Hi Lily,

Thanks for your e-mail and thanks for raising this issue.

I agree that illegal file-sharing is reducing the revenue of artists and record labels and I understand your concerns about the damaging effects this could have on emerging new talent. I also agree that there should be a better system in place for young people without credit cards to download music legally.

However, I believe the music industry would continue to shrink even if the issue of illegal file-sharing were to be addressed.  The way people buy music has changed; a lot of people who download legally choose not to buy whole albums but only individual tracks and this also reduces overall revenue.  The fact that we are in the midst of a worldwide recession must surely have a part to play too.

The more I think about this issue the more I have come to realise that any discussion of the future of British music needs to be broader than just a single-issue argument. I feel that the file-sharing issue is just another stage in the ongoing development of the music industry as it attempts to evolve in line with new technologies. 

To ‘save’ the British music industry I think it is just as important to look at how the record labels spend their money on developing artists in the first place.  The notorious bidding wars to capture new talent often descend into glorified pissing contests.  A band was signed recently for £800,000 after the usual scrum. They had one good song and a few successful gigs under their belt. Needless to say nothing much happened when their record was released. With this kind of money, the label could have signed up to EIGHT bands and even more solo artists, providing them with just enough money to live while they recorded an album.  Paying less money upfront is just one way of making the signing of new artists less of gamble and it would maybe allow A+R’s to take more risks. A certain amount of belt-tightening and streamlining is not necessarily a bad thing; I believe that a whiff of the stupid excesses of the 80’s/90’s still lingers in the music industry.

It’s worth remembering that we are the privileged minority. We make a living from art while millions of others continue to express themselves purely for enjoyment.  The industry itself is not ‘music’. Music as an art form will continue to exist with or without the injection of vast sums of money.

All the best,

Jack

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