The Day the Music Died
International Lyrics Server site has become the latest victim in an apparent war against independent music producers.
The Swiss-based International Lyrics Server site has been shut down by police. The popular site, operated on a not-for-profit basis by Net consultant Pascal de Vries, has become the latest victim in an apparent war waged by leading music companies against independent music producers.
And as the players tried to take the field
The marching band refused to yield
Do you recall what was the deal
the day the music died.
The Lyrics Server did not actually produce or reproduce music in any form, dealing with only the text of songs. According to de Vries, the site acted primarily as a bulletin board on which its readers discussed and posted song lyrics. Still, the National Music Publishers' Association (NMPA), acting on behalf of several US music publishers, felt it necessary to clamp down against the site under the guise of copyright protection. Subsequently, a local attorney general in Switzerland ordered the raid on the site's owner, technical consultant, and ISP, seizing equipment and databases in the process.
Despite the heavy-handed method of the NMPA, the Lyrics Server is not quite dead yet. The site is still partially functional, offering search facilities for lyrics even though the lyrics themselves are not available. Yet even this situation might soon change. According to a story in Wired, de Vries has reportedly spoken to the head of NMPA and is hopeful a deal can be worked out which would allow him to put the lyrics server back online.
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Yet no matter what happens, the damage has already been done. Moreover, the pressure brought by the NMPA is an indication of how the music industry plans to deal with what appears to be a serious threat to their heteronomy in the music business.
This threat is the direct result of advances in the technology of digital audio compression, the most renown being MP3. A site dedicated specifically to the commercial exploitation of MP3, called mp3.com, is just one example of how digital technology has the potential to displace the large record companies.
But it's not so much the technology or the commercial startups like mp3.com that is worrying to corporate interests as much as the fact that individuals can create their own CD collections for minimal cost. Sites containing free MP3 files of music - from mainstream to alternative -abound on the Internet.
The industry has realised that attacking the technology, more specifically, the production and dissemination of MP3 music files, is near impossible and, in the long run, may even be counter-productive. MP3 could very well evolve into an industry standard. It's coming to terms with this standard, one which is presently open to the public, that is the biggest challenge.
This doesn't mean, however, that pressure hasn't been applied to slow the mainstreaming of MP3 technology. It's surprising at how slowly stand-alone MP3 players have evolved. One of the latest on the market, the Rio PMP 300, is at best a toy for the chronically bored: it can only play about half an hour of music and is not very practical. It's not obvious from the interface that you can transfer files to the Rio from the playlist on the computer. Also, because new files have to be frequently downloaded onto the device, you need to be near the computer in order to hear fresh music. What is of interest to most users is not a stand-alone MP3 player that can download files directly into the unit but one that can play MP3 CDs.
Despite these and other shortcomings, there are those who see the likes of the Rio as a step in the right direction. As the weight of technological change comes to bear (already, provisions have been made for flash memory card upgrades for the Rio), such devices will become less clumsy and, in due course, will pose a real challenge - not only to corporate music producers, but to the manufacturers of portable CD and cassette players as well.
Those who have taken heart from this have already started to ring the death knell for the corporate domination of the music industry. Yet they may be doing so prematurely. The music business is not just about music. A lot of it also has to do with promotion and packaging. This is where the present strategy of the big music publishers lie.
In essence, it's a two-pronged attack. The first is to distance the listener from the music as much as possible. Concert tours are an integral part of the music machine; these, in turn, have more to do with stage entertainment than with music. Meanwhile, slick and glamorous packaging are made to offer more to the consumer than what the simple packaging of home-produced MP3 compilations can. This is one reason for the attack on the likes of the Lyrics Server: it's an indirect threat to the packaging domain and an important part of the corporate stranglehold on the music industry.
In many ways, the present battles waged in this war are replays from similar battles of the past. Audio cassettes were once regarded as a direct threat to big business because of the ability of people to simply record their own music from the radio. Yet corporate power still survived this perceived threat (partly due to the introduction and enforcement of stringent copyright laws), retaining its dominant influence.
There is every reason to believe that this present battle, although more complex than the ones before, won't displace the dominant music publishers. They will learn to adapt to the changes happening, coercing their way to firmer ground. The pivotal battle was lost long ago at the beginning, when Rock and Roll evolved from a genre that was not only here to stay but also here to pay. Ironically, Buddy Holly's plane crash may very well have symbolised the day the music died.
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