Page 149 - AC/E's Digital Culture Annual Report 2015

AC/E Digital Culture Annual Report 2015149As Christensen anticipated in his now classic The Innovator’s Dilemma, it is the new agents – most of whom do not belong to the sector – who have transformed and reinterpreted sectors, businesses and processes thanks tothe reduction of barriers. To date none of the most disruptive models in the distribution and sale of cultural goods and services or entertainment has been spearheaded by the traditional leaders.MusicMusic and film are two of the sectors most affected by digitisation. Since the first appear- ance of P2P networks such as Napster and later, with the boom in streaming platforms, the record industry has continued to seek a sustain- able business model having become a paradigm of digital transformation. It would be necessary to go back to 1999, the year of the appearance of Napster – the first service for the exchange and distribution of files in MP3 format through P2P networks – to understand the transforma- tion of the phonographic industry. Digitisation has changed not only business models but more deep-seated aspects, such as the very concept of intellectual property.Although Napster has evolved into one of the hundreds of available services, its emergence marked a turning point not only in the sector but in the very history of the Internet. Exchange networks have now grown sophisticated and decentralised. Their use has declined to the benefit of other platforms that deliver streamed content. The “napsterisation” of the beginning of the century is giving way to the “streamification” of audio-visual content.how their business model has radically changed, such as music, the publishing and audio-visual sectors and the media. Then there are those such as museums, galleries and performing arts whose type of relationship with the public is affected by digitisation. The next section analyses the digital transformation the different industries are undergoing.The digital transformation has changed business models and relationships with the audiences of culture industries.Pandora and Spotify in music distribution, Netflix in the audio-visual sector, Amazonand Google in publishing, Buzzfeed and the Huffington Post in the media and Apple in all of them with iTunes are companies that are newly founded or came from other sectors. It is evident that this industrial reconversion is sparking friction between new and traditional agents.We should remember what happened in the first years of the decade with record companies and P2P networks or, more recently, between Amazon and Hachette.6Although there are similarities between the different sectors, each one has specific features that affect the depth of the process or the speed at which digital transformation occurs. Within the different sectors that make up the culture industries, we might draw a distinction between two main groups with respect to the impact digitisation is having on them. Roughly speaking, there are those that have witnessedPepe Cerezo