Progressive Turmoil

As the recording industry struggles to cope with its broken business model, it is increasingly seeking cash from new sources. Prime targets are businesses that play music to customers and potential customers, but are not paying a royalty. Recent news items are here, here, and here.

In yesterday’s NZ Herald Canvas magazine, Greg Dixon rejoices in the hope that these actions will induce some firms to stop playing music altogether:

So bring on the PPNZ fee brouhaha. Try making ‘em all pay for inflicting bloody Beyonce or Britney on the rest of us and hasten the hopeful consequence: the blessed return of the sound of silence.

I agree entirely, and many people with nuanced musical tastes might share this view: either play what I love, as it is meant to be played, or leave me in peace.

Instead, it seems that commercial (eg retail) music programmers go for broad appeal, and in the process they annoy most people who actually care about music. Cementing the irony, they manage the annoyance risk through the volume, which is why if we ever do luck onto a great track in public, we miss most of it in the ambient clutter.

Here is the question those firms approached by PPNZ should ask themselves:  should I pay for the right to annoy music lovers so that I can offer wallpaper music on people who don’t really care about music? I reckon silence would be definitely worth a shot for broad-based situations like supermarkets.

By raising the price, PPNZ might also find that diversion happens in other ways. For example, those firms that think they have a good idea of their target demographic could just tune into the most appropriate radio station, which has already paid the royalty. And maybe gyms that need highly specialised hard driving music for their workouts will consider direct deals with some of NZ’s enterprising domestic drum’n'bass purveyors?