The "Music Industry" does it again

It never ends, the tactics are old but they keep using them - oddly enough they keep working next to politicians.

The sales of music in Portugal fell 40% in the first semester of 2011, comparing to the same period of 2010, according to the Portuguese Phonographic Association (AFP).[1]

They attribute this fall to so-called "piracy" (the unauthorized copy of copyrighted material), failing to explain how to they infer the correlation, and ignoring the studies that suggest exactly the opposite. Worse: still according to them, "this is the hugest fall in a total of 50 different markets in the world", and those include countries with both a bigger and a smaller piracy rate, suggesting that actually there's no relation at all.

But why do they want to suggest such a relationship? Well, AFP requested a meeting with the Culture State Secretary, where they intend to ask the Government to introduce a gradual response law[2] in order to "stop piracy". Such a law would make people considered guilt without the right to a fair trial, take the right to privacy to every citizen, make people pay for a (private) service they can't use, and take off Internet access to an whole family because one of its members was simply accused of doing "piracy" (all together ignoring the fact that Europe is opposed to such kind of laws[3]).

Also interesting to see is that AFP doesn't really care that much into actually doing what they can - without any law changes - to reduce piracy: take for instance into consideration the research[4] that concludes that dumping DRM has both the effect of increasing sales and of reducing piracy, and compare it with the pro-DRM stance they have.

All in all, and to sum up, the answer politicians must give to this kinds of tactics of requests is really simple. AFP's Eduardo Simões stated that piracy destroys the income of musicians, authors, artists and record producers. The answer to such an allegation can only be: "Where's proof?"

[1] http://blitz.aeiou.pt/=f77109

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graduated_response

[3] http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number6.17/3strikes-opposed-isoc-europe

[4] http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/10/a-game-we-all-win-dumping-drm-can-increase-sales-while-reducing-piracy.ars

The Impact of Illegal Downloads On Total Sales

One frequent rant of mine is the fact that there's no credible study about the impact of "illegal downloads" (not my wording) on total sales, and that, yet, there are lots of policies being made based on plain wrong "studies".

Lately, many things are happening (including arguments behind the approval of the Gallo Report) around Tera Consultants' "Study on the impacts of digital piracy on the EU's creative industries" (March 2010). If we carefully read the report (yes, reading more than just the abstract), thou, we find lots of interesting things. For instance, the fact that the study didn't research the "impact of illegal downloads on total sales", but, instead, decided to have a non-scientific approach to find some kinds of "average values" from the eight "relevant studies" on the issue. Well, in fact, they used the summary from those eight relevant studies presented on Oberholzer-Gee & Strumpf (2009 - a working draft). And here, I have a couple of things to highlight:

1) Instead of using Oberholzer-Gee & Strumpf latest release paper, they decided to use a working draft;
2) Instead of using Oberholzer-Gee & Strumpf conclusions (that can be summed up as "file sharing can be blamed for part of recorded music revenue declines, [but] that hasn’t eliminated artists’ incentive to create and consumers have benefited from increased choice"), they decided to use only a decontextualized table from that report;
3) Many flaws were pointed to the Oberholzer-Gee & Strumpf research, but let me talk about one: while in their 2005 paper, where they found no negative impact of illegal downloads on total sales, they used their own data, in this new paper - guess what - they used the same as Tera Consultants: a non-scientific approach to find some kinds of "average values" from the eight "relevant studies" on the issue.

So, let's look to those eight "relevant studies":

• Hui and Png (2003) - If you actually read the article you see that the authors acknowledge that:
  
  • their data is completely dependent of the piracy numbers provided by the IFPI (mind you, the most interested party)
  • they acknowledge that they ignored the need to research the demand-side externalities positive impact of piracy on sales (as proven to be needed in Conner and Rumelt (1991); Nascimento and Vanhonacker (1988); Shy and Thisse (1999); Takeyama (1994))
  • in the same way, they didn't estimate the positive impact of piracy on sales thanks to means of more effective price discrimination (as proven to be needed in Bakos et al. 1999; Besen and Kirby 1989; Jacob and Ben-Shahar 2002; Liebowitz 1985; Takeyama 1997; Varian 2000)
  • Last, and yet the most important (in my opinion), their study only analyses data until 1998 (that's right, 12 years ago!), and they highlight that this is all data "before Napster" (dare I say, now, "before p2p", "before torrents", "before pirate bay", "before web 2.0", "before social music services", ...), and that's a really important behavioural shift, that probably changed all the ecosystem of illegal downloads and their impact on total sales
  In other words, this study should not be considered;
• Peitz and Waelbroeck (2003, 2004)
  
  • they use as data source the IFPI World Report of 2003 that provides industry data from 1998 to 2002. As pointed before, IFPI is the most interested party in influencing the results, so the validity can be argued;
  • they assume, because they don't know how to estimate, that the quality of music (which englobes que quality of the music release - compare, for instance, a signed limited edtion 12'' 2LP with the album in DRM-encumbered 128K digital file...) has no influence in buying habits (assuming, thus, that the number of people who use "piracy" to "try before buy" is zero, which is obviously wrong - simply ask your friends);
  • they assume that each "act of piracy" is equivalent to the loss of a CD sale (which is obviously wrong), and then...
  • they assume that you can do a direct correlation between the rise of usage of p2p networks and the fall in music sales, just because they saw a bigger fall in sales at the same time they saw a fall in music sales
  • They state that with broadband, non-piracy times can be spent doing a number of "replacement activities" other then enjoying music, and so people have less time - thus attention - to the music market. Yet, they fail to try to correlate attention-shift with loss of sales
  • In the "Discussion" section, they point out several flaws on their model (like the fact that they don't measure "intensity" in piracy activities, or that they aren't considering the non-renewal factor (the industry failed - at least until 2004, where the study focus - to keep their renewal cycle, when people were buying the same album in a different format, cassette replacing the vinyl record, CD replacing the cassette or vinyl, we just weren't seeing people buying the album in a DRM-encumbered digital format after having it on CD or a "previous" format) as a cause of loss of sales). Yet, they decide to ignore those observations on their conclusion...
  In other words, this study should not be considered;
• Zentner (2006) - Now, this is actually an interesting study, it just isn't a good study to taking a conclusion on our particular issue. In fact, as the origin dataset did neither contain information on quantities of music purchased nor on intensities of music downloads, he assumed that it was not directly possible to calculate the impact on record sales, and thus, for that specific part, he decided to assume things (and that's stated quite obviously on the article): "if 15 percent of the population downloads music, if downloaders are twice as likely to buy music than nondownloaders, and if – conditional on buying – downloaders and nondownloaders buy the same quantity of units". Notice that he didn't get inspiration for this assumptions in any study at all.
• Michel (2006)
  
