The Artist Pretending It's Art, The Question is: Where Do You Pay?

Penny Black Printing Press, takomabibelot, 2009

What separates entertainment from art? If "all art is quite useless" then the last blockbuster you saw in the cinema is probably more so. But it makes a hell of a lot of money for those who control the media, hence these quite useless products are copyrighted for nigh a century. Our culture is far from ours in possession. How can it be called culture if can't share it? Last month I asked Who will be the first to give it all away, and Who will be the first to take it all for nothing?

 The web was the first gift, it's architecture free from commercial claims. The second question has already been answered by the millions running torrents over the global network, and the unlucky few who have been subject to legal action (that often never goes to trial). The latter is a direct result of the disruptive innovation of the former. The buying and selling of music is a very recent development in the history of music (which is entangled with language and similarly as old) made possible by the invention of recording media in the late 19th century - only then forming a concrete object with value.

With the decline of physical media, justification of high prince points for recordings disappears. Business practice dictates that to compete one must either cut prices or exceed the quality of the competition to justify the cost. When the competition is the web/internet and the product is supplied for free, it is impossible for established business to maintain the status quo. Everything must go. With a zero price point, the threshold to consumption is lowered to the point it is removed entirely. With limited currency, a customer is far more discerning in their purchases. Without monetary loss, there is no reason not to see a film or listen to a song. Thus, achieving the fantasy of destroying file-sharing will not make people buy things they would otherwise have downloaded for free as the industry lobbies contend ('a download is a lost sale').

However, it is frequently retorted that file-sharing in fact boosts media purchases. Indeed, if people believe the product they have 'illegally' obtained has genuine value, they will likely be moved to remunerate the creator. In the digital age where anyone can publish, there is no reason for that compensation to arrive in corporate pockets. The notion that one can make a living off music sales is only as old as the embedding of music in physical objects, and just as artificial. It is abjectly abnormal that Cliff Richard should continue to make money off his labour from half a century ago, guaranteeing him an effectively infinite revenue stream - though I'm sure he's justified it to himself.

In a world where any individual can publish and distribute with the same power Hollywood had when the VCR was invented, what artist or band would wish to deal with the outmoded devil? This often raises protestations from the industry that they are the purveyors of quality. That somehow the proliferation of the digital single will kill the album, but the album is a format. Music is art one way or another, and it is not the kids that view music as a commodity - it was the business model of the industry that made it disposable. Art is not dying or drowning in a sea of choice, only the king-makers are. If the web/internet is the alternative to an obsolete distribution model, how can artists hope to receive payment for their labour? Without the political influence of the media industries, independent artists can never hope to have the state act on their behalf and must ultimately accept that some piracy of their products will occur. Piracy has always been fact, only now the same digital architecture that enables infinite reproducibility and portability also enables tracking, throttling, and blocking. Never has a technology so flexible been so rigidly locked down. Your product can and will be pirated but not by everyone, so why not cater to those who are willing to compensate you? 'Freemium' is ultimately a resurrection of the old shareware model - by offering a basic rendition for free (perhaps buoyed by serving adverts), you can attract customers to a higher quality premium version.

What new business model is available to musicians? As recordings can be distributed endlessly in minimal time for little cost, they are essentially already the free basic offering of an artists output and there is little to gain by alienating your audience with a court summons. In Steve Albini's essay The Problem With Music he notes that very little of the money derived from commercialising an artist or band's music is ever seen by them. By directly dealing with their audience, musicians stand to maximise the profits of their labour. Three years ago Radiohead self-published their album In Rainbows primarily online, supplemented by licensing its manufacture to record labels for physical release. The price point of the online download was undetermined, that is the price was determined entirely by the subjective value of the music to the buyer - anything from zero to infinity. Subjective value is, aptly, not objective and will not yield a steady income, but they accepted a minority obtaining it for nothing because the majority of fans will support them financially, in turn making it possible for the band to continue making music for their audience. It's called building a relationship with the fanbase, something the litigious executives are unfamiliar with. It's not so much about giving or taking, rather it is trade or exchange.

Music is at the forefront of this disruption because of the comparative brevity of data in a musical recording. Motion pictures are visually arresting and as such require a much larger data stream. The transport of such large files has only been as feasible as music piracy in the latter half of this decade with the move to broadband connections. But film, like music, is rooted in human culture, namely theatre. Live music gets you closer to the band, why not get close to Tom Cruise treading the boards? (Let me think about that one). In the same way a band can have genuine talent without studio aid, or a singer can produce tones and melodies without auto-tune; an actor should be able to reasonably act without the crutch of retakes and edits. If unadorned performance can root out manufactured pop, we should see a similar distinction of quality in movie stars.

In the end though, making a living from music has never been disrupted like the physical media that carried it in the 20th century. Musicians still play live and there is nothing that has or will replicate or replace live performance - that is the premium product. As for the industry associations' ongoing death struggle with file-sharing (technologically and culturally), continually shutting down prominent sites and services has done nothing but act as natural selection. Each new descendant of Napster becomes more robust and secure. Ironic, given how the label and studio conglomerates should have been killed or broken up by natural selection a decade ago. Perhaps they'll yet realise you can't beat the internet, you must join it.


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