Email marketing plays a key role in direct-to-fan campaigns. Below is a demonstration of why it's an important aspect of any marketing initiative and how other businesses are using email to reach their customers. The methods of determining success vary, but so do the reasons why people will open your email in the first place. Take a look below:Sunday, October 31, 2010
The Effectiveness Of Email Marketing Campaigns
http://www.flowtown.com/blog/why-email-marketing-is-still-in-vogue
Email marketing plays a key role in direct-to-fan campaigns. Below is a demonstration of why it's an important aspect of any marketing initiative and how other businesses are using email to reach their customers. The methods of determining success vary, but so do the reasons why people will open your email in the first place. Take a look below:
Email marketing plays a key role in direct-to-fan campaigns. Below is a demonstration of why it's an important aspect of any marketing initiative and how other businesses are using email to reach their customers. The methods of determining success vary, but so do the reasons why people will open your email in the first place. Take a look below:
2 New Google Features Could Help Artists Find Fans
Google has introduced two new location based features that offer opportunites for musicans building a fan base in their home town, as well as those on tour. The first, Place Search, was designed to make it easier to find local businesses along with maps and reviews, but it also could make it easier for fans to find the kind of music they like. A search for "bluegrass + Roanoke, Virginia" might bring up shows at the wonderful Kirk Avenue Music Hall, but Google's Place Search should help improve and streamile results. If Google were to add the results of a fan's Facebook pals to results as Bing has, search results could get even more powerful.
The other new Google feature called Boost, is a new type of ad for local businesses that musicians can us to their advantage. Boost ads show up when users search for local businesses appearing as sponsored links in search results and Google Maps. Having an ad for a band's show or new release placed, for example, next to serarch results for a top live music spot could prove an effective way to reach out to new fans.
The other new Google feature called Boost, is a new type of ad for local businesses that musicians can us to their advantage. Boost ads show up when users search for local businesses appearing as sponsored links in search results and Google Maps. Having an ad for a band's show or new release placed, for example, next to serarch results for a top live music spot could prove an effective way to reach out to new fans.
How Artist cant get feedback on their music
How Artists Can Get Feedback On Their Music
Want feedback on your music? Brian Hazard tests out Soundout, a music service that compares your song to 50,000 others from major and indie labels to tell you how good your track is. The service has a guaranteed 95% accuracy, but Brian Hazard reveals that there may be some flaws in the service since it only analyzes the first 60 seconds of a song. In addition, SoundOut may not be a good fit for artists in niche genres. For other genres, artists may find the detailed feedback helpful. “While I have some reservations about their methodology, SoundOut is the fastest way I know of to get an unbiased opinion from a large sample of listeners. Use it wisely!“ (Read On)
Comments
Yannick, the GeneralEclectic said...
On the downside, statistical analysis is always good for creating average music best liked by average listeners because that's what comes out when the Gaussian bell curve tolls. If I were a musician I'd rather take feedback directly from listeners who post it to me on social networking sites, then use my artistical instincts and go from there than to invest real money into some statistical research the result of which might only be discouraging instead of a good business move. Statistical analyses such as this one are tools for people selling music that do not have any enthusiasm for music in the 1st place, like major label CEOs. They can enjoy the figures without any psychological drawbacks. And if they believe them, maybe, only maybe they can create another boring little hit song from them.
I guess the old peer rated music chart system must have produced better music than the statistical approach that's the current trend because back then, the guesses that were taken into account at least were educated guesses.
I guess the old peer rated music chart system must have produced better music than the statistical approach that's the current trend because back then, the guesses that were taken into account at least were educated guesses.
Music Industry News: LimeWire Fallout, Dazzboard, YouTube CEO Exits, iTunes Sells Free Songs & More
Legal skirmishes over LimeWire damages ahead. (PaidContent)
- Dazzboard takes music collections to Facebook. (AFP)
- YouTube CEO Chad Hurley leaving to take advisory role (TechCrunch) They may not need Chad at the helm anymore and/or he did a great job. News stats show YouTube has hit 1 billion subscribers and is nearing profitability in large part to 500 million promoted video views.
More Music Industry News: - iTunes selling free songs for 99 cents. (DigitalAudioInsider)
- Apple doesn't need Spotify - and Spotify doesn't need Apple. (Register)
- The puppet masters of the music industry. (Nouse)
- Spira Mirabilis and the exciting new wave of young orchestras. (Guardian)
- MySpace Redesign Squanders Huge Opportunity: Turning Band Pages Into Apps (Evolver)
- After five years a court slams music pirate with huge fine – of $41.00 (TorrentFreak)
- Indie music retailers lining up strong exclusives for Christmas selling season launch. (LA Times)
- Marissa Nadler Shows How To Sell Fan Funded Albums (New Rockstar Philosphy)
- 23Video launches - This startup allows companies to create a full, video site, with a branded player for $675 a month. (Press)
BearShare Sees 780% Increase In US Downloads
www.bearshare.com
LimeWire falls and BearShare booms. Their daily US downloads went up from 8,000 to 62,400. This is an increase of 780%. Sadly, either there is reason to praise this statistic, since BearShare is now a legitimate service, or discount it, because file-sharers didn't know that. They thought it was the old-version. Thus, once they find out that they can't get free software and movies, along with their MP3s, they will jump ship.
However, not much info is available on how the new BearShare works, how exactly they've legalized their software, and if the fans adopting it are staying.
It sounds like they offer paid DRM laden WMA and MP3 files. From this, we can conclude that fans are now either paying for music or running for their lives.
--
LimeWire falls and BearShare booms. Their daily US downloads went up from 8,000 to 62,400. This is an increase of 780%. Sadly, either there is reason to praise this statistic, since BearShare is now a legitimate service, or discount it, because file-sharers didn't know that. They thought it was the old-version. Thus, once they find out that they can't get free software and movies, along with their MP3s, they will jump ship.
However, not much info is available on how the new BearShare works, how exactly they've legalized their software, and if the fans adopting it are staying.
It sounds like they offer paid DRM laden WMA and MP3 files. From this, we can conclude that fans are now either paying for music or running for their lives.
--
Saturday, October 30, 2010
FROST WIRE IS THE NEW LIME WIRE
FrostWire is a fork of the LimeWire source code, and as such, it functions exactly the same. When you search for a file using FrostWire, you get results from LimeWire, and vice versa.
However, the user experience differs in two ways. One is that the code is actually based on LimeWire Pro, the paid version of the popular P2P client, so users don't have to worry about simultaneous download restrictions, and they won't get bombarded by ads. Also, befitting the name, the interface has changed from green to blue and has been slightly improved. Tabs have rounded corners, and there are two additions, as well. Connections monitors your outgoing and incoming connections by host name, but also provides bandwidth information, the vendor and version being used, and more. There's also a built-in community chat.
When we tested it, the built-in media player in FrostWire didn't work with MP3s or MPGs, although those files worked fine in LimeWire and elsewhere. The app also comes bundled with the ASK toolbar, but you can opt out of that during the installation process. While some people have experienced faster download times with FrostWire compared with its parent, others have not. FrostWire and LimeWire are practically indistinguishable, although the lack of ads is a big plus.
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Monday, October 25, 2010
Friday, October 22, 2010
Does Your Music Always Come Out the Way You Want It To?
Creativity is as much a sickness as it is a gift.
On the one hand, creators are blessed with a lifetime of opportunities to bring their visions into the real world. On the other, most of them are tormented by insecurity, doubts, and the never-ending struggle of trying to create the ideal things their imaginations conjure up. The latter is one of the subjects in an editorial, “Found in Translation,” that the Pulitzer Prize (and PEN/Faulkner Award)-winning author Michael Cunningham published in this past Sunday’s New York Times.
“Found in Translation” begins by discussing the mechanics and challenges of translating a novel from one language to another, before moving on to the more personal challenge of turning one’s vision into a piece of art. The transfer of instincts, ideas, images, and emotions to words on a page or computer screen is, after all, basically just several layers of translation, and midway through Cunningham’s editorial, an unusually honest passage can be found:
Here’s a secret. Many novelists, if they are pressed and if they are being honest, will admit that the finished book is a rather rough translation of the book they’d intended to write. It’s one of the heartbreaks of writing fiction. You have, for months or years, been walking around with the idea of a novel in your mind, and in your mind it’s transcendent, it’s brilliantly comic and howlingly tragic, it contains everything you know, and everything you can imagine, about human life on the planet earth. It is vast and mysterious and awe-inspiring. It is a cathedral made of fire… But even if the book in question turns out fairly well, it’s never the book that you’d hoped to write. It’s smaller than the book you’d hoped to write. It is an object, a collection of sentences, and it does not remotely resemble a cathedral made of fire… It feels, in short, like a rather inept translation of a mythical great work.As someone who writes professionally and attempts to make music in many different ways, I was floored by how much I identified with this characterization. I am never happy with what I’ve written, especially once it’s done, and normally a very narrow range of the ideas and emotions I began with have been successfully wrestled down onto the final pages.
It occurred to me, as well, that very few musicians will speak candidly about how satisfied they are with their work. They have the pressure of selling that work, after all, and nobody wants to buy a product whose creation left the artist drained, frustrated, and maybe even a little acquiescent to the reality of their limited gifts.
