Composing for the Cloud

Stumbled upon an interesting article today about music ownership, propagation, and consumption that I though I'd share:

http://broadcast.oreilly.com/2009/12/the-myth-of-music-ownership.html

Anyone have thoughts on the implications of an unlimited all-access music subscription service such as the one in the article? How does such a subscription challenge the idea of "your music?" How do you think it would affect the way composers make a living, if at all?

Thanks for sharing that article. Thought-provoking, to be sure.

Here are my thoughts:

As I understand it, the way the system works now is the composer/publisher/performer gets a royalty each time their music is purchased, performed publicly for profit, or broadcast. Agencies like ASCAP and BMI organise and police the system to keep everybody honest.

If the royalty due for the purchase of music ends up eliminated by this "Cloud" technology, that could take a serious bite out of musicians' livelihoods - though royalties could still be collected for live performance or broadcast.

However, if the composer/publisher/performer could get a royalty each time their music were played by someone on the "Cloud," and all such royalties were somehow figured into the cost of a monthly subscription to the customer, I can't see how it could be a bad thing. That said, I don't see how that would be practical. Unlimited means just that, so there would be a potentially infinite liability of royalties payable by the "Cloud" subscription services that could not be accurately estimated and built into flat subscription fees.

Something will have to be arranged that makes sure everybody involved gets their cut. Recorded music will always be in demand, and musicians will only keep making it if there is something in it for them. I'm not going to worry about this for the time being, mainly for that reason. Musicians have something people want - and they'll have to be paid for it somehow.

Anybody see another angle to this that I'm not considering?

From a financial standpoint this is a tricky thing if we proceed with current economic trends. Does anyone know how subscription services today pay their artists? I think the suggested idea in the article is that the cloud subscription service keeps track of all music played and pays out royalty fees accordingly. I don't know how that could work effectively, though because 1) I imagine the cost of the service would need to be quite high to fairly compensate artists and 2) what's to stop people from developing programs or macros to constantly click on or replay their own songs in order to get their numbers up? I'm really intrigued by cloud computing and I'm curious to see how it might pan out to affect music, musicians, and the economy.

See, I'm really on the fence about this and here's why. This subscription service would really only work if people weren't out downloading music for free/nearly free on the internet/cloud. Like the author points out, people used to be able to "own" recordings of music. Now with the digital age, people simply download a copy of a recording and store it to hear when they want. What happens when people don't "have" the music they want?

They subscribe to this service that plays music for them whenever they want, only they can never "have" it on their machines, even if they're paying the cost of the subscription. This is like 1960s radio all over again, where big companies come in to snuff out the competition, and when the only way for people to listen to music is through some subscription service that heavily competes for market share to the point it isn't profitable to compete with them, then you have a corporatocracy governing the direction of art.

I'm not sure I'm on board with this. I'd rather have my work available to anyone who wants it, not just those people who are willing to pay a subscription. I think there are risks involved.

See, I'm really on the fence about this and here's why. This subscription service would really only work if people weren't out downloading music for free/nearly free on the internet/cloud. Like the author points out, people used to be able to "own" recordings of music. Now with the digital age, people simply download a copy of a recording and store it to hear when they want. What happens when people don't "have" the music they want?

Let's say we get to the point where we have widespread cloud computing subscription services, a point where you can essentially carry around a cell phone/computer that, for a flat-rate subscription fee, grants you unlimited access to calls, movies, music, books, etc., but you don't actually own any of it. If the subscription becomes as widespread as cell phone plans currently are and makes available most known data, then illegal downloading would be cut back tremendously. I wonder how this would affect software companies as well, and if licenses or subscriptions are the wave of the immediate future (think Steam on crack where your games/software are run on a company's insanely powerful machines and are broadcast to you, though that tech's already here anyway).

Cloud computing sounds wonderful to me in one sense because of the lack of physical content. Considering how much I've moved around in the past, it would be nice to think all I need to bring with me to a new destination is a handheld computer and a few other items. It would be convenient, fast, efficient... And yet the lack of physicality could be a dangerous thing. Who is really in control of the content we receive? What happens if the cloud is somehow shut down? What happens to ownership? And of course it's always nice to have a physical copy. There's something to be said for being able to hold something in your hand. I doubt that people will ever completely give up physical ownership of most things that can be digitized, or give up local access to digitized goods.

I'm not sure I'm on board with this. I'd rather have my work available to anyone who wants it, not just those people who are willing to pay a subscription. I think there are risks involved.

Same here, but as long as we can still meet face to face with people we should be able to get our work out there to those that want it.

AntiA brings up some excellent points. Would "The Cloud" allow independent artists to upload their stuff and make it available to the public as they can with the current system? What if "The Cloud" decided it didn't want to make this or that available? I don't want anyone controlling my access to the public as an artist, or to any artist as a member of the public. For all we know, "The Cloud" may be just the latest ploy on the part of big business toward gaining greater control of something that is currently relatively free and open - and all they have to do is promise to be "new," "the way of the future," and "convenient."

And yet the lack of physicality could be a dangerous thing. Who is really in control of the content we receive? What happens if the cloud is somehow shut down? What happens to ownership?

Also scary. Me no likey.

And away we go... Here's a follow-up link that claims Apple's acquisition of Lala will lead the way into the cloud era of music.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/19/AR2010011901581.html