Talking Heads frontman addressed an audience at SxSW this week and gave his account of the demise of the music industry.
Byrne liken the antics for the Recording Industry Association of America to prohibition by the way they have attempted to control how we listen to music. He called Digital Rights Management "silly" and predicts the withdrawal and the technology soon if downloads are to become the bona fide replacement of the CD. "DRM will go away and people will start to buy downloads," Byrne said. "I've bought about 3 tunes from iTunes because it pisses me off".While he displayed figures that predict the download will surpass the CD by 2012, he thinks that in reality it will be much sooner than that. Byrne quoted the head of Sony UK who told him that in 3 years CD sales will be halved. Byrne predicts that within 5 years, CDs will be extinct.
With the business model of the music industry moving towards downloads Byrne suggests the major label business model will become obsolete. Technology will allow artists to produce and distribute globally, marketing can be internally handled through You Tube and MySpace. "Record companies will have to start concentrating on Britney's," he said indicating that real music artists will bypass the corporate system. "Record companies will not become obsolete but they will have to change very quickly. They will have to learn to co-exist".
Byrne said that he has spent the last 12 months negotiating with his label Nonesuch. "Now that's what I call making music," he laughed.
