A New Plan for Labels

“Faced with shrinking market shares, fragmenting audiences, disappearing brick-and-mortar recorded music retailers and a continued double-digit decline in compact disc sales, Canadian independent record labels that exclusively sold and distributed CDs until a few years ago are acting as agents and booking concert tours for their artists.” – Read on here

Hindsight does not bring clarity…

There is really no doubting the power of music to affect change. Especially when it has been wrenched from the hands of threatening copyright owners and put in the hands of average citizens like you and me through a process of de-centralisation that continues despite the industry leaders best efforts to ebb the free flow of music. Read more from the Business Standard’s Craig Fernandes –> here.

De-centralisation is my Music Industry buzz-word of the day. This article makes the point that, coupled with ideas in Wired blogger, Chris Anderson’s “freeconomics” post, music can be shared and stored in abundance. Fans have a greater choice of music from more sources than ever before.

Oh no, the “music industry” can’t capitalize on this. Even in retrospect, it’s possible there was never anything they could have done about it. Glenn Peoples from Billboard says the Music industry could not have made a deal with file sharers back in 2000, shortly after Napster went online,  due to the complexity of the business.

But the “music industry’s” troubles don’t translate into trouble for musicians or for fans, so lets get loose and make the most of new innovations the internet is offering for free! I’ll do a page on websites I have found which allow people to sell and promote their products soon. Sick of reading about labels. It is one whinny, negative aspect of change for the better.

Bye bye now.

 

Major labels are dumb to the max… Yikes

According to new information received from music industry insiders, it turns out that Spotify isn’t ripping off the artists, the labels are.

By allowing its users to access millions of songs for free, the music streaming Spotify has revolutionized the music industry by handing them a potential competitor to illegal downloading. – > Read full article on Torrent Freak.

Shucks, those crazy labels!

Free Industry Training for NZ-ers

“IMNZ, New Zealand Trade and Enterprise and WHK Business Growth are banding together to
make possible fully funded business training for the music industry.” Read on here.

Independent Music New Zealand are offering music industry training for New Zealand record labels and music managers. The course takes half a day…

This seems too quick, but according to the article they cover lots of sticky topics for musicians like ownership rights, royalties and common tax deductions, which are useful to anyone who is contracted or owns a small business.

Ezra Furman Is Mad Crazy

Ezra Furman takes his music personally. He doesn’t want to just write songs, he wants to change lives, and in the process have his life changed as well.

Which is why the 23-year-old Evanston native is doing something (take your pick) outlandish, heroic, Quixotic, exhausting, ridiculous. He’s writing a song for every fan who buys his latest album, Ezra Furman and the Harpoons’ “Moon Face: Bootlegs and Road Recordings 2006-2009,” available at ezrafurman.bigcartel.com. Read the whole story here.

Ezra Furman says he is not a monster, but a human being…

Pretty far out human being. Here is his bands website and their myspace.

Makers of The Wire have appitite for self destruction

“The show’s makers have bought the rights to the book ‘Appetite for Self-Destruction: The Spectacular Crash of the Record Industry in the Digital Age,’ a tome written by Rolling Stone journalist Steve Knopper which charts the industry’s spectacular freefall in recent times.” – Read full article here.

Over here is a review of the book that I like because of its quotes. I don’t have much time for the still rich and obsolete members of the “music industry”, but there’s a lot to learn from Steve Knopper’s book and yea, I’ll probably watch whatever HBO do with it – I mean, The Wire was pretty good right?

An explanation of cutting out the middlemen

“The music comes right from the band, the money goes to the band, and the songs are less than half the cost.” – The Daily Cardinal

I know this is not a current or particularly news worthy post(Most of them aren’t), but I think it gets to the heart of the music industry’s problems and why it is a really interesting time for musicians to get their songs online.

A2f2a – Billy Bragg cuts out the middleman

“Fellow artists, the aim of this site is to encourage dialogue between people who love music and people who love making music. Our aim is to explore, through constructive debate, how our two communities can work together to shape the music industry to reflect our needs, rather than those of the multi-national corporations that control the recording industry.” – Billy Bragg on A2f2a

Nigerian music industry? RIGHTEOUS… MAN

“The music industry in Nigeria is progressing. It is growing, but with a lot of comma, in the sense that we don’t enjoy good music. It just comes, and after six months, it is gone because there is no content. We celebrate mediocrity, organizing awards and giving prizes to the wrong people. Apart from that the CD, CD track one and track two has killed a lot of artistes today.”  – Righteousman

Read all of Righteousman’s wisdoms here

I don’t know what relevance this has to anything to be completely honest. Perhaps it sums up the international music industry for the last 20 years and why it’s good to see some change FINALLY. I will blog about those changes one day. But anyhow, this is here because Righteousman is way cool.

 

The Concious One