  • The author states that "a possible problem with this approach is that computer owners who did not engage in file sharing may have decreased their music purchases for reasons unrelated to file sharing (yet inherent to owning a computer)", which is not considered in this study. As stated previously, it is fair to assume that there is an (unaccounted) percentage of non-sales directly related to this fact;
  • An analysis in this study's "Table 1" suggests that trends and influences greatly vary year by year, possibly in a two-years basis. This is actually why the researcher has data from 1995 until 2003, and yet can only assume a relation between file sharing and CD sales in 2002-2003. Also, in "Table 4" analysis, the author concludes that "the relationship between computer ownership and CD expenditures [, the only relationship being studied in this paper,] weakened from 1998 to 2003. In III.B), the author identifies other four reasons why this paper might not be valid, but the really important thing to quote is in the conclusions section, when the author state, above all, that "results should be used carefully when predicting the long-term viability of the music industry in an environment where record labels (or artists) compete directly with free file-sharing services". While it is arguable what the author means with "long-term", with the previous data we can assume that a) we can identify 2 year cycles, b) in 5 years the relationship weakened, so, if that trend is maintained (which is arguable, but wasn't in Mars' report) nowadays, 7 years later, the relationship might be completely dissipated, so...
  ...taking the previous items in consideration, it is fair conclude from the article data itself that this study can't be considered valid nowadays;
• Montoro-Pons and Cuadrado-Garcia (2006) - This study doesn't appear anymore in the table in the final version of Oberholzer-Gee & Strumpf's paper;
• Hong (2004, 2008) - This study was centred only and exclusively on the impact of Napster in 2000. As stated before, and shown by the other papers, we can't infer the current correlation between "piracy" and music sales from some event that happened a decade ago;
• Leibowitz (2008) - the conclusion of this paper, and on Oberholzer-Gee & Strumpf's paper, is quite different from what's presented by Mars' study: in fact it concludes that if we consider all markets (where the universe was 89 different US markets), we cannot relate internet usage with changes in music sales;
• Leung (2009) - This is a nice study made by using data from college students of seven different undergraduate classes (from the tone of the paper, I'm assuming this is on USA, but I'm not sure). We're talking about heavy music consumers with no money (they buy four or five digital tracks per month, and one CD every two months). The study implicitly also shows, while it's not its focus, that those students would buy more if they had more money (or if the cost of CDs, iTunes tracks and iPods was less than it is). So, I'll argue that this is a nice study but only representative of a small subset of the global "pirate" reality, specially different from the EU reality, where we have differences like the fact that more than 40% of our countries don't have access to the iTunes music store. Actually, I can go ever further, and tell you my belief (no, I don't have any study showing I'm right or wrong, that's the real issue on this blog post...) that, since you can see that this college students consume nowadays much more music than others (for instance, people with 15 more years than them, even if those others have a lot more money) that it was the setting in which they live - including the cultural influences made by the existence of "digital piracy" - that made them such music fans, and when they grow to have more money, they will be better consumers than they are nowadays. In other words, this is a nice study, but one that only proves that there are lots of dimensions to the problem which need to be researched until we can take any scientific conclusion regarding the impact of piracy in music sales.

So, what I have to say about Tera Consultants' study, and everything else that uses it as a base to take a conclusion or decision? Only that I'm really ashamed, as an European citizen, that we pay blind attention to any study, specially studies commissioned by entities like ICC, whose body of members include three of the four major labels.

Why I don't rent movies

Three associations of rental movies stores, one Portuguese, one Spanish and one French, joined efforts and created an "anti-piracy civil movement". While I could argue that "civil" is a bad word to describe such movement, this wouldn't catch my eye for long, but it did, since they created that movement for the purpose of getting the Telecoms Package to be approved by the EU Council without the emend 138 (that states that whatever the Package says, personal rights should not be trumped over), and they actually managed to get what they wanted. Anyway, when confronted about how bad for European citizens it would be if the amend was dropped, they failed to justify why they don't like it, and instead mumbled over and over about piracy piracy financial losses piracy piracy piracy... I tried, for three days, to get them talking about 138, and why they don't want that, but instead of getting a justification, I've heard tons of things about piracy and how bad their business was.

During the discussion, and because they felt that I must be pro-piracy (which I actually am not) because I don't agree with them, they tried to confront me by asking a curious thing: what was the last time I rented a movie?

Now, more sober from the discussion, I started to think more about that question. There are lot's of people that never really were into renting movies, but that's not my case. My reply was something like "for years", but now, thinking more about it, I can say with some certainty that the last movie I rent was more or less four years ago. Why?

Well, I lived in Lamego in my youth, and there I never was really into renting movies. The offer there was poor (and last time I checked it was even worse), so there was really no point in spending money and rent a movie when I could spend the less drinking beer, hanging out, or even acting like a potato couch and seeing silly TV shows. When I moved to Coimbra all was different. Specially in my first years there, I was quite addicted in cultural stuff: almost every day I had a concert to see, a theatre play to attend, and exposition to watch, a movie to see. I spent lots of money in one of the cinema's there, where I usually watched all the movies that were shown in that venue. Also, I used to attend to every thing that was going on the Academic Theatre (TAGV): mainly movies, plays or concerts. And I also started renting movies, specially when with friends: we would get a couple of movies, crash in someone's house, and do a "movie party". Life started getting busier and busier, but it wasn't uncommon to see me browsing in Tintarella's shelves, since that particular movies rental store had a quite nice stock of recent and good alternative movies, European cinema and science fiction, and a catchy section with weekly highlights. In my latest years in Coimbra, sometimes I was found in the middle of the night with a couple of friends on the multimedia room of one University department, watching a just-rented movie.

Then I came to the big city of Lisbon, and I never rented a movie again. Do you think it is my fault? First I lived in Carnaxide, now I really live in Lisbon. I know where a/the movies rental store in Carnaxide is: I went there exactly three times, sold there used CDs, bought there one second-hand CD, and their movies selection was... unattractive. I live in "real Lisbon" for almost three years now. And I never saw a movies rental shop.

Now, do you really think that it is my fault that I never rented a movie anymore? Is it caused by piracy? No way. I don't rent movies because I don't have the habit of doing so, I don't know any rental store and I don't feel any urge of finding one. If you take into account that I used to be a client of that kind of stores, their "industry" lost a client. They did not know how to keep me. They failed as business people. They did a bad job. They are doing a bad job. They can throw rocks to piracy, freedom, rights, or anything they like. They might even get the chance to implement any laws and regulations they dream of. They will never have a successful business until they realise and admit their flaws and mistakes. Hurting people is not a way of making them your clients. Slowly, really slowly, the music industry is starting to learn their lesson. Movies rental businesses should too.

Interview to Hype! Magazine: "How much is a game worthy?"

How much is a game worthy? In the end of 2007, Radiohead made a revolution in the music distribution business by sharing their last album "In Rainbows on the Internet for free. With the music price going down to zero, and movies cheaper and cheaper, what is the right price to pay for a video game? Specialists on authorship rights and intellectual property talk about a future where games might be... free.

This is how is presented "How much is a game worthy?" article on this month's issue of the Portuguese games magazine "Hype!" by its team, an article written by Jorge Vieira (Hype!'s Operations Director) and where Manuel Luis Rocha (Department Chief on Intellectual Property of the law firm PLMJ), Duarte Nuno Vicente (Director of the Portuguese division of Virgin Play) and myself are interviewed.

