Various representatives of the recording industry are publicly claiming that it's being destroyed. Be that as it may, it invites the question: what contribution does the recording industry make to society? If we woke up tomorrow in an alternate universe where the recording industry did not exist at all, what would we miss?
This is not a position statement; it is merely a hypothetical exercise, to serve as basis for further thought.
Here's my list of what the recording industry provides, and how it might be provided otherwise. Itallics indicate where the alternatives are weak.
- Selection This was the thought that led to my entry on Voting on p2p. The current state of the art is somewhat weak in this respect, but that is probably partly due to the existence of the recording industry, and would likely improve quickly to fill any vacuum. On the text-based web, Google shows how well state-of-the-art internet selection works.
Censorship would be difficult to apply; there are differing opinions on its desirability, of course, but as a matter of fact the industry does filter out things like hate speech, libel, obscenity and so on.
- Production A lot of this can now be provided by individuals privately, since today's consumer recording devices often exceed the quality of professional ones of only a couple of decades ago.
Background noise is difficult and expensive to eliminate, and only professionals can expect to have a sound-insulated studio or soundstage. To some extent it can be ameliorated by electronic connections between instrument and recorder - or pure digital instruments - but the voice parts will always suffer from it. (Update Sep 2006: the Star Wreck website suggests taping blankets and pillows to the walls, positioning the microphone close to the scene, recording in a closet full of clothes or pulling a blanket over one's head as techniques that can help.)
- Distribution This can now be provided more efficiently by the Internet.
- Nurturing new talent This can be aided by ensuring that the selection method isn't biased toward existing content, but apart from that it is weak.
- Rewarding artists financially This is weak in the alternative world. Artists might profit on live performances, both public and private, and on custom work - essentially, music as a service.
- Facilitating social artist rewards 'Star status' would probably be less common, though to the extent the selection process would produce such, it might well feel more valuable, being based on popular acclaim rather than business decision.
There would be less interference with the artistic process (no people with legal rights to dictate artistic decisions), which might be an advantage as far as social rewards are concerned.
Anything I missed? Any improvements on the alternatives? (e-mail me)
In summary, then, the weak points identified above are the lack of censorship, background noise during recording, nurturing new talent and financial rewards for artists. There is also the matter of selection, however, a voting system could replace and even improve on that.
On rewards
There is the question of the interplay between financial and social rewards.In the software world, where the experiment has been made, it has been found that GPL software (for which authors receive purely the social rewards of peer recognition and the like and no direct financial reward) has higher quality by various objective metrics when compared against proprietary software. Presumably the mechanisms used by proprietary software houses to distribute the financial rewards to authors introduce such distortions and hidden costs into the system as be worse than no reward at all. Of course, it's possible that a different mechanism for distributing financial rewards might do better than GPL, but none such is known.
Whether or not this is similar for music, I have no idea; I suspect that it is, but have no solid basis for this opinion.
Update 20 May 2004: See also Studies Find Reward Often No Motivator on the FSF website.
⇦ Voting for awards | ⇨ clew test run |
27 October 2006, 7:35 UTCcomment by INeedAttention.com
"Anything I missed?" One other great thing about the recording industry right now is that it enables entire other industries, such as the "foiled, plastic disc" industry to fluorish. In a digital world, people would no longer have a reason to buy plastic discs, as the disc can easily be damaged. Also just as downloading music sometimes may expose the listener to a virus via a P2P network, there's just as good a chance of buying a disc with a Sony rootkit. So the recording industry also helps the rootkit programming industry fluorish. But it's not just the plastic discs and computer viruses that are booming because of the recording industry -- it's lawyers too. Just ask anyone on the street and you'll find most people agree: the world needs more lawyers. But finally, without a recording industry, who would convert artist's songs into ringtones and then license those ringtones to marketers selling perpetual ringtone subscriptions over SMS at rates as high as $30 per month?
Seriously though, the recording industry is a lot like the health care industry (at least in the U.S.). A lot of people have jobs because of how inefficient it is, and no one wants to lose their job, so groups lobby against change. It's only natural to want to protect your self-interest. However, that doesn't mean reform isn't necessary. So if they won't adapt, let them die. Industries serve needs, so if we simply don't need them, they'll have to adapt to fill some other need or cease to exist (vis-a-vis the "removable collar" industry around the end of the 19th century). As for the people that will be put out of the job as the market innovates its demand: life is a matter of adapting, too. If you make plastic foiled discs right now, consider figuring out how to make a car foil that shines like a CD. If you program Sony rootkits right now, apply for a job at Microsoft, they'd probably be dying to get a hold of someone with scruples in about the quantity you have. And finally, if you're a lawyer, consider finding an island, moving there, and staying there until the end of your days.
Oh and don't forget... Home Taping is Killing Music. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home_Taping_is_Killing_Music
