fair music weblog

Magnatune was founded in April 2003 by John Buckman and is located in Berkeley, California. Magnatune was born out of Buckman’s observations he’d gathered about the music industry, along with personal experiences from his wife releasing her CD on an Indie record label. In the end, she sold 1000 CDs, lost all rights to her music for 7 years (even though the CD had been out of print for many years), and earned a total of $137 in royalties paid (some of it paid to her as CD copies of her own CD which she then gave away for promotion).

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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.”

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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.

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.”

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The british Alternative-band Radiohead just finished their new album and is first releasing it as a download. The album In Rainbows will be available as a download from 10th October on and can be pre-ordered from their website. How much it costs is up to the fans. When you go to the checkout on their website after ordering and want to know the price, it says: “It’s up to you”.

There have been rumours that Radiohead will produce their new album on their own after their contract with EMI expired, but this pricing policy for sure is a surprise.

In a recent interview with TIME singer Thom Yorke has said, “I like the people at our record company, but the time is at hand when you have to ask why anyone needs one. And, yes, it probably would give us some perverse pleasure to say ‘F___ you’ to this decaying business model.” So now they did.
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Pop star Prince is demanding that video sharing website YouTube removes clips of his recent concerts in London. The singer says he is taking action against the site, and others like it, to “reclaim his art on the internet”.

More than 1,000 unauthorised clips have been taken down in the last few days, according to Web Sheriff, the UK firm he has hired to enforce the ban. The star is also targeting online shops which, he says, infringe his copyright by selling unauthorised merchandise. (weiterlesen…)