FISTFULAYENConvenience Wins, Hubris Loses and Content vs. Context, a Presentation for Some Music Industry Friends
Yesterday was a crazy day.
In the morning I found myself car-less and skateboarding to Santa Monica High School in a suitcoat and wool Vans with my computer in a leather satchel over my shoulder (a byproduct of sharing my car with my seventeen year-old daughter — or more accurately her sharing the car with me). In the afternoon I sat on a panel at Digital Media Forum West with the Usual Suspects (TM), and for dinner I had the pleasure of hearing David Pakman’s “drum story” (which was amazing, btw) and sushi at Ike on Hollyweird Blvd.
But in the middle I gave a brief, twenty minute presentation to some friends in the music industry about why it’s time we pay closer attention to consumer needs when it comes to digital music. I thought I’d share my presentation in case others were interested.
Enjoy,
ian
Hello. My name is Ian Rogers. I’ve been building digital media applications since 1992, dropped out of a Computer Science PhD program to tour with Beastie Boys in 1995, and have been purchased by both AOL and Yahoo! in the ten years since then, with a stint running the new media department for a record label in the middle. Currently I work at Yahoo! Entertainment on Yahoo! Music.
First, a question: How many of you have tried Amazon’s MP3 download service
Back in 1999 I ran Winamp.com for Rob and Justin. Napster came on the scene and we thought, “Wow! There’s a market for MP3s!” We had millions of people using Winamp, visiting Winamp.com for skins and plugins — it was by far the largest community of MP3-lovers. We naively and enthusiastically suggested to labels that we’d be a great place to sell MP3s. The response from the labels at the time was universally, “What’s MP3?” or “Um, no.”
Instead they commenced suing Napster. We were naive to be sure, but we were genuinely surprised by the approach. Suing Napster without offering an alternative just seemed like a denial of fact. Napster didn’t invent the ability to do P2P, it was inherent in TCP/IP. It was like throwing Newton in jail for popularizing the concept of gravity.
Nullsoft subsequently built and prematurely released a program called Gnutella which became the basis for true P2P of the coming years. When Tom Pepper told Time Magazine that Gnutella was for “sharing recipes” he really said it all: This is so much bigger than just sharing music. This is physics. It’s trivial for one person to transfer bits from one person to another. Trivial. Unstoppable. PUT YOUR ENERGY ELSEWHERE, we thought out loud.
I caught a lot of heat from my music industry friends for Nullsoft’s Gnutella leak. In a long and impassioned email in 1999 I wrote to everyone I knew in a band, at a label, or music journalism (whatup, Jay!) and urged them to sell their content to their users in the format they were asking for: MP3. Make it easy, I wrote, and convenience will beat free.
Well, we (you included) did lots of other things instead. While running “New Media” at Grand Royal I released the first day/date digital/physical release with At The Drive-In’s “Relationship of Command”
But now, eight years later, Amazon’s finally done what was clearly the right solution in 1999. Music in the format that people actually want it in, with a Web-based experience that’s simple and works with any device. I bought tracks from Amazon (Kevin Drew
8 years. How much opportunity have we lost in those 8 years? How much naivety and hubris did we have when we said, “if we build it they will come”? What did we spend? And what did we gain? We certainly didn’t gain mass user adoption or trust, two prerequisites to success on the Internet.
Inconvenient experiences don’t have Web-scale potential, and platforms which monetize the gigantic scale of the Web is the only way to compete with the control you’ve lost, the only way to reclaim value in the music industry. If your consultants are telling you anything else, they are wrong.
Yahoo! Music demonstrates this scale discrepancy perfectly. Yahoo! is the world’s #1 Internet destination. Hundreds of millions of people visit Yahoo! each month. Yahoo! Music is the #1 Music site on the Web, with tens of millions of monthly visitors. Between 10 and 20 million people watch music videos on Yahoo! Music every month. Between 5 and 10 million people listen to radio on Yahoo! Music every month. But the ENTIRE subscription music market (including Rhapsody, Napster, and Yahoo!) is in the low millions (sorry, we don’t release subscriber numbers, but the aggregate number proves the point), even after years of marketing by all three companies. When you compare the experiences on Yahoo! Music, the order of magnitude difference in opportunity shouldn’t be a surprise: Want radio? No problem. Click play, get radio. Want video? Awesome. Click play, get video. Want a track on-demand? Oh have we got a deal for you! If you’re on Windows XP or Vista, and you’re in North America, just download this 20MB application, go through these seven install screens, reboot your computer, go through these five setup screens, these six credit card screens, give us $160 dollars and POW! Now you can hear that song you wanted to hear…if you’re still with us. Yahoo! didn’t want to go through all these steps. The licensing dictated it. It’s a slippery slope from “a little control” to consumer unfriendliness and non-Web-scale products and services.
But this isn’t news, nor is it particular to the digital age. History tells us: convenience wins, hubris loses. “Who is going to want a shitty quality LP when these 78s sound so good? Who wants a hissy cassette when they have an awesome quadrophonic system? Who wants digitized music on discs now that we have Dolby on our cassettes? Who wants to listen to compressed audio on their computers?” ANSWER: EVERYONE. Convenience wins, hubris loses. [check Fredric Dannen’s comments here]
I’m here to tell you today that I for one am no longer going to fall into this trap. If the licensing labels offer their content to Yahoo! put more barriers in front of the users, I’m not interested. Do what you feel you need to do for your business, I’ll be polite, say thank you, and decline to sign. I won’t let Yahoo! invest any more money in consumer inconvenience. I will tell Yahoo! to give the money they were going to give me to build awesome media applications to Yahoo! Mail or Answers or some other deserving endeavor. I personally don’t have any more time to give and can’t bear to see any more money spent on pathetic attempts for control instead of building consumer value. Life’s too short. I want to delight consumers, not bum them out.
If, on the other hand, you’ve seen the light too, there’s a very fun road ahead for us all. Lets get beyond talking about how you get the music and into building context: reasons and ways to experience the music. The opportunity is in the chasm between the way we experience the content and the incredible user-created context of the Web.
