Illegal Music Downloads an Issue Again Thanks to Streaming Exclusives
Remember when piracy was the big issue facing music? You had thousands, millions of records and songs being illegally downloaded by cheapskates who didn’t want to pay a measly $9.99 for a CD from their favorite artists. Hardcore audiophiles justified their trespasses by saying only a fraction of the proceeds went to their favorite artist anyway, and most of the money instead ended up in the pockets of fat cat labels who didn’t give a flip about the music.
Later as the new paradigm of digital music shook out, it became apparent that part of the stimulus behind piracy was the music industry’s slow adoption of the digital model. As soon as downloads became quick and easy, the piracy slowed. Then came along streaming from companies like Spotify, and piracy was virtually eradicated, at least in the United States, since anyone could stream virtually any song either free, or for a nominal monthly fee to remove the commercials.
But now illegal downloads are beginning to make a comeback all of a sudden. How did we revert back to 2003 in the music piracy game?
The exclusive. Also know as “windowing.”
The hip thing in 2016 for many big-named artists is to only make their music available on one specific streaming or download service, usually in a deal struck between the artist’s label or management and the streaming service in hopes of drawing more subscribers towards one service, or in many cases, away from another—specifically Spotify who happens to be the biggest dog in the race, and the one all of the other streaming services are trying to lure subscribers from.
But it’s highly questionable if exclusives or windowing actually benefits anyone beyond the streaming service that the exclusive deal is struck with.
R&B artist Frank Ocean grabbed the music world’s attention when he surprisingly released his new record Blonde on August 20th, making the album available only through iTunes and Apple music. And after only a week, the album had been illegally downloaded 753,849 times according to Music Business Worldwide. At this point, the illegal downloads are likely over 1 million. Meanwhile according to Billboard, Blonde sold roughly 276,000 album-equivalent units, including 232,000 in traditional album sales in its first week. In other words, way more units were moved illegally.
A similar story goes for Kanye West’s The Life of Pablo, which was released exclusively to Tidal, of which West is a partner of. It was torrented roughly 500,000 times just in the first 24 hours after its exclusive release.
It is expected that Garth Brooks will be announcing his own exclusive download/streaming deal when he convenes a press conference on Thursday, September 8th. It’s rumored to be a deal with iTunes, but regardless of who it is, we know it will be an exclusive.
Meanwhile Spotify is having to reshape its thinking after the recent rash of big name exclusives. According to Hyperbot, Spotify is now realigning to allow windowing of new releases to only be made available to their paid tier of subscribers so they can entice certain artists back to the service, or potentially offer exclusives themselves.
As all of this reshuffling occurs, many consumers are getting caught in the crossfire of the exclusive streaming wars. Where before it felt so easy to choose your favorite streaming company, and aside from a few select artists, listen to whatever your heart desired, now you feel like you must subscribe to two or three services to just to listen to the new releases or your favorite artist’s catalog. Or, you can reach out to your friend who knows how to torrent, and get a copy for free. Usually the latter seems like the easier solution.
And the benefits to the artists and labels to enter into exclusive agreements is dubious at best. That is one reason that according to Music Business Worldwide, Lucian Grainge, CEO of the massive Universal Music Group, has sent out a memo to all label heads ostensibly banning exclusives henceforth. Frank Ocean’s Blonde was supposed to be released on Def Jam, which is a subsidiary of Universal, but was released independently by him.
Music exclusives including album and song premiers seem to rarely benefit anyone but the outlet that happens to land the exclusive. As songs, videos, or albums attempt to go viral, they get curtailed to some degree by the inability of consumers to easily interact or consume them. Frank Ocean’s Blonde could have arguably tripled in sales if it was made widely available if you take into consideration the torrent numbers. Instead, nobody gets that money, while many of the illegal downloaders would have been perfectly happy streaming the album on Spotify, where at least some revenue could have been generated for the creators involved.
Though the ills of the music streaming economy are numerous, without the ability to have music widely distributed, no specific streaming service meets the needs of all music consumers, or really, artists or labels either, as the once pronounced dead practice of illegal downloading is off and running again.
Paul
August 31, 2016 @ 11:37 am
Exclusive deals are idiotic in a world with the Internet, and we’ve known this for a good 15 years. The music industry just cannot let go of their old monopoly driven business model which is sided by the state. Frankly the anarchist in me looks forward to the collapse of the legacy industry to usher in an era of decentralised distribution of content. I’ve already started buying music directly from the artist where possible.
