A WIRED Magazine article on music manager Terry McBride's plans to reinvent the way his artists (including Bare Naked Ladies, Sarah McLachlan, Avril Lavigne and more) sell and promote their music is well worth reading:"...McBride's success will depend on what he calls "collapsed copyright" Nettwerk will represent artists like BNL, but the bands will record under their own labels and retain ownership of all their intellectual property, an anomaly in the industry. The bands, in turn, can expect to earnconsiderably more money – say, $5 to $6 from the sale of each CD instead of the standard dollar or two."
"Nettwerk is also poised to take advantage of the significant changes in music marketing wrought by social networking sites like MySpace. Radio, and the labels that provide tunes for radio playlists, are no longer the gatekeepers to stardom...Nettwerk has tapped this phenomenon to the fullest, offering prizes to people who sell a certain number of CDs to friends and using software to keep close tabs on its extensive network of volunteer marketers, formerly known as fans." (more here)
It's easy to dismiss McBride as the latest media darling using the major labels as a whipping post, but he and his artists are acutally out in the trenches, taking risks and trying to create a new paradigm.
