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TAXI'S LASKOW HAS HIGH HOPES FOR MUSIC'S FUTURE
Interviewed by Jamie Reno

(Editor Note: When we were down in Florida, Michael Laskow discussed his views on where the music industry is heading. Some of these things we've discussed here before, but he's added a component that will include, rather than eliminate, the major labels from the process. Below is a copy of the interview he did with Jamie Reno from Newsweek which outlines the basic ideas. If you have your own ideas on the future of the music industry, feel free to post them here on our message boards: )

Q: How do you stop people from illegally downloading music?

A: As my friend Jim Griffin taught me years ago, the goal is to make music so convenient to get that stealing it is a less desirable option.

Q: How do you do that?

A: By shifting the power from the record labels to the consumers and the artist's. I've created a model that I believe will accomplish that and ultimately improve the record labels' bottom lines.

Q: What is the 'Laskow' model?

A: I didn't come up with the entire model. I've just amalgamated some other peoples ideas, and put a bow on it.

Q: How so?

A: By keeping the record labels in the picture, dramatically reducing their overhead, and reducing the risks they currently take. Other models I've seen don't improve things for all parties involved. I think mine can.

Q: How does it work?

A: Subscription music services that offer all music by all artists in every genre as streamed content will proliferate. Consumers will no longer need to own CDs or download MP3s and burn CDs because they'll have any song they want, any time they want it, wherever they are -- via cell phone with headphones while jogging, satellite radio in their cars, and by landlines when they're home or in a hotel room in Singapore.

Music lovers will design their own playlists -- kind of like personalized radio stations, or they might choose to use pre-programmed, 'canned' lists. Record companies will no longer need to spend a fortune to find talent, and manufacture, market or distribute the CDs.

Q: Why not?

A: Because millions of people will automatically hear the new song when it debuts on he 'New Country' playlist. They'll hit the 'Add' button if they love it, and want to add it to their list, and the 'Delete' button if they don't.

Q: Will all the 'oldies' be available as well?

A: Yes.

Q: How will the artists get paid?

A: A penny per listen. That's a $100,000 if ten million people listen to the song globally in a month. That money will get split up among the artist, songwriter, and producer, and the payments will be calculated and disseminated automatically by computer every month. If just ten percent of the listeners who are exposed to the song add it to their playlists, then the artist could make $10,000 per month from those spins. And that income is just from one song.

Q: If you don't have record companies, how does the new talent get discovered?

A: We'll still have record labels, but they wont need to find talent the same way they do now. The artists will come to companies like TAXI to get a 'J.D. Power' stamp of approval -- of sorts.

The music providers will add them to their 'jukeboxes' if they meet a minimum standard. That will allow artists who can't currently get signed a chance to find their audience and earn a living. That's not possible now because there are limited resources at the labels, limited slots on radio playlists, and a limited number of stations. The cost of CDs also prevents consumers from enjoying as many artists as they'd probably like. Their resources are limited as well.

In my model, labels could simply track the most popular songs and contact those artists to see if they'd like to kick it up a notch using the labels as investment bankers for tour support and other forms of marketing to boost the number of spins they get per month. Instead of the artist getting a piece of the label's action, the tables would be turned. The labels would buy into the artists income.

Q: Does all this mean that consumers will have to sift through a bunch of mediocre or just plain bad music to find the good tunes?

A: No. I said 'minimum standard,' not 'no standard.' Again, remember MP3.com proved that consumers didn't want unlimited choices.

It also means that consumers who love a type of music that might be obscure in today's model will be able to find it easily in the future. The small, independent labels those artists are signed to now can't afford to market them globally because their return on investment would be too small. In my model, the artists will reach a much greater audience, and while it may still be small compared to Madonna's audience, it will be large enough to provide them with a much better income than they earn now. Essentially, we'll be saying, Everybody who likes Folk Music with bongos enter here, rather than trying to find radio stations who will play something that 'obscure.'

Q: How does your model improve things for record labels?

A: First, by growing the active consumer base in a very big way. Many more people will consume music if it's easier to get it.

Second, by giving them a way to make thousands of small investments in thousands of songs versus a few huge investments in a few artists -- most of which end up in the red. In my model they'll get a smaller return, but on a much greater number of artists and songs -- most of whom will be profitable because all the promotional and distribution expenses will be eliminated.

And finally, all the parties involved win because album cuts will be looked at differently. Labels won't be funding albums with just two great songs. Artists won't feel pressured into making 'hits' because they can still earn money from songs that may appeal to a smaller number of people. And consumers will enjoy not being forced to buy an entire album to get the two songs they love the most.

Michael Laskow
CEO, TAXI, Independent A&R

Interesting concept for sure & something to think about, as to viability.

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DakLander

Makes sense, it eventually has to go in that direction, largely because of computers and the internet.

For example, last year I really enjoyed the services of "Press Play". They had around 300,000 songs in their catalog and I could play any one or all of them for a flat fee of $9.95 per month conveniently charged to my credit card account. The selection was excellent and I could pick & choose from oldies, newbies and everything in-between in a full range of styles & genres.

As a song writer, this kind of service is indespensible to me because I can quickly compare my own style or intended direction (when needed) with other artists & styles that have already been well know.

Of course I only have so many hours per day or week to be listening, so I doubt I ever listened to more than an average of a few songs a day. If I listened to 10 songs a month, that would be $1.00 each, but if I listened to 100 a month, that would work out to about 10 cents a piece, not bad right?

The coolest thing is that it's not like radio where to have to listen to everything that comes along. I enjoyed the idea that I can quickly find and play just about any known or even lesser know artist, plus also search strictly by the various genre catagories or "pop" songs & hits, etc. ranging from the 1930's up through each decade till today.

To me, this kind of service is even better than cable TV, because it's so "interactive" in the sense that I can stream or download any specific song title or artist's song on an "on demand" basis with instant results! It's a real time saver and I end up being able to find what I'm looking for about 3 out of 4 times, not a bad average out of 300,000 + titles!

Now, let's see, how long would it take one person at say 2 hours a day to listen to 300,000 songs? Ha, I'll leave that up to all of you math experts, but let's say by the time you heard them all, you could have written a few of your own tunes, right?!

See you,
Michael

P.S. Oh, by the way... last fall "PressPlay" changed their name to "Napster". In my opinion, I thought that was kind of a dumb move, because "PressPlay" had already built a great reputation up to that time, at least in my "book" in terms of price & service. However, I understand that they did upgrade their content (library) through some other mergers, up to over 500,000 songs.

The only problem is that now their service won't work on the Windows '98 operating system. They are forcing folks to migrate to Windows 2000 or something like that. I wasn't ready to migrate because of potential internet security problems that Microsoft is know to have with systems above their older (proven) "Windows '98". In time, hopefully those issues will be addressed, let's see.

