Digital Music Distribution

The Sociology of Online Music Streams

Hendrik Storstein Spilker

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9780367877521
• eBook ISBN: 9781317201939
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

The digital music revolution and the rise of piracy cultures has transformed the music world as we knew it. Digital Music Distribution aims to go beyond the polarized and reductive perception of 'piracy wars' to offer a broader and richer understanding of the paradoxes inherent in new forms of distribution. Covering both production and consumption perspectives, Spilker analyses the changes and regulatory issues through original case studies, looking at how digital music distribution has both changed and been changed by the cultural practices and politicking of ordinary youth, their parents, music counter cultures, artists and bands, record companies, technology developers, mass media and regulatory authorities.

Exploring the fundamental change in distribution, Spilker investigates paradoxes such as:

• The criminalization of file-sharing leading not to conflicts, but to increased collaboration between youths and their parents;
• Why the circulation of cultural content, extremely damaging for its producers, has instead been advantageous for the manufacturers of recording equipment;
• Why more artists are recording in professional sound studios, despite the proliferation of good quality equipment for home recording;
• Why mass media, hit by many of the same challenges as the music industry, has been so critical of the way it has tackled these challenges.

A rare and timely volume looking at the changes induced by the digitalization of music distribution, Digital Music Distribution will appeal to undergraduate students and policy makers interested in fields such as Media Studies, Digital Media, Music Business, Sociology and Cultural Studies.

1 Introduction

Digital dramas

Music on demand?

My interest in the topic of digital music was awoken in 1997, on a plane trip from Oslo via London to Edinburgh. 1997 was a significant year in my academic life. I got my first appointment as a researcher, a one-year assignment on the EU project SLIM (Social Learning in Multimedia) – a project basically devoted to case study based, cross-country analysis of web-based start-up initiatives in the sectors of work, education and entertainment. At the end of the same year, I also applied and received funding for a doctoral project investigating the development of commercial Internet content services in Norway. On the plane to London, I was engrossed reading drafts for the upcoming Edinburgh meeting, when the guy seated next to me excused himself, telling he could not avoid catching interest in the stuff I was reading.

We got into an engaged and interesting discussion about the development of the Internet, and he presented himself as Stein Aanensen, former employee of Telenor, the greatest Norwegian telecom operator, and now marketing director of a start-up company named MODE. MODE, he told me, was an acronym for Music-On-Demand. The service was planned as an online music store for the sale of music streaming and music downloading. It was initiated by a group of enthusiasts fronted by a former Uriah Heep member and had obtained solid funding and backing from, among others, German Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft, Norwegian Telenor and a couple of British stakeholders. Telenor had for example, Aanesen told enthusiastically, invested €7.5 million in the project.

As it turned out, MODE was many years ahead of their time. Initially, MODE was met with interest and curiosity by music industry representatives, but, fueled by the growing turmoil over online music sharing, the initiative faced increasing skepticism and resistance from the right holders. Later we learned that 1998 was the year when “MP3” exceeded “sex” as the mostly used search phrase on the Internet. The service ended up never being launched, and the beta version was removed from the web in the spring of 1998. However, during that plane trip, Aanesen managed to convince me that digital music was going to be “the next big thing,” the new “killer app” – even if it, at least not in the first round, assumed the shape he had imagined.…

The accidental meeting on the plane opened my eyes to a world in transition. The topic of digital music has been a dominating and continuous research interest ever since. In my doctoral thesis on the development of commercial Internet services, digital music services was one of the main cases, together with among others online news and Internet banking (Spilker 2005, see also Chapter 6 in this book). In 2005, I obtained a post doc grant from the Norwegian Science Foundation to conduct a broad inquiry – “The Pandora’s Jukebox” project – on the developments within digital music, encompassing production, consumption and regulatory perspectives. First and foremost, it is the fruits of this research, which I have continued to develop in my position as an associate professor, that are presented in this book.

