It is not so long ago that with extraordinary courage and collective effort AIM licensed and delivered its members’ music to the original Napster, and independents have been in the vanguard ever since. Almost cost-free distribution, infinite shelf-space, and equal access to music fans’ ears overcome some barriers to entry in the physical world. In addition the sector is happy to license rather than manufacture, and, not fixated on getting paid per unit, happy to use models which are a better fit with online.
Digital makes more possible for less, pushing the music and the ideas to centre stage and reducing any advantage that once might have been got from big budget recording and video production. Even with a platform lock-in, such as some fear with Apple, the need to keep faith with the consumer should keep retailers honest enough, particularly when everyone is just one click away from an alternative supplier.
This is all good news for what the Government would call ‘SMEs’, the small and innovative companies we depend on to power the next wave of growth. The challenges, however, should not be under-estimated, one of which is simply the problem of how to get the music to where it can be sold, the mechanics of the supply chain.
It’s easy to see why this is such a challenge in the independent sector: hundreds if not thousands of autonomous suppliers in each territory, few big enough to support a technology specialist on staff, and almost none with the resources to create a global infrastructure for themselves. As a rights, not wholesale product business, the demands are technically complex and bureaucratic. Independent music is still under-represented in many retail services, but it’s getting sorted out bit by bit. Where indie labels have overcome these problems, their market penetration is often far in excess of what they achieve in physical.
"We are migrating to digital delivery, but revenues will almost certainly not replace those lost from album sales"
Paul Sanders
The more insidious issue for the independents is a battle being fought over the business models themselves, in the arena of Government regulation and policy, and at a national level by industry bodies. Suing consumers, undermining confidence in the CD with copy-protection mechanisms and making them incompatible with iPods, using technology to kick fair use exemptions into touch; these are all aspects of a concerted effort to re-introduce control over consumption of music. We are migrating to digital delivery, but despite impressive growth the track-based download business will almost certainly not replace revenues lost from album sales, and to kill the open and standard CD format would be catastrophic.
‘Strong copyright’ and ‘rights owner choice’ might be a difficult policy to make a stand against, but it’s all a matter of interpretation. Like any commercial companies, indies need to get paid; choosing how you get paid and by whom is wholly good, even as the music flows freely from one fan to another over the internet. On the other hand, using the copyright argument as a back door to reintroduce control of distribution could prove disastrous for the independents, fighting for a greater market share but unable to control with DRM policies which business models get a chance of mainstream success. Napster was killed despite AIM’s licence.
While indie-friendly business models may need some nurturing and protection, this has to be the best time ever to be an independent music producer. Open networks, open ears, and open markets are conspiring to make all the old market control mechanisms obsolete. There is really no reason why half the world’s music by value shouldn’t be independent.
Paul Sanders is technical advisor to AIM and a founder of state51, Consolidated Independent, and PlayLouder MSP