I remember reading this interview last year, and I remember being confused as to how the jukebox model is better. I'm not saying the pay-per-listen model can't work, I just don't see how it can replace the model that's growing now, which is pay-per-download.

I mean, why would I pay $10/month to listen, when I can go to walmart.com and pay $0.59 to actually own a copy and play it as many (or as few) times as I want?

iPods are a hot, hot item right now. For the jukebox model to work, the iPod of the future will have to support wireless, hi-speed Internet connections which get at least as much coverage as your standard cell phone. I don't see Apple or HP or Sony or Microsoft working towards these goals.

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Scott Andrew and the Walkingbirds
Lo-fi DIY acoustic pop
Hear it: http://www.scottandrew.com/main/music

Scott,

I think the point is that you essentially have all the benefits of "owning" everything available, on demand, any time any where. Sure, if you stop subscribing, you no longer have total access.. but for the cost of less than a CD per month, you essentially own ALL music that exists. It makes the "buy 1 track at a time" method seem very outdated.

I know some huge companies that are going to be launching this type of program in the next 6 months. It's going to be VERY exciting! And we are working to position our members to directly benefit a great deal from the new model.

Brian

Brian:

While there is no doubt that the music industry is having difficulty adjusting to the computer age, I find Michael Laskow's model worthy of closer scrutiny. I've included my comments in parentheses along with a final comment at the end.

Q: How does it work?
A: Subscription music services that offer all music by all artists in every genre as streamed content will proliferate. Consumers will no longer need to own CDs or download MP3s and burn CDs because they'll have any song they want, any time they want it, wherever they are -- via cell phone with headphones while jogging, satellite radio in their cars, and by landlines when they're home or in a hotel room in Singapore.
Music lovers will design their own playlists -- kind of like personalized radio stations, or they might choose to use pre-programmed, 'canned' lists. Record companies will no longer need to spend a fortune to find talent, and manufacture, market or distribute the CDs. (Hmm? If not the record companies, who might that be, Michael?)

Q: Why not?
A: Because millions of people will automatically hear the new song when it debuts on the 'New Country' playlist. (Who creates that playlist, Michael?) They'll hit the 'Add' button if they love it, and want to add it to their list, and the 'Delete' button if they don't.

Q: If you don't have record companies, how does the new talent get discovered?
A: We'll still have record labels, but they won't need to find talent the same way they do now. The artists will come to companies like TAXI to get a 'J.D. Power' stamp of approval -- of sorts. (So now, rather than record company mass marketing and artist development, and countless producers, song pluggers, artists et al, we will have Michael et al determining what is available. Sounds like the conflict of interest model to me.)
The music providers will add them to their 'jukeboxes' if they meet a minimum standard. (Minimum standard? According to whom? Let me guess, Michael et al?) That will allow artists who can't currently get signed a chance to find their audience and earn a living. That's not possible now because there are limited resources at the labels, limited slots on radio playlists, and a limited number of stations. The cost of CDs also prevents consumers from enjoying as many artists as they'd probably like. Their resources are limited as well.
In my model, labels could simply track the most popular songs (popular according to whom?) and contact those artists to see if they'd like to kick it up a notch using the labels as investment bankers for tour support and other forms of marketing to boost the number of spins they get per month. Instead of the artist getting a piece of the label's action, the tables would be turned. The labels would buy into the artists' income.

Taxi performs a valuable service to both writers, artists and the industry, but I for one, do not want Michael or any other "experts" giving stamps of approval or creating minimum standards in the music industry.

There are no simple fixes in our industry and there are no models to follow that don't have as many flaws as the systems they were designed to replace.

Consider the Copyright Act of 1905, for example. The "intent" of the compulsory license provision was to prevent a few powerful music publishers from signing all the good writers - as if that would ever happen - and thus form a music monopoly. In reality, what it did do was allow the powerful publishers and record companies to cover anybody, anytime and just pay a license fee for doing so. Many aspiring artists had their careers undermined by major artists covering their material once it hit the airwaves. So much for good intentions...

P.E. Knudsen



[This message has been edited by Knute (edited 03-04-2004).]

PE,

I think you miss the big picture. Sure, TAXI could/would be 1 of those filters. But so would Just Plain Folks. So would the Indianapolis Songwriters Assocation. So would the GMA, NSAI, NARAS, SGA, Muses Muse, the local college, the high school down the street and anyone else who cared to offer their "playlist" choices. The whole key would be who created the best lists of the music people liked the most. If TAXI (or anyone else) proves inadequate in chosing great music to filter to their listeners, they'll get passed over and someone will use someone else's list. It's like going back to the days when a DJ could actually choose what music they played. Then listeners tune in or out based on whether they liked the songs that DJ picked. How much more honest a system could you have?

If we simply placed the 500,000 new songs released each YEAR into a big jukebox and no one was ever allowed to say, "here's what we think is the best stuff" then a listener would almost never get to hear or find anything they liked. Do you think everyone has the ability to sort through 500,000 new songs per year to find the 50 they like? It would be the job of these filters to say here's the songs WE think you'll like.. the service providers (i.e. those who you pay the subscription to) will hire the best filters to make unique offerings to their customers. To keep you happy, they'll have to produce the filters music you like.. or you'll go elsewhere. It's like Cable channels. Cable companies pay HBO, Showtime etc.. to provide content choices and people choose which ones provide the content they like. This is essentially the same thing.

I can't think of a better system. If TAXI doesn't think your stuff is up to muster, and your stuff is amazing and deserving, then clearly someone else out there WILL play your stuff on their playlists. But if no one wants to add you (because they truly are looking for ONLY the best stuff.. since there's no financial benefit to picking a song other than the hope it will make the audience the happiest) then it's a reality you'll have to deal with. Those decisions are made everyday today, but it's made even worse because there's always a financial benefit to only picking FROM a handful of songs from a label versus they entire database of ALL music available.

Brian

Brian:

The model, plan or whatever it evolves to be, stated your way has considerable merit. You filled in the gaps I found myself uncomfortable with in Laskow's answers.

I realize that in a magazine article, answers must be rather brief and are sometimes edited down to fill available space, but as I read it, Michael seemed to play too great a roll in the model than I felt comfortable with.

You cleared up my apprehensions.

P.E. Knudsen

This makes it official !

I am a dinosaur !

This stuff is so far removed from what I grew up knowing about making and selling music, it's just incomprehensible for me.

I'm going to put my trust in learned young people like Mr Laskow..

He really seems to have thought this out, and it appears to make sense to this old duck.'

I guess it's never again gonna be a kid going to the store and plunking down a buck for the cool new song he or she just heard on the radio.

Shame..kinda...that system made lots of stars...and made lots of kids happy.

Oh well...time marches on !

Now...where the heck is that Eddie Cochran LP ?

