New Business Briefing: Major China Music Portal, David Byrne At SXSW, Indies Join MyStore & More
>>> Portal Sina.com joins with SonyBMG, Universal, EMI, WMG and Rock Records to build a major Chinese digital music platform offering both net download and cell content.
>>> David Byrne at SXSW predicted this is the tipping point year when downloads will overtake CD sales and urges labels to concentrate more on marketing and promo..because if not who needs ’em.
>>> GarageSpin interviews indie D.I.Y. rocker and coder Scott Andrew.
>>> A new study shows that both legal and illegal downloading is surging.
>>> SubPop, Dangerbird and other indies join the Snocap MySpace MyStore parade. Rumors swirl that MySpace will ban alternative sales schemes on it’s site. Snocap recently lowered MyStore fees slightly ,but will there be backlash?
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The Snocap pr blitz continues to use smoke and mirror announcements to blur many important issues. The “Major labels Alliances” announcement covered here ( http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/03/15/snocap-announces-alliances-with-major-labels/) does not merit a precursor to any major selling the content that they own without drm and without price and distribution restrictions. In fact the announcement surely point to the fact the Snocap has been around for more than two years and that they still dont have many deals with the majors to distribute any of much of their music in a non drm format. I only know of 3 bands that are currenlty using the serivce. If anyone knows where I can find more major label Snocap conten please point me to it.
Why do we need the labels ? Why don’t the artist sell their music on their own and keep all of the revenue from their music along with the rights to distribute and sell it where and at whatever price they want (This can be done using Darmik as well as many other places on the internet). DRM is not the issue; control of distribution channels and revenue from holding the intellectual property of artist is the issue. For many major labels it seems that their strategy is to own or shut down any and all independent avenues to sells and distribution for the artist. In my opinon the major labels want to make sure that the artist has no choice in who sells and distributes their content; and that the fans have no choice in price and format. The Majors want to be the only game in town.
I think that we should no longer look to labels for the solution to freeing music from its old world model. We should look to the artist and to the fans that purchase the music. The artist should be the group that charts their own destiny as far as price, format, and distribution point. The fans that purchase the music should be allowed to purchase the music in a format that works uniformly on the devices that they use to play the music. If the artist gives their permission fans should also have the ability to resell the artist content for them, and in exchange receive a portion of the revenue. Neither the artist or the fans needs a label or a technology company to force a model or a format on them. I think that if we asked the artist and their fans what they wanted as far as music formats, pricing, distribution and ownership that we would more than likely already know the answer.
Artist should control pricing of their content as well as the format (drm or no drm) and distribution points. There are DRM formats available to content owners, so the issue of drm or not is one that is up to the content owner not one that should be made by any technology that is used to distribute the content. The decision to use drm is one that the content owners must make based on many factors. The key point here is that there are choices available and that the content owner should and can make this decsion.
I think that we should write off any current music that the major labels own as content that will never be in an open format playable on any device. We should also understand that more than likely this content will only be available at distribution points and at prices that the label; not the artist or their fans have anything to do with. We must accept this and move on to the next phase of digital content distribution that will give artist and content owners the freedom to decide their own destiny.
As far as the Myspace love fest. It needs to end. Artist, fans, and consumers of content must know and understand that any revenue generated for Myspace (A Newscorp company) is going to continue to fund the operations of fox news ( http://www.foxnews.com/oreilly/) as well as the continued dismantling of independent media around the world. If as an artist or a fan or a user of the Internet you support any social issues or an independent and free media then myspace is not the place to become a member. By doing this you give them continued revenue and power.