This one’s easy. I’ve been saying this for a while now, and it never fails to get me into an animated discussion. I’ve listened to all the arguments, read all the reports, heard convincing arguments about copyright extension and for complete overhaul of the copyright system.

And I’ve come to the following conclusion: The ideal term of both recording rights and composer’s rights is five years.

That’s right: Five. Not 95. Not 75. Not 50 or 25. Five. That number again: 5.

Arguments
Now, we could get into a long discussion here about the purpose of copyright being a way to incentivise creativity.

Or that extended copyrights prevent orphaned works from entering the public domain.

Or that music is not simply commerce, but is more importantly culture.

Or that copyrights should not be a way for businesses to continue to exploit artists’ work decades after they have moved on to other things.

Or that musicians should have the right to earn from their creations forever.

Or that record labels take such risks, they should be allowed to continue to reap the reward of their investment.

All seemingly sound arguments, when looked at from a particular point of view. But I’m not even going to engage them in debate. In one sense or another, they’re all right. But there’s something more fundamental at stake here.

Blanket licensing
The core assumption is that when a copyright term is decided upon, that’s the copyright term for all things in all circumstances. And those who want copyright terms extended (usually corporate organisations sitting on vast mountains of back catalogue) generally get their way on these matters, as happened in Europe recently.

But the problem is - that doesn’t suit everybody. Least of all the audiences and creators of content who want to build, share and engage in culture.

How it works
What I am proposing is a 5 year renewable term of copyright. All works are registered at the point of their creation. In five years time, if there is still commercial potential that the rights owner wishes to make use of, then that person or organisation re-registers the work.

And they can renew it again after another five years. And so on.

Cliff Richard can still use royalties as a kind of retirement deal if he wants to. But works that are not considered economically viable properties by their owners can enter the public domain and become part of the rich tapestry of human culture, for use in independent films, hip hop samples - or whatever else.

But most importantly, this happens automatically. Inactivity at the five year mark will lead to the default position of public domain - not the default position (as is currently the case) of ‘you can’t use this’.

The technology to make this happen is simple and readily available, and with an open database of works, clearance would be greatly simplified and re-registration a very straightforward procedure (comparatively speaking).

Most importantly
It’s estimated that less than 2% of all music that has ever been released in a commercial format is currently for sale in any way, shape or form. That 6-million tracks thing that iTunes goes on about is hardly even the tip of the iceberg.

But long-term blanket licences prevent people from lawfully accessing that other 98% of music and breathing new life into it.

One stipulation I’d add to my renewable 5-year term is a ‘use it or lose it’ clause. If you have a registered work and you do not make it available to the public in a commercially available fashion during a 5-year term, then you lose the right to renew that licence.

Stockpiling creative works just to hoard them, without making them available to the public, loses you those works next time around.

Just think of all the amazing collections and compilations that would be available to listen to and explore if the archives were opened up as public domain for independent entrepreneurs to work in niche areas of music that the majors had just been warehousing because they didn’t consider it economic to re-issue and release.

Talk about your Long Tail…

The problem (mostly) solved
Current blanket copyright terms ‘protect’ (I use that term in the sense of ‘racket’) copyright owners so that they can continue to be paid over and over again for work they did years ago. It prevents anyone else from making money out of works that have been shelved.

It does not, in any real sense, ‘incentivise creativity’.

A five year renewable copyright term for recorded works and for compositions allows for people to continue to earn from their works, encourages the development of under-utilised assets, pours far more music into the public sphere for the good of culture, and provides opportunities for enterprise.

It doesn’t fix the fact that copyright law is still based on an old technological environment, and simply doesn’t work in the online environment - but getting that term thing sorted out would be a great start.

If you liked this blog post, I'd appreciate it if you forwarded it to someone else you think might find it useful. Thanks very much.

How long should music copyright be?

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Blog inertia is a real problem for a lot of people. You start writing and updating on a regular basis, but even though you understand the importance and benefits of the practice for your music business, sooner or later you just kind of run out of stuff to talk about.

But it can actually be a breeze, rather than a dreaded chore - if you just take a few minutes to develop a bit of a strategy for those down times when the inspiration seems to be in short supply, it can be something you can do easily, quickly, and at times when you just don’t feel like it.

There’s a simple solution, and it’s one that I’ve recently implemented myself.

Have a list of topics on hand that you are likely to have things to say about. You can write about whatever you want when you’re inspired - but when you run dry, you’ve got a stock of prompts on hand that you can fall back on whenever you need to.

Like jazz for blogs
I’ve worked with a lot of jazz musicians, and they tell me that improvisation can be tough. Coming up with new, fresh ideas on the spur of the moment can be a slog. Even if you’re moved and inspired by the players and the tune you’re stretching out on, you’re going to need something up your sleeve to play when you come up blank.

So they have a stock of phrases and a vocabulary that they know they can reliably play over a certain chord progression. It’s not wrong or lazy - it’s just good strategy. It’s a good base from which they can leap into flights of imagination.

Do the same with your blog. I’ve solved the problem for myself by having a bunch of questions that I keep getting asked about online music (and I have a list of categories that I can pontificate about if even that strikes me as uninspiring) - but you might have a stock of things that you tend to return to.

Here are some suggestions by way of example:

For a band:
- War stories from the rehearsal room
- Instruments (favourite guitar, drum tuning, worst keyboard ever…)
- An album we love
- What we’re planning to do next
- When we were just starting out…
- Down our street today…

For a label:
- What Artist X has been up to this week
- Something funny happened in the office
- We all went out and saw an amazing gig
- One of the best things about working at our label
- Right outside our record label today…

And so on. You get the idea.

Come up with a list of categories of blog post, so that when you come up dry, there’s something to talk about. I’m guessing you’re never going to be short of something to say if you’re passionate about music - you just need the prompts.

Remember: not every blog post needs to be promotional. In fact, it’s way better and more effective if those ones are in the minority. This is the long game.

If you liked this blog post, I'd appreciate it if you forwarded it to someone else you think might find it useful. Thanks very much.

How can I keep coming up with ideas for my blog?

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I received a press release from a fairly big record company yesterday afternoon. You’ve heard of them. The release went like this:
_______________________________

Hi blogging community,

Here at [XXXXX] (name of record label withheld), we’re on a cyber-crusade, and we want you to be part of it. We know that blogging has become a massive part of the music community and an important way of spreading word of our artists, and we want to make sure you’re kept in the loop about what’s going on at our fine label.

