“Never in history music has been able to get so far, geographically, as now.”, says Ronaldo Lemos, law professor at Fundação Getulio Vargas law school in Rio de Janeiro, head of Creative Commons Brazil and chairman of iCommons, at a fair music discussion at Ars Electronica in Linz in September. By this Lemos means that the internet and digital technologies enabled the spread of music globally in a simple, cheap and fast way. This technological change leads to societal changes according to art and culture.
To give an example Ronaldo Lemos describes the scene of Tecno Brega in Brazil. Tecno Brega is a mix between an 80s beat with very romantic music, which is great for dancing together and therefore extremely popular in Brazil, especially in the north. The Tecno Brega scene releases around 400 new CDs every year and the so called Sound System Parties are crowded every weekend. Sony BMG, the largest music label in Brazil, in 2006 only released 13 CDs of brazilian music, Ronaldo Lemos remarks.
According to BBC online news, NME reviews editor Julian Marshall thinks more bands are going to attempt new ideas in music distribution and music marketing like Radiohead: “I think it’s actually a really exciting time. People have been talking for years about how the internet was going to change the way people approach releasing their records,” Marshall says to BBC. Entertainment Retailers Association deputy chairman Ben Drury is quoted: “There are more ways to get music than ever before and really, it’s those labels that adapt to those conditions are the ones that will survive and prosper.”
The International Music Council’s Second World Forum on Music starts in Beijing, China, on Thursday 10th October. Following the first World Forum on Music, held in Los Angeles in October 2005, the 2007 Forum aims at exploring some of the most important developments in music.
The main themes of the Forum are: Music in Development with a focus on the importance of strengthening the musical sector in developing countries; intellectual Property Rights and the implications of alternative regimes for ensuring artists’ rights; enhancing musical diversity; music in the Future - how social, cultural, political and technological trends influence music in the years to come.
Peter Rantasa, Executive Board Member of IMC, director of mica - music austria and initiator of fair music initiave will chair an important session on the complex topic of intellectual property rights (IPRs) in music on Friday. The speakers represent perspectives of authors, musicians, collecting societies, research, online-business and music industry and the UN organisation WIPO.
After it emerged that the british rock band Radiohead is selling its latest album online and lets fans decide how much they want to pay, Guy Hands, whose private equity house Terra Firma purchased EMI two months ago, has urged the staff of the label, according to the Telegraph, in a confidential e-mail to embrace the digital age. “Mr Hands said the dramatic move by Radiohead was ‘a wake-up call which we should all welcome and respond to with creativity and energy’.”, writes the online Telegraph.
Hands is further quoted that the music industry “has for too long been dependent on how many CDs can be sold” and “rather than embracing digitalisation (…) the industry has stuck its head in the sand”.
Ian Rogers who’s working for Yahoo! Music just gave a brief presentation to some friends in the music industry about why it’s time to pay closer attention to consumer needs when it comes to digital music. He now shares his presentation with the public on his blog fistfulayen. The long comments that followed his post show that he triggered an interesting discussion about music listening, sharing and offering in the digital age.
Posted by Fairmusic Team on October 8th, 2007 under industry, market
At the panel discussion “fair music – it`s time for a change” that had been held on 20th September at net.culture.space in the Wiener Museumsquartier in Vienna (Austria), the brazilian musician Celia Mara, who lives in Austria, talked about her difficulties in getting into the music biz in Brazil and in Austria. In Brazil, if you want to get on the radio, you have to pay something like a bribe. In Austria it is difficult for her to get into mainstream media as her music does not fit into any typical music category.
How the music “industry” beyond the nationwide-radio-record-label-business in Brazil works and how musicians can make their own deals is now described in detail in an article on the iCommons website. Paula Martini from Rio de Janeiro there describes the success story of the most popular band, Calypso, that has no contract with a label but ows her success to street credibility. Martini writes: “Their albums are sold primarily through street vendors, who sell CDs and DVDs of the band in the streets, not because they are pirated, but because that is the preference of the group itself. This is the result of a recent research published by F/Nazca Saatchi & Saatchi, one of the largest advertising agencies in the country.”
