Licensing is tipped to be a mojor growth area in revenue for musicians. Rest assured here at Kurb we're on top researching and following up any and all opportunities to get paid.there better be a youtube video here:
okay, okay. I got it now.
From Pitchforkmedia:
"We've been talking to our customers and listening to their feedback for years, about-- 'Oh God, I wish I could go into iTunes, and right next to the Buy button, there was a License one.' And a music supervisor told me that once, and I was like, 'Why isn't there a License button?'"
The technology isn't new: Production music libraries like DeWolfe Music already offer pre-cleared, easy-to-license music through cross-referenced websites or music-crammed hard drives. But those companies specialize in anonymous library music. Sure, maybe you could settle for a pianist you've never heard of playing in the style of Herbie Hancock; but wouldn't you rather get Gideon Smith and the Dixie Damned playing in the style of themselves?
This is handy for the customers, but as Anthony explains, it has another bonus for the artists: They can drive customers to their music themselves, which makes the site similar to a MySpace or a CD Baby for licensing. But can a self-service model work? There are still advantages to going through a middleman, says Jen Paul, a licensing representative for Jackmusic in New York City: "The thing that does concern me is the absence of a human element."
With a website, you can't negotiate for more money, and you don't have someone holding your hand through the legal mumbojumbo. Working with a representative like Paul also gives you a right of refusal: Rumblefish artists can't pick their licensors. "If you hesitate about a certain type of usage, you should rethink licensing," says Anthony. "You're either all in, or you're not in."
That also saves the licensors from the hassle of finding exactly the right song, only to discover that the artist has some problem with their business. "The last thing we wanted was to make things more complicated," says Anthony.
Searching the website also puts more burden on the music supervisors. To get some perspective, I contacted a giant in the music licensing and A & R business, the Los Angeles-based TAXI, which serves leading music supervisors in Hollywood and elsewhere-- placing everything from indie rock to hip-hop to Hawaiian guitar interludes. Music supervisors are looking for this stuff-- but one thing the music supervisors don't do, founder and CEO Michael Laskow argues, is sit around browsing websites for it. Laskow started TAXI in 1992, and its practice is to deliver CDs to the music supervisors, pre-screened, to give them a small selection to deal with.
"The future is clearly digital. But the future needs a filter," says Laskow. "This is why it's so important for the people on the buying end of this music. They're under tremendous time pressure, and they don't have time to go searching databases and hear a bunch of stuff that's improperly labeled by genre. Nor do they have time to listen to stuff that's pretty darn good. They want to hear the stuff that's incredibly excellent."
Also gaining momentum is www.we7.com which allows free downloads with the inclusion of some advertising. Revenue is split 50/50 after costs with between the artist and We7. Obviously this is one of the latest permutations in the evolution of the music industry - but working hard as they are to deploy their web 2.0 arsenal of apps and widgets there may be some hope for it.
Also not gaining momentum is ipod advertising for unsigned artists - it's only $1US to get ONE of your songs preloaded into ONE ipod with FIFTEEN HUNDRED others.Boy, thats sure to launch your career! Apple. Sometimes, honestly.
DId you know 6 million people are now using the Ilike widget - a widget similar in its aggregation and recommendation functions as last.fm - on Facebook, Myspace etc.? Apparently it's the best way to make your music accessible on facebook until some kind of platform for musicians is established - sign up at garageband.com.
Cheers for the connection with Kurb - a promotions company for artists and creative entrepreneurs serious about using the most effective online techniques to market their projects. Come by our page and read our blogs on how the music industry is fundamentally changing now or check out: how digital promotion and social marketing works
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