Kerascene Digital Music News Blog

The music industry is changing ... FAST.

Keep up-to-date with daily news from the Kerascene Digital Music News Blog by email or rss, see:


http://kerascene.blogspot.com.

Last.fm - Good News And Bad News

Last.fm is now delivering streaming royalties to artists not affiliated with a label or collecting society, according to details shared Wednesday. The music-focused social networking destination, owned by CBS Corporation, is now inviting artists to register to receive royalties from their online streaming activity.

The Artist Royalty Program is allocating per-stream payouts on par with signed and society-affiliated artists, according to the company. "This is a big day for independent artists," heralded Last.fm cofounder Martin Stiksel. "The young musician making music in a bedroom studio has the same chance as the latest major label signing to use Last.fm to build an audience and get rewarded."

Last.fm may be broadening streaming royalty payments to unsigned and independent artists, though not everyone is so thrilled by the plan. Merlin, a group dedicated to equalizing digital royalties and licensing opportunities for independents, issued an urgent bulletin to its 12,000-plus label members immediately following the Last.fm disclosure on Wednesday.

Among the issues, Merlin noted that Last.fm does not address earlier, unauthorized uses of independent artist content. "It is unclear to us whether or not the terms and conditions of the program are intended to prevent master owners pursuing such compensation," the notice declared.

Merlin also seemed ruffled that Last.fm did not adopt its plan to implement a blanket licensing scheme, though negotiations between the parties had been ongoing. "Unfortunately, these negotiations have stalled, in particular due to Last.fm's unwillingness to properly address its illegal infringing activity," the group asserted.

Article first published by Digital Music News. Subscribe to the Kerascene Music blog to be kept informed of the latest digital music news. Services offered by Kerascene Music include: Easy Digital Distribution, MySpace Marketing, Music Business Email Lists, Music Contracts... and more: www.kerascene.com.

A Music Label For The Digital Age

The big music labels have made it patently obvious that they don't know how to deal with the internet. Revenues are down, the market is fragmented, and indie artists that manage to gain a following find that they have little need for the labels in the first place - they can sell their music online through sites like AmieStreet and iTunes.

myAWOL (My Artists Without Labels) is looking to show the big four how it's done. The site is taking a multi-pronged approach to tackle the music industry with the web: first, it will roll out a professional database to help establish itself as an authority in the space. Then, this Fall, it will introduce a consumer site that will function as a mix between a music community, online television channel, and independent music label.

Lofty goals to be sure, but the people associated with myAWOL may have the backing and experience to pull it off. The site is the brainchild of Andrew Bentley, an entrepreneur with a head-turning resume that includes stints as the CFO of Virgin Media, the CFO of EMI, and the CEO of EMI Music/Asia Pacific (before they went on a lawsuit spree). And you can be sure that during his time as a music executive, he's made some friends.

Within the next month, the site will be rolling out a professional-facing music database (an "imdb for music"). The goal of the site is to become an authoritative resource for everyone in the music industry, from studio musicians and equipment managers to studio execs. Bentley says that while this portion of the site may not have much appeal to consumers, it will help the site gain credibility while offering a much-needed service to the industry.

myAWOL's consumer-facing site is where the real excitement will lie, and while it won't be launching until early September, it may well be worth the wait. Unlike many music sites that effectively serve as storefronts for artists (leaving little reason for users to come back), myAWOL is focusing on content creation. The site will produce daily content for what amounts to an online television channel, where it will feature concerts, interviews, and TRL-like daily programming that will be distributed both online and through podcasts. Footage will come from submitted tapes, studio filming, and concerts put on by the site (there's a myAWOL concert at The Roxy later this month).

The purpose of the internet TV channel is to help myAWOL's fledging artists gain exposure, with the ultimate goal of getting the best ones signed to myAWOL's music label (artists are under no obligation to do so - there is no exclusivity contract associated with appearing on the site). Each music artist will have their own profile page (similar to MySpace Music), from which they can stream their songs for free or sell tracks in a 70/30 rev-share agreement. Featured artists will be hand picked by myAWOL's judges, who will be constantly searching through artist profiles for the next big hit.

