1. Create a record label named "Unknown."
2. Form a band named "Various Artists."
3. (step 3 not required)
4. PROFIT!
No, really: Please take your royalty check
Royalties are piling up from digital music streams, and a nonprofit has to track down artists who don't know. Then it has to convince them it's not a scam.
posted by planetkyoto
on Mar 12, 2010 -
20 comments
A decade of digital music Vaguely styled as a timeline, this end-of-the-decade blog post (from UK digital music news source
Music Ally) could prove valuable to anyone studying the music business or the intersection between entertainment and technology. The piece links to ten years of stories on digital music - from Napster through to Spotify - allowing us to look back on the issues without the 20/20 vision of hindsight. Gems include the
Bluematter scheme from Universal Records in 2000, which comprised 60 non-transferrable, non-burnable tracks for $1.99 each.
posted by skylar
on Jan 2, 2010 -
4 comments
"Prince announces
a triple album set available from Target. Unless he’s going to write a hit song and play in each and every store in the chain, this is a bad deal. We’ve got
enough Prince music. We want two CDs and a third of a
protege? I don’t know about you, but I’ve got a life. And Prince hasn’t put out a good album in this century. ... How many people are going to tell their friends about Prince’s new album? None. No one has hipped me to a new Prince track
in fifteen years. The release of his album is a dead end. He’s
abused our
trust. When you e-mail me an unsolicited track you abuse my trust. When you add me to your mailing list without asking first, you abuse my trust. When you focus on marketing as opposed to music, you’ve got your head up your ass." -
Bob Lefsetz (previously)
posted by Joe Beese
on Mar 10, 2009 -
109 comments
20 Biggest Record Company Screw-Ups of All Time from Blender Magazine. "They include MCA Records’ decision in 1989 to pass on a Seattle upstart band called Nirvana while also betting big on “Leather Boyz With Electric Toyz,” the debut album of a hair-metal band called Pretty Boy Floyd."
posted by plexi
on Mar 15, 2008 -
50 comments
"The iPod’s a great product. However our experience in dealing with them, as regards licensing music for iTunes, has been quite depressing."
Coldcut member and indie label
Ninja Tune co-founder Matt Black in a pixelsurgeon
interview about the new album, the relative relaxation on sample licensing, and iTunes. For another independent perspective on iTunes see
The 99c Question - addressing the pressures on iTunes from major labels to raise prices.
posted by nthdegx
on Feb 2, 2006 -
21 comments
Hello, MUDDA. "The relationship of artist to the business has most often been one of contract and servitude. We believe the way forward must be a partnership in which the artist can take a much bigger role in how their creations are sold, but also have the chance to stand at the front of the queue when payments are made instead of the traditional position of being paid long after everyone else." -
Peter Gabriel
posted by eustacescrubb
on Aug 11, 2004 -
8 comments
Interview with David Crosby. "The people who run record companies now wouldn't know a song if it flew up their nose and died. They haven't a clue, and they don't care. You tell them that, and they go, 'Yeah? So, your point is?' Because ...they don't care. They're actually sort of proud that they don't care.... Now they're going in the tank, because the world has changed, and they did not change with it...I think the only way to sell records that I know about now that does look really, really, really promising is iTunes."
posted by weston
on May 30, 2004 -
46 comments
Apple iTunes 4.5 was released yesterday, bringing with it several nice new features, such as a live-updating "Party Shuffle" playlist — as well as not-so-nice features like attaching Music Store links to every artist and album in your library (I turned this off immediately). As for the
iTunes Music Store itself, Apple has integrated its QuickTime features of music videos and movie trailers (this is related to music how?), shopper-created "iMixes" and for this month, a new "Free Track of the Day," a questionable asset being that today's artist is
Avril Lavigne. ...Perhaps you'd rather have an
album sung entirely with "meows".
posted by Down10
on Apr 29, 2004 -
39 comments
The hugely popular
iTunes is a success story. But not for Apple, which makes
virtually no revenue from the online download service.
"
When that 99 cents leaves your wallet, the RIAA monopoly swallows most of it, and the credit card companies swallow the rest. As the supplicant in this relationship, Apple is left holding the can." Steve Jobs -
"
We would like to break even/make a little bit of money but it's not a money maker,"
posted by Blue Stone
on Nov 7, 2003 -
57 comments
Silly listeners. Payola in radio isn't "back", it's just back in the
news.
Read how more than ever radio airplay is not determined by you, creativity, inspiration, nor musical genius, but by the big green. More reasons to try
xm?
posted by omidius
on Mar 3, 2003 -
17 comments
Have you filled out your Arbitron Diary? Radio watchfrogs Arbitron more or less provide the nooses in which Conglomerations hang themselves with (or, switch formats from R&B to Country.) Perhaps your station is losing "ears" and you'd like to beat that system? First, don't play
too much music. It gets in the way. Also, your morning show might want to adopt that old sawtooth sawhorse
The Birthday Game! ("
People perceive their chances of winning a substantial prize in the Birthday Game to be 1 in 365. Plus, most folks think of their birthday as lucky.") Diarists love it. If you're feeling especially sub-moral you should announce the wrong time to your listeners, a sneaky move deemed
Time Warping (PDF) that in effect cuts a hole in the space-time collusion, not to mention your competitor's 'Drive-By' block.
Arby's getting wise, though: The new-for-2003
The Portable People Meter, a snap-on privacy preventing prosthetic that records "invisible and inaudible" radio station cues removes that pesky Human Element from the diaries.
posted by neustile
on Jan 30, 2003 -
10 comments
Record Labels' Answer to Napster Still Has Artists Feeling Bypassed (NY Times). Well, it seems the shoe's on the other foot now. Some artists are learning that the industry alternative (Pressplay, MusicNet) to free music downloading services isn't paying quite the dividends they'd expected.
"Last December, the major record labels responded with two Internet services of their own where fans pay monthly fees to download songs. Under this arrangement, however, the performers still don't get a dime: for each song downloaded, they stand to get only a fraction of a cent, according to the calculations of disgruntled managers and lawyers.
And, artists and their managers say, the labels, like Napster, aren't putting the music online with proper permission either.
Can't say I have a lot of sympathy for
any of the principals involved. What is especially amusing (but not surprising) is the apparent duplicity of the labels: "in comments not for attribution, several executives at labels and their subscription services did not dispute the accusations regarding the payment plan. They said their first priority was to make the services attractive to consumers and that the details of compensation could be worked out afterward."
posted by topolino
on Feb 18, 2002 -
14 comments
