6 Comments

1. 11) copyright!
   -Mark (www.theenrighthouse.com)

2. the new kid rock album shows that the album sales aren’t dead, and the fact that none of it is on iTunes is proof of this – it’s sold 1.3 million full-lengths

3. Hey! This is a very well thoughout list of reason why the music industry is in the crapper. I have put a link to this on my blog because I like it so much. Keep up the good work and the insightful posts.
   Peace,
   JBone

4. Very useful

5. Very useful

6. 1. THE DEATH OF THE ALBUM – Individual track downloads are killing
   the album market and the revenue that it once created. Can the album
   be saved? Should artists release in 1 to 3 track clusters?
   A: Yes. Only going back to a multi-song basic unit of music for
   purchase will grow the “art” of music. And that goes for
   downloading. Each artist should be able to declare how small a
   cluster they will sell as a minimum unit. Maybe old Four Song
   EP was a good unit or cluster and iTunes, etc. should make a rule
   that if the artist asks for that as the minimum sized cluster that
   iTunes can sell of their music, so be it. Art isn’t just 3:00 minutes long.
   2. MUSIC TAXES – Is “taxing” music at the device and/or ISP level
   the answer? Or are these taxes unfair and further erode consumer trust?
   A: Taxing music is just as hard (or easy) to do as tabulating which
   specific songs are downloaded, and by whom, and charging for those
   identified songs, so NO Taxes, charge per tune, and make the tune
   prices (or cluster prices) be able to be set by the creators, from
   Zero cents a track to $10 a track, whatever the music owner wants to charge.
   3. MUSIC AS A SERVICE – We used to call music “product”. Did the
   pendulum swing to far in that direction? Or is music a service –
   subscriptions, “Comes With Music”, optional ISP licensing?
   A: Selling unlimited music with a hardware device (for some finite
   time) with the tariff being hidden in the hardware cost is just
   another music tax. No. Biggest problem is that the tax is overall
   and doesn’t reward the specfic music that is actually played the
   most. Hence the motivation for making better or more popular music
   goes away, since the “tax” doesn’t differentiate between
   artists. (Kind of like why government services are never as good as
   private industry.)
   4. MOBILE – Will more and more music be bought an enjoyed via
   mobile devices? How does that effect the music?
   A: It will be enjoyed via mobile devices and guess what, that’s the
   1958 transistor radio all over again. This will promote hit
   “singles” and should be free in many cases due to the promotional
   factor. The mobile device should be able to let the customer
   purchase the music, but also stream free new music at will.
   5. NEW REVENUE SOURCES – From YouTube to imeem and We7 to Nokia,
   revenue is being generated everywhere. Who will be sending big checks
   to labels in 5 years and how will that revenue be distributed?
   A: In five years, music will be being sold in more places than ever.
   It will be distributed, as in all capitalistic societies, to the
   creators of the product that is most in demand. To the hits and
   hitmakers, which means the artists, the labels, the song publishers.
   6. NO ONE BUSINESS MODEL – It used to be that record labels made
   money selling records and bands made money live. Is the future more
   varied: NIN, Radiohead, 360 deals, and partnerships with brands?
   A: Yes.
   7. 1000 TRUE FANS – Whether you need a thousand, 10,000 or even
   100,000 true fans, how do you find, service and monetize a fan base?
   A: Charge them for exclusivity and intimacy with the
   artists. Backstage passes, much higher quality artwork, private
   invitations for streamed live shows, super early bird special
   pre-releases, and so forth.
   8. THE RISE OF THE MUSICAL MIDDLE CLASS – Do fractured media and
   short attention spans mean the superstar is dead? What new companies
   will rise to service and profit from a growing middle class of
   musicians with fewer fans but longer careers?
   A: Not true, it’s been proven that there is a diminishing musical middle class
   (see Coolfer’s analysis at http://www.coolfer.com/blog/archives/2007/07/the_demise_of_t_2.php and the Harvard Business study of digital media by Anita Elberse)
   In fact a widening Power Law is in effect. The samll long tail sales are OK, but the “middle class”
   (the 100,000 sellers and less) are dropping in sales. The top sellers are holding
   well, but middle class was an artifact of people restocking their CD
   shelves in the day; that doesn’t exist that much in the new digital musical reality.
   9. THE DEMOCRATIZATION OF MUSIC DISCOVERY – Once DJ’s told us
   what to like. Now our friends do or we discover it ourselves and
   share the news. How does that change how music is marketed?
   A: Word of mouth is OK, but from colleges to go to, to the stock market, it’s
   human nature to seek experts (not friends) to inform us, filter for
   us. There will be new “disk jockeys” and they won’t be bloggers, it
   will be some kind of reputable digital “place” (About The Music?) as
   well as whatever the equivalent of disk jockeys are, on the web of the future.
   Don’t think long tail here, the Power Law prevails where new choices are made.
   10. THE POWER OF LIVE – Is performing more important than ever?
   You can’t copy it and it’s a great place to build community and sell
   stuff. Or is that a music 1.0 notion and Twitter the new barstool?
   A: Performing is always incredibly important, now more than ever, but the
   secret is to perform in a way that’s unforgettable and dramatic and
   vivid. A great show has no substitute.
   George Daly, About Records, Mill Valley, CA

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