London Metropolitan Business School was delighted to host a guest talk from its newly appointed Visiting Professor, Scott Cohen (pictured top left). Scott is the founder of The Orchard, the largest independent distributor of online music in the world, supplying millions of tracks to online retailers in over eighty countries of the world.

Scott spoke of the crisis facing the music industry, drawing stark attention to nearly a decade of falling retail revenues against the backdrop of the collapse in CD sales and the activity of peer-to-peer file-sharing becoming mainstream for most internet users. Scott explored all of the possible future business models which the music industry could seek to extract value from, including promoting increased internet subscription modes of music consumption, seeking online advertising revenue shares, developing further new formats, increasing litigation against file sharing sites and users, and procuring record company participation in artists' live performance revenues.

Examining each in turn, Scott argued that at best each of these represents a mere "managing" of the forces of decline. Scott called instead for a radical examination of the ways in which the established models of exploiting recorded music (and intellectual property in general) are structurally undermined in the interactive digital environment, and called for a move away from old models of "selling" at the point of use and towards new models of "levying" access more generally.

Setting forth a proposal for levying a charge on each broadband account, of perhaps only 50p per week in some key territories, Scott set out a radical model for replacing all of the lost value in the music industry, and pointing the way for other "content" industries to respond to the harsh realities of online file sharing. Scott acknowledged the difficulties involved in setting up such a levy system and distributing its takings, but lively questions and answers indicated some possible solutions to these difficulties.

Scott's talk was very well attended by staff and students, and was widely acclaimed by those present as a great example of the cutting edge input Visiting Professors can bring to the University. London Metropolitan Business School is delighted to have appointed Scott Cohen as Visiting Professor and looks forward to his continued involvement with the Business School. This involvement is currently being fostered by the creation of the Future Music Business Research Unit (FMBRU), a research project being developed by Scott Cohen and LMBS Senior Lecturer, Pete Dyson.