Will piracy help to save classical music?

Since the turn of the millennium, the recording industry has faced the challenge of illegal file sharing and has contested the practice of more legitimate sources of media sharing such as YouTube. But do the characteristics of classical music allow it to utilise this technological revolution as an advantage rather than a threat?

One of the most prolific issues in music today is piracy. Stemming from peer-to-peer (P2P) sharing activities of companies such as Napster, Audio Galaxy and KaZaA among many others, it has caused the music industry unprecedented grievance since the turn of the millennium, so much so that they are also attacking the more ‘legitimate’ sources of media sharing, including YouTube and Spotify. However, there are two sides to every argument and the relevance and popularity of such platforms should not be ignored by the music industry. The question this raises is how can the music industry (stretching from young composers to established, multi-million-pound record labels) embrace or mitigate the opportunities and threats that these platforms create?

In the current article, I want to identify some of the threats and opportunities that multi-media file sharing platforms and networks present to the classical music industry. But to be aware of the issues facing each ‘makro-genre’ (classical vs popular music), let us first consider the key characteristics of each and how such attributes provide them with stability or instability within the continuing technological revolution.

Classical vs Popular | Fluidity vs Fixative

Classical music has never fit into the glossy, ‘fetishised’ constraints of the recording industry. The reason for this is that classical music, to all intents and purposes, is a performance art: an art based in time, only existing for the duration of the performance. To solidify this into a timeless format, such as CD, vinyl or even an MP3 file, is to allow someone to experience that specific performance, not the piece itself. Conversely, in popular music, the finished, released song becomes an item, something that is proper and true – something that can be faked much like a painting or sculpture. Tom Service, writing for the Guardian, sums this up nicely when discussing the ethical and aesthetic aspects of music:

The recording industry tried to fix in the collective imagination what individual musical works should be, like the totemic masterpieces of the Western canon (or rather, like those pieces of music that were turned into canonised totems, in part by the recording industry): a series of desirable, aspirational cultural and commercial objects, a collection of black-lacquer-magicked things that could literally be possessed by anyone […] There was also a broader fixative effect on the whole shooting match of classical music, which – arguably – was reduced by the heroic stage of the recording era to a library of unchanging, perfected icons instead of a living, breathing, ever-changing cultural practice.

To demonstrate this, let’s take Queen’s iconic anthem Bohemian Rhapsody (1975), covered in 2016 by Pan!c at the Disco for the film Suicide Squad.

Bohemian Rhapsody is possibly one of the most recognisable pieces to emerge from the 20^th Century popular sphere. The unmistakable sound of Freddie Mercury’s iconic voice rings in the ears of most, perhaps with the exception of much younger audiences who may be more familiar with the new ‘cover’ by Panic! At The Disco. What the two versions demonstrate is the ability of the material of the popular sphere to be fixed into a single, original version: unchanging, totemic, and most importantly, falsifiable.

Compare this to two performances of Frederick Chopin’s Fantaisie Impromptu Op. 66 (1834): below performed by Rubenstein and Yundi Li.

Each performance, though varying in speed, dynamic, certain accents and so on, is a performance of a piece, but neither holds the title of ‘the original’; at best they could only be considered as the ‘closest representation of’.

To reinforce this point, consider the recent release of the Gorillaz new album Humanz (2017). A long-awaited release framed by record-breaking singles and a productive YouTube collaboration, Humanz is set to be one of the biggest releases of the year, but they have encountered some problems that identify the falsifiable nature of popular music, one of which is the fake audio track.

In an attempt to tackle the copyright problems of their service, YouTube, in 2007, launched a software that would become known as Content ID. This software uses reference tracks provided by producers (record labels, media publishers, etc.) to identify potential breaches of copyright and acts on them based on instructions given by the copyright holder: they can leave the video alone, block it completely, or monetise it.

Effective enough in general practice, this software fails if the quality or general difference between what is uploaded and what can be referenced is too different. This has led to some users creating ‘fake’ versions of tracks by slightly adjusting tempo, pitch or dynamic just enough so that the software cannot pick it up. This again demonstrates the itemised nature of the popular music sphere by a) showing how a piece can be fake or unreal and b) displays the fixative form which popular music takes.

Could this be done with a classical track? The answer is yes, it could be, but there would be no point. Even if the demand of new classical pieces rose to equal that of the popular, the difference in basic fluidity and aesthetic as outlined above makes the faking of new classical music pointless because there is no ‘original’.