Some quotes from the article:

first you have to define your goals: if the goal is to monetise your works, authors shouldn't think that they have to "avoid the free distribution of their works" in order to achieve it. In the music world, for decades artists are sharing their works for free in order to get known enough to get a deal with a record label, or in order to find out where to give concerts.

When talking about the digital world, where the perceived value of a non-physical work is tends to nothing, going free works as a first step in managing to grab user's attention

[obligatory blanket licenses would be] better than what we have now, but far from perfect. What must be done is a reflection on the concept of copyright, why was it created, and if it still makes sense

It is typical to listen someone talking about "how kids nowadays ignore copyright", but isn't it time to think if - for younger people - copyright doesn't make sense anymore? And, if it doesn't for them, does it make sense in the world?"

The trick is obvious: go viral. Make your own game, make demos and put videos on YouTube, publicise it, put them on people's mouths. Give it. Create a community around it, make your users feel as being an important part of your game. Listen your community. Create the game's blog, reply to comments, read the critics, accept suggestions. Get involved with your community, and it will grow.

If you like this article, you might be interested in attending my presentation about "Virtual Worlds: Pass, Present and Future" I'm going to do this Saturday at Tecnonov 2008, an event about Technology and Innovation in Coimbra, Portugal.

New-Rap: a new generation

From my whole collection of music, I don't have one Rap or Hip-Hop song at all - not that I recall of, at least. Sure, I have some music, mainly experimental, that uses lots of rap-style elements, but that's all. I don't think I like Rap or Hip-Hop. I can see the difference from good rap to bad rap, I understand its art and value, but... It's just not for me, I guess.

Now, today I'll talk you about something else - let's call it... er... new-rap. Probably this phenomenon is already known, studied and this new style has a name - another name. Just, it's something not known, and I don't know how to call it. As a matter of fact, the thing that makes this interesting is that - without purpose - this style is mainly unknown, specially from the music industry. But if they don't get this, they're dead.

Talking about new-rap is not talking about a music style - only. Talking about new-rap is talking about a new generation of people and how do they work, feel and deal with music.

Welcome to the world you usually avoid to see. They are young. They walk funny. They talk loud and in a strange dialect. They are everywhere on the streets and everyone knows, but usually don't think about them as a group - as a phenomenon. People are usually warry of them: from the "who's this funny guy" to the almost unconscious feeling that "this weird guy might steal me in a minute". As a matter of fact they probably walk with more money in their wallet than the one you would feel safe walking with, but you don't know that. They know they make you feel exactly how you do, but they don't give a shit. They're surprisingly friendly - to anyone. They talk really strange, but they usually don't curse, unless there's a specific curse-word that entered their dialect. They don't smoke. They don't take coffee. They don't do drugs. They only drink alcohol at parties. They drive a lot - and race - but they never do it in public places, they never drive after drinking alcohol, they all do safe sex. They're different.

They all have high-technology in their pockets: expensive cellphones. None of those cellphones have any software you ever seen. Really. They don't really have a concept for music, they live music. Sometimes while they're talking a cellphone just pops from their strange pockets and some loud music starts playing. They act as there's no music there - they just feel it and use it as to mark the rythm of their actions.

They all make music. All of them. Their lifes are basicly about three things: cars, parties and music. Not that they have a concept for music. They don't know what a composer is. It's really weird, but most of them don't know what a "band" means, they think that "a band" or "a CD" or "some sound" is the same thing. They don't have a clue about what intellectual property is. They make music, using voices, hardware and samples. They don't know that they make music. They don't know the difference between the music they composed and the music their friend did. For them, there are two types of music: the one they have and the one they still don't. They don't consider what you consider music as music. Not even well-known rappers. For them, those guys just make sounds. As they put it, "sounds are everywhere, but quality sound isn't in what you can record, is on what others recorded". What they mean with this is that, for them, a Bach 1 hour CD is the same as turning on TV in a random channel and recording (losslessly) one hour of the sound stream from that TV channel. As a matter of fact, they prefer the later, since they have more variety of sounds. Sounds are important for them: they all use them to make samples. I head a music that used a brilliant sample that I had to think about for several minutes until relating the result with the original: a 3 minutes or so kids song was reduced - in a brilliant way - to a 3 secs sample. They use everything. They mix and remix. "What? You're crazy, no one owns sounds!" It's their reaction to one comment. They were surprised, I was weird to them. They do AWSOME music. Really. They share it with everyone. It's the whole purpose of music - sharing thoughts, ideas. I listen an astonishing lenghly discussion about a 30 secs intro to a music someone they knew did. And I bet that if you buy 100 rap CD's from a CD store and mix those tracks with the new-rap thing they're doing, they'll naturaly call their tracks as music, the others as sound sources. It's a new style - a new generation.

Now, I know some other movements happening, for other music styles, for other kinds of kids. Not every have something in common with this. Many are different. The real question here is that, if you talk with this guys, you'll understand the way they live. You see beauty in some stuff. You don't see anything wrong. Then you go home, yet startled. And start thinking about what they do. They don't "record", they share. They don't buy music or sounds. They don't know what intellectual property is. According to our laws, I bet everyone of them "should" be in jail. They're happy. They aren't violent. They don't harm anyone. They share. They have true friends. They are humans. They live.

Who's wrong?

Marilyn Manson talks about the record industry

Last 17th Marilyn Manson gave an exclusive interview to MansonUSA [1], which I recommend you to read. If not, at least take this comments he made about the record industry:

With the recording industry in shambles, certain high profile artists such as Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails have favored a strictly online venue to selling their music. Certain artists are providing people the option of paying what they want for a record. How do you feel about the current state of the music industry and this new approach to selling music?

I think that Prince really pioneered that concept the best but it just wasn’t at the time of the technology and of the audience to understand it. I think he was the first. I wish I could have that luxury and that's the difference. Radiohead and NIN have been freed from their slavery of the record label. I don’t have that luxury. I have a record contract. Anyone who is just starting a band can go make a website and sell their own song. Someone that has been making music for years would love to do that but they just can't because they are under a record contract. That's the one thing I hope people on the outside can see. I would love nothing more than to do that - not even because of the money, the record industry, or specifically my record company. I know you've heard Trent complain it's the same record company, but I'm not going to fight for the same reasons. I just don’t think they understand what to do with me and I think they've proven that very well. I think that they always want to take what I give them and make it a watered down version. It’s not what I give them and I think that then they're surprised about that. First of all, you can water down what I do and give it to the radio or MTV and they are still not going to walk away with a good taste in their mouth. I try to explain to them to just give people what they want, which is what I created. Smells Like Children is a good example. I can’t give you enough examples and that's why my soul has been removed from the whole concept of making music videos. They tear out everything that people want. They don't understand that I wouldn’t be who I am if I wasn’t me. They want to tone me down so that I can be more like new bands that they’ve shown my record to and said, “Be like this, but not so scary.”

