Category: Music Industry

Great news for musicians who fly!

The AFM Applauds Passage of FAA Bill

I never know what to think when I read something like this NPR piece. Did it really cost Rihanna’s label $1,078,000 to produce “Man Down”? Really??  Were there really forty writers working on her record?? But even if you take half (or a quarter) of the amount of money spent, it’s still a pretty big number for me to get my head around…

Sony Music to drop promo CDs

I actually thought this would have happened a long time ago.  I understand that some people in the industry (reviewers, radio stations, etc.) still want a physical product, but CDs make little or no sense in 2010. There is far less environmental impact from digital downloads and digital files are far easier to manage from a delivery standpoint. They’re also easier to use. Finding a particular track amongst ten thousand songs in an iTunes-like system is a breeze. Finding that same track on one of 1,000 CDs is, to be charitable, a challenge.

As Sony’s CEO, Ged Doherty, says:

“Digital promo is set to become an industry standard as other major and independent music companies also make the switch. Physical stock is expensive, difficult to store and environmentally unfriendly. The digital e-card system that we have developed and tested in-house will provide all our partners across radio, television, press and retail with the same sound quality you are used to as well as artist images, pack shots, press clippings and other content to give you a complete picture of each release”.

Absolutely terrific interview with Jim Selby (CEO) of Naxos of America Inc.

Two of his answers regarding sales and profit I found very interesting:

Regarding sales…. “The physical (distribution) portion would be probably 70 percent (of sales). In profit, it would be around 10 percent. Ninety percent of the profit is generated by the non-physical.”

And regarding digital sales… “Our sales for digital downloads and streams for Naxos the label are well over 50 percent. Most of the industry is around 25 percent. We have our own distributor labels that are well over 35 percent.”

I never would have guessed that a Classical label would have this high a percentage of digital sales and profit. Definitely interesting…

Record industry faces liability over `infringement’

Hard to believe this is even true.  You have to wonder the logic behind Warner Music Canada, Sony BMG Music Canada, EMI Music Canada, and Universal Music Canada’s decision to “exploit now, pay later if at all.”  Maybe it’s simply pure greed.  Maybe it’s bad management.

But as the author Michael Geist ponts out: “After years of claiming Canadian consumers disrespect copyright, the irony of having the recording industry face a massive lawsuit will not be lost on anyone, least of all the artists still waiting to be paid. Indeed, they are also seeking punitive damages, arguing “the conduct of the defendant record companies is aggravated by their strict and unremitting approach to the enforcement of their copyright interests against consumers.”

Yup.  And regardless of how this plays out in the courts it looks and smells like it is. Bad.

Nice interview with Donald Passman. I liked his last insightful comment: “The more pain the industry feels, the easier the legal side gets. The better the technology gets, the closer we get to delivering an experience people want.”

This article shows what is pretty clear to me — music creators and copyright owners are moving to a vastly different way of getting music out there. Still, I’m not sure anyone has found “…ways of monetizing the creative content” that in any way equals what the record industry saw pre-2000.