To make sure we don’t bother you with stuff you’re not interested in, it’d be great if you could answer a few quick questions and give us a bit of feedback on how you think we should do it. Essentially, we want to know what sort of things interest you, what you would like to be sent, how you want it sending, etc etc. This should all help in that you’ll get the best from us.

So, with that in mind…

1.) What sort of content do you want us to provide you with? Is it mp3’s and videos that float your boat, or are you looking for news stories on up-and-coming releases from our artists, or does all of that interest you? Let us know – we’ll do our best to sort you out.

2.) If videos do float your boat, then in what format do you want them sending?

3.) When it comes to providing you with music in what format do you want it sending?

4.) How would you prefer to be contacted? Would you prefer a weekly e-mail consisting of all XXXXX information that might interest you, or would you prefer content as and when it comes?

Ultimately, all this feedback should benefit you. If you provide us with answers as to what you want to be provided with as a blogger, then we’ll do out best to sort you out. Essentially, we want to tailor what we provide to suit you, so you can get the best from us.

Cheers,

[XXXXXX]
(Name of poor, misguided wretch withheld)

_______________________________

When I finally stopped laughing, a couple of hours ago, I wondered how this could be used in a constructive way to be helpful to other record labels who might want to communicate with the blogosphere.

And I came up with one simple bit of advice, which I duly returned by email to the PR person in question.

I wrote:
_______________________________

Dear [XXXXXXX],

“Hi blogging community”?!
“Cyber crusade”?!
“All this feedback should benefit you”?!
“blogging has become a massive part of the music community”?!!!

Really?

Holy cow.

If one of my students wrote this in my Music Promotion and PR module, they would fail.

But rather than wish you ill, please allow me to direct you to:
Chris Brogan’s website.

Read everything he’s ever written.

Change your name.

Wait five years then try again.

Right now, we are all laughing at you.

_______________________________

So maybe that was harsh, but I think not entirely unfair.

PR - especially online, and especially when it comes to music - is about relationships. I am not the blogging community. I’m not even sure there is one.

Even so, I can give you some really simple tips:

1) Don’t give me homework.
2) Don’t tell me that doing my homework is good for me
3) Don’t go on a crusade. They never end well.
4) Please never, ever use the word cyber again unless you’re going in for some sex chat.
5) Don’t ask how I would prefer to be contacted. I would prefer NOT to be contacted. I love talking to people and having conversations, but I hate being ‘contacted’.

I know it’s just PR. I know you are talking to other people - but I am not your mouthpiece and I don’t care about your music unless I decide to.

There are some people who send me stuff that I talk about and recommend, even though I know, deep down, that they’re just doing a PR job. But they do it right and I feel like we have some sort of friendship going on.

Jaz Cummins from Shiny Red gets it. She seems to be doing everything right. If she sent me stuff, I’d be quite likely to talk about it, because I know it would be relevant and interesting. Besides, we’re friends on Twitter, and I kind of feel that not helping her out would be to let her down. It’s pure strategy - but it works.

Nick Fitzsimons from Penny Distribution has given this a lot of thought too - and it just makes sense. Know who you’re talking to on an individual basis, and tailor your communication.

It might be time consuming, but saving time by addressing the blog-o-verse, or whatever you want to call it, will set your cause back another few years.

Ha… “cyber-crusade”. That’s still funny.

If you liked this blog post, I'd appreciate it if you forwarded it to someone else you think might find it useful. Thanks very much.

How not to approach the blog-o-verse

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Wow - that was frustrating.

A week or more of the site being offline, and more than a week before that of some teething issues as we tried (with varying degrees of success) to carry off The Great Hosting Migration of 2008.

As far as we can tell, everything is pretty much as it should be now. Links should lead to places they are meant to go, pictures should display where pictures should display, and by and large, we can return you to your irregularly scheduled programme.

Please let me know if you spot any problems. Thanks very much.

If you liked this blog post, I'd appreciate it if you forwarded it to someone else you think might find it useful. Thanks very much.

Technical difficulties

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Apart from all the usual stuff I like to occupy my time with - like travel to Northern Ireland to give a music industry seminar, make a video blog about whisky, listen to lots of records, meet with commercially inviable record labels, do a spot of research about the BBC, and involve myself in long examination board meetings at the university - I’ve thrown together a new website with a talented friend of mine.

It’s a simple idea: people make wishes - and then… well that’s kind of it, really. People make wishes. You can type your wish in on the site - or twitter it (just follow isowish on twitter, we’ll follow you back, and then “d isowish that I was Jimi Hendrix”) - and then you can take a code away and embed that wish on your blog or other website etc.

Like this:

What do you so wish?

The website’s called I So Wish… and the grammatical awkwardness serves a purpose as well as fills a need because so many of the other desirable domains were gone.

Passive income
But there’s a point to be made here. One of the reasons for I So Wish to exist is for the purposes of passive income.

The idea of this was simply to be a web application that we could get off the ground quickly (we’ve spent a grand total of about 3 days work each on the site), and - all going well - it will turn over a little bit of an income without too much in the way of further engagement.

Here’s why that’s important: I strongly believe that ‘making music your career’ (a phrase often put forward as an ideal situation for musicians) has the hidden trap of turning music into something you HAVE to do, rather than something you GET to do. The question of ‘how do I make money making music?’ can more reasonably be split into three parts:

1) How can I make money?
2) How can I spend my time making music?
3) How can I do both without having to also do something I hate?

You could, of course, become immensely rich making music you love - and nobody would begrudge you that. It’s also possible to make just a reasonable income out of music without sacrificing or compromising one little bit.

But another successful route is that of passive income. There are some very happy musicians who make very good money, only spend their day making music and buying themselves nice things - but their money comes from what some people call a ‘cash machine’.

Make money while you sleep
The idea is to make money while you sleep, so that you can go away and make music HOW you want, WHEN you want, WITH WHOM you want - and so on, rather than making the music that you HAVE to make because that’s the only way you’re going to eat this week. It’s not a problem everyone faces - but it’s a problem all the same.

This is one way I’m trying out that principle myself.

So… the point of me telling you this is twofold:

1) You can make something very quickly that will generate an income for you. It might not solve all your problems by itself, but setting up some money-makers that take care of themselves will often take the pressure off elsewhere.

