The Intelligencer
Doylestown, PA, Central Bucks Edition
Sunday, March 5, - Emphasis
Musicians achieve success without financial backing
Secure Digital Music Initiative was
established to create voluntary music security specification.
By Brenda Lange, Correspondent
It used to be that you would hear a song you liked on
the radio or a friend would loan you a record, an eight-track tape, an
audio cassette or a CD and you'd run right out to the nearest music shop
and buy your own copy.
Since vinyl discs were replaced by electronic tape
recordings and laser discs have been replaced by tunes sent through
cyberspace, new technology consistently replaces the old.
Alternative sounds and technologies become mainstream,
opening the door for a new alternative.
And so it goes.
A technological revolution recently has shaken the
established music industry to its core.
No longer is it necessary for a musician to have the
backing -- financial and otherwise -- of a major recording studio in
order to achieve success.
Now, the artist can reach a vast audience -- worldwide,
in fact -- on a one-to-one basis, as it were.
Marketing himself through the growing web of Internet
sites devoted to music, a musician can gain an audience faster and
cheaper for his fans than in the traditional studio-run marketplace.
"The balance of power has shifted back to the
artist," claims Rick Denzien of Ambler, a musician and producer who
began marketing himself over the Internet with his first release in
1991.
"Record companies have driven the business forever,
picking and choosing the people they think will be money makers, then
they act as a filter, with little money ever coming down to the artist.
"Now that the artist can market his work and sell
directly to the public, the industry is once again artist-driven."
Of course, the financial overhead of traditional music
marketing is immense, from the studio production costs, to shipping,
storage and advertising.
Selling music on the Web cuts out all but the production
costs, allowing Denzien to sell his latest CD, "Exit 21" for
as little as $5 at a site called www.Sightsound.com.
"This is the trend for the future," he
says. "It's how it's moving."
There is a proliferation of sites devoted to offering
software that, once downloaded, enables consumers to then download
individual songs or entire CDs, or even create their own compilation CDs
from various artists. CDs still can be ordered for delivery from those
sites for about the same price as you'd pay in a traditional record
store.
MP3s -- simply a compressed music file format -- also
can be downloaded directly into small electronic players, allowing for
listening without any physical disc or tape. OR they can be used to
create a physical CD through a device known as a CD burner that connects
directly to the computer.
Consumers trading MP3s freely on sites that also sold
legitimate, licensed CDs created the controversy.
With the right equipment, those bootlegged CDs have
nearly the same quality a licensed CDs.
That created a threat to the established music business
as consumers began to say: "Why should I pay for something I can
get for free?"
And then, the music and technology businesses woke up.
A little more than a year ago, the Secure Digital Music
Initiative was formed by more than 100 leaders of the worldwide
recording industry to create a voluntary digital music security
specification.
Big-name technology companies, including AOL, AT&T,
IBM, Microsoft, Sony and Toshiba, supported the initiative.
"Creating a voluntary, open security specification
benefits everyone," Hilary Rosen, president and chief executive
officer of the Recording Industry Association of America, said at the
time.
"(The initiative) is about the technology community
developing an open security system that promotes compatible products in
a competitive marketplace. It's not about the recording industry
imposing a standard on technology companies."
As of November of last year, the SDMI had ratified
copyright protection technology for portable devices and had approved
licensing terms for a SDMI-compliant trademark.
Increased standard-setting and the possibility of
legislation is seen as a mixed blessing by Denzien, an independent
artist, a David in competition with several Goliaths.
"It may turn out to be a tool that will lock out
independent artists once again," he says. "Those involved
(with SDMI) are all major players trying to create standards that will
involve costs and create segmentation of the concept of the free flow of
music from the artist to the public.
"It seems like it may be their attempt to gain
control once again. It may be a good thing -- to protect my intellectual
property -- but I think the average artist who's out there ... this is
so far beyond where they're at and where the consumer is at right now.
"It seems like the big record companies got caught
with their pants down and are playing catch-up."
