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.
Martin Atkins puts the current state of the music industry into perspective, sharing wisdomisms such as “you’ve got to think outside the box”, “where’s the fucking box?”, and “I build my own boxes”. The veteran drummer credited by NIN, Ministry, and Killing Joke, among others, has published a comprehensive guide slated to put an end to touring stupid. Tour Smart (available on Amazon) is out and Martin has been unleashed on a new generation of artists living in a box and staring at the pretty wallpaper. The scope and scale of this publication covers every aspect of the music ecosystem, from where to pour your gasoline to health & safety practices [when pouring gasoline]. The man has a plan and if you don’t follow it, you’re fucked.
The marketing potential of Twitter and the feels-like-free music paradigm converge in a collaborative effort by Blink-182’s drummer, Travis Barker, and turntablist, DJ-AM, Techcrunch’s Robin Wauters posted yesterday. “Fix Your Face Vol. 2 – Coachella ‘09? is available for free download in exchange for a Twitter message. Ah, but wait! The transaction involves granting access to a third-party application via this website, allowing the app administrators to access and update your data on Twitter. Okay, okay, this is still a good deal and an honest attempt at making music available without charging for it, although it’s more of a ‘barter’ than a ‘giveaway’ in my mind. The almost daily emergence of new and creative methods to distribute music is testament to how difficult it has become to get music out there, let alone charge for it. God forbid.
By distributing your music through Amazon’s CreateSpace, you can sell both your digital downloads and CDs on Amazon without ever having to finance and ship-in your physical stock. Simply upload your digital assets (i.e mp3s, album artwork, discface graphics) and CreateSpace will set you up with a store, make your mp3s available for download, and print CD’s and ship them to your customers on demand. Although Amazon’s commission for this service is high, duplicating CDs per pre-paid order may save you a tidy sum in the long run.
TuneCore recently partnered with CreateSpace which adds a much needed physical dimension to its one-stop, fixed-price digital distribution service. CD Baby already offers physical and digital distribution and, since its acquisition by Discmakers, can fulfill the printing process too. How will ReverbNation respond?
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.”
MySpace and Toyota have teamed up to promote Rock the Space, an unsigned artist contest where the winner wins a record deal with MySpace Records plus $10,000 worth of Fender gear. There’s an entire experience around the submission process, from uploading music and photos to customizing your “demo tape” widget and getting your friends to add it to their page. The design-your-tape wizard is pretty cool. Five finalists will be selected for a public vote. Deadline July 1st. Free to enter. Details here.
ReverbNation, now home to almost 400,000 artists, agents, venue promoters, and indie labels, announced on Thursday that the company will select up to 1000 of its artists to participate in a “Sponsored Songs” program. Under the terms of this initiative, participating artists will earn a sponsorship fee of $0.50 per “qualified” download acquired by their fans. Each song will display the sponsor’s branded message as part of the digital cover artwork, visible each time the track is played on a music device. As the sponsored songs spread virally, from fan to fan and to new prospects, the sponsor will be able to track every unique impression and gauge the ultimate value of his campaign.
“Sponsored Songs is one of several new programs that offer musicians a new revenue stream, capitalizing on the strength of their fan relationships and offering advertisers a better way to reach potential consumers” ? Michael Doernberg, CEO of ReverbNation
While next-generation music pros are angling for music 2.0 success stories and peddling self-promotion concepts to upstart artists, Bruce Warila of musicXray wants us all to take a breather, not go overboard and lose our shorts. Bruce colourfully describes the myriad of current industry obstacles and unveils a step-by-step coup d’état. I particularly enjoyed this analogy, perhaps one of Bruce’s softer moments:
“Genres are coastlines, niches within genres are beachfront properties, and standalone artists are rocks or grains of sand. Sticking with the metaphor: coastlines and beachfront properties are compelling, interesting and entertaining; rocks and sand are things that get stuck in your shorts and sandals.”
Whatever your position on file-sharing may be, it will most certainly be skewed when you learn that a mega-band such as Radiohead, who famously distributed their last record with a pay-what-you-like model, are taking the stand against the RIAA.
In the case of file-sharer Joel Tenenbaum, a Boston University student, versus the RIAA, Radiohead will testify against the RIAA as part of a protest against unnecessary preying on filesharers, according to Tenenbaum’s legal team which consists of Harvard Law professor Charles Nesson and student members of his class.
Radiohead has publically spoken out against the major labels’ agenda to profit from questionable sharing of music in the legal arena, and specifically the lobby groups that represent them such as the RIAA and IFPI. In fact, Radiohead is one of several A-list artists that have embraced file-sharing culture in one way or another to propel their independent marketing of their music and, to a certain extent, have proven that the very labels that made them what they are today have been rendered obsolete.
All this comes to a head just after the founders of The Pirate Bay, a BitTorrent search platform, were found guilty in a landmark file-sharing case spearheaded by Swedish anti-piracy lobbyists, preceded by the public crackdown of the popular music streaming service, SeeqPod, which was forced to close.
Linking the decline in music sales to illegal filesharing carries very little water in this day and age as there are so many other contributing factors to the manner in which music is consumed and the availability of media to the public in general. The fact is that, for the major labels, going to court is profitable. In the cases where it’s not, it sets a precedence for future cases that will turn over handsome settlements. The attitude toward file-sharing, and the laws around it no less, will not change until the investment in the judicial system will no longer yield rewards for the copyright holders, the majority of which are represented by only four corporate institutions worldwide.
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