Bob (feeling kind of old today) Young

Yeah, They started selling lp's in 1949. Before that, an album was like a photo album. It was a "book" of envelopes that held 78rpm records. I remember that we had 78rpm albums of Gene Autry, Mario Lanza, Tennessee Ernie Ford, Hank Williams, Liberace and Steve Allen among others. We had one lp, the cast album of South Pacific. My mother used to talk about the old crank Victrola with the megaphone with nostalgia.

I feel sorry that my kids won't get to experience the joy of the vinyl record. I also feel sorry that at my age I won't get to experience the joy of growing up in the digital age.

Michael Laskow's model sounds reasonable to me. The key is, as Brian points out, there will be various sources of recommendation and endorsement for new music beyond the bandwidth limitation of radio. It's an exciting time for the independant artist.

All the Best,
Mike

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Mike Dunbar Music

Though I do have an old Victrola for its antique value, what I have given my family is the gift of direct to disk and half speed mastered recordings - hundreds of them - from all genres from classical to pop to R&B to jazz to country. Played through tube amplifiers and dynamic/electrostatic combo monster speakers, my family gets to hear what the finest recorded music sounded like before the digital "conversion." Nobody will ever be able to download that incredible, three dimensional sound from the internet or play it back on any IPod. So much for progress...

P.E. Knudsen

Yeah,Knute, we gain and we lose. A few years back we were recording a band on 24 track two inch. I couldn't convince them to count their songs off, and sure enough, they had a song that needed an overdub right from the get-go.

The band thought they'd have to play the song again and count it until I showed them the trick. We put the tape in upside down so it ran backwards. I recorded a track clicking drumsticks in time with the backwards music and kept going for a while after the music stopped. We turned the tape over and had a click to count us in.

Can't do that on an ADAT...but wait, the ADAT is obsolete!

All the Best,
Mike

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Mike Dunbar Music

LOL that's a great story, Mike.

Although nowadays, you just drop down the "Audio > Project" menu and click the "Metronome" checkbox and set the "Count-in" value to however many measures you want to lead in. Or something similar But then, you don't get to tell a cool story about running a tape backwards.

Nothing digital approaches 2-inch tape, that's for sure. My dad used to have some great hi-fi records on vinyl. Alan Parsons' Project "I Robot" and Thelma Houston's "I've Got the Music In Me" were two of my favorites, and they sounded fantastic.

(Man, I am so bored here at the day job. Can you tell?)

[This message has been edited by scottandrew (edited 03-04-2004).]

Mike:

It's been so long I'm not sure how to spell the names of the studio machines I used to work with, from Ampex to Scully to Steuder to 3M to Revox, everything from two channel half tracks to 24 track monsters at 15 or more inches per second.

I used to do wonders with voices by slowing the initial rhythm track one half step when I recorded the voice track, then resuming at normal speed for all the overdubs. I got some pretty lame voices to "shine" that way without multiple voice overdubs and echo that sometimes included the trucks on the street outside when I wasn't using tape reverb.

I learned that craft from Ed Green, the master, and also Frank Sinatra's favorite engineer in Old Blue Eyes later years. Ed also taught me tape editing - a real necessity when recording Frank - countless sweet notes never in the same place from countless takes spliced together to produce a "performance."

Never mind the tape hiss, the vinyl pop on mass pressings, and the shratches that seemed to appear out of nowhere, those were recorded music's finest hours...

Regretfully, they are over and just sweet memories in the minds and ears of those of us who don't have to look in a history book to know what was happening in the 40's, 50's, 60's and 70's.

P.E. Knudsen



[This message has been edited by Knute (edited 03-04-2004).]

What Laskow's 'portable model' relies on is the ubiquity of always-on, 100%-reliable, individual-stream bandwidths in excess of 96kbps PER USER.

Not a problem for cable/DSL users, but wireless/celphone? Ever keep a celcall from dropping or breaking up, and that's small potatoes bandwidth compared to streaming songs! Multiply that by how many thousands of simultaneous streams in any particular cel area? You think there's enough available spectrum to support that?

The systems around these parts often are oversold and can't accept all the voice traffic that wants to get a call through. And I'm in the middle of the desert! You want your 911 call to report your submerged car in the canal slammed back in your ear because 500 people are all listening to the same damn '50 Cent'-mumble on separate individual circuits.

The wireless-phone-driven on-demand streaming-jukebox-network of the same songs over-and-over (ONLY distinguished from each other by their start- and end-times) with each taking up 100kbps of spectrum is a brutally-inefficient waste of telecom resources and a pipe dream at best.

OBTW, a penny a play??? Ever plugged two quarters into a jukebox to hear three songs once, Mikey? Who got the pennies? NOT the artist whose songs you played, because jukeboxes are blanket-licensed, and PROs divvy that money based on radio-chart history. No chart-history, no pennies. But you happily plugged two quarters straight into the bar-owner's pocket nonetheless. Just who are you interested in helping to make a living here? The creator or the facilitator? A penny per play? LAUGHABLE!

Laskow's 'model' sounds like a plan to deliberately DRIVE DOWN what musicians and artists can expect in ROI. Yeah, when you multiply it out by TEN F**KING MILLION (where DID you pull that number out from? How many subs do Sirius and XM have combined?) it sounds like the Yellow Brick Road! It JUST BLITHELY IGNORES that most songs aren't interesting enough to be listened to the FIFTY or SIXTY times that an artist would need to make the streaming/subscription revenue equal to that from ONE SINGLE DOWNLOAD!

Stick to the A&R, Michael. Leave the 'modeling' gig to the free market. People will decide where quality and value meet to make the purchase advantageous on a case-by-case basis. There's Two-Buck Chuck and then there's Château Lafite Rothschild. Neither of 'em are going out of business. Folks buy plenty of both. AND collect the empties. Just no telling what some folks will want to have lying around the living room when the friends drop by!

Give it to Mikey, he hates everything. Mikey! He likes it! Hey Mikey! No thanks.

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EdX.iuma.com www.soundclick.com/40LOVE www.soundclick.com/EdX


[This message has been edited by ed323 (edited 03-05-2004).]

Ed,
Sadly you've missed the economics of the model. Take a deep breath, get the huge chip off your shoulder (you seem very angry) and do the math. A penny a play times 10,000,000 is quite a bit MORE than the value of one downloaded track. His entire point was that you get X number of new tracks each day automatically in your genre of choice. The 10,000,000 number was considered reasonable by Newsweek (and many others in the industry who have scrutinized his model). Once you've been the "pick" of the day on the automatic downloads, the listener will chose those songs they are most interested in to be added to their playlist. If 1% of the listeners do that, that's another 100,000 pennies each time that collection of folks interested in the track plays your song on their personal playlist. That's 1K a month for each time they listen as a group.. if you're in rotation on their playlist, you could easily get played 10 times a month or more. That's 10K a month at a penny per play. Not a bad living, and based on the very real numbers, it's not an unachievable goal for an indie artist who gets on the right filtered playlists.