The emergence of networked digital technologies has opened up the possibilities for radical changes in the ways we produce, distribute, consume and otherwise relate to music. At the same time, and as a consequence, the developments have spurred periods of heated controversy in what has become known as “the piracy wars” and “the streaming wars” (see e.g., Allen-Robertson 2013; Rogers 2013; Andersson Schwartz 2014; Fredriksson and Arvanitakis 2014, Mulligan 2016; Wikström and DeFillippi 2016). Thus, I have conducted my research in the midst of a truly “liminal phase” in music life, to borrow a phrase from anthropologist Victor Turner (1969). According to Turner, liminal phases are especially interesting objects of study for social scientists because conditions and relations that once were taken for granted become temporarily suspended. It introduces times of moral drift and institutional destabilization. Liminal phases render open new possibilities, but also fears and anxieties, ambiguities and paradoxes. Following Turner, Pfaffenberger (1992) has coined the term “technological dramas” to describe the productive and performative nature of periods of sociotechnical change.

There are several possible outcomes of such technological dramas. In the relation to digital music distribution, at least four hypotheses have been advanced. One is what we could call the levelling hypothesis: The drama alters fundamentally the rules of the game. Barriers to entry are lowered, and intermediaries and gatekeepers made superfluous. Artists communicate directly with fans and Internet users, and Internet users become engaged in co-creative and remixing activities (see e.g., Kusek and Leonard 2005; Lessig 2008; Jenkins et al. 2013, 2016). In opposition stands the normalization hypothesis: After a period of turmoil, everything returns more or less to the old, with the same constellations of power and the same dominating actors. Users reappear as consumers (see e.g., Freedman 2016; Rimini and Marshall 2014; Burkart and Andersson Schwartz 2015).

A third hypothesis is the deadlock hypothesis: The involved social groups get locked in a conflict they are not able to or interested in getting out of. Each maintains stubbornly its position, and the opportunity for change turns into a damaging, counterproductive situation (see e.g., Rogers 2013; Sinnreich 2014). Finally, there is the balancing hypothesis: This is a situation where the interests of most players are taken into account and dealt with in a fairly reasonable manner. The benefits of the new technologies of music distribution are reaped at reasonable costs and conditions for all (see e.g., Sinnreich 2016).

The overriding aim of this book is to contribute to the understanding of the forces behind and the outcomes of the drama of digital music distribution. Which of these hypotheses provide the most adequate picture of the outcome of the digitalization of music distribution? Which forces have influenced the development, and in what manner?

While the changes in the music life are profound and interesting in their own right, I approach them not primarily as a sociologist of music, but as a sociologist of new media technologies. As, for example, Lessig (2002, 2004, 2008) and Burkart (2010, 2014) persistently have reminded us, what is at stake in the controversies over digital music is not only the future of music, but the future of the Internet as a communication and distribution platform – and the conditions for cultural production in society more generally. Digital music has been a fulcrum and test bed for novel ways to distribute cultural content, such as file-sharing, streaming, online sales, models for crowdfunding, recommendation based services and so on (see e.g., Morris 2015; Rogers and Preston 2016; Wikström and DeFillippi 2016). Furthermore, it has incited the development of new approaches to copyright and new regulatory policies (see e.g., Postigo 2012).

To answer the research questions, this book offers a case study-based analysis of “relevant social groups” (Pinch and Bijker 1987 – see later) and how they have affected and been affected by the development of digital music technologies. We shall investigate evolving practices and arrangements from strategic sites across the entire spectrum of cultural production and use/consumption. In doing so, this book differs from efforts with comparable aims as mine, such as Wikström’s “The Music Industry” (2010), David’s “Peer to Peer and the Music Industry” (2011), Allen-Robertson’s “Digital Culture Industry” (2013), Roger’s “The Life and Death of the Music Industry in the Digital Age” and Morris’ “Selling Digital Music – Formatting Culture” (2015) all of which basically address the changes in digital music distribution from an industrial point of view. On the other hand, Andersson Schwartz’s Online File Sharing (2014) is based on case studies of use/consumption (and is more narrowly confined to activities within file-sharing networks whereas I present a broader and more contextualized take on user’s music-related practices).

To my knowledge, this book is the only monograph that analyzes digital music distribution both from the consumption and production side in a combined effort (and includes perspectives on regulation as well). This synthesizing approach is offering new vantage points and fresh outlooks. In a kind of extended “circuit of culture” analysis (Gay et al. 1997), it analyzes the initiatives and strategies of various involved and affected groups such as technology developers, music industry actors, performing artists, countercultural activist groupings, mass media journalists, regulators, young people, and parents. Taken together, it is my ambition that the case studies presented in this book will unravel some of the central dynamics and outline the contours of the emergent new landscape of digital music – and of the Internet and the conditions of cultural production and reception more broadly.

