Digital downloads
Friday 18 January 2008
Digital downloading is rapidly becoming a common way to get your music. However the music industry is having a hard time dealing with the change. Find out why.
What is a digital download?
A digital download is an official music track that you can buy through an online store. Once you download it, you can save it to your PC or MP3 player. It is illegal to make loads of copies of a track so digital downloads often have a special security feature encoded on them called ‘Digital Rights Management’ (DRM) that stops you making copies.
Albums vs singles
Up to now record labels have make a profit from album sales rather than singles. However downloading means that consumers no longer have to purchase an entire album to get the single they like. Record companies are therefore losing money on CD sales.
Illegal problem
Record companies and artists are constantly battling with a way to stop illegal downloads because it means that they are losing a lot of money on sales. This messes up the system and makes it unfair for both the artist and the people who are paying for downloads.
As a result of decreased sales and income, many of the larger record labels are having to make cutbacks. EMI, home to Robbie Williams and Kylie, announced 200 job cuts last week here in the UK.
However smaller artists and labels could be the ones to suffer most as they rely much more on sales of music to stay afloat.
The Radiohead experiment
In October last year, Radiohead decided to let downloaders pay however much they wanted for their new album. However diehard fans were also offered the opportunity to spend £40 on a physical ‘discbox’version of the album.
The results? Around 62 per cent of people paid nothing at all, whilst the rest were willing to pay an average of around £4 and upwards. Given that there have been around 1.5 million reported downloads of the album – its not a bad day’s work!
A changing industry
Radiohead's approach seems to eliminate the need for record labels! Bands usually have to wait three to six months after completing their album to get it out to the shops. But with no record label to answer to, the band was able to release their music much quicker. They were also able to cut all the sales, promotion and production costs usually associated with music releases through a label.
The experiment also goes a long way to tackle the problem of illegal downloading and profits that are lost through it. It also created an element of good faith with the music buying fans, but the idea might not be quite so successful with lesser-known artists.
Record labels are now looking at new ways of making money from artists and are concentrating on live music and merchandise sales which are both booming. Once again this only works for the major stars.
What is for sure is that the way we get our music is changing and the record industry is being forced to change with us! Just how much things will change, only time will tell.
