Save the Music Industry

Today I read an interesting article that talked about a topic we all heard before. What will save the music industry? Everybody has an answer to this question whether it is good or bad. The article I read explain how the music industry has come a long way from traditional methods of running things to more consumer embracing ideals such as abandoning DRM, releasing interactive apps, launching remix contests, streaming music to phone and allowing sites like YouTube to somewhat get around infringement.

Although this is a step forward the music industry seems to always take a step back for example, suing grandmas and college kids for illegal downloading. But according to Forrester Research they have 6 consumer rights that record labels needs to follow to save the music industry. The details are published in a 500 dollar report called the Music Product Manifesto by analyst Mark Mulligan.

Some of the rights on the list are “the right to great consumer experiences first (and business models second), the right to unique music experiences, the right to share in the creation process,” plus other rights centered around sharing, fair use, and the ability to communicate with like-minded fans from within the product.”

Also, Forrester suggest that to compete with illegal downloading and the draw backs of digital downloading, the music industry should come out with more unique products that can combine all the aspects of artist music, photos, live shows video, music videos, lyrics, fans forums, games etc all in one, whether it be new Smartphone apps or user computer software. Well of course I agree but until something like that is created then it’s just an ideal. If something was to be created then you can bet that a lot of marketing strategies will be shifted from marketing artist’s music. Artist would more so have to focus on marketing themselves as a brand because now you’re tapping into the gaming, phone, and movie industry and many more at the same time.

Trevion Martin (Tre)

http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2009/10/forrester-to-music-industry-its-the-consumer-stupid/