Tanya Batson-Savage, Freelance Writer
Patrons use their cellphones to take pictures of Fantan Mojah as he performs at a concert in Brown's Town, St. Ann, in February. The coming of a new generation of cellphones may just mean a total shift in how music is distributed. - Contributed
THE ONGOING war between Digicel and Cable and Wireless continues to provide fodder for entertainment as it shifts into the schoolyard name-calling. Digicel and Cable and Wireless are busily pulling each other's hair out because the mobile phone market is a lucrative one, which shows no sign of reduction in the near future.
Yet, according Russell Hergert, head of Phredline, which collaborates with Digital Music Delivery (DMD), mobile phones can provide more than advertising entertainment. Hergert argues that the mobile phone technology is revolutionising the music industry and can allow Jamaica to finally eat the larger slice of profit from the reggae pie.
Hergert was one of the presenters at the Creative Industries Forum held as part of the International Reggae Day Festival. The forum was held at the Hilton Kingston on Thursday and focused on issues related to the creative industries, including film and television.
Additionally, his interests lay in promoting the potential of this new format as DMD offers this service, having worked through its explosion in Japan and is now moving into Europe where the technology is now taking hold.
The key lays in the twist of the 3G technology, as phones move from the 'can you hear me now' to becoming mobile personal entertainment units.
The cellular phone's introduction to modern technology has been quite beneficial in providing access for many who lie outside the digital loop.
MOBILE PHONES
Many communities in Jamaica found themselves finally able to get beyond having to holler across the hills while they awaited the non-arrival of landlines with the advent of mobile phones. A few years ago, one walking down the street seemingly talking to oneself would have simply been labelled crazy, but today it is quite normal.
Indeed, cellular technology has so impacted on global and 'glocal' culture that cultural scientists have begun to explore the cellular phone culture. The June-October (2005) issue of the Jamaica Journal includes the fascinating article by Daniel Miller and Heather Horst, 'Cellphone Come Like a Blessing: Religion and the Cellphone in a Rural Jamaican Town'.
The article highlights that access to cellular technology has significantly impacted on the lives of rural Jamaicans, linking into areas of life from access to medical services to staying in touch with relatives abroad and the life sustaining remittances that are responsible for keeping the country's foreign exchange income steady.
What DMD offers is access to services other than the communication that cellular phones now provide. While it is quite easy to get lost in the alphabet soup of mobile phone technology, as the letters GSM, TDMA, EDGE and a myriad others whiz by at lightning speed, what is clear between generations of phones are the capabilities of the different generations.
By their second coming, phones had moved from huge functional equipment to sleek, stylish accessories that also managed to have a functional use, whether by doubling as a camera or flashlight or by increasing entrepreneurial
possibilities.
VIDEO STREAMING
The 3G phones, such as the SamsungZ500, offer video streaming, video telephony and video messaging, while the Nokia 6630 offers 1.0 megapixel cameras, download of games, ring tones, digital clips, and the RAZR V3x has the capacity for video calling, mobile gaming and streamed TV.
As such, according to Hergert, 3G phones are able to give the music consumer more efficient access as they are no longer either tied to a computer or a brick and mortar store to get access to the music they want, when they want it and how they want it. As such, it is perfect for Generation Fun.
His major argument, however, was that the emerging market allows musicians to cut out the middle man or at least cut him down to size. In an earlier presentation Lala Deheinzelin, an executive VP of Instituto Pensarte and coordinator of the UN Global Special Advisors Committee on Creative Economy, noted that "Whoever, holds the
distribution, holds the power."
The situation of Jamaica music ideally speaks to that power relationship, as traditionally, though Jamaica remains the cradle for reggae, we are not the ones who rock it or eat the most when feeding time comes. Hergert argues that by giving direct access to the consumers, mobile phones can shift the power structure.
Hergert noted that the music industry has a tendency to cry that the sky is falling whenever technology changes. He noted that the introduction of radio, vinyl, cassettes, CDs and finally digital music have all had the music industry wailing and gnashing their teeth before they recognise the profit potential of the new technologies.
He noted, however, that despite the horrified yells of 'the pirates are coming, the pirates are coming!' by the industry with the arrival of digital music and file sharing, digital downloads have now begun to outsell the sale of singles. "You'll never kill piracy and it's crazy to try," he said.
"The colonialist days of a third party controlling the music from this region are over," he said. As such, Hergert argues that the arrival of the 3G phones mean that local producers can now hang up on the old model and dial in to greater profitability and control if they seize the opportunities that the opening up of the 3G market provides.
