The Future of Music Distribution

Presenting my music biz thesis: marketing music through non-linear communication

Mon, 18 Jul 2011 17:01:18 +0300

Presenting my music biz thesis: marketing music through non-linear communication:

Hi there!

It has been two years, but my thesis is finally ready for public release. Today I am very excited to present to you the final result of this research.

The Answer is the Ecosystem: Marketing Music Through Non-Linear Communication

The music business has had particular trouble adjusting to the realities of the digital age, so I set out to develop a model that fully integrates all of these realities in order to help out artists and labels. Not only is it valuable for the music business, but for many other fields, especially those touched by new opportunities and difficulties arising from the web.

I encourage you read, share and remix my thesis, which is available at:
http://basbasbas.com/thesis

If you have any feedback or questions, email me at .

Best,
Bas Grasmayer

Blog // Facebook // LinkedIn // Twitter

In short

Click any of the links throughout this summary to jump right into the related section of my thesis. The designer, Ryan Van Etten, did an awesome job at creating a great platform for the thesis’ content.

The research revealed that convenience is one of the most important factors for music consumption. Due to the fact that the music industry has lost control over the distribution of their content, this desire for convenience has resulted in piracy. Meanwhile, consumers are replacing traditional media with new media with the percentage of respondents who have never bought a physical CD increasing per generation. People have different expectations as to what price is reasonable for different products. An important trend being that people enjoy consumption that feels like free, which has made that which is easily copied cheaper and that which can’t be copied more expensive. Although consumers like ‘free’, even consumers that frequently pirate music often regularly spend money on music.

As a solution to these challenges, the author recommends that artists and labels starts integrating the concept of the ecosysteminto their communication strategy. The ecosystem is an active fanbase which is interconnected through non-linear communication. This means producing a ‘story worth telling’ to turn the internet’s non-linear communication and loss of control over distribution into an opportunity to get discovered. The second step is retaining the attention by connecting with listeners and connecting them to each other like the host of a party would with guests. Turning the ecosystem into a fun party helps energize the fanbase and amplifies the aforementioned ‘story worth telling’. Marketing opportunities come from listening to the ecosystem and releasing the products they want, as opposed to the classic approach of pushing the product that you want them to buy. Internet-enabled concepts such as pre-ordering and digital releases allow labels and artists to offer the ecosystem abundant choice to play into all the different expectations regarding price and product characteristics. This most likely will involve a mix of (feels like) free and publishing products or services that are better than free.

The reasons to get rid of the major record labels

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 17:29:51 +0300

The reasons to get rid of the major record labels:

Downhillbattle.org gives 6 reasons why we’re better off without the major record labels:

Music diversity will grow, because people will decide what’s popular, not scientifiy hit-making models and marketing.
Pay-for-play radio will end, which means that independent labels can now compete in a much fairer way.
Independent music won’t be marginalized.
The lawsuits will stop.
Artistic freedom will expand, because of sample-based music becoming legal and because artists can make the choice of who they work with and what they want on their albums.
Musicians will make a better living, because musicians will get a bigger cut of the pie and independent musicians will be more able to get their stuff on the radio.

The Passion Index

Thu, 18 Jun 2009 18:47:50 +0300

The Passion Index:

yvynyl:

echonest:

One of the ways that Music 2.0 has changed how we think about music is that there is so much interesting data available about how people are listening to music…

Computing listening data is the future of the music industry. Sadly. How will this guide future music creation?

Why does data have to influence the creative process?

NPR Streams New Moby Album Exclusively - Asks For Twitter Reviews

Thu, 18 Jun 2009 02:22:00 +0300

NPR Streams New Moby Album Exclusively - Asks For Twitter Reviews:

Now here’s a smart way to direct attention to an album release. It appears NPR has entered in a deal to let people listen to Moby’s new album via their website. They’re also asking people to tweet their review of the album with the hashtag #waitforme - the name of the album.

Way to go, Moby! What’s more, Moby has anounced that the most creative review will get exclusive artwork made by Moby himself.

