Life and work have gotten in the way of my blogging recently
and I have not had the opportunity to review some of the topics that I am
really interested in. I resolve to do better. In the interim, NPR’s Morning
Edition has run three fascinating reports this week on some current
controversial topics in the music industry.
On Tuesday of this week, they ran a long study of the pros and cons of crowd funding
vehicles such as Kickstarter. The story was important because it showed that
for everyone who raises a million bucks on Kickstarter, there’s another artist
who couldn’t even meet half her goal. This is also the first story that I
recall that brings up the important point that not all artists want to shill
for themselves on the internet. It was a fascinating piece and I recommend it
to anyone who is interested in trying to start a Kickstater (or similar)
campaign. Here’s the link: http://www.npr.org/blogs/therecord/2012/09/25/161702900/crowd-funding-for-musicians-isnt-the-future-its-the-present
The next day they ran a story on Spotify and how record
labels, publishers and artists actually receive money from the service. Although I am not sure that the reporter did
a great job explaining the economics, the piece did show the current state of
Spotify’s royalty payments in all the grim reality. I found this fascinating.
Here’s the link: http://www.npr.org/blogs/therecord/2012/09/26/161758720/how-musicians-make-money-by-the-fraction-of-a-cent-on-spotify
Finally, today’s story focused on You Tube and how it has
rapidly become the music on demand spot for new music listeners (and I thought
it was just a place for watching old Rolling Stones videos…) Again,
fascinating/controversial stuff. Listen especially to the comments made by the guitarist
from the Dead Kennedys.: http://www.npr.org/blogs/therecord/2012/09/27/161837316/youtube-shares-ad-revenue-with-musicians-but-does-it-add-up
