Brands must stop choosing library music based on price and convenience
Composer Kris Macken details how the oversaturation of library music has resulted in brands misjudging and misusing a wonderfully powerful asset.
Over the last decade, easier, faster and hassle-free access to a growing bank of library music has benefitted advertisers, production teams and composers alike. However, the growing supply of library music, coupled with an increasing inclination to choose it over bespoke music services is exploiting the world of composition and production and leading brands astray.
A commanding force
Music libraries have been around for ages. However, upgraded internet capabilities and advancements in music production have served to spark a boom in content creation.
Worldwide, library music is now a commanding force in pop culture and media. Alongside the spectacular surge in track numbers, independent publishers are popping up like boy bands. Entities such as Audio Network and Extreme Music have become synonymous with library music, bypassing the traditional copyright societies as licensors, to provide an alternative pricing structure for their services.
Photographs and advances in printing technology devalued the worth of images as everyone who wanted one could make or get a cheap print. The same happened when “digital” also devalued audio content and its traditional distribution model of physical objects. Just as the camera eliminated the “entry cost” (being a painter) of producing an image, computers have removed the need for big recording studios in the creating of high quality audio content. Now every man and his dog can “knock something together” with Garage Band et al. The chance that other great bands such as Queen or The Beatles emerging nowadays is almost nil. The “race to the bottom” has already started and there ain’t no stopping it. Your article gave many good reasons why using (possibly older) audio content from the old incumbents is painful and why any “brand” is justified in exploring other content sources. The economics of the music industry always only worked for a lucky (and/or talented) few. The rest had to keep their day jobs. I can’t see any real difference today from yesterday in the financial situation of “young hopeful” audio artists. It was always precarious financially for the unknown bands or creators. There is now a glut of new audio content just as there was a glut of technology facilitated images of prior decades. The buyer is the winner: isn’t that how capitalism is supposed to work?
Love this piece Kris, elegantly written and gets to the real point. If a brand wants to say who it is through music and emphasise its POD, it has to work with a human being who will work with them to understand and help them authentically express those qualities. AI is what it says on the tin – artificial intelligence.
Maybe. But when you look at the nightmarish labyrinth of rights to navigate in choosing something edgier, you take the path of common sense. Why expose your client and yourself to vexatious litigation from rights “owners” who are just after some go-away money? Copyright is a complete mess.
Original music and sound is nice, often better, but not always essential.