The numbers could be significantly higher for those tracks people really love. In those cases, what if 10% or 20% add it to their regular playlist? That's some serious cash for everyone involved. And it still only costs the listener the same monthly subscription fee.

I am not sure what your level of animosity on this issue is all about. The ideas Laskow has put out have actually been bantered around for a LONG time by a lot of people, including us. (I've written several different editorials predicting this going back to 1998.) Everyone agrees that it's what is going to happen. Laskows real contribution was to suggest a way for major labels to stay in the game, and because of that, allow the technology and licensing to move forward much faster. Right now the heads of the remaining major labels are stalling technology and licensing for self interests. If there's a model that will allow them to survive and continue to participate, there's a better chance they'll stop blocking progress. iTunes broke a several year logjam overnight when they launched with the obvious model that people had been begging for a long time. Because it took so long to launch individual downloads for a fair price, other technology has been catching up to make that process nearly out of date already. Get with the times my friend. And don't blame the messenger for spreading a message that most enlightened people realize is a VERY good thing for ALL artists of any type.

Brian

Brian,

First you missed the point that the first part of my post points out the unfeasibility of the 'walkaround wireless jukebox' concept that he advances as 'the future'. Or just ignored it. Those subs will never materialize. Which leaves tethered computer subs.

Then you accuse me of having 'a chip' for pointing out that the payout AND the multiplier are ridiculous numbers regardless of who claims them to be authoritative.

TEN MILLION SUBSCRIBERS A MONTH DOES NOT EQUAL TEN MILLION LISTENS PER SONG PER MONTH, EVEN IF THE SONG MAKES IT ON TO 'SEÑOR TASTEMAKER'S' JALAPEÑO-LIST!

ONE-HUNDRED MILLION cable subscribers not listening to the Polka Channel on cable equals ZERO. Some folks, a LOT of folks are NEVER gonna spend more than 30 seconds there.

If your song is Scandinavian neo-Goth deathcore, MAYBE 100,000 will hear it ONCE, MAYBE. Point: total number of subs doesn't guarantee same total number of listens.

Or does the model FORCE PEOPLE TO LISTEN to everything on their selected list?

10 million people don't listen to music at their computers hours and hours a day.

Let's do the math: say there's a fresh new batch of 50 songs on my favorite filter's list each month. Why 50? We're tearing down the tyranny of the evil CC-Radio's Top 40, remember? Restricted playlists, ba-a-a-ad! More hotlist picks, go-o-o-od!

So at, say, four minutes per that's 200 minutes, 3 hours twenty minutes to get through said filter's list at full-length.

And if your song, Brian, isn't on that list, you haven't made that penny yet.

So, if I have to listen through another 3 hours twenty of someone else's 'hotlist' to hear your song, not looking for it because I know nothing about you or your music, and decide I don't like it, I've wasted SIX HOURS FORTY finding out that I don't like your song.

Let's say I can squeeze in an hour of 'active listening' per day, the active listening that has to sit at the computer, scroll the list, play the song, skip to the next if I don't like the current song. I've just spent SEVEN DAYS to find out I don't like your song, and will never listen to it again. So you could get a penny.

And if I bailed on that song before, say 60 seconds, are the money-collectors gonna pay you your penny?

Or does your song get a penny just for showing up on some veted filter's list whether ANYone ever hears it?

Ten million folks doing this same ritual every month at their computers, as if there weren't ANY PTA meetings and soccer games and doctor appointments and shoveling the snow and walking in the park and talking to the significant other. MASSIVE WASTE OF EVERYBODY'S TIME AND EFFORT!

Oh, you were talking about limitless-time-endowed junior-high and high-school and college kids as those customers? They want everything free anyway. "Fifteen-hundred dollars for a leather bustier? I di-in't care; it lifts and separates!"

I've never done business with Mr. Laskow or any company he's part of to my knowledge. No chip here.

But the proposition as stated should ring FIVE-ALARM FIREBELLS for ALL songwriters and artists! If they want to buy into that idea, of POSSIBLY making ONE-FIFTIETH what they COULD with NO GUARANTEE of listens, fine, go forth and boldly!

I DO know that what he's advancing seeks the Holy Grail of making an unproven 'business model' viable on the backs of already under-resourced artists.

People will decide what they want to spend money on. And Norah Jones' "Come Away With Me" proves that CDs will be bought in MASSIVE QUANTITIES at TEN BUCKS AND MORE if the perceived value is present.

Have a nice future!

------------------
EdX.iuma.com www.soundclick.com/40LOVE www.soundclick.com/EdX



[This message has been edited by ed323 (edited 03-05-2004).]

His idea is not technically feasible at this time. There is not enough spectrum space available to feed customized media streams to millions of people at once. The cellphone network is particularly weak in this area - let there be some emergency in a city and instantly all cellphones become useless when everyone tries to use them at once. (Remember 911?) The phone system is designed from end to end on the assumption that only a fraction of the subscribers are using the service at the same time.

Satellite radio is also very short on bandwidth. The two current services each have 100 channels of programming, of which 60 each is music. The remaining 40 talk channels are so processed and compressed to fit in what's left that they are actually distorted.

Also, can you imagine the size of the server farm it would take to stream several million 128 kb/s MP3 streams at the same time? That is 256 gigabits per second. You could do it with a massively distributed database with thousands of servers scattered around the country, but it would be awfully expensive.

The cost of additional infrastructure is too expensive to put in place just to serve the music industry.

I'm not saying it couldn't be done, but it can't be done real-time with today's infrastructure. And once you go to a download and play multiple times model you have to start worrying about somebody cheating, though there are models for this. A satellite TV receiver will let you watch a PPV movie as long as it has an "account balance". It checks in to the central DB once a month to update the records for billing and get a new balance.

I know it is a long way between Indiana and Utah, but I could swear I heard somebody singing "Arrivederci Funkyoop" coming from the Indianapolis area.

My curiousity is killing me wondering whom amongst us is the one post wonder who adopted an alias to launch a vituperative "shock and awe" campaign. Whoever it was, I suspect you will never see a 2 listed next to your alias's number of posts, but you knew that already.

If similar verbal "assaults" I've read here are any indication of the consequences that follow, Funkyoop is Just Plain Outta Here.

Like Clint Eastwood aka Dirty Harry told you long ago, "You've got to know your limits." I'd, say you exceeded them.

P.E. Knudsen

Hey Ed, who pee'd in your Corn Flakes???

No one claimed the model was perfect. It's just that, a model, and, the whole thing is a model in it's infancy. Obviously there will be all kinds of changes to that model in the next short while, and, likely, long while.

Many of your points are valid at this particular time but who's to say where it will be in five years.