By way of illustration (and via exaggeration), in a manner of speaking iTunes is a spreadsheet that plays music. It’s context-free. You just paid $10 for that album — who plays drums? I dunno, WHY DON’T YOU GO TO THE WEB TO FIND OUT, BECAUSE THAT’S WHERE THE CONTEXT IS.
But the content experience on the Web is crap. Go to Aquarium Drunkard, click an MP3. If you don’t get a 404, you’ll get a Save As… dialog or the SAME GOD DAMN QUICKTIME BAR FROM 1995. OMFG. ARE YOU KIDDING ME? THIS IS ALL WE’VE ACCOMPLISHED IN 15 YEARS ON THE WEB? It makes me insane.
So we have media consumption experiences with no context (desktop media players) and an incredible, endless, emergent contextual experience where media consumption is a pain in the ass, illegal, or non-existent (the Web). FIX IT. Your fans are pouring their music-loving hearts into blogs, Wikipedia, etc and what tools have you given them to work with? Not much, unfortunately.
This is what I’m vowing to devote my energy, and Yahoo!’s energy to.
Lets envision the end state and drive there as quickly as possible. Lets not waste another eight years on what is obvious today. Lets build the tools of a healthy media Web and reward music-lovers for being a part of it.
In the end you get what you pay for. I won’t spend another dime paying engineers to build false control, making listening to music harder for music-lovers. I will put all of my energy into making it easier and making the experience better. I suggest you do the same.
Thanks for listening.
EPILOGUE:
I wrote this on Thursday but didn’t have time to pull the images together and post. Last night (Friday) I took my mom to the Getty to see Jimmie Dale Gilmore. Mom and I saw Jimmie about fifteen years ago in Bloomington, Indiana. Lots changed for both mom and me in those fifteen years in-between, but Jimmie has only gotten better. His voice is hauntingly beautiful and he nailed every song, even a couple which he said he hadn’t done in a while but would “try”. Mom was cute, she’s in love with Jimmie and was so excited when he walked out on stage she leaned forward in her second-row seat a little and said, “Oh my God!” like she couldn’t believe he was really standing there in front of her. She would turn to me throughout the show to call out a Townes Van Zandt song from the opening riff or ask if it was ok if she sang along with “Dallas”. Anyone who wonders where I get my music nerd-ness from need look no further.
By his own admission, Jimmie’s never met a digression he didn’t like. He tells stories on stage which are things you might expect him to say in the mirror. “What I’ve learned is that when I’m on stage I find out what it is I’m thinking,” he half-joked. But in his very first monologue as he was talking about playing the Getty Museum he said, “I’ve been thinking a lot about content and context lately. As it turns out, there is only context.” Given that I had just made my mom read a draft of the above post before we left, it was a little eerie.
Afterward Jimmie was in the lobby signing autographs. I didn’t want an autograph but I did want to know why the hell he’s been thinking so much about content vs. context. I waited until the autographing was mostly over, introduced mom and myself, and asked. “Don’t get him started,” said his manager. But start he did, and he told us it was the Buddhist concept he’d been considering, and that the notion that anything was without context wasn’t really plausible. I told him I’d been thinking a lot about content vs. context, too, but from a different perspective (in a different context, I suppose you could say).
But they’re related. Music is never without context. Digital music context isn’t nearly as good as it could be. Context is where the opportunity is and therefore where the innovation will be. The next five years is gonna be fun. I think we’re finally going to see some innovation in digital media.
ian
Phillip Kerman wrote:
Nice. I hope this attitude is growing. Alas, I fear that the whole DRM thing is getting better so the result is it’s also more accepted. It’s not as inconvenient as before so it’s “better”.
I think your point is right on. I do think, in the context of the current state of our “digital lifestyle” that–in fact–computers are simply a big pain. I’ve been using computers for a while so I can deal with the constant struggles and, actually, they don’t seem bad at all. But imagine if you were growing up right now. You’d think this stuff works about 60% of the time. For example, I have music pumped to the stereo on the other side of the house over wi-fi. It cuts out… it has to be reset etc. Totally par for the course. So I guess my point is that in the context that the stuff barely works as it is, your point is even MORE true.
Posted 06 Oct 2007 at 6:40 pm ¶
Glen E. wrote:
Good things come to those who wait. but trying to control music will always be a losing battle. Music was not made to make money, real music was and is made to help people express themselves, in a context that others can relate to.
Record companies don’t sell records when the records suck, making sigle hit songs will not sell albums, you need to make great albums to sell albums.
when will the fucking packagers of music figure this out again? (who cares if they do) They need to quit complaining about kids who love music so much that they figure out how to download it for free, they need to remeber how to make good recordings and package them in a way that makes them interesting, fun, informative and make the listener feel like they’re a part of something special and not just being taken advantage of by the corporation or a greedy “artist” who only wants to get rich and famous or die trying.
Posted 06 Oct 2007 at 8:26 pm ¶
Jory Felice wrote:
Thanks for this. I believe you have it right and the Amazonmp3 store should provide a nice, ‘I told you so’ moment. I am glad to know you are working to move Yahoo!s music business in a user friendly direction. They are lucky to have you.
I have to add that describing iTunes as music + spreadsheet is a bit much. I do get your ‘exagerated’ point, but when ‘Coverflow’ was added to that interface last year, it became a great example to support this argument. My digital library became browseable again and a pinch of what had been lost - was being restored.
Posted 06 Oct 2007 at 11:29 pm ¶
Noel wrote:
There have been so many missed oppertunities since Napster and while most of it is the fault of the record companies a fair amount of blame falls on us as well. When the record companies forced Napster out we didn’t completely boycott the music industry instead we turned to Yahoo! Music, itunes, xm and podcasts to get our “fix”. We have never shunned a service because it doesnt allow us to blog or IM our music choices to our friends. Instead we sit quietly hoping some music exec somewhere will decide that there was a reason Napster was so popular and find a way to adapt to the changing climate of music sales.
Posted 06 Oct 2007 at 11:41 pm ¶
Tracy wrote:
Great presentation, keep fighting the good fight. By the way, congrats on getting listed as Powergeek #6:
http://www.blender.com/guide/articles.aspx?ID=2750
Posted 07 Oct 2007 at 8:54 am ¶
Jeanene Van Zandt wrote:
Glen E. wrote:
“greedy “artist” who only wants to get rich and famous or die trying.”
