John Q, I really like the quote you posted from Pitchfork, and I hope it’s vision of the future is spot on. As for your own comment, I agree with just about all you say. However, I will add, it is hard to know whether most people get their music for 0 cents, even if most people my age do, and it is possible that many of these people would really be willing to pay something for music, just not at the current price. That’s the gist of the research described here. Whether the survey responses would really bear up in reality is an entirely different question.

I also think it might be premature to say that recorded music will never go back to being something people buy all the time. The internet is still an infant technology. Today it is a wide open sea where restrictions against file sharing are impossible to enforce — much like the Caribbean of the 1600s. It might have seemed to the pirates then that although some would be caught from time to time, the ocean was too vast for piracy itself to ever really stop. It went on for ages. But Caribbean piracy did ultimately stop, to become the stuff of storybooks and movies. Technology changed, laws changed, attitudes changed. There is no guarantee that the internet will always permit easy and unenforceable breaches of the law. A new technological development or legal innovation could end file sharing as suddenly as it began, and there are many resourceful people who want that to happen.

Catrina, I’m glad you found the site. I like how you say that the quality of specific songs is a subjective interpretation of the listener, and I’m glad that you mentioned your uncle’s Beatles albums — that really demonstrates how tangible things can mean something specific to us as individuals because they relate to our lives and our experiences. You’re saying, I think, that the value of music stems as much from the listener as from the performer, that it is an interactive process. Like you say, it is priceless — and it also squares well with that article posted by our deceased one-term president friend. However, you forgot one thing. We don’t have to go concerts every day. We don’t have to remain just listeners — look at the painting at the top of this article. Before people had recordings, they didn’t go to shows all the time, but they certainly made more of their own music. They made music at home, at church, and working in the fields. Only with the advent of recording did people become afraid of ever singing aloud.

The fact that a majority of people obtain music without paying anything doesn’t say much about a certain song, to me, other than that people really like said song. Besides, we can’t all go to concerts everyday, nor can we rush out to buy every album simply because there are one or two songs which we really enjoy, the rest of the album to be skipped over. It’s when people really enjoy a particular artist, they buy a whole album – but, today especially, a majority of the public is only exposed to a couple songs by a single artist.

Most people “illegally” download music, receive recordings from friends, utilize music gnome sites (like Pandora) or make their own mixes from listening to the radio (mix tapes, anyone? I know I’m guilty of that one). And, the fact that music is so widely shared definitely says something about the quality of music today. It doesn’t matter if you are listening to Vivaldi’s “Concerto in C Major” or “Tik-Tok” by self-proclaimed party girl, Kesha. Every song evokes a different feeling for different people at different times. And, who could put a price on that?

“As Eric Harvey’s piece concluded, the fallout from the current shifts in music distribution and economics will need to involve a redefinition of music’s value. The recorded music industry is waning, and we’re passing through an inflection point as stressful and crucial as the 30s and 40s, when publishers and musicians took their stand against “canned music.” As it wanes, the modes of thinking it’s generated– of individual engagement with its product as the default form of listening– will also become less important. The social, useful life of music– sharing, dancing to, mixing, playing, playing with it– will be the most fascinating and fertile part of it, for writers as much as for businessmen and musicians.”

http://pitchfork.com/features/poptimist/7760-poptimist-25/

I think the thing to do is to admit that most people aren’t willing to pay a lot of money to buy an online download; so it’s time to give those away, and create physical things, things that people can hold and cherish, and that mean something.

Meaningful music is created in the recording studio, but it is also created on the stage. If the debate is “how do artists make money,” it’s certainly not going to be from selling MP3s. Live shows are one piece of the puzzle, giving people something unique and different, rather than just another MP3 on iTunes.

Oh Jesus I don’t think any of this makes sense. But basically: MP3s should be free anyways, mostly because they already are for most people. So make real vinyl records, make physical things that people will want to buy if you want to make money. Put on good shows, make it more of an experience than just something that people download.