Some news that might not seem immediately edifying, but might have far reaching implications. The Intellectual Property Office in the UK has issued a ‘Scoping Document‘ attempting to assess the potential role of a Digital Rights Agency. Given what’s currently happening between the PRS and Google, the rights of artists to benefit from the exploitation of their music online is quite a hot topic at the moment.
More rumblings in the same region of the law are sounding in New Zealand, where Google has deposited it’s two cents in a discussion being held by the Telecommunication Carrier’s Forum – a think-tank organised by the TeleComms and ISP comapnies in that region to decide how to monitor and deal with digital copyright violations. Google has come in on the side of the consumer, saying that the idea of banning users who are caught infringing three times from using the ISP’s services – in effect cutting them off access to the internet as a whole – was too heavy a penalty. They also chime in with approval of measures designed to protect ISP’s from the consequences of copyright infringement perpetrated by their customers. Google is in a pretty unique position to provide a balanced opinion, given that they are operating a service across every nation in the world, but their ultimate position is always going to be pro-internet and pro-traffic of information, including music, because that is essentially pro-Google. More pageviews, more ad revenue.
How then, to deal with copyright violation on the net? The RIAA is abandoning it’s programme of coming down heavy on individuals in the hope that it will act as a deterrent to other pirates, as sending threatening letters and scaring little old ladies seems to be generating more negative publicity for them than deterrent effect on the pirates. Perhaps prosecuting people like middle-aged Mavis from New Hampshire in their fearful absence is not quite the shining moralistic proof that pinching a devious little ferret of a computer scientist with a server-filled basement of porn and Michael Jackson albums might be, but then he’d have used proxies and covered his tracks, and would be much harder to catch.
Ultimately this blogger just hopes all the legislation and discussion and arguing and imprisoning of housewives helps us home in on the inevitable. It is inevitable that consumers on the net will find a way of quickly and conveniently getting hold of the music they want, through filesharing, paid downloads, ad supported models or whatever other method they can. It is inevitable that artists must profit from the consumption of their music, directly or indirectly, because otherwise they won’t be able to afford to make music, and we’ll all have to listen to U2 and the Beatles for evermore, and no-one wants that… So we must, eventually, inevitably arrive at a solution that bridges that gap; that provides a way for music consumers to get what they want cheaply, quickly and conveniently, and for artists to profit from it. Some sort of commercial, digital radio… I’m going to go and listen to Spotify while I think about what that perfect solution might be.
It can be a bit difficult to keep perspective when all you hear is bad news. The music industry may be in turmoil, but it always has been, and change breeds creativity rather than destruction. Here’s Frank Zappa more than 20 years ago, explaining just what was causing the decline of the music industry back then (and a bit about masturbation, for some reason). Given that so much great music has been made since then, and how diversity and innovation are flourishing more richly than ever before due to the internet, I have to raise an eyebrow when I hear about the industry’s decline.
Steve does a little Q&A session on HypeBot – repeated here:
We continue our ongoing 4QFor (Four Questions For) series with Steven Finch, the CEO of Insomnia Ltd, which owns music 2.0 start-ups www.routenote.com, www.crenk.com, www.adphilia.com, and a record label and recording studio. You can learn more about Steve’s companies here. (Read more 4QFor interviews with the heads of OurStage, Sonicbids, imeem, We7, ReverbNation, New Music Strategies and Nimbit here.)
Q1. What major changes in the music industry do you foresee over the next year?
2008 will be a very interesting year for the music industry. We will continue to see the major labels complaining about the music industry declining, when in fact it is only CD sales that are heading downwards. The distance between the major labels and independent labels will continue to get closer, thus proving in this day and age that artists don’t need a major label to succeed!
Q2. How are you and your company preparing to benefit from these changes?
We strongly believe in independent artists and labels being able to promote their music to the widest possible audience, without having to worry about barriers to market. RouteNote wants to eliminate these barriers for independent or unsigned artists, and allow good artists to stand out from the crowd.
Q3. What excites you?
The music industry as a whole really excites me. It is changing and twisting all the time and with so many emerging business models in the marketplace at present, who knows which ones will actually succeed or fail. Lots of people are talking about music heading towards ‘free’, I think this might be the case…
however I still believe users are willing to pay for something that is actually worth something. Im willing to pay for music as long as I know I can transfer it from computer to iPod to CD and back, whenever I want to and as many times as I want. A revolutionary watermarking service which tracks DRM free music is the way forward.
Q4. What’s next?
The music industry has always been based around old practices, and now it seems that it is time for new beginnings. RouteNote will enter the music market with the aim of providing artists what they want. Artists want ease of use, with the ability to profit from their achievements. RouteNote will provide this and more.
Newcomer to the social music scene RouteNote, is designed for independent musicians who are seeking to distribute their music. The service is partnered with a handful of today’s most successful online music stores/outlets including Napster, Snocap, and Samsung Mobile. Artists get instant access to worldwide distribution, plus they retain full ownership of their songs. There are no sign up fees, and artists receive a full 90% of their sales. RouteNote’s service is non-exclusive and they also provide other venues for artists to distribute their music including, film, TV and radio. Free self promotional tools include widgets, and banners among other things. More partnerships with other music outlets are in the works.
“RouteNote is an online music distribution service providing artists instant access to a large proportion of the online market. Designed and built to take advantage of the shift towards independent and self-publication through online and mobile music outlets, and the consumer switch to online purchasing as outlined by the success of iTunes, Myspace and Pump Audio, RouteNote is partnered with some of the biggest retailers on the web to give artists massive and immediate availability for their tracks.”
RouteNote offers musicians a much easier way to distribute their music to a worldwide audience. Wading through copyright and licensing laws is difficult and possibly prohibitive. For independent artists RouteNote’s service takes care of all their needs, plus they get to keep most of their profits.
