Music is golden too

It is said that music is the language of the gods. It knows no age, creed or skin colour and it is open to all. Aldous Huxley wrote: "After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music."

For many, music is their best friend. It is a veritable fillip for the soul and the music we grow up with moulds our mindset. Almost half of the lyrics of pop songs focus on romance and sexual relationships. The promise of eternal love. You are so beautiful. You are mine. And all the other "sweet little lies" that Fleetwood Mac sang about.

Although music can arouse sad feelings, it generally helps us to relax, affecting positively our emotions and moods. Music is now being used in clinics as part of formal therapeutic programmes.

Today, music is very much a "personal" affair to be enjoyed through earphones in one's own den. And, yet, just 130 years ago, music was a social event, shared "live" during family or village get-togethers. Thomas Edison invented the first sound recording and reproduction device in 1877. Since then, technology in this field has been evolving at a fast rate making the production and consumption of music a big business. The estimated global annual turnover of record sales amounts to about $30 billion.

The shift from analog to digital recording, which started in the early 1980s, is the latest revolution to hit the music industry. Coupled with the growth of the internet, music has become a true "commodity". It can be enjoyed for free, or at extremely low cost, at any time and in any place. A music player, one third the size of a cellular phone, can store and play up to 7,000 songs. And it is generally becoming more difficult to differentiate songs within the same genre. Despite all the marketing and puff around singers and their lives, for the average consumer, good music goes beyond individual songs.

Music remains also a part of our social life. Wherever we go we are bound to hear someone else's music. Music is also contributing to making our society so noisy. It can be a nightmare to live in the vicinity of someone who insists on sharing his music with the whole neighbourhood or to have a bar next door playing deafening music. It has been proven that consistent exposure to loud music affects hearing as well as the nervous system.

Technological changes have had a deep impact on the music business. Various peer-to-peer networks have been created that engage in the file sharing of music. Cheaper broadband and low-cost hard drive space are inducing consumers to download and store music on their computers. It is difficult to determine whether the downloading of music is illegal as it depends on the nature of the music downloaded and the specific laws of the country.

It is estimated that last year some 21 billion music files were downloaded from the internet. For every song that was bought, 20 were shared for free. Online stores such as I-Tunes had sought to protect their music through DRM (digital rights management) devices. For a number of reasons this did not work. Last month, Apple, the owners of I-Tunes, announced that it is removing all copyright protection on its online music and will be charging different prices for different songs. This, after Apple reached an agreement with the four companies (Universal, Sony BMG, Warner and EMI) which control the distribution of 70 per cent of the world's music.

In the meantime, controversy surrounds the European Commission's intent to extend copyright on sound recordings from 50 to 95 years. This measure is to apply retrospectively, with its main beneficiaries supposedly being the session musicians whose recordings date to the late 1950s and 1960s. (Songwriters and composers enjoy copyright throughout their lives plus 70 years). The Commission is arguing that royalties are probably the sole pension of many of these musicians. Critics argue that the measure will mostly benefit the big record companies.

Also, recently, the Commission had ruled that it could not force internet providers to release data on customers as this would infringe privacy rights. Since then, after various lawsuits, some of these providers have accepted to send warnings about copyright infringements to abusing subscribers. Now the EU seems to be changing its position, regularly referring to unauthorised downloading as "online piracy". The EU has an interest in protecting the online music market which will exceed €8 billion by 2010.

Where is the music industry going? History has repeatedly shown that nothing will stop technological evolution. There is already talk that downloading and copying music will soon become obsolete as computing becomes "cloud-based". Copyright law is justified and necessary so as to incentivise and reward creativity. It should not be a disguise to protect the interests of big businesses.