It’s a fucked up world. I'm not bitter about it, just tired of it. That was half the reason I didn’t want to make music anymore. I'm not discouraged because I think, first of all, my motivation has never been to make money. It's been to be able to do this, have this be how I survive and how I live. I never asked for much and I just want to do this and enjoy it. The way that I enjoy music the most is performing live and record companies can’t put their hands on that. That makes me happy, so that's one thing that really makes me smile when it’s all over with. I can control that. The only people that can stop me are the Police. I have no idea what’s going to happen next, I really don’t. I'm going to make the most extreme possible record that they could never want from me. It's going to be the best thing and they'll figure out every way possible for it to not be a hit. But have I ever wanted to be a hit? No! Who wants to be right next to, Rhianna and Jessica Simpson? I don’t want that. I want people to hear it. I’m not trying to pretend I want to be the secret that's in the closet. People come to the show and that is something these other bands that are on MTV that play one video a day don’t know about. That's something that you really have to earn and that's what fans are really about. That’s something that I’m really happy about and I’m very lucky that I have that much dedication from people who like what I do.

As for me, I'm still not buying his stuff while he's under that hideous record contract.

[1] - http://www.mansonusa.com/everyone_will_suffer_now/

Music: what was 2007, what to have in 2008

Acording to http://hypebot.typepad.com/hypebot/2008/01/top-music-20-st.html, music sales in 2007 are expected to have dropped 15% or more in 2007 (relating to 2006). On the other hand, eMarketer's predictiongs for 2008 also talk about music, as we can see at http://www.mediafuturist.com/2008/01/emarketers-pred.html. The predictions include a further fade off of the CD but a rise of experimentations with new and emerging business models like ad-supported music, mobile music and music social networks. Also, DRM is going to drop further (in music, remember)...

I can hardly wait, let's make 2008!

The State of Music Business

Manuel Marino, who has a blog about music in its various aspects, invited me to wrote an article about the state of music business. For those who read this blog for a long time, you probably already know my position about it. But if you're not a reader for that long, or, in other hand, you want to have my thoughts about the state of the music business compiled in a somewhat small article that sums it up, then you might be interested in reading this article:
http://manuelmarino.com/the-state-of-music-business/

The music market is falling: who's to blame?

It's known for regular readers that I don't believe that illegal file-sharing has an noteworthy impact in the rise or fall of music market profits: it's more an excuse than anything else. This article tries to find out what's causing this fall.

Even if I read some stuff about market dynamics over the years, I'm surely no expert on the matter. Also, this all issue is way to chaotic to find simple and obvious causes for this fall. So, I decided instead to point four points that surely have some major impact on music market. This doesn't mean that these are the most important issues - they probably aren't, but at least they are some real measurable causes.

The digital era

The music market never made an effort to understand the digital era. The most flagrant example of this is the well-worn Napster case. Yes, people were doing downloads of copyright material, and yes, the copyright owners weren't getting nothing from it. That's beyond the point. The point is that the music industry instead of trying to understand what was happening, decided to just sue them and shut it down. With that act, they also gave a statement: they don't care about the digital era, if it hurts them they'll fight to take it down. The problem here is that you can't take down the digital era, because that's no company, no infrastructure nor even a technology: the digital era is a mind set. People share files because they feel there's no wrong with it. Some people download digital music for free arguing that the real cost of a digital file is zero. It's this kind of social mind set that makes the digital era define the music market's future, and if the music industry keeps against it, or at least doesn't bother trying to comprehend it, then they're fighting against the future of the market they are, thus fighting themselves. Of course that some people got it, and used the digital era to make profit: Apple, for instance, created the iPod and iTunes, making huge profits in an empty market. But the profits are not only for retailers: I've seen musicians, labels and every other piece of chain in the music business benefit from the digital era, they just decided to understand it first. The best Portuguese music I got in 2007 came from a Portuguese label created this year, some other music labels I know are in frank expansion, some music stores too. We've seen new business models rising, from fans-funded recordings like what you can find on SellABand, or even bands making money by giving their music for free in sites like ReverbNation.

The purchasing power

There are also less music related issues that have an huge impact in the music business, and ignoring them is like forcing ourselves not to see the elephant in the room. One of them is the actual purchasing power for these kinds of goods in the so-called developed countries. I've done several parallels in the past: for instance in the 2006 Portuguese BarCamp I compared the music business with the coffee machines business. The fact is that businesses - each one of them - have to adapt to the overall market. If people start to consider some stuff as "luxury items", then maybe those items should be sold as such. If
people start thinking that some item is more valuable than other item - in a case where typically they'll choose upon one of the two - then the second one has naturally to be less expensive than the first one. Market laws apply to any market, but the music industry fails to understand that the music market follows the same rules than any other market.

The physical price

So, the digital era appeared and with it digital music, that feels like free. On the other hand, the purchasing power for the class of goods music is inserted in is being reduced in the last few years. The natural thing to have would be the price of CD's, more than any other physical format for music sales, to follow these two indicators and have their price falling. Plus, even if that wasn't case, people were already expecting the CD price to fall anyway: one of the things that were being said in the first times of the Compact Disc is that the high price they cost would soon fall with new technology arriving, and the consumers kept that in mind. The manufacturing cost sure fell, as we managed to see, for instance, in the price of blank CD-R's. Yet, the price of a music CD kept rising. Doing the math, what's expect to happen to music sales other then a fall?

How to measure quality?

One of the causes, at least in Europe and in the United States for the rise of the physical price is the way big retailers entered in the music market. Big stores had everything in one place, wanting to be your one-stop-choice. They managed (by quantity and scale) to practice such lower prices that they practically killed an huge amount of small music stores, or forced them to practice even bigger prices to deal with the dropping unit sales. When they were already controlling some markets like the music market, they were then free to practice the prices of their choice. Speaking of choice...

It would be stupid trying to measure music quality. But we measure related factors, like choice and diversity. Let me explain: if music quality is hard to define because each person have different musical tastes, then it's pretty obvious that if you have few choice and diversity, then few people would be interested in the music being released and available to the public, and fewer articles for their tastes. To aggravate this, if market diversity isn't accomplished than if you satisfy someone's tastes, that person only has the choice to buy way-too-similar music (which will lead him to buy less music) or not to buy it at all.

With the fall of investment on music from the music industry, and with the fact that the market reaches its physical public mainly via big retailers, came the standardisation of music. Only a few pre-determined music styles, known to be well consumed, have place in the market. The long tail of music was being completely ignored (and majorly found their place on a less controlled environment like the Internet, embracing the digital era).

I risk to assume that if we consider the overall quality of the music available on music stores dependent of their diversity, by attracting each listener segment, then the overall quality of music has decreased in the last few years, which can then be related with the decrease of music sales.

Conclusion

If you still want to say that file-sharing is guilty of the decrease of music sales and overall profit on the music market, go ahead, I won't stop you, even if I don't buy it. But considering all the other factors that might affect its market, including those that surely are, please avoid making the same mistakes as Liebowitz is going to state in his upcoming paper, where he not only states that piracy is guilty of the decreasing of music sales, but that "file-sharing* appears to have caused the entire decline in the record sales and appears to have vitiated what otherwise would have been growth in the industry".