2) You can partner with other people - and I suggest that technologists are good for this - in order to help with your ideas. I invented something I thought would be engaging and fun, but could not make it. I then explained it to someone who had the ability to make it, but hadn’t invented it. And then we went 50/50 to make things nice and simple. Three days from idea to launch. Two more days to our first 1000 visitors.

Wishing for cash
So how is I So Wish making money? A couple of ways. There’s a fairly subtle Amazon affiliate ad on the page that shows you your wish after you’ve made it - and I’m selling an e-book I wrote called ‘How To Make Wishes That Come True‘.

It’s a reasonably substantial piece (75 pages) and I’m quite proud of it.

I wanted to make it something I felt okay about putting my name to and charging people money for - so I was certainly not going to spin them any wishy-washy crap about ‘putting your positive vibes out into the universe’ or ‘focusing on improving your receiving energies’. This is practical, down to earth, ‘getting stuff done’, goal setting, project-managing, helpful and strategic stuff.

I’ve had a little bit of success with e-books in the past. This one is for sale, and our hope is that the use of the fun ‘make a wishes‘ bit of the site will generate some interest in the book too. It’s an experiment.

How this is useful to you
The bit that I hope you take away from all this is the following truth:

You are creative, and can come up with things - both musical and otherwise - that other people would find real value in. You may not be capable of realising all of those things on your own. Partner with people (hint: geeks are people) who are creative in other ways - and then use each other’s skills to generate something that will capitalise on that value.

The more you can set things up so that you can make money while you sleep, the more freedom you’ll have to make the music that you love - and connect with audiences in a way that expresses your art.

Sounds like a wish come true.

If you liked this blog post, I'd appreciate it if you forwarded it to someone else you think might find it useful. Thanks very much.

Make a wish

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I did an interview by email for a website called Content Agenda. Some really great questions too.

I decided in advance that my answers should, for once, be succinct and to the point rather than try and go into too much depth and end up writing entire essays on each point - but I feel like I just come off as a bit abrupt and irritable. Oops.

CA: The music industry has gone through format shifts before, as well as shifts in how music is consumed (i.e. sheet music to recorded music), and emerged intact but changed. Is the current upheaval likely to follow the same pattern, or is their something fundamentally different about the digital revolution?

This is not a format shift. It’s not like when we went from records to CDs. This is more like when we went from printed sheet music to recorded music. It’s a change in the whole media environment as it relates to music. Recorded music will still (obviously) exist - but it may not end up being the main way in which we engage with music economically.

Go read the full interview. And please excuse my terse manner - my mission was to be coherent, not snippy.

If you liked this blog post, I'd appreciate it if you forwarded it to someone else you think might find it useful. Thanks very much.

Q&A at Content Agenda

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The good news is that you’re probably already on Facebook. Statistically speaking, you’re likely to have been bombarded with invitations from friends and, about a year ago, signed up. Since then, you’ll have been bitten by werewolves, compared, sold, invited and friended so often that you’ve either succumbed to it entirely and it wastes almost as many hours of your life as television used to when you were at high school - or, like me, you’re kind of over it and only go there reluctantly from time to time.

But Facebook is a little different for you now. You’re someone who has fans and customers, so you need something more than just a profile. You’re someone who could make use of Facebook Pages.

I could be (and probably am) way late off the blocks on this one. I have no idea how long these have been around. I feel like I’ve been vaguely aware of them for a time - but I only really explored them yesterday when I set up my own Facebook Page as an experiment to see if I could see any use in them for you.

And I can.

Of course, this is by no means a way to get you off the hook as far as your own website is concerned, but it is a way to connect with fans somewhere they already like to hang out. Facebook, like jungle, is massive.

Best thing is that the Facebook page only need take you 10 minutes to set up. Go to the Create a Page page, and fill in the details. I was even able to shoot and upload a test introductory video while waiting to board my flight to Belfast and the whole thing, from signup to its current state, took about 15 minutes.

Of course, the next thing is to tell people it’s there (”Hey everyone, I have a Facebook Page now!” etc.) and start to engage with social networking in a way that would make Chris Brogan proud.

But remember - this is part of a portfolio for your music, your band or your music business. It’s different to MySpace, Bebo, or any of the other social media platforms you’ll find yourself on. But you’ll need to spend a little time engaging once you’ve built. It’s not ‘instead of’ anything - unless it turns out that the thing you want it to be instead of has genuinely outlived its usefulness.

And we’ll be talking about reducing the number of these sites you have to deal with in due course. But for the moment - I’d be keen to hear what you think of the Facebook Page thing.

If you liked this blog post, I'd appreciate it if you forwarded it to someone else you think might find it useful. Thanks very much.

What websites should I be on? (part 3)

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As a rule of thumb, if you want people to like your music, you have to let them hear it. And that means give them the whole track. I still maintain that this is far and away the best way to build an audience for your music.

But I was lucky enough to bump into a musician friend of mine who hops between London and Birmingham (making the most of the strengths of both places for musicians) and he played me a sample track that takes a slightly different approach.

It’s a smart one and not one I’d considered.

Simon Harris has an album coming out called 81 Oakfield. It’s a really nice sounding album. How do I know? I’ve heard the whole thing in 3 minutes flat.

What Simon gave me was a compilation of snippets from the album that are seamlessly mixed into one single song-length track that gives a flavour of the record without giving away any individual tracks.

It’s an interesting way of solving a problem (if you’re one of those people that considers having people download your music for free a ‘problem’). It gives a sense of the album, uses relatively little bandwidth, and does the offline equivalent of skipping through the disc to see if there are any nasty surprises, or if the album lives up to expectation as a whole package.

I’m not 100% convinced that it’s “the answer” (or even that there is one), but all the same - I’m impressed. Nice one, Simon.

Visit Simon’s MySpace page.

If you liked this blog post, I'd appreciate it if you forwarded it to someone else you think might find it useful. Thanks very much.

How long should song samples be?

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Music: It’s The Business
Friday 27th June 2008, 1pm – 3.30pm

Blackbox, 18 – 22 Hill Street, Belfast, BT1 2LA

This seminar will cover the changing shape of the music industry and the ways in which independent artists and entrepreneurial music businesses can transform the ways in which they work through using new tools for collaboration, networking and organisation.

The emphasis will be on how creative professionals can make the most of the technologies available to customise their activities to their audiences and consumers.

Andrew Dubber, one of the UK’s acknowledged experts on the internet driven music economy, will present this seminar event in Belfast on Friday 27th June from 1pm until 3.30pm.

