Jeff Price, CEO of the digital music distributor TuneCore, has been vocal about his disagreements with Tommy Silverman in the past, but when charged with the account of helping clutter the music environment with crap in a recent WIREDfeature on What's Wrong With The Music Biz, Price became quite apologetic:
"We're sorry that the fact that people are buying musicfrom TuneCore Artists is stopping people from buying music that Tommy likes. If Tommy couldonly controlwhat music you get exposed to you would be more inclined to buy his music. It's actually a brilliant strategy: limit choice, force the releases you want to selldown people's throats, control what music is exposed by the media outlets (like radio and MTV) and then take all the moneyfrom the sales that come in. Oh wait, my mistake, that's the way it was in the old music industry, and 98% of what the majors labels released failed. [Limiting] choice does not make music sell." (more)
Jeff latched on to one aspect of what Silverman was saying and went off. Granted, calling 80% of music ‘crap’ is probably not the wisest career move for Silverman, but Price’s response largely misses the point. Silverman was really talking about the question of how to best invest in music and musicians. One problem with a democratized marketplace is that it can be very challenging for artists to secure any kind of financial help for getting their music out there. The option Silverman presents (which he certainly didn’t originate)is one of treating bands and artists like an LLC, and allowing investors to partner with them as they would with any other start-up company. That’s why ‘noise’ (however you happen to perceive it) is an issue. In order for investors to choose who to put their money into, they need to wade through an increasingly crowded marketplace of music. That means more risk for would-be investors, and more competition for artists. As far as I can tell, that is what Silverman was saying, and it’s a valid point. The quote that Price responded to was in maybe the 3rd or 4th paragraph, but if you stop there you miss some good stuff.
By the way, I totally clicked thinking that Price had actually apologized for that post. Nice trick. To retaliate, I will be posting an article titled, “Kyle Bylin Leaves Hypebot!” which will actually be about how you spent a few hours working on a post for Music Think Tank. 😉
Actually, it’s entirely possible that the proliferation of choices for the consumer could in itself lead to lower sales, which would imply that sales could potentially increase by limiting choice and confusion. The phenomenon is called “overchoice” or “choice overload” and you can read a bit about it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overchoice You can also look up a TED talk by Barry Schwartz on the topic if you are so inclined. The point is that, while it may be the case that record labels were not limiting choices in an optimal way, there’s something to be said for some filtering and organization within the industry, and if done right it could actually be a helpful rather than a harmful force.
Once again Jeff Price uses Tom Silverman to promote his own company. If it werent for Tom’s insight, who would care about what Jeff has to say, other than the artists that use his service? Going after someone that has dedicated his life to the music BUSINESS is unflattering if you ask me. Nothing you’ve said is thought invoking. Tom is addressing a business. In order to survive in the business of music, one must be paid – for shows, for merch, for music. In order to have a thriving songwriting career, one must be paid – for performance, for music sales, etc…. This isn’t about good and bad and the labels deciding which is which… this is about creating a profitable business model for artists or for labels, distributors, digital aggregators, etc. tunecore is a business model that is currently thriving purely on quantity. Quality isn’t part of your model Jeff so why so defensive? Jeff, I await a groundbreaking thought from you that isn’t based on taking one sentence from another mans quote out of context to fuel attention to yourself. If itunes would deal directly with all artists (even those that don’t sell more than 1 download), would they even need tunecore?
PLease can someone make old man Jess shut up! Its embarrassing to listen to. Almost as embarrassing as the ridiculous Tunecore promo shot of him holding a guitar. Tommy has earnt the right to speak his mind, Jeff is a computer programmer. Please take your millions Jeff, stop trying to sell your customers healthcare, and leave music discussions to musicians Bored.com
I pseudo agree with what Tom has to say but do we take this with a grain of salt? 30 years in the music business, most of it promoting dance and rap acts that are the first to get screwed. How much more did Tom make on those Naughty By Nature albums that Naughty By Nature themselves? Now that the industry as Tom knows it is dying, and his record company is all but, dead, it actually died and his is trying to bring it back, is this just an attempt get attention? I am coming at this from an artist perspective and yet I am wondering why an entire corporation/joint venture has to be started with every artist? How many artists are on each of the major label? I am sure instead of just having a staff paralegal(s) file the paperwork for under $75-300 depending on the state, they will be paying 5-10K if not more, to set up each company. Then you have to file and pay fees every year, so you just added to the cost that I am sure will get past on 100% to the artist. Like someone stated, this isn’t Tom’s idea and every where else I heard of it, I thought it was just a gimmick. As far as treating artists right, stop charging them for everything. The artist should not be bearing the cost of a video, when that will result in sales that puts money in the labels pocket. Labels will sit there and project 1-2 million in sales (back in the good old days), but then cut a check for two one million dollar videos. Right away you know the artist will forever be in the hole. So keep your llc and just increase the royalty rate, and manage costs on behalf of the label and the artist. Labels are still paying 150K advances to star producers for a rap track, when market conditions would dictate less. If the labels charged it to themselves and not the artist, things would be different. So Tom, this is how you fix the industry, split the costs 70/30 in favor of the artist and forget about all this gimmickry.
