The decline of the music industry? "Blame the illegal downloading, of course," "Internet, this is the reason" and so on.
Who has not had the opportunity to hear and perhaps even to utter such words during a debate on this issue? Majors, artists, surfers, everyone went to his views, his certainty, extolling or otherwise criticizing the Hadopi law fire, symbol of cleavage music / web industry. The latter, recall it quickly, was supposed to penalize download peer-to-peer when it does not respect the rights of authors of works downloaded.
Now that the law is dead and buried, before even really existed, it is time to take stock.
First things first: What is "music industry"? Very often, it is considered that this industry is limited to the record sales. An overview can realize that even within this industry exist as diverse as the production of the musical work, the live and related rights activities. Often, too, there is a tendency to equate music majors and industry. Even if they are now unavoidable, it should not be forgotten that alongside these huge machines exist labels and independent artists.
Second thing: No, illegal downloading did not kill the music industry, but yes, the Internet has changed the way we consume music, up to create new economic and artistic patterns.
Finally, we are reassured that the majors do not wear too badly.
The music industry is not dead
Some figures and studies will allow us to see a little more clearly. A study by the European Commission made an econometric modeling of consumer Internet music to define the links between illegal downloading, streaming and legal consumption of legal online shopping. Against all odds, the conclusion of this study shows that the majority of the music downloaded from peer to peer users would not necessarily have been a legal purchase. Each illegal downloading is not necessarily lost for unsold artist. It would even stimulate the market for album sales. In Norway, the illegal downloading collapses to other modes of consumption, legal, music with subscriptions and streaming (Spotify, Rdio ..). The specter of illegal downloading away, the music industry can catch his breath.
If it is based on the 2013 sales figures of music, we see that the world market appears to be increasing since 1998. Again, this is surprising, since it is ultimately the opposite of the prevailing discourse. Indeed, the decline is stronger for market sales of physical albums, and certainly these numbers is based the majority of communications alleging an alarming situation. It is noted, however, that increases in other revenue sources echo this decline: the explosion of digital sales (0.4 billion in 2004 to $ 5.8 billion in 2012) and concerts are as significant (see diagram below).
The media consumption is changing and the market has adjusted, offsetting some of the losses of the physical market by developing other income, including digital.
This is the end of a certain music industry
What was the basis for the overthrow of this area is the dematerialization of music and its use as a file. MP3 has completely changed consumer behavior. Now we pecks pieces was a more superficial listening without necessarily see the value of physical "album" object. Of course, there are always purists who listen to the first to the last song of an album remains something sacred and considers that an album cover is comparable to a work of art . These are, however, increasingly rare, and the listener is now seen primarily as a consumer of tracks.
Besides downloading, streaming is also exploding. A recent study showed that 78% of French Internet users regularly visited sites streaming for listening to music. This enthusiasm can be explained largely by the free but also ease. Typing the name of an artist, song and in the next second, you can access the broadcast of the song sought. This new way of listening to music has also helped redistribute the cards in this industry. Sites such as Spotify and Deezer are now key players, attracting daily benefit of subscribers (in March 2013, Spotify had 6,000,000). However, some artists such as Thom Yorke, singer of Radiohead, do not hesitate to criticize this type of platform, considering that only music "mainstream" is broadcast and especially that artists are not paid enough.
And majors in?
We have seen above, the majors do not seem to suffer that much of the digital explosion. They still occupy more than 71% of the market sales of music production. After some resistance, the gossips say a certain stubbornness, they ended up taking consience Internet was not pure evil. Response to illegal downloading is made on the ground of legal offers: partnership with digital distribution platforms (Apple and iTunes), streaming (Spotify, Deezer) but also with video platforms (Youtube and Dailymotion representative now a significant market share of the digital distribution).
Problem, there is again a hegemony of majors and major distributors. The market is dominated today by Itunes for download and streaming for Deezer, being fed by their offer catalogs of more majors. We are witnessing an imbalance in the market, forcing smaller broadcasters out of business, as was the case for Jiwa in 2010. Involved In particular, the difficulties of negotiating broadcast rights with Warner.
The emergence of new patterns for independent
Not only the digital did not kill the majors, but it was an excellent opportunity for the rise of independent groups. Thanks to digital and internet, there may be much less intermediate between artists, actors music market and the public. All stages of the life cycle of an album are impacted by these changes and independents have this opportunity to grow.
The development of digital tools and studio homes to create an album at a much lower cost than 10 years ago, providing the opportunity for a large number of independent artists to create an album.
Must still manage to attract attention, make themselves known and stand out. Indeed, the arrival of all these creations saturates the market, it is the reverse of the medal. Lack of available financial resources majors for their communication plan, groups all use the internet assets to reach their audience. We are witnessing the development of strategies including community management to unite the public around the artist. These methods already existed before internet through clubs such fans. However, the web provides great proximity to the dissemination of information almost directly to fans, and around the world. A Twitter and Facebook coupled with the provision of digital content site (Youtube videos, photos, TweetMySong ..) can be very interesting for viral digital communication, and thus integrates a user experience dimension multi canale.
Financing already existing subscription with fans, but with the internet era, crowdfunding has taken on a new dimension. The phenomenon is such that the Minister Fleur Pellerin (Minister Delegate to the Minister of Productive Recovery) has presented a reform intended to help the development of crowdfunding platforms while protecting benefit investors. If you want to summarize in a few words the principle of crowdfunding, it is possible for an artist, group, getting finance his album, his song by users. Some crowdfunding platforms have now become very popular, this is particularly the case with My Major Company or Kiss Kiss Bank Bank.
conclusion
To conclude, we can say that digital has been a revolution in the music industry. Its development is accompanied by opportunities and issues, as well as the arrival time of the cassette, or CD, which raised the same concerns about the end of the music market as we know it. And if that was finally able to adapt to new possibilities and modes of operation? It turns out that the small labels were more reactive than the majors, and that independent actors were able to find more opportunities in this new configuration.
Music has never been so active, it is undergoing a revolution.
