Producer of U2 and other acts says the business of recording music is not going to be profitable much longer

Brian Eno in his studio. Photograph: Harry Borden

Speaking with the Guardian.co.uk, famed record producer Brian Eno said the era of making oodles of money from recorded music is over.

Iconoclastic music producer Brian Eno has influenced the recorded rock scene since the 1970s. He was a member of Roxy Music, produced albums for David Bowie, Devo, John Cale, U2, Paul Simon, Talking Heads, Coldplay,Talking Heads and Slowdive. Eno is credited for spearheading the sound of “New Wave.”

Eno’s protege, Canadian Daniel Lanois, produced two of Bob Dylan’s great albums in the post-70s, Oh Mercy and Time Out of Mind. Between the two, they have earned numerous Grammy awards for music production.

When Eno speaks people have to wonder is he just an aging rocker getting tired.  Or does he know that music will largely go back to being free or almost free?

“I think records were just a little bubble through time and those who made a living from them for a while were lucky. There is no reason why anyone should have made so much money from selling records except that everything was right for this period of time. I always knew it would run out sooner or later. It couldn’t last, and now it’s running out.”

“I don’t particularly care that it is and like the way things are going. The record age was just a blip.”

“It was a bit like if you had a source of whale blubber in the 1840s and it could be used as fuel. Before gas came along, if you traded in whale blubber, you were the richest man on Earth. Then gas came along and you’d be stuck with your whale blubber. Sorry mate – history’s moving along.”

“Recorded music equals whale blubber. Eventually, something else will replace it. Guardian.co.uk”

The current battle between record companies, who hold most of the copyrights to recorded music, and users around the world who have adopted the Web 2.0 credo of free music rages. Despite high profile lawsuits against a few users and sites like Pirate Bay, it is estimated that there are 10 shared copies for every purchased copy of music.

Hundreds of millions of songs are downloaded or shared daily and no technical or legal system is likely to revive the sale of albums or CDs.

The advent of iTunes alone has destroyed the album business. Why buy 10 songs of a band when there is only one really good song on the album and 9 others that are throwaways, filler the band put there to make you pay $15. Now you can own what you want for $1.29 versus $15.

Even if iTunes growth in “paid” downloads increases it can’t make up for the tenfold drop in sales from users picking one or two songs off CDs instead of getting stuck with the whole thing.

The record labels can sue all the people they want. You can’t stop the tide or time.

In the history of man, selling music is a very new idea. Stephen Foster was considered the first person to make a living writing popular songs. He benefited from a technology boom in his time – the inexpensive manufacture of pianos. Around 1860, the design of pianos standardized and they began to be mass produced. That was made possible by technology: the iron frame that kept the piano from collapsing under the stress of 88 pairs of strings and the mass production techniques of the industrial revolution.

It was considered elegant and entertaining to purchase a piano for the parlor and have someone in the family learn to play it. A whole industry bloomed teaching young women to play the piano. This created a business in sheet music, which before that had been a tiny endeavor catering to professional musicians. Sheet music is software of it’s day, intellectual property that has no material value except for the person who wants it.

Stephen Foster who wrote popular songs like “Swanee River” and “Old Folks at Home” was able to make a living writing popular songs. Sheet music became money when people purchased the sheet music for their own homes.

As a model for artists of today, Foster never held a regular job and lived an alcoholic’s life on the easy earnings from selling sheet music. Ken Emerson explores the whole industry and Stephen Foster’s part in modern culture in Doo-dah!: Stephen Foster And The Rise Of American Popular Culture.

Technology creates markets and replaces them. Computers and digital music are replacing the CD just like it replaced the LP business, which replaced the 78 business, which replaced the record cylinder which replaced the business of selling sheet music.

The business of making money from recorded music has been 100 years in the making. While revenues are still in the billions annually, revenue growth has stopped. Perhaps the high-flying cocaine addictions of artists and record label executives will have to be trimmed. Like all dinosaurs, the fat cats will roar and bellow as they meet their death.