Is The Web What The Music Industry Needed?

For years and years there have been those who believe (myself included) that the music industry is no longer developing quality music that people actually want to hear, but rather relying on revenue-generating formulas and focusing solely on financial details with no regards to the quality of the music being created. It is more about deadlines and budgets.

Of course, major label record executives see no problems with that since they are taking in the cash, but there is a reason why so many artists choose the independent route over big advance checks from the deep pocket of major labels. It is also clearly not worth it for consumers to buy an album on CD for $15 only to listen to one or a few tracks, as the success of both "legal" (Apple iTunes) and "illegal" (the first Napster) online music distribution services have proved.

So, what could this digital age possibly mean for the future of the music industry? Apparently a reformation that has been long needed. It was first evident when the layoffs started taking place at Island Def Jam and Interscope, and even more so when Columbia (Sony BMG) followed suit but left the online department untouched (coincidence?). Now, Yahoo! Music is set to be revamped to reflect Yahoo's renewed vision of the future of digital music and how consumers interact with it, in an effort to "create open standards around music buying, playing, managing and sharing," as Michael Arrington noticed. Could web 2.0 have been what the music industry needed all along to get back to what is important?

It is evident that the onset of the digital age has made it much easier for musicians to go the independent route and get involved in the music scene when it comes to recording, duplicating, distributing and marketing their artistic creations. Although the constantly decreasing costs of computers and CD recorders have helped, a lot of thanks must also go to the internet. While services such as CDBaby and Snocap have helped artists with distribution, MySpace and other social services have helped with spreading the word.

Ian Rogers, Yahoo Music’s VP of Product Development, has quite the interesting view of where music is headed online and I wholeheartedly agree with most of what he has had to say concerning the flaws in current online music subscription plans (including Yahoo's own unlimited service). According to Rogers, "We need to work together to create the Media Web," which will involve a collaboration of user-generated content and content from artists/labels, thus making it easier for consumers to both find new music recommended from their trusted network of friends (or others with similar interests) and to acquire that music once a consumer discovers something they like.

Perhaps the most intriguing part of the argument, however, comes from Umair Haque of Bubble Generation, who compares old media (referred to as Media 1.0) to the new generation of media (Media 2.0). The old model requires a larger marketing budget to reach an audience, which results in diminishing returns when even more money is invested in higher quality entertainment. Media 2.0, on the other hand, depends more on quality resulting in diminishing returns only when more money is spent on marketing. With that being the case, its makes much more sense for musicians to spend more time making good music that will attract more fans than to spend more money trying to attract fans, which is the way it should be.

Hopefully, all of this progress will permanently kill the DRM technology that bigwigs thought would curb digital music sharing. It's about time that love for good music becomes more important than profits because with good music comes loyal fans. Who knows where the music industry might be now if it were not for the web, but it surely couldn't get much worse.

Yahoo! definitely has the right idea, but when will other companies start to follow? An even better question is, when will the RIAA and major labels realize that they are making the wrong decisions when it comes to digital music distribution? Times are changing and it's better to forge ahead with the consumers than to work against us because, in the end, it is consumers who decide who will get their hard-earned money.