* - funilly, he measures "file-sharing" by measuring Internet penetration

The future of the music business

Take notice that this post talks about the future of the music business, and not of the music industry. History shows us that when companies are quickly falling, and those who constitute the actual music industry are, are quite imprevisible: it's a matter of when do they wake up. On the other hand it's pretty hard do conceive that in the next few years we'll stop having a music business...

I've been reading a lot of studies and reports lately about the music business, including the music industry in general or some of its companies in particular. At the same time, I've been discussing some of this matters in several communities and with several individuals. With that, I've formed a simplistic idea of what do people "feel" about this matter, and what researchers have to say about it.

Starting with the end

The overall music business (amount of profit per year) is going to decrease year after year at least until 2012.

Digital sales and Emergent business models

Digital sales will increase year after year, at least until 2012. By that time, digital sales aren't still bigger than the other ways of profit.

Revenue coming from emergent business models, like ring tones, ad-profits, subscription services and such, is going to increase, but it's total will still be irrelevant.

Compact Disc's, DVD's, Vinyl and Compact Cassette

CD and DVD sales will keep falling vertiginously, and that is going to be the cause for the overall decrease of profit (as it is right now), at least until 2012. Probably the fall of CD sales will keep further than that.

The Vinyl market is re-emerging, and will keep doing so, but in three or four years it will start to slow down and stagnate. This is a format that will not dye in the next couple of decades, and it is expected to survive longer than the Compact Disc.

The Compact Cassette survives for so long for a various amount of reasons. It's presence in every car player for so many years was probably the biggest longevity kick it had, and when audio books started the Compact Cassette was the best format since would give you more talk-time for less money. While some niche groups exist, the format is slowly falling and it will eventually dye. It will probably be sooner than the Compact Disc, but not so soon as the majority of people think: it is declining but slowly, and the latest trends slowed down even more that tendency.

Gigs, merch, the rest

Last but not least, gigs and related stuff is commonly seen as the "salvation" for this trends. It might be, in a more distant future, but the predictions tell us that the profits that they generate will maintain themselves, at least in the next five years

Piracy

Most people download music illegally, but at the same time most people think it is fundamentally wrong. Another wing says that a digital copy has no costs, so there's nothing immoral about doing such thing. But for the soon-to-be future, or at least until there isn't a collective position regarding it, what matters is that piracy is here and it's something that will not stop. So, more important than thinking about "right" or "wrong", let's take a look about the repercussions. Most people are convinced that piracy is the reason why the music business being less profitable day by day, probably induced by all the lies the general population has been consuming lately from the music industry. One other sign of that is that many people believe that "digital piracy" is theft, even if that's illogical if you see the definition of theft (I've wrote about this in the past).

What studies tells us is that the goal of measuring if the impact of piracy in the music business is positive or negative has never been reached. In its process, these sub-conclusions:

• piracy is directly related to music consumption, and in many cases piracy boosts music sales


• until now, no one managed to establish a relation between piracy and the decrease of sales

Good or bad? It really doesn't matter - even if its impact is proven to help the decrease of sales, it will never be in the order of magnitude of the decrease we're seeing in the last couple of years.

Stop!

What does this mean? Is the music business doomed? No!!!! Who should I blame? What can I do?

The funny part now: this doesn't mean really anything. As in any market, the music business has been inflated by the music industry for a long number of years, so it is now naturally deflating. The fall is aggravated by the fact that the music industry itself never knew how to adapt themselves, basicly living in their comfortable model and ignoring any other tendency. What happens to businesses that don't innovate? But you don't stand being a watcher? You feel the urge to help fix this whole mess? There aren't much choices but two things that can be done: first, buy music, buy a lot of music. Secondly, help define the new music industry, the new business models. Support the "good labels". Boycott the "bad labels". Act as people do in any aggressive market. This is an aggressive market, so if you want to influence it, don't be passive, be active.

Being a musician in Portugal

Swapping e-mails with Cory Doctorow about copyright. Reading new stuff about music 2.0, specially about blanket licenses. Discussing about new music business models and piracy in mailing lists. Doing some consultancy to social music networks. All of this leads me to discussions about how to do things better, and sometimes it makes me forget about the problems Portuguese people have nowadays even for the "music 1.0" era. So, this post is about the biggest problem I find about being a musician in Portugal. Note that this is not only of interest for Portuguese people, since many other countries are in a simmilar (or even worse) state.

The Portuguese law [1] is quite clear about the rights of copyright owners (translation is mine and sucks, sorry):

Are considered works the intelectual creations from the literary, cientific or artistic domain, exteriorized in any way, that, as such, are protected in the terms of this Code, including in that protection the rights of their authors.

Great, so now we know that any music created is covered by this law, as well as its author. Moving along...

For the purposes of this Code, the work is independent of its divulgation, publication, usage or exploitation.

So, if you make a song, you're covered, even if you didn't publish it or done anything with it.

The protection of the work is extensible to its title, independently from the registry, regarding that it cannot be confused with a title of any other work from the same type of another author, previously exteriorized or published.

So, not only the work but also its title is protected just by being created and named, even if it is not registred.

The published work is the work reproducted with its author's consent, whichever is the way the units are made, providing that they are disposed to the public.

So, when you do a track and, for instance, put it on the web to download or stream, you're publishing it.

The author rights are recognized independently of its registry, deposit or any other formality.

Yup, you're the author so you should do anything you want with it, without any obligation.

So... The law is preety cool in this aspects right? So here's the problem: the music industry acts like the Mafia, and in Portugal it's obvious. You know what mafia does: it "convinces" you that you need their (payed) protection, when, in fact, you're being protected... from them. So, the Portuguese entities that supposedly "protect authors' rights" - where you register your work - act in the same way. Want to have an example?

If you are the author of your own work and you want to pay to a Portuguese company to print some Audio CD's (not CD-R's), every of those companies ask you the same thing: you need to register your work to be our client.

So... isn't this acting criminously? What "protection" are these companies giving authors? Isn't this a block for creativity? So, if you think that Portugal is ready for a blanket license, or that the discussion is about piracy or stuff like that... Think twice. We have a structural problem here, and lot's of things worth fighting for.

[1] - http://tinyurl.com/yvf9na

image from http://www.flickr.com/photos/williamkunz/196894022/, covered by a Creative Commons license

Record Tapes

This text was written friday night, offline.

I heard three times already this year that "record tapes aren't commercialized anymore". The third time was today, after having a morning conversation with Nuno Nunes, where, among other things, I was telling him I had just ordered one CD and one Tape.

What comes to surprise to most people is not only that record tapes are still commercialized, but, mostly, that record tapes are being released nowadays, and people really buy them. My case? It's the seventh record tape I got this year, from which three of them were released in 2006 and two in 2007. Why get record tapes instead of CD's? Well, as scary as it might sound to you, I actually know people that prefer record tapes to CD's. But in my case, I (almost) always try to get the CD release, but sometimes it is sold out and other times there's no CD release of that album. Like I usually avoid to buy digital music (even if there's no physical release of that album), I also usually avoid buying a cassette even if there's no CD release. But there are some records you need to have, right?

