Twitter
Facebook
Flickr
RSS
OK Go, who we all know from their famous treadmill video (currently at 52 million views), recently went through an interesting episode. See much of the success of this first video came from people embedding it on facebook and various blogs (which is what I'm assuming you all do with my posts). At the time of the first video, there was no problem...their label, Capitol, hadn't really worked out its YouTube policies and OK Go was free to just run with it. For their next album, OK Go decided to stick with what worked, and produced a new video which stays true to the fun loving quirkyness that made them sensations in the first place. However this time Capitol would not allow them to make the video embeddable. By this point, Capitol, as with many labels, had begun to monetize the YouTube videos of their artists. This means commercials. See but advertisers don't necessarily love the idea of the videos they sponsor being embeddable, meaning the ads could be shown anywhere. Which is understandable...considering someone like Disney wouldn't want their ads showing up on a site featuring smut or potty language.
However this left OK Go in a precarious situation. Their label's digital strategy did not mesh with their digital strategy. At this point they posted their Open Letter from OK Go, which describes everything here in greater detail and closes like this...
So, for now, here's the bottom line: EMI won't let us let you embed our YouTube videos. It's a decision that bums us out. We've argued with them a lot about it, but we also understand why they're doing it. They’re aware that their rules make it harder for people to watch and share our videos, but, while our duty is to our music and our fans, theirs is to their shareholders, and they believe they’re doing the right thing.
Then, something unexpected happened. OK Go and EMI reached a mutual agreement whereby OK Go would leave the label and form their own. They then teamed up with Statefarm Insurance to produce a new video, which would then be embeddable, and which was a success (currently closing in on 16 million views). You can read more about it here.
So what does this mean? While OK Go's route has been far from traditional, it does highlight the advantages of holding on to your copyrights. It OK Go had been under their own label the entire time, this never would have been an issue. Of course without the label's help, they may not have ever gotten that far.
So should labels be more flexible with their artists? Should artists hold onto their copyrights? Time will tell. For now, check out the fully embeddable video below.
Aug 11, 2010
Porn
This is mainly a music based post, but all content based industries (music, movies, television, video games, print, magazines, blogs, etc.) work around similar principles. The one industry that has consistently been ahead of the curve technologically has been the Porn Industry (stop giggling). In fact the porn industry is often credited for helping VHS defeat Beta-Max as the dominant consumer video cassette format, despite Beta-Max being a superior product, all those years ago. Anyways I found this little graphic on the industry and thought it was interesting. Enjoy (not too much).
 |
| Click to Enlarge |
Articles of the Day
(Note: this blog will begin with a backlog of articles I had saved up)
Donald Passman on Royalties
Here's a short interview by knowthemusicbiz.com with Music Attorney Donald Passman. For those of you who don't know, Donald Passman is the author of "All You Need to Know About the Music Business," long considered one of the most useful and enlightening books about the Music Industry (and one that I highly recommend). In the interview, Mr. Passman reviews what type of royalties independent artists who retain their copyrights can expect to receive.
Musician's Roadmap to Setting Goals
Music Think Tank has a nice piece about the importance of setting goals, and the very simple act of writing them down. People who write down their goals 1) have a better understanding of what they are trying to do and 2) are more likely to actually do it. Personally I use the Mac program Things which lets me sync my to-do list between my desktop, laptop, and iPhone. It actually makes doing things fun in a nerdy way. In fact, upon finishing this post I will probably pump my fist in the air, then look around to make sure no one saw me. Try it!
New Ideas: Christopher Bryant
Christopher Bryant has a unique way to open up his act. He starts off by playing a few covers of an artist who has influenced him. This can be a great way for an artist to break the ice with an audience who is not familiar with him. By playing their music and talking about them, you can build a common ground with the crowd. I think this especially works well if the artist they are covering is someone whose style is substantially different from the artist who is performing. It shows depth. Peoples like depth.
John P. Strohm- Creative Commons
Many of you may have heard of Lawrence Lessig's creation Creative Commons, which essentially is a blanket license for certain types of use of material. Here's a quick breakdown of the types of licenses available. Don't worry, there will be much more on this topic to come...
