Operation Ringfence

The Internet poses interesting challenges to independent music. On the one hand it enables non mainstream musicians to gain ‘long tail’ exposure, through global communications assisting the search for new audiences and develop larger communities on a minimum budget. On the other hand, the plethora of opportunities to circumvent copyright and the ongoing concentration of the music market because of oligopolies such as Universal and Sony-BMG highlight how vulnerable independent music labels are in the digital music age. To ensure that the development of the Internet revolution works to the benefit of independent labels and its artists, a diverse net of organisations need to look towards developing or at least guiding Internet platforms to ensure that artistic creativity flourishes.

One Stop Shops: An Introduction
One stop shops are portals to other websites that help to draw pieces of information, data or Internet locations into one easily accessible forum, usually to unite numerous fragments into common themes, approaches or purposes.

Organisational benefits include being able to focus the strategic direction of policymakers, through encouraging the examination of purpose and competitive advantage (whether cooperative or competitive) improving knowledge share, as a result of increased levels of information and reducing the overlap of specialties.

Despite organisations being run independently of each other information can be presented to website viewers in numerous format styles. This can be especially useful in complex situations where information is unnecessarily scattered across the Internet. As information is funnelled into an orderly fashion into one location one stop shops are not only highly useful at being able to assist in informing or directing users quickly and accurately to the information that they require but are also effective at introducing users to new information from previously unknown sources.

Examples of one stop shops include:
www.omvguide.com Portal to online films, documentaries and tv programmes (legal and illegal)
www.politicshome.com Portal to politics articles and blogs as they are published
www.yourlondon.gov.uk Portal for local government issues
www.directgov.org Portal to government and public sector websites

Operation Ringfence
To ensure that independent record labels win the fight against both the major record labels and illegal piracy it is important to guarantee that there are some initiatives in place on the Internet that encourage the proliferation of legal and independent music. Currently, individual record companies are competing using existing ‘silo mentalities’ making it more difficult to compete in the long run against the greater marketing budgets and economies of scale of companies such as Universal and Sony-BMG. Individually, record companies will not be able to explain to individual Internet users the importance of ensuring that artists receive direct financial reward for their work. Uncoordinated, individual record companies will not be able to create sufficient incentives by themselves to make music fans looking for information and content on artists find and make use of material that is both independent and legal. One stop shops should seriously be considered as one of the many necessary strategic solutions to shield independent music producers and their artists from the damaging effects of the music majors and illegal piracy.

A website which provides up to date information on independent record labels alone would be a huge resource that should create a considerable level of Internet traffic. With the right balance of governance and computing code it should be possible to create a site which highlights the majority of artist information, including discography, reviews, tour dates, sites where you can purchase songs and merchandise, as well as numerous other information through providing speedy and accurate links.

The purpose of such a one stop shop site is not to be the creator of music information or content but to be the first focus to direct visitors to other music websites. Through creating new alliances between the independent record industry and the online media press it should be possible to create immediate and feeds of news, reviews and releases as they happen. Such agreements should provide enough incentives for media sites to participate, as providing such information should generate significant degrees of Internet traffic to their own websites. Complementary media, such as legal online radio and podcasts can also be given opportunity for inclusion in any framework and should be used as a method to include material to increase exposure for the site, develop improve cultural interdependency and improve the positioning of independent music.

A key area of examination for any one stop shop should be the level of exclusivity. The envisaged one stop shop site would not necessarily succeed just as a result of having up to 4000 labels being included on it, as without a sense of belonging and attachment site visitors would be less motivated to move from using search engines or existing music platforms. As a result, the nature of such a site should also have as open and democratic a system in place as possible to create interest from normal Internet users.

A site is likely to succeed more if a wiki function is included to ensure that users are able to include their review of an artist or comments on as level a playing field as other commentators. Such additions would be directly tagged in regards to an artist, making it possible for record labels to be immediately updated when additions have been made, so that any illegal or malicious content can be removed quickly. There would be a clear financial benefit to record labels in the fight to protect copyright, as websites featuring pirated material would be frozen from the site. When discussing tactical elements of the site any governance structure should emphasise neutrality in the reporting of labels or music, so that the site does not become tarnished by bias as a result of negative reviews being removed by thin-skinned record labels.

Also, when examining governance, smaller labels and musicians should be heavily considered for inclusion. One option is to require a small one off fee (say €5) as a subscription to act as a method of partly funding the site, separating dedicated musicians from very casual amateurs and deterring most forms of spamming techniques.

It should be possible to recover some of the cost of this enterprise through payment per click fees on profitable activities such as ticket bookings, mp3 downloads and suchlike. Advertising related exclusively to independent music should also be included as a method of increasing revenues, as well as proving a cost effective way for music related organisations to reach a targeted audience with, with the added benefit of not having to compete with the marketing budgets of the major labels or various other companies.

Effectively planned, such a one stop shop should encourage users curious about independent music to eventually consider it their first port of call for any music related enquiry. Later improvements to such a platform to improve interactivity, including personal profiles to generate custom made editorial based upon viewing habits, tools such as widgets or high interactivity with other platforms would do much to increase the interest and outreach of such a one stop shop.

Through the combination of providing an oasis safe from the whitewash of the major music players and key media platforms dependent on their success the aforementioned site would hopefully generate many advocates. Of course, there would be much effort required to initiate a scheme and there would be many hurdles that would need to be overcome. However, the development of such a platform would greatly protect and enhance independent music’s development in the digital age, strengthening independent music through developing a federation of empowered and financially remunerated cultural actors.


This article was written on 2nd September 2008 by Jonathan McHugh