Andrew Dubber, the Future of Music, and Extensive Use of the Word 'Balls'

Andrew Dubber, the Future of Music, and Extensive Use of the Word ‘Balls’

Posted on 03. Jun, 2010 by refe in MUSIC INDUSTRY

Andrew Dubber

The following colorful rant is brought to you courtesy of Andrew Dubber, Reader in Music Industries Innovation at Birmingham City University, Bandcamp advisor and new music industry thinker. It consists of a series of Twitter updates with his reactions to a roundtable discussion that he participated in along with Gerd Leonhard. I’ve shared it here for your reading pleasure:

Balls. So many people are being wrong all at once. No time to even start to address all that.

Was part of a 5-way radio chat about the future of music with @gleonhard and others. So much wrong, I didn’t know where to start.

“Music was better when it was expensive to make” #balls

“It’ll be good if we can claw back 10% through the 3-strikes laws” #balls

“What we need is blanket licensing for all music (like water)” #balls

“Spotify is a doomed model” #balls

“Spotify is the future of music” #balls

“Real music is all about live musicians, touring” #balls

“We need to educate people to stop stealing music” #balls

And then other assorted #balls that assumed an ongoing artificial distinction between producers and consumers of IP.

One speaker made distinction between music business and the ‘recorded’ music business – but then spoke only about music as recordings #balls

However, I love that the first words out of @gleonhard‘s mouth were “I wrote a book called The Future Of Music.” That’s how it’s done folks.

I’m not sure I need to add anything to that. You can follow Andrew on Twitter as @dubber.

Photo by Fräulein Schiller.

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Tags: andrew dubber, future of music, gerd leonhard, new music business

2 Responses to “Andrew Dubber, the Future of Music, and Extensive Use of the Word ‘Balls’”

Dubber

03. Jun, 2010

The thing that makes me cross is that everyone has this essentialist notion of what music is, and what consumption means.

There’s this idea that the entirety of music is about bands writing songs, playing live and in studios, releasing records and going on tour. And that the entirety of music consumption is about discovering, acquiring and listening to that music.

That might describe the majority of the economic value of music between 1940 and 1995 – but it’s never been the majority of music – and either side of those dates, it’s not the majority of the business either.

Recorded music is currently less than 1/3 of the music industry. Before 1920, it was 0%.

And then the question turns to the internet. How will the internet save the music business?

It won’t. That’s not what it’s for. It’s not a marketplace – it’s a communications medium. The internet is about human beings talking to each other. Like telephones, only way cooler.

Whoever asked how the fax machine was going to save the tobacco industry?

It’s like the inverse of that thing about people with hammers seeing every problem as a nail. Record business people only have nails. So they see everything as a hammer.

Oooh – I like that. Gotta tweet that…
- refe
  
  03. Jun, 2010
  
  Well put, sir. Did my display of your Twitter rant make you feel the need to leave a more articulate explanation?
  
  All kidding aside, though, I believe you may be right. I’m not sure that the internet as a marketplace and the internet as a communications medium can’t coexist on the same 1′s and 0′s, however.
  
  Look at all the business that happens online – not just music business, but all kinds of business. Amazon.com could not exist without the universal access afforded it by the internet.
  
  With that said, the internet has probably been – and will continue to be – most effective for bands when they DO use it primarily for communication.
  
  The web has given artists across the world the opportunity to find ears that were previously isolated from them by geography or economics. The new opportunities that this opens up are nearly endless.