Friday September 3rd 2010
The Music Business Journal (of the Berklee College of Music) is a student publication that serves as a forum for intellectual discussion and research into the various aspects of the music business. The goal is to inform and educate aspiring music professionals, connect them with the industry, and raise the academic level and interest inside and outside the Berklee Community.
The advent and progress of Internet Technology is one of the greatest things to happen to music since the invention of the phonograph. It is forcing the music business to reevaluate its function and completely change its approach to promoting music and making money. No longer does an up-and-coming act need to put all of their eggs in the “record deal” basket and pray for promotion dollars to build them a career; nor does the average consumer have to sit and listen to Top-40 radio to be told what is ‘hot’ to listen to. The Internet has completely leveled the playing field for everyone, and best of all, its giving more and more attention to new and innovative forms of music. This brings hope to us all that the “Dark Ages” of popular music might finally be coming to an end.
While the Internet has definitely shaken things up for the industry, still, dark clouds loom over our new abundant and vibrant musical world. Network Neutrality is an issue that could seriously limit our shared exposure to it, and could very well send the music industry back into a state of corporate oligarchy.
Network Neutrality
As it stands right now, Internet Service Providers (ISP’s) have enjoyed almost uninhibited control over their networks with very little government regulation ever since they opened up shop in the early 1990’s. While the technology was still relatively new, people were happy using the service and didn’t really ask many questions about how the ISP’s were conducting their business. But now that the Internet has become such an irreplaceable fixture in our daily lives, its becoming increasingly more important to make sure that ISP’s are offering fair, comparable service to all of their customers.
The main issue (or fear) is that ISP’s could start discriminating the quality of the service that they provide based on financial considerations. In this scenario, large companies like Amazon or Apple could pay higher prices to have their content load quicker, appear dominantly in searches, and perform more effectively than their competitors, consequently forcing the competition to either pay the premium rate too, or be forced out of business.