extra notes, "Music is not like water" commentary posted 23 Apr 09 1) What irks me most of all is how free music proponents such as Mr. Arrington seem to have taken rhetoric lessons from the Bush (43) Administration. They equate firm, repeated statements with actual truth. In another time and place these guys could've gotten jobs sewing invisible cloth into a royal wardrobe. As one of many examples, Arrington wrote this, in Oct. 2007: "When the industry finally capitulates and realizes that they can no longer charge a meaningful amount of money for digital recorded music, a lot of good things can happen." It helps if the statements carry a subtext of bellicosity--note the word "capitulates" here, which means not just agreeing but surrendering. [return to main essay] 2) Spout economic theory all you'd like; it always falls short when dealing with complex matters of subjective valuation. For instance, rational economic theory cannot explain why people don't feel the need to save an extra $10 on a $40,000 purchase but love saving $10 on a $40 purchase. It's the same amount of money that's being saved, objectively. People's relationship to money, however, is anything but objective.] [return to main essay] 3) If anyone feels the need to resort to some sort of economic theory or another when it comes to the state of the music industry, what about good old supply and demand? This seems to me to be at the root of a lot of the industry's woes: the supply of recorded music has far outstripped demand for it. And supply has mushroomed in two ways--in the number of musicians out there throwing music into the market, and in the way that a song, once produced, can be multiplied with little cost and effort. This is where Arrington's zero marginal cost comes into play but it's not the only factor and it's not the straightforward matter he insists it is. [return to main essay] 4) Now I'm sorry but that's just outlandish. Gravity, first of all, is neither fair nor unfair. And gravity is not "inevitable" as it's already here, and always has been. You can't compare something that you think is going to happen, regardless of how sure you are, with something that simply always exists. And these issues are on top of the previously noted problem with the gravity analogy--namely, that gravity is an actual physical law on planet earth, while economic theory is merely an intellectual construct continually stymied by the ongoingly irrational behavior of human beings.] [return to main essay] 5) There are any number of people out there talking about a variety of schemes that fall roughly into these two models, and there is a certain amount of overlap. Sometimes, the way it's described, Music-Like-Water is really just a particular version of the Access model, meaning you are paying by subscription for access only, not ownership; other times, the Music-Like-Water model is espoused in a way that suggests you'll be able to download the songs and keep them. Sometimes, on the other hand, the Access model is theorized similarly to the M-L-W model in terms of being a subscription, while other times the payment is talked about as being built into a device of some kind. [return to main essay] 6) In a way, the Music-Like-Water model is an elobarately conceived iteration of the so-called "Celestial Jukebox" idea that has been floating around since the turn of the millennium. This has been the preferred term used to convey a future scenario in which every possible song ever recorded is stored on a network, for your listening pleasure. [return to main essay] 7) And to the Bono bashers of the world I say: look in the mirror, pal. All Bono is trying to do is make music and do a bit of the good in the world. He's got his shortcomings like anyone else but the vitriol he attracts in some quarters is pure projection: people who disown their own rampant and shallow egotism, seeing it instead as something to lambast in others. For many music fans these days Bono seems to be the readily available target. [return to main essay]