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Ask the Editor Live: Deborah Treisman Main Ask the Author Live: James Surowiecki June 9, 2010

Ask the Author Live: Sasha Frere-Jones

Posted by The New Yorker This week in the magazine, Sasha Frere-Jones writes about streaming audio. Today, Frere-Jones answered readers questions in a live chat. A transcript of their discussion follows. COMMENT FROM LITTLEWHITEEARBUDS: I hope SFJ starts by answering what is meant by online music. SASHA FRERE-JONES: Hello. Thats a good place to start. Online music, here, is simply shorthand for music streaming over the web. QUESTION FROM MATT: In the article you refer to Apples purchase and subsequent shutting down of Lala as an indication that Apple may be moving to the cloud but you dont consider the alternative that they are just killing competitors because they can. Lala messed with iTunes model of selling music as opposed to having it all available to stream in full. Isnt this another plausible reason Apple bought Lala and will continue to buy out others and do the same? SASHA FRERE-JONES: Entirely possible that its just an elimination move, but it seems unlikely that Apple would not move

into a cloud-based streaming model at some point. Apple is not big on previewing their moves, as we know, but this one seems pretty easy to call. They are the biggest music retailer in America and moving to a streaming model for the web and mobile would bring along an enormous existing audience. QUESTION FROM JOSH @3RDPARTY: Do you think Spotify will ever launch in North America in the same form it exists in Europe? SASHA FRERE-JONES: Spotify got popular, fast, in Europe, but its future depends entirely on the deals it can cut with labels. The deals that exist now may or may not be expiring in Europenobody wanted to confirm or denybut right now the labels in America dont like the cost structure. With existing companies like Pandora, Rhapsody and MOG, it will be a hard field to break into and, quite likely, there wont be that many players standing in a year or two. QUESTION FROM JOSH @3RDPARTY: Im either an active user or have tried Spotify, Mog, Rdio and Rhapsody. All make a very compelling case for paying to ACCESS music, and no longer needing to own content. The question is, when (if ever) will artists see a reasonable royalty rate on their music being accessed in the cloud? SASHA FRERE-JONES: Thats the eight gabillion dollar question. Now, this growing model mirrors the introduction of MP3s in one way: the technology came first. People began sharing MP3s. Most labels and some artists, especially Lars Ulrich, didnt much like this idea, seeing it all as lost revenue. And, obviously, some of it was. The music business had to grow around this new file format, as there was no choice. You can blame high CD prices, terrible 80-minute albums or MP3 trading for the decline in music business profitall are plausible, and there are studies that support almost any claim. Once computers and bandwidth began to handle streaming more effectively, services popped up: Muxtape, blip.fm, imeem. Just like the first time, labels werent thrilled. But labels, again, dont get to choose. The machines choose. What happens next will be fairly important for everyone involved. Nobody is quite sure who is getting paid what for what. One lawyer I spoke to said, We have no idea who to chase about any of this. We call a streaming service and they say Call the label. And then nobody there knows. Musicians are torn between making sure a service like MOG or Pandora is carrying their catalog and making sure that, somehow, they will earn royalties off of these online streams. Once this streaming moves more solidly into the telecom area, things will speed up. The new iPhone 4 is only streaming some content over wifi because of the size. There is consensus between all of the executives I spoke tomany who wanted to remain on backgroundthat the mobile market is where this will all end up. That is the AM radio referred to in the beginning of the piece. If youve spent any time watching kids on the subway recently, its not hard to imagine. QUESTION FROM LBRARYGRRL: As a librarian in a public library, we are grappling with how to move online music services into our customers hands. We figure wed like to get out of the CD buying business and lending physical music media. We are trying FreeGal which has contracted with the Sony catalog. Do you see any non-consumer-based (tied to one account or credit card) models we should check out? SASHA FRERE-JONES: FreeGal, only, so far. But that is one of those things that could be upended in a year or two. If any of the artists involved decide they dont like the terms of the agreement, since there is so little precedent, an entire service can be overhauled like that. QUESTION FROM GREGORY MORTENSON: Do you think consumers will PAY for these cloud services? Amongst my peers there is definitely the feeling that music and other media should be free. Relatedly, do you think bundling a cloud service with a cell-phone/cable service is a possibility down the road? SASHA FRERE-JONES: Well, thats the radio question. (Somebody asked why I only quoted Tim Westergren, and its because he neatly summed up the economics of radio: it is free, and buying music is not.) People definitely dont want to pay if they dont have to. Even someone who has faith in musicians and little faith in corporations would have to admit that filesharing was a direct hit on the music business as a business. But scales of business change. If labels start providing music to streaming services the way networks provide TV shows, there could be new models. Someone will have to be protecting musicians with great vigilance, though, because enormous catalogs of music are moving into various portals and it is unlikely that everybody involved knows the terms. QUESTION FROM GPS78: When in the history of the music business has anyone protected artists with great vigilance? SASHA FRERE-JONES: Good question. I can only think of Gandhis comments about Western civilization. QUESTION FROM GUEST: Do you think audio quality is a viable way to combat piracy? Or are young listeners losing their discerning ear for hi-fi versus low quality files, making quality more of a niche concern?

