Interview: 4QFOR Insomonia, RouteNote CEO Steven Finch

We continue our ongoing 4QFor (Four Questions For) series with Steven Finch, the CEO of Insomnia Ltd, which owns music 2.0 start-ups www.routenote.com, www.crenk.com, www.adphilia.com, and a record label and recording studio. You can learn more about Steve's companies here. (Read more 4QFor interviews with the heads of OurStage, Sonicbids, imeem, We7, ReverbNation, New Music Strategies and Nimbit here.)

Q1.  What major changes in the music industry do you foresee over the next year?
2008 will be a very interesting year for the music industry. We will continue to see the major labels complaining about the music industry declining, when in fact it is only CD sales that are heading downwards. The distance between the major labels and independent labels will continue to get closer, thus proving in this day and age that artists don’t need a major label to succeed!

Q2.  How are you and your company preparing to benefit from these changes?
We strongly believe in independent artists and labels being able to promote their music to the widest possible audience, without having to worry about barriers to market. RouteNote wants to eliminate these barriers for independent or unsigned artists, and allow good artists to stand out from the crowd.

Q3.  What excites you?
The music industry as a whole really excites me. It is changing and twisting all the time and with so many emerging business models in the marketplace at present, who knows which ones will actually succeed or fail. Lots of people are talking about music heading towards ‘free’, I think this might be the case...

however I still believe users are willing to pay for something that is actually worth something. Im willing to pay for music as long as I know I can transfer it from computer to iPod to CD and back, whenever I want to and as many times as I want. A revolutionary watermarking service which tracks DRM free music is the way forward. 

Q4. What’s next?
The music industry has always been based around old practices, and now it seems that it is time for new beginnings. RouteNote will enter the music market with the aim of providing artists what they want. Artists want ease of use, with the ability to profit from their achievements. RouteNote will provide this and more.