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21khz: The Art of Money In Music

Jeff Price (Founder TuneCore, spinART Records and Audiam) and journalist Ted Gerstein (Author: Bomb Squad, Former Producer ABC News Nightline) explore the behind the scenes mechanisms of the music industry allowing artists, producers, record labels, songwriters and technology innovators to make money off music. Learn why $30 billion dollars is generated off of music and whose pockets it ends up in.
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21khz: The Art of Money In Music
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Now displaying: 2015
Dec 21, 2015

So what happens AFTER you disrupt an entire industry?

When last we saw him, Michael Robertson and MP3.com managed to uproot the business model of the entire music industry.  Physical media, he realized, didn’t matter.  People weren’t interested in CDs, cassettes or vinyl; they wanted music, and they wanted to it digitally.

For Michael Robertson, the man who took a chance and spent $1000 on “Two letters and a number,” the world was never the same.  

Suddenly, Wall Street players, who wouldn’t return his calls came knocking.   Soon after that, there were IPOs, and truckloads of money.  Then came the Lawyers, those big labels, the ones who refused to play ball, dragged Michael into Court.  Even the US Government, was breathing down his neck.  

 

Dec 3, 2015

 

“So, I told my wife, I bought this new domain and she said, ‘what did you pay?’”

I told her, ’a thousand dollars’.

She was dumbfounded, ’That’s just two letters and a number!” 

So, I said, ‘no no no… trust me… it’s going to be big!’”

- Michael Robertson, Founder, mp3.com 

 

Today’s episode isn’t so much about the music industry as it is about the life of an entrepreneur.   It isn’t so much about being lucky, as it is about making your own luck.  

Let's go back to the early days of the internet when even with a, “Blazing fast,” 96k modem, it took more than 45 minutes to download one song - 45 minutes that is, if you could even find any music to download.

Fresh out of college, newly minted, “computer consultant”, Michael Robertson was looking for his edge.  As the founder of “FILEZ.com” an early software search engine, Michael began noticing odd search trends.  Sure, people were searching for files with the terms, “spreadsheet” or “word processor,” but they were also looking for files with terms like, “sex” or “game”, and they were looking for music, music files with the strange extension - “.MP3”.  

After some detective work, and a little research,  Michael took a leap of faith: For the - at that time astronomical - sum of $1,000 he bought - “mp3.com”.

A few years later after being a catalyst for a global music revolution, his company had an IPO putting the value of his company in the billions. Then all the major label sued him and the SEC changed US IPO regulations.

Today’s episode is about Michael Robertson, and how, “two letters and a number,” ignited the internet music revolution. 

Oct 1, 2015

Episode: 007

Will Musicians Survive in the Age of Free When the "Bottle" is worth more than the wine?

Interview Subject: Count

"I think we can all agree, if somebody has millions of streams and they are popular enough to be a household name they should be able to pay their rent…"

- Count (Producer: Radiohead, Rolling Stones, New Order, Frank Sinatra, Blackalicious)

They say we are living the, "Golden Age" of media: endless streams of music, more television then hours in the day, enough books to read in twenty lifetimes. The buzzword for this amazing content, - "free."

For the consumer, it's a golden age.

But music producer and filmaker Mikael "Count" Eldridge sees a dark side for, the artists, creators and writers that might bring the entire golden age to an end.

For the past twenty years, Count has been working, "on the other side of the glass " as as an A-list music producer working with some of the top artists in the world, from Radiohead to Frank Sinatra to DJ Shadow to the Rolling Stones and more, Count knows that great music comes from a collaborative effort between the artist and the producer.  

But, in an unexpected twist as music creation and consumption has exploded, Count, other music producers and now artists can no longer count on their profession to pay them enough to live.  

The business models which powered the industry for 50 years have been uprooted and tossed aside.  The economics which allowed emerging artists a chance to claw their way into the middle class, and middle level bands to reach for the gold ring, all but dried up.  Count saw his own job, and an entire class of music producers, mixers and engineers, become, first a costly necessarily, then a extravagant luxury, and today, he admits, his job of music producer is nothing more than a, "glorified hobby."

He isn't alone.  An entire generation of creatives: writers, editors, musicians, artists, just about anyone looking to make a living in the creative fields has been affected.  The middle and upper class of artists is vanishing.  

You can no longer equate being a popular artist with making money from your music.

So Count, pivoted.  He turned from a music producer, to a movie director, and for the past five years has has been documenting the plight of, "middle class" artists for an upcoming documentary.  In, "UnSound: How Musicians and Creators Survive in the Age of Free," he argues,  there are still fortunes being made in music, but it's no longer the creators, rather the distributors: the Pandora's and Spotify's of the world who are seeing the benefit at the expense of the artists and creators.

In the end he laments, "the bottle is worth more then the wine."

There's a lot more at, unsoundthemovie.com...

Aug 18, 2015

“Musicians say they want to be in the business of music and yet they don’t understand the very basic concepts - it’s very strange to me.”

 

Everyone wants to be a musician but according to George Howard nobody understands the business.  George Howard, understands the music business.  He’s worked with big stars (Carly Simon), he’s been a label executive (President of Rykodisk), he’s an MBA, h’s a Lawyer - he’s literally written the book on how make money in the music industry, “An Insider's Guide to the Record Industry and Music Publishing 101.”  George knows what he’s talking about.

 

 

So what’s an artist to do? Not as much as you think.  

Aug 6, 2015

Why are artists so angry about their royalties from streaming music services like Spotify? Is there really no money or is there money but a crazy math formula that calculates who gets what is, well, just wrong.

 

Could the problem really be a bad math equation?

 

Meet Sharky Laguana.  Front man and founder of the band Creeper Lagoon and founder of a band van rental service Bandago.