SASHA FRERE-JONES: I started trying to answer that question three years ago. What I found will depress anyone who cares about audio quality, so avert your eyes for a second. I started asking listeners under twenty to participate in a test where they would be listening to a CD, vinyl and MP3 copy of the same song, a song they already knew and liked. I was surprised that, although vinyl almost always sounded better to them, none of them had any interest in buying a component stereo or owning anything other than what they already had. It was like showing somebody an old sewing machine or a hand-cranked ice cream maker. They were happy to accept what came out of it but it had no relevance, as far as they were concerned. MP3s and online streamslike YouTube, which seems to be how many, many kids listen to musicsound fine. The convenience trumps everything, which makes audio fidelity a weirdly niche concern. QUESTION FROM SR. VAROA: These services are talked about as some kind of liberation from the old industry. At the same time, it looks like not only labels and artists revenue, but also their presence on the music cloud will depend entirely on ad funded services. What danger is it that, at some stage, its those companies that pay for the ads that decide what gets to be played and not (based on, for example, what kind of songs/bands are convenient to wrap their ads in) SASHA FRERE-JONES: There is great danger. (It was hard not to add Will Robinson.) Everybody knows the income has to come from somewhere else; not simply from a licensing fee or a traditional royalty. Companies will do whatever they can to move towards profitability. Like most web empires, these companies start in the red and then move towards some kind of return. They will be fighting to keep customers with the lowest possible price point MOG is at $5 a month, which seems like a ceiling to meand also placate all the various providers who want to see a cut. And the cuts arent the same; terrestrial radio still doesnt have to pay the fees that internet radio services do. As those services jump off the web and into telecom bandwidths, the definitions will become crucial. The recent Comcast ruling hinged largely on the difference between Title 1 and Title 2 services. QUESTION FROM MATT: Will anyone EVER offer FLAC or OGG to the mass market or will MP3 ALWAYS be king? SASHA FRERE-JONES: These formats matter to a small but passionate fanbase. Trent Reznor offered up a variety of formats for the last Nine Inch Nails release. Sites like Chessky are offering high quality digital formats, some higher than Red Book standard files on CDs. But these are going to be a small slice of the pie. This will probably be an area of small growth, where only the passionate participate, but all kinds of progress is made. It will be up to artists whether or not they want to participate. So far, acoustic musics like jazz and classical have been adopting earliest. QUESTION FROM GPS78: Did you ever see this graph on Information is Beautiful? Great illustration on what a musician needs to sell in order to make minimum wage from various services. SASHA FRERE-JONES: Yes. I will tell you what every executive said in response to it. Its wrong, but I cant tell you why right now. (I dont think I showed it to Tim Westergren, socorrection there.) That said, I doubt those circles would get wildly smaller. The streams, alone, will not keep an artist alive. QUESTION FROM JARED JOINER: I assume that many artists must be in support of initiatives like NPRs to freely stream entire albums until their release date. Any idea why we dont see more of this, or if there is a trend towards this practice industry-wide? SASHA FRERE-JONES: There is a wide belief, repeated over the last few years and across labels, that NPR is one of the only reliable consensus points for music. One executive said simply, NPR sells albums. The belief there, then, is the loss-leader argument, where labels simply hope that the number of auditions will translate into some sales and the math is worth risking it. For some, this wont happen. They will hear the new Fleet Foxes twice, figure its pretty good, and move on to the next stream. The artist, then, is faced with participating in a system in which they make a tiny amount for the sanctioned stream, or not participating, and hoping that the inevitable leak doesnt entirely wipe out their albums sales. QUESTION FROM EM_SOUTHERNBIRD: If you think that the method by which music is transmitted from musician to listener has an impact on the way that music is madethe *kind* of music that is made (Louis Armstrong crafting songs for early 78s; Trent Reznors obsession with fidelity)what could this cloud stuff mean for music-making in the future? Creatively, not economically. You are obviously qualified to respond as both a musician and a listener. SASHA FRERE-JONES: The answers I got from musicians about this were as surprising as the indifference I got from