That was a painful statement to read.
I know a lot of artists and not one of them is “greedy”.
In fact I was married to one for 15 years.
He gave his life to his music.
He trudged around this earth for 30 years
sharing his music with the world, but it was “his” music. From him and him alone.
And when he laid down and died, his music became our music. It was his life’s work.
It was owned by him and now us.
Any man has the right and obligation to leave his family something, and a songwriter is no different.
When my husband, the singer/songwriter died our children were 4 & 13.
My husband wasn’t “greedy”. My children are not “greedy”. We are just a family trying to make ends meet while our income has been slashed in half by people stealing my husband’s music.
Music is not FREE, I’ve watch someone die for it.
That someone was Townes Van Zandt.
Posted 07 Oct 2007 at 5:25 pm ¶
Rob Lord wrote:
I think Ian’s trying to say, “MP3 is the new MP3.”
Go figure.
Go Ian.
Rob
Posted 07 Oct 2007 at 11:14 pm ¶
Mo Kakwan wrote:
I was in 9th grade when I started downloading mp3s. It was great because I was a broke high schooler and paying 12 dollars for a CD which had only one song I wanted didn’t make sense.
Now I’m older and I have an income, but most of the time I don’t want to go out and buy an entire CD. I want that one song right now, in 1 minute, so I can listen to it on my ipod while I go running. Then when I come back home I want to be able to burn a mix CD so I can listen to it in my car (because my ipod transmitter doesn’t sound as good). I’ll pay for that convenience.
Ian, you’ve said exactly what I’ve been feeling for years.
@6 - I don’t know if I can speak for the majority of the population, but my friends and I love the artists and want to support them. I think the new Radiohead album will really turn heads to how this industry can be set up.
Posted 08 Oct 2007 at 5:25 am ¶
Lp wrote:
Glen E. wrote:
“Record companies don’t sell records when the records suck, making sigle hit songs will not sell albums, you need to make great albums to sell albums.”
Wrong. Record companies DO sell records when the records suck. Why do you think they have such a stronghold on the music biz? Why do you think they are kicking so hard against the movement to digitized music? Because their business model for so many years, which is “gimme one hit song, I only need one hit to sell this record,” will fall apart.
Record companies are savvy enough to know that you can spend a quarter mil on one music video, because that is an investment in marketing. They will spend money through some legal form of payola to get one song heard on the radio. They’ll spend an extra several thousand dollars on the mix of one song, sending it to a top notch producer to put an extra layer or two of polish on. And more.
All of this to say that record companies continue to make big bank on one-hit records and one-hit wonders. The digital realm poses a threat to that business model and to those artists.
The digital realm ultimately will free the consumers of tired, wasted “filler” tracks. Let’s face it, some albums could have been and should have been just a few songs long. You can toss the rest. But the way the record industry currently works is that you need 40 minutes and ten titles to have an “LP” product. Labels want LP’s because it is easier for their bean counters to do the math. But LP’s are meant for artists who have 40 minutes (at least) of decent material to publish.
To be sure, lots and lots of artists pump out entire albums that simply rock. Not a bad track in the bunch type records. These artists will shine in the digital realm. They will have long-standing careers and make many fans happy. The other artists will either raise their game or head back to the locker room. IMO, everyone benefits in the end.
Sorry for the lengthy comment. I could go on and on. Bottom line is that the digital age of music is going to be great for everyone whose lives do not depend on the old recording industry model. People want to buy the artist, not a product.
Posted 08 Oct 2007 at 5:51 am ¶
J Herskowitz wrote:
Amen.
http://globallistic.blogspot.com/2007/08/king-has-no-clothes-and-is-dead-long.html
Posted 08 Oct 2007 at 7:10 am ¶
Bill T wrote:
Thanks, Ian. I’ve been thinking about form over function, context v. content for 20 years as far as songwriting, presentation and art applies to music. You’re completely right on with your article, but sadly, I fear you’re pitching to deaf ears in speaking to the traditional music industry. But then I’m getting old, beaten down and cynical.
Posted 08 Oct 2007 at 7:15 am ¶
Glen E. wrote:
Jeanene, i wish it was a bit more obvious i did not mean every recording or music performing artist was greedy, of course not.
Posted 08 Oct 2007 at 7:20 am ¶
Nancy B wrote:
Thank you for sharing this.
I like your point toward the end about giving fans the tools to build context. You’re quite right that fans are all over the problem in terms of providing the content, but not the infrastructure on a large (i.e. cross-band) scale. My question is what kinds of tools you think bands, labels and sites like Yahoo should “give fans to work with” that sites like Wikipedia and fan sites aren’t already providing?
Posted 08 Oct 2007 at 7:29 am ¶
Jon O wrote:
A principled stand from a guy the players might listen to. We’re all behind you.
Jon O
Posted 08 Oct 2007 at 8:47 am ¶
alex_mayorga wrote:
Great post and I look forward to un-DRM worldwide available mp3s from Y! soon.
As of now, the coveted Amazon MP3 store still says: “We are sorry…
We could not process your order because of geographical restrictions on the product which you were attempting to purchase. Please refer to the terms of use for this product to determine the geographical restrictions.
We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you.”
I’ve “had friends” that used BBS, IRC, FTP, Napster, Scour, Kazaa, WinMX, Gnutella, eMule, BitTorrent, you name it. I jumped onto Launchcast even before it was Y!M, but as of today not Y! nor Amazon would take my money because I dare to live in Mexico.
In the other hand, Radiohead was nice enough to let me have their music for 0 pounds on the day of the release. If they get to tour Monterrey I’ll do my best to show up on their concert, just for that.
Please let your friends know that geographical barriers don’t do any good either.
If you feel like, you can flight me over to Santa Monica again and I’d be glad to help you try to figure out the Mexican market where piracy is rampant or so they say.