Some clarifications about two of the words in the title of this publication:

“Distribution” is seen as the key that connects the various involved and affected actors and highlights the relation between production with consumption. It does not exclude matters related to production (e.g., the artists use of home studios) or consumption (e.g., the user’s organization of music) – but places the center of gravity on the connection between these acts. Braun puts it this way: “The study of distribution cuts straight to the heart of who has access to culture on what terms” (2014: 127).

By “streams” I mean all kinds of online streams – one-to-one, one-to-many, many-to-many, some-to-some. The term thus obviously includes, but is not confined to, what has become known as streaming – it also encompasses the downloading, uploading and sharing of music files in its personal, piratical and commercial variants. Furthermore, we can add the online exchange of tips, recommendations, links and play lists – everything that sets the music in motion.

The folding of technologies

“The piracy wars” – depicted as a conflict between digital “pirates” (Internet activists and enthusiasts, or Internet users in general) and the music industry – has dominated both the academic literature and the popular media accounts of the developments within digital music since the advent of Napster. Of course, it is impossible to write a book about digital music without relating to the piracy controversy. The scholarly debate over piracy has taken some interesting turns in the later years, starting with Castells and Cardoso’s (2012) special issue on “piracy cultures” in The International Journal of Communication and followed up by other journal special issues such as Nowak and Whelan (2014), Roth (2014), Andersson Schwartz and Burkart (2015), and Burkart and Andersson Schwartz (2015) – in addition to anthologies by Fredriksson and Arvanitakis (2014) and Baumgärtel (2015) and the monographs mentioned above. These contributions will be frequently referenced and discussed throughout the book.

At the same time, the whole design of my research has been spurred by a desire to go “behind the piracy wars” – to move the analysis of digital music beyond the trench positions of the 2000s. The ambition is on the one hand to present a fresh and more nuanced perspective on the controversies, who the involved parties are and where the conflict lines go. To anticipate the course of events, I will end up in Chapter 10 by suggesting a “new divide” in addition to the “old divide” of piracy–industry oppositions. On the other, to explore changes in the way we produce, distribute, consume and otherwise relate to music that so far have gone relatively unnoticed. As a further teaser, I can reveal that this pursuit will reveal surprising tensions and paradoxes as we dive into how the various social groups strive to appropriate, integrate and give meaning to the digital music technologies within their business and life world contexts.

I will start by introducing the notion of folding – a concept that in many ways frames and accentuates the theoretical underpinnings of my work. Many of the participants in the piracy controversy have referred to the inevitability of the technological developments. Especially, there has been a tendency with proponents on the activists’ side to argue for the obvious and relentless movement towards an unrestricted and all-encompassing sonic commons, where every other response than adaption represents idiocy. Merriden’s (2001) book about the Napster trial and its aftermath, entitled Irresistible Forces, is a good example. In a similar vein, Kusek and Leonard, in their much cited Manifesto for the Digital Music Revolution, argue that we are hastily moving towards “a future in which music will be like water: ubiquitous and free flowing” (2005: 33). Of course, it is tempting to accuse Kusek and Leonard for an unfortunate choice of metaphor, given the growing real-world conflicts over the water resource.

Advocates from the industry side have also made recourse to the rhetoric of inevitability. In a report entitled “The State of Music Online: Ten Years after Napster,” Maddon (2009) admits that the e-commerce dream of “the Celestial Jukebox” has not yet been fulfilled. But she maintains: “For now, quality and reliability are still an issue, but the march of technology will quickly stomp out that minor hurdle” (ibid.: 16). In my view, that is a quite surprising summing up, all the more since she earlier on in the report noticed that (and “ten years after Napster”): “What’s clear at this point in the evolution of the music business is that there is no clear business model” (ibid.: 4).

