Today's music is stuck in the gramophone age
Since the invention of the gramophone, a song is recorded and then distributed to a number of users. Initially the format was vinyl. Technology then moved on to cassettes and to CDs. Now music formats include digital files, and ringtones, among others.
Although channels and formats have changed, the concept of a song has remained the same. Artists go into a studio and record a song. That song is then marketed to the public.
Of course, with any identical digital mass-manufactured product, piracy and illegal copying abound. We think it is unlikely that any Digital Rights Management technology will stop illegal copying. Thus, going forward it will be harder and harder to make people pay for a "naked" song. Hence, music companies will need to look for value-added features that consumers find worth paying for.
This gramophone age of music is coming to an end
In the future, digital technologies will allow users to personalize, customize and play with any element in songs to make them their own: the words, the soundtrack, the speed, the mood.
In this new age of personalized music, no song will be the same. Every customer will get a fully personalized, individual version of a song. The song might even change in real time based on how you feel or what goes on in your life when you listen to it.
How exactly the future of music will look like - nobody knows. We believe that digital downloads of music have just been the beginning of a tsunami of change in the music industry. The major part of the revolution is yet ahead of us. And we have a strong feeling that the major forces of change will evolve around interactivity and personalization.