Part 2: Radiohead’s “In Raindows” One Year Later

THE FUTURE REVEALED

• Read Part 1 – A NEW ERA OF MONETIZING MUSIC: THE ARTISTS’ MODEL

Guest Post: Alex Grange, CEO of Pure Play Music

About the same time artists tasted freedom from the shackles of the music industry monoliths, an epiphany occurred within the souls of social media site creators around the world: what if we could take some of these unsigned artists and indie acts and give them an opportunity to commercialize and monetize their music while exploring the major record labels, without fear of losing their publishing rights? 

There would be no conflict of copyrights. Independent, unsigned artists could receive critical airplay on a global scale while shopping their sound to majors. In the process, they could stash a little cash in their pocket through the sales of compilation albums to major retail chains.

Therein lays the combination to the digital lock….

The music distribution revolution had begun, and with it, the online independent distribution channel for unsigned and independent artists emerged.

Some online sites have combined traditional tactics of receiving commercial airplay and interest from record labels, and at the same time, exploit the Web 2.0 social networking tools to make it a profitable gamble for unsigned acts.

One of the interesting newcomers in the field of social networking through music is my company, Pure Play Music. Pure Play Music is a socially networked, online music portal that shops indie and unsigned artists for commercial play and major label pickup.

Pure Play Music provides exposure to indie artists through its various channels of Internet broadcasting, including six satellite radio stations worldwide. These satellite stations provide artist exposure, while allowing artists to maintain 100 percent of their copyrights; a heated topic these days.

Beyond that, Pure Play is leveraging its partnerships with retailers across the globe by offering compilation albums of their unsigned artists to retailers at a fraction of the conventional cost to the retailers. These retailers would otherwise be required to purchase signed licensed music at a much greater cost. By these standards, unsigned acts get commercial play worldwide while retailers catch a break financially.

People are definitely starting to get it. In addition to Pure Play, Last.fm is another avenue for indies and unsigned artist to monetize music online. Over and above providing a community of new music influencers, they offer an Artist Royalty Program that pays out their artists directly. Unsigned and independent artists can sign up to earn royalties from on-demand plays and Last.fm’s streaming radio.

Sites like MySpace, Facebook, Bebo, Ilike, and Imeem have also gained more solid ground. Let’s not forget the white elephants in the mix, iTunes and Amazon, as among the myriad of companies which have dug the trenches of the online music industry, challenging traditional distribution channels.

Radiohead may not have pioneered the online music distribution revolution, but they sure put it on the map as a viable marketing channel for artists to monetize their own music. Radiohead lead by example, and the indies followed.

The artists profiting the most from Radiohead’s bravado are the indies and the unsigned acts. Since the Internet’s release of “In Rainbows,” online social media sites have jumped into the fray, helping to iron out the kinks and establish a new working model for unsigned artists and their fans.

Through the efforts of Pure Play, Last.fm, and a host of other sites, the road is slowly being paved to a new era of distribution—an era where the indie and unsigned artist can finally begin to make a living.

About the author

Alex Grange is the Chief Executive Officer of Pure Play Music. Pure Play currently features and promotes over 6,000 acts from a total of 42 countries, all of whom have been vetted through the stringent Pure Play A&R selection and legal process. Artists grant Pure Play specific non-exclusive commercial rights to their music.  The Pure Play website allows access to the main radio broadcast, 6 genre-specific music streams, on-demand music tracks, artist pages, business directories, news articles, store downloads, an international gig guide and numerous other features, all of which contribute to an average page view quantity per visitor only exceeded by a few established on-line communities.

Under development for launch for the end of 2008 is ‘Pure Play People’, the Pure Play social networking platform, believed to be the next generation of both social networking and radio broadcasting.You can read more about Pure Play music by logging on to www.pureplaymusic.com.