http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/10/04/the-inevitable-march-of-recorded-music-towards-free

I read the comments on this post over the Christmas holiday. I thought the most compelling point was made by Tim (#152) - "Maybe the musical stars of the future will earn average incomes in the future, and will live instead as musicians have throughout most of history - on the wonderful intangibles of prestige, sincere compliments, and free dinners."

A compelling, if rather grounding point. Superstar musicians are a very recent invention, and it makes sense that this phenomenon is temporary. With Clear Channel's channel monopoly being progressively eroded by the internet and bands being able to find specific niches in other ways, I can see things becoming a lot more sensible in the future.

Another interesting thread was people saying 'musicians won't make music if they won't get paid' and the various refutations of this idea. I gave up on making money from music a long time ago - I remember when I was trying to charge for the tapes I was making while I was at school that I should have been giving away to anybody who was interested.

I think there are two main reasons that it is still worth producing CDs. The first is to sell at gigs. These are more of a 'souvenir' than a medium through which to necessarily listen to the music. The second is for gifts (nobody brought this up on the linked thread). The only time I ever buy DVDs or CDs these days is at Christmas time when I want to give things to other people. An MP3 is no substitute for a CD in this context.

I'd like to think there's a market for 'premium' editions of recordings with fancy packaging (that's the way Hollywood is going with DVDs lately) but the only reason to have these is (again) for gift giving, and perhaps for those odd freaky collector types who want to revere their favourite artists by purchasing every single edition of everything they have ever released and have an awful lot of shelf-space to spare in their 'den'.

Ah yes- that's the other good thing about CDs - like books they're excellent for decorating your flat (or Facebook profile!) - people like to display their tastes, and while iTunes makes it easy to flick through a lot of stuff it's not really the same as scanning the spines of 6 shelves of CDs.

What else? I always thought vinyl would stick around for DJs, but it's so heavy! If I was DJing I don't think I could be arsed with the weight-lifting angle. I'd go digital. That said, I do seem to take an AWFUL lot of kit when I play live! But that's different.. that's live

I think I'll talk about royalties tomorrow.