Now, I don't know about you, but most times I'm on the computer at home I have on some type of music. It may be the JPF radio station, it may be Radio@Netscape.com, or some other conveyor of non-mainstream music.
In that regard, the time I'm online and listening would garner the artists I've heard, a cent or so, where there would be non via your jukebox model, nor likely via the normal readio airplay model. By the way, I haven't been in a place with a juke box, as a customer, for so many years I can't remember so no establishment has made the quarter from me. I also stopped listening to music radio on the airwaves as a norm. Why? Because it's the same over-compressed crap by the same non-talented 30 or 40. I will check in, now and again, & it's amazing that the stations are playing the same awful tunes today that were being played five years ago. Not in absolutly every instance but enough so that I flip on talk radio after a couple of minutes, or fire up my stash of personal music, all of which was due to my finding the artist via the internet. So, to a point, those cds I play, made those artists a bit of money though if they are from a major label the artist's cut is less than the indie labels I purchase.
Remember the change, for music, from AM to FM?
Well there's a bit of correlation, though slight. The quality of the music was far greater on FM but at a huge loss of listenership. Back in the fifties & sixties, when I was growing up, I could hear via AM radio, music from hundreds of miles away, particularly at night when the signals bounced a long way. There were many nights I listened to music, While in North Dakota, from Texas, California, Tennessee & other places. When most music went to FM that stopped. FM doesn't bounce like the AM band does. What did that do? It stopped me hearing about some new talent that was out there. The internet puts that back into place and though there will be some bugs to work out, it will happen & I for one can only hope sooner than later.

------------------
DakLander

Oh, by the way funkyoop. You're likely a forum member in another guise that doesn't have the guts to sound off under your real handle or name so your diatribe doesn't mean squat. If you're actually another, new poster and you're a one post wonder, the premise is the same. Your opinion ain't worth the time it took for you to write it.


[This message has been edited by daklander (edited 03-07-2004).]

No matter what MODEL is adopted, one thing is clear, with the advent of the computer age, televisions in every room accessing hundreds of channels, and both men and women working two jobs - assuming they ever got the first one in our lame economy, people have less and less time to listen to music, regardless of where it's coming from or who is performing it.

P.E. Knudsen

Buzzzzzzzzzzzzzt - wrong answer...For one thing there are a lot of Indie labels that are successful. They make themselves and their artists money. For another thing, major labels to a great degree influence taste and what people like because they control large scale marketing (radio) and distribution. If you play country over and over in front of someone, they are going to grow up liking country. And major labels sign artists whom they think they can mold into what they think people will like, based on what they have mass marketed already. And a lot if it is just guesswork anyway, because most of it is just throwing stuff out there and hoping something sticks. Major labels are major labels because they control mass marketing and distribution, and for no other reason - especially not because they have better taste than anyone else...And thirdly, there are TONS of indie artists, whom, if they had their music exposed on a mass level, would be just as successful as any major label artist. In fact, the indie artist like Jenny Devoe, David Wilcox, and the likes might be better off indie than with a major label, because they can make a good living while major label artists, whom if they don't cash in on their fame through touring IMMEDIATELY, may end up heavy in debt and their material buried in a vault.

Believe me, there are plenty of examples of JPFOLKS members who are just as good and just as mainstream as any major label artist. April Mclean, Sam's House, are but a few I have in my CD collection from here. And, there are many JPFOLKS members who are really good, but may not be in a mainstream genre, that if played in front of an audience on a mass scale like major label stuff, would do really well also.



[This message has been edited by Liszt Laughing (edited 03-07-2004).]

Hi Folks,

Looks like the troll is back. He used an AOL email address and immediately deleted it after making his post. Someday perhaps he'll find something productive to do with his life.

Brian

Ed,

You still seem awfully angry my friend. It's just a discussion. As recently as a year ago people were saying that what iTunes is doing wouldn't be possible.

On demand via a wireless device is coming. Before that's available, there are ways to achieve the same result with current technology.

One example: I plug in my iPod (or whatever device du jour) to my computer when I go to bed at night. It downloads the tracks I have requested onto my hard drive as well as any "filter" lists I want. Even with current file technology, this is no big deal. As compression and new generations of file formats are used, larger and larger numbers of songs can be downloaded in shorter and shorter amounts of time. But even with today's technology, I can have a huge number of songs, by request, loaded into a wireless machine.

AOL has on demand movies, music and media right now for the 25 (or whatever the exact number is these days) million users. It's really no big deal to do that. My laptop I am using right now is untethered. It's running on batteries and via a wireless modem. I can go to iTunes and hear, on demand, clips of any song on there. On Demand is already here. There's nothing stopping me from using an iPod like device to do the same thing.

I go to my playlist and push play. I can set up a playlist on iTunes to do that. I can download any content and play it anytime I want. I can stream it on demand any time I want. Again, that is available right now in an untethered way.

There's also ways to download large playlists in the background 24/7. Just as Windows downloads updates to itself 24/7 (even if you're on a dialup) and lets you know when it's done, people can send you playlists and files the same way to any device with a WiFi card and a hard drive.

I can already drive down my block here in Indy and pick up WiFi connections from here to the highway, which is more than a mile away. Eventually, there will be WiFi type access for everyone, anywhere you go.

I am aware of the theory that there isn't enough bandwidth to accommodate on demand via cell phones etc... At the Future of Music Conference, the folks working on these issues (and with both sets of opinions) banter this around quite a bit. So, if we assume zero improvement in technology, zero advancement of any type, then perhaps we'll be stuck with having to be within range of WiFi to get our content before we can then be free to listen in the car or on via headphones or on our home stereo or computer or wherever else. But somehow I doubt that technology will cease to advance for the first time in human history. Of course many people said we'd never fly and that airplanes, which were heavier than air, couldn't stay in the sky. Over a 100 years ago they proved those folks wrong. This is hardly that big a leap.

As for the numbers. You have to look at things like Cable subscribers as a minimum starting point for the potential numbers. Cable TV is already offering on demand programming for movies, premium channels like HBO etc, and special events. Each viewer can choose their own start time and content any time they want. You'll say that's "tethered" but watching on my TV through my stereo speakers doesn't seem tethered to me. I can already get music on demand as well, though they are just starting to play with the offerings, it's pretty cool to switch on the white stripes if I want then over to Six Feet Under then to a basketball game. It's all there on demand and on my schedule.

How long do you think it will be before I can listen to any album I want via the cable box? Not very long at all once the licensing deals are made. But the labels are dragging their feet because they see the end of the road by cooperating. By using labels as investment bankers, they get to stay in the game. It might not be the end all solution for them, but it's the only theory/idea that's being floated around to keep the labels in existence while allowing technology to move forward.

The 10 Million number is obviously an example for a popular genre. It's all based on comparable scales. If a popular pop album sells 1 million copies in a week, and a popular country album might sell only 100,000 copies and then a popular top blues album may only be selling 5000 copies and a popular klezmer album might only sell 1000 copies. The pay for on demand tracks would likely follow a similar hierarchy. If you get added to the Pop Filter List, you might make 100K dollars. For country it might be 10K dollars. For Blues it might be 500 dollars and for klezmer it might 100 dollars, just as it would be proportionally for record sales.

