Hi everyone, I wish to start a discussion no how the Internet might influence the music industries of Melanesia. Below is a (very) brief summary of some of the points raised at a recent ICT workshop held at the UPNG, which draws a bleak picture of internet use in PNG…
At an all day workshop held at the UPNG on Wednesday 23rd January, 2008, Tony Westaway of the internet company, Datec, stated that only 1% of the population in PNG had regular access to the internet. He also stated that the cost of using the Internet in PNG was among the top five most expensive countries on earth. At the same workshop, Sundar Ramamurthy of Datanet asserted that in order for prices to come down, and access improve, it is up to the government to open up competition by deregulating Telecom’s control of international gateways. Ramamurthy stated that if this was to happen, Internet prices would half overnight.
It seems that Telecom’s monopoly has a profound influence on the way the Internet has impacted, or not impacted, the music industry in PNG. Data transfer through the Internet is not an option under the current pricing. Ramamurthy stated estimated that sending Two Gigabytes of data via the Internet would cost around K1000. Considering the large size of multi-track audio sessions, sending an entire album electronically would be unthinkable, as some albums can be in excess of 20 Gigabytes, if drums are tracked to individual tracks. Under the current prices, sending the un-mixed recording sessions of an entire album via the internet could cost up to K10,000.
As for a market tool, the internet is used by very few PNG artists and studios (CHM’s website is dysfunctional and will soon be run out of Brisbane, and it will not target the local PNG market). What are peoples thoughts concerning the role Internet might play in the future of the industry in PNG? Is it all doom and gloom? What about elsewhere in Melanesia? What about for the consumer? illegal downloading? etc..
Access is the big issue and
Access is the big issue and 1% is low of course. That said, people do tend to share internet technology and combine it with older forms of communication. Before mobile phones became so common in PNG, we used to send messages to the village via email to friends in Moresby; they'd print them out and get them to the village - cut down our communication turnaround by days! Look at how programs like Adobe audition spread around - one person downloads, lots distribute CD copies. I figure that's a technique worth considering in relation to music distribution.
What about domestic wireless options - so that people could communicate using mesh networks? Why I bring this up is that I have been given an OLPC-XO (the one laptop per child prototype) and it uses a great networking system that can share a network connection. That means pretty extensive wireless infrastructure of course, and that's probably years and years away, but it is an alternative to the copper/cable system that a large percentage of western net access is based on. To those who think this is pie-in-the-sky I would simply say look how quickly an extensive mobile phone infrastructure has been put together. Text messages to the village (well - some villages sure!) was way off my radar even five years ago.
Finally, I find myself in an interesting bind in relation to copyright and rights protection in general in regard to music, because I think that because of the nature of digital distribution in places like Australia, that copyright is essentially failing. The gap between public norms of use and the law is so wide as to make a mockery of the laws. This is widely recognised and the system is at breaking point. To my point - where digital distribution is ubiquitous, copyright has to actually be weakened in order to strengthen the public domain from which a society's creativity stems.
To the quandary - the situation is very different in PNG because of the lack of digital distribution, so I'd argue that strong copyright protection and the involvement of a collection agency so that musicians can collect royalties makes more sense. It's a very differently scaled economy. That said, musicians in PNG should realise that copyright is ultimately more about economic exploitation for songwriters than it is about moral protection of song usage. Musicians in PNG need some guidance and information in that regard because there is so much misinformation flying around. We'll hopefully address that in the coming year with a conference/meetings and publications.
Wow - that was long! Good topic to discuss though.