The release of music torrents has made popular among the music loving community. It has become an inspiration for music performers. Whether the band has 10 followers or a million, their hopes and dreams are not limited. It is indeed an opportunity for everyone to showcase their talent and leaving the results to audience.
SXSW has set an example for record labels about how to monetize the festival without compromising on the quality. It has managed to rope in at least a dozen sponsors, for example Pepsi and Microsoft.
The record labels are crying foul over file sharing community. I think they can also follow in the foot steps of SXSW. If SXSW is able to stay afloat with only one festival that lasts not for more than one month, then why not record labels cannot stay afloat with their huge collection of albums.
It defies the basic logic of common sense and business sense. SXSW has made available the music performed at the festival is free of cost to the public with no strings attached. It also organises movie festival and I hope one day it will eventually release the films also to the general public.
Why do people prefer to share music files using bit torrents. The primary reason might be there is not enough money to buy all the music they wanted. Before, iTunes has come into existence, record labels are selling albums but not individual tracks. There are very few albums in which you might like all the tracks. I have purchased hundreds of albums over a decade. I like more than dozen of albums and I like only a single to couple of tracks in an album. If you like it more than 3 tracks in an album, there is no meaning in buying the whole album since the cost of 3 tracks will be inflated.
From the record labels point of view distribution of tracks through online was difficult around three years back. But now the situation has changed and the technology is promising. The primary reason for the record labels to distribute the tracks is the cost of the track.
How do record labels determine the price of price of a track ? This question raises a lot of questions about the pricing of tracks. The cost of the album varies with the artist and their demand in public. European Commission has ordered an enquiry against Apple iTunes service in 2008. Apple has given several reasons behind the pricing of it's tracks. The case has clearly demonstrated the difficulty in pricing the tracks across the various nations.
Instead of focusing on the ways to distribute music they are focusing on the file sharing community. Record labels are trying to protect their manufacturers of cd/dvd/label providers and the ancillary industry depending on them.
In the online age, pricing is an issue. For example a track is priced at $1. It might be cheap in US or Uk. The pricing of one dollar might be costly for people living in other countries. The purchase of tracks in dollar or euro currency purely depends on the current exchange rate of the buyer's currency. If the buyer is shelling out around 70 or 80 in local currency and the price might seem to the buyer too steep.
The pricing of the track should be in local currency and it should be affordable as in US or EU. Apple has already set a clear example about how to control the buyer purchase by redirecting to his home country website and the buying is solely on the basis of credit card buyer's origin.
The money invested by the record labels in attorney's for filing suits against file sharing persons and ISP's should be diverted to market research for each country to determine the popular artists and albums. There are several surveys which clearly demonstrated that file sharers are actually purchasing the music. There are several multinational companies have invested a lot of money in various countries solely for the pricing issue and to understand the market. Many of the MNC's are successful and they are selling products of the same kind and quality with different countries and pricing.
We can assume the following :
[1] record labels are concentrating on the established territory rather than exploring new territories.
[2] record labels are not investing in market research in many countries.
[3] record labels are not willing to sell their tracks individually.
[4] record labels marketing teams and their strategists are defunct.
[5] record labels are not trying to reach the audience. Instead they are thinking the opposite.
Unless record labels do not change their attitude towards consumers through out the globe, file sharing seems to be unavoidable.
Least but not the last, the tracks released by the SXSW is created into torrents by Greg Hewgill and Ben Stolt. The links to their respective torrents are here and here.
I hope record labels will not come after me for providing the links here.
The End.
This work by maniac.vardhan is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
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