Reblogged: @ London Calling: Bundled Music Services “Commoditizing” Music?

Good article covering the London Calling music conference on Thursday. lots of people debating how fans value music and the implications on the music industry, including the mobile world.
Some very relevant comments like:

• if giving music away in bundled services—such as Nokia’s Comes With Music--led to its further commoditization, ironically stoking the consumer view that music was something to be had for “free”
• Scott Lyons, director of Motorola’s Ecosystem Market Development team: How do you deal with creating this expectation for free music after the 18 months is up?
• Shazam CEO Andrew Fisher: there would be a backlash with Nokia’s Comes With Music service, as consumers would not entirely understand why they didn’t own the music though they had bought the handset
• Orange’s Head of Music Richard Wheeler: music is being paid for on mobile, but by a higher end demographic. The challenge for operators is reaching the younger, low-spending, usually pay-as-you go customers, who don’t typically pay for music off mobile if they can help it

Highly useful set of notes. Anyone using their eyes can see the elephant in the room: your target audience are exactly those younger, less likely to pay fans. They will not pay for music generally (outside the POS, which BTW, the operator own and can leverage), but at the same time they define themselves by music. They are very sensitive to the "ownership" of music, regardless how they got it.

IMO music, specifically mobile, needs to go D2C, ad supported. It's our job to deliver a service to the advertisers who are looking for healthy user profiles, and pass that revenue to the artists. They are the fuel of this whole thing.

Interested in your thoughts.