These findings below from MMF Chairman Brian Message who last week attended the eG8 Forum in Paris Arranged by French President Nicolas Sarkozy, outlines a great change and encouraging news for the future of the music industry on a global basis, the forum was attended by the worldʼs top internet and digital leaders who were there to discuss key issues and swap ideas. Their conclusions were presented to G8 leaders which the top 5 points which you can read below;
The internet will continue to be a key global platform to drive innovation which in turn would drive global job opportunities.
The supply side control agenda of incumbent ‘big business’ was a real threat to innovation and the efficiency of the internet to drive value.
The music industry has a potentially bright future provided we don’t turn our back on the innovators of the future, like we did with the last generation of entrepreneurs.
The Hargreaves report chimes with the sentiment of the e-G8.
As more and more people come online, the market will become more and more a ‘monetise the volume’ game.
Further Notes:
Future job creation would be driven at the small entrepreneurial start up business level.
Skype, Netflix, ICQ, You tube and many more started as 1-3 ‘outsiders’ working on a passionate idea. Innovation must be allowed to flourish.
Young people would drive innovation simply because they don’t know any better.
Government regulation of the internet was frowned upon.
Not least because governments were national or regional and the internet wasn’t
But there was a key role for government to play in fostering the internet eco-system to allow innovation and creativity to flourish.
Many believed that technology would solve the issue of monetising usage much better than legislation.
There was a groundswell of opinion that government should stop listening to incumbent ‘big business’ as they aren’t always pro innovation.
There was a real sense at the conference that harmonisation of laws was critical, especially across Europe.
The academics who spoke at the e-G8 were very supportive of Hargreaves and believed that the era of punishing consumers via ‘3 strikes’ laws would soon be over.
Sean Parker feels we’re on the verge of a renaissance; we could see a 100% reverse in the decline of recorded music from billion to billion.
His experience at Spotify is showing that the long tail is really healthy – catalogue is being well used and technology is providing a real solution.
Other:
The conference noted a broad power shift towards entrepreneurs and away from financiers. This was regarded as being good for the economies of the world as it would reverse the brain drain to ‘finance’.
In Rupert Murdoch’s speech he said that education today uses 19th century techniques and was completely inadequate for today’s needs.
He was very keen to promote the idea of education being based on software that engages students specific learning needs and teaches them to think for themselves.
Mark Zuckerburg thought the number 1 trend over the next few years would be people continuing to be ‘empowered to share’.
Central to this was music as this was an ‘expression’ to be shared with friends.
The democratic right to share information was becoming more powerful than voting – e.g. the Arabic spring uprisings.
In 10 years time, the internet will be nothing like we know it now, shaped by innovations that we just don’t know about yet.
I do think the conclusions for the above digital information across the 'music industry' are very positive and look forward to your comments & thoughts
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