Blogging with Basil

Digital distribution has finally eclipsed brick and mortar stores.    According to this article Apple’s iTunes store is now the number 1 music retailer.

Once again, I will be badged and attending the SxSW Music Conference. Feel free to stop me and say hello. I’m always up for chatting about the state and/or future of the music business.

The Major Labels are desperate. With their business model withering on the vine, the RIAA is getting greedy. The situation would be laughable, if it wasn’t so sad.
With their real motivation revealed, I guess we can take solace in the fact that this is the beginning of the end.

The always insightful Andrew Dubber, has written a very interesting post on his blog.  I find it interesting to speculate on where this all will lead .

I found this blog post starting with the Lefsetz letter, then on to Seth Godin, and finally arriving to Marc Andreessen. The actual source is an article in the Financial Times (a site requiring registration).
It’s apparent that the only thing that makes sense is digital distribution. One has to […]

There have been several reports that vinyl is making a come back. It will be interesting to see what sort of legs this trend has. One can only hope, that this will reverse the Louder is Better sickness that has take over in the last 2 decades.  Maybe the War on Dynamic […]

The NY Times has an article on the 2007 record sales.
Nothing surprising here.

According to this article, the concert business is in a slump. I wonder who or what will be blamed for this?

Wired magazine ran 2 articles this week worth a read:

An article by David Byrne, about possible new business models in the music industry. I heard him deliver this information in a talk, at this year’s SxSW, in Austin. I was glad to finally have this in written form, because I had forgotten […]

I was first exposed to Andrew Dubber by the Project Studio Network Podcast. I have been reading his blog and intend to read his ebook soon. I have to say, that almost everything he says in this interview about Music like Water is Spot On.

Bob Baker pointed out an interesting posting on the Long Tail blog, with some interesting statistics about the Music Industry.
Perhaps things aren’t as bad as most people expected. My personal belief is that artists will be compensated in almost exactly the same way as OpenSource Software Developers are. Compensation will […]

I have been following the Lefsetz Letter Blog for several months. I find everything he says to be fascinating because even though he’s a heavy hitter, he’s also one of us, a fan. Most importantly, he understands Technology.
Being just barely a Boomer, I’m not sure I ever got Radiohead. None the less, […]

The Freakonomics Quorum Blog at the NY Times site, contains an interesting take on the future of the music industry. The contributors are all movers and shakers from the Technology Arm of the new business.
I found the following two quotes, to be extremely insightful:

There are several other factors that might explain recent […]

Rolling Stone recently published a 2 part series on the Fall of the Record Industry:

The Record Industry’s Decline
The Fall of the Record Business: What Next?

What immediately struck me about the first article, was that it sounded like a case study from The Innovator’s Dilemma, by Clayton Christensen. This book was published 10 years ago, […]

The lighting changed, and now the puppet strings are visible. Nothing very surprising on this list. Of course, this only covers RIAA contributions. Check out www.opensecrets.org to see what other Entertainment Lobby money they receive.

EMI learned something interesting recently. Market forces reward companies who listen to their customers.

My father used to say, “The only people that should speak in the third person, are royalty and people with tape-worms.” Apparently, the RIAA and SoundExchange should be added to that list, particularly when they are looking out for the interests of Artists. Of course, the minute the RIAA uses the word “we” […]

I have followed this story for several years. I personally find it interesting for two reasons:

It is encouraging to see the RIAA get its just deserts.
Ms. Santagelo is from Wappingers Falls, NY and I used to live there in the mid 80’s (small world).

Perhaps the Majors will finally stop their insane war […]

Unlike the U.S. Senate, some of our Congressmen get it. In particular, Rick Boucher and John Doolittle. They are trying to reverse the tide of the DMCA and its assault on fair-use:

Reps. Boucher and Doolittle Introduce the FAIR USE Act of 2007

As always, the EFF is on top of this:

Support […]

There was quite a bit of hub-bub about a new Virtual Label composed of several Indies announced at Midem. This was covered in the following places:

Indie Music Labels create merlin to conjure licensing deals
Indie Labels Join Forces For Online ‘Parity’ …

One of the problems with the term Indie, is that it has several meanings […]

I recently came across the following 2 stories:

RIAA Petitions Judges to Lower Artist Royalties
Senators aim to restrict Net, satellite radio recording

As an artist and independent content producer, both of these stories disturb me. My concerns include:

The dinosaurs (RIAA and the Majors) are now resorting to changing the existing laws and statutes. This is an […]