I recently posted a long article on music publishing that was inspired by the various discussions we've been having in this group (from Dubs comments especially). The basic points made in case you don't want to read the whole thing:
1) Do-it-yourself Publishing
If each artist has their own website, they can maintain full control over publishing, sale, and licensing of their work. Centralized sites like YouTube and MySpace are useful for advertising and spreading the word, but ultimately should drive more traffic to the artist's own site.
2) Distribution on the web is weird.
Artists should be wary of third party licensing services that claim to get your music in lots of distribution channels. All things being equal, it's probably better to sell and license directly through your own site when possible. What service are they really providing?
3) Music Discovery and Exposure
People don't randomly browse through iTunes or other large catalogs, so the chance of picking up fans this way is probably low. The web itself is a large catalog of music just waiting to be indexed and organized by aggregator and search sites like http://hypem.com, as well as music blogs and review sites. Getting music reviewed by reputable music blogs and playing lots of live shows are probably the best forms of exposure.
I'd like to hear others' opinion on publishing music on the web - I know there are probably lots of ideas floating around that I haven't heard about yet.
In a somewhat related post, Lucas Gonze (creator of Webjay) is doing a lot of brainstorming on necessary elements of publishing a piece of music on the web. Reading the checklist he has created almost reads like a checklist that could be used for the audio.module feature set or install profile...
Comments
Inform and provide options
Crazy thing is how many artists use myspace as their sole promotional tool (i.e they don't even have and/or refer fans to a website). Think the trick is to provide information (regarding licensing options/comparison of services) as well as a means to distribute/syndicate their content. Not sure how doable it would be to provide a checklist of services (and the content would automagically be submitted). Even info/links regarding services (ie check out cd baby, the orchard, virb, last.fm, pandora, etc.) would add a lot of value.
The other thing is that it's still difficult for artists to find a quality/affordable website. We have the tools to build a killer band site in drupal (stand alone/distro/multisite/etc.) - would be great if we could collaborate on building something that would be useful to the community and more importantly artists. Providing information and various submission/syndication options (audio AND video/photos, news, events, etc.) should be a part of any artist solution.
Gus Austin
PepperAlley Productions
Gus Austin
minor thing..
HI Zirafa..
Just a minor pedantic note...I think you mean "distribution", rather than "licensing" as the title for point (2) i.e. "licensing on the web is weird".
Licensing is usually where someone wants to use your music for film/tv, advert, cover mount, compilation, cover release, remix, podcast or other and the criteria might involve re-recording/re-mixing (for surround sound in cinema, for example) or sync (where the music is in sync with on-screen action or if it's a backdrop) or significance (if it's used in the opening credits for example, it's a more 'important' and therefore carries a more expensive license fee) or length etc. etc.
The licensing, in that context, is actually helped by the web and Drupal allows a label (or a DIY band label) to make life easier for the producer/agency/other label looking for that killer song.
One of the biggest licensing agencies in the World is the MCPS in the UK..and this is how they present the criteria: http://www.mcps-prs-alliance.co.uk/Pages/default.aspx
Some of the bigger labels are doing it direct now...and there's no reason a smaller independent label - with a drupal driven site - can't do the same.
Your point about distribution is very interesting...and one of the points I regularly make to artists/small labels is that it's actually more valuable for you to have the email address and name of 100 people who bought music at your Drupal site @ €1 per download, than it is to have 1,000 €1 dollar sales via loads of third party sellers.
When you get itunes/rhapsody/pressplay statements..all it tells you is which song sold when and where..and how much commission other people get! They don't tell you who that sale was made to.
A Drupal driven music site does tell you who they are and their contact details.
The short term impact of that doesn't sound very tantalising, but, when you explain the long term impact, the penny begins to drop...i.e. by building up the fanbase using a Drupal driven site, tfor example, the reality is, a small independent record label with a Drupal site only has to sell 10,000 copies of an album to make the same amount of money a major label would make from selling 100,000 copies.
Also, gig promotions are made infinitely easier...instead of doing a zip search on myspace...you can just pop into your Drupal site and check which cities would be the best to play in.
I also agree with Gusaus's point - if more artists/labels were made aware of the power of Drupal, in a music-online context, they might be spending less time on myspace, lining the pockets of news Corp and more time on their own Drupal-driven sites using RSS to keep in touch with everyone....and lining their own pockets instead.
hope that makes sense
Dub
Hey Dub, Changed that title
Hey Dub,
Changed that title heading so it makes more sense... What I meant was that artists should be aware of third party digital distributors who, in exchange for distribution, are having you agree to their terms of service which could potentially be shady. That concept of digital distribution and what it actually means is definitely vague - yet these services are selling it and nobody is asking questions. It's certainly easier to establish your own website to avoid dealing with questionable practices.
I think Gus makes a good point about somehow informing artists about the choices available. It's true that many artists don't really see beyond what myspace offers, or what Snocap and iTunes distribution means, if only because they seem like such valuable services up front that the short and long term impacts are sort of ignored. Maybe making a simple one page site that attempts to compare and explain the different services would help...maybe a good use of drupalart.org.
drupalart.org
I think drupalart.org (or some other workshop space) would enable us to clarify/further discuss these great thoughts and ideas; also could serve as a testing/building ground for modules and other solutions. We know that we can build valuable artist tools and solutions. Could we pool our resources, coordinate, and get building?
Gus Austin
PepperAlley Productions
Gus Austin
Certainly using
Certainly using Drupalart.org to test modules or install profiles could happen. Myself I wouldn't have the time to maintain a full featured website (that's kind of why I took it down) but I like the idea of using it to keep track of our progress and conclusions we draw from conversations here on groups.drupal.org, as well as to inform artists about how Drupal could help them (and comparisons to other web services).
Drupal sandbox machine
Something like this (or something similar) would be ideal for testing out modules and profiles. Possibly it's worth looking into? http://groups.drupal.org/node/2989
I'd be happy to help with this and/or drupalart.org.
Gus Austin
PepperAlley Productions
Gus Austin
That does look cool for
That does look cool for testing out configurations/profiles...thought it still looks like it's in development.
By the way, I like that wiki page you set up for the band profile. Perhaps once we get some more input on it we could try and setup a dummy site to test the configuration out.
Comments are now enabled...
With comments now enabled (on this wiki post) it should make it easier to discuss various setup options. Then yeah - let's start rolling some configurations.
Gus Austin
PepperAlley Productions
Gus Austin
Do-it-yourself Publishing
Zirafa,
I read your post above (Music Publishing and Licensing on the Web...sorting through various thoughts) and think it's right on target! I've already been doing what you're suggesting and also starting a Free music licensing service (widget) to help independent minded artists, composers, songwriters and producers publish and license their music from their own websites.
I also agree with your other points and will take a closer look at your article about music publishing. When you have a minute, please check out my intro site at www.MusicLicenseQuote.com and tell me what you think! Hopefully you are a songwriter/composer that might be able to benefit from our service! Thanks and best regards! Michael Borges c/o www.LicenseQuote.com
http://www.michaelborges.com
http://www.musiclicensequote.com
http://www.licensequote.com