This allows us to understand why classical music is more suited to the technological freedom of sharing presented in today’s culture. However, it does not give us a structure to follow in utilising such tools. But some people have noticed how file sharing platforms have given rise to the (previously commented) doomed classical music sphere.

YouTube: A Problem for Popular, A Context for Classical

Popular music may seem like it has a lot to lose in the wake of P2P and multi-media platforms such as YouTube and Spotify. The industry has taken a hard legal stance against companies such as Napster, eventually leading to their downfall; and although YouTube has (for at least ten years now) run Content ID software to assist in the war against copyright infringement, companies and artists still take big issue with the way these sites distribute music.

In 2016, a coalition of artists and music publishers signed a petition against the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, claiming that ‘Fair Use’ should increasingly benefit the artists and companies producing the material, stating that ‘major entities such as YouTube (though not specifically named in the petition) “were not the intended protectorate when it was signed into law nearly two decades ago”, as reported by Melissa Bobbitt for Diffuser website.

YouTube has also come under attack from it’s partners: following years of disagreement, including a complete take down of material, Warner have recently reached a new deal with YouTube but remain unhappy. In a memo to the company, Warner CEO Steve Cooper writes:

We secured the best possible deals under very difficult circumstances. Our new deals are also shorter than usual, giving us more options in the future. Nevertheless, our fight to further improve compensation and control for our songwriters and artists continues to be hindered by the leverage that ‘safe harbour’ laws provide YouTube and other user-uploaded services. There’s no getting around the fact that, even if YouTube doesn’t have licenses, our music will still be available but not monetised at all. Under those circumstances, there can be no free-market ‘willing buyer, willing seller’ negotiation.

Although these arguments transcend the confines of the popular/classical genres, the focus of the discussion is directed at popular music. In contrast, the classical sphere has much more to gain from the open sharing and publishing of musical works, especially due to its live performance nature.

European company EuroArts is a prime example of how classical music can take advantage of online sharing. They produce audio-visual classical performance on Blu-ray and DVD; their current catalogue of television broadcasts currently contains around 2000 programmes with more than 700 being produced on Blu-ray and DVD. Their intriguing business plan sees them publishing full videos and collections to YouTube six months after the initial release, which not only helps them to monetise their material in the long-term, but also acts as attractive promotional material for an extensive customer base. By utilising YouTube’s Content ID, they admonish material that is published without license or permission until their official YouTube release date.

This presents a number of advantages: not only does it allow them to publish full productions to be used and monetised as promotional material, it also allows them to reach out to new and existing audiences, often outside their target demographic. They are utilising the sense of discovery that YouTube promotes and are reaching the ‘scared’ potential audiences of classical music.

In a piece for the Guardian in 2012, Alex Needham presents a range of opinions on how people are finding their way to classical music, specifically new contemporary art music. Gillian Moore, then Head of Classical Music, now Director of Music at the Southbank Centre, recognises services like Spotify as useful starting points for new audiences as it provides ‘awareness of context’. This identifies the potentially advantageous relationship that classical music can have with online media sharing platforms: by allowing people to discover more ‘difficult’ classical music online, we will not only increase awareness of new music, we also have the potential to increase the numbers attending concerts. This will consequently allow musicians and composers to connect with new audiences while increasing income.

These are positive examples of how the classical music industry can utilise the open sharing of media. If we negotiate our business planning strategies around online file sharing and social media, our potential for much larger audience numbers increases. This is an especially exciting development for small and medium sized organisations in the creative industries, such as universities, galleries and concert venues, as well as developing artists who require direct access to a larger demographic.

The aim of this article was to bring to light some of the ways in which classical music can benefit from the recent boom in file sharing, specifically through platforms such as YouTube. By gaining an understanding of why classical music is suited to such developments, we can strategize and plan with increased certainty; while knowing how classical music can be integrated with social media, we can implement creative methods of marketing and promotion, consequently increasing engagement.

Moving forward, organisations should now focus on the what. The development of new works has the potential to attract new and interested audiences following the dialogue of Needham and his peers; multi-media collaborations and projects such as those created by EuroArts have the potential to engage audiences on multiple levels; and if organisations are to attempt to tame the Internet, they should do so with a creative outlook to embrace the infinite potential of the technological age.