Here’s an interesting report from Shelley Stein-Sacks on the future of the Canadian Music Industry. Like all such reports, it relies too heavily on technology as a causal factor (it’s not) and doesn’t cite sources for some of its important claims (ie, don’t expect an academic paper), but the report is based on a bunch of interviews with people in the industry, and it has a lot of interesting food for thought. Most impressive and important was the idea that granting agencies ought to require a digital deliverable from funded artists, and not just a finished CD. Its assessment of the declining importance of music sales to the music industry was also interesting.
In other news, in a silent gesture of defiance, I downloaded the new Radiohead album via BitTorrent this week. Whatever price I want to pay, right? And don’t get me started on the whining about “low quality” audio files. . . .