Hong’s Cave

I saw an article titled “Pop Stars Learn to Live with Pirates” on International Herald Tribune. This article is about how the musicians and the record labels have to adapt in order to survive in China, where “95 percent of music sales” is through piracy.

It is a very interesting and fairly well-written story on the subject that I began to care much since my last trip to Korea a couple of weeks ago. The most striking thing I noticed in Seoul was that at CD stores, the Gayo selections were very, very limited. It was difficult, if not possible, to find any stores that had variety in Gayo, especially from indie labels. The music (and movie as well) piracy is pretty big in Korea, too, and after that trip, the reality of the Korean music CD industry’s decline has hit me hard.

According to the IHT article, most musicians and record labels have given up on fighting the piracy and are trying to adapt to the new environment. The albums can be pirated, so “there is no income from the royalties, so artists in China record single songs for radio play instead of albums for consumers.” And since they cannot pirate physical people, what they end up doing is a lot of live paid appearances including concerts, which are mostly funded by corporate sponsors. And the record labels who cannot get much income from the album sales are turning into talent management agencies which gets a portion of the artists’ income.

As a business, this might not be a bad transition. The pop music industry is becoming not about the music and the creativity. From the article they say that another side effect of this piracy is that it becomes even tougher for new artists to get a chance. They claim it’s hard for the record labels to promote new artists in stores since there is no sales happening. Well, I think this will be a problem for those new artists who want to show their music. However, in this new “music” industry where music is no longer most important, there is always a chance for those with the right “images.”

Maybe this is the reality. The pop music has become just a fad and a commodity that nobody cares that much for a reasonably long time. I maybe am able to understand that this is a reality, but I can’t help feeling sad about the future.