ASCAP Expo: The Hot Topic is the Future

By Geoff Nudelman of Telos Studios.

For the songwriters, composers, and producers in attendance,
the Expo’s second day took a bigger focus on the future of the business from a
variety of perspectives.

Ken Jordan of The Crystal Method and RJD2 opened the day
with a very technical conversation about how the quality of music has changed
over the last 10-15 years. “The barrier to entry is now low, and that’s
exciting, but when big studios close down, the quality of the music suffers,”
RJ said. “That’s a problem to me.” Jordan added that the old studios have
priced themselves too high and “out of existence.”

“The price of making a record has dropped from $300,000 to $30,000,”
he said.

A solid lineup of music supervisors reiterated the power of
YouTube, Soundcloud, and the blogosphere in a panel entitled “Music Supervision
in the Digital Age.” Elias Arts music supervisor and KCRW host Jason Kramer
used Malaysian singer-songwriter Yuna as a case study about how it’s done in
today’s music business. The artist, who hasn’t had much charted success, has
over 800,000 Twitter followers and built a brand for herself based on a strong
connection between her music and her signature fashion.

The panel as a whole heavily endorsed the future of pitching
one’s work for placement within Multi Channel Networks (MCNs) that develop
content for a variety of online outlets like Maker Studio, Giant, FullScreen,
Big Frame, DanceOn, and Alloy Digital.

Perhaps the liveliest presentation of the day was an
interactive tutorial on copyright law from Corey Field, an attorney at Ballard
Spahr LLP. He had a series of cards given to the audience to break down the
copyright and royalty collection process into single steps. The presentation
culminated in a shouting match between opposite sides of the room to illustrate
how songwriters and record companies compete for royalties in what Field called
a “cacophony.” He said it was a true representation of how complex it can be
for a singer, songwriter, producer, or artist to collect his/her share of a
song’s revenue.

The idea of “music discovery” came up yesterday. The
overwhelming opinion is that for a songwriter, it’s YouTube, Soundcloud, or
another aggregated online outlet and that the kids are in control now. “It’s
almost expected that (kids) are listening to everything these days,” RJ said. The
group of music supervisors noted that there are more ways than ever before that
they’re discovering new music and having persistence is key to getting the
right people to listen to an artist’s music. “Be succinct, be passionate, be
honest,” Nike Music and Creative Licensing Manager JT Griffith said.

The Expo concludes today with a lineup of business panels
and Bandzoogle’s “Website Demolition Derby.”