The album is set to release at the end of June, but has already generated tons of reviews! These testimonials are sure to spread the news of Moby’s album release (great free music always goes viral) and the more listeners he gets; the more people are likely to buy his new album when it releases.

Harvard Study Finds Weaker Copyright Protection Has Benefited Society

Wed, 17 Jun 2009 18:27:33 +0300

Harvard Study Finds Weaker Copyright Protection Has Benefited Society:

From the page: “The authors were one of the first to challenge the early claims about the effects of file sharing. Years later, many other economists have followed suit (including the study funded by Industry Canada). This latest paper does a nice job of expanding the discussion, by using the data to examine incentives for creativity and the effects on aggregate creator and industry income.”

Help me out! Fill in the survey! Get free music!

Mon, 11 May 2009 13:21:29 +0300

Ermmm… no textbox to the right. Use the field below :-)

Looking for artists to sponsor my future of music thesis survey with a song/track to reward the participants!

Thu, 07 May 2009 14:12:00 +0300

Hi everyone!

I’m a 23 year old International Communication Management student currently writing my thesis about the Future of Music Distribution. For this thesis I’m going to be doing a survey to add more authority to the findings of my thesis so far. As an incentive for people to fill out the survey, I figured it would be appropriate to offer them FREE MUSIC! :-)

The idea is as follows:

After filling out the survey, the users will be shown the end page.

I’ll get some cover art, plus 10 tracks. I’ll put the cover art at the top, then tracklist:

1. Artist - Song (Download)
2. You - Your song (Download)
3. Artist - Song (Download)
etc.

The word download will link directly to the song, whereas I’ll make the artist name link directly to the profile page / website of the artists. It should be a good deal for everyone involved I believe :-)

I’ll also offer the whole thing in one ZIP file, and will include an information file with all the websites etc. I’ll also edit the artist websites into the ID3 info of the MP3’s.

Will do my best to make this a good promotion opportunity for all those involved!

Please get in touch with me asap, because I want to launch the survey within the next 36 hours!

Thanks,

Bas
bas@basbasbas.com

Pirates, Peers and Digital Pioneers: How Downloads Have Helped The Music Industry (from Noize Makes Enemies)

Mon, 06 Apr 2009 14:58:14 +0300

Pirates, Peers and Digital Pioneers: How Downloads Have Helped The Music Industry (from Noize Makes Enemies)

So Now Everything is Googles Fault

Mon, 06 Apr 2009 04:45:43 +0300

So Now Everything is Googles Fault:

“Google says it cannot operate YouTube if it has to pay a royalty — however small — every time a video containing music is played. In 2007 the UK’s independent Copyright Tribunal established that a minimum royalty per play was an essential requirement in the licensing of online services. Google fails to recognize this and ascribes little value to music — in spite of a huge increase in music usage on YouTube’s UK service. Royalties are a vital income source for all professional creators and must be preserved to ensure a continued vibrant music industry. We trust that Google will reinstate music on YouTube and pay a fair price for it.”

People will have to understand how unreasonable the royalty demands for streaming are. Sites are being made to pay $0.01 per play - which is A LOT. These sites don’t get 1 cent every time someone sees an ad; they get 10 cents every time someone clicks an add - and that’s not one out of ten times someone listens to a song… It’s much, much less.

It sucks for all parties involved though.

Teens Cut Online Music Spending, Use Free Web Sites

Wed, 01 Apr 2009 13:22:32 +0300

Teens Cut Online Music Spending, Use Free Web Sites:

“Consumers ages 13 to 17 spent 13 percent less on music downloads last year, while compact disc purchases tumbled 26 percent, according to a survey by the Port Washington, New York- based researcher.”

“Downloads from peer-to-peer networks fell 6 percent in 2008, NPD said. Meanwhile, 52 percent of teens said they listened to online radio in 2008, up from 34 percent from 2007. Almost half of teens, 46 percent, used social-networking sites to download or stream music, an increase from 26 percent in 2007, NPD said.”

via @hansveld

Brought to my attention by @mirogee. Who owns who in the record...

