Classical Issues

Brad Hill comments on issues pertaining to classical music and the digital revolution:

I’m a lifelong classical fan, and take a special interest in the digital
distribution of this genre. Because of the length of its tracks, the
demographics of its audience, and the relationship of orchestras to record
labels, classical music presents unique challenges and contrasts to pop
music. Even the ethics of downloading classical music differ from pop
downloading, IMO, though there is no legal distinction of the two genres.

The BW article speculates that the classical services might lead the larger
recording industry into the promised land of fluid online distribution. That
would be ironic, considering the current sorry state of classical online
services, and there is reason for both hope and cynicism. On one hand,
monetizing the classical catalogue has advantages over pop music:

* P2P networks contain a poor inventory of classical music
* Long track lengths require better downloading performance than P2P offers
* The audience demographic skews older and wealthier than the pop audience
* Simpler copyright conditions prevail when the music authorship is public
domain
* Fans are dedicated and lacking in options
* CD sales are beyond abysmal, perhaps leading to attitude flexibility at
the labels

On the other hand, certain forces work against a successful classical
service:

* Track lengths and audiophilic demands of the audience require broadband
* Low demand–the market is small and possibly shrinking
* Media players and tagging standards are geared to pop-song requirements
* Classical artists are even further behind the curve than pop
content-owners

As things stand now, there is no effective way to build a classical
collection via downloading. P2P is excruciating; Andante is streaming-only
and not ready for prime-time anyway; Rhapsody/Naxos is satisfying but
streaming-only (not counting the meager monthly burn allowance); MP3.com’s
Classical Channel is a destitute wasteland; Classical.com offers the same
music-rental deal as Pressplay.

Perhaps the brightest light at the end of the tunnel derives from the
essential free-agent status of most orchestras, which can record and market
their concerts unencumbered by obligations to a label. (I don’t know if this
is true of soloists, and would be grateful for information about record
deals of stars like Evgeny Kissin and Hilary Hahn.) The result seems to be
content deals forged by online services with performance ensembles directly.
Rhapsody’s deal is with the Naxos label, but Andante signs orchestras
(Philadelphia Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra, others) and streams
concerts as fresh as two weeks past.

With orchestras always desperate for revenue sources, and with recordings so
drastically devalued in the offline retail channels, the need is for a
listening/downloading portal that owns non-exclusive rights to concert
recordings and shares revenue with the orchestra. The orchestra may also
market through its own online destination if it can master the technicals of
encoding and serving files. The Electronic Media Forum took the lead in
attempting to establish standards for online delivery of classical music,
but at this point that organization seems like a cross between RIAA
cluelessness and SDMI obsolescence. Independent sites like Andante are
stealing the show, and what’s to stop them? With new content being created
from public-domain sources all the time, owned by the performer and no label
to enforce artificial scarcity, maybe the world’s great orchestras WILL lead
the industry forward after all.