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"We're sorry that the fact that people are buying music from TuneCore Artists is stopping people from buying music that Tommy likes. If Tommy could only control what music you get exposed to you would be more inclined to buy his music. It's actually a brilliant strategy: limit choice, force the releases you want to sell down people's throats, control what music is exposed by the media outlets (like radio and MTV) and then take all the money from the sales that come in. Oh wait, my mistake, that's the way it was in the old music industry, and 98% of what the majors labels released failed. [Limiting] choice does not make music sell." (more)
Ahh… read here: http://www.genyrockstars.com/2010/07/tom-silvermans-new-music-business.html
Discussion, not hype. We know what the game is, lets move the industry forward, not backwards. Civil Discussion and forward thought.
Jeff latched on to one aspect of what Silverman was saying and went off. Granted, calling 80% of music ‘crap’ is probably not the wisest career move for Silverman, but Price’s response largely misses the point.
Silverman was really talking about the question of how to best invest in music and musicians. One problem with a democratized marketplace is that it can be very challenging for artists to secure any kind of financial help for getting their music out there.
The option Silverman presents (which he certainly didn’t originate)is one of treating bands and artists like an LLC, and allowing investors to partner with them as they would with any other start-up company.
That’s why ‘noise’ (however you happen to perceive it) is an issue. In order for investors to choose who to put their money into, they need to wade through an increasingly crowded marketplace of music. That means more risk for would-be investors, and more competition for artists.
As far as I can tell, that is what Silverman was saying, and it’s a valid point. The quote that Price responded to was in maybe the 3rd or 4th paragraph, but if you stop there you miss some good stuff.
By the way, I totally clicked thinking that Price had actually apologized for that post. Nice trick.
To retaliate, I will be posting an article titled, “Kyle Bylin Leaves Hypebot!” which will actually be about how you spent a few hours working on a post for Music Think Tank. 😉
Actually, it’s entirely possible that the proliferation of choices for the consumer could in itself lead to lower sales, which would imply that sales could potentially increase by limiting choice and confusion. The phenomenon is called “overchoice” or “choice overload” and you can read a bit about it here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overchoice
You can also look up a TED talk by Barry Schwartz on the topic if you are so inclined. The point is that, while it may be the case that record labels were not limiting choices in an optimal way, there’s something to be said for some filtering and organization within the industry, and if done right it could actually be a helpful rather than a harmful force.
Once again Jeff Price uses Tom Silverman to promote his own company. If it werent for Tom’s insight, who would care about what Jeff has to say, other than the artists that use his service? Going after someone that has dedicated his life to the music BUSINESS is unflattering if you ask me. Nothing you’ve said is thought invoking.
Tom is addressing a business. In order to survive in the business of music, one must be paid – for shows, for merch, for music. In order to have a thriving songwriting career, one must be paid – for performance, for music sales, etc…. This isn’t about good and bad and the labels deciding which is which… this is about creating a profitable business model for artists or for labels, distributors, digital aggregators, etc. tunecore is a business model that is currently thriving purely on quantity. Quality isn’t part of your model Jeff so why so defensive?
Jeff, I await a groundbreaking thought from you that isn’t based on taking one sentence from another mans quote out of context to fuel attention to yourself.
If itunes would deal directly with all artists (even those that don’t sell more than 1 download), would they even need tunecore?
PLease can someone make old man Jess shut up!
Its embarrassing to listen to. Almost as embarrassing as the ridiculous Tunecore promo shot of him holding a guitar.
Tommy has earnt the right to speak his mind, Jeff is a computer programmer.
Please take your millions Jeff, stop trying to sell your customers healthcare, and leave music discussions to musicians
Bored.com
I pseudo agree with what Tom has to say but do we take this with a grain of salt? 30 years in the music business, most of it promoting dance and rap acts that are the first to get screwed. How much more did Tom make on those Naughty By Nature albums that Naughty By Nature themselves? Now that the industry as Tom knows it is dying, and his record company is all but, dead, it actually died and his is trying to bring it back, is this just an attempt get attention?
I am coming at this from an artist perspective and yet I am wondering why an entire corporation/joint venture has to be started with every artist? How many artists are on each of the major label?
I am sure instead of just having a staff paralegal(s) file the paperwork for under $75-300 depending on the state, they will be paying 5-10K if not more, to set up each company. Then you have to file and pay fees every year, so you just added to the cost that I am sure will get past on 100% to the artist. Like someone stated, this isn’t Tom’s idea and every where else I heard of it, I thought it was just a gimmick.
As far as treating artists right, stop charging them for everything. The artist should not be bearing the cost of a video, when that will result in sales that puts money in the labels pocket. Labels will sit there and project 1-2 million in sales (back in the good old days), but then cut a check for two one million dollar videos. Right away you know the artist will forever be in the hole.
So keep your llc and just increase the royalty rate, and manage costs on behalf of the label and the artist. Labels are still paying 150K advances to star producers for a rap track, when market conditions would dictate less. If the labels charged it to themselves and not the artist, things would be different. So Tom, this is how you fix the industry, split the costs 70/30 in favor of the artist and forget about all this gimmickry.