Or do they?
Many years after the fact, they may talk about how much they’ve grown artistically, how far they’ve come from earlier work (think of Radiohead’s long-time disavowal of Pablo Honey’s songs), but for whatever reason, most labels, managers, and artists seem to shy away from discussing how difficult it is to make the album they want to make. Doing so, the thinking goes, is bad for business.
But is it?
Now that a premium is placed on artists building relationships with fans, doesn’t that call for an increased amount of honesty? Shouldn’t artists, especially those who profess to put their hearts and souls into their music, be more honest about just how difficult that is? About what each release fails to capture as much as what it perfectly encapsulates?
Think of the artists you discovered when they were rising. When they were young, when they had no idea how to record, when they couldn’t quite sing in tune, when the songwriting was ragged or sloppy or weird. Did you start to like them more after they got signed, when they got ushered into a big studio with an assured engineer who scrubbed the dirt out of their sound, put them on top of a mountain of reverb and overdubs and compression? Or did your relationship to that artist, and their music, start to change?
I’m not suggesting that high-end production is a bad thing, or that there’s anything wrong with seeking out a team of experts to assist you in creating what you want to create. But as that team grows bigger and bigger, as the gloss gets thicker and shinier, fans may begin to wonder why that’s happening, whether it’s necessary, and whether they are still listening to the same artist they remember.
It’s possible that I’m talking about apples and oranges here, that a novel is different from an album. But do you always wind up with the music you set out to create? What are you looking for, when you hire someone to help record your music, or someone to master or mix what you’ve done? And isn’t it possible that some of your fans will care about those struggles just as much as you do?
—
This article was originally published on We All Make Music.
10 Things Bands Can Do to Book More Live Shows
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| 1 SHOT DOT & Da G.A.T.E |
1. Create a YouTube channel for your band.
Upload a live performance video on YouTube that represents your band at its best. Include a phone number and e-mail address too, so that anyone who wants to book you can contact you easily. Say something like “Contact ________ to book us for a live show.” To show professionalism and interest, try your best to respond to every inquiry within 48 hours.2. Print up nice business cards
…with your band name, links to your music, live videos, and a phone number and e-mail address that can be reached for booking purposes. Also, include a link to your website so they can learn more about you. You’d be surprised how many bands STILL write down their phone numbers on dirty napkins and torn pieces of paper. Wherever you go, tell people who you are, how good you are, where you are playing next, and how easy it is for them to book you directly.3. Go watch other bands that sound like you.
If there are any bands in your area with large followings, get out to a couple shows and become friends with other bands. Ask the bigger bands to let you open for them, maybe in exchange for some kind of help like designing a website, flyer, banner, etc. The harder you work for a band bigger than your band, and the more respectful you are to them and their efforts, the more likely they will consider you for an opening slot. Talk up how good your band is and why you are better than similar bands in the area.4. Tell your fans how easy it is to book you.
Wherever you play - the street, house party, club or major venue, make sure your fans are aware that you’re willing to play anywhere. Use the Live Music Machine’s booking and calendar widget. Put it on your Facebook page, MySpace profile, personal web site, etc. and tell your fans to go there and book you for their private events, house parties, etc. After playing a gig, you should walk around the audience, engage people, ask them what they thought of the show, and let them know you are available to play live anywhere they want you too. Telling them that will definitely help you stand out from the pack.5. Get guerilla.
Set up wherever there is a crowd of people who might like your music and play for them. Club, high school, venue, and stadium parking lots. How many tailgate parties do you think would love some free entertainment? Play outside clubs where bands are playing that fit in with your style of music. Those people waiting in line are going to be bored, so playing a spontaneous gig right on the spot will definitely make an unforgettable impression.6. Don’t forget the old school.
Hand out flyers and post cards at events that have a link to free stuff and a way to book you for a gig.7. Network with key industry people at events and conferences.
Radio PD’s and DJ’s, club owners, band managers, label executives, and others all attend music conferences quite regularly. Say hello to these people, maybe buy them a drink or dinner, but don’t make a nuisance of yourself. Respect their space and don’t try shoving a CD in their face two minutes after meeting them. Introduce yourself casually, let them know who you are and where they can see you play. If’s it’s a club owner, tell them you would love to come in during the day and do a free audition for a free gig. Just make sure you can get a place to sell your merchandise if you nab a gig. Offer to play at places that may not always host live music, like restaurants, coffee shops, stores, and malls.8. Get creative.
Write up a proposal and present it to the appropriate person at your local school board, offering to do a series of free shows to raise money for the school athletic or band program. Ask to perform during a school assembly when they can provide you with a built-in audience.9. Find places where bands similar to yours play.
Use ReverbNation’s “Gig Finder” to figure out where bands are getting booked in your area. However, e-mailing clubs with your RPK or EPK usually won’t get any results, because many of these venues have yet to claim their venue pages on ReverbNation. Instead, after finding some good places, print out your press kit and mail it to them, or better yet, personally drop it off it in a nice professional package along with a CD to any decision maker at the club. Follow up with a call within a couple of days so you stay fresh in their minds. If the decision maker has an assistant, get to know that person and you will find that it will be much easier to get in the door. If you email them anything at all, make it your MySpace link along with a concise paragraph stating why they should book you. For some reason, most clubs still feel most comfortable checking you out on MySpace, so play by their rules.10. Do a gig swap!
If you have a respectable following or are an up and coming band, use sites like Indieonthemove.com and Splitgigs.com to trade and share gigs with other bands who might want to break into your market. Collaboration is key to success in today’s fragmented music industry.BONUS TIP! Everywhere you go, wherever you play, whomever you talk to about your band… collect as many e-mail addresses as you can. E-mail is still one of the best ways to communicate directly with your fan base, and develop long-lasting relationships.
20 Alternative Ways To Create A Sustainable Career In Music BY: AuthorJonathan Ostrow | Print ArticlePrint Article | Comment10 Comments |
As it becomes more evident that the new music industry will in no way resemble the construct of the past, many musicians are left trying to figure out how they can create a sustainable, or even lucrative career in music. Although album sales are on the decline, there is no decline in alternative jobs for musicians.
The idea that any emerging artist can become the next multi-platnum recording artist is null and void. Save for very rare instances, there is just not the level of demand in music that creates the necessary environment for a superstar to develop, and those who do break through at that level either had the connections or the marketing team that was smart enough to mold the musician to look and sound exactly how the labels want them to. But this is nothing new.
As the DIY Musician movement strengthens, musicians are continually gaining more understanding as to how they can sustain a career in music without the need to sign to a record label and sell over 1 million copies. There is a seemingly limitless way for musicians to use their knowledge of any and all aspects of music to create a sustainable career doing what they love:
Music Licensing
Music licensing is a great opportunity for any aspiring musician to get paid for their recorded works to appear in TV and film. Helen Austin, a musician who has dedicated her career in music to licensing her works has put together a wonderful article on laying out the 4 Steps to Film and TV Placement.
Live Performance
The live performance sector is seen by many as the new focal point of the music industry. Although ticket giant Live Nation reported a drop in ticket sales for the summer of 2010, the live performance scene surrounding the emerging music scene has been flourishing. A new trend for musicians, especially in the upcoming hip-hop scene is to forgo signing with a record label, only to sign with a major booking agency who can effectively act as the liaison between the artist and other, well established artists and venues.
Studio/ Session Musician
There is always a demand for highly trained, highly qualified musicians to step in and add support on an album. This is not limited to any instrument or genre and can range from freelance work to working contractually for a major label. However, as the demand is high, so is the competition - in order to work as a studio/ session musician, you MUST be able to read music at a fluent rate and be able to adjust your playing to suit the needs of the client.
Band Manager
The negotiation skills and industry understanding gained from your own endeavors are the perfect skill set to get you started as a new band manager.
Music Teacher
Teaching music can be done at quite a few different levels of understanding and pay-grade, ranging from private in-home lessons up to collegiate-level music study. While it is certainly an attainable goal to establish a few clients and teach out of your own home without having a degree in music, it is almost guaranteed that you will need to have a degree in music and possibly even teaching in order to teach in any sort of professional setting.
Pit Band For Off-Broadway Productions
Although most broadway productions use classical music and orchestras, there are many off-broadway productions that contain much more contemporary forms of music. National Shows like Cirque De Sole and Blue Man Group, as well as many other smaller performances have scaled down from the orchestra to a smaller, Rock n’ Roll oriented music section.
Instrument Repair Technician
This can be done as either a part-time or full time job, and depending on your level of specialization, it can greatly range in pay-scale. Though you may be able to find work based on understand you’ve gain from your own research, this is one of those jobs that typically requires some sort of apprenticeship before you are fully hired as a professional technician. If this is something you are considering, there are quite a few resources out there, such as NAPBIRT that provide a free exchange of information for instrument repair technicians.
Book Bands For a Local Venue
Booking other music acts for a local venue is a great way to not only learn the inter-workings of the live music industry, but to gain some potentially valuable contacts should you ever decide to give it a go yourself.