With myAWOL's consumer launch still a few months away, it's far too early to hail it as the second coming of online music. The music space is very crowded, and myAWOL's expensive ventures in content production could wind up going totally unnoticed, especially alongside offerings from MySpace, which has a huge following in the music space. That said, with Bentley's experience and funding from a number of rock legends, myAWOL will be one to watch.

Article first published by TechCrunch.com. Subscribe to the Kerascene Music blog to be kept informed of the latest digital music news. Services offered by Kerascene Music include: Easy Digital Distribution, MySpace Marketing, Music Business Email Lists, Music Contracts... and more: www.kerascene.com.

ReverbNation Passes 200K Acts

ReverbNation, a marketing and promotion for music added its 200,000th artist last week, up 100,000 in the last six months. In addition, 6000 labels and managers have created profiles to  and 2,500 venues are using the service.

ReverbNation attribute the growth to its free suite of Fan Relationship Management (FRM) technologies.  The suite includes a content repository, promo widgets and apps for viral distribution across social networks and blogs, integrated Street Team tools, a communications platform and a stats package.

Over the coming months, ReverbNation will expand with more tools...

to succeed at the 'business' part of the music business, including:  Low-cost digital distribution to iTunes and other retailers, a dynamic 'Reverb Press Kit' for media outreach and gig submissions, a ringtone generator and sales tool, and several enhancements to the FanReach communication tool.  In addition, the company plans to introduce an "Artist Sponsorship Platform' where Brands can link up with thousands of interested Artists at a time, creating a new revenue stream for Artists in these challenging times of declining music sales.

Use of the ReverbNation technology has recently spilled over from the indie ranks to some of the more recognized names in music as well, like 50 Cent, Kenny Chesney, Madonna, O.A.R., Natasha Bedingfield, Trans Siberian Orchestra, Sara Bareilles, and Sean Kingston, to name a few.  Over 60 of the Billboard Top 100 now have a presence at ReverbNation.com.

Said Chris "Broadway" Romero, Creative Director, G-Unit Records (50 Cent), "ReverbNation's TuneWidget and tracking tools have been great for us here at G-Unit Records and Thisis50.com.  Their tools and applications let our fans easily become involved in the marketing and promotion of our music across the web.  There are a lot of 'all in one' solutions out there, but the ReverbNation platform is the only one that allows us to develop a marketing strategy first, then use the technology to execute it."

"We build technology that can help virtually any musician, label, manager, or venue," says Lou Plaia, Co-Founder and V.P. of Artist Relations at ReverbNation.com.  "We help Artists take the music to the people, wherever those fans are spending their time online, and then empower Artists with tools for leveraging their content to drive real business objectives at those touch points.  Artist objectives might include selling music, merch, or tickets, extracting valuable fan relationships from the social networks, or keeping content up to date across all of their sites. We give them real insight into what's happening with their content and how their marketing efforts are affecting their overall Band EquityTM. At the end of the day, the most important asset an Artist has is their portfolio of fan relationships, and it's our mission to help them grow that asset."

Article first published by Hypebot. Subscribe to the Kerascene Music blog to be kept informed of the latest digital music news. Services offered by Kerascene Music include: Easy Digital Distribution, MySpace Marketing, Music Business Email Lists, Music Contracts... and more: www.kerascene.com.

Will "Free Love" Shape Music's Future?

Consumer expectations of "free" in exchange for their increasingly divided attention are beginning to shape many music marketing campaigns.

EMI's successful launch of Coldplay with a free track and free concerts is a recent example. Wired's Chris Anderson has also been writing about the rising power of free for more than a year and his forthcoming book may bring the concept into the mainstream.

But a new brief from TrendWatching.com focuses a particularly sharp lense on the reasons behind as well as the  potential power of "free" dubbing it "FREE LOVE".

