Australians will soon have cheap, easy access to millions of songs and can immerse themselves in the music they choose anywhere, anytime, a leading music researcher says.
With better Internet infrastructure, the 'all-you-can-eat' music services that give members unlimited access to a large music catalogue will be the most common way Australians discover and listen to music, predicts Associate Professor Patrik Wikstrom of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation (CCI) at QUT.
Professor Wikstrom's latest book, The music industry: music in the cloud, explores how the digital revolution has transformed the music business into a service-based industry that focuses on providing the best deal and experience for people.
"Instead of buying music albums or singles, more people are buying access to huge collections of music," said Professor Wikstrom, a music expert in QUT's Creative Industries Faculty.
"So rather than being limited to the few thousand songs that we previously bought, people can now access a thousand times more tunes.
"These services offer people a new world of music - listeners can now sample other genres, such as jazz or classical, and expand their musical horizons."
Professor Wikstrom said many of these new music services, like Spotify, Rdio, Pandora, are free, and are funded through advertising or other kinds of indirect revenue.
For a modest charge, they also offer premium services that allow subscribers to access the music from multiple devices, including their computers, mobile phones, portable music players and other wireless devices.
"These music services are able to compete with piracy because they respond to consumers' demand for a simple, yet legal music service."
Professor Wikstrom said most online services are now aggressively trying to enhance their features, such as allowing their users to access synchronised playlists on multiple devices as well as listen to music together with their online friends.
"What's also interesting is that some of these services try to provide users with a new way of experiencing music - there are already mobile applications that let you listen to the music while playing a game or to remix the song," he said.
"These applications let people engage with the music and provide them some kind of experience or context instead of just access to it.
"It's possible that in less than ten years, these services will be integrated in all our cars or electronic gadgets that we use in our daily lives.
"There may be a button that we press and listen to one of our subscribed services, or resume our playlist. It's just like how there's always a radio when you buy a new car."
Media contact: Kate Haggman, QUT Media, 3138 0358, kate.haggman@qut.edu.au, after hours 0407 585 901