To book your place contact ross@nimusic.com

______________________________

Incidentally, my domain is now transferred. It’s just a matter of plugging it in. I reckon by end of business today, New Music Strategies will be online again at its rightful home.

If you liked this blog post, I'd appreciate it if you forwarded it to someone else you think might find it useful. Thanks very much.

Belfast on Friday

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Well, the good news is, I have wrested ownership of http://newmusicstrategies.com back from my old webhosts. They were not nearly as evil as they could have been about it, and my only problems with them are:

1) the ruthless efficiency with which they turn off the switch and seize control of your assets if you hit the end of the contract, regardless of what the circumstances are; and

2) their shockingly poor communication and dire customer service unless you make a huge fuss.

They didn’t do anything really wrong by the letter of the law, but they were pretty unpleasant to deal with for the most part.

So anyway. That’s the good news - and the site should be operational again in all its glory in no time at all. Thanks so much for all your advice, help, support and good wishes.

And on the flip side…
The bad news is I left my phone and wallet in a taxi last night, and so I’ve spent today cancelling stuff and trying to get some sort of response out of the taxi company other than just ‘nobody’s handed it in’. Other than that, it was an excellent night out.

If you liked this blog post, I'd appreciate it if you forwarded it to someone else you think might find it useful. Thanks very much.

Good news / bad news

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If you’re reading this anywhere near the time I’m writing this, you’re either getting it in an email, or it’s popping up in your RSS feeds. How do I know you’re not looking at the website? Because it’s not there.

If you were to visit the website New Music Strategies right now, you would not see what you would ordinarily expect. It has been replaced by one of those holding pages with ads on it of the kind that unscrupulous domain poachers tend to use.

What unscrupulous domain poachers could possibly have done such a heinous thing? My own webhosts, actually: UKHost4U. Let me explain.

Putting all the eggs in one basket
I have quite a few websites for a number of different reasons. And I have a bunch of domain names as well. 44 of them, in fact. I just sort of pick them up from time to time. And they’re all on GoDaddy.com - a reputable and affordable hosting provider in the US that came highly recommended to me, and I have had nothing but good experiences with them, even though their site navigation is a little counterintuitive.

But New Music Strategies was set up before I discovered GoDaddy, and I’ve long been meaning to shift my hosting and domain registration over to them so that everything’s all in one place.

But sometimes, when you’re putting all your eggs in one basket, one of them will break. I was aware that the contract with UKHost4U was coming to an end, because around this time last year they switched off my website without warning. And this year, they did it again.

I had started proceedings in transferring everything over to GoDaddy, and had bought hosting with them. The domain transfer, I was informed, would require for UKHost4U to release the domain. However, that conversation and the shutting down of my hosting overlapped. And that’s where the problems started.

Final demand? What about a first request?
They may have sent through a payment reminder - I found just one message from them in my junk mail letting me know the date the payment was due, though nothing else. Two days before the due date, the database started playing up - possibly unrelated. The morning of the due date, the site vanished.

I rang them and spoke to accounts. A surly Scottish gentleman said “We switched it off because you didn’t pay your bill.”

“But the contract ends today. Surely the website should be live until at least the close of business,” I said, trying to buy just a little time.

“No the payment is due today. We haven’t seen it, and so we’ve shut your site down.”

I tried to explain the thing with the hosting and domain transfer. He wasn’t having a bar of it.

“Are you going to pay or not?!”

I politely informed him that I had no intention of giving him another year’s worth of money just so I could move to another provider, so I declined and hung up the phone.

Not all web providers are in the communication business
I followed up with an email, asking that the domain be released so that I could transfer it to GoDaddy. No response other than a “We have received your email, and your ticket number is ….” email, which informed me that this was at Low Priority status.

I followed up with a second email. Same deal.

Through a process of investigation, support from my trusty IT guy Jon, and a phone call to the Accounts department at UKHost 4U (seemingly that same surly Scottish bloke from Support), I learned that a) within 24 hours of shutting my site, UKHost4U had bought the http://newmusicstrategies.com domain; b) they’d gone and parked a big ad on it; and c) would not further communicate with me in any way other than autoresponder emails.

I’m still here…
As things stand at the moment, I’m able to communicate with the few thousand people who get the RSS feed and the email version (you being one of them), because at the moment, I’m redirecting that from elsewhere.

But the people who visit the site because they’ve bookmarked it or they’re following a link are getting crap right now. And I wish I had a decent way of apologising to them for that. If you know someone who likes the site, say sorry from me, would you?

I may have been at fault for badly timing my attempted hosting transfer, but I think it’s fair to say that UKHost4U have been rude, unhelpful and obstructive so far.

Seems a bit too opportunistic to be legit…
As far as I can tell (though I am looking at this through the lens of the losing team) this seems a bit unscrupulous - not to mention rubbish PR.

I’d be keen to hear about the legality of this. They’re a British company, and I’m in the UK. I’ve built up a fair deal of intellectual property in the New Music Strategies brand, as far as I can tell, and my best guess is that their next move is to try and sell me the domain back at a profit - if it isn’t already up on the open market.

Of course, you can’t tell me what you think in the comments (there’s no website at the moment, remember?), but an email with your views and expert opinion would be more than welcome.

My email address is dubber@gmail.com.

[Update: of course you can read this on the webpage - and so you can leave comments here if you wish. The RSS feed links back to the site of origin - even if it is a temporary use of the http://newmusicstrategies.com domain (a possible hint towards a future development...). Temporary brain fade on my part. As you were.]

And - of course - if you know anyone who may have something helpful to contribute, please feel free to pass this on to them.

Whatever happens, you’ll still get your New Music Strategies fix the way you’re getting this right now - and I hope to have the domain thing sorted out in a few days so there’ll be a site for you to visit as well.

Though that might just be optimistic.

If you liked this blog post, I'd appreciate it if you forwarded it to someone else you think might find it useful. Thanks very much.

The Hijacking of New Music Strategies

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I would add further comment, but I have collapsed on the floor with laughter and may, in fact, have injured myself. I’ll try and sum up the hilarity at the end if I can pull myself together…

BPI PRESS RELEASE | Friday June 13, 2008

You may have read Bill Thompson’s online comment piece on the BPI Virgin Media deal. We were offered a right of reply, which was published on the BBC website today. The link to Thompson’s article is below, as is our response.

