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Global music fair opens as debate rages over music for free
2007-01-21
MIDEM, the world's biggest and most influential music trade fair, has opened its doors in Cannes on a discordant note as the music and technology industries continued to battle over whether music should be for free. "You can't ask people to pay (for music) when they've been getting it for free," celebrated French economist, author and former adviser to president Francois Mitterand, Jacques Attali, told a packed MidemNet conference here Saturday. Attali's view is shared by most of the technology companies that are taking the music world fast forward into the digital age. But the beleaguered major record labels, reeling from plummeting CD sales and piracy, take the opposite stance -- at least for the moment. News announced here Saturday that the independent record labels around the world have agreed to work together and pool access to their huge music catalogues will put further pressure on the big recording companies. This industry crisis has created a sense of urgency amongst the 9,300 participants from the music, mobile telephone, video and Internet worlds who have jetted in for the five day MIDEM annual music market, which is the industry's premier event. The message emerging from the prequel two-day MidemNet new technology conferences that kicked off Saturday, however, was not too encouraging. "There is more convergence (between the music and digital sectors) happening and more cross platforms emerging but we need to see whether people are prepared to pay," MidemNet conference moderator Ted Cohen told AFP. A key problem has been the slowness of the record industry to adapt to the new digital market, industry watchers said. "We really need to understand what direction we should be taking," Dominique Leguern, director of the trade fair's organiser Reed MIDEM, said in an interview with AFP Sunday. Leguern, however, is optimistic that 2007 will be the year when revenues from the new technology platforms start for the drop in physical music sales. "But the industry has been slower than expected to find a way out of the crisis," she noted. Some better news, however, came from figures released Wednesday that showed the digital music business continuing to grow apace, with global sales nearly doubling in value last year to around two billion dollars. But with CDs taken into account, the picture is not so rosy. "Physical music sales in first half 2006 slumped 10 percent while physical and digital sales together fell four percent over the same period," a spokesman for the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) told AFP. Digital piracy is also still a massive problem, the IFPI report said, although it noted that legal actions against illegal file-sharers is having an impact. Free downloading from illegal online sites looks unlikely to go away if a survey of a small focus group of music-savvy young students carried out for this year's MidemNet Forum is representative. All the students who participated in this survey said they only paid for music downloads if they couldn't find them for free! The 41st MIDEM though isn't set to be all doom and gloom, particularly for music fans who are increasingly becoming the winners in the move towards a digital music world. The music, Internet, mobile phone and video game firms who have come here in large numbers will be getting together with the advertising world to take a close look at ways to make revenue without making the consumer pay. With so many big issues at stake, this MIDEM is very international. A total of 72 counties will be represented, with the Asian digitally-savvy countries coming here in greater numbers than in the past. Japan will be the ninth largest exhibiting country. China has brought its largest ever delegation and has a national stand for the first time, whilst India is also here in force. New countries attending for the first time include Bahrain, Mauritania and Gambia.
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