• FREE LOVE: the ongoing rise of free, valuable stuff that's available to consumers online and offline. From AirAsia tickets to Wikipedia, and from diapers to music.
• FREE LOVE thrives on an all-out war for consumers' ever-scarcer attention and the resulting new business models and marketing techniques, but also benefits from...

...the ever-decreasing costs of producing physical goods, the post-scarcity dynamics of the online world (and the related avalanche of free content created by attention-hungry members of GENERATION C), the many C2C marketplaces enabling consumers to swap instead of spend, and an emerging recycling culture.

• Expect FREE LOVE to become an integral if not essential part of doing business.

What is fueling FREE LOVE? According to the brief:

• An all-out war for consumers attention (make that saturated consumers), including various handout and sampling techniques.
• The online world, with its amazing capacity to create, copy and distribute anything that's digital, with costs that are close to zero, forcing producers to come up with new business models/services, which are often purely ad-driven.
• The ever-decreasing cost of physical production makes it easier to offer more (nearly) free goods in the offline world too. In fact, many goods have actually become insanely cheap. Just one example: the price of televisions has fallen, on average, by 9 percent each year since 1998, according to U.S. Dept. of Labor data.
• The avalanche of free content created by attention-hungry members of GENERATION C.
• C2C marketplaces enabling consumers to swap instead of spend, making transactions cash-neutral.
• An emerging recycling cult

For years the music industry has fought "free", but from P2P to mp3 blogs to We7, FREE LOVE is everywhere. How the industry handles "free" will help shape its next chapter.

Nokia's "Comes With Music" and ISP licensing are attempts to make music feel free.  But serious hurdles like antiquated licensing rates and practices remain; and labels must deal with them or FREE LOVE will continue to be their nemesis rather than their friend.

Article first published by Hypebot. Subscribe to the Kerascene Music blog to be kept informed of the latest digital music news. Services offered by Kerascene Music include: Easy Digital Distribution, MySpace Marketing, Music Business Email Lists, Music Contracts... and more: www.kerascene.com.

Mid-Year Sales Report

Music on mobile devices is expected to account for $7.3 billion of the global amount spent on recorded music by 2011, according to new data from eMarketer.

The report, titled "Recorded Music: Digital Falls Short," predicts that music sales as a whole will continue to decline, but online and mobile markets will grow rapidly.

As more and more multimedia-capable handsets are released, the mobile music market is expected to jump from $1.7 billion in 2007 to $3 billion by the end of the year. The figure is estimated to grow to $4.8 billion in 2009, $6.2 billion in 2010, and $7.3 billion in 2011.

As CD sales plummet, the music industry is expected to see a $5 billion decline in total music sales in the next three years, from $31.8 billion to $26.2 billion. Because of this, record labels will look to the mobile space for additional revenue.

On Tuesday, Nokia inked an agreement with Warner Music Group to make its library available on Nokia's Come With Music service and music store. According to a report from The Register, the record labels are receiving a very lucrative deal with these types of mobile ventures.

For this report, "mobile" includes master recording ring tones, full-track audio downloads, ringback tones, music video downloads, and streaming services. It did not include licensing revenue or polyphonic or monophonic ring tones in its estimates.

Online sales will increase as well, going from $1.9 billion in 2006 to $7.5 billion in 2011, the report said. In three years, online and mobile sales will account for the majority of music sales, with 56% of the total market.

Music companies need to integrate with online platforms to enhance the mobile music listener's experience, eMarketer said. In this vein, Verizon Wireless and Rhapsody announced Monday a partnership that allows wireless customers to download DRM-free MP3s directly to a mobile handset.

Article first published by Yahoo! News. Subscribe to the Kerascene Music blog to be kept informed of the latest digital music news. Services offered by Kerascene Music include: Easy Digital Distribution, MySpace Marketing, Music Business Email Lists, Music Contracts... and more: www.kerascene.com.