Ghost Songwriter
Many musicians and artists have forged especially lucrative careers out of ghost songwriting for singers, performers and pop-stars. It is a fact that while Britney Spears was at the height of her fame, a woman named Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta was writing the songs for her. More recently, Stefani has gone on to become one of the most successful pop stars of all time under the name Lady Gaga.
House Band/ Residency
There are clubs, bars, theaters, restaurants, hotels, resorts and even cruises all over the world that look for groups or solo musicians willing to act as the resident band. These residencies can range from nightly to weekly to monthly and offer a steady stream of income while you take the time needed to write and establish a fan base.
Page Turner
This one seems a little ridiculous, but there is actually a demand for ‘page turners’ who can literally sit and read along with musicians, turning the pages of sheet music at exactly the right moment. Check out this article from NPR that explains how it all works.
Music Transcriber
There are plenty of musicians and singer-songwriters who lack the understanding of music theory to be able to transcribe their music. Many musicians have found freelance work by charing an hourly rate to sit down with other musicians who play back what they’ve written while it is all transcribed on sheet music. Not a bad gig if you enjoy listening to music at an extremely slowed-down rate…
Film/ Video Game Scoring
Similar to music licensing, there is a plethora of major and indie film and/or video game makers looking for musicians to score their work.
Freelance Music Journalism
There is no one with more potential to become a freelance music journalist than a musician. The understanding of music theory and the music industry as whole can be just the qualifications needed to write insightful reviews of albums or live performances or maybe even essays for about the current trends or state of the music industry.
Music Production
Of course, with the DIY music movement becoming so contagious, many musicians have begun to take the many aspects of music production into their own hands. Ranging from recording to mixing to mastering, many musicians have created sustainable careers in the field of Music Production, allowing them to then later fund their own projects with their own money and experience.
These are just a few of the many, many ways to use your love for music to establish a sustainable career. While not all of the possibilities are glamorous or even all that lucrative, meaning it may take a few different revenue streams to make this music-filled lifestyle sustainable, you can at least rest assured knowing that your life is fueled by what you love… Music.
The idea that any emerging artist can become the next multi-platnum recording artist is null and void. Save for very rare instances, there is just not the level of demand in music that creates the necessary environment for a superstar to develop, and those who do break through at that level either had the connections or the marketing team that was smart enough to mold the musician to look and sound exactly how the labels want them to. But this is nothing new.
As the DIY Musician movement strengthens, musicians are continually gaining more understanding as to how they can sustain a career in music without the need to sign to a record label and sell over 1 million copies. There is a seemingly limitless way for musicians to use their knowledge of any and all aspects of music to create a sustainable career doing what they love:
Music Licensing
Music licensing is a great opportunity for any aspiring musician to get paid for their recorded works to appear in TV and film. Helen Austin, a musician who has dedicated her career in music to licensing her works has put together a wonderful article on laying out the 4 Steps to Film and TV Placement.
Live Performance
The live performance sector is seen by many as the new focal point of the music industry. Although ticket giant Live Nation reported a drop in ticket sales for the summer of 2010, the live performance scene surrounding the emerging music scene has been flourishing. A new trend for musicians, especially in the upcoming hip-hop scene is to forgo signing with a record label, only to sign with a major booking agency who can effectively act as the liaison between the artist and other, well established artists and venues.
Studio/ Session Musician
There is always a demand for highly trained, highly qualified musicians to step in and add support on an album. This is not limited to any instrument or genre and can range from freelance work to working contractually for a major label. However, as the demand is high, so is the competition - in order to work as a studio/ session musician, you MUST be able to read music at a fluent rate and be able to adjust your playing to suit the needs of the client.
Band Manager
The negotiation skills and industry understanding gained from your own endeavors are the perfect skill set to get you started as a new band manager.
Music Teacher
Teaching music can be done at quite a few different levels of understanding and pay-grade, ranging from private in-home lessons up to collegiate-level music study. While it is certainly an attainable goal to establish a few clients and teach out of your own home without having a degree in music, it is almost guaranteed that you will need to have a degree in music and possibly even teaching in order to teach in any sort of professional setting.
Pit Band For Off-Broadway Productions
Although most broadway productions use classical music and orchestras, there are many off-broadway productions that contain much more contemporary forms of music. National Shows like Cirque De Sole and Blue Man Group, as well as many other smaller performances have scaled down from the orchestra to a smaller, Rock n’ Roll oriented music section.
Instrument Repair Technician
This can be done as either a part-time or full time job, and depending on your level of specialization, it can greatly range in pay-scale. Though you may be able to find work based on understand you’ve gain from your own research, this is one of those jobs that typically requires some sort of apprenticeship before you are fully hired as a professional technician. If this is something you are considering, there are quite a few resources out there, such as NAPBIRT that provide a free exchange of information for instrument repair technicians.
Book Bands For a Local Venue
Booking other music acts for a local venue is a great way to not only learn the inter-workings of the live music industry, but to gain some potentially valuable contacts should you ever decide to give it a go yourself.
Ghost Songwriter
Many musicians and artists have forged especially lucrative careers out of ghost songwriting for singers, performers and pop-stars. It is a fact that while Britney Spears was at the height of her fame, a woman named Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta was writing the songs for her. More recently, Stefani has gone on to become one of the most successful pop stars of all time under the name Lady Gaga.
House Band/ Residency
There are clubs, bars, theaters, restaurants, hotels, resorts and even cruises all over the world that look for groups or solo musicians willing to act as the resident band. These residencies can range from nightly to weekly to monthly and offer a steady stream of income while you take the time needed to write and establish a fan base.
Page Turner
This one seems a little ridiculous, but there is actually a demand for ‘page turners’ who can literally sit and read along with musicians, turning the pages of sheet music at exactly the right moment. Check out this article from NPR that explains how it all works.
Music Transcriber
There are plenty of musicians and singer-songwriters who lack the understanding of music theory to be able to transcribe their music. Many musicians have found freelance work by charing an hourly rate to sit down with other musicians who play back what they’ve written while it is all transcribed on sheet music. Not a bad gig if you enjoy listening to music at an extremely slowed-down rate…
Film/ Video Game Scoring
Similar to music licensing, there is a plethora of major and indie film and/or video game makers looking for musicians to score their work.
Freelance Music Journalism
There is no one with more potential to become a freelance music journalist than a musician. The understanding of music theory and the music industry as whole can be just the qualifications needed to write insightful reviews of albums or live performances or maybe even essays for about the current trends or state of the music industry.
Music Production
Of course, with the DIY music movement becoming so contagious, many musicians have begun to take the many aspects of music production into their own hands. Ranging from recording to mixing to mastering, many musicians have created sustainable careers in the field of Music Production, allowing them to then later fund their own projects with their own money and experience.
These are just a few of the many, many ways to use your love for music to establish a sustainable career. While not all of the possibilities are glamorous or even all that lucrative, meaning it may take a few different revenue streams to make this music-filled lifestyle sustainable, you can at least rest assured knowing that your life is fueled by what you love… Music.
Music & Social Shifts (a personal account) via brian john mitchell
People are wondering why people don’t want to pay for music. For twenty-five years music has been falling out of favor as a community event & being a community event is the secret to what made music so special & powerful & life changing. Ask ten people under 30 to name ten albums that influenced their life, ask ten people 35 to 55 the same question. Even the older folks who aren’t music fans have answers. Times have changed slowly & surely. Probably 40 years ago we could have seen the same discussion about Broadway shows (the relics of my mother’s love for musicals has me knowing a hundred songs from shows I’ve never seen that she sang to me as a child) or television programs like Milton Berle or Red Skelton or Ed Sullivan that I only know of by name.
Today it seems like as we continue to get more technologically advanced, we are continuing to get more physically & socially isolated. Movies seem to have become something to watch at home alone. Video games seem to be something to occupy single men’s free time. So where are we headed? Is Facebook as close as we get to social interaction? Is there going to be some artistic thing that will cause people to gather together? Will plays come back in vogue? Will young people start to gather in cells to make their own films & music? Will churches be the main answer to the need for social events as they were in the 1800s? Give us 30 years & whatever it is will be so obvious that we can’t believe it ever wasn’t central or ever won’t be central to society.
—
Brian John Mitchell runs Silber Records & the webzine QRD & makes music as Remora, Vlor, & Small Life Form.
Today it seems like as we continue to get more technologically advanced, we are continuing to get more physically & socially isolated. Movies seem to have become something to watch at home alone. Video games seem to be something to occupy single men’s free time. So where are we headed? Is Facebook as close as we get to social interaction? Is there going to be some artistic thing that will cause people to gather together? Will plays come back in vogue? Will young people start to gather in cells to make their own films & music? Will churches be the main answer to the need for social events as they were in the 1800s? Give us 30 years & whatever it is will be so obvious that we can’t believe it ever wasn’t central or ever won’t be central to society.
—
Brian John Mitchell runs Silber Records & the webzine QRD & makes music as Remora, Vlor, & Small Life Form.
The Real and ONLY Reasons Why Fans File-Share Music
Thus far, we’ve looked at eight reasons why fans file-share music.
