Rich Fiscus
17 Jun 2008 1:10
British Music Rights (BMR), an organization that represents British Academy of Composers & Songwriters, Mechanical-Copyright Protection Society, Music Publishers Association, and Performing Right Society. They've just published the results of a new study that looks at how young people, primarily between the ages of 14 and 25, feel about music and artists. More to the point, it discusses what these attitudes mean for those who make money from music.
The report's key findings were interesting to say the least. They definitely indicate a lot of potential for artists to make money, but don't seem to look so good for labels. On the whole, the respondents indicated that they spend money in no small part to support artists. In fact they said that 60% of their music budget was spent on live music rather than recordings.
At the same time young people value the social experience of trying out music others recommend and making their own recommendations to their peers. 4 out of 5 people indicated that they would be willing to pay to use a legal file sharing service.
But that doesn't mean they've given up on CDs. While the obvious conclusion from the siginificant drop in CD purchases over the last few years you might think young people don't place any value on the medium. Not so says the report. In fact many consider buying a CD to a better tribute to artists they prefer than downloading, even commercially.
Certainly the conclusions presented are a step forward compared to the propaganda we're used to seeing from the music industry. It states "For the music and technology sectors, the findings of this survey are likely to prove both challenging and a cause for optimism. However, there are clearly huge opportunities to realise the full potential of music in the digital market while satisfying the demands of both industry and fan alike."
Clearly there is a lot of good information in the study, which you can read in its entirety on the BMR website, but as it rightly points out there are a lot of challenges to be met. From what we've seen so far it's fair to say the biggest one is music executives' lack of vision.
Imagine what a study on that would look like.