Pirating Music: How Can the Legal Industry Survive?

Pirating music; I’m sure all of us have heard of it and a good number of us have at some point directly or indirectly done it. And it’s easy to see the appeal; creating a sizable music library and keeping up with ever-changing trends can rack up hundreds of dollars in CDs or off iTunes. Hence it’s no small wonder that governments and the music industry are unable to shut down rapidly proliferating file sharing websites. The problem has come to the point that many would rather put up with commercials than pay even small monthly subscriptions for services like Pandora, Spotify etc. As The Economist puts it, all in all, we live in the “world’s toughest recorded-music market”.

This problem has come to a head in China where music revenue is disproportionately miniscule in comparison to other large economies. Last year sales accounted for a nearly invisible less than 0.005% of the country‘s GDP at $75 million while the United States netted $4.56 billion and the nearby nations of India, Indonesia and South Korea each raised $104, $51 and $145 million respectively. In what can be considered desperate attempts, Chinese entrepreneurs have gone as far as to offer free, download-able music simply with advertisements running alongside. Yet search engines such as Baidu and other simple alternatives have sent the revenues of even these most generous companies, into the red.

One such company, Top100.cn has taken an innovative approach to attract the frugal Chinese consumer market. Founder Gary Chen’s solution can be compared to the success of a newspaper or magazines which take stories that can often be found online for free, and compiles them into edited, convenient, well-presented groups with reviews and additional information. Mr. Chen wants to apply the same principle to music to offer consumers similarly packaged, appealing selections. Furthermore Top100.cn is trying to increase the versatility of these bundles to load and play them on the various electronics in use by today’s generation rather than simply iPods or mp3 devices.

The question remains if people will pay up for this new service but for now, such efforts have brought China to the forefront of innovation in the music industry.