Mainly, they’re unaware of the number of legal and alternative options to consume music that are available; they want to hear music and grow to like the songs before they buy them; or they don’t know the artist, either not well enough or at all, or don’t trust them, due to recent line-up or sound changes. Rebuilding that trust takes time and isn’t easy.
As well, fans file-share music when there’s too many hoops to jump through on an artist’s website or because the offer that the artist made, whether by price, package, or delivery, was terrible. Next, we looked at the role that the biases of digital technologies play into file-sharing—the different ranges of social behavior they promote in audiences.
We also tried to understand how choice overload can cause decision paralysis, leading fans to become overwhelmed. To cope, they take the path of least resistance, attempt to explore all of their options at once, and end up committing to no decision at all.
Lastly, we looked at how fans employ their own Internet law of economics when buying music and end up file-sharing it to mitigate the risk purchasing with an album they wouldn’t have otherwise bought. A number of motivations were intentionally left out of this analysis. Let us now explore some of the more common reasons why fans file-share:
1. Because They Can
Why do dogs lick their butts? Because they can. Why do teens sext each other? Because they can. Why do men and women cheat on each other in a relationship? Because they can. So, why do fans file-sharing music online? Because they can. Taylor Northern went as far as writing an entire blog post to illustrate this idea.
The whole psychology of the behavior can be ignored, as this simple fact of life explains everything. It’s an axiom of human conduct. This assertion, however, implies that there’s no rational behind file-sharing. Since fans can just download music for free, they do. Why did they download Katy Perry’s new album instead of legally downloading it off iTunes?
Because they can. They have no argument or excuse to justify why they downloaded the music. It was there. They wanted it. So they file-shared it. End of story. This is a dangerous argument—not because there isn’t truth to it. It, however, implies the reverse thought.
How do we make it so they can’t file-share? After all, if they’re only doing it because they can, then this is a simple fix. We can stop them.
The problem is that this notion flies in the face of everything else we know:
2. They Don’t Care
I’ve been told that fans don’t buy music because they don’t care about paying artists. It’s that simple. Technology writer Nick Bilton has argued that it’s not so much that people don’t care about cultural creators; it’s that the web, by its very design, lacks humanization.
“People are oblivious to the fact that a human being is on the other side of the digital information that they are consuming,” Bilton writes in I Live In The Future & This Is How It Works. Yes, the web has enabled performers to connect with their fans and humanize themselves. But to most, artists still live in the radio and don’t exist in the real world.
Instead of assuming that fans don’t care about paying artists, why not ask why they don’t?
Our society places a low premium on cultural creators. Arts and music have been pushed out of the classroom in favor of subjects that prepare students to take their standardized tests better. Like many aspects of their lives, like food, clothing, and electronics, people don’t have a clue where music comes from. They’re disconnected from the processes of arts creation and from the real people and places involved. The business of music and the commercialization of the public listening sphere is something that they’re ignorant of.
If the contention is that the fans don’t care about paying artists, it assumes that as a society we’ve given them a reason to care. Have we given them one? Or have we failed to nature a public that cares about any kind of artists? Painters and poets are artists too.
Last I checked no one cares if they make money either.
3. Music Is Worthless
It has also been suggested that fans just don’t value music in a meaningful way.
As I’ve argued in the past, this argument is misguided; it fails to ask the more meaningful question. Is it that people don’t value music? Or, is it that music has become in some way disconnected from its cultural value? Months later, I still don’t have the answer to that one.
From the perspective of Steve Lawson, there’s another part of this argument that its proponents fail to consider. The simple fact, he argues, is that, “Music is worthless.”
The kind of music that we recognize as music and of having value—those noises that fit within the ‘organized sound’ definition—that has “no inherent value at all.” Lawson continues, “All the value is contextual. It can be invested, it can be enhanced, it can even be manufactured counter to any previously measured notions of ‘quality’ with a particular idiom, but it’s not innate. Noise is not a saleable commodity.”
His whole argument, one he has made before: the financial value of music “is entirely based on the listener’s sense of gratitude for it.” To him, that gratitude manifests itself in different ways, but is commonly expressed by sharing, saying thank you, or paying for it.
So, what happens when that person is no longer grateful for music itself for existing, the artist who created it, or the person that introduced them to it? As well, what happens when that person has become unwilling to express that appreciation by sharing it friends, saying thank you to the artist, or buying it from a retailer? Well, that scary experiment is playing out right now. Music is being taken for granted—almost as if it’s a fact of life.
It is. But, not on the scale that fans are betting it to be. The ramifications to this aren’t obvious. Nor will they reveal themselves for quite awhile.
Why are people willing to pay $6.21 for a Venti coffee and muffin from Starbucks, but recoil at the idea of spending that much on a few songs? It’s a hard call. Somewhere along the way, they’ve become disconnected from the value and society has failed to instill in them an appreciation for all cultural creators. Somehow, I don’t think turning off their web connection or suing them for everything they have will make them value art more.
4. Keeping the Money
Pop-culture essayist Chuck Klosterman nailed this one.
“People didn’t stop buying albums because they were philosophically opposed to how the rock business operated, and they didn’t stop buying albums because the Internet is changing the relationship between capitalism and art,” he writes. “People stopped buying albums because they wanted the fucking money. It’s complicated, but it’s not.”
Napster spread on college campuses full broke students looking to save money. They found a way to save money by downloading music and not buying it. Therefore, they did. No lawn protests occurred. Fans didn’t care about the corporate influence on music in the public sphere; the mistreatment of artists by labels; or even the declining quality of commercial music. They wanted to keep the money. It’s complicated, but it’s not.
His wider theory is file-sharing came at a time when many fans where looking to reallocate money to pay off their self-imposed debt, whether that be credit cards or student loans. There’s an article that appeared on Forbes titled “No Job And $50,000 In Student Debt. Now What?” The answer to that question, as I see it, is that they’re not purchasing albums anytime soon. They can’t afford music or their burnt coffee anymore either.
Assuming that the fans aren’t that broke and are keeping the money. What are they spending it on? Klosterman isn’t convinced that people’s disposable income budgets are interchangeable—that because they aren’t spending money on music, they’re buying video games and movies instead. Charles Arthur at The Guardian has argued otherwise.
He has contended, “the music industry’s deadliest enemy isn’t file-sharing – it’s the likes of Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony, and a zillion games publishers.” He thinks gaming packs more value than music and the attention of fans, along with their money, has shifted.
Additional Reasons
There are two additional reasons that fans file-share music.
Everyone’s doing it . “The simple truth is that humans, being first and foremost social creatures, rather than independent agents, rely on copying to learn and to negotiate the rich and sophisticated social reality they inhabit,” write Mark Earls and Alex Bentley in Forget Influentials. “Copying is our species’ number one learning and adaptive strategy.” Fans copy the behavior of others fans and they spread; it’s pulled through the population.
No one gets caught. Fans file-share because everyone else they know does it and certainly, they aren’t the ones that would ever get caught. They’re smarter than that. Those who got sued must have done stupid things that put them at risk. No matter how scary the stories get about fans getting sued, people generally believe that bad things won’t happen to them. It’s basic psychology. We imagine the future and see only good things. Of course, around 30,000 fans have been caught file-sharing music. But, none of us knows enough people to know someone close to us that got sued and we wrongly assume that our chances have lessened. After all, I don’t know anyone who has been caught—do you?
Where Does This Leave Us?
Breaking the Internet won’t fix the record industry. Instead, we must build a digital ecology of music culture that pays artists for their art and supports creativity. Along the way, we must protect, as legal scholar Larry Lessig says in Free Culture, “the space for innovation and creativity that the Internet is.” Just as we strive to defend artists and the innovation and creativity that their music is, we must defend what the Internet is: an architecture to enable unplanned and unforeseen innovation. Doing otherwise would be a grave mistake.
It’s time that we start thinking honestly about what music means to us and the future we’re attempting to create for it. This is a time of turbulence. The evolution of this ecosystem, if fueled by our curiosity and imaginations, will resolve most facets of music piracy. File-sharing is both market and moral failure. “The Internet is in transition,” Lessig writes. “We should not be regulating a technology in transition. We should instead be regulating to minimize the harm to interests affected by this technological change, while enabling and encouraging, the most efficient technology that we can create.” The changes that we seek won’t happen overnight, as beyond the technological, they’re also cultural and societal.
Meanwhile, the best thing we can do is focus on reconnecting real people, places, and values. If we desire to nurture a society that values that ‘art’ that music is, it begins at a local level. Show people the beauty beneath the scars and the lyrics became the bloodstained poetry on your heart. Why music matters has nothing to do with musicians and everything to do with the meaning it creates in people’s lives. Connect your audience to that meaning and value is created. Preserving that value doesn’t take breaking the Internet. All it takes is reminding real people in real places why music matters to you
Mainly, they’re unaware of the number of legal and alternative options to consume music that are available; they want to hear music and grow to like the songs before they buy them; or they don’t know the artist, either not well enough or at all, or don’t trust them, due to recent line-up or sound changes. Rebuilding that trust takes time and isn’t easy.
As well, fans file-share music when there’s too many hoops to jump through on an artist’s website or because the offer that the artist made, whether by price, package, or delivery, was terrible. Next, we looked at the role that the biases of digital technologies play into file-sharing—the different ranges of social behavior they promote in audiences.