Finally, I recall Nuno Nunes telling me, when he moved to his new home, that he still had no other way to listen to music at home but listening to his vinyl records (which was being surprisingly good since he was listening to some great stuff he wasn't listening as often as he wanted to). I also recall him buying Dead Combo's latest record (released in vinyl only). So we're really in the same position here: besides using the computer the only way I have at the moment to listen to music (something I want to fix this weekend, BTW) is listening to tapes. Also, I buy tapes when I don't have how to buy the same album as a CD.

In conclusion: record tapes are not dead. There's still a market for them, believe it or not. They are still manufactured (there's one company in Portugal doing it), pressed and sold. Also, there's still those who like the format, being their preferred format or not. Yes, I believe that record tapes are going to die in the future (I cannot say the same about CD's and specially vinyl), but that future is still more than a couple of years distant.

... Now on monday, Nuts pointed me out for an article called "Vinyl May Be Final Nail in CD's Coffin" [1].

[1] - http://tinyurl.com/2b6fzl

Interviewing... SellABand

I talked about [1] SellABand [2] in the past, but I never covered it as I wanted to on this blog. So, I decided to interview Pim Betist from SellABand and leave you with the result...

For those who do not know, SellABand is a one-year-old web music service that can be considered a "Record Label 2.0". Read the begining of the interview to know more about it. Oh, and they are looking to Ruby coders so if you might be interested you should read this until the end!

---

Hi there, and thanks for letting me interview you... SellABand is already one year old, but lot's of out readers probably don't know about you, so what about starting by explaining what is SellABand?

SellABand is an online music platform where artist and fans can make music and money together. Artists make a profile for free by loading up their best three songs, their bio and some pictures. Music fans view the profile and listen to the music. When they believe in the artist they can become a "Believer" by buying parts. Each part costs $10. Once 5000 parts have been sold we have $50,000. We use this full budget to record an album with renowned producers in top studios. Once the album is done all believers receive a limited version of the album. All income generated from the album and the advertising on SellABand is divided equally between the artist, the believers and SellABand.

How did the idea of creating SellABand appear?

SellaBand comes from a love for music and a frustration about the fact that the same artists are being heard over and over on the radio. I would see a lot of live performances and notice how much talented artists are being unnoticed by the traditional music industry. I decided to give up my job and approach the right people to execute the business plan. I found Johan Vosmeijer and Dagmar Heijmans. Both experienced in the music industry. When they heard about my plans they gave up their jobs to launch this business and follow our dream: Bands and Fans in business together!

What do you think of the actual state of the music industry? What do you think SellABand can do to help it moving to the right direction?

The majors have been treating the web as a threat as opposed to capturing its opportunities. When Napster was founded the labels had a choice; embrace this development and create new business models or sue the new initiatives. I don't have to tell you for which one they choose. This approach cost them a lot of money. Music companies were focusing on numbers and laws in stead of on finding new talent. Additionally, the traditional business model is completely outdated and far too risky. Each new artist that is signed by a label requires a large investment before any money is made. Sales have been dropping with around 25% world wide. With less money being made, logically labels are betting on "safe horses" like Madonna and Justin Timberlake of whom we have heard so much already. RIAA (Record Industry Association America) figures have pointed out that music listeners are interested in new music. They are fed up with highly marketed super stars. My guess is that with this risk averse policy music sales will be dropping more in the future. Since labels aren't picking up new talent, there is a lot of unsigned artists out there. SellaBand makes it possible for music fans to discover these artists and help them make take their career to the next level. We like to see SellaBand as a trampoline. Artists choose themselves
how high they want to jump. After (and before) recording their album with us they are free to sign with a label. We have recently signed distribution deals with Rough trade in the Benelux and Proper in the UK so all SellaBand
albums will be sold in stores across the UK and the Benelux. Additionally sellaband artists are being invited for live performances all over the world. Nemesea for example (the first band 50K) has recently confirmed a tour in the UK. This way the more passive music lover can also enjoy the amazing new music that is being discovered on SellaBand.

How do you measure the SAB success so far?

5400 bands signed up. 1.3 million dollars has been invested. 9 artists have reached the 50K. 3 albums have been released. We have only been live for a little over a year. We (the management and the community) are very proud of these results.

We're seeing a lot more of this "Web 2.0" world that is more and more centered in user generated content and grabbing users' attention. SAB completely relies on User Generated Content and even "user contributed money". Aren't you afraid this is a bubble soon to burst?

I agree with you that are a lot of initiatives out there. In some of them I have a lot of trust. Fabchannel.com is a good example of web 2.0 initiative that I think will continue to grow in size and popularity. Other initiatives
I just don't get. 2nd life for example is an initiative that I have less faith in. Time will tell which initiatives will continue to prosper in the future. When it comes to SellaBand I am very confident that it is a
sustainable business model. The relationship of the artist with his or her fans is a unique one that is very difficult to break. Imagine seeing 50,000 dollars roll in on your account. Imagine realizing your dream because
thousands of music fans believe in you. Imagine seeing an artist you supported on MTV. All of this magic is happening and will happen a lot more for a very long time.

As an user of SAB almost since day one, first as an artist and then as a believer, I've been seeing the development of a very strong community, and lot's of things running around SAB. For instance, before SAB having an official forum, we already had forums for SAB... How did you made it happen? How do you see that?

When we started sellaband we had no idea that we would be surrounded by such an amazing group of music lovers. All "community initiatives" were literally initiated by the community. All we did was listen and try to serve the community in the best way possible. When it comes to offline initiatives I think we've done a great job. This summer we sold out legendary live venue paradiso in Amsterdam. Believers from over 22 countries flew in to Amsterdam to see the show. When it comes to online initiatives I think we can make a lot of improvements. One of our Believers "Rey Gamba" is an experienced programmer. He has been envolved behind the scenes for a while now. First he created club SellaBand which was a sandbox environment where we tested what extra features we could add to the site to make it more fun and sticky. We loved what he did so much that we asked him to join our team, which he did! We are very happy with the added value Rey Gamba will bring to our company.

With all the interaction you have with the SAB community, both artist and believers tend to flood you with new ideas. How do you face them? It seems to me that there's a kind of "sense" from the community that you're somewhat obliged to at least consider those suggestions...

I fully agree with you. We are a very transparent company and therefore get a lot of feedback from the community. We have used this input when we made our business plan for 2008. We published the complete plan in the tribune, our weekly news section. We are very conscious of the fact that it is the community of artists and believers who will take this company to the next level. Keeping that in mind we have to protect "the pillars" of our concept and realize that we cannot please everyone at all times.

We never heard again of "SellABand Presents..." CD's... Was it something you did to start launching 50K artists, or is it something we'll seen again?

SellaBand Part 1 and 2 were both a major success. I think the time is right for a part 3 soon.

Since this is a blog that usually talks not only about music but also about technological issues, can you give us some tech details about SAB?

We have chosen for the language Ruby. We are looking for programmers who can program in Ruby because we are building our own team.

