fair music weblog

“Our bands wanted their songs to be on peer-to-peer-networks, although they are not Madonna or any other famous artist”, is the straightforward answer CEO gives when asked what his music service jamendo is about. jamendo, a French company that is based in Luxembourg, is a new model for artists to promote, publish, and be paid for their music.
(weiterlesen…)

by Peter M. Rantasa

Basical musical rights:
• The right for all children and adults to express themselves musically in all freedom;
• The right for all children and adults to learn musical languages and skills;
• The right for all children and adults to have access to musical involvement through participation, listening, creation, and information;
• The right for musical artists to develop their artistry and communicate through all media, with proper facilities at their disposal;
• The right for musical artists to obtain just recognition and remuneration for their services.(excerpt from the statutes of the IMC—International Music Council, an advisory body of UNESCO)

We have never before had it this good! As music fans, we all remember the days when the longing for new records had us rummaging through dusty boxes and enthusiastically schleppingheavy loads of plastic back with us from far-flung cities so that we could finally hear the musicthat had been touted by our magazines of choice. Cellphones, notebooks, Web platforms –today, every new electronic communication channel is chock full of music. On the streets you hardly see an ear anymore that is not literally wired for sound. But do we really know where themusic we are enjoying in such abundance comes from? Besides the artists that are so close to our hearts, there are also numerous other people and companies involved in making sure we can finally hear what we want to hear. But we don’t even know about them!

As a music fan, I have a right to hear exactly the music I want to hear. As a creative artist, I have a right to expect recognition and payment for my performances and my ideas. As a listener, I assume that the money I pay for my music goes to the artists of my choice. But can I really be sure that the artists receive their fair share of what I spend and that – as a fundamental principle –they can produce their music freely and under fair conditions? (weiterlesen…)

Europe’s music industry is going through difficult times: finding new talent, writing new lyrics and producing new music recordings is extremely expensive, but it is becoming ever easier to copy artists’ works through digital media without compensating the artists and other companies concerned.

Representatives from the EU’s Culture Ministries met in Cannes on 27 January to discuss the challenges facing the music industry at an informal meeting held to coincide with the start of this year’s MIDEM international trade fair for the music and recording industry. At the event, European Commissioner Ján Figel’ announced the launch of a study on the role of culture, and the EU’s cultural industries, in promoting and stimulatingcreativity, innovation and growth in the EU. (weiterlesen…)

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).

(weiterlesen…)

At a speech he gave last week  he had been asked: What’s going to happen to the music industry?, Chris Anderson, editor-in-chief of Wired Magazine and author of the book The Long Tail, writes in his blog:
“To which I answered ‘Which music industry?’ You don’t mean just the one that sells CDs, do you? Because it’s a big mistake to equate the major labels and their plastic disc business with the industry as a whole.”

When you stand back and look at all of music, things don’t look so bad at all, concludes Anderson. It appears that every single part of the music industry is up, only CDs are down (-18%). They’re around 60% of the industry, but just around 25% if you include MP3 players. Anderson: “So the problem with the music labels is not that music is an industry in decline, but that they have a too-narrow view of what business they’re in.”

Everything in the music industry is up! (except those plastic discs) - The Long Tail

On Friday at the World Forum on Music in Beijing, artists, producers, law experts, representatives of intellectual property organisations, researchers and activists have discussed the present and the future of intellectual property rights (IPRs). The session, dedicated to this topic was chaired by Peter Rantasa, member of the exceutive board of the International Music Council (IMC), which held the Forum, and initiator of fair music.
Within the perspective of the IMCs five musical rights (in short: freedom of expression, freedom to learn, right to access, right to develop artistry and communicate, right to obtain just recognition and remuneration) the panel explored the needs for and obstacles to creating an effective IPR-regime in countries which do not have one; the situation for collective ownership and traditional music; alternatives to conventional IPR-regimes; the international quest between copyright and authors rights; collective rights management; the cutting edge issues for IPR in the digital realm and empiric data on the financial outcomes of IPR-regimes and their effects on creativity.

(weiterlesen…)