We also tried to understand how choice overload can cause decision paralysis, leading fans to become overwhelmed. To cope, they take the path of least resistance, attempt to explore all of their options at once, and end up committing to no decision at all.
Lastly, we looked at how fans employ their own Internet law of economics when buying music and end up file-sharing it to mitigate the risk purchasing with an album they wouldn’t have otherwise bought. A number of motivations were intentionally left out of this analysis. Let us now explore some of the more common reasons why fans file-share:
1. Because They Can
Why do dogs lick their butts? Because they can. Why do teens sext each other? Because they can. Why do men and women cheat on each other in a relationship? Because they can. So, why do fans file-sharing music online? Because they can. Taylor Northern went as far as writing an entire blog post to illustrate this idea.
The whole psychology of the behavior can be ignored, as this simple fact of life explains everything. It’s an axiom of human conduct. This assertion, however, implies that there’s no rational behind file-sharing. Since fans can just download music for free, they do. Why did they download Katy Perry’s new album instead of legally downloading it off iTunes?
Because they can. They have no argument or excuse to justify why they downloaded the music. It was there. They wanted it. So they file-shared it. End of story. This is a dangerous argument—not because there isn’t truth to it. It, however, implies the reverse thought.
How do we make it so they can’t file-share? After all, if they’re only doing it because they can, then this is a simple fix. We can stop them.
The problem is that this notion flies in the face of everything else we know:
1. Mass behavior is hard to change.
2. Copying will only get easier.
3. Sharing is human.
4. Knowledge is a curse.
5. Unintended consequences occur.
On a later date, I will follow up on these ideas. Suffice it to say, there’s no way to make it so fans can’t file-share. Trying to do so only ignores the many problems that are bigger than file-sharing music.2. They Don’t Care
I’ve been told that fans don’t buy music because they don’t care about paying artists. It’s that simple. Technology writer Nick Bilton has argued that it’s not so much that people don’t care about cultural creators; it’s that the web, by its very design, lacks humanization.
“People are oblivious to the fact that a human being is on the other side of the digital information that they are consuming,” Bilton writes in I Live In The Future & This Is How It Works. Yes, the web has enabled performers to connect with their fans and humanize themselves. But to most, artists still live in the radio and don’t exist in the real world.
Instead of assuming that fans don’t care about paying artists, why not ask why they don’t?
Our society places a low premium on cultural creators. Arts and music have been pushed out of the classroom in favor of subjects that prepare students to take their standardized tests better. Like many aspects of their lives, like food, clothing, and electronics, people don’t have a clue where music comes from. They’re disconnected from the processes of arts creation and from the real people and places involved. The business of music and the commercialization of the public listening sphere is something that they’re ignorant of.
If the contention is that the fans don’t care about paying artists, it assumes that as a society we’ve given them a reason to care. Have we given them one? Or have we failed to nature a public that cares about any kind of artists? Painters and poets are artists too.
Last I checked no one cares if they make money either.
3. Music Is Worthless
It has also been suggested that fans just don’t value music in a meaningful way.
As I’ve argued in the past, this argument is misguided; it fails to ask the more meaningful question. Is it that people don’t value music? Or, is it that music has become in some way disconnected from its cultural value? Months later, I still don’t have the answer to that one.
From the perspective of Steve Lawson, there’s another part of this argument that its proponents fail to consider. The simple fact, he argues, is that, “Music is worthless.”
The kind of music that we recognize as music and of having value—those noises that fit within the ‘organized sound’ definition—that has “no inherent value at all.” Lawson continues, “All the value is contextual. It can be invested, it can be enhanced, it can even be manufactured counter to any previously measured notions of ‘quality’ with a particular idiom, but it’s not innate. Noise is not a saleable commodity.”
His whole argument, one he has made before: the financial value of music “is entirely based on the listener’s sense of gratitude for it.” To him, that gratitude manifests itself in different ways, but is commonly expressed by sharing, saying thank you, or paying for it.
So, what happens when that person is no longer grateful for music itself for existing, the artist who created it, or the person that introduced them to it? As well, what happens when that person has become unwilling to express that appreciation by sharing it friends, saying thank you to the artist, or buying it from a retailer? Well, that scary experiment is playing out right now. Music is being taken for granted—almost as if it’s a fact of life.
It is. But, not on the scale that fans are betting it to be. The ramifications to this aren’t obvious. Nor will they reveal themselves for quite awhile.
Why are people willing to pay $6.21 for a Venti coffee and muffin from Starbucks, but recoil at the idea of spending that much on a few songs? It’s a hard call. Somewhere along the way, they’ve become disconnected from the value and society has failed to instill in them an appreciation for all cultural creators. Somehow, I don’t think turning off their web connection or suing them for everything they have will make them value art more.
4. Keeping the Money
Pop-culture essayist Chuck Klosterman nailed this one.
“People didn’t stop buying albums because they were philosophically opposed to how the rock business operated, and they didn’t stop buying albums because the Internet is changing the relationship between capitalism and art,” he writes. “People stopped buying albums because they wanted the fucking money. It’s complicated, but it’s not.”
Napster spread on college campuses full broke students looking to save money. They found a way to save money by downloading music and not buying it. Therefore, they did. No lawn protests occurred. Fans didn’t care about the corporate influence on music in the public sphere; the mistreatment of artists by labels; or even the declining quality of commercial music. They wanted to keep the money. It’s complicated, but it’s not.
His wider theory is file-sharing came at a time when many fans where looking to reallocate money to pay off their self-imposed debt, whether that be credit cards or student loans. There’s an article that appeared on Forbes titled “No Job And $50,000 In Student Debt. Now What?” The answer to that question, as I see it, is that they’re not purchasing albums anytime soon. They can’t afford music or their burnt coffee anymore either.
Assuming that the fans aren’t that broke and are keeping the money. What are they spending it on? Klosterman isn’t convinced that people’s disposable income budgets are interchangeable—that because they aren’t spending money on music, they’re buying video games and movies instead. Charles Arthur at The Guardian has argued otherwise.
He has contended, “the music industry’s deadliest enemy isn’t file-sharing – it’s the likes of Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony, and a zillion games publishers.” He thinks gaming packs more value than music and the attention of fans, along with their money, has shifted.
Additional Reasons
There are two additional reasons that fans file-share music.
Everyone’s doing it . “The simple truth is that humans, being first and foremost social creatures, rather than independent agents, rely on copying to learn and to negotiate the rich and sophisticated social reality they inhabit,” write Mark Earls and Alex Bentley in Forget Influentials. “Copying is our species’ number one learning and adaptive strategy.” Fans copy the behavior of others fans and they spread; it’s pulled through the population.
No one gets caught. Fans file-share because everyone else they know does it and certainly, they aren’t the ones that would ever get caught. They’re smarter than that. Those who got sued must have done stupid things that put them at risk. No matter how scary the stories get about fans getting sued, people generally believe that bad things won’t happen to them. It’s basic psychology. We imagine the future and see only good things. Of course, around 30,000 fans have been caught file-sharing music. But, none of us knows enough people to know someone close to us that got sued and we wrongly assume that our chances have lessened. After all, I don’t know anyone who has been caught—do you?
Where Does This Leave Us?
Breaking the Internet won’t fix the record industry. Instead, we must build a digital ecology of music culture that pays artists for their art and supports creativity. Along the way, we must protect, as legal scholar Larry Lessig says in Free Culture, “the space for innovation and creativity that the Internet is.” Just as we strive to defend artists and the innovation and creativity that their music is, we must defend what the Internet is: an architecture to enable unplanned and unforeseen innovation. Doing otherwise would be a grave mistake.
It’s time that we start thinking honestly about what music means to us and the future we’re attempting to create for it. This is a time of turbulence. The evolution of this ecosystem, if fueled by our curiosity and imaginations, will resolve most facets of music piracy. File-sharing is both market and moral failure. “The Internet is in transition,” Lessig writes. “We should not be regulating a technology in transition. We should instead be regulating to minimize the harm to interests affected by this technological change, while enabling and encouraging, the most efficient technology that we can create.” The changes that we seek won’t happen overnight, as beyond the technological, they’re also cultural and societal.
Meanwhile, the best thing we can do is focus on reconnecting real people, places, and values. If we desire to nurture a society that values that ‘art’ that music is, it begins at a local level. Show people the beauty beneath the scars and the lyrics became the bloodstained poetry on your heart. Why music matters has nothing to do with musicians and everything to do with the meaning it creates in people’s lives. Connect your audience to that meaning and value is created. Preserving that value doesn’t take breaking the Internet. All it takes is reminding real people in real places why music matters to you
What The Music Industry Should Do About Copyright
This guest post is by Charlotta Hedman (@fjoms), a journalist who blogs for the Music 4.5 project, a series of events for the tech and music industries.
