Nummeret stemmer ja, man får ikke samme forhold til filer, for ikke å snakke om strømming. Men det ser dårlig ut for oss som ser musikk som et samleobjekt og ikke bare noe som konsumeres. Jeg stjeler vilt og uhemmet:
Here, from an interview with Klaus Heymann, something about Classics Online and Naxos' future in general:
KH: On the classical front, Naxos' classical streaming/download site, ClassicsOnline, first eliminated virtually all of its non-Naxos titles, and then shut down entirely. To get the scoop on that, and what's happening with the CD/download/streaming industry, I Skyped with Naxos's founder and head honcho, Klaus Heymann.
The ClassicsOnline story is simple. Given what labels charged the site for carrying their product, Naxos was unable to offer the service for less than $15/month. While the site did offer music from Sony, whose catalog Naxos distributes in the US, it could not attract either Warner and Universal, let alone smaller labels such as Hyperion. That was not what Heymann envisioned when he started it.
After ClassicOnline switched to only offering music from Naxos's family of labels—these include, in addition to Naxos, Marco Polo, Dynamic, Orfeo, Ondine, and Capriccio—and lowered its price to $4.99/month or $40/year, only a smaller number of consumers came onboard. The site still might have flown, had not its infrastructure provider decided to pull out of hosting. At that point, Heymann realized that, given the unexpected additional cost of developing the site, he could only operate at a loss. In short, no go.
What remains for streaming is the Naxos Music Library, which is primarily aimed at music professionals and educational institutions. That site now offers 320kbps streaming for premium subscribers, and 128kbps for standard. There are no plans to up sound quality to Red Book and beyond.
"We are primarily a content owner," Heymann said. "We're lucky we launched Naxos Music Library when we did in 2002, because we were the only streaming site."
Of course, there is also ArkivMusic, whose relatively faithful clientele currently accounts for 25% of total classical CD/DVD/Blu-ray sales in the United States.
"CD sales are not holding," Heymann said. "In 2015, we had seven new releases that sold more than 10,000. In 2016, not a single release sold more than 5000. There's still a stable market that buys 2000–4000 of everything. I am confident there will be CDs for another 5 or maybe 10 years. But the times of substantial sales are gone.
"I also think that downloading will shrink or shrivel. Our iTunes figures went down 30% from the year before. Streaming is making good money for people with vast catalogs who can build playlists, but it's not doing anything for album sales. People aren't listening to albums as much as single tracks.
"The business model where streaming services have to pay 70% of revenues to rights holders is basically not viable. I know, because I am both a rights holder and platform operator. In this environment, I think only platforms operated by entities with revenue streams other than subscription income will survive. I'm thinking of iTunes/Apple music, Amazon Music Unlimited, and hopefully Spotify (advertising revenue). I don't think any of the other streaming sites will survive, because they can't make a living solely from streaming.
"Naxos Music Library will survive because we own a substantial part of the recordings on the platform. And we will also continue to make money by licensing recordings for Hollywood TV series, movies and commercials; collecting royalties for public performance and on the radio, and our other services."
Where such a rapidly changing scenario will leave the recording and music business in five or ten years, and what will befall emerging artists, is anyone's guess. If Heymann is correct, there may be far fewer pretty pictures to contemplate.
Read more at Naxos Opens ArkivJazz.com, Shutters ClassicsOnline | Stereophile.com
Sist redigert:
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