In his analysis of the Net 2.0, Andrew Keen writes, “the new internet was about self-made music, not Bob Dylan or the Brandenburg Concertos. Audience and author had become one, and we were all transforming culture into cacophony.” Keen’s statement may, however, seem unfounded in the context of file-sharing, as the internet is still about Bob Dylan and the Brandenburg Concertos…and countless others for that matter, they’re simply just free of charge (most of the time).
Music isn’t dead as Keen later asserts in his book. He is right however, in that the audience and the author have become one, although not necessarily in the same way he had originally intended. Keen is writing here of amateur musicians, mashup artists who piece together material for their own purposes, other ‘amateurs’ who post their music as part of “open source music” on sites such as Jamendo, or users who post pieces on youtube simply to “share their personal lives” or “contribute to the collective intelligence of the internet.” However, for our purposes, audience and author are as synonymous as producer and consumer (or rather distributor and consumer).
Keen goes so far at to suggest that “Napster and Kazaa…pale in comparison to the latest Web 2.0 ‘remixing’ of content and ‘mashing up’ of software and music.” But, yet again, his ultra-conservative cultural claim that ‘music is dead’ is unfounded when compared to official data from the IFPI that 80% of all internet traffic is derived from peer to peer file sharing, of which is mostly music. Although Keen’s remarks are a bit extremist, he does have a salient point that can shed some light on the issue. He writes, “Cutting and pasting [enables] a younger generation of intellectual kleptomaniacs, who think their ability to cut and paste a well-phrased thought or opinion makes it their own.” Obviously, written in the context of mix and mash up culture, his words make perfect sense. However, the statement takes a very different tone when describing the motivations and behaviors of filesharers. Indeed, the simple act of cutting and pasting may affect what Keen calls mash up culture, but more importantly, the ease of operations on the Net 2.0 and the seemingly undeniable right to user-generated content has taken hold in the social ideologies of filesharers.
If Keen’s argument that young people are “intellectual kleptomaniacs”, I would argue that the normal, every day filesharer, simply doesn’t know any better. However simplistic this statement may be, I believe that there is a severe disjuncture between the current (old style) entertainment industry and their Web 2.0 consumers. The music industry has always relied on the younger generations to drive sales. However, today’s youth (post-Gen Y) is comprised of “postmodern, eclectic, Google-generationists, Wikipediasts, who don’t necessarily recognize the concepts of authorships/ownerships”, a generation of people of whom the industry is deathly afraid of.
But, who’s to blame for the so-called demise of the entertainment industry? Can the industry “blame” (read: sue) young file sharers for adhering to a social norm that they grew up on? The internet is a social construct, millions of (mostly American) teenagers use the internet for social networking purposes on a daily basis, spending hours a day online. Keen is right in some respects; Teenagers born in 1990 were told in 2006 that they were Time Magazine’s Person of the Year: “Yes, you. You control the Information Age. Welcome to your world.”
They have been given a seemingly undeniable ‘right’ to content on the Internet, it is “their world”, and cutting, pasting, and sharing are their tools.
Need proof of these 'ownership' sentiments? Type '
Warner Music Group' into youtube's search engine (evidently, these people didn't read youtube's user agreement before accepting the terms, i.e. anything they post becomes 'property' of youtube)
The new business models of digital commerce 2.0 (Youtube, Myspace, Facebook) amplified the social norms of the Net 2.0, originally instilled by Napster, Gnutella, and the Open Source-derived ideologies of digital general public licenses have fostered sharing ideals in this generation. Essentially, and unfortunately, the entertainment industry brought their supposed demise upon themselves by not responding early enough to the sociality and social norms created by the Net 2.0.
Now what? Is music becoming something like water...why buy bottled water when you can get it for free?
I think the more pressing question for the industry is: how can we reconnect with our consumers and get rid of the 'bad guy' stigma? How can we rebuild trust?