Bill Thompson, Virgin Territory for ISPs
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7444390.stm

BPI COMMENT | Virgin Media’s downloading education campaign represents a turning point in digital music

Education through partnership is the first stage to creating an internet where music’s value is recognised and rewarded, says BPI chief executive Geoff Taylor.

Bill Thompson’s critique of the new education campaign we have launched with Virgin Media was a good illustration of why such a campaign is needed: in drawing misleading analogies between illegal filesharing and taping programmes off the TV he shows that even “experts” get it wrong sometimes.

It’s good that he recognises that the future for consumers, internet service providers (ISPs), and the music community is in developing even more new licensed download services.

But it’s naive at best to think licensed music services can prosper without action being taken against illegal downloading.

Indeed it’s Bill Thompson, rather than music companies, who is stuck in the past. Music companies are radically re-inventing their business models in response to changes in how music fans want to access music online.

Yet Thompson’s digital utopianism clings to an implausible and dated belief that the internet will be an endless free lunch.

Let’s look at the figures. More than six and a half million people in the UK illegally access and distribute music, and it is plain wrong to say that this is good for music.

Independent research has shown time after time that people who download illegally generally spend less on music than people that don’t, which undermines investment in new music.

The record companies themselves have adjusted to these times of transition, and the BPI is fighting to promote and protect the value of copyright, to allow their new models space to breathe.

Digital distribution: new models
The good news is that many elements of our digital future are already here.

As a self-confessed illegal downloader, Bill may not know there are already hundreds of licensed online and mobile services (carrying more than six million tracks) from which to choose where and how to access music legally.

iTunes (paid-for a la carte downloads), Napster and eMusic (monthly subscription), We7 (free to consumer, ad-supported), last.fm (interactive web radio), YouTube, Yahoo (streamed video on-demand) and Nokia’s Comes With Music (music as part of a subscription) are just some of the many digital business models that record labels are supporting.

In short, ours is one of the most digitally-literate businesses in Britain, and innovation is translating into revenue. So far this year, 13.4% of our sales revenues have come through digital platforms and in total, more than 200 million downloads have been sold in the UK.

We believe that ISPs, far from being a simple pipe, can become significant distributors of digital media, and share in the tremendous value that would be unleashed if more music were accessed legally online.

But despite the proliferation of licensed services, most music is still downloaded from unlicensed services - a problem that cannot be addressed through new models alone.

This is why ISP partnerships are the next logical step in our maturing digital music business.

Education and social responsibility
By sending hundreds of thousands of information messages to illegal filesharers, supporting initiatives such as Pro-Music, developing free useful tools for consumers such as Digital File Check, and partnering with charities such as Childnet, the music business has worked hard at consumer education.

ISPs can play a role in education too. During this campaign, we provide Virgin Media with publically available information about their customers’ illegal music sharing. Virgin Media then contact the customer to give them the information they need to remedy the problem.

Bill Thompson incorrectly challenges the quality of the information we provide: in referring to US researchers who “fooled the US film industry” into sending legal notices to the wrong place, he overlooks the fact that the information supplied by the BPI is collected by robust techniques that have stood up to High Court scrutiny on numerous occasions, and that similar evidence has been used to bring more than 50,000 legal cases across Europe.

Not one of those cases has recorded a mistaken ID, or been successfully contested. This is why the same US researchers cited the music business as an example of best practice for the quality of the evidence it provides.

Most British people donÂ’t want to break the law and agree that people should be paid for their work. We think that that most account holders will welcome information that helps them to download legally and avoid the risk of legal action or the cancellation of their contract.

Let’s be clear about this. We - the music business - do not want to see any customers have their broadband contract cancelled. And if the emails we have received thus far are anything to go by, most people will respond positively to our approach.

But we have to be realistic. Plenty of people are aware that what they are doing is unlawful. Some will note that their ISP is beginning to take the issue seriously and take the advice, but this wonÂ’t work for everyone.

We want all ISPs to implement a simple, non-technological solution which involves no spying on their customers or invasions of privacy. We call it three steps. We collect and pass on to the ISP publically available information about their customers’ illegal filesharing, and ask them to send advisory letters as outlined above. The possibility of account suspension, and the ultimate sanction of contract cancellation, should follow for those customers who choose not to take the advice.

We want our customers to enjoy music online, legally and safely. Digital distribution of music should be a wonderful thing for musicians, for the companies that invest in them and for consumers.

Pretty much all of us - government, consumers, major ISPs, artists and other creative people - agree that we can make that happen by working together. We know our campaign with Virgin Media is not, in isolation, going to solve the problem of how creators can be fairly rewarded in a digital environment.

But this is a genuine step in the right direction, and represents a turning point in the music community’s bid to restore value in music to its rightful owners: the artists and music companies who invest in their creative careers.

This is - quite frankly - the funniest thing I have read in ages. To summarise:

No, YOU’RE stuck in the past.
Bill Thompson is a criminal.
It’s already the future.
We have to sue our customers because its the morally righteous thing to do.
Internet companies should be morally righteous in the same way whenever we tell them to.
More people listening to music is bad for music.
We speak internet just fine.
Good ISPs can grow up to be just like broadcasters.
Good, upstanding British people want to avoid lawsuits.
If everyone works together and does whatever we tell them to, we’ll all get along fine.

Now go and have another look at yesterday’s post, just to make sure you haven’t shifted to a parallel universe - Dubber.

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No stop it! My sides…

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One caveat: when Jay Smooth says “music industry” he means “record business”. There’s a whole lot of stuff going on out there in the music industry which has nothing to do with making and selling recordings.

There are people teaching music for money, people making and selling instruments, people booking gigs and people putting music into movies. Lots of other stuff besides. But the record business has tricked us into using the phrase “music industry” - like they’re the whole deal.

But the record business claiming to be the music industry is like the lions claiming to be the zoo. They’ve got the biggest teeth and can make the most noise, but actually, the music industry is a vibrant, interesting and diverse place where lots of cool stuff happens.

My bet is that this party he’s talking about will be happening over where the monkeys hang out. Probably the code monkeys at that.

By the way: I knew Jay Smooth was cool. Didn’t realise he was Mahavishnu Orchestra cool…

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Well said

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Image via Wikipedia

Now, it’s possible that Warner’s catalogue isn’t benefiting as greatly from Last.fm as an independent might. Last.fm users tend to be quite active music hobbyists - not in the majority, but certainly in greater proportion to most sites. And independent music enthusiasts tend to be disproportionately represented amongst active music consumers.

