Inferno

Fans rather than users or customers? Rovio’s Mikael Hed hit the nail on the head in his speech a few days ago at Midem (music industry get-together). He was talking about Angry Birds’ attitude towards piracy, and how the enormously popular game ‘has learned from music industry’s mistakes’and tends to be quite relaxed about pirate merch and apps and such.

We all know what happened to music industry when illegal file sharing became the national sport; it crashed. People still, obviously, wanted to listen to music, but found a way to do it for free. The only problem with free and delicious lunches and free and quality chart pop hits that they don’t exist (the latter rarely exists even at a high, high price).  Were music fans being too greedy, or was music industry being too greedy?

I believe most people realise(d) that a good music scene doesn’t come without people paying for it. Just how much was the question. I don’t believe most big music bosses realise(d) that a good music scene doesn’t survive without fans. Should the bosses have looked in the mirror when illegal music started flowing? Maybe instead they could have identified problems with their own offerings. Rather than fighting with the fans surely it would have made more sense to work with them to find solutions.

It’s all going back a little bit already: paid subscription services, rising vinyl sales and the growing popularity of merch all show that music fans are willing to pay. They just resent the idea of dancing to the sound of record bosses’ whistles. And cases like Radiohead’s pay-what-you-want album or Kaiser Chiefs’ outsourced album prove that bands are more than willing to adapt, too.

And the fact is that there will always be a music industry. No matter how much the media, labels and genres have scattered and fans can find the newest stuff online, it’s still powered by the industry. If you are an aspiring garage band – or bedroom and laptop these days – you still need labels’ validation (see article). You need pr, you need money, you need production. You won’t get that cover on NME or slot in Jools Holland without the right contacts. Arctic Monkeys were found randomly on MySpace, true, but they only got properly successful when they got a label behind them.

So, the industry may have crumbled, but it’s looking to re-shape itself. There will always be money in it, just from whom does it come from and to whom does it go to that is the question. And piracy was the wake up call to start noticing the problem. Had it been noticed and dealt differently from the very beginning, a lot of pain and tears could have been avoided.

Brands, as Mr Hed said, take notice. If you have issues with piracy and a lot of spoof around you, it’s a good thing. It means you are loved. And just like marriages, love is not always easy. You wouldn’t hit a nagging wife in the face, would you? At least talk first.