OTHER TECH

I wouldn't count on the CD disappearing any time soon. For one thing, only a third of the homes in this country currently have broadband access. Although most homes with PCs do have broadband, what that tells us is that a lot of people don't have computers. Nor do such products continue to grow as a matter of course. CD players, which can be picked up anywhere from a drugstore to Wal-Mart for about $50, can still be found in only 55% of American households after almost 25 years on the market.

Recorded music has been a true mass medium, but during the CD era, legal recorded music has become something less than that. Among the many reasons that illegal mix tapes proliferate in poor areas is that many people have no use for CDs, not having anything to play them on. The record labels rushed to eliminate LPs and cassettes from the market, and now those media account for less than 10% of total sales. This is one of many facts the labels don't like to talk about while blaming all of their financial woes on illegal downloading.

The labels can certainly forcibly accelerate the trend toward digitization by pressing fewer discs and allowing their pressing plants to become obsolete. But how soon can they do that and maintain their current level of income? Is this all about a higher profit on a lower gross?

Maybe. It would be worth a lot to the record companies to be able to eliminate such crushing overhead items as pressing plants, warehouses, and shipping costs. More nefariously, the labels would enjoy a virtual license to kill artist royalties. Audits of physical product shipments and sales are expensive and arduous, but the industry shibboleth says that nobody who's done one has ever lost money. Cheating artists out of royalties is a major industry profit center. Auditing electronic music transfer is a forensic nightmare. That's why music from artists like the Beatles and Frank Zappa isn't available to download services. The real question is: Why so few holdouts?

The all-digital record market has wrinkles that will alienate consumers. First, the labels can only make that higher profit on a smaller gross if the price goes up. The companies already want the current 99¢-per-track price to increase to $1.29. Additionally, the labels still want to restrict download purchases, essentially turning a sale into a lease. How many people want to pay 30% more for less control over what they're buying? How many people are interested in buying their music only one track at a time rather than album by album?

These are industry-generated problems, and they're consistent with the industry's practice over the past decade of sabotaging the digital future it trumpets. They've done this with lawsuits, legislation, and intractable negotiating practices - and through suspicion, willful ignorance, and above all, greed. A completely digitized future for recorded music may come to pass. But its arrival will not be determined by what the music industry proclaims, but by what it does. That is to say, it won't come to pass any time soon.

Personally, I'm passionate about the music and indifferent, at most, to the medium. Whether I have shiny black objects or shiny silver objects or an icon on a screen signifies much less than whether I've got an intriguing beat, a memorable tune with something to say, and players and singers who are determined to pour out their hearts and minds. Ten thousand years ago, before men knew how to use fire, they sang songs. I'm confident that, no matter how the record companies, the legislatures, and the courts screw things up, 10,000 years from now, if there are still humans, they'll do the same. As a writer at Creem and Rolling Stone, Dave Marsh helped create the whole genre of rock criticism, and he continues to be one of its most distinctive, perceptive, and contentious voices. His books include The Heart of Rock and Soul, Fortunate Son: The Best of Dave Marsh, and Louie Louie: The History and Mythology of the World's Most Famous Rock 'n' Roll Song.

The Future of Recorded Music Back to Homepage What's New on S&V