Wed, 01 Apr 2009 10:37:00 +0300

Brought to my attention by @mirogee. Who owns who in the record industry. Wonder if it’s still up to date.

It’s a bit err… ‘politicized’ though. Oh, and ancient it seems.

Big Music Will Surrender, But Not Until At Least 2011

Sun, 29 Mar 2009 22:07:40 +0300

Big Music Will Surrender, But Not Until At Least 2011:

I guess the Isle of Man has something to prove now.

"Streaming music startups don’t want more people using their service, because they lose money from..."

Sun, 29 Mar 2009 21:58:39 +0300

“Streaming music startups don’t want more people using their service, because they lose money from every one of them, and the perceived success from having more users makes it harder for them to plead with the labels to give them better deals.”

- Michael Arrington, The Sorry State of Music Startups

Last.fm says: "German, English, American? No? Pay up!"

Wed, 25 Mar 2009 19:01:11 +0200

Last.fm says: "German, English, American? No? Pay up!":

Not sure this is the right way to go about it. People are not used to paying for this service, nor are they used to paying for radio.

I expect they’ll lose a lot of users who will then illegally download the music they’re looking for, instead of playing it via a trackable system so royalties can be paid out and data handed over to artists.

Sad.

This is my interview about the future of music distribution with...

Wed, 25 Mar 2009 17:56:00 +0200

This is my interview about the future of music distribution with Gerd Leonhard, one of the foremost media futurists. You can also get it as an MP3.

Thanks to Miro Gechev for the technical side of some things. ;-)

Court case could force one strike-you’re out on downloaders in AUS

Wed, 25 Mar 2009 12:42:00 +0200

Court case could force one strike-you’re out on downloaders in AUS:

Genious plan. As research commissioned by the Canadian government has shown, “among Canadians actually engaged in it, P2P file-sharing increases CD purchasing.” So the ones getting disconnected will actually be the biggest customers of these companies.

Oh and besides that, it’s also a huge infringement on the freedoms of Australian citizens, but they should be getting used to that by now.

Report: 17 million people stopped buying CDs in 2008

Fri, 20 Mar 2009 16:42:30 +0200

Report: 17 million people stopped buying CDs in 2008:

“While overall music sales were up 10 percent in 2008, the year saw a drop not only in CD sales, but also in the number of customers actually purchasing music. But according to a new report, the act of listening to music is actually on the rise. … NPD’s annual Digital Music Study found that there were 17 million fewer CD customers in 2008 than in past years. CD sales have been dropping for quite some time, and while 1.5 billion songs were sold digitally last year, the number of Internet users paying for digital music only increased by 8 million in 2008.”

Via Slashdot.

This says something about the direction the music industry should take regarding music distribution. Less people are buying music, but the people that are buying music are actually buying more. More people are listening to music; so find a way to make money from that - or via that. Reach them while they’re listening.

Music Uses Expanding This image depicts how the different uses...

Wed, 18 Mar 2009 17:04:51 +0200

Music Uses Expanding

This image depicts how the different uses of music have expanded from old media to new media. Good job, by Indie Music, Inc.

Music recommendation is not doing its job

Tue, 17 Mar 2009 21:40:08 +0200

Music recommendation is not doing its job

MeTheMedia - Rise of the Conversation Society (Free eBook!)

Sun, 15 Mar 2009 23:12:26 +0200

MeTheMedia - Rise of the Conversation Society (Free eBook!):

Thanks to Gerd Leonhard for the heads up! He says:

“The main topic of the book (as far as I have read it, at the time of this blog post) is how drastically things have changed because WE ‘the people formerly known as consumers’ are becoming more empowered by the minute, i.e. it’s increasingly more about MEMedia than about THEIRMedia; about conversation and engagement not (you guessed it) about Control.”

Great material for my thesis!