A New Music Business Reading List For The Dog Days Of Summer

>>> The 2007 Digital Music Survey, a UK study by
Entertainment Media Research showed that illegal downloads are at an all
time high just as paid download growth is slowing and chronicles a shift in 13-60 year olds towards social networking sites for socialization,
information and music discovery. You can read the entire study or download the entire 89 page PDF for free here. It’s not good news for DR.

>>> On a similar note read "Drop DRM Or Become Irrelevant – Why the music industry needs to drop DRM, and sell unprotected digital music, NOW" by Gerd Leonhard. It was written back in March and it still rings true.

>>> Andrew Dubber’s free e-book "20 Things You Must Know About Music Online"

>>> From the Shameless Plug Department – check out out new sister blogs:

• OurDigitalMusic.com – A consumer’s guide to the digital music revolution.
• TheRockDose.com – A daily dose of rock wisdom….or at least some great quotes from musicians.

>>> The #1 NY Times business book bestseller by Tim Ferris – ‘"The 4-Hour Workweek". OK, this isn’t a music industry book and when I got the review copy and started browsing I almost dismissed it as over-blown hype.  But I keep coming back to it; if not not for the perhaps unrealistic dream of working only 4 hours a week then for techniques like outsourcing mundane tasks, batching tasks like answering email and cutting down on information clutter.  There’s a story here that I need to write based on this book for all of us overwhelmed by work, email and RSS feeds and some lessons for the music industry. If you’ve read this book I’d love to hear from you.