There are those who say music doesn’t have literal communicative meaning (and those who argue that it most certainly does), but both camps and everyone else will probably want to check out Marc Weidenbaum’s compelling response to a recent Atlantic article on the impact of file-sharing on the music industry. Weidenbaum found some fault with the article, written by Megan McArdle, and he penned this reaction to its key points, a post well worth your reading time. However, it also inspired him to reach out to musicians for a musical response to the business and ethical issues broached. The pieces (and the illuminative accompanying notes) are here.
As Weidenbaum points out, a lot of the problems he had with the original article’s arguments stemmed from a disagreement over the loose application of terms. Still, despite the worries expressed by McArdle, for me and my house, this passage made me think it might be safe to celebrate, whether we agree with the rest of her analysis or not.
This fragmentation has been good news for performers like Jonathan Coulton, who makes a decent living selling quirky songs and related merchandise on his Web site. But the broader music industry, like other entertainment fields, has always worked on a tournament model: a lot of starving artists hoping to be among the few who make it big. What happens to the supply of willing musicians when the prize is an endless slog through medium-size concerts at $25 a head?
Big money may be gone, but it seems that new distribution models mean moderate money is now much more more likely. If you can’t decide where you stand in all this, you might want to take a look at the article’s accompanying illustration, which Weidenbaum suggests might be a “Rorschach test for readers of the article: Does it look beautiful to you, or does it alarm you?” Bonus points to those who can ID the composition used in the illustration, which is reportedly not yet in the public domain.
