Jammin’ in the Blogosphere
Glenn Reynolds agrees that blogs are giving us new access to raw creative talent in music and publishing: “Yeah, I think that’s a growing trend.”
Glenn stirs the pot a bit with his follow-up:
In fact, I think that the growth of these forms of micro-publishing is what really has the MPAA and RIAA scared. They’re not so much worried about piracy as competition. And they should be.
Hmm Glenn, I’m not quite sure what you mean - is the MPAA or RIAA really scared about blogs?
In other news, Dave Winer agrees with Glenn (aka Dave’s “new soul brother”. Umm Dave… where are you going with that one?) Anyway, Dave also points out that my thoughts here aren’t original:
Yeah. I wrote about this in my Monoculture piece last month. “Perhaps monoculture has run its course. Maybe what’s happening now, but it’s hard to see, is that each of us is taking more responsibility for getting our own information, for creating our own entertainment, and not giving that power to the centralized entertainment and information industries.”
Well, I’m not going to lie: I’d love it if this were true. But let’s be honest: record companies are going to continue to lock up talent for years to come.
Robert von Goeben has a lot more experience than me in this stuff (that’s not saying much, but his creds here are impressive: he’s a VC and former music exec). He wrote a column on News.com about this stuff that I found deeply insightful:
[D]igital music distribution is a tough game for a start-up. Consider the major-label record companies. …
The thing that makes major record labels so powerful is their contractual control over music, and their ability to say where, when and how a recording can be played and shared. As many people have said, the only viable music service that people will pay for is one that has a somewhat complete catalog of music that is accurately tagged and cataloged, and has no restrictions on how music is used for personal use.
If you think the industry-sponsored digital music initiatives will ever approach this level of service anytime soon, you’re dreaming. It will be years–if ever–before the major labels will ever allow the type of license that would create a service that is anywhere near as compelling as Napster or Kazaa.
Robert’s not a man who minces words! His conclusion is even stronger:
So my advice to the plethora of music start-ups focused on distribution? Give it up. …
The game will really get interesting when the very heart of the music industry–the creation and sourcing of music–is challenged.
From what I can tell, “the creation and sourcing of music” is sort of what Emergent Music is doing?
Emergent CEO Gary Robinson probably knows more than anyone about how the blogosphere will create and filter music: the man keeps a blog and wrote an essay about how his site works on Kuro5hin. Now that’s some bloggin’ love!
So Gary, what’s the story here? [MicrocontentNews]
Music these days is not being bought in stores as much. Buying a
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