Posted 08 Oct 2007 at 9:22 am ¶
Marc Meyer wrote:
Ian, I’ve been passionate about this for a long time and have wrriten a few business plans on the subject matter. I couldnt have agrred more with your take. It frustartes the hell out of me! I’d love if you could email me, so that I could share my latest iteration of where I think we need to go with this.
Marc
Posted 08 Oct 2007 at 9:28 am ¶
Daniel Raffel wrote:
In the end, everyone is currently getting a bad deal. And, the worst part is that all of this stagnation is devastating a vital form of culture. It’s definitely time to push the majors to adopt/support what have been reasonable suggestions for 8+ years. Keep it up, Ian!
Posted 08 Oct 2007 at 10:28 am ¶
Koz wrote:
with ya.
Posted 08 Oct 2007 at 10:58 am ¶
SteveR wrote:
Good stuff Ian
The golden rule (he who has the gold makes the rules) and the golden goose (lets kill him !!) collide. The probably 100 hours of my life I spent trying to tell SonyBMG that Musicmatch Jukebox wasn’t going to cooperate with putting DRM on CDs I will never get back, but at least for a short time I was a soldier on the right side of the fight. I even called Norton to see if I could get them to block the DRM for one of my PCOEM partners. DRM = virus. I really wish we could wind it back 5 years and do it over again. Cheers to not making the same mistakes any more.
Posted 08 Oct 2007 at 11:34 am ¶
Bawb wrote:
’bout damn time someone INSIDE the music biz said this, and I don’t mean the artists that have been saying it, I mean someone wearing a, well, suit? On a skateboard? Yeah that’s Ian.
BTW, my wife got completely slapped while trying to put a fvcking book on her mp3 player. FROM THE PUBLIC LIBRARY.
Posted 08 Oct 2007 at 12:14 pm ¶
Corey wrote:
Great post.
but more importantly.. sweet old school Gonz skateboard!
Posted 08 Oct 2007 at 12:23 pm ¶
DaleM wrote:
Your message is right on. I used to love to download songs from WinMX for free, then I found out that I was not to be doing that.
I don’t steal out in public, so why steal online. Just give us users something simple and inexpensive to download and just like this Radiohead experience fans will flock to it.
i am still waiting, yes after eight years, I want my songs simple and inexpensive.
I hate to admit it, but I still do not use a DRM enabled music service, but I do use Sharezza. Maybe it is all about me, maybe I am selfish like my wife tells me I am.
God, I would hate to be sued for enjoying music the wrong way. I am thinking of going to Amazon to try this new DRM free service because I want to do the right thing, but want to be able to transfer to my music device, burn to a CD, and be DRM FREE.
Posted 08 Oct 2007 at 12:27 pm ¶
Sachin Rekhi wrote:
Ian - thanks for taking a strong stance on this. I couldn’t agree with you more. I’m glad to see that you are willing to do what is right for the user.
Its good to see progress in this space with the new Amazon MP3 store. I just hope this is a movement that is here to stay. Guys like us have to show the labels that this new model does work. I’m afraid if we can’t convince them of this, they will move back to their silly ways.
I’m a firm believer that there is money to be made here - for labels and for service providers like ourselves. It’s just got to be a model that works for the consumers, not against them.
Thanks for the great post!
Sachin Rekhi
http://www.anywhere.fm
Posted 08 Oct 2007 at 12:47 pm ¶
Jason wrote:
Thanks Ian.
This gives me hope in Yahoo!, in the industry, and in music. I’m tired of crap, and tired of it being difficult to even buy. I was a subscriber to Yahoo! Music Unlimited, because it allowed me to listen when I wanted when I wanted (and I was a beta member so I paid less at first). But when the price went up, and I moved to a Mac, I left it behind.
In the end, I’d be willing to pay a fee for easy access to the music I wanted. That’s a no brainer, but not being able to use my iPod/iPhone, nor my Mac, nor having all the music I really wanted… It wasn’t a winning combination.
Please keep on keeping on. You’re a supported and loved man.
BTW, GO GRAND ROYAL!!! I miss those guys, and the magazine.
Posted 08 Oct 2007 at 1:07 pm ¶
beach wrote:
and still the RIAA wins lawsuits… this time for 24 songs. 24. They were rewarded almost $10,000 in damages each. Pathetic! What do they really win?
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20071004-verdict-is-in.html
http://www.fool.com/investing/value/2007/10/08/the-riaa-wins-but-what-does-it-lose.aspx
Thanks for posting this Ian
-beach
Posted 08 Oct 2007 at 2:06 pm ¶
Dave wrote:
Ian, you’re my hero.
Posted 08 Oct 2007 at 3:22 pm ¶
Brandt Cannici wrote:
I think you are right on Ian. DRM is a deterrent to purchase. However without DRM, why would consumers want to pay a fee to download something from Yahoo or iTunes when they could download it for free via P2P? As Micheal Arrington the price for music distribution will eventually drop to $0.
I think we need new innovative models that offer some value-add that doesn’t exist now. I’m always considered radical, but I suggest that we have consumers pay when an artist creates something and then let the final product circulate for free. It costs nothing to distribute, so why charge for it? Charge for creation.
The value-add is that consumers can get involved in the creation process. Seeing their favorite musicians’ works grow from idea until completion and giving feedback to affect the growth of the song.
Here is a good example where the artist is slowly constructing his song.
http://www.strayform.com/Proposal/default.html?id=21
Not just music but anything could be made this way. If people put their money where their interests are then you would see a lot more specialized music, movies, and books being created. Here is an interesting one about the “Giants of Silicon Valley”.
http://www.strayform.com/Proposal/default.html?id=48
Posted 08 Oct 2007 at 3:50 pm ¶
Dey Martin wrote:
Hybrid Indie MP3 Store Offers DRM-Free Albums / Songs
mTraks.com is a true “hybrid” music download store. It has DRM-free 192 kbps mp3s available a la carte or by subscription (hybrid). mTraks is an open site, so you are not forced to subscribe like on eMusic. Songs are 99 cents a la carte and if you subscribe as little as 27 cents. They have the entire IODA catalog available of 3,500 independent labels offering 800,000 songs. Even better, they offer 30 free songs if you sign up for a trial subscription.