younger listeners. Almost unanimously, the musicians said they were going to do nothing differently. Some didnt even bother to test mixes on MP3 before mastering. (Most bands I know who were recording in the nineties routinely rested albums on auto cassette decks before making decisions. Apparently Flying Lotus just did this, too. We mixed the Uilab EP in Toronto using a white van in the dead of winter.) The logic is fairly strong: since the information embodied in a master recording is going to be reduced a) by more than 80% and b) by a variety of algorithms that dont all process information the same way, one has to make the highest-quality master one can and then hope for the best. QUESTION FROM AARON C: Do you believe that using new technology and to begin streaming concerts and live gigs (even the smaller ones) will greatly benefit artists? Possibly including a price a fraction of the ticket sales? There is a large scale difference in attending a concert and watching it from the comfort of your own home. Do you think it ticks all the boxes? SASHA FRERE-JONES: Live music is the last cash standing. Neither the artist nor the labels want to replace that experience or that price point with anything, so I dont think we are going to see a lot of enthusiasm for streaming concerts on any front. 360 dealswhich give labels a cut of an artists live income, a traditionally sacrosanct kittyhappened because everybody knows live concerts are one of the last reliable income streams. At least everybody knows how they work. QUESTION FROM GARRIGA: Isnt the issue one of migration? That is to say, selling the idea of $9.99/mo. for unlimited music anywhere to the point where it becomes as second-nature as paying for basic cable or, perhaps closer to the point, a utility? Basically migrating listeners (predominantly younger) from pirating to a minimal cost that makes money in the aggregate. SASHA FRERE-JONES: Well-put. Yes, but the problem is that unlike cable TV, music involves a huge number of players who are not only sized differently, but are used to a series of income streams that they are not happy about losing. Put differently, HBO came into the world as a paid service. It has always imagined people paying for its content. This may not be unrelated to their developing into one of the most reliable sources for good TV. Labels will be going in the other direction, accustomed to certain profits and uncertain of how to proceed without those profits. And lets not make musicians sound like saints hereyou would not be heartened to find out how many musicians wont get out of bed without some magical check being offered, even when their demand is irrational. QUESTION FROM TESTER: Does The New Yorker sell CDs? If someone gets profiled in The New Yorker does it translate into Amazon and iTunes sales the way it does when their CD is reviewed on NPR? SASHA FRERE-JONES: There is no reliable way to track this. The anecdotal evidence from musicians and labels is that NPR and Pitchfork sell records. Everybody else is just part of the discussion, which is very lively with or without the participation of big old institutions. QUESTION FROM GARRIGA: And the reason I walked back from the cable analogy is that the content in music is so much shorter, time-wise, that having dedicated streams from the labels (akin to HBO, Showtime, the Big 4) would be impractical and would run counter to the mixtape nature of the modern streaming model. I really do think that it needs to be closer, conceptually and operationally, to turning on the tap without thinking of the hundreds of players who got paid to bring you that hot water on demand. SASHA FRERE-JONES: Everybody involved would like that model, too, if it led to profit. Here is the weird radio paradox as a promotional service, terrestrial radio is exempt from licensing fees. Yup. Internet radio and streaming services are not. That only made sense when radio was driving sales. Now that sales of actual things is becoming less of a given and more of a bonus, this will have to change. That is not an easy or a quick change. QUESTION FROM JOE P: You seemed plugged in and musically inclined, so its worth knowing what is your favorite way to consume music online? SASHA FRERE-JONES: It never really settles. For a while, I tried to swallow the ocean, and download every blogged track I could. That led to bloated hard drives and thousands of unheard tracks. Now I jump around. I have used every service I talked about, and some I didnt. I loved Muxtape when it was something I could control, because that was like sending myself a tape that I could listen to at work without having to work that hard. If I am pressed for time, services like MOG or Pandora serve me pretty wellnone of these services are necessarily bad or good. They do what the technology and the law allows, and thats often fine. If you are in an M.O.P. mood, probably everybodys got an algorithm that will be no more or less frustrating than your own brain. But behind all of this, people need to be paid for their work, and nobody involved is sure of what is happening now, much less what will happen. The wrong

story could make you delete your favorite service like that. OK. We are out of time. Sorry about the excellent questions I didnt have time to answer. Please come back next time. Thank you! Keywords Internet; online music; tubes POSTED IN Ask the Author
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