Right now, if you're an indie artist with a hit quality pop song, you have no options of getting that 100K payday in today's system. But in an on demand system where all that really matters is great tracks and filters will be working hard to find the best ones, hitting those types of numbers is a realistic goal if you have the goods. Payola can't survive as it does now because even if you paid to be on the filters list, that filter might not be around long if the quality is suffering. If you downloaded what the major radio networks like Clear Channel are feeding us on radio, you likely would not use their filter again. And the power of a great filter is only as strong as their talent for finding great music. How much more fair could the system be?

I guess we'll really only know who's right once it all shakes out over the next 5 years. I am privy to something that will be coming before the end of the year that is a big step towards everything I have said above and which, if I am successful, should give a great opportunity for our members who do well in our music awards program, which is OUR filter. Stay tuned for that. In the meantime, if Ed feels this model is absolutely impossible, I am curious to know what he (and others) feel WILL be happening in 5 years in the music industry? Retailers are closing down rapidly. Soon, the only real music retailers will be Wal Mart, Best Buy and other mass retailers who use music primarily as a loss leader to sell other stuff. Digital downloads face the same "tethering" problems that Ed identifies above. The download sites are not much better than Radio in that the only way they have real value is if the feature your music in some way, and so far, they don't seem to be straying much away from the same old major label artists. Are you suggesting there simply isn't any positive outlook for indie artists at all, or do you think there's another model that will emerge that will be beneficial to music fans, music creators and those in between? If so, let's hear it.

Brian

OY Brian !

Klezmer !!!

Very Good !!!

I'm doing the occasional Bar Mitzvah these days with a wonderful Klezmer band here in Chicago.

there was a great NYC band years ago called the Klezmorum.

what great music..kinda like Jewish Dixieland on Crack !

Cool !

The band here in Chicago that I gig with is the Maxwell Street Klezmer Band !

Mazel Tov...
Bob (the boychick) Young


Sorry I missed the post from we know who...what a dolt !
Must be running low on Ramen !

My question would be....

What's to stop the major labels or corporate radio (which we all know are in bed together)from buying up all the "filters" and controlling the media as they do now? We all know money talks. Most artists that are any good would rather (that's an assumption) be affilliated with a major "filter". So I'm sure most of the good material would end up on those "filters". Leaving the rest to be found in the trash can...soundclick.

The major advantage to this, as I see it, would be the expansion of music available by otherwise unknown artists. The majors wouldn't have to invest so much in promotion.
That is, if the majors decide to get into it at all. I don't know what is going on behind the scenes with them, but I'm sure they are discussing it. I'm also sure that in their discussions they are probably looking at ways to maintain controll.

Harry,

There's no question that people don't want to give up power and will try and find ways to continue control. If people representing stock holders can find investment opportunities that produce the right ROI and get the heat off of them, it's likely they'll go that route. It costs a lot of money to find artists, invest (i.e. gamble) that they will take off and pay all the cost associated with the current music industry system. If a viable alternative solution is available that lessens the risk, and allows labels to avoid those long term investments which may fail, but capitalize on a "known" successes using their marketing savvy/muscle, why wouldn't they want to go that route?

It's sort of like pro sports contracts. Lately, it's becoming more and more dangerous for teams to pay rookies huge contracts. If they don't meet their potential, they could lose an enormous investment that might be tied up for years and years. If they were able to wait and see how well the player performs in the first game or two of the season before paying them a dime, of course that would be what they would want. They can't currently do that because someone else will snap them up first. But in music, there isn't any company that can literally snap up ALL (or even a large %) of the talent out there. There may only be a handful of pro quarterbacks that can perform as well as Peyton Manning or who seem to have the future promise of his little brother who is entering the draft this year. But in music, there ARE a lot of artists that can make music as well as Madonna, Garth Brooks, Celine Dion, NSync, Outkast, The Rolling Stones etc. The music industry artificially limits the number of these artists that get the exposure to find that same type of success however. It would be like the NFL cutting itself down to 4 teams and using marketing power, payola and other nefarious means to make sure no other leagues started new teams. Then we'd know that there were 24 teams worth of pro players getting zero exposure or opportunity. The 4 remaining major labels have essentially done that. A new system that allows an unlimited number of musical "teams" helps artists. A system that allows the "owners" to invest in "players" AFTER they know they are talented and able to appeal to the masses based on merit and NOT just promise helps the "owners" improve ROI and when all is said and done, that's always their #1 concern. The bottom line. Imagine if you could decide what to pay a pro football player after they had a 200 yard rushing game, and only commit to the next game? Even better, what if you could invest in them DURING THE GAME... once you see they are on their way to a big performance? That's what Laskows model seems to be attempting. And that system truly does award merit and performance in ways that the current system simply can't do.

Brian

Everyone:

I find it head-scratchingly mind-boggling that Mr. Laskow would say to a major media outlet, as recently as this month, that his model would appeal to majors "...by giving them a way to make thousands of small investments in thousands of songs versus a few huge investments in a few artists", AT THE VERY MOMENT THAT THE ENTIRE MAJOR INDUSTRY is DE-STAFFING, LAYING-OFF, SHUTTERING the windows, FOLDING BIG-NAME LABELS like dryer-hot jeans!

Arista gone, Dreamworks gone, mergers aplenty! The beat goes on. (Hey Graham, you have my blessing to write a lyric outa that, no strings attached!).

Working with "thousands of songs" means dealing with, having signed legal relations with and obligations to, and day-to-day involvement with thousands of bands AND their managers AND publicists, WHICH REQUIRES MORE STAFF THAN THEY MIGHT HAVE HAD BEFORE THE DOWNSIZING!

So where are these major labels going to see any advantage in 'signing' "thousands of songs"? Too much freaking overhead!

There will be small-labels and indies that may be able to cherry-pick those thousands of songs, if they see a quick buck to be made, BUT then, BACK TO SQUARE ONE AS MR. LASKOW DEFINES IT:

"The small, independent labels those artists are signed to now can't afford to market them globally because their return on investment would be too small."

The fact is there are TONS of filters all over the place. Garageband has a list of its best songs, by genre, as voted on by thousands of listeners!

Every internet station at Shoutcast.com, Live365.com, VH1.com are filters. XM and Sirius channels. Genre-specific, some ranked by their listeners. There are plenty of filters for those who seek them.

Best filter in history: good word-of-mouth! And e-mail.

Aside: I sampled the first 200 on the pop/rock list at GB a few months ago and DLed the ones I liked. This took several hours on cable (mostly listening time), AND TO THIS DAY I'VE NEVER LISTENED TO THOSE SONGS AGAIN.

Which brings up the issue of human behavior.