 

Now construct a venn diagram of the music industry and rental services, Sharky sits right in the sweet spot.   

 

As the founder and lead singer of the seminal 1990s alternative rock band, “Creeper Lagoon” Sharky knows the music industry.  As the founder and CEO of the van rental company Bandago, Sharky understands the economics of rentals. 

 

With the launch of Apple Music and Spotify, the emerging trend of renting music, as opposed to buying or downloading a track, is hitting the mainstream.  So when Sharky sat down, took a look at how the current music services - Pandora, Spotify, Rdio, Apple Music… etc, calculated how artists are paid, he quickly realized the numbers just don’t add up.

 

None of it made sense.  

 

Where does your monthly fee go?  Who gets the most?  Who gets the least? Why were bands like the Rolling Stone, and other monsters of rock still raking in millions, while new artists are left with pennies?  Is the system even rigged? 

 

And why the heck does Liza Minnelli get paid when someone listens to a Sex Pistols song? 

 

What’s an artist to do?  

 

Sharky is a passionate voice for new and emerging artist, and with just one small change to the current system, he argues, everyone can be paid fairly.  

 

Heads up, lots of swears in this episode....

Jul 9, 2015

“Our function is to create new acts.  Our function is to make famous.  That is what we do, that is our unique skill set. We take artists, we develop them, we promote them, we make them the biggest most popular artists in the world.”

- Avery Lipman, President, Republic Records

 

The age of the sunglass wearing, leisure suit clad, cigar chomping, deal making music mogul may have gone the way of the dinosaur.  But Avery Lipman still walks the earth, still makes million dollar deals, doesn’t smoke and is a much snappier dresser.  

 

In the era of youtube, iTunes, and Spotify, Avery has found the secret sauce to staying relevant, finding the right acts at the right time, and still making a profit.  Since 1995, as the co-founder and President of Republic Records he (along with his brother Monte) figured out the magic formula to breaking some of the biggest names in the music industry.  

 

Republic Records is today home to (among others), Colbie Caillat, Amy Winehouse, Akon, Jessie J, Ariana Grande, Nelly, Taylor Swift, Nicki Minaj, Lorde, Drake, Nickelback, Lil Wayne, Weezer, Austin Mahone, Enrique Iglesias and others…

 

Hoping to join the Republic Catalog?  

  

Avery has just one piece of advice, “Don’t try to get signed.”

 

 

 

 

21Khz: The Art Of Money In Music  Jeff Price (Founder TuneCore, spinART Records and Audiam) and Ted Gerstein (Journalist, Former Producer ABC News Nightline, author Bomb Squad) explore the behind the scenes mechanisms of the music industry allowing artists, producers, record labels, songwriters and technology innovators to make money off music.

Jun 9, 2015

“There is a wonderful moment in Spinal Tap where the manager says to the artist, ‘look, it doesn’t matter how much we talk about it, there is no way to promote something that doesn't exist’.  And what occurred to me back in 2006, when I was living on an air mattress in my mom’s spare room, was that the internet has shattered that paradigm, you can sell something that doesn’t exist.” 

 

Benji Rogers has monetized enthusiasm.  As CEO of pledgemusic.com Benji built an entire business around connecting, artists and their most adoring fans.  Want to hear demos and unreleased tracks?  Want to see the creative process? How about a vial of blood?  pledgemusic.com fans have had access to all of this and more.  By offering, these so-called, “superfans,” an inside look at how the musical sausage is made, pledgemusic.com has opened an entirely new revenue stream for artists. 

 

21Khz: The Art Of Money In Music  Jeff Price (Founder TuneCore, spinART Records and Audiam) and Ted Gerstein (Journalist, Former Producer ABC News Nightline, author Bomb Squad) explore the behind the scenes mechanisms of the music industry allowing artists, producers, record labels, songwriters and technology innovators to make money off music.

May 12, 2015

“The ones that are in control are very happy with the system.  They are making a disproportionate amount of the collection and the distribution - wrongfully in my opinion, unethically and immorally…..We’re out there everyday standing at the mountaintop saying - Guys! There is another way to do this where Everybody wins!”

- Scott Schreer

In Part two of his interview, Scott takes a critical look at the music publishing system in the United States. Why are some songs more valuable than others?  What exactly is the mysterious, “weighting formula”? What - if anything - can be done to fix this century old publishing system? 

 And finally, what Scott is doing today to ensure that artists get paid for the music they publish.  

 21Khz: The Art Of Money In Music  Jeff Price (Founder TuneCore, spinART Records and Audiam) and Ted Gerstein (Journalist, Former Producer ABC News Nightline) explore the behind the scenes mechanisms of the music industry allowing artists, producers, record labels, songwriters and technology innovators to make money off music.

Apr 16, 2015

In this Episode, meet Scott Schreer. Scott wrote the music for "Have A Coke and A Smile", the NFL theme Song for Fox along with a myriad of jingles and scores for Snickers, Volkswagen, The Cosby Show and many many others. So how does Scott, and the rest of the world's songwriters and composers, make money from the use of their music?  Scott takes us behind the scenes of a rubber band and glue bizzare and unbelievable system that tracks what the world listens to then collects and pays out over $6 billion dollars annually for the right of Public Performance.  It might just be the most valuable music copyright you never heard of....

21Khz: The Art Of Money In Music  Jeff Price (Founder TuneCore, spinART Records and Audiam) and Ted Gerstein (Former Nightline Producer) explore the behind the scenes mechanisms of the music industry allowing artists, producers, record labels, songwriters and technology innovators to make money off music.

Learn why $30 billion dollars is generated off of music and whose pockets it ends up in.

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