Audio Poverty

On the Posteconomic Situation of Music: Depression or Crisis as Opportunity?

It sounded like the dawn of a new age. The digital revolution of the musical means of production and its global spread by the Internet bore the hope that was supposed to allow independent producers, labels, and distributors to make up for their financial and structural disadvantages in the face of market-dominating media conglomerates. An economy in binary code seemed affordable, simple, and available around the world: technology as an advantage over the unwieldiness and arrogance of the large corporations, independent on a higher level. A direct connection linked musicians, handlers and retailers, and purchasers, who now saw themselves more as fans than as consumers, a multi-layered subculture distributed across the continents. Low manufacturing costs and growing, long term profits without the insane yield fantasies of the thoroughly capitalized order of world economics. Where major firms use huge budgets for production, marketing, and media penetration to ensure the success of a limited number of acts, with flexible business models, a bit of self-exploitation, and a healthy amount of faith in one’s own artistic creations it became possible to create a niche economy. And all that beyond the ugly face of neoliberalism and state cultural subsidies. Based on the counter-cultural movements at the end of the 1970s and their postmodern followers subsequent years, a model lied seemed to lie just around the corner that promised the possibility of an alternative economy and way of life for all those dissatisfied with the social mainstream. The transition from vinyl to the new storage medium of the CD was considered an indication of the economic success of this utopia. The first labels, distribution platforms, and magazines using the Internet further fed this hope.

But by the mid-1990s, at the latest, dark clouds began to emerge on the horizon. Fans, listeners, and buyers become fickle consumers, and define themselves as users, who propagate the free download of MP3s as the contemporary non-plus-ultra. Since then, music has been freely available; its value is more ideal than pecuniary. There is no longer an understanding of subculture as a realm of cultural and economic exchange. Randomness has the upper hand. Portals selling music might still be showing growing hit rates. But the mass of users is not there: labels and distributors are losing their profits and bankruptcies have become a daily event. Only the concert agencies are continuing to make profits. Even the “long tail” theory of Wired magazine’s Chris Anderson, according to which over the longer term the global availability of niche products will lead to increased profits, is now strongly doubted. A new study by Will Page (MCPS-PRS Alliance) indicates that 85 percent of all tracks offered for purchase on the Internet have never been bought.

Welcome to the present! Where is the future?

The podium participants will discuss and analyze these economic outlooks of a music culture caught in a downturn, and speak about their personal and political relevance.

Christian Finkbeiner