How the music industry is erasing culture in the digital age
Considering using a different template for this blog. While I love the fact that I can type straight onto the site’s page (P2 is brilliant for short, group pieces), I want titles.
I could just go into the Admin section and type one, but it defeats the purpose of this great template. Is there anything that fixes this?
While the tone of this blog, and the book that is growing from it is one of alarm and concern, one thing I should say is that I’m broadly optimistic about where all this is heading.
I don’t claim to be able to predict the future, but I do have a good deal of faith in the capacity for people to preserve and propagate culture.
It would be easy enough to despair about all of the recorded music that is locked away, out of reach – decaying in vaults because it’s neither commercially nor politically expedient to bring it to the light and allow people to hear it, researchers to study it, libraries to archive it and artists to use it as the springboard into new creative works – and I will continue to rail against that.
But I’d very much like to think that this is a temporary glitch in the main scheme of things. Generally speaking, I think sense tends to prevail in the long run.
We may have lost countless recordings that were only ever released on 78rpm records but now no longer exist in any way, shape or form.
There may be tens of thousands of releases that the record labels can’t digitise and make available because they don’t even know the details of the contracts that pertained to those particular recordings. Or where those contracts might be.
But ultimately, eventually, I can’t help but think the crisis might be noticed more widely. The fact that at least as many cultural treasures as were lost in the burning of the Alexandrian Library are currently being slowly burned because of the selfish and short-term interests of industry lobbyists whose current bottom line is considered more important than the collective cultural capital of our society is something that must, surely, warrant some attention and some action.
Meanwhile, we need to start shouting. The burning of the Alexandrian Library brought on the Dark Ages. And that was an accident. We could do without another one of those – especially one brought on deliberately in order to sustain a failing business model, and out of greed and commercial desperation.
I like to think we’re collectively smarter than that.
Something I’ve been talking about for a little while, but that very few people in the music industries seem to be aware of or comfortable talking about…
Music consumers are also deleting music.
I know I just got back from London, but can I go again tomorrow? I’d really love to get to this:
You’ve Read The Blog, Now Go Buy The Soundtrack: investing value in music through building rich-content narratives
Steve Lawson, Solo Bassist, Pillow Mountain Records.Date: Tues 19 May 2009
Time: 4 p.m.
Venue: The Social Computing Group (Internet Centre), William Penney Lab
Website: http://www.stevelawson.netMusicians are at the forefront of exploring the ‘third way’ of online economic models by building social and cultural value into the narrative around their music life, and then providing mechanisms for that audience to demonstrate their appreciation or gratitude for that value by paying for it. Steve Lawson will speak about these models and mechanisms from his own extensive experience with online community building and direct marketing, both his own and those of the wider online music community.
Steve Lawson is a musician, writer and educator who has been exploring new and innovative ways to engage with his audience and build community around his music for over a decade, and now consults with artists and web developers and strategists about the present and future of artist/audience interaction.
Pre-registration is encouraged to assure a place.
Here’s another event I’m going to try to get to:
Creativity, Innovation and Labour in Music
A symposiumMonday June 22nd – symposium, 9.30 – 5.00
Tuesday June 23rd – workshop on developing a network, 9.30 – 11.30The Open University, Walton Hall, Milton Keynes MK7 6AA
Central Meeting RoomsOrganisers
Dot Miell, Mark Doffman, Mark Banks, Jason Toynbee, Faculty of Social Sciences, The Open
University
Raymond MacDonald, Department of Psychology, Glasgow Caledonian UniversityInterdisciplinary research into music at the intersection of creativity, innovation and labour is an
emerging topic that presents many challenges for researchers. For example:• the theme of labour calls attention to musical work, economic exploitation and the everyday
processes of music making,• innovation takes in the problem of the nature of the new in different genres, but also
questions of how musical innovation gets evaluated, rewarded or ignored,• and creativity gestures towards issues of origination and emergence, artifice and authenticity,
the individual and the collective.This symposium brings together experts from across the disciplines in order to develop a more
coherent analysis of how these themes converge. The format consists of a series of presentations
each followed by discussion with the aim of advancing our understanding of the topic, and
establishing an informal research network to take things forward – a workshop on the Tuesday
morning is to plan next steps.Speakers
Martin Cloonan, Glasgow University – Creating live music: an industrial perspectiveDon Knox, Glasgow Caledonian University – Who are we innovating for? The need for
interdisciplinary input in setting goals for music information retrievalBennett Hogg, University of Newcastle – Working through the new
Fabian Holt, University of Roskilde – Creativity and innovation in contemporary live music
productionMatt Stahl, University of Western Ontario – Recording artists, employment, domination and
democratization