Digital News vs. Digital Music

Thinking out loud…

Music and news have both been unbundled to their smallest natural forms. Songs have been separated from albums. Articles have been separated from newspapers. It’s possible and sometimes desirable to share excerpts of news. But that’s not as useful for appreciating songs.

News is disposable. Music is reused again and again. Both are forms of content and both are created by people. But only news is information. Music is art. It’s created by an artist and published by record labels.

News is based on factual events and opinions. Facts and opinions escape into the public domain the instant they’re published. When news was scarce – that is when it was published in regular, discrete intervals such as once a day in newspapers or on the morning or evening news – there was value in being the first to break news by building anticipation and aggregating attention.

But now news is abundant and ‘first’ is just the first place we happen to see or hear or read something. More and more frequently that means news is ‘broken’ to us by people we know or people we ‘follow’. News is now continuous and instant in every moment. Anticipation is gone. Attention has become highly fragmented.

Music is artistic and unique. Every track is different, more so than the difference in words between two news stories on the same subject. Music is a pleasure. News can be, but we also have a purpose when reading news – to learn or become informed. Though perhaps we do that with music, too.

We develop an emotional attachment to music and by extension to musicians. Maybe we do that with journalists too, but I think those relationships can become deeper and more valuable.

Record labels can promote artists to large audiences, but artists and audiences should need that less and less as a way to find each other.

In theory, self-publishing music is (or will become) as easy as self-publishing news and opinions. If that happened, how would artists manage their own copyright?

People will pay for songs piecemeal. That won’t work for news.

Artists earn income from live performances of their work and some by using their skills to produce music for others. Maybe journalists could do the same.

Posted on March 14, 2009