A basic premise for my research has been that there is nothing self-evident about digital music – nothing inevitable, nothing obvious, nothing irresistible, nothing relentless. I could have used the concept of negotiation to underscore this point. In science and technology studies (STS), the development and appropriation of technologies are often described as acts of negotiation between actors with different power and objectives. The notion of negotiation highlights the processual and societal character of the evolution and diffusion of technologies. However, it is worth noticing that within STS the term is often used in an extended and abstracted sense. In common language, on the other hand, negotiations are usually thought of as something taking place if not around a table, then through some kind of common and public sphere where people explicitly voice their arguments. In several of my case studies, I will analyze the emerging practices and understandings of people that not necessarily regard their actions and meanings as negotiation initiatives, at least they are not overtly or intentionally thought of or meant as such. Still, these practices and understandings clearly matter for the future of music.

Therefore, I rather prefer the imaginary of folding. Folding is originally a geological concept, used to denote the way different natural forces, for example the movement of the earth plates, are changing the character of the landscape through time. When I suggest applying the concept to describe the processes through which digital technologies become appropriated and “socialized,” I draw on basic insights from STS. The folding metaphor highlights the point that the diffusion of technologies seldom (never) follows any linear logic. Adaption might seem as a straightforward matter and “a minor hurdle” if one tries to predict and deduce technological development from alleged attributes of the technology “itself.” However, such a view overlooks the crucial interplay between technological, economic, legal and cultural forces.

The concept of folding directs attention to this interplay. During appropriation, technologies, practices and relations are bent, twisted, turned around and rearranged. When different social groups are appropriating digital music technologies, new social spaces are created, with reconfigured notions of time, values, space, rights and the more. As the chapters in this book will amply illustrate, the emerging contours of the landscape of digital music distribution are complex formations, with unexpected tensions, experiences, challenges, and paradoxes. The folding approach helps to explain the diverse and often contradictory assemblages of technologies, practices and relations that constitute the new everyday life of music.

Popular postmodernist interpretations of digital technologies have seen them as representing the dematerialization of social life and reality and the annihilation of time and space. The concept of folding provides the grounds for a critique of such both to grand and to simplified conceptions. Rather, what is happening is the formation of new forms of sociotechnical life and materialized culture – not necessarily more straightforward (faster, smoother, more effective etc.) than earlier forms, but characterized by their own distinct combination of social and technical elements, and with their own logic and functioning and challenges and tensions. As several studies convincingly have demonstrated, there is a paradoxical tendency for technology to solve problems by creating others (see Fredriksson and Arvanitakis 2014; Marshall et al. 2015).

In a similar vein, in relation to music, it has frequently been claimed that the present era represents the end of scarcity, referring to the alleged ubiquity and omnipresence of digital music and the ease of reproduction and distribution. Actually, this viewpoint has been voiced, in different versions, by spokespersons from different sides of piracy controversy – from both the various free culture advocates, from several artists, from media commentators, from music industry representatives and spokespersons from the technology industries. “Music everywhere” was the slogan of a Telenor campaign for the youth portal DJuice a couple of years ago. Seemingly, compared to the analog days, it is now possible to get everything, anywhere, anytime – however, “everything,” “anywhere” and “anytime” still need to be enclosed in quotation marks. The idea of “the end of scarcity” can be criticized along much of the same lines as the critique of dematerialization and time-space annihilation.

It might be tempting to agree with Meikle and Young when they criticize restrictions on access to music imposed by commercial services such as iTunes or Spotify, by arguing: “Scarcity is not a natural part of the convergent media environment, but must be manufactured artificially to preserve its value” (2012: 188). As an old music enthusiast and a dedicated user of various net-based music services, I am strongly fascinated by the many new possibilities for s...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of illustrations
• Acknowledgments
• 1 Introduction: Digital dramas
• 2 Not only about listening: Understanding the new everyday life of music
• 3 The value of access: Negotiating file-sharing and streaming among young people and with parents
• 4 In search of the “hacker-punk”: Digital music technologies for countercultural measures?
• 5 Pre-distribution networks and professional networks: Becoming an artist in the age of “piracy cultures”
• 6 The irony of virtuality: The production of music and news in “the new economy”
• 7 The making of “piracy standards”: Assessing the interplay between commercialism and idealism in technology development (with Svein Høier)
• 8 Media kills music? An analysis of the newspaper coverage of the Piracy Kills Music campaign
• 9 The regulation of digital music distribution: Assessing the states and futures of the field
• 10 The music welfare state
• References
• Index