Put simply, people who are more discerning about their music tend to look outside the mainstream hits. People who are more discerning about their music tend to be more active about discovering new music. Last.fm encourages an active engagement with the process of music consumption.

In fact, I’d argue that more than almost any other music site out there, Last.fm understands how people consume music.

Understanding music consumption
Remember that consumption of music is not simply about the acts of discovery, purchasing and listening to music.

Music consumers do far more with their music. They collect, they organise, they make sense of it and connect different parts of their music to others, they talk about it and recommend it to their friends - and they even build hierarchies of status and esteem based on musical knowledge and taste-making.

Whether by accident or design, Last.fm seems to understand and take advantage of this fact, and the fact that people’s music tastes are, more often than not, fairly eclectic.

They give the users tools with which to talk about music they love, connect with other people who also love the music that they love, engage through that music consumption - and even build communities based around shared interests and expertise. All within what some (I would argue mistakenly) consider to be simply an internet radio portal.

Hear, Like, Buy
There are a number of reasons that I recommend to the labels I consult that they upload their catalogues to Last.fm. The most obvious one is the fact that it allows people to hear their music, and then gives them an obvious and direct link to buy it.

Last.fm will not only play your music to people as part of their listening streams, but it will also recommend it to people who are already predisposed to liking it, based on what else they already listen to - both on Last.fm and from their own mp3 collection.

You can even pay a bit of extra money to get your music heard by people who like other music that you identify with. Kind of like payola, but legal, much more ethical and far more affordable.

Stream whole tracks
Last.fm will, at your discretion (and I’d advise taking them up on it), allow users to stream whole tracks of your music on demand. They have proof that it leads to more sales.

I mean, you and I knew intuitively that it was true - but they have the numbers.

Another wiki opportunity
But there’s more to Last.fm than a streaming player. The artist pages are, like all such things should probably be by now, wikis. That means that just like Wikipedia, anyone can update, amend and correct an artist’s information page.

The importance of this should not be overlooked. Your bio and discography can be just as accurate, comprehensive and up to date as anyone’s. And the fact that you can throw your YouTube videos in there as well is a bonus. Some people like colour and movement.

Last.fm wins on points
It may not be - as some have pointed out - the most popular online destination for music. But it’s disproportionately more effective. I

n fact, I’d put it in my top 10 sites that all serious musicians should engage with. It’s targeted, audience-friendly, social, lends itself to both viral activity within the site, and search engine optimisation (ie: it’s a good place to be ‘found’).

If your music is not already on Last.fm - go make sure it is.

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What websites should I be on? (Part 2)

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When you’re thinking about ‘Getting your music out there’, there are quite a few choices. We’ve already covered MySpace, to a certain extent - though it’s worth mentioning a pretty good bit of coverage about How to Promote Yourself on MySpace on Wired.

You’ll notice that Wired article is a Wiki. That is to say, it’s an online article that anyone can edit. If you have useful things to contribute to that article, you should absolutely go and make changes. This is a large part of how the web is grown these days - by leveraging broadly distributed knowledge. And it also reminds of us of one of the most important sites for musicians these days: Wikipedia.

Wikipedia pretty much universally comes up in the top ranking search results for any given topic. If there’s a page about your band on Wikipedia, that will be one of the default places to look when people are searching for you. Your page, your MySpace page, your Wikipedia entry.

Image via WikipediaThis particular fact was brought to my attention by David Sherbow of MPTrax.com when we met at a blogging conference in Chicago recently. There’d been an article about it in a recent issue of Billboard magazine and while they made it clear that it was important, they may have understated just how important it is.

But here’s the thing: while it’s crucial that you’re findable on Wikipedia, AND it’s true that anyone can just log on to Wikipedia and write or edit an entry - it’s considered bad form to write your own entry. Really. You just look like a bit of a plonker. Wikipedia strives to be objective, impartial and balanced. Very difficult to do that when you’re writing a self-hagiography.

So a good idea is to ask someone who knows a bit about your music, and can put in a little bit of time giving some biographical detail, maybe upload an image or two and (ideally) take responsibility for tending your Wikipedia entry.

Further reading:
There are a few books that are worth a read on the topic of the phenomena of wikis and the power of community-contributed content online (I’m not a fan of ‘user generated’ as a term): Wikinomics is a good place to start, and Clay Shirky’s Here Comes Everybody should definitely be next on the list. I just polished them both off over the weekend, so this is fresh on my mind.

There are other sites to concern yourself with, and I’ll deal with those in later posts - but for now, go and spend some time recruiting your wiki-authors and get yourself up on one of the most read, most findable and most actively engaged-with websites on the planet.

And, of course, this gives me the cue to ask the same thing of you. Last I checked, there was no Wikipedia entry for New Music Strategies - or for me, for that matter. I’m not going to do it for the reasons stated above, but I’d consider it a real honour if you thought it was worth your while starting a Wikipedia entry about what I do.

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What websites should I be on? (Part 1)

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One of the problems of recorded music is the issue of price. With mp3s being an essentially infinite and perfectly replicable resource, the market price is a theoretical (and quite often practical) zero. But one strategy to set a price has been to turn this on its head, and introduce scarcity through physical collectibility.

Radiohead did this, you’ll remember, by letting the market decide what the price of the mp3s should be, but setting a premium for the physical box set. This was, I remarked at the time, a pretty good understanding of the difference between the digital and the physical media.

A friend of mine demonstrated this principle pretty well recently, by working with something that was pretty much completely unavailable, but highly sought after - and making it a little bit available in a short run at a premium price and with a great bit of packaging and additional merchandise.

Cro explains:

“When I heard Amalgam Digital were re-releasing Kurious’s debut (and so far only album) ‘A Constipated Monkey’ on double vinyl I was excited as it’s a personal favourite, then I found out they were also making six demos available for the first time I got really excited. I asked if they had any plans to press vinyl for the demos, they said they just wanted to give them away with the digital downloads of the album.

“They agreed to licence them for a one off limited vinyl release (200 copies) but warned me there was ‘tape damage’ and the masters no longer existed, but I was welcome to have a go at re-editing and cleaning up the tracks.”

Those six demos were, for the discerning hip hop enthusiast (and you don’t get much more discerning than Cro), absolute gold. They represented something that is increasingly rare in the digital age: an actual rarity.

“The EP features production from some of my favourites- The SD50’s, Prince Paul (I’m presuming this is where their initial hook up happened leading to Kurious featuring on the Gravediggaz album), Sam Sever and Prime Minister Pete Nice.”

