100 years ago, radio and physical recording media started connecting people to music they would never have heard. We should now expect the ability to listen to anything, anytime, anywhere with an unlimited ability to explore new content. I have hopes for Spotify but there are hurdles.

The old business model

The big incumbent record labels, by owning the means of production, and dominating the routes to market, have held a monopoly over what we listen to. This has been at the cost of smaller artists and music fans. The incumbents now sit sulking in a corner, refusing to play a different game.

The fact is that people like don’t like barriers. They don’t want to be limited to what major labels promote or to have to commit to just a couple of albums a month.

People want the ability to try something new, get bored, explore something else. This is the way they the net has taught us to access information. New music distribution models must understand this.

Its the service not the cost

Fifteen years ago, the ability to access the world’s music in the liquid way we can now, would have been the ultimate dream for any music fan. The product is infinitely superior. For a superior product, people are willing to pay a superior price. The question is how do you get them to pay for it?

The first is to offer it. iTunes and last.fm have elements of it, Nokia’s phones have free music but with a limited catalogue and a crappy interface. No one currently offers all the right elements, Spotify might.

The Economics

Once a record is produced (a much cheaper thing than it used to be) the marginal cost of distributing a copy electronically is virtually nil. These are not the same economics of printing, shipping and stocking CD’s.

The point is, once I’ve spent my music budget, you may as well give me the rest for free. In fact, if the offer of an unlimited music service gets me to raise my music budget (it would), you’ll make more money.

A New Business Model

Learn to stop worrying and love the net.

• Flat monthly fee – pay artists by the number of plays their tracks get. Music players already count how often you listen to different tracks. Paying £10 for an album you only listen to once is gutting and puts you off trying new artists. Then there’s classic albums you’ve played 100 times but don’t sell widely, those artists deserve recognition.
• A catalogue the size of iTunes, or bigger. It all must be connected or else there’s no point.
• Unlimited access – I don’t care if its streaming or downloading, that’s a technical detail. As long as I hear what ever I want, anytime. In practice you’d probably want to cache (download) songs you listen to regularly and stream ones you’re trying for the first time or listen to very infrequently (so you don’t fill up your harddrive).
• Available on my laptop and phone.
• The kind of smart ability to explore new artists that last.fm, iTunes and online music reviewing has.

I for one, would be willing to pay much more for an unlimited music service than I do on CD’s and downloads each month. I’m happy to support talented artists who produce great music. But labels have to stop the regressive and assanine tactics that only expedite the demise of their industry.