Music: The Future of the Music Industry

When I started this bog I stated that the Arctic Monkeys were the future of the music industry because of how they generated a huge online fan base. Ten months later and with Google's acquisition of YouTube, the power of the Internet to promote music has stepped up to the next level.

This year has seen massive breakthroughs in the UK music scene by the Arctic Monkeys, Sandi Thom and Lilly Allen. The connection between these artists: The Internet has been a key part of their rise to success.

For the Monkeys it was a case of building a huge online community who had posted copies of their demo CD on the Web. Despite these demos and their subsequent debut album being available online to download for free, the band went on to have the fastest selling debut album in UK chart history. This proved how the distribution of music online can actually increase CD album sales.

For wannabe punk rocker Thom, she was signed by a major label after 70,000 people watched her webcast gigs. Her rise to fame shows how, with internet users up taking faster broadband connections, the webcast gig is becoming an increasingly popular way for a musician to communicate with their audience. In a landmark move the BBC has streamed its Electric Proms concerts online.

Lilly Allen, meanwhile, has found success where thousands of other unsigned artists have failed so far; through the massively popular MySpace Music. Lilly's success shows how useful the Internet can be for promoting unsigned acts. For the huge amount of unsigned artists on sites like MySpace and Channel4 Music, they have a worldwide audience where before their only audience would be their local pubs.

But it is not only unsigned and breakthrough acts who can use the Internet to gain popularity, unfortunately many major acts and their record labels do not realise this. The Red Hot Chilli Peppers are possibly the biggest act in the world at the moment selling millions worldwide. But they reacted angrily when their much anticipated Stadium Arcadium album was leaked online.

What the Chilli's and many other major artists and labels do not realise is that people who share music are promoting an artist, not harming them. This is only my theory, but I believe it is a very plausible one. For an artist to be successful there needs to be an element of hype about their latest release. This is the case for established artists as well as breakthrough artists.

People who download or copy music illegally are likely to share this music with their friends, who go on to recommend the music to their friends; and so the interest in the artist spreads. This trickle effect continues until there is a level of hype about the artist that reaches the national media. When this happens the sort of people who buy their albums in Woolworths are aware of the band and are likely to then go and buy their album.

But even if this is not the case, the actual financial harm to the artist is negligible. Stadium Arcadium is likely to sell millions worldwide, so the Chilli's have hardly gone out of pocket thanks to those who 'stole' their album.

The point is this: The Internet, like music television or radio is a medium for music. In that sense there is not much difference between a downloaded track and a video or song taped from television or radio.

YouTube users who watch, say, a video of Eminem are causing no harm to the artist. In fact is the opposite: the people who watch the artist's video are likely to want to buy the artist's new album or pay to see them perform live.

If a record label knew that 500,000 people had watched their artist's video on MTV or listened to it on Radio1 then they would be very happy. So they should not be scared of their artist's videos being viewed on YouTube.

The real problem for the industry is the issue of copyright. If an artist's song is played on Radio1 or the video for their single is shown on MTV then they get a royalty paid to them. Google are planning to remove thousands of videos from YouTube because they are scared that the copyright holders may sue. Clearly artists and the music industry needs to realise the potential of free sharing of copyright material. But also the law needs to change in order to reflect this sharing of music online.

Sharing music on the Internet for free, whether as a downloaded track or a live webcast or the streaming of a music video, only helps to promote music. It does not harm the artist financially, in fact if they embrace it, it can increase their sales. The sooner the record industry realises this the better it will be for them and also for music fans worldwide.