(sponsored by the AMM Music Group )
There are a lot of discussions regarding "free" MPEG 3 soundfiles on the Internet - and there are actually quite a lot of illegal files with this compression format available on the web.
But thinking that someone downloading these files is actually getting music for free is a big mistake. Since most people are actually paying for Internet access, they are paying for the downloads with their bill for the ISP (Internet Service Provider) and the phone company. In addition they have to "pay" by having to watch the advertising on their access sites and usually the sites offering the downloads - as well as receiving lots of cookies - which add them to mailing lists at best and create income for the sites offering the sounds.
The typical costs of downloading one free song of 3 to 4 MB (compressed size in MPEG Audio Layer III format) in most european countries is about DM 3,00 to DM 4,00 (or UK 1.10 to 1.20, FF 10.00 to 14.00 or US-$ 1.70 to 2.30) which is essentially the same price as buying the album at a normal CD-retail store at normal prices. You save the cost of driving to the store - but that is about it.
The only big difference is that performing musicians, composers, music publishers and record companies are not receiving any money.
Does this still sound like a great "Robin Hood" action - free music to the poor masses? Not at all - it is pure robbery - but only into the hands of some website providers, Telekom companies and ISPs, which are actually hard to see as nice little guys.
One of the commonly stated reasons for downloads is the lack of availability of many albums in CD-stores, the unfriendlyness of people in stores and similar retail problems. So the wish for direct downloads absolutely makes sense - but it should be solved with some kind of transfer system that protects musicians too.
For those who don't know it: it is not the music companies, not even the majors, which are blamed for almost anything bad usually, fault, that a lot of CDs are extremely hard to get in stores. Many CD-stores claim that certain albums are not available or that it would take weeks that these CDs could come in, because these stores want to sell you what is in their store. A lot of stores seem to be unable to cope with the large choice and the wide divergence of musical taste existing today. To avoid being blamed for the fact that they do not store a specific album you want some guys will tell you anything - including that the album is not available.
The problem that some songs you might want to buy are not available as singles is really caused by record companies though, but this is the effect of low CD prices. Since a single only brings a marginal profit if it is successfull and usually just costs money to the companies, there is not much interest in selling them. Manufacturing and transporting a CD-single costsalmost as much as an album and you need to spend as much for marketing and promotion, so the minimal income from sales does not make it interesting. Should the music market turn to purely single oriented sales, then the price of singles would have to rise significantly.
In Germany - and other countries, there are moves for direct Internet distribution of legal compressed files. In one such case, led by the german Telekom AG, the Telekom company actually calls the customer back on the ISDN-phone system and the price including the telecommunications costs is about the same as the "free downloads". A telecommunications-company can afford to reduce their rates drastically for this purpose since they still make money from the sale of music.
Combine this or similar models with MP-mans - and we might have the next generation of legitimate music distribution, which could be both convenient and acceptable for everyone.
Since the overall transaction costs in web-based transfers are currently (at the end of 1998) about as high or higher as the total transportation, retail margin and manufacturing costs, it is still only partly viable - but since these costs might fall by about 50% during the coming years, the electronic transmission might make sense very soon.
But for this we will need a music sales format that personalises the recording to the customer who buys it. This could lead to music prices staying the same in spite of inflation of most cost factors in the development of music rights - or even to a slight decrease in actual prices for music. The music business could even adopt part of the model of other software fields - for example giving away very cheap or free copies of a song, which would only run for a certain time limit. All that is needed is an intelligent MP-man device unlike todays players, which are essentially dumb storage and playback machines. And of course we will need a standard format for this. Currently several research insitutes and companies are working on this and we might see some results either in 1999 or in 2000.
A solution could be a clear cooperation between the music industry and the manufacturers of MP-mans in establishing a common new format. To protect current retailers, there might even be music loading stations within todays music stores - this would reduce the loss of jobs in these stores. (which is otherwise pre-programmed anyhow, since even the sales of normal CDs are moving more and more to the superstores on the web.
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Last Updated: 27.April 1997