Keunwha+Song+Project


 * Music**

"Do you like music? I love music! Music is my life!" You may hear that line from many people. But did you notice that those people, who have incredible passion for music, are not necessarily professional musicians? Music is one of the most influential and popular aspect of culture. But at the same time, music market is one of the biggest and lucrative market in the economy. There are many people who actively listens or even participates in music activity even if they are not professional musicians.

Long ago, music was created by people who were musically educated. Early forms of music such as classic and jazz were difficult to compose. However, music has changed. With MIDI softwares, anyone can produce music in computers. Also unlike classic and jazz, single pattern of beat, single lead of melody, and repetition of clever words can make crowds dance. Modern pop music focuses more on hook and addictiveness.

These days, young kids play around with many music programs in computer and make their own songs. I personally use Logic software to produce music. You can see many independent musicians on internet sites like youtube. One of the good examples is the duo called Smosh. They are two boys who post self-produced video on youtube, and they write their own music time to time.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVBC1Ht8iJ4

Their own song called 'Boxman's Girlfriend' had over 6,900,000 views. It had high views because it was a good **public good**.

As you can see, people can easily share their own music. But do they share their music only? Would they share music produced by other professional artists?


 * Due to technological advance and commercialization of music, a strange phenomenon started to occur. The music started to become a public good!**

The trend of music and technology broke down walls between people and professional artists. As people were enable to enter music market themselves, they were free to walk out of the market with free music in their pockets.

Let's face it. Many of us download music for free. There are so many ways to share files in internet. Theoretically, if one person buys a Jay-Z album, everyone else in the whole world can listen to that album for free if the first consumer of the album shares it in the internet. Also sites such as youtube works as free music distributor. We can just type in 'Metallica' and listen to heavy metal all day long.
 * 1. Music = Public Good**

Music is **not excludable**. It is impossible to chase down every music distributor in internet. Some musicians produced special types of CDs that cannot be copied, but people still managed to copy it(by marking certain part of the CD with a marker). Simply, free download of music cannot be stopped. Also music has **no rival in consumption.** Many people can download same type of music at the same time. Also music is copied and transferred; the original file does not get erased when someone downloads it.

Many of us are **free riders**. We receive joy of music from artists without paying them.

Many musicians have tried to confront this problem. They claimed that they have lost motivation to make music because listeners simply steal them. This claim did not receive much credit because musicians are viewed as successful, rich people. "Kids, stop downloading music for free. Mr. Lars Ulrich(drummer from Metallica) is very sad because he couldn't get another jumbo jet."
 * 2. Negative externality**

However, the point remains. Most of the music we listen to are produced by professional musicians, and all professional musicians start from underground. (Except for Korean idols) If everyone starts downloading music for free, talented musicians may never rise from underground along with their good music.

As I researched, I found many positive externality of downloading music. Downloading can potentially be a new way of selling music. **ITUNES** sell music through internet, and this can be a new way of musicians to reach more people.
 * 3. Positive externality**

'Children of Bodom' is one of my favorite melodic death metal bands. It is a very popular band in Finland and many other parts of the world. However, since Koreans do not enjoy death metal very much, the record company of the band had to make a contract with a small Korean company to distribute CDs to few manias. The site I use is www.melodicpia.com. It is a small site that sells many European metal albums. Due to its size, the site does not have huge inventory. Record company also does not pay much attention to small company in Korea. Nowadays, I can use ITUNES to download their album without having a competition with other metal manias.

Surprisingly, many musicians believe in positive externality of downloading music. Ed O' Brien, the guitarist from Radiohead, explained that downloading music is simply a new form of sharing music. Believe it or not, pirating music existed 10 or 20 years ago. People recorded music from the radio in tape and shared it with friends. He said that downloading music can lead people to buy full album or buy tickets to go to concerts. Dave Rowntree, the drummer from Blur, explained that downloading music adds popularity to music itself. "The fact is that music is so popular that people are willing to break law to get it". Nick Mason, the drummer from Pink Floyd, explained that downloading music can expand fan base for musicians. This is a great point, because a young kid can easily become attracted to old band like Pink Floyd, if he/she was **given the chance to listen to their songs for free**. [source: http://blog.daum.net/fozzy/13247309 (if you scroll down, you can see quotes written in English) ]

Free distributing music can be a way for musicians to debut. Arctic Monkeys has the record of fastest selling debut album in British music history. It is ironic that they got picked up by record label by **voluntarily distributing music for free in internet.** They are the biggest band in Britain right now.

[Underground stage to huge rock festivals... just by letting people taste a little bit of their music for free]


 * Many musicians agree that downloading is the new way to share music. And they see it as a positive change to gain attention to their work.**

The advancement of technology and internet, the music turned into a **public good**. The act of downloading music for free may bring negative externality to artists such as decreased motivation. But it seems like many musicians, both old and new, adapted to the new flow and started to take advantage of it.