0630 hrs/Sunday 19 May 2013
What innovations has the global music industry seen in the recent past? Songwriters and music composers continue to be as creative as they have always been, but has the business of music publishing and distribution and rights protection and monetisation, seen much of innovation?
I kept mulling on these questions for most of the last three days as I participated in a music convention in Brighton (The Great Escape), and I was disappointed. Beyond some excellent business models from Spotify and Youtube (which were not really innovations, but just extensions of the power of social media and digital distribution networks), and some good initiatives in DRM, there is no tangible evidence that the music industry has come up with innovations in any aspect of creation, promotion, publishing, distribution or consumption and monetisation aspects.
The demise of global names such as EMI and HMV, and the continuing struggle of independent artistes to make a modest living out of their creativity, should have naturally created conditions ripe for innovations, but this has apparently not yet happened. So I will continue to watch this space.
Signing off....
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