Copyright is confusing. Is it working, isn't it working and if it isn't working, what should be done about it? We decided that the best way to make some sense of this complicated and often vicious debate was to ask experts and commentators what they think. Here are their answers:
Copyright is confusing. Is it working, isn't it working and if it isn't working, what should be done about it? We decided that the best way to make some sense of this complicated and often vicious debate was to ask experts and commentators what they think. Here are their answers:
Richard Stallman, founder of the Free Software Movement:
"Music industry" implies music made on an assembly line: invest money and out comes "music". That's what the major record companies do. For music's sake, let's wipe them out! They deserve it, too. They have attacked our freedom by turning our products against us, implementing digital handcuffs and lobbying for laws to prohibit breaking the handcuffs. (See DefectiveByDesign.org.) Through the RIAA they have sued thousands of teenagers for sharing music. Sharing is good; antisocial attacks on sharing should not be tolerated.
"Music lovers must support musicians, since the music industry doesn't: aside from long-established superstars, musicians get a pittance. They can already do better by dealing with the public directly, and respecting sharing. But we should do more for them.
One way is by distributing public funds to musicians and composers, based on their popularity as measured by polling, but not in linear proportion. If each artist's subsidy is proportional to the cube root of her popularity, we can support more artists adequately with less total money, instead of making a few superstars rich.
The other way is by anonymous voluntary payments. If each player had a $ button -- push it to send one dollar to the musicians and composers of the work last played -- only poor people would hesitate to give. Some musicians already find large, occasional voluntary payments support them better than the record companies, but many painless small voluntary payments would add up to a larger sum."
Eric Mackay, CELAS:
“To be honest, I think it should more be a question about how users should be dealing with copyright.
There is an argument that rights holders should be adapting to the way that users now interact with music, and I agree to an extent, but that doesn’t fit with some consumers’ views that music has no value – how can you continue to invest in nurturing talent when you generate no revenue from it?
In order to tackle this, rights holders should be looking to find a way to exploit the emotional relationships that music creates and, as such, increase the perception of music as a valuable commodity.
The issue within the industry seems to stem from various rights holders acting in a protectionist way and not being transparent, causing a lot of in-fighting.
There is definitely a requirement for rights holders to react to the changes in digital a lot quicker than they currently are and it’s understandable that music users get frustrated. One important thing to note though is that it is a lot simpler to get the rights you need for music than, for example, in the film or television industry. The clarity over where to get rights from is just a phone call away.
One of my biggest bug bears, however, is that digital music users never argue that bandwidth costs need to be paid, but the music which is intrinsic to their service seems to be a negotiable. I just don’t get that mentality! If you don’t pay your electricity bill, you get cut-off, and it should be the same with music rights; if you don’t pay for them, you will get shut-down.
There’s a gap that needs to be bridged between rights holders and users, but new tech being deployed without consulting the owners of the content that the tech relies on, will never help to move things forwards. Legislation may be a somewhat ham-fisted approach but, if users are not willing to engage with the industry, then the industry should have the right for legal relief.
I’ve seen some huge steps forward, when tech and industry work together and I think we’re on the right path now. As long as there is a two way conversation and we can appreciate what a service is trying to do, there’s always a way forwards.”
Helienne Lindvall, music journalist, musician and songwriter:
"The biggest problem we're facing is not the issue of copyright in itself – it's licensing. Sure, we could clarify that people are allowed to copy the music they've bought from one personal device – or format – to another but, as far as I know, no consumer has ever been prosecuted for doing so.
Copyright hasn't been about copies since 1846, when it became much more sophisticated; it's about bringing a bundle of rights to market. All transmission technologies since electricity rely on a performance right of some kind.
Much more urgent is to develop a simpler way for new legal music services to navigate the labyrinth that is music licensing. Some of the collection societies are in the process of setting up a comprehensive data base that clearly shows who the publishing rights holders are for each specific track. That's a good start, but lots more needs to be done."
Grant Murgatroyd, financial journalist:
"If you look at copyright in high-tech businesses – intellectual property – then it's just one part of the mix, along with price, service, delivery and those are what customers buy. IP is rarely worth more than 20%, even in fields like drug discovery, as evidenced by the terms on licensing deals. IP is seen by investors as a ‘hygiene’ issue, but the clear message is that if you want to build a successful businesses over the long term then it's customer first, followed by all the other things around product and execution."
Jeremy Silver, CEO of Featured Artists Coalition (FAC) "The notion of copyright is a complex of several concepts: Control of the right of reproduction, the right to creditation, the right to remuneration and a moral right. Today, the concept of controlling the right of reproduction is eroding rapidly. Technology has rendered any kind of control over the reproduction of digital content very limited. We can put measures in place that will slow down the rate of unauthorised reproduction, but we can do almost nothing to entirely eliminate it. This technological reality is only likely to increase and our ability to control copying of digital files will only decrease with it. Creators and rights owners desire to be remunerated will not go away, the only question is how to achieve it. Clearly if the original concept of copyright was based on the control of the reproduction right, some other means of remuneration will be required. Fortunately, for the most part at least the notion of giving credit for a work is less under attack than the notion of paying for it.
So copyright itself is still a fundamental concept that underpins notions of content created by an identifiable team or individual. But the basis upon which remuneration was derived is broken and needs to be replaced.
The concept gaining the most momentum in leading edge circles today is that of globally distributed right registries which would contain and be updated in real time with rights information pertaining to all the content that is released into the networked world. These rights registries could also serve as tracker hubs that received information from digital networks about the way that content was being distributed and consumed across the network. This data could then be routed back via a rights registry to the rights owners and a mechanism created to ensure they received payment. Since new smart digital networks can be aware of what content is travelling across them and where it is being consumed, this data can be used to ensure that revenues are shared out and distributed to rights owners.
That's the new popular theory. Now we have to figure out how to get every one to the shores of this new promised land!"
Scott Cohen, co-founder of marketing and distribution company The Orchard:
"It is important to make the distinction between copy protection and copyright. I believe in copyright but I am against copy protection. Creators of content should be remunerated for their works. How they are remunerated is ever changing and protecting works as companies cling to old business models is a failed strategy.
As we move to more cloud based models in the music industry, protection of content becomes a barrier to generating revenue. How music is acquired becomes irrelevant. The goal will shift to encouraging more usage of music so that copyright holders are remunerated. We can see this in old models like radio as well as newer ones like YouTube. No reasonable person asks where the music for a user generated video comes from anymore. There are no more take down notices. Instead, the songs have all been “claimed” and ad revenue doled out to the copyright owners."
Michael Breidenbruecker, co-founder of Last.fm, founder and CEO of RjDj:
"The music industry needs to dramatically simplify the process of clearing recording and publishing rights... the existing system and process is totally deadlocking innovation in the music sector. it is not about if copyright is good or bad. It is good and no one has problems with paying artists but as a company who is innovating in the music sector it is impossible to do anything right now."
--
Hear more about copyright and what some of these commentators think at the next Music 4.5 event in November.
"Music industry" implies music made on an assembly line: invest money and out comes "music". That's what the major record companies do. For music's sake, let's wipe them out! They deserve it, too. They have attacked our freedom by turning our products against us, implementing digital handcuffs and lobbying for laws to prohibit breaking the handcuffs. (See DefectiveByDesign.org.) Through the RIAA they have sued thousands of teenagers for sharing music. Sharing is good; antisocial attacks on sharing should not be tolerated.
"Music lovers must support musicians, since the music industry doesn't: aside from long-established superstars, musicians get a pittance. They can already do better by dealing with the public directly, and respecting sharing. But we should do more for them.
One way is by distributing public funds to musicians and composers, based on their popularity as measured by polling, but not in linear proportion. If each artist's subsidy is proportional to the cube root of her popularity, we can support more artists adequately with less total money, instead of making a few superstars rich.
The other way is by anonymous voluntary payments. If each player had a $ button -- push it to send one dollar to the musicians and composers of the work last played -- only poor people would hesitate to give. Some musicians already find large, occasional voluntary payments support them better than the record companies, but many painless small voluntary payments would add up to a larger sum."
Eric Mackay, CELAS:
“To be honest, I think it should more be a question about how users should be dealing with copyright.
There is an argument that rights holders should be adapting to the way that users now interact with music, and I agree to an extent, but that doesn’t fit with some consumers’ views that music has no value – how can you continue to invest in nurturing talent when you generate no revenue from it?
In order to tackle this, rights holders should be looking to find a way to exploit the emotional relationships that music creates and, as such, increase the perception of music as a valuable commodity.
The issue within the industry seems to stem from various rights holders acting in a protectionist way and not being transparent, causing a lot of in-fighting.
There is definitely a requirement for rights holders to react to the changes in digital a lot quicker than they currently are and it’s understandable that music users get frustrated. One important thing to note though is that it is a lot simpler to get the rights you need for music than, for example, in the film or television industry. The clarity over where to get rights from is just a phone call away.
One of my biggest bug bears, however, is that digital music users never argue that bandwidth costs need to be paid, but the music which is intrinsic to their service seems to be a negotiable. I just don’t get that mentality! If you don’t pay your electricity bill, you get cut-off, and it should be the same with music rights; if you don’t pay for them, you will get shut-down.
There’s a gap that needs to be bridged between rights holders and users, but new tech being deployed without consulting the owners of the content that the tech relies on, will never help to move things forwards. Legislation may be a somewhat ham-fisted approach but, if users are not willing to engage with the industry, then the industry should have the right for legal relief.
