Technology, Music, and Artists' Rights
By Alison Russell

The internet can be a blessing or a curse. When comes to downloading music from the internet is it a good and helpful tool that allows lesser known artists a place in which to promote their music? Or is the internet a tool that robs money from the artists and the record label companies? The smaller artists that are not contracted by big record labels sometimes have a difficult time in getting their music out to the public, so for most of them the internet has been good for their music to be marketed. The big music labels may be losing money because record sales have dropped since people can now download the one or two songs they desire instead of buying in entire CD to get the few songs they really want.

According to the journal Billboard,[1] the Independent Online Distribution Alliance has partnered with DownloadCentric in order to introduce a service allowing independent record labels a way to sell music digitally, straight to the fans through the artist’s or the label’s Web site. Those said to be ready to participate are, Six Degrees Records, ABB Records, G7 Welcoming Committee Records, System Recordings and the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra. The service combines IODA’s online digital catalog with the sale technology of DownloadCentric, thus giving IODA a place to customize many artist-branded and label companies storefronts digitally. The larger record labels are not very happy about all the ways consumers can now attain free or cheep music through the internet. Musicians for the most part seem to be for using the internet as a way to distribute their music.

According to Downhill Battle[2], a web site committed to upholding the rights of musicians to share more in the profit of their CD’ sales and help decrease major record labels, states that it is the major labels that have controlled what the radio will play by paying stations to play their songs. So some of the independent labels cannot market their music through the radio, and so they do not become very well known.  There has been efforts to stop the pay-for-play however desite it being illegal the record companies get around the law by paying a third party called an “independent promoter” which in turns pays the radio stations. Musicians suffer as well because those in contract with the major labels only begin to see their profit, which is 5 to 10%, from CD sales after 500,000 units have sold (Downhill Battle). Artists are inclined to be in support of music being distributed through the internet because they receive a larger profit from the sales due to the fact that the label companies are not in a position to demand a high pay rate.

Record labels are mostly doing what everyone does and that is trying to make money. The record labels may be only attempting to give the consumer what they feel the consumer wants, needs, or would enjoy. Most of the employee’s at the large record labels are simply do their job, however those that run the companies may want to reconsider the ways in which they are conducting their businesses, and they are. In an article by Sam Matthews of New Media Age,[3] he reports that one way the major record labels are works towards boosting their digital marketing budget. Warner Music, Sony BMG, and Universal Music have all made larger investments into digital marketing due to the high rise in sales of singles and music videos online. According to a report by Entertainment Media Research done on digital music, at least 56% of teenagers are now using MySpace and 47% are purchasing music that they discovered through social networking sites. The head of Warner Music’s digital department, Adrian Coultas-Pitman, stated that they are going to spend a lot more in online marketing because of how its changed, like with producing things like digital only downloads and videos and they have planed to incorporate more through digital channels.

Through the internet any artist can share their music with the public and have more of an opportunity to make money, while letting the public decide which artists become popular.

Music has always been a mode of self-expression and entrainment. Technology is advancing and changing at a very fast rate, and so the way in which the consumer buys, listens, and enjoys music has changed along with it. Thus the way music is produced and marketed is in a stage of rethinking and changing to met presence of the internet and a new kind of seller and consumer.

[1] "Bits & Briefs." Billboard os 119 (2007): 18.
[2] “The Reasons to Get Rid on the Major Record Labels." Downhill Battle . Apr. 2007. <http://downhillbattle.org/>.  
[3] Matthews, Sam. "Record Labels Up Digital Spend to Match Growing User Demand." New Media Age (2006): 3.