Donald Passman on Royalties
Here's a short interview by knowthemusicbiz.com with Music Attorney Donald Passman. For those of you who don't know, Donald Passman is the author of "All You Need to Know About the Music Business," long considered one of the most useful and enlightening books about the Music Industry (and one that I highly recommend). In the interview, Mr. Passman reviews what type of royalties independent artists who retain their copyrights can expect to receive.
Musician's Roadmap to Setting Goals
Music Think Tank has a nice piece about the importance of setting goals, and the very simple act of writing them down. People who write down their goals 1) have a better understanding of what they are trying to do and 2) are more likely to actually do it. Personally I use the Mac program Things which lets me sync my to-do list between my desktop, laptop, and iPhone. It actually makes doing things fun in a nerdy way. In fact, upon finishing this post I will probably pump my fist in the air, then look around to make sure no one saw me. Try it!
New Ideas: Christopher Bryant
Christopher Bryant has a unique way to open up his act. He starts off by playing a few covers of an artist who has influenced him. This can be a great way for an artist to break the ice with an audience who is not familiar with him. By playing their music and talking about them, you can build a common ground with the crowd. I think this especially works well if the artist they are covering is someone whose style is substantially different from the artist who is performing. It shows depth. Peoples like depth.
John P. Strohm- Creative Commons
Many of you may have heard of Lawrence Lessig's creation Creative Commons, which essentially is a blanket license for certain types of use of material. Here's a quick breakdown of the types of licenses available. Don't worry, there will be much more on this topic to come...
Jul 27, 2010
Kickstarter
Kickstarter is an amazing resource for any band or manager who does not have a lot of money to start out with. The concept is known as Crowdsouring, and makes fund raising feasible in a whole new way.
Here's the idea...
1. Set a goal: say you need to raise some money to finish recording your album. Go to the website, and create a new "project," here to raise money to finish your album. Next, set the amount you seek to raise, say $2000.
2. Set the amounts: Here's where the genius of the website really begins to shine. Now, you set different pledge amounts that your fans, friends and family can contribute. $5 and they get a letter from the band thanking them for their involvement. $25 gets a free copy of the album. $50 gets a photo with the band (to post on the facebook) and a shout out at the next gig. All the way up to $500 for a private show. Sure, it's a hustle, but that's the music industry today, and you're building a serious relationship with your fans at the same time.
3. Reach your goal: Kickstarter easy to use because no money is actually collected until you've gotten enough pledges to reach your goal for two reasons: First, contributors will be offered some guarantee that you won't waste the money, since you won't see any of it until you get all of it. Second, it makes finishing the goal easy because you can drop the "we're almost there!" on everyone and shake a few more dollars out.
For up and coming bands, and artists beginning in any field, money can be hard to come by...especially in 2010. But by using this tool, you can simultaneously raise the money you need while making an everlasting connection with your hard core fans. Remember, people love being involved in what you do...it makes them feel like they're apart of something special!
Here's the idea...
1. Set a goal: say you need to raise some money to finish recording your album. Go to the website, and create a new "project," here to raise money to finish your album. Next, set the amount you seek to raise, say $2000.
2. Set the amounts: Here's where the genius of the website really begins to shine. Now, you set different pledge amounts that your fans, friends and family can contribute. $5 and they get a letter from the band thanking them for their involvement. $25 gets a free copy of the album. $50 gets a photo with the band (to post on the facebook) and a shout out at the next gig. All the way up to $500 for a private show. Sure, it's a hustle, but that's the music industry today, and you're building a serious relationship with your fans at the same time.
3. Reach your goal: Kickstarter easy to use because no money is actually collected until you've gotten enough pledges to reach your goal for two reasons: First, contributors will be offered some guarantee that you won't waste the money, since you won't see any of it until you get all of it. Second, it makes finishing the goal easy because you can drop the "we're almost there!" on everyone and shake a few more dollars out.
For up and coming bands, and artists beginning in any field, money can be hard to come by...especially in 2010. But by using this tool, you can simultaneously raise the money you need while making an everlasting connection with your hard core fans. Remember, people love being involved in what you do...it makes them feel like they're apart of something special!
Jan 4, 2010
Greetings!
hey gang! this blog will be about the legal issues surrounding the music industry as it evolves, and how it affects everyone from artists to labels to the consuming public. Hope you enjoy!
