Music is free, and so are we.
Bandcamp recently tweeted the top 10 most common band names on Bandcamp. Unlike the snarky story to which I linked, I found the list to be illuminating. Now, I could go on about the mistake of naming your band something that’s already in use, but I think the important thing is to recognize that any…
David Byrne thinks musicians are doomed by streaming music. More music is being made and listened to with greater frequency, diversity and depth than ever before in human history. But musicians are doomed. Here are my issues with Byrne’s flimsy refutations of “counter-arguments” to building a business around free access to music: “1. Recorded music…
Imagine a world in which there is only bottled water. Then, quite rapidly, changes in technology connect every household to a municipal water line so they can have tap water. Suddenly, you don’t have to pay for water every time you want to drink it. And even though you’re paying a small monthly fee for…
I am beyond pumped to be headed down to Washington, DC next week for the Future of Music Summit. The Summit is 2-day conference for music industry professionals and musicians, and is organized by the Future of Music Coalition. The FMC is a non-profit that advocates for musicians’ rights, and helps educate musicians on issues…
“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!” – Upton Sinclair It’s the latest fad: rock stars hating digital music. Well, not really — it started with Napster. Back then, a lot of artists held their tongues, realizing that it would be mega-uncool to…
Rabbit Rabbit is getting all sorts of attention for its recent write-up in the New York Times discussing the band’s very own subscription-based fan service, Rabbit Rabbit Radio. It’s grassroots crowdfunding at its best and most sustainable. Fans get a bundle of high-quality original content every month, in exchange for a low pay-what-you-want monthly fee….
If you’ve ever asked the question, “How do I make money from music?” this is for you. Tens of millions of musicians want to make money from their music. Only one percent ever do. Why? Ask most musicians how they plan to make money and they all say the same thing: I’m waiting for my…
Vinyl sales grew 39% in 2011 and projections for the future are even higher. This is huge for musicians. Here’s the dirty little secret you probably haven’t read much about: Look more closely and you’ll quickly realize that the music industry is 75% controlled by four labels. Musicians are not the majority rights holders of…
A small but growing number of formerly well-compensated musicians are rallying around a new empty catch phrase: “ad-sponsored piracy”. As far as I can tell, this idea gestated in the bitter womb of The Trichordist, an echo chamber for musicians who are too scared of changes in technology to discuss solutions. Instead, they spew dangerous…
Hang out for a few minutes and I’ll tell you why Grooveshark may be more ethical than Spotify. Brief History Lesson By suing Napster and its kin out of existence, the music industry elite created a “soft landing” for its multi-billion dollar business of selling access to recorded music. They couldn’t kill so-called music “piracy”…
Here’s a brief reprieve from all the editorializing: two recently discovered videos that changed the way I thought about music. The first is not a single video but a Harvard lecture series by classical music icon Leonard Bernstein entitled “The Unanswered Question” from 1973. It is without a doubt the best 40+ year old video…
“We are the music while the music lasts.” – T.S. Eliot In modern-day song sharing — what we think of as “music” — there are three participants: musicians, listeners and industry. When music first originated, there was little if any separation between musician and listener. Certainly, there was no business of music upon which to…
