1. How Technology is Changing the
Music Industry
The music industry is a multi-taloned, multi-dimensional universe
spinning through space all on its own, but its orbital shifts and planetary
collisions affect us all. It is constantly expanding while at the same time
contracting and reshaping itself. Technology innovations have always
been a core element of the music industry. It is an industry of
technology. Changes have come not only in music trends but also in
industry infrastructure and the technology that fuels it. From the very
first instruments to the current explorations in AI-generated music.
With each innovation comes freedoms and barriers. For example, the
invention of the piano greatly expanded freedoms for musical
expression, which raised the level of what was considered great music.
But built barriers for others who didn’t have access to a piano. In the
long view, technological innovations have mostly delivered very
positive results for musical expression and musical enjoyment but not
always for music creators' ability to sustain a comfortable living.
We have these two words: music and industry. The first is right brain
function, and the second is left brain function. Few can traverse the two
successfully and that is why both have co-existed (for better or worse)
for so long. The very beginning of what we now call the music industry,
where business profits were derived from musical inspiration, was in
publishing during the reign of King Henry VIII. He required copies of
all printed matter to be sent to him and offered protection to printers in
the form of licenses, primarily to produce a new source of revenue for
the king. It wasn’t until after his death in 1547 that publishing (the
printing of sheet music) rights were given to businesses, albeit to a select
few companies which then held monopolies in their territories. These
monopolies were later successfully challenged, and the industry began to
grow with healthy competition.
2. A publisher would secure the publishing rights to a piece of music with
the hope that many would want to play it and thus buy copies of the
printed notation, otherwise known as sheet music. The companies that
generated the most profit from sheet music sales did so by developing
ways of promoting the music they owned the rights to. The more a piece
of music seemed popular, the more popular it became. So, promotion
became the name of the game to drive sales. There were those who
wisely secured the right to publish already established and popular
music.
So, it was basically a situation of someone with a business, profit-based
perspective finding creative people and developing ways to profit from
their work. The industry has seen many bad deals signed by many
unaware creators. However, this creator/business relationship has been
the catalyst for building many successful careers and an industry
infrastructure from which many creators profit. Over the last 600 years,
recognition of the need for protective copyright legislation has been
responsible for passing numerous laws, building many societies, and
signing international accords and treaties. Which installed clearer
guidelines for "fair" business practices. But we still have more to do,
especially as new technological innovations, as we have seen with audio
streaming, raise new questions about best practices for long-term
sustainability.
Some companies have risen high above the rest; we call them the
majors: Universal, Sony, and Warner. The majors have grown to the
level they are through clear management, an organized approach, and
the hustle of being the first to find and then sign the next big thing
continuously. Now we are seeing the rise of the independent artist
becoming a viral, new big thing. When this happens, we see a
scrambling of offers with very large signing advances. With the many
technological advances of recent years, we see smaller companies being
able to compete with and sometimes surpass the might of the majors.
This rise of a small company is usually followed by one of the majors
buying the company, essentially removing the competition and
3. benefiting from the hard work already done. This is the same growth
strategy companies in other industries follow, especially in tech-based
sectors.
The question that arises is regarding the health of the industry for long-
term sustainability. As many have pointed out, there is no industry
without the creatives. That hypothesis is currently being tested with AI-
generated music. Will the public care if a human made the music or a
computer algorithm made it? This big question has deep implications for
music used in film, TV, video games, and advertising. When a scene
calls for soothing, romantic music, does the production company hire a
composer or just have it AI-generated? Will the watching audience be
able to tell or care as long as the emotional leverage of the music is
effective?
We are now seeing highly funded AI music initiatives developing in the
market. Laws already exist that protect the copyright owners of music
that an AI music generator was trained on. Under current copyright law,
anything output through AI is owned jointly by the writers and labels
whose work the AI was trained on. AI is just a new way to sample or
interpolate music. And we all know that samples have to be licensed, or
they are infringements. The problem is that the AI programmers don’t
know this and thus don’t ensure the metadata of the music going in is
logged and attached to the music generated so they have a record of the
copyright owners. Or that they then have to obtain licenses from all
those owners of both the recordings and the compositions.
With every down, there is an up. If AI-generated music becomes generic
and obvious, without human communication, then honest, authentic
music creation becomes more valuable. This is an interesting shift from
trying to write a hit by following the current trends (AI can do that) to
writing and producing unique narratives and honestly inspired music that
stands out as true.
In the music industry, it is never business as usual. It is consistently
changing as usual.
