Sign of the times
There must be many people in the music industry who wish the Internet had never been invented.
In the good-old days, piracy was limited by the difficulties of distributing media like tapes and CDs, but not anymore. The Internet, together with torrent technologies, means a piece of music can be distributed globally, in seconds, without the rights-holders receiving a penny for their troubles.
The industry has tried to stamp on prominent file-sharers with legal action, but the sheer scale and decentralisation of the practice means this method is unlikely to succeed. Slowly, however, it's realising that the way to stamp out piracy is to offer consumers such a good product that they want to pay for it.
This is where companies like 7digital come in. They have recently been among the pioneers of ‘DRM-free' downloads, have partnered with free music streaming site Spotify, and are instrumental in making it easier to purchase music on smartphones.
In an exclusive two-part interview, we spoke to 7digital CEO and co-founder Ben Drury. We started by asking about the brief history of the company, which culminated in Drury and his fellow owners selling half of it to entertainment retailer HMV for a cool £7.72 million. Drury also explained why he was never tempted to approach Dragons Den.
We also covered the impact of the partnership with Spotify and to what extent this may indicate the future direction of the music industry.
