Facts about the distribution and consumption of music

The introduction of the CD (compact disc) on the mass market in 1982 heralded the arrival of digital music consumption. That the CD soon superseded the cassette as the most popular consumption format demonstrates its importance, though it is perhaps not hugely significant in terms of affording new ways in which consumers could experience music. The chief advantage of the CD was that it provided much better audio quality than the cassette but was also much more portable and durable than vinyl (it also helped that huge amounts of money and energy were pumped into promoting it, though this, of course, never guarantees the success of a format). CDs promised durability, as Philips promoted the format with the motto ‘perfect sound forever'; consumers soon found that they were prone to digital ‘jitters', while some have estimated that the shelf life of an average retail music CD is no more than seven to ten years.

One of the most significant aspects of the CD was that it did enable music listeners to access tracks randomly, which for some was a great boon in terms of experiencing music in more ‘user-friendly' ways. Nevertheless, there were some things about CDs that did not match up to cassettes: in particular, it would be a long time before people could record onto CDs, so the cassette remained a popular format for making music compilations. Additionally, because CDs were physically wider than cassettes, the ‘CD Walkman' did not supersede the cassette Walkman in terms of popularity because it was a more cumbersome device to carry. It was not until the growth of the mp3 as a popular consumer format that digital portable devices began to replace the analogue Walkman (see below). Subsequent digital formats did not take off in the way that electronics and music companies would have wished: DAT and mini-disc (MD), for example, made only limited inroads into the consumer industry. Worse was to follow for the corporations with the rise of the Internet and the ability to distribute and consume music in new ways.

As is now well known, the music industry was taken unawares by the growth in distributing mp3 music files even though the roots of the format lay in corporate strategies to standardize digital data. The sharing of music files started around the mid-1990s: at this point, it was difficult to download music because of very slow connection speeds (which is why files were compressed) and it was not that easy to find particular music. The emergence of Napster in June 1999 changed things dramatically. Aware of the growth in file sharing, Shawn Fanning created a central server that linked users together and searched their respective folders to find specific tracks. Suddenly, file sharing was big news and the record industry had to take notice. They had a similar problem with the availability of cheap, recordable cassettes in the early 1980s, which had led to legislators granting music labels a portion of every sale of blank audio cassettes . Yet, illegal copying of cassettes was limited to the extent that they often only swapped among a small network of friends. By contrast, it is possible to endlessly copy mp3s and distribute them to a virtual network of millions. In 1999, when Napster emerged, connection speeds were gradually beginning to rise and computer adoption was increasing. Unsurprisingly, the music industry clamped down: in December 1999, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) filed a lawsuit against Napster, leading to its closure in February 2001 (it re-emerged as a legal service in 2003 after being purchased by Roxio). A huge debate about copyright issues in the digital age and the conduct of the record industry followed that I do not have the space to delve into here (for an overview of debates, see Frith and Marshall 2004).

What did follow was a tussle between the official industry and the activities of those deemed illegal by that industry. In light of Napster's demise, a number of newer peer-to-peer programs emerged that often used open-source software and therefore could not be identified with any particular persons in regard to legal action. The record industry, realizing the difficulty of shutting down such programs therefore adopted a new strategy of targeting individuals who shared large collections of their music through virtual networks, a controversial tactic, particularly regarding the extremely heavy fines and sentences that some have received. Despite these punitive measures, illegal file sharing still occurs on a large scale. It coexists now, though, with the legal distribution of copyrighted electronic files. The record industry realized that it needed to offer a legal alternative to downloading music if it was going to remain a dominant force. For a new generation of music listeners, who often listen through portable devices and computers, the digital file is extremely versatile because it can be transferred between devices with ease and does not consume physical storage space. As of January 2007, digital files account for an estimated 10 per cent of the international music market - amassed through both online and mobile phone sales - and this will undoubtedly grow in the future (IFPI 2007). As digital downloads now increasingly impact upon music charts around the world, the individual single, as opposed to the long-playing ‘album', reassumes importance as downloads are sold on an individual track basis. What is different from when the 7″ vinyl single in its heyday is that singles were then often used to sell albums; now, with every track on an album a potential single, the tables have arguably reversed.

For his 2006 album The Information, artist Beck produced music videos for every track: in this sense, the album can be thought of as a platform for creating future revenue from all of its singular elements. Nevertheless, there is still some dissatisfaction with paid legal downloading, often distributed via formats such as Advanced Audio Coding (AAC) or Windows Media Audio (WMA) rather than mp3, in order to embed Digital Rights Management (DRM) restrictions into files. Consumers have expressed dissatisfaction with DRM, which limits the amount of times a user can copy the file and, often, the type of hardware the files can be transferred to; there has also been dissatisfaction with the pricing of virtual files. When people were downloading free, illegal tracks, they did not worry too much about the loss of sound quality entailed by digital compression, but this is not the case when it comes to actually paying for them. In addition, consumers have also complained that when they buy a CD, they are free to rip the contents and transfer the files in whatever manner they please, which actually means that digital online files are less flexible than their physical counterparts. The lack of flexibility inherent in DRM has led many within the industry to argue against it, and there are signs now that many record companies are willing to ditch it. EMI announced in April 2007 that it was going to offer enhanced digital files without DRM protection alongside its normal DRM-protected files via iTunes, though at the cost of 20p more per file (EMI 2007). Currently, this selling of tracks in both DRM-protected and unprotected versions at different prices looks set to become widely adopted.

Facts about the distribution and consumption of music

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