Once I've accumulated a 'playlist' of hundreds, if not thousands of songs, from my 78s and LPs and 45s and 8-tracks and cassettes and CDs that span the years and memories of my life, that I can listen to whenever I wish, how hungry am I gonna be for fresh meat by the kilo?

The profitability of the streaming on-demand model, which pays only the merest of pittances to the artists that create the raw material that it relies on, can only be acheived, forget sustained, by the voracious enthusiasm of the young and inexperienced (read: NEW SUBS=CASHFLOW) whose lives are too short, and whose cavernous memory banks and red-hot sensory receptors are screaming for, as Johnny 5 chirped in "Short Circuit" (how apropos!), "MORE INPUT".

And old-fogey subscribers who listen to fewer than a thousand songs a month (a penny per listen times 1000 pennies equalling ten bucks. Where's yer profitability there, PressPlay, er, Napster, whatever-the-latest-VC-outfit-that-bought-you-on-the-cheap-because-you're-bargain-basement-until-you-get-into-the-black-after-how-many-years-is-it-now calls you?).

You can expert-up your 'well what do you see happening in five years' question all you want, it makes no difference this minute, today, to the currently-active independent artists whose musical interest and pursuits MAY WELL SURRENDER to the demands of real life long before then!

The power of the potential of the Internet is to REMOVE THE MIDDLEMAN, allowing the artist to expose and deliver his/her art DIRECTLY to the GLOBAL audience. Some folks are just looking for a new way to 'middleman' their way into a paycheck. You'll pay to get 'screened', pay to get 'approved', pay to get 'forwarded', pay to get 'listed'. It's called pay-for-play. Same as it ever was.

Making music and getting it onto the radar of gazillions of people who'll want to hear it over and over again don't come cheap. And unless you the artist make THAT kind of music, you'll be stuck in the coal-mine slamming your pick into the ground at A PENNY PER LISTEN UNTIL your life keels over and they carry your carcass out on a stretcher.

Better for YOU and your bank balance, YOU should define your audience, research it, cultivate it, sell it downloads at 99 cents each, or whatever price blows yer skirt up.

If you the artist are one of the neo-Socialists that seems to think that music ought to be SO CHEAP as to allow everyone all-they-can-eat so they won't steal it (hey, Messrs. Griffin and Laskow, why not FREE? Saves having all that computer tabulation/monthly check nuisance and investment!), find yer happy price-place!

Have a nice future!

------------------
EdX.iuma.com www.soundclick.com/40LOVE www.soundclick.com/EdX


[This message has been edited by ed323 (edited 03-08-2004).]

Ed,

The fact that labels are closing down is exactly why this makes even more sense. There will no be large staffs supporting 1000's of songs. Where has anyone suggested that? Please point it out. Just the opposite is actually true.

What they will do is invest 500 to 1000 (more for big genres, less for small ones) dollars in 1000's of songs. For that investment, they will get a percentage of the profits from that song. It's that simple. They watch the numbers/results from requested and played songs, and just as they do now with Soundscan, they chose those movers and shakers they predict will make more money going forward. They invest some money for a small piece of the song. If they thing something is a monster hit, they invest more and get a larger percentage. The artist/writer in turn uses that money just as any other company uses investment capital. How many indie artists would give a % of their song out for a cash advance to use for touring, recording more music etc? The answer is a lot of them. If you sign a record deal, you're giving away all your money against an advance and probably you'll never recoup a dime after that. (Ed Toth from Vertical Horizon, who had the #1 song in the entire world for an entire year with "Everything You Want" has never recouped their advance, is writing an article about it all for us.) In lieu of that, had they gotten an investment, they would have given up only a percentage of that song, had some money to help the band and kept most of the profits for themselves.

On the other hand, most indie artists would appreciate a 500 or 1000 dollar investement in a song from an album that they might sell 2000-3000 copies of in a year. If the label chose to invest more money, or put some marketing behind it (which, by the way is part of my prediction, not Laskows as far as I can tell) then the label get's their investment back times a health % and the artist gets some promotion and some real money to keep going.

93% of all singer label acts fail. If the labels used that SAME money, with no big staffing and infrastructure (i.e. they became investors primarily, with perhaps a few extra media services (again my prediction only)) odds are high they'll recoup and profit from far more than 7% of their efforts.

The system you are endorsing is already here. And no one is making a dime from it to move their career or survice from it. Find me an indie artist on iTunes that has made 1000 dollars on one song? Or even 500 dollars? For the cost of signing and working with 1 single new band from that label could invest in 500 to 1000 songs easily.

It's clear you have a vile hatred of this model. Do you also repeatedly slam every other analyst with a prediction of future technology and business models by name that you read? Or do you have some other agenda here?

It's clear that you don't really understand the model, the reality of the market right now or the technology involved based on your posts. You've argued that the technology couldn't do any of this. It can. You've argued that 1 company like TAXI shouldn't have the power to be the filter, but in reality, anyone can (and many will) offer their lists and the best lists, whoever makes them, will find the most success. The best TV Networks who pick the best content get the best ratings. This is the same thing. You can go an watch the local theater troop in your town where 50 people come out, or you can watch the Soprano's as part of your premium cable offerings. It's really the same thing. Some people will prefer the local theater performances. The masses will prefer a larger entertainment "filter" like HBO for their entertainment that night. HBO offers 24/7 entertainment, but you only watch a few hours of it per week. If a music filter offers 50 new songs a week or even a day, you may only listen to a few of them. That's fine. Those you chose to listen to will make a lot of money. That's pretty darn fair.

You've claimed that labels can't support 1000's of artists, but they won't be acting as labels of today, which shows you aren't really understanding the model that was suggested. Labels of today are no longer viable. That's why they are closing. But those large corporations still have money and an interest in making money off the properties they own and using the staff they retain to keep making money.

The model itself (as I said at the top) isn't even Laskow's idea (though you keep attacking him), but the ideas of hundreds of others on where technology and the market is taking everyone.

On Demand is already here in several formats. As file and download technologies keep improving, it will keep expanding.

Licensing is the single biggest roadblock to both the current model of iTunes AND on demand. Both are falling short of potential because of artificial roadblocks in place by desperate labels hanging on because there's no other better way for them to keep making money. Laskow offered 1 suggested solution. You haven't offered one yet.

The financial model proposed is middle of the road in terms of expectations. Could it be a lot better? Yup. But probably not. Could it be a lot worse? Yup. But probably not. On demand hits the #1 consumer criteria dead on. Convenience. It's more convenient than searching Garageband for songs. (and at most, Garageband is of course 1 filter. The fact that you searched for songs there and found nothing compelling enough to want to listen again proves the model works.. as a filter, they wouldn't last long.) If you think the current options are both the end of the technological road and the best case scenario for indie artists, then say it. If you think there's a better model that will produce more income for more artists, say that as well. Offer something positive for a change. We all "get" that you venomously hate the model and the people who suggested it. Do you have something constructive to offer?