Posted 08 Oct 2007 at 4:55 pm ¶
Ted wrote:
I want to pay for music, but right now there is no compelling way to do so.
I have an ipod which holds 10,000 songs, and I’m a huge music fan, I listen to music all the time and have spent thousands of dollars over the course of my life spending on albums, shirts, tickets, etc.
But with current download prices, it would cost me $10k to fill my ipod, and that’s just with the music I’m interested in now, to say nothing of the next 10k songs I’ll want to check out or hear.
If someone figured out a way to make music cheaper for bulk buyers like me, I will buy it. Until them my option is to either consume very little music, or trade with my friends…
Posted 08 Oct 2007 at 4:58 pm ¶
Jay wrote:
music should be free, and people encouraged to share. Tell me if I am wrong, but you do not know if you like a song until you hear it… now think about communication technologies. Free and easily shared music has the potential to reach millions of ears…create millions of fans… and then so long as you also offer the context or connection for more… millions of fans subscribing to the artists offerings / feed. It is then that artists can take control back, where their music will stand on it’s own, and where they can make some money… not from the 1000 fans they have … but from the millions
Posted 08 Oct 2007 at 5:24 pm ¶
Barnon wrote:
Labels must recognize that consumers, for the most part, are no longer interested in paying (with dollars) for music. Willingness-to-pay for music is zero cents for a majority of consumers. This is the stark reality. There are too many ways for people to access music for free, and these means also tend to be more convenient than legal means of consumption.
In this age when control by major media distributors is ending, the labels must alter their fundamental approach and mentality. The labels must no longer think in terms of trying to extract direct payment from consumers in the form of monetary currency. The new currency to extract directly from consumers is their attention. Music consumers will invest a considerable amount of attention and time if the means of delivery is convenient. This consumer attention is valuable and can be monetized through advertising, behavioral targeting, and bundling the experience of music (ie. creating great context).
Once the content owners (labels and music publishers) switch to this sort of mindframe, the focus can then shift to creating the best user experiences possible that broaden the users’ context around their music. I am certain that this approach would expand the overall pie and create new, revenue-driving opportunities for the major content owners, as well as for entrepreneurs throughout the value chain.
Posted 08 Oct 2007 at 6:35 pm ¶
Justin Davis wrote:
Ian,
Thanks for fighting “the good fight”. I miss the context. I miss the full album art, the liner notes, knowing who the drummer is, the people that inspired or helped the artist to create the album. All the musical connections. You’re right…we should have at least this by now.
Posted 09 Oct 2007 at 12:27 am ¶
y3 wrote:
Brandt Cannici wrote:
… why would consumers want to pay a fee to download something from Yahoo or iTunes when they could download it for free via P2P?
Because it would be legal, convenient, fast, fun, inexpensive and of assured quality.
Posted 09 Oct 2007 at 5:18 am ¶
sam wrote:
It’s certainly good marketing - I only hope it’s true.
Posted 09 Oct 2007 at 5:42 am ¶
Brad wrote:
great post. thanks for sharing it and for the time and energy it took. please keep fighting to make your vision a reality. I have no idea why so many have put up with so much less than there could be for so long.
Posted 09 Oct 2007 at 6:06 am ¶
LadyMissKier from D wrote:
thanks for sharing these thoughts. As an artist who fought to get out of a major label deal (and won) because they wanted me to be more “commercial”,wanted to own my website and dictate some of the content , owned my art directed layouts, owned my co-directed videos, and was the decider to enforce DRM software - I want to thank you for bringing up several issues on control - and ultimately their lack of control. The LION IS OUT OF THE BAG. so…..anyone reading this who wants to work with a truly independant artist that wants to maintain freedom of speech and artistic control- I need your help. I’m looking for a web configurer to help implement my website in a similar way as radiohead. contact me here: info@ladykier.com
check me out: www.ladykier.com
CONTENT IS KING ! let the cream rise to the top
Posted 09 Oct 2007 at 7:21 am ¶
Mwisconsin wrote:
I’ve been a Launchcast/Yahoo! Music listener since the service went live. These days, I’m a Yahoo! Unlimited subscriber, and I’ve got the streaming “My Station” channel running about 24/7. I can safely say that after trying out all the services, Yahoo! still gets my dollars.
However, if you continue on the route of making it a better service, easier to install, easier to acquire tracks, and no hassles at all when I want to throw that on my mp3 player and walk out of the house — I’ll nominate you for the Nobel peace prize myself. Lord knows there have been moments in my life when I wanted to break my pacifistic tendencies over a slight delivered to me by DRM restrictions imposed on music for which I’d already paid money.
Posted 09 Oct 2007 at 7:55 am ¶
Marty wrote:
It is an exercise that the American consumer is nihilistic and narcissistic.
Making music is not free.
Yahoo and Google and Amazon will never get it together for a music service. The “big” internet companies will never play nice with the “big” entertainment companies. They are all greedy and are NEVER about the music. Sony-BMG, EMI, Universal, Yahoo, Amazon, etc. have no vision for music; they are only distributors. They are desperate to get rich fast–that’s the bottom line.
These days, it means nothing to be a Decca recording artist or Ahmet signed you to Atlantic.
Which explains why Matchbox 20 is still being crammed down our ears!
Posted 09 Oct 2007 at 8:19 am ¶
Lee Benningfield wrote:
Someone mentioned eMusic, and how it’s also a subscription service now. But they were selling MP3s, a la carte, in 1999. And now they are selling them as a subscription service for $0.25 each (at the $25 per month, for 100 downloads). That’s 1/4th the price of iTunes (not taking into account the usual discount for buying a full album). Obviously none of the major labels have shown much interest in eMusic, but most independent labels have their stuff on there. Most of the top indie bands are available through eMusic, not to mention their substantial selection of classical and jazz.
Posted 09 Oct 2007 at 8:26 am ¶
Allen Berrebbi wrote:
Make it cheap enough and most people will not steal. If DRM free songs were .25, I would never download a single illegal song EVER. Consider that 90% of all music on the internet is acquired for free and illegally. make the songs a quarter and I believe only the hard core 10% jerks would continue to get it illegally. For the rest, it would not be worth the hassle. And the people stealing it would look like the biggest jerks around.
