“There are hundreds and hundreds of dollars to be made in the Canadian music industry”: Making it count when purchasing music online

Brasstronaut at Market Square, Rifflandia 3
Originally uploaded by theotherlondon

I’d like to send this one out to the person who burst my bubble this week. You know who you are. We had a conversation during which you pointed out the Internet has broken the music industry and there’s no money to be made in it anymore for anyone. If I remember correctly, your main arguments were that iTunes and other au current music distribution platforms are a colossal disaster, at least terms of potential for generating any semblance of an income for artists – though not for facilitating the sale of iPods – and that musicians can’t make money from selling concert tickets or merchandise.

The gory details

Further investigation led me to the following articles (by the way, if you’re at all interested in the impact of digital technologies on the music industry the second article in particular should be an interesting read):

• The iTunes Effect and the Future of Publishing, Scott Berinato, The Harvard Business Review, January 12, 2010
• Three bits of bad news for the music business. And it's not improving, Charles Arthur, The Guardian, February 8, 2011

Pop

or rather, pfffffffffffffffffffft.

Yes, this is terrible news for musicians…and might I offer, a little deflating for someone who regularly lists ‘music' amoungst her largest monthly expenditures. Terrible news.

A case in point implicating yours truly

The comment I’ve quoted in the title of this post was made by a member of Canadian band, Brasstronaut at their performance at Rifflandia 2010. Though I’ve attended a couple of their concerts, regularly include their music in my Blip.fm stream, voted for their entries in online contests and have interacted with @Brasstronaut on Twitter, I admit, I haven’t purchased any of their music (yet). Before continuing I’d also like to point out that I’ve never illegally downloaded any of their music either. But that’s beside the point, isn’t it?

I can hear you tsk-tsking from here.

I do buy music. Quite a bit of it, I might add. In fact, all the albums on my top 10 of 2010 are albums that were recommended to me online that I eventually purchased…though yes, the total number of albums I purchased last year, amounts to just a fraction of the bands I listen to online.

Does it matter that I probably wouldn’t have heard of the majority of the bands I listen to had it not been for the Internet? Didn’t think so.

Support your favourite artists...for real

Anyway, all I can offer is this – music buyers, if you really want to support your favourite artists I’ve learned the best way to do this is to buy CDs directly from the artist or from CD Baby. MP3 downloads don’t really amount to squat in terms of revenue for the artist. For the purchaser, there are additional benefits to buying a CD you may or may not care about - read more in ZDNet’s geek tome Ed Bott's Microsoft Report, Who owns your digital downloads? (Hint: it's not you).

For a better understanding of what to do/avoid when purchasing music, check out this great graph on Information is Beautiful for a pretty, visual representation of how much money musicians get paid in the new digital marketplace.

One little tip I might offer to CD Baby, it would probably be good on you to up your marketing efforts for your download cards. Being a music lover, I regularly get iTunes gift certificates from friends and family, many of whom are conscious consumers who would probably choose you over iTunes if they understood the difference. Just sayin’.

Update, February 20, 2011 - Seems I forgot when I was writing this post that there are two sides to every coin. See article below. Thanks @dbarefoot.

• Infographic Does A Great Job Misrepresenting Opportunities Of The Digital Era, techdirt, April 14, 2010