I’ve seen some huge steps forward, when tech and industry work together and I think we’re on the right path now. As long as there is a two way conversation and we can appreciate what a service is trying to do, there’s always a way forwards.”
Helienne Lindvall, music journalist, musician and songwriter:
"The biggest problem we're facing is not the issue of copyright in itself – it's licensing. Sure, we could clarify that people are allowed to copy the music they've bought from one personal device – or format – to another but, as far as I know, no consumer has ever been prosecuted for doing so.
Copyright hasn't been about copies since 1846, when it became much more sophisticated; it's about bringing a bundle of rights to market. All transmission technologies since electricity rely on a performance right of some kind.
Much more urgent is to develop a simpler way for new legal music services to navigate the labyrinth that is music licensing. Some of the collection societies are in the process of setting up a comprehensive data base that clearly shows who the publishing rights holders are for each specific track. That's a good start, but lots more needs to be done."
Grant Murgatroyd, financial journalist:
"If you look at copyright in high-tech businesses – intellectual property – then it's just one part of the mix, along with price, service, delivery and those are what customers buy. IP is rarely worth more than 20%, even in fields like drug discovery, as evidenced by the terms on licensing deals. IP is seen by investors as a ‘hygiene’ issue, but the clear message is that if you want to build a successful businesses over the long term then it's customer first, followed by all the other things around product and execution."
Jeremy Silver, CEO of Featured Artists Coalition (FAC) "The notion of copyright is a complex of several concepts: Control of the right of reproduction, the right to creditation, the right to remuneration and a moral right. Today, the concept of controlling the right of reproduction is eroding rapidly. Technology has rendered any kind of control over the reproduction of digital content very limited. We can put measures in place that will slow down the rate of unauthorised reproduction, but we can do almost nothing to entirely eliminate it. This technological reality is only likely to increase and our ability to control copying of digital files will only decrease with it. Creators and rights owners desire to be remunerated will not go away, the only question is how to achieve it. Clearly if the original concept of copyright was based on the control of the reproduction right, some other means of remuneration will be required. Fortunately, for the most part at least the notion of giving credit for a work is less under attack than the notion of paying for it.
So copyright itself is still a fundamental concept that underpins notions of content created by an identifiable team or individual. But the basis upon which remuneration was derived is broken and needs to be replaced.
The concept gaining the most momentum in leading edge circles today is that of globally distributed right registries which would contain and be updated in real time with rights information pertaining to all the content that is released into the networked world. These rights registries could also serve as tracker hubs that received information from digital networks about the way that content was being distributed and consumed across the network. This data could then be routed back via a rights registry to the rights owners and a mechanism created to ensure they received payment. Since new smart digital networks can be aware of what content is travelling across them and where it is being consumed, this data can be used to ensure that revenues are shared out and distributed to rights owners.
That's the new popular theory. Now we have to figure out how to get every one to the shores of this new promised land!"
Scott Cohen, co-founder of marketing and distribution company The Orchard:
"It is important to make the distinction between copy protection and copyright. I believe in copyright but I am against copy protection. Creators of content should be remunerated for their works. How they are remunerated is ever changing and protecting works as companies cling to old business models is a failed strategy.
As we move to more cloud based models in the music industry, protection of content becomes a barrier to generating revenue. How music is acquired becomes irrelevant. The goal will shift to encouraging more usage of music so that copyright holders are remunerated. We can see this in old models like radio as well as newer ones like YouTube. No reasonable person asks where the music for a user generated video comes from anymore. There are no more take down notices. Instead, the songs have all been “claimed” and ad revenue doled out to the copyright owners."
Michael Breidenbruecker, co-founder of Last.fm, founder and CEO of RjDj:
"The music industry needs to dramatically simplify the process of clearing recording and publishing rights... the existing system and process is totally deadlocking innovation in the music sector. it is not about if copyright is good or bad. It is good and no one has problems with paying artists but as a company who is innovating in the music sector it is impossible to do anything right now."
--
Hear more about copyright and what some of these commentators think at the next Music 4.5 event in November.
How Ze Frank Creates Music That Matters & Connects It With Complete Strangers
If you want to connect with people and engage them, there is much to learn from web comic Ze Frank. In this TED talk, he highlights the two music related projects. First is a project called Ray. A number of you will be familiar with it: "I am going to whip somebody's..." The last one that he outlines involves creating a song utilizing voices all over the world to help a girl through her new move. In both cases, he connected with strangers through the power of music and strived to make a difference in their lives. Take a look:
Top Five Ways Apple Is Killing Off The CD via hypebot
photo via techcrunchMore On How Applle Is Killing The CD Below:
- iPod:
Ah yes, the awesome iPod, how much do you hate my CD collection? So much so that I have not seen it since I started storing it in the backseat of my car. It used to long for the drives when I would gleefully flip through its four disc pages and gently insert one of its shiny Frisbees into my player.
- iTunes:
You bastards do not sell CDs, do you? Had iTunes only sold physical discs, the record industry could go back to pretending that the uncoupling of albums would never happen. Do you know how many years it took us to write the licensing deals and price out singles? We sell albums you prick.
- MacBook Air:
Look at me; I am too cool for a CD player. It adds weight. If those hipsters want to gain some muscle they should carry around a laptop with a CD player in it. That is what men do. Now instead of using CDs like men, all those girls are going to reinstall OS X on their computers with USB-sticks.
- iTunes Icon:
Your blue Smurf looking thing of a logo is screwing with the coolness of my applications tray. The old logo had a CD in it and may have needed an update. At least it did not look like a five year old designed it in Paint. Come on, bring the CD back or I am switching to Sharepod or Winamp.
- Mac App Store:
Apple plans to sell programs through an online app store. Maybe I liked driving to the store, overpaying, and going home to install my software using a CD. It had a process. Kids will take software for granted. Once they can get it instantly, they will no longer appreciate the time us older folks took to install programs with our CDs. I will manually install software.
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Saturday, October 16, 2010
Friday, October 15, 2010
Stage presence tips and how to perform a good show
1. GET THE CROWD INVOLVED
THIS IS IMPORTANT IN ANY LIVE PERFORMANCE. IF THE CROWD ISNT INVOLVED YOUR SHOW WILL JUST BE YOU RECITING YOUR SONGS TO THE CROWD, AND USUALLY THIS DOESNT GET YOU POINTS FROM THE CROWDS PERSPECTIVE. HOWEVER IF YOU GET THE CROWD INVOLVED, YOU CREATE AN ATMOSPHERE WHICH YOU CAN CONTROL EG WHEN YOU SAY PUT YOUR HANDS IN THE AIR, PEOPLE WILL RESPOND. THERE ARE A COUPLE OF WAYS TO GET THE CROWD INVOLVED. YOU CAN FIRST DO SONGS WHICH THEY ARE FAMILIAR WIH. ENCOURAGE THEM TO SING ALONG, DROP THE SONG ON A PUCHLINE AND HAVE THEM SAY IT. ANOTHER EXAMPLE JUMP IN THE CROWD TO MAKE IT HYPE. SHAKE HANDS WITH PEOPLE REACHING OUT IN THE FIRST ROW. SOME PEOPLE MAKE IT RAIN(NOT ADVISABLE UNLESS YOU ARE BALLING OUTRAGOUESLY). ENCOURAGE THE CROWD TO DO A DANCE OR WHATEVER. BOTTOMLINE IS YOU HAVE TO GET THE CROWD INTO THE WHOLE PERFORMANCE.
2. MAKE EYE CONTACT
TRY AND MAKE AS MUCH EYE CONTACT AS POSSIBLE WITH THE CROWD. IT'S LIKE PUBLIC SPEAKING OR JUST PERSONAL CONVERSATIONS; NOONE WILL HEAR YOUR MESSAGE IF YOU ARE NOT LOOKING AT THEM. MAKING EYE CONTACT WILL MAKE THE AUDIENCE FEEL WARMER TO YOU. WITH THAT SAID, AVOID WEARING SHADES OR COVERING YOUR EYES ETC.
3. LIMIT THE ENTOURAGE
TOO MANY PEOPLE SHOUTING IN MICROHPONES AT THE SAME TIME ISNT MUSIC,ITS WHAT I LIKE TO CALL NOISE!!! IF YOU DO HAVE A BIG ENTOURAGE PUT THEM IN THE BACKGROUND AND MAKE THE ORGANIZED E.G. HOW 50CENT HAS PEOPLE WITH BULLETPROOF VESTS AND SUCH IN THE BACK, THAT WORKS FOR HIM BECAUSE OF HIS IMAGE. IF YOU ARE DOING A SLOW SONG WHY WOULD YOU HAVE 20 PEOPLE SHOUTING IN THE MIC GOIN BACK AND FORTH. THATS DISTRACTING. AT THE END OF THE DAY YOU ARE THE ONE WHO YOU WANT PEOPLE TO REMEBER AND IF THE PERFORMANCE IS BAD, ITS BLAMED ON YOU, NOT THE ENTOURAGE, SO KEEP THAT IN MID.
