Open Letter: Audio is Evolving
Some say the music industry today has the same vision at heart as it always has: sharing a love of organised sound with the masses. But there is little way around the fact that today’s music business model is leaps and bounds away from its seemingly innocent origins. What began as the selling of musical ideas on paper is now much more complex. The advent of blockchain and Web 3.0 technology is now giving musicians the opportunity to create new commercial opportunities, marking a huge shift in the ways that audio is consumed and distributed.
How has the commercial music industry changed throughout history and where is it headed? Here’s a look.
The rise of sheet music
Before the advent of recorded music, selling sound you could carry around with you hinged on the premise of selling an idea. Hundreds of years before the advent of the radio or recorded music; was the invention of sheet music. The sale of compositions printed on paper for the benefit of those who could read music, sing, and/or play an instrument came about just after the invention of the printing press in the late 1400s.
This new horizon meant composers could now become famous in places they had never played, which was a novel idea at the time.
Selling physical recordings
Hundreds of years later, the next step was made: recorded music. The excitement of visiting a retailer selling recordings of music dates all the way back to the 1890s. If you wanted to hear a scratchy version of your favourite hit tune, you could visit a phonograph parlour.
In the 1930s, higher-quality vinyl records were introduced. This format dominated the selling of music up into the late 1970s. After this came more easily transportable cassette tapes, later to be replaced by compact disc (CD) recordings in the 1980s and 1990s.
Music goes online
While CDs are a form of digital music, sharing music online has really taken the music industry to new heights. This has not been without its consequences, however. In the beginning, and still to some extent today, digital music was shared illegally, placing musicians in trouble. It’s estimated revenues from recorded music fell a whopping 50% from 1999 to 2009.
Napster was behind much of the trouble. The platform allowed users to share MP3 music files to be easily downloaded. Major artists like Metallica and Dr. Dre eventually sued Napster for infringing copyright in 2000 and won.
Digital download stores
Today, artists have a bit more protection as places to download music illegally for free can be more difficult to find online. Music uploaded to YouTube still allows listeners free access to songs, but artists can potentially be paid by the platform if a musician monetizes their videos and the video receives enough views. Still, it’s not the same as having almost every listener pay to buy your CD.
As a plus, however, digital download stores like iTunes from Apple, make it easier for musicians to automatically access a global audience and marketplace. An artist can potentially rise from “nowhere” with a hit song if the general public likes it. Anyone can upload their own music to the platform, eliminating the need to sign a record contract with a major recording label.
Music streaming services
In addition, streaming services like Spotify, Apple Music, and Tidal exist. For a low monthly membership fee, listeners can access uninterrupted music in their choice of genre, from a huge online music library. Controversy surrounds this format, however. Big artists like Bob Seger and Taylor Swift continue to argue that revenue-per-stream is low and not comparable to the royalties musicians receive for having their songs played on the radio.
The answer? It may lie in the strange development of non-interchangeable units of data stored in the mystical blockchain.
Music NFTs
Today, NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, could prove to be many musicians’ saviours. As one part of Web 3 tech, an NFT is a unique piece of digital data that cannot ever be changed or duplicated. Once an NFT has been created, its presence is “set in stone” so to speak. NFTs are made of everything from visual art to trading cards, virtual fashion, event tickets, gaming, and even sounds.
Music NFTs allow artists to make a recording of music and permanently store it on a blockchain of choice. The NFT belongs exclusively to its owner and can subsequently be sold through a secondary marketplace. Musicians can even code their NFTs to earn a royalties on future sales. Music NFTs can in turn take a variety of forms including an audio file, an album cover, a video, signed merchandise, or something else related to the musician’s work.
As a new development, NFTs may finally have the power to transform musicians’ lives back to the relative stability of the pre-online era. In an ever-changing artist’s world, this new possibility presents great potential and is an avenue that should certainly be explored by any aspiring musicians hoping to not only reach their fanbase but be rewarded for finding it.
What’s next? This is hard to say, but for the moment, some of the power has been returned to the creator, which is no doubt a fantastic thing.
We are here to play a part in audio’s next stage of evolution by building our vision of the Mediaverse.
If you’re in search of audio utility and an exclusive club that rewards creators — look no further than the Nomad Media Club.