So lets use a sample size of 1,000,000 songs downloaded, legal and illegally. Right now, the music aholes are getting .99 a song for about, at the most 100,000 songs in that sample. They would make a little more money, about an extra 25,000 (about 12-13% more) on a million songs. Not much at a million size sample but think about how much the music would spread, and how much money and technology is wasted on DRM and between the savings on fighting the DRM fight, the good will for providing a low cost non-greedy alternative, and I believe the money will be there.
Combine that with providing a cool experience at the site where you would purchase this stuff, and an easy way for any music site in the world to sell this stuff as well, and I believe the music biz would explode once more.
Posted 09 Oct 2007 at 8:36 am ¶
minoru yokoo wrote:
hey, i think we met like once, around 96 in silverlake. i was working with buffalo daughter when they signed to gr from around there to the point when they started working with robert b. good memories. i still see miwa and some of the bb’s when i’m in nyc.
anyway, your blog post really resonates with me at the moment. i’m contemplating whether to forget all of this music business bs and be a rice farmer or something, but there is still a me that says it is all about the experience. thanks!
Posted 09 Oct 2007 at 8:37 am ¶
Jimmy in Austin wrote:
I have been a MusicMatch Jukebox subscriber since long before Yahoo took over. I’ve always been a believer in paying for my music because I felt like it was the right thing to do. Let’s give something back to the artist. Of course that’s absolute horse shit b/c the artist doesn’t get but a penny of it. I realized that way later than I’d care to admit. However, I continued to subscribe b/c I liked the idea of being able to take my music library with me, even if I couldn’t burn most of it. When I really wanted a copy of an album, I’d just go buy the CD so I could do what I wanted with it. Then Microsoft released “PlaysForSure” and Yahoo Jukebox suddenly stopped doing just that. The program would fail for no reason or the Roku box that I bought b/c it is “compatible” with YMJ would get hung up on trying to get a license. Suffice it to say, your service has suffered b/c of DRM for some time.
Point being, you deserve a lot of credit here today. It’s a ballsy move and I hope it pays off for you and for Yahoo. YMJ really could be an amazing service if the DRM is removed. I will gladly continue to hand over $10 a month for the service if it’s fixed. Hell, I’d pay $30 if I could take the music wherever I wanted. There are a lot of people like me out there that want to do the right thing by the musicians and even the music companies, even though the latter continues to poop upon us in ever increasing volumes.
Thanks for listening to my rant. You’ve done a really good thing. If you’re ever in Austin, I’d be pleased to buy you a beer.
Posted 09 Oct 2007 at 8:38 am ¶
froggy wrote:
dude, you totally rock. Now get Yahoo’s Launch on Satellite Radio so I can listen to may station in my car, and I’m totally coming back to you guys.
Posted 09 Oct 2007 at 8:43 am ¶
Sumit Agarwal wrote:
Wow, who knew Yahoo had such smart people working for them?
Posted 09 Oct 2007 at 10:02 am ¶
A.T. wrote:
Walk your talk, Ian - make music.yahoo.com working in Firefox and without crappy activex/flash “players”.
Posted 09 Oct 2007 at 10:25 am ¶
JDJ wrote:
So its obvious there is a growing uprising pushing the record labels to MP3 and abandoning DRM, but what about the subscription model? Is it cludgy and non-consumer friendly? Absolutely!!! But once you get comfortable with the quirks, the freedom is great! So what about the 5+ million of subscription service users out there? I havent bought a song from iTunes in the 3 years I have been using subscription music services nor have I downloaded “illegal” music. Is subscription music going away?
Posted 09 Oct 2007 at 10:48 am ¶
James Kurtz wrote:
Great post. Here’s to hoping that you helped convince some of the unconvincibles.
Posted 09 Oct 2007 at 10:57 am ¶
Trevor Bramble wrote:
Ian, well spoken and inspirational.
I have been involved in internet radio (when Shoutcast first hit the scene and conversations with Tom Pepper weren’t hard to come by.) I’d been listening to digitally encoded music (ripped from my CD collection) for several years prior.
Years later, the Yahoo! Music service was launched and I excitedly told friends blog audiences that SOMEONE FINALLY GETS IT! Yahoo! is doing it RIGHT!
But that was only half-true, for exactly the reasons you outlined. My subscription did not last long and I soon stopped promoting the service to others.
Though convenience DOES win, abstinence is also a natural response to a market of abusive inconvenience. I no longer pursue new music recordings, and my longtime habit of sometimes skipping live shows and sometimes not hasn’t changed either.
In short, I dumped the music industry. They treated me very poorly and I respect myself more than that.
By the way, that Buddhist philosophy you mentioned is called “dependent arising” and I won’t bore anyone here by presenting a clumsy explanation of it. Yours was a fine practical aplication of the concept.
Keep fighting the good fight.
Trevor
Posted 09 Oct 2007 at 10:58 am ¶
NuttyD wrote:
As a frustrated Musicmatch user, it’s great to finally see someone from Yahoo acknowledge the troubles, and their root cause, of the disastrous Musicmatch migration to YMJ. Thank you, Ian. And I’m sorry, but I’ll be sticking with my crippled Musicmatch player (upsell nagware message included) until YMJ becomes the elegant music management software that Musicmatch is and, even now as an unsupported legacy product, remains.
All of the DRM-limited subscription services are in deep peril unless they start treating their customers as potential fans instead of thieves. Be honest… if you’re going to sell DRM-restricted tracks, tell people that they will be leasing them and not actually buying them (this is as simple as changing the “Buy” button to a “Lease” button). For God’s sakes… used car dealers can’t even get away with this! Stop deceiving us.
I know I’m not the only customer you’ve lost because of the ridiculous requirements of the music industry. But I’ll be back in a heartbeat if you’re successful in swaying them as you’ve laid out here.
Good luck.
Posted 09 Oct 2007 at 10:59 am ¶
Marc wrote:
Hey,
Great speech — well written, right on the dot. I hope they listen to you.
I’ve been enjoying emusic recently, but man do I wish they had more labels and content.
