"We're not going to continue signing artists for recorded music revenue only," Bronfman said during a conference call with Wall Street analysts. What I keep saying to all of my indie label friends : Indie labels also have to give up on just being labels. It doesn't work. The artists (especially more successful DJs) are making lots of touring money, but they never consider sharing that with the label. So the only model that is working is that where the ...

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CD sales have collapsed. Live shows, touring and merchandise income are robust. Prices for concerts are way up. Elton John charged a record $690 for top seats in Las Vegas. Gerd Leonhard, a music business consultant, predicts that by 2010, recorded music sales will make up only 30 per cent of a successful label's revenues. The rest will be generated by artists' extra-musical brand extensions. Like those $20 T-shirts. "Record sales as we know them are in long-term decline," says ...

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This small article notes that licensing is a complicated and annoying process and how completely inappropriate it is for the kind of mass internet media events we are entering into. As she notes, the computer technology to bill anything is trivial, but the laws and business practices are a mess. There is money being made through advertising and yet the music licensing is not being paid simply because the procedure for payment is obsolete and ill-defined. And so the artists ...

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Quotes and talk from Hank Shocklee and George Clinton about sampling, creativity, litigation. for all his gripes, though, shocklee had some pretty straightforward suggestions about how to improve the system. one of his repeated requests--a compulsory licensing system of sorts, or at least a more navigable, transparent, and consistent system of pricing--was an oft echoed call throughout the conference. even as shocklee urged the creation of such a thing, though, he acknowledged the inherent difficulties of setting it up. "is ...

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