Now, when it comes to releasing rarities to a specialist audience, Cro is in something of a privileged position. As the presenter of a specialist hip hop radio programme, he’s something of an opinion leader already - something he brings to his job at Jibbering Records in Moseley.

He’s also (as you might expect) a DJ that plays all over the country and he’s a member of a number of online hip hop discussion groups and collectors forums.

“My main place for promoting the release was one forum full of record collectors like myself, they had already done similar releases so I knew there was a market. All payments were through Paypal and the Jibbering site as it made it seem a lot more offical than “Just send me 30 quid through paypal”.”

That’s right - thirty quid. For a record with six songs on it. That’s ten of your American dollars per song. Cro set up his record label and released his first disc on the basis that enthusiasts will pay above the odds for something of genuine value, quality and - perhaps above all - limited availability.

But there was more on offer than just the vinyl, and a problem with some of the artwork led to another good idea that increased the urgency for the first purchasers.

As the alternate artwork was meant to be used for the t-shirts but the printers couldn’t handle it I had the brainwave to get them printed out and signed by the artist. I made them available for the first 50 people in order to encourage the early presales. The t-shirt was a nice thing to offer to the people who were prepared to do the presales, created more of an interest and lets them feel special as they are the only people with them (plus it allowed me to get the right amount of t-shirts made with no stocks left over to clutter up my flat!).

Promotion for the record was conducted online, in the specialist online discussion groups - and the payments were taken online. But at no point did the music itself make its way onto the internet. Normally, I’d encourage wide distribution of the mp3s in order to generate interest for the music. But this was not the problem facing Cro and his Kurious release.

You’ll probably notice the ‘filesharing will catch a beatdown’ slogan on the label. No cd’s or digital copies of these tracks have been distributed, as I’ve felt for a long time that as music has become easier to get hold of, it’s also become far more disposable to some. These tracks deserve to be heard but please do so responsibly!

Agree and disagree. I think in the case of this record, on this label, in this market, Cro may have a point. One of the strongest things this record has going for it is its rarity and desirability as a physical artefact. But I think that misses the larger point that, as one observer put it, ‘Music wants to be heard.’ I think there’s a way to do both - and I suspect that ‘pulling a Radiohead’, as it’s called - offering a different physical and digital proposition - would be another way to approach this issue.

I’m not sure I agree that the 201st person who wanted to buy this record should miss out on ever hearing it just because they didn’t check in on the message board this week… but that’s another discussion for another time. There are, at least, snippets on the label’s MySpace page.

Correction: Cro writes: “the tracks are available in mp3 form from Amalgam Digital direct. I only licensed it for a vinyl run, so after it sells out (under 50 left now which is cool) it will still be available in mp3 form just not sounding anywhere near as good / long as the vinyl version.”

The important takeaway message here is that niche audiences and specialist products can be cleverly catered for through a mixture of digital media and traditional channels.

I’d like a proper website but it’s just time at the moment, I will get one sorted one day, just my web friend is stupidly busy so I’ve got to give him a bit of time. I used my blog and radio show too to post up snippets and play bits of the tracks people hadn’t heard before.

And the other key message is, of course, that the price of music is whatever the market will bear.

For most people, in most instances, with most mainstream music, that price is zero. $1 per track is usually approaching the upper limit. But $10 a track is entirely feasible under the right circumstances. Especially when you’ve got an elusive legend on your hands.

Kurious disappeared after his debut album, only to reappear on the song “?” on the classic ‘Operation Doomsday‘ album and ‘Monday Night at Fluid’, he’s also put out a 12″ on Stonegroove courtesy of Mr Lawson. I truly hope Kurious releases some new material and gets the props he deserves, a truly underrated emcee.

Word.

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What should the price of recorded music be?

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I just posted the seed of an idea in Music Think Tank, and I’d be really interested to hear what you think about it. Head on over and have a read.

Essentially, the idea is that the Record Industry should offer a cash prize to the most innovative and successful new online music business startup. Moreover, tech entrepreneurs who enter to compete for that prize should be exempt from royalties for two years while they grow their business and prove their concept.

Other than that - no real rules. I think it would probably be a mistake to impose upon the technologists criteria such as ‘it should be about streaming’ or ‘retail models only’. The idea is to cast the net wide in order to generate new ideas that will grow the industry. But I’d love to hear your thoughts on it.

It’s a hypothetical, but I do like the idea. I’ve called it The Record Industry Innovation Prize. I’d love for you to jump in with your comments.

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Record Industry Innovation Prize

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This one’s easy. No, no, no, no, no (yes, occasionally) and no.

By and large, venues, festival organisers and promoters who insist that musicians bring a certain number of ticket-buying punters to their gigs should pretty much have their licences revoked in my book.

The argument goes something like this: playing at our venue / performing as part of our festival / taking part in our Battle of the Bands competition will be good for your profile - and you may even get a record deal out of it. Or something.

Promoters know it’s shonky, which is why they often go to some lengths to make it something of a secret that this even goes on. One recent local example is the rather shambolic PR disaster that is the Surface Unsigned festival.

The story goes that the ‘festival’ (actually a sort of multi-layered, episodic battle of the bands) requires that artists bring 25 paying guests at £6 a head (that’s twelve of your American dollars) to see them perform for 20 minutes.

Apparently, you can still play if you only contribute (let’s say) £144 through your network of contacts, rather than the requisite £150 - but you won’t make a cent and you can’t progress to the next round, even if you’re the best on the night.

How do I know about this? Because the festival organisers have scored something of a public relations own goal in doing this.

Surface Unsigned have sent a pseudo-legal letter of threatening intent to local creative industries blog Created In Birmingham for ‘breach of copyright’. Happens to every good blogger sooner or later.

In a mostly positive review, Created In Birmingham reprinted a clause out of the terms and conditions of the festival that outlined the pay-for-play clause and Surface Unsigned declared that to be their intellectual property. Seems like there’s a confidentiality clause in the mix there somewhere too.

Created In Birmingham have gone on to reword the clause in LOLspeak to address the issue of copyright (clearly not what this is actually about). And Surface Unsigned are getting a fair bit of negative publicity as a result, in which this particular post is a willing participant, because I don’t happen to believe that a) charging bands to play is fair game for this sort of thing; and b) threatening blogs with spurious takedown notices is the way you conduct yourself on the internet these days.

