Music Distribution in the Future

A futuristic proposal in light of the scientific developments in information technologies by anyguy.

“Since the concept of entertainment has drastically changed with the networks and increasing bandwidth, perhaps it is time for the music industry to consider musical content as an advertising tool.”

The idea

Advertising through specially designed player/dj tool program showing banners daily received to the user’s computer via internet.
The content will be provided free but the downloader will be forced to use a certain specially designed player program where the free content provider will be able to upload to user’s computer daily banners to be shown while played a certain song contained in the user’s archive.

The consequence

Music could be delivered against a small fee including the perfect player software and the real income shall be earned through advertising as a banner appears on the player according to the daily received banner list through internet.

The player will also provide statistics for the playing frequency of a certain song ad therefore more popular the song the copyright holder will receive more royalties form advertising income.

The spirit of the project

This project intends foresee the music market in 20-30 year’s time, because within the said period of time, the internet will be like a whole information sphere, in comparison to today’s situation where internet may be said to be an interconnection of information masses through pipes and hoses of various size.

With the increasing bandwidth, all information shall concentrate on larger and better connected networks, such like an information sphere that one can dive any place and end up any other point at a glance. A sort of super-interconnectivity…
Today peer-to-peer (P2P) networks are the main problem for the recording industry but for all above, “downloading from other users” is a temporary situation. In 20-30 years time at least partially in the USA, there will be widespread real time connection which means that one will not need to download the song but, will be able to listen to it from anywhere via widespread wireless network.

Breaking Point..

This will be a breaking point in the music industry so that one will not need to posses neither an analog nor a digital copy of the work in order to make us of it as the way he/she pleases independent of time and place. In such a world, music could not be sold anymore but, will be licensed on some basis. No one would buy it since they can listen to it without downloading and therefore without making an illegal copy, it will be inevitable to establish a system

Therefore commercial innovations promoting a socially acceptable pay-per view system is of essence for the music industry. It might be speculated that eventually, music, as a part of content, will be purchased in a package offered with an internet connection similar to cable TV.

A pioneer project

The project tries to foresee the near future and contemplates to argue on certain guidelines in constructing a viable music distribution market.

The fundamentals of the project

For the success of the project,

a) The free “player /dj tool” software should be designed in such a good way that the user may be able to experiment basic mixing features but should not deprived of any of the practical common player (Winamp) features such as auto-mixing and easy playlist and CD burn together with a user friendly interface.

b) Amongst the computer users there is a kind of hesitation and resistance against any sort of the program gathering information based on the user’s actions. Persuading people to use the player program is the most difficult part. The first rule will be to create software truthfully with no secret or hidden task and to keep all statistics anonymous.

c) Building community through the player program is of critical essence since the success of advertising very much depends whether the listener feedback obtained by the player program is used to offer the clients, the right strategy. Such way of advertising will be most effective regarding all sorts of music related products. The system may be used for social advertising and public benefit projects as well as promoting academic studies. This will make incredible contribution to the image of the project and possible success in overcoming the initial resistance.

d) Organizational adaptation: marketing department should be reconstructed in line with the project so that the marketing department shall also provide expert consultancy on the strategy making as well as the details of this new advertising method.

Filed under: IDEAS, MUSIC, TECHNOLOGY