Junk for Code

the high tech gift economy

I've just come across this review of John Alderman's, Sonic Boom: Napster, P2P and the battle for the future of music,'(2001). It is a contribution to a wide ranging debate.

The book is about the way the corporate music business has stubbornly resisted any accommodation with the new digital internet technology It's a well known story of the corporate leaders using their lobbying power and legal resources to attack the Net by having the copyright laws strengthened, blocking software development and closing down websites.

What they are defending is a particular structure of the musical industry:

"Despite the rapid changes in musical tastes over the decades, the fundamentals of its business structure have remained the same. Musicians are contracted to make recordings. Music is sold on bits of plastic to consumers. Copyright laws ensure that no one can distribute recordings without paying their owners. Everyone supposedly benefits from this arrangement. Fans are offered a wide choice of many different types of music. Musicians are able to earn a living - and a few can become seriously rich. Small companies can survive by selling niche styles of music. Large corporations can own profitable music companies as part of their multi-media empires. Having recuperated successive cultural revolutions, this business structure appeared to be immutable. It took the arrival of P2P to prove otherwise."

Alderman argues that no copyright law or encryption system is going to stop the swapping of music files between consenting adults in the long-run. There can be no return to business-as-usual for the music industry. Alderman also argues that money can be made inside the hi-tech gift economy. Free music on the Net will provide wages for musicians - and profits for their employers.

How so?

By building on the model developed by the Grateful Dead who were signed to a major label and encouraged their fans to make and trade tapes of their live performances. Alderman proposes:

"...that the music industry should learn from this tried and tested example. For a start, swapping MP3s should be accepted as the contemporary equivalent of trading bootleg tapes. Instead of fighting this phenomenon, corporate executives should realise that giving away music can be another way of making money. For instance, a tune available for free over the Net could persuade someone to buy a concert ticket or, as long as the sound quality remains superior, to purchase CD or DVD versions. Above all, the music industry must move from selling tunes to servicing fans...As one way of making money disappears, another may be opening up."

The Net was invented to allow file-sharing between computers in different locations. This concept is at the center of the technological innovation of peer-to-peer computing (P2P) that allows all sorts of devices to interact with each other. Everything linked with everything. Everyone swapping files with everyone.

Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at May 19, 2005 10:59 AM | TrackBack