An article on the BBC website poses the question; are free CDs killing music?

Yesterday, the Mail on Sunday gave away copies of Prince’s latest album, “Planet Earth.” The album is also being given away for free to those attending his concerts at the 20,00 capacity O2 arena, where 21 nights have been fully sold out.

As a result of the giveaway, Sony BMG (the album’s distributors) have withdrawn the CD’s UK release, scheduled for the following Monday. This means that for fans in the UK not attending the O2 concerts, buying the Mail on Sunday will be the only (legal) way to get a copy of the album.

This isn’t the first time Prince has challenged the usual practices of the music industry. In 1995, he changed his name to an unpronounceable symbol in protest at his record company’s ownership of his name as a trademark— he reverted to the name “Prince” when his contract with Warner-Chappel expired. On his 2004 Musicology tour, he also gave away free copies of his Musicology album at gigs. In June 2006, Prince was honored with a Webby Lifetime Achievement Award in recognition of his “visionary” use of the Internet that included becoming the first major artist to release an entire album—1997′s Crystal Ball—exclusively on the Web. Orders for Crystal Ball had been placed on Prince’s then-website, 1800newfunk.com, but the album was also released shortly to traditional brick-and-mortar retailers.

Although free CDs are a regular appearance as giveaways with magazines and newspapers (usually compilations, although occasionally “classic albums”), this release marks the first time a brand new release has been given away as a covermounted CD. In the BBC article Kim Bayley, director general of the Entertainment Retailers Association, says this marks a new low.

“It devalues the music and the losers will be new artists who are trying to come through who won’t have any support from recording companies because established artists are chucking out their music for free. Consumers only have so much listening time in the week and if they receive the new album from Prince then they don’t need to buy new music and will spend their money on something else.”

Bayley’s position seems slightly bizarre to me; as though people don’t budget their spending on music, but will decide that if they’ve acquired a free CD that they will use up their weekly budget of listening time, won’t be able to listen to anything else that week, and therefore won’t buy any more records. (It certainly seems odd, when you consider the perpetual “3 for 2″ or “3 for £15″ offers in high street record shops.) It will be interesting to see how the sales figures for Prince’s other albums will change over the next week or two- will the release act as a call to action for people to go out and buy more of Prince’s records?

The idea that giving away music devalues it just doesn’t ring true for me. Music has been freely available over the radio for decades, with record labels offering a range of incentives for DJs to play their new releases. Music is played in the background (or sometimes in the conversation-killing foreground) in bars and clubs. It’s not unusual to find a well marketed single receiving so much pre-release airplay that listeners become bored of a song before they have even had a chance to buy the record. Pop music even makes appearances as elevator music, or the music we hear when we’re on the phone and are put on hold.

While Bayley is claiming that this free CD giveaway devalues music, I think that it might be more accurate to say that it devalues the medium.

The record industry have often justified the price of album releases as mainly covering the cost of the promotion of a new album or artist; the majority of record releases actually sell at a loss, with a small number of major artists providing the profits that allow labels to invest in smaller artists, in the hope that they will break through to the mainstream market. However, the availability of downloaded music challenges this business model. Without the costs of physically manufacturing CDs (and the packaging), shipping them to record shops across the world, and covering the costs of unsold records, there are potentially far less costs involved in publishing and distributing music- particularly in terms of overheads for less popular records. However, the price of buying a CD is still comparable to the price of downloading the album; it’s claimed that the savings are being passed onto the record companies, rather than the artists or the consumers. If that’s the case, then it’s in the interests of the record companies (and the industry that profits from their promotional expenditure) to keep the phyical, CD-based side of the industry going for as long as possible.

Q magazine drastically reduced the number of CDs given away with it’s magazine, as it felt that it was devaluing the actual product and in risk of turning Q into a CD with a free magazine. The Managing Director of Q magazine, Stuart Williams, said;

“The woes of the music industry have nothing to do with covermounts and everything to do with free downloads [...] Albums are no longer the earner they once were, as demonstrated by artists like Radiohead threatening to no longer use the format. [...] Prince gave up on the industry a decade ago and was walking around with ‘slavery’ written on his face. He’s made his millions so all he cares about now is getting his music out to as many people as possible. He’s not trying to make money out of this. If he could drop them out of a helicopter over London, he would do.”

The Radiohead comparison will strike followers of the band as somewhat inconsistent with the band’s public position. Thom Yorke has talked about the reasons Radiohead are considering experimenting with singles and EP releases and “albums not being the earner they once were” certainly doesn’t seem to be a consideration for them. (Bear in mind that Radiohead are one of the few bands who have refused to allow their music to be sold through the iTunes music store, saying that they didn’t want users to listen to individual tracks out of the context of the albums.) Now that they have fulfilled their 7-album deal with EMI, Radiohead are no longer tied to a record label, and say that they are investigating alternative ways to release their music. (Perhaps Williams was actually referring to the CD format?)

There are a number of established bands that appear to be following a similar strategy; rock band Ash have said that they are not planning to release any more albums, but instead will use online sales channels to release their music while it’s still fresh and the band are still excited about it, rather than waiting months for enough material for an album to be compiled, recorded and distributed as an album.

I think this highlights the gap between the goals of artists such as Prince, Radiohead or Ash and the goals of the industry as a whole. In the past, the artists and the record companies had the same goal- to sell as many records as possible. This got the artists exposure (people listening to their music) and the record companies sales (profits.)

The lower costs of promotion through free CD giveaways or online distribution have led to alternative, more efficient ways for artists to market and distribute their music. Last year, the Arctic Monkeys quickly became one of the hottest bands around as downloaded copies of their debut album raised their profile, prompting a bidding war between record labels to catch the as yet unsigned band. Although the album had been famously available on filesharing networks for several months (with audiences at their gigs singing back the lyrics to their unreleased songs), the album still managed to set records for the fastest sales on it’s official release.

I wouldn’t personally be unhappy to see the end of the traditional CD as the de facto format for music to be bought and sold in. But I wouldn’t want to see it replaced by lossy, compressed downloads. I want my music to be a good enough quality to play loudly and clearly on a decent stereo (I cringe when I see parties powered by an iPod.) Partly because I like my music to be something I can hold, as part of a collection that I can display, with artwork that I can associate with the artist, and if I want to tell someone about a new band, I want to be able to show them the record that I’ve gone out and bought— not a title on my iPod or computer of an MP3 I’ve downloaded.

I guess I just don’t see a CD from the cover of a sunday newspaper as quite fulfilling that particular role.