We’ve all been doing “okay” without context, but I think it’s a case of not knowing what we’re missing. I really hope Yahoo (or somebody) builds a cool and hopefully OPEN system for merging content & context, and bringing it to the masses.
PS There are some typos you might want to fix, e.g., “Lets” should have an apostrophe (it’s a contraction for “let us”)
Posted 09 Oct 2007 at 11:19 am ¶
Susanna wrote:
Your message is both eloquent and insolent. You never let me down.
Posted 09 Oct 2007 at 11:21 am ¶
Chris Tucker wrote:
Yahoo! Music is broken.
Their LaunchCast “radio” service is not supported on Mac OS.
iTunes has a very decent selection of “radio” streams.
Comcast has a very decent selection of music streams via my cable box and television. No computer needed.
Rogue Amoeba’s “RadioShift” application will hook you up to a ton of streaming stations via Mac OS
Live365 likewise has a ton of free streams. Non-platform specific. Just a recent browser.
Real and Windows Media Player can do the same thing, and video, too. As can VLC and Miro, all via Mac OS
Check out the websites of your favorite stations. Odds are, there’s a Real or WMA or streaming MP3 or QuickTime link. Again, non-OS specific.
But not Yahoo! Music. Oh, well…
(AOL Voice Guy) “Goodbye!” (/AOL Voice Guy) to Yahoo! Music, as far as I’m concerned.
So, Ian, why DON’T you want my money? I use Macintosh because I’m willing to pay a premium for solid hardware and a solid OS. If I was a cheap SOB, I’d use a POS generic X86 box and Linux.
I have money to spend, and yet, you refuse to allow me to spend it at Yahoo! Music. All because I use Mac OS.
WTF, Ian? WTF?
Posted 09 Oct 2007 at 11:40 am ¶
Michael Harrison wrote:
I can tell you flat out that if you do what you say, you’ll have at least two more customers, most likely many many more.
I use iTunes at the moment for two reasons. 1) It’s got the largest catalog available. 2) I have tools that will strip off the DRM and let me put the songs I buy from iTunes on any player I want.
Without #2, #1 didn’t matter to me at all and I didn’t bother with iTunes.
As long as DRM is in place (and I can’t easily work around it), the seller won’t get *any* of my money.
I’m more than willing to pay reasonable rates for music but you’d better get out from between me and my music or I won’t consider your service for even a moment.
Note that this goes for *all* media. I would love to buy movies and TV shows from iTunes but since I can’t put it on my PalmTX they won’t get my money.
Posted 09 Oct 2007 at 11:56 am ¶
Mac Beach wrote:
I happened to read about the Amazon service on its first day and downloaded two songs right away. What surprised, no shocked me was that I was using Linux and have no proprietary music software installed whatsoever!
My second computer is an Apple which I used to need from time to time for accessing iTunes, followed by the tedious process of converting purchased music to MP3 format so that I can play it both on my primary Linux machine and on my Roku media player.
I doubt I’ll be going back to the iTunes music store from now on.
As I recall, Yahoo sites don’t work very well with Linux for the most part, and like Microsoft (and Apple) they tend to get your stuff (like photos and e-mail) and not allow you to get at it except though proprietary interfaces (no POP access to e-mail, renaming of Flickr photos after 30 days, etc.).
Right now, Google is the only company that has a company-wide policy of not engaging in this sort of lock-in behavior.
It will be nice to have other companies following the lead of Google, and now Amazon (in this one area at least).
The whole world is watching.
Posted 09 Oct 2007 at 12:03 pm ¶
Bawb wrote:
Ian: back with a link about Amazon’s mp3 service. Turns out their license is teh evil.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2003932604_brier08.html
Posted 09 Oct 2007 at 12:32 pm ¶
Bubba wrote:
Ian:
I appreciate all your thoughts on building context and all, but your presentation fails to address the very issue that drives copyright owners to employ nasty schemes like DRM:
How do you keep folks paying for the recorded music (and thereby ensuring further creativity and future recordings) if you’re giving it away - and allowing everyone else to give it way, too?
As I’m certain your experience at Yahoo! has indicated to you, you can’t “make it up on volume.”
Building context and trying to re-invigorate the consumers and the desire for and ability to enjoy music are admirable goals, but without assurance that those efforts will be rewarded with a real marketplace that will return on the investment, there’s really no incentive to spend the time, energy and money to enhance that experience. Who would try and build a better mousetrap if they know they have to just give it away?
Posted 09 Oct 2007 at 1:55 pm ¶
Luqman Mahmud wrote:
Ian, This was an absolutely brilliant post. Its funny but what you said echoes what I told my wife when the RIAA first started their lawsuit against Napster and RCA (for the first MP3 Player). I told her, “they are starting an arms race they cannot win. There are hundreds of thousands of brilliant programmers out there and they can’t hire people smart enough to create a perfect system.” It has been a wasted 8 years. Had I been a record company exec, I’d have seen the writing on the wall. What they should have done was, commercialize Napster. It was the only real game in town and the perfect distribution medium. They should have written software to prevent the distribution of high bitrate songs but allowed free trading of low bitrate songs. Say 96kbps songs. 128kbps songs and up could be purchased from the napster servers. Like a song? Get the high quality version for 99cents. Apple would never have had the iTunes/iPod monopoly it has today. Idiots! All of them. Too busy hanging on the the past (VCRs & MPAA anyone?) to see the future (don’t Video & DVD rentals & sales outgross movies?). I hate morons. Kudos to you and Yahoo for saying No. The world will thank you and show you were right all along.
Posted 09 Oct 2007 at 2:20 pm ¶
Humberto Massa wrote:
Two words for you:
try Amarok.
http://amarok.kde.org/
Posted 09 Oct 2007 at 4:14 pm ¶
metz wrote:
My thoughts on Amazon’s DRM less MP3 store…that’s really what got Ian started on his manifesto.
It’s not an altrustic attempt by the media labels to give the consumer what they want. It’s an attempt to wrest their business model back from Apple.
Let’s look at the history of music and technology…
From the down of time until year 2000, the record companies controlled their business model through the production of hard goods (vinyl, cassettes, CD’s). Throughout this path of time the companies attempted to thwart technology through law suits and control. Then along came digital music and ease of distribution of copyrighted goods. Napster became the biggest threat to their ensconced position, so once again they broke out the lawyers and won.
