March 23rd, 2008

It’s Been A While…

But I thought I’d post this comment here, relating to this post at Techcrunch where Michael Arrington comments:

“Recorded music is nothing but marketing material to drive awareness of an artist. Websites that bring that music to listeners are doing artists a favor. In fact, they’re doing them a favor that they should (and will) be paid for. Young artists and songwriters in particular benefit from these services - Until a few years ago they had almost no way to break into the mainstream without getting a label to promote them. Now those walls are being torn down, and Bragg has the audacity to complain about it.”

My reply to this is that one word comes to mind when I hear all of the web2.0 types talk about the next generation of music and how artists and labels should not expect to be compensated for recorded music.

Carpetbagger.

Yes. The old fatcats at the top of the music biz totally f’d it up with Napster. That’s ancient news. But they also screwed it up with terrestrial radio and MTV- building huge conglomerates on “promotional” music. To be fair, the biz was making enough money selling discs for it not to matter.

But it does now. We’re wise to Bullsh!t2.0, where some small team of founders and initial investors make millions in funding from selling to Newscorp, Yahoo, Google or CBS. Don’t blame the artists and labels for adapting to the new playing field. Music helps these companies acquire customers who have a lifetime value. So they need to shut up and pay.

These guys are still just as greedy as they claim Doug Morris and Edgar Bronfman are, the just hide behind the popular mantra that music should be free. Free to the consumer? Sure. Free to those who make a windfall? No way.

I suggest anyone in a band or from a label read the post and leave a comment on it.


Written by Bill Wilson   |   15 Comments

July 26th, 2007

More On Last.fm and Streaming Royalties

Because my last post on this topic wasn’t fun enough, I’ve decided to follow up on an interesting development. My colleagues over at A2IM are now getting into the game. Today, President Rich Bengloff made the following statement:

“Every Independent music label has or should have its own business plan, but as our industry continues to shrink in terms of sales, from $14.6 billion in 1999 to $11.5 billion in 2006, and the trend down has continued in 2007, artists and labels need other income sources. (more…)


Written by Bill Wilson   |   1 Comment

July 22nd, 2007

Last.Fm Pulls A Clearchannel And Tries To Screw The Indies Out Of Royalties

It pains me to write this, as I’m a huge fan of Last.fm and what they’ve done (or could do) for indie labels, bands and music fans. However, it seems that their new media conglomerate sugar daddies are having an influence on their policies already. I was on their site today, doing some cleanup of my catalog that I offer for streaming and looking for some plugins to put on the upcoming revision of my label site. What I discovered should make anyone who is trying to build a career in indie music very concerned about their future.

This is why they didn’t participate in the whole web radio day of silence… because they changed their Terms Of Service to say that unaffiliated artists and labels waive their rights to be paid. Behold the juicy parts of the agreement for entities that control their own publishing:

(more…)


Written by Bill Wilson   |   17 Comments

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