Håndteringen af musikfiler i krydsfeltet mellem downloading og streaming: En undersøgelse af hverdagens digitale musikbrug og remedieringen af musikformater

The digital online music use is made possible through many different platforms, software, and is delivered by a wealth of formats. Music listening is based on technologies that are part of and under influence of the general everyday media use. The same can be said for the music production and distribution that are likewise impacted by both the digitization and the Internet as a framework for the music use. That is why the everyday music use is often digital and online. In recent years music streaming has become mainstream in the Nordic countries. The music files are now used as a stream as well as a download. This study asks how young listeners, professional musicians, and music distributors use music files at the intersection between downloading and streaming practises. I study the music use through a medium theory framework focusing on the interaction of the media format and the use. Instead of analysing media I have analysed formats in and between everyday media technologies and specialised music software. The theoretical framework draws from format theory and cultural studies to investigate the technical and sociocultural foundations of the music use. The use of music files is contingent on both the technological as well as the sociocultural conditions of the music use. I study the remediation of the music file as a stream based on the conceptual model of a circuit of culture wherein the meanings of a cultural artefact are being made and negotiated (Gay mfl., 2013). Hereby commodification and re-commodification of music files and uses is linked to theories of remediation and media convergence (Bolter & Grusin, 2000; Jenkins, 2006). This approach is necessary due to the commodification of digital music to match the ever-changing and converging platforms and infrastructures all of which be used for digital music practises. I study the affordances of formats in relation to what I term format preserving and format changing uses. These are format internal and format external preservations and changes that are actuated through the software functions. Using these terms I show how the music files influence the music use of the actors while at the same time the material conditions of the music files are influences by the music use. I study this interrelationship focusing on the articulations of the music file as a stream and vice versa. To study the role of software I describe these as cultural software and grey zone software in order to investigate how software influences the music use through the regulations of the affordances of the music files (Manovich, 2013). Software studies also provide additional terms to study the meaning making that relies on the influences of software on the use of music. I analyse the technical transcoding and the cultural transcoding inherent in the digital remediation (Manovich, 2001). The proliferation of streaming does not necessarily entail a replacement of downloading practises. Theories of media convergence and remediation indicate that several technologies and practises can co-exist and influence each other. The scene of the study is defined through the use of an analytical framing of the intersection between downloading and streaming practises. The intersection is determined quantitatively by contemporary statistics about the market development and the music media use. This intersection serves as an analytical frame with which to examine qualitative comparisons, namely experiences of similarities and differences between the downloaded music file and the stream music file. In continuation of Sterne’s (2012a) work on the history and culture of the compressed music file I have examined the stream as a cultural artefact in contemporary digital online music use. My empirical data consists of semi-structured interviews ad hoc observations in connection with the interviews. I interviewed young listeners (n16), professional musicians (n10) and distributors from Spotify, TDC Play, Tidal, and 24/7 Entertainment (n4). Interviewing three different social groups (n30 total) represents a holistic approach with which to answer the question how music files are understood. The meaning making is articulated in uses ranging from creation and development through listening related uses to regulation and control. I chose a predominantly qualitative methodology because it fits well with a sociocultural perspective aiming to achieve deeper insights about the use of music files as a social scene in a specific context. Below I outline some premises and present the main findings of the study. File extensions such as .mp3 or .wav, or .mqa detail the format of the music file, its micro material state and whether the file is compressed or uncompressed. I characterise the music file as being micro material because the measurability of data is relevant in the adjustment of the music file to the infrastructure of the music use. And the establishing of the stream follows logic of the compressed music file and the same perceptual technics that apply to the commonly known format of the download-based music use, the mp3. The study outlines the platforms and software that supply the basis of what I conceive of as a multi format music use. The respondents’ interests and understandings of technical issues condition the use of variable music formats. A high level of technical understanding allows the distributors to commodify file sharing. The ensuing position of power is renegotiated when other technically skilled actors commodify stream ripping with an aim to file conversions easy to use. I show this in an analysis of the use of software that rips music from YouTube. I find contradictory articulations of sound quality among the three groups. The format and its representations in the user interface of diverse platforms is influential shaper of the ways the sound quality of the music files can be managed. But particularly the cultural transcoding that transforms sound quality to a computer issue by way of computer terms such as bitrate. This is reflected in the tangle of transcodes that I characterise as a phonographic effect (Katz, 2004) of the digital online music use. A distinct example of this is the tangle of transcodes that follow from the representation, regulation, and production of the stream on YouTube and the users’ subsequent uses, such as stream ripping. This tangle of technical and cultural transcodes I term a phonographic effect of YouTube, which stands as a significant hybrid at the intersection between downloading and streaming practises. I show how the digital online music use develops ambiguously and not in a straight flow from monomodal music files to being based on multimodal music video files. The listeners still seek what I term the clean music file on YouTube. Or they stream rip music files from video streams. Further music videos appear to be important because neither the music files with irregular metadata nor the playlists are visually prominent to the listeners. In the domain of the distributors, this is contingent on the metadata needing to step in place of the music file. The music file is most easily regulated if it is withheld in the cache of the music software. It is this regulated access to the music files that differentiates the stream as a cultural artefact. It is a significant analytical insight that a stream appears as the concealing of an already withholding cultural artefact. This makes it difficult to perceive the stream artefact. But in spite of this a music files are continuously transcoded to perform as a download or stream by the three groups. Hereby, I show how neither the remediation of the music file nor the concomitant articulations are definitive. Furthermore the available affordances of the music file have shifted due to the regulations of uses whether they be changing or preserving the format. As part of the IT industry and focusing on user-friendliness, the distributors negotiate the availability of affordances with the listeners throughout platforms and software. Next to this negotiation the musicians are left with a sceptical attitude that influences their evaluation of the stream and its affordances. Therefore music files, accessed and understood as a stream, seem to become a cultural transcode executed by the IT industry of previous physical delivery technologies. This happens much in the same way, as a collection of mp3-files is both a conversion as well as a remediation of the cd. In this process the IT industry translates the music use in accordance with computer oriented design ideologies. As a consequence we will only be able to understand the workings of contemporary music through the ideologies and rules of the computer. In spite of the power held by the distributors in alliance with the music business all three groups will be able to determine to what extend both the stream and streaming will be understood technically and culturally as both an artefact and an action. Micro material music files still carry meaning as download, as stream, also in the shape of music videos, and as collected on playlists. Concluding I outline some recommendations for the three groups. What can listeners, musicians, and distributors from this study of the digital online music use. The dissertation ends with a short call for further research of the way digital formats influence the technologies, the music use, and the contents they deliver. This call is based on the study as evidence of there not being a post-format era in sight.