However, some of the players decided that digital music was a potential path to more revenue. The initial toe in the water was streaming services (real, music match, etc). Along comes Apple with iTunes and the iPod and Fairplay DRM and close connections with “Hollywood” and selling of single songs and complete albums. Once a few companies signed on and started making $, pretty much all signed on. All was wonderful in the world of Oz until some companies decided that the one price for everything model enforced by Apple doesn’t meet their business needs. They attempt to strong arm Apple, who declines to change their business model for the big media companies.
Uh, oh….Big media has let Apple create a beast with more power than they ever wanted. The power is no longer in the hands of the labels to set prices for their content. What’s a large media company to do? They must destroy the monster they’ve created in order to regain control of their business. The answer is to cut deals with new outlets to sell their content. How can these new “stores” compete with Apple, who owns the a huge chunk of the hardware and distribution chains?
You don’t want to compete on price (lest the consumer figure out how low you can actually price this content). The only answer, you drop DRM and offer convenience of your medium. Why would anyone now buy from iTunes and their restrictions when they can buy from Amazon (and soon to be many other stores) and get the content in an unprotected form that can be played on any digital device?
Once the record companies have established many stores and fractured the single distribution chain, they will be free to negotiate pricing with all the stores and reestablish control of their business. If a single store doesn’t agree on the pricing model, they won’t get the content. Big media will own the content, they “create” the artists through marketing and they’ll own the pricing model. We, the consumer, get DRM free songs, but will eventually pay more for it. Yahoo will get content from the labels and can build a great customer experience, but the labels have a different motive than Yahoo. Eventually the labels will turn back to DRM as soon as they dispatch with the Apple/iTMS gorilla.
The path charted by Radiohead and NIN, isn’t viable for any upcoming artists because they can’t afford the marketing. My only hope is that established artists sell directly to the public and in turn invest in upcoming artists.
One big thing you’ll notice is that this only pertains to Music…..there’s no mention of video moving away from DRM from Yahoo or anyone else…
Posted 09 Oct 2007 at 4:16 pm ¶
Clarence Jones wrote:
Thank you Ian. The Recorded Music Industry takes we music fans, rips us off (& rips off the musicians that create the “product”), calls us criminals, sues us, extorts royalties from those of us who love the music so much we webcast it, creates this DRM-driven process to allow us to pay to listen to it…and then blames us because sales are down. Geez…
Love & Peace, Clarence Jones
OlioRadio.net
Posted 09 Oct 2007 at 5:33 pm ¶
eric wrote:
I just saw Jimmie Dale at the grocery store in Austin. It was so random to come to this site via Gizmodo and see your story about his concert.
Posted 09 Oct 2007 at 5:48 pm ¶
Burst Labs wrote:
Just wanted to add a big thumbs up!
Your post is my new favorite write-up on the state of the music biz.
GREAT job.
Posted 09 Oct 2007 at 6:29 pm ¶
mark hull wrote:
Great post, Ian. What I love best about it is your passionate focus on doing what’s right for consumers and building a great experience. No easy tasks in the music industry. The only path to success requires leaders with your kind of zeal to take us there. Wish there were more folks like you out there. Good luck (and tell Zoe to get another show out pronto!)
Posted 09 Oct 2007 at 6:55 pm ¶
Beatrice M wrote:
Thank you! I just recently moved to Buenos Aires, Argentina and while I did rip all my cds into my iTunes library before we left, there is still lots of music I would like to buy via downloading it! Just tonight I tried to find the Soundtrack to the awesome movie “Bagdad Cafe” so that I could share it with my husband as we’re going to concert later this week by one of the composers. I tried Amazon.com’s website, but couldn’t find the whole album, just some songs from it on other people’s albums. It’s also seems stupidly difficult to download a whole album from their catalog. I want the option of downloading a couple of mp3s AND being able to download the whole thing without doing each one individually. I was bemoaning the fact on twitter. It’s ridiculous that it’s almost 2008 and I can’t just download an album. I *want* to pay for it, really I do. I want to *support the artists*. I also don’t want to be told what to do with the music and have restrictions on what players I can use it with. I hope people listen to you. I really do.
Posted 09 Oct 2007 at 7:06 pm ¶
David wrote:
Man! We need more people like this in the world. Way to be passionate about something, and push for it. Especially for an excellent cause.
Posted 09 Oct 2007 at 7:11 pm ¶
Ben wrote:
Brilliant words. Finally businesses seems to be seeing the light. Let’s hope it all snowballs into action.
Posted 09 Oct 2007 at 9:12 pm ¶
Jim Bob Jones wrote:
Ian,
This is great stuff. The unfortunate thing is that there are only a finite number of people holding this whole thing back:
David Ring
Zach Horowitz
Thomas Hesse
Thomas Geweke
Alex Zubillaga
George White
If these guys could be turned around, then your vision wins. But we both know it’s not going to happen. Eventually these people will get cycled out, and your vision will come to reality.
Unfortunately, it will probably be another 8 years.
Posted 09 Oct 2007 at 9:46 pm ¶
Patrick wrote:
Hey Ian,
I’m sure you have heard this a million times already, but it was about time someone said it like it is… and to be completely honest, I knew it would have been you to say it. I’ve always had a load of respect for you, especially for what you have done in the past, and now my respect has doubled for putting your ass on the line and laying it all out. If only Yahoo! had more people like you looking after the business, we’d all be happy
Anyway, enough pissin’ in your pocket, keep well man!
Patrick.
Posted 09 Oct 2007 at 10:29 pm ¶
david wrote:
Nice. I did the those marketing screens for YMU (in trade) and barfed a little in my mouth… a lot.
Posted 09 Oct 2007 at 10:38 pm ¶
chris wrote:
Awesome post.
Posted 09 Oct 2007 at 11:41 pm ¶
Steve wrote:
hey ian - good post. as i told you at the dmw conference, i _agree_. we are building, we are communicating (trying to at least), and we hope for progress…
Posted 10 Oct 2007 at 12:32 am ¶