William Gibson on digital music

Actually, this was a talk he gave to the Director’s Guild of America, but it’s pretty relevant:

Some futurists, looking at the individual musician’s role in the realm of the digital, have suggested that we are in fact heading for a new version of the previous situation, one in which patronage (likely corporate, and non-profit) will eventually become a musician’s only potential ticket to relative fame and wealth. The window, then, in which one could become the Beatles, occupy that sort of market position, is seen to have been technologically determined. And technologically finite.

Very interesting stuff. The whole article is a good read, about the development of motion pictures and where they’re going. Another great quote:

The business of popular music, today, is now, in some peculiarly new way, entirely about promotion.

Creating music has become so inexpensive that promotion is really the big expense.