Any final words you want to leave to our readers?

We've been nominated for the nima marketing award. This is Hollands most prestigious marketing prize. Tom Tom and Gsus won the year before us. Don't forget to vote for us here! http://www.nima.nl/marketing_jaarprijs

---

[1] - http://mindboosternoori.blogspot.com/2007/02/social-web-of-music.html
[2] - http://sellaband.com

ReverbNation supports Labels and Managers

The music social network that pays artists to have a profile there [1] ReverbNation [2] have now a new functionality, embracing into their community not only bands or fans but also record labels and managers. These new kind of profiles includes the ability to do:

• FanReach email management
• Artist Roster (with sample songs)
• Consolidated show schedule for all artists on roster
• "New Releases" area
• Special, customizable "TuneWidget" for promoting label's artists all over the web
• Street Team function for recruiting, managing, tracking and rewarding a Street Team

In a time where artists are getting closer and closer to their fans, it's quite important for labels and managers to try to be a part of the whole process... Or they'll end being left behind. The lesson has already been learned: the proof is the number of record labels with "artist profiles" on social networks like MySpace.

With this step, ReverbNation in keeping the pace trying to keep being the best music social network for artists (in my oppinion). New features keep being suggested, and I believe that they'll keep implementing them on and on...

Check more about this new feature at http://www.reverbnation.com/main/overview_label.

[1] - http://tinyurl.com/2fvw2c
[2] - http://www.reverbnation.com/merankorii

Underworld interview

"We really like records, and a physical record is a calling card," Hyde said, "and no matter how many downloads we did, until the perception changes significantly, they'd always be seen as the poor cousin to a real album. And if we want people to come into the world of Underworld, we had to say, 'Here's something recognizable.' "

-- Underworld, in an interview for MTV

Read the full interview at http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1571402/20071008/underworld.jhtml.

Amazon opens DRM-free music store

And to end the day, news that Amazon finally open it's DRM-free music store [1].

What's good

• Songs cost between 89 and 99 cents, meaning that the most expensive mp3 file there is at the same price and never more expensive than a DRM-encumbered file on iTunes. There are also albums as low as costing only $4.99.
• The store is to be used by Windows, Macintosh and Linux users, and not only Win and Mac like the iTunes music store.

What's bad

• So, I went to the store and it said to me that they wanted to recommend me some music. I clicked there and the result was a "Sorry, we have no recommendations for you in this category today." So, do you have it or not?
• You can buy mp3 tracks, but to buy full albums you need to install the Amazon MP3 Downloader [2]. Worse than being forced to use a standalone application is that it is not available yet for GNU/Linux systems...

Their catalog surprised me (negatively) both by choice and price, when searching for Indie records stuff. Yet conclusions about that, and the overall success of this new music store can only be taken when the first figures start coming out.

Oh, BTW, here's the link to the store [3].

[EDIT:] Despite some people are saying, the tracks and albums are taggen in US dollars, like everything else in amazon.com, but that does not stop you from buying them. The concept of buying the same thing by $.99, £.99 or .99€ depending on where you are is just silly, and people are only used to it thanks to Apple. BTW, since the EU is aiming to sue Apple also because of that, it wouldn't really be wise for Amazon to go the same route. For those don't understanding why I'm talking about this, remember that at this moment 1 U.S. dollar = 0.710378632 Euro, meaning that in Europe the tracks are way cheaper.


[1] - http://tinyurl.com/3cz4h8
[2] - http://tinyurl.com/yo679f
[3] - http://tinyurl.com/2gdkkn

LaunchALabel, $100 Label, Open Source and A Swarm of Angels

So, I've heard about LauchALabel [1], a web community somewhat simmilar to SellABand [2] that intends to coordinate people to create a label, instead of coordinate people to fund an album. The thing is, those 50.000 people that will pay $25 to create the label (against the 5.000 $10 parts needed to launch a bands' record on SellABand) will have a little few to have with the label itself: there's no plan of ROI for those "shareholders", those people can only decide five bands to release (heck, with that money you release 25 albums via SellABand), and they don't really have a stake on the labels management. The core idea was good, but with half the money it would be really easy to do a lot more...

Virgil from IndieHQ had a Simmilar idea some time ago [3]: create a record label with 1,000 investors (and equal participants), where each investor had to put $100 in. This idea (raising the money that could release two CD's on SellABand) is quite better, specially if you take into consideration that every "shareholder" would have an equal vote to someone else, and so it would really be an "Open Label". There are several issues to be considered tho, and if you read the comments made on his idea (same link) you'll see that there are a lot of concerns on how to please everyone, how to do the voting scheme, how to rely on other's works (and how to distribute work) and so on...

...which reminded me Open Source and how things just work in the Open Source world. As a matter of fact, this didn't came to me as "this reminds me of Open Source" but in a radical point of view: "this would only work in an Open Source like model".
Let me explain, giving the example of Debian. First of all, Debian does not have a fixed number of "contributors" or "staff" - it's a hive mind, a colective management, where you don't really have to rely on anyone specificly but in the community as a whole. See, you can be an excellent hacker and give lot's of coding hours to developing Debian, and yet do not care (or not have the profile) to do management stuff, deal with conflicts, take resolutions or doing every other thing needed to make things happen. Thus, Debian has an organizatinal structure [4], elected, that simply lets people contribute as much as they want to, in the issues they prefer to.

And yet another thing: in Debian you don't need a fixed number of people, like in Virgil's idea. You can explore more this issue if you compare this idea to one other project, but this time to make a movie. A Swarm of Angels [5] is a project to make a movie release happen. A director, several "business angels" and several phases will be used to create a movie from scratch, where those "angels" will make a part of all the process: from writting and choosing the plot or the wardrobe, to choosing (or creating) its soundtrack, everything is decided by the community. You didn't need a fixed number of people to start: as a matter of fact you have a limit number of people who can participate: taking core decisions with lots of people was avoided this way. The first phase was open for 100 people (£2,500), and the second for 1000 people (£25,000). When the tasks are complete for this phase, and since more money will be needed, the next phase starts and "buying a stake" is again possible, until there are 5000 people.

But the big question here remains: what's the really good way of doing this? How to create the "Record Label 2.0"? Every one of the three concepts for music have problems (SellABand, Launch A Label and the $100 label), and while ideas can and should be taken from stuff like Open Source or examples like Swarm of Angels, there's still no idea of how to create the "killer record label", that which is fair to everyone (from the artist to the public). I wrote my ideas of how to create the perfect record label [6] in the past, even if it was just a collection of loose thoughts in a way that seemed to make sense. There's no answer yet, but it's definitively something interesting enough to make me think.

[1] - http://www.launchalabel.com/
[2] - http://www.sellaband.com
[3] - http://tinyurl.com/yvhzvs
[4] - http://www.us.debian.org/intro/organization
[5] - http://aswarmofangels.com/
[6] - http://tinyurl.com/38a28v

Jody Gnant - A new way of being an indie artist

Jody Gnant [1], the singer/songwriter of One Red Paperclip fame [2], has found a solution to a big problem in the independent music business.

