Digital divisions and the changing cultures of the music industries (or, the ironies of the artefact and invisibility)

Abstract

As has been extensively reported for a few years now, income from consumer sales of sound recordings has decreased. Sales of physical CDs are accelerating downwards. The digital artefact―the mp3 and its variants―has allowed the downloading, circulation and sharing of music in a manner that has raised questions about the social and economic value of recording. A recording is no longer a prized physical, numerically finite, collectable object; one visibly displayed in the store, under the arm when walking down the street, or in the home. Somewhere, invisible, inside a machine, when not purchased as a download, it appears to be freely available―dripping from the cloud, swimming for survival in the stream. Yet, it is paid for through subscriptions, telephone and internet connection charges, the costs of computers, phones and iPads, speakers and headphones, and fees for electricity. The irony of “free” music is that it only appears free because the listener is not obviously making a transaction to labels or musicians―but, money is being made here.