I miss Stevie Gaines
August 31, 2016 @ 11:40 am
Wow I feel bad for Kanye West, he having so Much musical talent and shit…
Jen
August 31, 2016 @ 12:32 pm
I know, right? He’s so talented, only Kim wants to hear him! LOL!
Jen
August 31, 2016 @ 12:31 pm
I think the artists should allow the sharing of the music, since it’s going to be done, anyway, and stream their concerts exclusively, as well, of course, performing for a live audience, but for those of us that don’t do concerts, we can watch it, too, for a fee. Maybe after the live performance, but still get to enjoy a “live” concert from our favs. Another way to make money, is to rent digital cameras. They can’t use their cells in the show, but they can use a digital camera that is rented there at the venue, and they get to keep the memory card, but have to return the camera…or get charged for the full price of the camera ($200 or so, to deter taking it home).
Scotty J
August 31, 2016 @ 12:46 pm
The more things change the more they stay the same.
Scotty J
August 31, 2016 @ 12:48 pm
Until people figure out a way to steal the live streaming concert.
These two comments were supposed to be one sorry about that.
I miss the ‘edit’ feature.
Jeffro
August 31, 2016 @ 2:23 pm
Not to hijack the conversation, but how many people support SCM by starting their shopping with Amazon from SCM’s site? I can’t say that I ever have – but I’m going to try to remember that from now on. Gotta turn off AdBlock for the link to work.
The Senator
August 31, 2016 @ 3:47 pm
Physical media is still the only way I purchase for many, many reasons. I prefer the freedom that I have to do what I want with my music, an actual physical product can’t be canceled on me, I like liner notes, album art, the total package, and it allows me to value and focus on every new purchase in a way that digital media do not.
I like ripping high quality files to my 200 gig mp3 player for portability, and I’ll be able to listen to whatever I want on the run. If I’m at home, I have a plethora of options. Either way, I have no use for the streaming market.
Conwayfan98
August 31, 2016 @ 4:52 pm
Illegal downloading has always been an issue since the early 2000’s. It never went away. That’s why most music genres are giving the public stupid and meaningless songs. For example, Country music has been going downhill since the late 1990’s. But, only recently (2010’s) has it become completely dependent on other music genres to bring in other audiences to listen, while also dumbing down the lyrics, completely re-arranging the style and arrangements of the songs in this genre, and giving southerners a negative stereotype that all of them are drunken douchebags hitting on females. They don’t want to give us anything worth listening to because they don’t want to risk having decent music illegally downloaded.
Fourth Blessed Gorge
August 31, 2016 @ 5:54 pm
I disagree. The “industry” only wants to sell, so they’re gearing their product toward the demographics that still buy retail music. In the case of country music, that’s housewives who enjoy the escapist fantasies “bro-country” provides. With pop music the focus is on presenting the artists as “multimedia superstars” whose releases are huge “events” which prompts a rush of “me first” fans willing to spend. There’s plenty of new music worth listening to these days, it’s just a matter of finding it and supporting those artists in different ways.
Conwayfan98
August 31, 2016 @ 5:10 pm
Illegal music downloading has always been an issue since the early 2000’s. It never went away. That’s why the music industry doesn’t give the public anything worthy of listening to because they don’t want to risk having decent music illegally downloaded. This goes for 95% of genres, including country music. However, there are still some genres that I find are still pretty good. Those are:
1. Blues
2. Jazz
3. Some Folk (If you are in search of actual modern country music have a look on the folk charts here: http://www.billboard.com/charts/americana-folk-albums) – They sometimes have some good country music.
4. Some Alt. Rock
5. Some bluegrass
Scott S.
August 31, 2016 @ 5:42 pm
What I hate is the dragging out of releases. Albums are announced for pre-sale, and then delayed for up to two months as one single at a time is released. By the time you get the album you are already tired of the best songs. I try to resist the temptation to buy early singles or listen to streaming sites.
I miss the days of going to my local record store and buying a album that was physically mine. But on the other hand, I do like being able to find music from independent artists on sites like Bandcamp. I suppose there is good and bad to everything.
