The free music debate
The term free music used to refer to music that was created specifically to be freely copied, distributed and even modified under a free license. In this sense the word free refers to the ‘freedom’ of the music rather than free gratis in the monetary sense. This type of free music is often used in the advertising or corporate promotion industries. For example, a company that wants to put together a corporate video promoting their services will often use a piece of free music as their soundtrack. Music like this can be sourced from a number of record labels, including Alternating Tentacles, Free Music Archive, Magnatune and Opsound.
These days however, the term free music has an entirely different meaning for a lot of people. With the advent of digital downloading it is now possible to access your favourite music without actually paying for it. The general public by and large feels this is a good thing, the music industry, on the other hand, most definitely does not.
Free music websites have literally mushroomed all over the internet in the last few years and nowadays if you fancy listening to a particular tune that you don’t actually own on CD the chances are you’ll be able to find it with a quick Google search. While music industry bodies have made every effort to persuade people against accessing free music from illegal download sites, they have by and large been fighting a losing battle. In an attempt to combat this trend record labels have been forced to think creatively and look at other means of generating income now that they cannot rely on physical sales.
As a result, many of them have brokered licensing deals with free music streaming sites which allow people to legally access the music they love without paying for it, or by paying a very reasonable registration fee. Instead of charging listeners for the music, these sites are funded by advertisers who pay for their short ads to be played at regular intervals. The revenue from advertising then means the free music streaming site can pay to have the music of major artists in its library.
This practice is still very much in the embryonic stage and no one is quite sure how it will work out, however with the music industry in major crisis, creative thinking and a little experimentation is called for.
