TECHNOLOGY SPECIAL
their proliferation across the internet, a few quick torrent searches can turn up pretty much anything from a complete TV series to the entire discography for a band. The reliability and quality of these files is variable, however, since there’s no central administrator checking who’s uploading what to the file-sharing network. Every few months a new court case comes up regarding illegal downloads: the first high- profile case was against Napster back in 2000 when Metallica took umbrage at their music being shared on the network and took founder Shawn Fanning to court. The latest court wrangling involves Pirate Bay, a Swedish site that tracks bit torrent files for download. It has been dubiously defended as a piece of public art and not just an index of where to go to infringe the copyright of musicians, TV producers and software developers. But this wasn’t an argument that stood up in court and in April this year the founders were handed down one-year prison sentences and a fine of over £2 million. The defendants have appealed and the site continues to operate.
The long-term picture for the music industry is that a huge source of income – the sale of CDs – is dwindling. In its place are new income streams: paid-for downloads and royalties from sites like Spotify. The problem is the two don’t tally up. If an artist gets £1.50 from the sale of a ten-track album on CD, they might get 80p from the same download sale on iTunes, but only 5p for an album play on Spotify. English indie outfit Friendly Fires told NME this month that they reckoned they were making 0.5p royalty per song play on the service. Which means, to recoup the kind of same revenue, they’d need to have the same
Friendly Fires: earning 0.5p per song play on Spotify PIRATE BAY HAS BEEN DUBIOUSLY DEFENDED AS A PIECE OF PUBLIC ART
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album played 30 times. Other reports have put the royalty rate nearer 0.04p, which would mean literally thousands of plays to recoup the same sum. In the short term this won’t affect us consumers, new music will still be available for us to listen to, but in the long term there may be fewer people making new music as there will be less money around for new artists to survive on.
Spotify won’t kill off CDs completely. There will always be people wanting to have the physical product, as proven by the healthy trade in collectible vinyl. The question remains, however: do more options mean more great music? In theory, yes: if you know what you’re looking for Spotify is ideal, but trying to find new music on the service can prove problematic. There are other sites and services, blogs and blog aggregators that will sate your appetite for new music (see Site Specifics, below), but the romantic notion of walking into a record shop and hearing music that will change your life, à la Nick Hornby's High Fidelity, might soon become a nostalgic memory. The chances of recreating these rare, but not extinct, revelations online depend entirely on just how determined, dedicated and thoughtful we are prepared to be. The options exist, but in the absence of the hands-on, personal element, and given our growing unwillingness to pay for it, if we don’t make the effort we might find ourselves increasingly cast adrift from the music we love.
Visit www.list.co.uk/technology for more recommended music websites and The List’s five most significant moments in the development of digital music.
SITE SPECIFICS The List staff reveal their favourite sources for discovering new music
THE HYPE MACHINE RCRD LBL
(www.hypem.com) An oldie but a goodie. Trawl blogs from around the world here, stream new bands and normally stumble across tons of fresh remixes. Set aside a long skive break, as it can get quite distracting. (Claire Sawers) PITCHFORK MEDIA
(www.rcrdlbl.com) Want a daily smorgasbord of new music but can’t be bothered lifting that mouse hand to find it? This generous website offers non- commercial (and legal) MP3- sharing for bands and music fans. Sign up and they’ll send you a link to a new MP3 every day. (Suzanne Black) MIXCLOUD
(www.pitchfork.com) America’s original uptight, snooty home to all things alt. Elitist, but that’s what makes them great. (Mark Robertson) 22 THE LIST 8–22 Oct 2009
(www.mixcloud.com)
Recently launched site that aggregates radio content including DJ mixes and podcasts. Marketed as the YouTube of radio, yet no lolcat-based shows yet? (Jonny Ensall) BOOMKAT
(www.boomkat.com) Just like the record shop you were always too nervous to go in and ask for stuff in case you sounded stupid, but now it’s online. This is a tremendous portal for new underground music of all kinds, the focus still on the bleeps and beats but straying out into anything remotely challenging from dubstep to alt.country to old school psychedelia. (MR)
LA BLOGOTHEQUE
(www.blogotheque.net) Bands passing through Paris play a take-away concert, or a concert à emporter as they call it here. Watch your favourite indie weirdos unplugged, and being awesome: Casiotone for the Painfully Alone, Grizzly Bear, Tom Brosseau, Dirty Projectors etc. (CS) SONG BY TOAD
(www.songbytoad.com) Matthew Young’s influential
Edinburgh-centric music blog is incredibly well stocked with reviews, ramblings, sessions and beautifully recorded gig footage. The blog has now become a record label, playing host to releases by Meursault, Eagleowl and Jesus H Foxx. (Laura Ennor) READERS RECOMMEND INDEX
(www.rrindex.com) The Guardian’s Readers Recommend blog gets about a zillion comments every week. Some of the readers have now set up a website cataloguing every song that’s ever been suggested for it, arranged by artist, theme, song or date. (LE)