Music for Nothing - music on the Internet

Reason, Oct, 2000 by Jesse Walker

There's a third answer that's often ignored: Because it gives him more options. In this model, the online music trade is a revolt against packaging, with consumers acquiring individual songs that they want rather than filler-heavy albums that they don't, creating do-it-yourself compilations and sometimes altering the music to comic or otherwise creative effect. (One grassroots mix, splicing the famously profane rapper Eminem's hit "The Real Slim Shady" with Britney Spears' sugary "Oops! I Did It Again," was sufficiently popular to get mentioned in the British tabloid New Musical Express.) A unitary product--the prepackaged album--is replaced with a collection of loose parts that listeners may rearrange at will.

Which brings us back to Metallica, a band whose attacks on Napster are gradually mutating into attacks on its own file-swapping fans. "If you don't have enough respect for the fact that I believe this way," drummer Ulrich announced on The Charlie Rose Show, "and that I have a right to challenge it...I don't want you as a fan." (That isn't exactly an expert approach to public relations, though it's an open question whether it will hurt the band or merely take its place next to Johnny Rotten's spittle in rock's grand tradition of contempt for the audience.) At another point in the interview, Ulrich claimed--rather dubiously--that the key issue for him wasn't the potential loss of money but the loss of control. One could easily reverse that: The digital music bazaar doesn't merely save fans money; it gives them a new measure of control over the product. And though the big labels aren't happy about the prospects of losing money, they've often attacked this audience autonomy as well.

They have constantly battled the best digital music format, the MP3 file, on the grounds that the ease with which it is copied makes it ideal for piracy. What have they pushed instead? A succession of cumbersome copy-protected formats that would make it difficult to transfer music from one player to another, a handicap for anyone who wants to listen to the same song at home, in the office, and in the car. Needless to say, none of those formats have caught on.

Meanwhile, despite the obvious demand Napster represents for a market in individual songs, the big labels have been slow to respond: Not surprisingly, they'd rather charge $18 for 12 songs than $1 for one. (CD singles exist, but only as a misnomer--they're more like old-fashioned EPs.) Several companies, such as CDNow, have offered shoppers the chance to create customized CDs, but each offers only a small catalog of tracks to choose from. With Napster, by contrast, you can find thousands of tracks for free.

Indeed, it's unclear at this point whether it's possible to establish an online version of a singles market, now that Net surfers are getting accustomed to free music. EMusic, which lets you download individual songs for 99 cents and full albums for $8.99, hasn't been able to turn a profit, due in part to its limited catalog but also in part to competition from the file-trading programs. By July, the company had grown sufficiently disillusioned with its original business model that it added a subscription-based service to its wares.