Gnant's One Red Paperclip trade gave her the studio time to record her new album, PIVOT, but she still needed to bring it to market and garner the attention of music industry moguls and fans alike.

She knew she could join the millions of artists with their own website and a video clip on youtube.com, but felt she needed an edge, a big edge, to get noticed.

With the help of a new video streaming website called Ustream.tv [3] she found that edge and has definitely arrived on the music scene. Gnant is now video streaming her life to the world 24 hours a day, 7 days a week -- live and in real time.

The funny moments, the greatest difficulties, the recording of the album, the editing, the mastering, the preparations for the release, looking for advertising, it's all there, live.

This "lifecasting" strategy has already resulted in a dramatic increase in the awareness of Gnant's music. Less than a week after starting her broadcast, she had the #3 video on MySpace with 186,000 views. Her music is also being showcased as part of ScreenVison's pre-show entertainment in 4,000 movie theaters in the United States. In addition, Gnant's music is finding a worldwide audience with preorders for her new album, PIVOT, coming in from all over the world.

She says:

It's an exciting combination of interactive and non-interactive media, [...] People can choose to tune in and just watch the events of my life unfold, or they can log on and have an immediate effect on my career.

When asked how long she'll continue lifecasting Gnant simply says,

This is not a dress rehearsal -- I'll continue as long as it's fun.

Gnant is also broadcasting her CD Release performance live on the Internet, today, from The Brickhouse [4] in Phoenix.

Everyone is welcome to tune in to her live Ustream broadcast - for free - at http://www.jodygnant.tv , see some of her videoclips ("Over" and "Hounds of Romance"), or the hundred-plus past clips of her lifecast on her ustream page. You can also listen to some of her new songs, or the songs she recorded in her previous album. She recorded an album 12 years ago, as a soundtrack, and she has all her "old" songs available for listen and download for free there. Jody Gnant is an independent singer/songwriter headquartered in Phoenix, AZ. What I found most interesting is the fact that this artist is, regardless of what people think of her music (she calls it Bohemian Geek Soul, I personally consider it almost pop), something instantly captures your attention: not only her sparkling personality and the way she interacts with the fans on the site, but also her trajectory and life story, and the goals and the views she has of music, and how she plans to achieve them. Also, as I previously mentioned, this is an independent artist, which means she is her own record label, and she controls her own destiny in terms of music creation, and she's doing this all with her own money, and the biggest cut in the profits don't go to any "middleman" major label but her own pocket. You got to respect that.

So, if you have idle time on your hands tonight (3am in Portugal), tune in for a live CD Release show.

[1] - http://www.jodygnant.com
[2] - http://oneredpaperclip.blogspot.com/
[3] - http://www.ustream.tv
[4] - http://www.brickhouse.tv

ReverbNation pays to artists

The music social network ReverbNation [1] added to their network a killer feature, which unfortunately they didn't advertise (maybe they don't grasp the importance of such feature?): what they call FairShare.

The simple version: FairShare lets bands earn money just by having an artist profile at ReverbNation.com.

The simple but more extended version: If you have a band profile in ReverbNation and click on a link saying "I want to activate FairShare", from that moment you'll get 50% of the ad revenue from the ads displayed on your profile. This means that how many more people you direct into your ReverbNation profile, the more money you'll earn. Just to give you an example, Merankorii's ReverbNation profile [2] isn't something I lead people into (like I don't do it to Merankorii's presence on MySpace or PureVolume), and I've earned $.88 regarding August. Artists can only get their FairShare 60 days after signing into this program, and if their balance scores more than $20 (against the $100 from AdSense). Revenue updates are made monthly, and as soon as you're eligible to widraw your earnings you can make the transaction with one click.

Why is this so great? Well, this could be, for instance, a great alternative for those bands in net-labels (or for net-labels themselves): not only you get free hosting and a social network that can lead more people into your music, but also you can earn money from your work. But, most importantly, this finally solves the issue about how to give artists money while fans keep getting the music for free [3].

[1] - http://www.reverbnation.com
[2] - http://www.reverbnation.com/merankorii
[3] - http://tinyurl.com/2788g5

Selling Music on Social Networks

On Reuters there was a piece where they were saying that labels are eyeing social networks as retailers, which isn't really news to me: I've been seeing this countless times, an effort made by both bands and/or labels in different kinds of promotion and profit. It's not small the number of record labels with a MySpace profile, but what's really interesting (and cool) to see is the number of record labels betting on social networks like Last.fm, showing that they have at least a glimpse of what they're doing. Also, it seems that major labels are seeing a bad side of DRM: besides the technical issues of implementing it, social networking users simply don't want DRM in their tracks, so an artist selling in those networks DRM'd files is in a clear disadvantage in relation to other, DRM-free, artists. I don't really like Snocap (I'll write about that in a later post), but Snocap's Rueff said something in conclusion that I want to quote:

"Social networks are the (peer-to-peer) networks of the future [...] They're this generation's MTV. If you want to be at a point of sale at the highest point of desire and consumption, be where the fan is."

Oddly, Gooveshark guys didn't like what they read: their first post about the Reuters' article basicly states that turning social networks (and services that float around them like Snocap) is a model "where your own network's members make a little side money for yourself, but a boatload of cash for your corporate overlords". They keep going, saying that "with more innovative services like Grooveshark out there, where you can not only make money off of your music but be part of a social network in the process? Who would deny that opportunity?". This quite amuses me, since the "innovative service" that Grooveshark presents is, basicly, the same as this Social Networks. Snocap, AmieStreet, GrooveShark, they're all the same concepts: bands sell, fans sell, buyers pay, a boatload of cash is supposedly made. What makes GooveShark different?

But they didn't stop here: a second article called "Damn Those Myspace Window Shoppers" was written. The writer quotes a study from EMR and Olswand saying that "More than half of internet users surveyed by Entertainment Media Research and the law firm Olswang said they surfed social networking sites such as MySpace and YouTube specifically to come across new songs.", but then tells us, without any kind of source, that "most of these people love to discover new music knowing full and well that they will ultimately dip from the illegal pool of music downloads to obtain the freshly discovered music". First, we don't know if that's truth, then there are no sources telling if illegal downloads contribute for sales increases or decreases - it surely depends from person to person but I doubt that they can find an imparcial source saying that it decreases sales, which should be good for them since GooveShark's business model depends on that. Then, he keeps randomly ranting, talking about how "added value" is needed, but saying that CD's give few or none (where's the extra value in digital music bought on GrooveShark?), even if "CDs had vastly superior sound compared to cassettes or records" (sorry mate, but vinyl records have way better sound!).

The conclusion? Well, there's really no directly related conclusion to take from this post. Finaly record labels are discovering the potential of the web and the turndowns of DRM, which is good. In relation to GrooveShark's comments, I just have to say that while it's preety important for a start-up to be close with their readers, using several ways to achieve it including mantaining a blog, a blog makes an image of that startup. Writing articles like these (and others) only contribute for people taking GrooveShark less and less seriously.