MUSIC INDUSTRY BLOG

Seth Godin, best selling author and popular blogger, writes:

If you have a book to write, write it.  If you want to record an album, record it.  No need to wait for someone in a cubicle halfway across the country to decide if you’re worthy.

I think Seth is suggesting that, if you’re waiting for a so-called music biz whiz to tell you that your band rocks, you’re giving too much power to someone who doesn’t care about your music nearly as much as you do.

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ArtistForce, the web-based relationship management platform and marketplace for live entertainment, has introduced a free version of its service.  The free edition provides artists with up to five different industry resources per month and will make it possible for them to receive messages, negotiate booking inquiries, and use the ArtistForce widget, without paying any fees.  Entertainment buyers will enjoy free and unlimited access to review talent, negotiate performance offers, manage event expenses, generate documents, and manage contacts.

ArtistForce is offering a cash prize of $10,000 to the artist who books the most paid shows using any free or paid version of ArtistForce between October 9, 2009 and February 14, 2010.  The cash prize will be presented in Austin during the company’s participation in SXSW 2010, where the winning artist will also be given the opportunity to perform live at an ArtistForce sponsored event.

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Labels aren’t doing very well at the moment.  In fact, they’re darn right horizontal on their deathbeds.

People don’t want to pay for music anymore.

Children are being sued for copyright infringement.

Every digital music startup in the last three years has flopped.

It’s grim.

Yet there’s never been a better time to start a label.

Go ahead, sign a few acts – no one else will.

Nobody expects an advance or a fat tour bus.  It’s budget airlines all the way.

Invest in talent while it’s cheap and ubiquitous.

Don’t know how to do it?  Plenty of executives out of the job.  Go talk to one.

Four tips to get you started:

1. Quit your day job. Nobody will take you seriously if you’re doing something else 9 to 5.

2. Stick with what you know. If you lack people skills, avoid public relations.  Focus on your strengths and, when you can, develop or outsource your weaknesses.

3. You’re in business. Act that way.  Get organized.  Lots of stupid people own hugely successful businesses.  You too can create a successful business.

4. Pick great acts. Treat them well.  Work hard for them and they will show you returns.

Music is a safe bet.  There will always be money in it.

Now go make some!

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Just joined BandCentral, a fan and task management service specifically developed for musicians and industry professionals.  It’s strikingly similar to Bandize, and playing in the same ball park as RockDex and ArtistForce.  The Band Status Updates, a one-click message syndication feature which posts to the band’s Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter profiles simultaneously, appears to be a lite variation of what ArtistData currently offers, along with a number of other dotcoms that aim to ease the pain of managing data across a number of social networks at once (I use Ping.fm to syndicate this blog).  The idea is simple: an affordable client relationship management solution for the music industry or, more simply put, a service for bands who manage their own fans.  How’s that for a strapline?  There’s also a number of key admin features for internal band use.  Watch the video:

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ArtistData, one of my favourite start ups in the music space and named “one of the four most helpful websites for artists” by Music Connection magazine, launched in June 2008 with a very simple yet powerful solution for artists and promoters: one-click news and gig listing syndication across multiple online platforms. Since then, the site has gone from updating artist data on three sites to over 20 and has added a number of complimentary features such as a tour booking generator and an automated system that finds and notifies local media publications for cities where artists have upcoming shows.

“We are thrilled and humbled that with almost no marketing, we have been able to make such a big impact,” says ArtistData President Brenden Mulligan. He also shares that the company’s artist roster has been growing faster than 15% a month from word of mouth promotion alone. “It’s phenomenal. Our users are our greatest asset and it’s amazing to see them evangelize so much on our behalf”.

This week marks ArtistData’s 1,000,000th update!

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Terry McBride’s Nettwerk Music Group, (home to Jamiroquai, Barenaked Ladies, and Sarah McLachlan), live music and media behemoth Mama Group Plc, and Brian Message’s ATC Management (manager of Radiohead, Faithless, and Kate Nash), combined forces to create Polyphonic, a new artist investment and development company embracing the 360-degree model, Music Week announced yesterday.  The company has committed more than $20m for its first year of operation, marking significant additional capital thereafter, to provide “an important funding option for artists” asserted Brian Message adding “ATC and Mama have co-invested in a number of new artists over the last three years and Polyphonic marks the next iteration of that business. Now, together with Nettwerk, we want to be working with a much bigger group of artists and managers and the capital we have available makes that achievable.”

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Topspin, the enigmatic media technology company “dedicated to developing leading-edge marketing software and services that help artists and their partners build businesses and brands” has combined forces with Berkleemusic.com, the online extension of Berklee College of Music, to provide music marketing courses for artists and music promoters to master the Topspin direct-to-fan marketing strategy and dedicated technology tools.  The first online course, Marketing your Music with Topspin, available exclusively on Berkleemusic.com, is slated for release in September 2009, with course enrollment beginning next month.

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In a thought-provoking post on the MidemNet Blog, Peter Jenner, President of the UK’s International Music Managers Forum (IMMF), explores the personification of music piracy, underscoring key distinctions between ‘piracy’ and ‘theft’ that have largely been ignored or rejected by the music industry and, perhaps, even concealed to a pragmatic and moral music sharing public.

“If you steal my money I don’t have that money anymore.  If you copy my music I still have it, and so does everyone else who has it.  No one loses anything, the supply of copies just increases.”

Read the entire entry here.

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