There has been lots of recent conversation in the UK about internet disconnection for those who repeatedly downloading content illegally. As we’ve already noted most young people opt not to pay for content online with 77% of 19-25 year-olds never paying to watch film. Of the 23% of young people that do pay, the largest proportion are those that download ‘less often’ than once a month. There has clearly been a dynamic shift in the last 10 years. We’ve already explored the idea of how the industry is changing hinting at what is to come. Yet while the copyright debate rages on, the young people who grew up with Napster between 1999-2001 have moved into the workplace with their experience, new ideas and business models bringing forth the next phase of music distribution.

Spotify kicked up a storm in the music industry earlier this year. Spotify allows users to stream music for free providing they are prepared to the occasional advert, and decide not to pay £10 a month subscription fee which allows them to listen without adverts. Spotify has achieved such a position within the consciousness of young people that the Conservatives have taken to playing election campaign adverts on it. The service that has been much hailed by many, has also run into licensing problems and had many songs removed by many major labels. This clamping down has been typical of the music industry and major record labels. Reports have suggested that since the Pirate

Taking One For The Youth Team

Bay, the major pirate torrent website, was prosecuted, the amount of piracy websites has tripled. This is an example of how heavy handed clamping down upon illegal downloaders, as many governments are doesn’t necessarily work.

As we’ve already discussed on Face Youth Lab “95% of downloads in 2008 were illegal”. Perhaps this can directly traced to the harsh tactics of the major labels and industry including the recent charge of downloader to pay damages of $1.92 million. The first real example of this harsh clamping down was the legal decimation of Napster. It can perhaps be suggested that once the genie of the digital distribution of music was made available to the masses, there was no returning it. Spotify should have been created when downloading started happening en mass. Apple were the only opportunists to spot the public desire for digital distribution at the time and now iTunes has become the defacto legal music downloader with 80% of the market share. This example poses an interesting question around the changing nature of the music industry given the rise of Spotify and the streaming website Mixcloud, which is positioning itself as the Youtube of radio by allowing DJ’s to promote their mixes in a Twitter like fashion by users following and commenting on mixes. This social element also bestows one the one Twitter’s greatest gifts which Spotify lacks – serendipitous discovery .

Mixcloud co-founder Nico Perez states that “Mixcloud feel that the punitive approach of going after file sharers is not really solving the root of the problem. People pirate because it is easy and appears to be cheap.” This viewpoint also acknowledges that despite high case victories in favour of the music industry in 2009, social norms surrounding piracy have not changed. There is a clear thread that the mindset of a large amount of the public has changed from 15 years ago. Paul Buchheit, creator and develop of Gmail and Google Adsense has suggested that a philosophy of hacking has entered the mental consciousness of public. By hacking, Buchheit means shortcutting the system and it’s perceived rules. This could be embodied by all young people who grew up with videogame cheats and internet pophacks such as Googling anything as simple as “convert youtube to mp3,” which leads any user to applications that can download mp3s from the streaming video service circumventing the intended rules.

Matt Mason, author of The Pirates Dilemma suggests that this fringe behaviour and the spread of it, is what industry should be looking towards in order to innovate and satisfy the new urges of public desire, just as Apple realized with digital distribution of music. Nico Perez of Mixcloud also supports this view in stating, “in medicine prevention is preferred to treatment. The only way to prevent piracy is to create a legal ecosystem around music - where the creators get rewarded - is to build something that is easier and monetises attention more effectively.” This acknowledges the view that pirates actually pay more attension to music and therefore are more likely to invest their money in music as they invest their time. Yet the rise of tools like Mixcloud signals further change, as having Spotify or Mixcloud on your phone or netbook could easily turn it into a large mobile jukebox, going beyond the idea of downloading music at all.

The major brands are beginning to realize this as both Facebook and Google prepare to launch their own streaming music services with Facebook aiming to allow users to buy songs which can be streamed through the newsfeed or downloaded to a portable device. Streaming has been one of the only reasons why Myspace is still alive and looking to re-boot itself with an Artist Dashboard that will allow labels and artists to track the performance of their content. Apple are even considering preloaded iPods. Yet this should have probably happened years ago before so much piracy was allowed to take foothold. Mixcloud co-founder Perez notes that “the only barrier to this approach at the moment is the licensing regimes currently in place. It has been a year long struggle for Mixcloud to get licensed. The remaining question is rates, and it is important to recognize that the internet operates its own set of economics (you are competing with free), but the potential audience is now larger – so the slices may be smaller, but the pie is much bigger.” Matt Mason has suggested that copyright misinformation discourages young people from their natural inclination to be innovative and inquisitive,” suggesting that education should be part of the process also as well as possible copyright reform. Whichever service begins to emerge at the top of the streaming music industry will have to strike the balance between the philosophical and technological innovation of young people as hackers and pirates, the new immediate needs of the public as well as the rights of content creators to earn a living with their music. The pathway to this solution is hopefully beginning to be foraged, finally!