Give your music away - don’t pay to play
The point of the story is that unlike giving your recordings away for free on the internet (almost always a good idea), actually putting yourself in a position where you may end up paying money to perform to a crowd that you’ve brought to a venue is a nonsensical proposition.

So how do promoters get away with it? Bands let them. One of the reasons this is still even remotely accepted practice is that in order to compete or just get a gig, many artists feel they have to toe the party line and play the game in the terms that have been laid out by what they consider to be ‘the music industry’.

Having said that…
A good argument could be put that venue owners have a great deal to contend with. Bands are often more trouble than they’re worth. They cost more than they earn. Bands need a place to play, and often a start like this is the leg-up they need. If they can get a crowd along, then letting the bands use your venue as a place to get a start could be seen as an act of charity.

Perhaps insisting that artists do their own marketing and get their own crowd is a valuable motivating factor that will spell the difference between their eventual success and likely obscurity.

There are also very good arguments in favour of artists contributing to appear at large showcases or covering their costs to appear at media events. I would be surprised, for instance, if chipping in to appear at PopKomm, SXSW or Midem ever turned out to be a waste of money.

There’s certainly a debate to be had here. I’m pretty sure I know what side I come down on it and it’s that generally speaking, plans to charge bands in order to play live are pretty much exploitative.

I twittered the question earlier today, and people had pretty strong feelings about it. What do you think?

By way of disclaimer, it’s worth making clear that this post was inspired by the Created In Birmingham takedown notice, which is clearly ridiculous. Linking the words Surface Unsigned to the CIB post rather than their own website is my statement of support for the CIB team, who have done no wrong and do not deserve to be bullied by people who are (in my humble opinion) acting in an exploitative manner towards musicians.

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Is ‘pay to play’ ever a good idea?

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My free e-book, The 20 Things You Must Know About Music Online is finally available in Chinese.

It was translated months ago. I was the bottleneck. I was quite nervous about formatting and laying it out, and so I put it off for ages. For which I apologise.

It’s a bit of an epic. 120 pages. The English version comes in at 96 pages. I had professional layout assistance with the original. I’ve had a go at the new version myself in true DIY style. My guess is that I’ve introduced some errors along the way, not reading Chinese and all…

I’m also in the process of preparing the 2nd edition of the book (over and above the 100 Questions book, also in the works), which is turning into something of a complete rewrite. I’m trying to pack it full of implementable strategies rather than just tell you about things you should be aware of.

But the stuff in the original is still relevant and the issues are still crucially important to musicians and the independent music sector. So if you’re new to this site, or you haven’t come across the ebook yet - go fetch it. It’s free and everything.

Go download:

The 20 Things in English

or (NEW!):
The 20 Things in Chinese.

My thanks go to Tze-Ern Liew for his incredible voluntary work translating the book. I’m really very, very grateful and I apologise that it’s taken this long to see the light of day.

I’m aware of two other translations in the works - into Portuguese and into Dutch. As those become available, I’ll release them here - and if you were inclined to put it into any other language (Italian, French, German, Maori, Spanish, Russian, Swahili, Klingon, Elvish, Cobol, American…) I’d be incredibly grateful.

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20 Chinese Things

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I’ve had this question in a number of forms. The most common one is the artist who doesn’t really sell many CDs through retail, but every time they perform live, they go through 20, 50 or even 100 CDs over the merchandise table. The question is - if I make the leap to mp3, who’s going to buy that to take home as a souvenir?

A similar question is the one about music as a gift. The simple fact is that it’s quite difficult to gift wrap an mp3. CDs have long been a great present to buy. Simple, personal, and always well received. Buying someone downloaded music doesn’t have the same give-ability.

I’ve even heard this question as ‘I’m essentially a busker. But I make decent money selling my CD wherever I play. Should I change what I do?’. These are all essentially the same questions: when the physical characteristic of the recorded medium is the main point of the purchase (ie: tangible souvenir, presentable item), how can digital files replace physical products?

Solutions in search of a problem
I struggle a little with this one, because I suspect this is solvable and yet the answer doesn’t leap out. I suspect there are two reasons for this:

1) There’s a huge array of possible answers to the question ranging from USB drives to plastic cards with codes on them, mobile phone SIM cards to more book-like printed material with website links;

2) It doesn’t really matter. This isn’t broke - why are we trying to fix it?

The technologist in me likes to wrestle with the first question. I’m particularly intrigued by this experiment in ‘augmented reality’ that the BBC team did with their Band In Your Hand cards for the Radio 1 Big Weekend. I think there’s interesting stuff to be done with that idea.

I’m also reasonably convinced that there’s something worth exploring around mobile phones. I’m not target audience for that particular one, but it’s fair to say that’s probably true of a lot of things.

But I think I’m more convinced by the point of my question number 2.

If people want to buy CDs, there’s no earthly reason I can think of to stop them doing so. There’s nothing inherently wrong with music media in physical form. As we’ve already discussed, CDs may be on the decline in a number of areas of the market, but they’re also experiencing what appears to be exponential growth in others. And they’re cheap as chips to produce.

By comparison, the margin on USB drives is miniscule compared to the markup you can put on a CD of recorded music. And people just know what to do with CDs (ie: put them in their computer, rip them to mp3, and stick them on a shelf never to be looked at again).

The opportunity
But I think the smarter question is not ‘what shall I sell instead of CDs?’ but ‘what shall I sell as well as CDs?’. Or maybe even ‘what else can I put on my CDs?’.

Because of course CDs are not music formats. They are digital file storage media. It just so happens that most of the CDs you own contain digital files that can be played as audio in a CD player. Most computers I’ve encountered will accept a CD and let you navigate the digital files.

Why not put video, interactive content, web-enhanced material and - yes - mp3s on the disc that people want to buy from you as a souvenir or give as a gift? That way they get the thing they want to hold in their hands, but they also get the rich experience made possible by digital media that goes far beyond merely the tracks on the disc.

Other approaches
And finally, it’s worth mentioning two more things, just anecdotally: First, I’ve come across more than one band that sells blank CDs at their gigs. The sleeve has the artwork and the codes for the download, but people can burn their own discs. And second, I’ve been to gigs where the music’s been for sale on vinyl. And it does very well indeed.

Related post: You can’t gift wrap an mp3.

I’d be interested to hear your thoughts. What solutions to this problem can you think of? And is it, in fact, even a problem in the first place?

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How can you sell mp3s at gigs?

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