FOR MORE INFO GO TO WWW.QUIETSTORMBEATZ.COM
4.THE HYPE MAN
HYPE MEN HAVE BEEN A STAPLE OF HIP HOP EVER SINCE IT STARTED. THE BEST HYPE MEN E.G FLAVA FLAV(NO JOKES) HELP YOU THE ARTIST, GET THE CROWD INVOLVED. SO PICKING THE RIGHT HYPE MAN IS AS ESSENTIAL AS PICKING THE RIGHT DJ.
5. THE DJ
MOST MAJOR ARTIST KEEP THE SAME DJ ON TOURS AND PERFORMANCES ALIKE. ITS JUST LIKE THIS, IF YOU WORK WITH SOMEBODY, THE CHEMISTRY GETS BETTER AND BETTER. IF YOU DONT HAVE THAT LUXURY OF HAVING YOUR OWN DJ, MAKE SURE YOU MEET WITH THE DJ FIRST BEFORE THE PERFORMANCE TO AVOID ODD SITUATIONS THAT MAKE YOU SAY WHAT THE....
6. DONT SHOUT IN THE MIC
ITS AS SIMPLE AS THAT...DONT SCREAM IN THE MIC, AND KNOW HOW TO POSITION YOUR MIC DURING PERFORMANCES.
AT THE END OF THE DAY YOU DO MUSIC TO ENTERTAIN PEOPLE. WITH THAT BEING SAID, IF YOUR SHOW SUCKS, THE LIKELIHOOD OF GETTING THOSE SAME PEOPLE TO COME BACK TO SEE IF SLIM. WORD OF MOUTH SPREADS LIKE A BUSH FIRE. SO YOU HAVE TO BE ON POINT. WITH THAT BEING SAID, IF YOUR SHOWS ARE GOOD, YOU GAIN LOYAL LIFELONG FANS.HOPE THIS HELPS.
FOR MORE INFO GO TO WWW.QUIETSTORMBEATZ.COM
How to Make a Demo Press Kit
How to Make a Demo Press Kit
By Chris Anzalone, eHow Contributor
To make it as a musician, you will need to go out into the world and build a solid fan base. But getting the attention of concert promoters, club owners and record labels will require you to create an impressive demo and an informative press kit. These materials will serve to demonstrate your abilities and accomplishments as a band or musician, similar to how a resume would serve you in the workforce.
Difficulty: Moderate
Instructions
Things You'll Need:
* Computer
* Printer
* Paper
* Press clippings
* Scanner
* Presentation folder
Demo
1.
1
Choose three or four of your best songs to record. A demo recording should contain no more than four songs that highlight your best musical attributes and demonstrate what you have to offer the music business.
2.
2
Practice your songs to perfection. The more you have your vocals and instrumentation down to a science, the less time you will need to spend recording, which can save you a great deal of money if you plan to use a pro studio.
3.
3
Decide how you want to record your demo. You can buy time in a professional studio, where engineers will gladly help you to get the best possible mix, or you can record your own demo at home using a digital audio program like Pro Tools, Logic or Cubase. Note that unless you have experience with music engineering and access to a relatively soundproof environment with good acoustics, a home recording will typically not give you the same quality as a studio recording. Therefore, you may want to invest in real studio time if you can afford it.
4.
4
Record your demo.
Press Kit
5.
1
Write a brief biography for your band. If submitting as a solo artist, focus primarily on your musical goals and achievements. Keep your bio under one page and mention how the band came together (if applicable), number of years active, venues played, notable collaborations with other artists and any other information that a promoter might find useful.
6.
2
Create a fact sheet. As opposed to the biography, which appears in narrative format, this will outline very basic, fundamental information in list format. It should include the names of all band members and the instruments they play, as well as any album releases, recent tour dates and relevant contact information. The website GetSigned.com also recommends including your hometown and the names of studios where you have recorded.
7.
3
Scan any relevant press that your band has received. If a local newspaper has reviewed one of your concerts, or if you conducted an interview with a music magazine, include scanned pages with your press kit.
8.
4
Prepare a cover letter with three to five paragraphs. This will introduce promoters to your band and explain your reasons for submission, whether to get signed to a record label or get booked at a concert venue.
9.
5
Place all of your content in a transparent folder or presentation folder.
Read more: How to Make a Demo Press Kit | eHow.com http://www.ehow.com/how_6612018_make-demo-press-kit.html#ixzz12V96Wk9O
By Chris Anzalone, eHow Contributor
To make it as a musician, you will need to go out into the world and build a solid fan base. But getting the attention of concert promoters, club owners and record labels will require you to create an impressive demo and an informative press kit. These materials will serve to demonstrate your abilities and accomplishments as a band or musician, similar to how a resume would serve you in the workforce.
Difficulty: Moderate
Instructions
Things You'll Need:
* Computer
* Printer
* Paper
* Press clippings
* Scanner
* Presentation folder
Demo
1.
1
Choose three or four of your best songs to record. A demo recording should contain no more than four songs that highlight your best musical attributes and demonstrate what you have to offer the music business.
2.
2
Practice your songs to perfection. The more you have your vocals and instrumentation down to a science, the less time you will need to spend recording, which can save you a great deal of money if you plan to use a pro studio.
3.
3
Decide how you want to record your demo. You can buy time in a professional studio, where engineers will gladly help you to get the best possible mix, or you can record your own demo at home using a digital audio program like Pro Tools, Logic or Cubase. Note that unless you have experience with music engineering and access to a relatively soundproof environment with good acoustics, a home recording will typically not give you the same quality as a studio recording. Therefore, you may want to invest in real studio time if you can afford it.
4.
4
Record your demo.
Press Kit
5.
1
Write a brief biography for your band. If submitting as a solo artist, focus primarily on your musical goals and achievements. Keep your bio under one page and mention how the band came together (if applicable), number of years active, venues played, notable collaborations with other artists and any other information that a promoter might find useful.
6.
2
Create a fact sheet. As opposed to the biography, which appears in narrative format, this will outline very basic, fundamental information in list format. It should include the names of all band members and the instruments they play, as well as any album releases, recent tour dates and relevant contact information. The website GetSigned.com also recommends including your hometown and the names of studios where you have recorded.
7.
3
Scan any relevant press that your band has received. If a local newspaper has reviewed one of your concerts, or if you conducted an interview with a music magazine, include scanned pages with your press kit.
8.
4
Prepare a cover letter with three to five paragraphs. This will introduce promoters to your band and explain your reasons for submission, whether to get signed to a record label or get booked at a concert venue.
9.
5
Place all of your content in a transparent folder or presentation folder.
Read more: How to Make a Demo Press Kit | eHow.com http://www.ehow.com/how_6612018_make-demo-press-kit.html#ixzz12V96Wk9O
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
How To Get A Deal? via livingstarbeats
How To Get A Deal? is the question of the day!
Living Star is going to give you a few tips on how to get a deal.
If you an artists pay close attention cause this informaton will help you as an artist to get your stuff out there to the major labels. Lets get started!
Step 1: You must be ready! you must look at your self in the mirror and say i'm ready to get a record deal
Step 2: You must have a very strong fan base. without a fan base you ain't going anywhere. (I suggest getting a good fan base first before sending out your cd to a label). Lets say you have a record company and an artist send you a demo, would you sign he or she to your label with out he or she having a good fan base. In my opinon I wouldn't. Who will buy the albums? (no fans no record sells).
Step 3: Is your music good enough? Is your lyrics tight enough? you should ask your self that. if not, I would recommend spending some more time on your music till you feel like "This It"!.
Step 4:Have a proffesional demo kit sent out to the labels because your image is everything.
Step 5: You must look signable. The question is How much money can you bring to the table?
What You Should Have In your Kit?
1.Cover Letter
2.Demo Cd
3.Biography
4.Photograph
5.Press Clippings
Remember :Everything must look proffesional, then you good to go!
Hope this will help you out on getting your record deal
Best Of Luck,
Living Star
For Hot Quality Beats
click or copy the link below:
www.lstarbeats.com
Living Star is going to give you a few tips on how to get a deal.
If you an artists pay close attention cause this informaton will help you as an artist to get your stuff out there to the major labels. Lets get started!
Step 1: You must be ready! you must look at your self in the mirror and say i'm ready to get a record deal
Step 2: You must have a very strong fan base. without a fan base you ain't going anywhere. (I suggest getting a good fan base first before sending out your cd to a label). Lets say you have a record company and an artist send you a demo, would you sign he or she to your label with out he or she having a good fan base. In my opinon I wouldn't. Who will buy the albums? (no fans no record sells).
Step 3: Is your music good enough? Is your lyrics tight enough? you should ask your self that. if not, I would recommend spending some more time on your music till you feel like "This It"!.
Step 4:Have a proffesional demo kit sent out to the labels because your image is everything.
Step 5: You must look signable. The question is How much money can you bring to the table?
What You Should Have In your Kit?
1.Cover Letter
2.Demo Cd
3.Biography
4.Photograph
5.Press Clippings
Remember :Everything must look proffesional, then you good to go!
Hope this will help you out on getting your record deal
Best Of Luck,
Living Star
For Hot Quality Beats
click or copy the link below:
www.lstarbeats.com
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