Fourth Blessed Gorge
August 31, 2016 @ 5:46 pm
Too bad that the music business opted to hide behind their lawyer’s collective skirts when it became obvious that downloading was the future. Perhaps they could have found a format that would have worked for everyone, but they snoozed and whined instead. It’s never going away and “exclusive” streaming services are nothing but a drop in the bucket. Labels and artists have to find new ways to get fans to purchase music…”extras”, perhaps things like concert ticket discounts, merch, whatever. Innovate, don’t masturbate.
cecil
August 31, 2016 @ 6:05 pm
I love my google play unlimited monthly worth every penny. If an artists new album isnt on it I know they could use the money and I have no issue with paying for the hard cd and up loading it to my google play account. (i.e JT and the sinners new album, which is odd b/c all their other albums are on google play)
Blackwater
August 31, 2016 @ 8:55 pm
I see the numbers of illegal downloads and it’s always “look at all the money lost”… I say horse shit to that. When I have used torrents or anything else to snag an album, it’s out of curiosity or fear of a shitty album (which is what I’ll do for Sturgill’s next album). If it ends up good, I buy it. But almost always I listen to it twice and deem it’s not worth listening to anymore or buying, and it’s never seen or heard again. Should I have to pay anyways? Well, the record companies think so.
Point being, I would never had bought the album to begin with and i think that’s true with most people that do it. The record companies never would have got the money…. but by having an extended sample of the album, people will buy it. Therell always be the people that would never buy it… they used double tape decks back in the day, right?
Fact is, the music industry is lazy and think there models have to focus on attractive teeny boppers. They fail to come up with good ideas to get people outside of the Bieber landscape to buy albums.
Trigger
August 31, 2016 @ 9:15 pm
I saw a study a while back that said that illegal downloaders spend more money on music than anyone, and I believe that.
However this instance is a different case. This is not about folks not wanting to pay, or wanting to preview music before they pay for it. This is about accessibility to music. The reason for the staggering torrent numbers for these new albums is because people have no other option for getting them. For example, I don’t use iTunes or Apple Music, and never will. Even though I get a lot of music sent to me as a music media member, I still subscribe to numerous music services, and purchase music fairly often. But not from iTunes. But if Garth Brooks exclusively releases his stuff to iTunes, I will likely have no option of getting it. That is where the torrent comes in for many consumers. And those consumers are less likely to then go out and buy the album later.
thndrbrd13
September 1, 2016 @ 9:23 am
I’m also not willing to pay $9.99 for a CD where only 2 or 3 songs are actually good and the rest are just filler.
Trigger
September 1, 2016 @ 10:44 am
Neither is most of the listening public at the moment. That is what services like Spotify, Tidal, and Apple Music are for. You pay $9.99 (or free w/ commercials), and listen to all the music you want … except when exclusives are involved. Therein lies the problem.
This article was not try to call out illegal downloaders as much as explaining why there has been an upsurge in activity after years of decline.
Lindsey
August 31, 2016 @ 9:13 pm
I’m currently low on funds, so I just go to youtube to hear songs I don’t have on CD. I only do that until I can afford to get the album. If the music is not available on CD, I won’t buy it. Physical purchases should never go away. If someone can afford to make an album, they can afford to distribute it, in some way. Even if an album is only available through the singer’s website or concerts, I would buy it. Waiting on shipping isn’t that big of a deal to me, as long as it comes in good condition. Garth thinks youtube is bad news, but through their “recommended” videos is how I find a lot of good songs I’d like to buy when I can.
Jen
September 1, 2016 @ 5:52 am
BeING a single mom, fixed income, and no disposable income for music, when I can find it free to listen to anytime I want, I don’t buy music. However, the streaming services should be paying the artist per play. I wouldn’t mind paying for a streaming service subscription, if it was worth my while. But while it’s free, I’m not buying, because my funds are limited to what I need to purchase, and not something I can get for free just about anywhere. I do miss going to the stores and buying my fav music, but this does make it much easier. I don’t download anything, I just listen to it on my phone or YouTube.
Mike W.
September 1, 2016 @ 5:52 pm
Sadly, I don’t see this changing anytime soon. My guess is that we are rapidly headed to a future where music streaming services are copycats of the Amazon, Hulu, Netflix model. You will likely see a number of services bought out or shuttered (Napster/Rhapsody and Tidal don’t seem long for the world) and eventually Amazon, Google and Apple will throw their weight around and gobble up “exclusive albums” or even record labels. You will still see a broad collection of “shared” content, the same way old episodes of TV shows are generally shared across the video streaming services, but the original content war is just going to spread to the music streaming side as well even more aggressively than it is now.
Which sucks for the consumer because I can’t think of many music fans who are willing to spend $20-30 dollars a month on subbing to different streaming services like they do with video.