Discussions were wide ranging regarding the future of digital music, and the models the music business needs to employ for success, at the MusicTank Think Tank event in London last night. With Steve Jobs' pronouncement on DRM not breaking here until after the ThinkTank, debate centered less on DRM (although restrictive digital rights management was duly criticised, and Apple's role in creating interoperability problems in the digital sector noted) and more on how the record industry could and should make money from digital, and how they should share that with the wider music industry.
That could have led to bickering all round as to how the 79 pence generated by iTunes sales is divvied up between respective parties (label, artist, publisher, retailer etc etc). But, with a general consensus that those 79 pennies per track are never going to be enough to sustain the music industry long term, however they are split up, most debate centered on other ways to make money in the digital age. "The value of selling recordings, digitally or physically, has fallen", key note speaker Gary McClarnan said, "but the value of music hasn't fallen, it has just moved. As I see it, the value now sits in three sectors. The brand/artist relationship sector. The live sector. And the premium product sector".
The latter probably has the most relevance to the digital space (although some present felt at least some of the ad funded download services in development had potential - and those, I suppose, could fall in the first one). That said, Gary illustrated his point with an example in the physical space. "I recently bought five copies of a limited edition 7" from the new Nick Cave project Ginderman" Gary said. "I bought them for £3.49. They are now selling on eBay for £18. A limited edition Lemonjelly release that came out a few years ago, in a denim sleeve, is now worth hundreds. Fans will pay a premium for products like that, and that provides a great opportunity. I don't know if we will ever get Apple to adopt flexible pricing, or what the customer response to flexible pricing would be, but if we can develop premium products in the digital space, then it doesn't really matter. That's where the value will be, and where many of the current opportunities lie".
You can check out more on McClarnan's viewpoint on the future of the digital music sector in our interview with him at http://www.cmumusicnetwork.co.uk/interviews