Looking forward in the music industry, musicians better have good stage presence, or they just won’t make it. With cheaper versions of albums and songs online coupled with good old-fashioned piracy artists just can’t make enough money on selling their own music. According to this intelligent fellow, music artists nowadays need to make their money on the tour. People may be reluctant to buy recordings, but there is no indication that they’re getting tired of the concert. After all, a concert is something that is not reproducible. Since it is live, each concert, even of the same sequence of songs, will be different. That makes live performance unique. Perhaps, if Bowie is right and copyright will dwindle in recording, it will instead supplant itself on live performances. Even such a complex experience as a performance can be traced to a musician’s intellectual property.
I think stage presence has always been key in regards to an artists success. With the amount of talent out there, artists have always needed to have been able to hold their own on stage.
What he says seems fairly extreme, resorting to only having live concerts, any yet it makes sense. When things get recorded and distributed, there most likely will be a point when it won’t be able to be stopped, and at that point live concerts really would be the only unique thing left.