somebody your roadster to go to the grocery store but tracking it with GPS because you don't really trust that they won't take it for a joy ride. I think there will be a turning point where larger digital music retailers like iTunes will concede and sell plain vanilla mp3's, but I don't think it will happen until it is a forced market decision created by lots of smaller online stores with these options gaining more momentum.
Read the rest of the tips after the jump!
#4 Commit To Artist Development:
This one is so dream world I'm just going to quote it word for word. "If the music industry wants to win back the financial loyalty of fans lost to illegal means of obtaining music, the major labels should work with artists to cultivate their talent, rather than casting an artist aside after a commercially unsucessful release."
My Take:
I think this board is being too emotional for it's intended audience. They are suggesting steps that should be taken by the music industry to save sales and embrace the next wave of music consumers. Then they are telling them to ignore the return on investment, and grow artists that have talent--by who's standard? Music makes me feel. It makes me happy, sad, motivated and excited. The music industry can't thrive on me feeling happy or sad. It thrives off making money; selling music. Whether you, me or The Board want to acknowledge it or not, the music is a business. While there are exceptions, telling labels to ignore sales and cultivate artists is naive at best, ignorant at worse. Just like organizations in any sector, smaller labels will always take more risks (less to lose, more to gain) while larger labels will always be more conservative.
#5 Embrace New Music Avenues:
The times, they are a changin'. Grow and evolve with the community with new forms of broadcasting, community building and interaction.
My Take:
Embracing the changing landscape is a bigger concern for newspapers (old media vs new media) than the recording industry. Labels big and small have been embracing new music avenues well already. Besides the fact that some larger labels still don't think it's a good idea to give away free MP3s, even the top guns have Myspace and Purevolume pages, are doing podcasts, creating forums, selling ringtones, growing street teams, and embracing satellite radio. Perfect example is Warner Music Group's recent deal with YouTube.
#6 Offer What Piracy Doesn't:
A BMI executive said last week that the CD is dead. While this may not be true yet, the days of selling a strictly music package may be coming to an end. Instead of competing with P2P by selling essentially the same product, offer something bigger and more compelling.
My Take:
A perfect example of this has been getting a lot of buzz lately. Beck's new album offered home videos and a create-your-own album cover with stickers that humoursly was deemed unfair packaging by the UK Album Charts.
Along the same lines, why not offer what Piracy does? Many turn to P2P for rare albums, hard to find music videos and demo tracks. Make everything available in a legal manner. Perfect example is the 15 disc Radiohead compilation floating around the net full of unreleased material, early versions of songs, and live renditions. Why not make it available as one humongous, legal download for $50 bucks? I'm sure fans would pay it. People want to support artists, it just has to be easy.
#7 Make Music A Priority:
Both sides need to take a refreshed outlook on the music industry. Fans need to commit to supporting the artists that they love whether that be through concerts, digital downloads or other means. Retailers and Labels need to embrace new technology instead of fighting it and create more compelling reasons to go legal.
My Take:
While being the most broad point of the bunch, I agree whole-heartedly. Like making the decision to save the environment one compact florescent light bulb at a time, both sides of the music community just need to make a conscious effort to embrace and help the music industry survive. This doesn't necessarily mean helping the labels survive though, as things like the upcoming Myspace music store where you can sell mp3s on your own profile will continue putting more power into the hands of the individual musician.
It was emphasized that none of these seven points offered a solution in itself but needed to be considered as pieces of an entire solution. Though often naive and a bit misguided, most of these tips do offer a bit of help to an industry that will need to change in order to thrive.
Personally I'm looking forward to the continual growth of the feasibility for independent artists to make a living by taking a more involved approach to their distribution and growth and leaving less control in the hands of label execs.
For more info on the What's The Download Board and to read the full, 70 page report check out whatsthedownload.com