Brian

Everybody:

Brian thinks that I'm picking on Michael Laskow, and insinuates that I have some as-yet-unrevealed agenda (Brian's unspoken translation: 'axe-to-grind') against him, solely because of the vigor and flavor I apply to my arguments against 'all-you-can-eat' music pricing.

He also requests that I 'be constructive' and think-tank the music industry's silver bullet right here, right now.

Now, I didn't know that warning artists and songwriters against the danger of accepting infinitesimally less for their creations (Brian: 'it's the future, get used to it'), so that some other group of folks can have a profitable 'model', is NOT CONSTRUCTIVE.

I also don't understand the complaint that sound copyright-holders (major record companies) aren't giving away their store, which they aren't legally obliged to do (Property Rights 101, Americans?), so that some other group of folks can have a profitable 'model', and unless they do so at the rate demanded by the petitioners, the 'model' will die;

Except in the context: 'you guys have a way of making us rich, so fork over the goods, dammit!'.

Whatever happened to 'I'll do what I want with what I own, until such time as it suits me and best serves MY interest and pocketbook to do something else with it'?

"Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" doesn't include the inalienable God-given right to have all the tuneage I want regardless of whoever owns it!

But that's what 'all-you-can-eat' music services are ALL about. They cannot survive in the long run without music creators giving them what they want dirt-cheap, robber-baron-embarassingly less than market-value.

I have mentioned Mr. Laskow by name because his was the name attached to the interview, posted here by Brian. I have also mentioned Mr. Griffin, who Mr. Laskow refers to in his remarks.

I have consistently railed against ANY pricing that asks/promises/cajoles/arm-twists songwriters and artists into taking less that what is the current going rate in exchange for dubious rewards.

That's 'not constructive' around here.

I offer these excerpts from my writings elsewhere:

"COMPARABLE PRICE. A place where I eat regularly has a CD jukebox, 3 plays a buck, 7 for 2, foldin' money only. Folks routinely plug a couple of bucks in, several times a night, for the right to hear each song, of their choosing, precisely ONCE. In a public place where the only perceivable additional benefit to the purchaser is forcing everybody else to endure their dubious taste. Or not. Between 29 and 33 cents per. Some math: .33 X 3 = .99. Look familiar?

COMPARABLE PRICE. That place where I eat, a glass of Pepsi costs $1.25. And though the friendly ladies keep it full for me, when it's gone... a 20-ouncer out of the walk-in at the AM/PM is .99.

What does a single coffin nail go for these days? Folks may grouse, but I see 'em pony up $5.50 for a pack (that's 27 cents per death-dagger) out of the eatery's machine nearly every time I'm there. No repeatability. No resale value. Smoked an' gone. Five bucks fifty.

99 cents a song download is puffin' money. If an artist has a tune folks want, make it $2.79 for a 2-tune minimum (see "already accepted entertainment-purchase practice"). So that the artist can get some traction. Or 4 for $5 (a 'mini-album'?). So that 'cherry-picking' an album comes at a premium (ever tried 'cherry-picking' at a movie theater? "But I only want to see the love scene, the pie-in-the-groin gag and the decapitation!"). So that there's a big enough transaction (assuming that this was the extent of this customer's unique purchase) to make it practical.

99 cents is what the guy sitting next to me drinking a 2 dollar 75 cent 12-ounce longneck is paying some wireless outfit to hear that cheesy 15-second beep-blippet of "Livin' On A Prayer" when his Nokia rings."


AND:

"fear the 26% that won't ever pay, and the 20% that will join them if they feel 'aggrieved' that the music-creating portion of the populace won't slit their own throats to let them have all they want NOW or they'll just steal it, because that number will only grow as Gen Y lamentably procreates and inculcates their 'new economic model' world-view to the next gen of 'consumers' (NOT customers).

(ed. note: this next is directed at the argument that music has become a mere commodity, to be bulk- and single-priced lower.)

Anybody priced a Kia or a Hyundai or any other brand of auto produced by the commodity-production kings of the world? It ain't goin' down, I tell ya!

You price-droppers don't create music yourselves, do you? You're NOT music publishers trying to get songs cut and copies sold so YOU can keep a burrito in the belly and a quarter-tank in the Volaré of the songwriter (who just might be YOU!), are you? And you utopians and idealists seem to ignore that non-performing songwriters (who aren't with a major or indie and so will never get surveyable radio) LOSE THEIR ONLY SOURCE of income EVERY TIME someone takes a soundcopy without paying, and when 'consumers' (NOT customers) bitch and moan that evil sound-copyright-holders (MOST of whom are non-performing songwriters) charge too much and need to make it easier for them to get all they want from every OTHER artist.

Why is it that no-one complains that jukebox prices are too high while they're drinking a 3-dollar beer and eating a 8-dollar burger and driving to the next 10-dollar cover charge in a 300-dollar a month Korean car?

(ed. note: BUT, folks sitting at a computer complain that 99-cents is JUST TOO MUCH to buy a song they know they ALREADY LIKE and want to hear again and again! Go figure!)

Invited a plumber to your bathroom lately? He didn't work for an 'attaboy', a tuna sandwich, and a promise that you'd show up at his next sink-trap replacement, did he? And he wasn't charging less than his last visit."

(ed. note: This last paragraph was in response to the assertion that musicians should be satisfied with the joy of making music, gratefully take whatever they're offered for their work, and hope to get some turnout for their next gig.)


NOW, if all of the above adds up to character assassination and mean-spiritedness, best cash the reality check before you forget what it is.

DO I use derision in my arguments against this laughable, perhaps even destructive, pricing proposition and its proponents?

Yeah.

Mr. Laskow: "I didn't come up with the entire model. I've just amalgamated some other peoples ideas, and put a bow on it."

So I directed my diatribe at the name I saw here. End of story.

I said in a post above that if artists want to buy into that 'model', fine. Just don't come crying when it doesn't pay off like someones said it would.

Have a nice future!




------------------
EdX.iuma.com www.soundclick.com/40LOVE www.soundclick.com/EdX


[This message has been edited by ed323 (edited 03-08-2004).]

Damn Ed,

After all that I didn't expect to see your stuff on soundclick for free.

And such great points.

Personally, a penny a cut seems kinda puny to me.

A penny a cut may well seem kinda puny to writers and artists, but could add up quickly for the ones who "build" the model.

exactly! But we don't 'get' the 'model'.

[This message has been edited by ed323 (edited 03-08-2004).]

Ed,

Again, you went on and on and missed the entire point. Using the jukebox example you gave isn't comparing apples to apples. The comparison would be if the 200 people in the venue when the jukebox played that song each paid a penny. That would be MORE money than was paid by the person chosing the song. The model of a penny per play produces significantly MORE money than Radio Airplay, or Jukebox Play or anything else. Do you think that when your song plays on a major radio station for 2 million people that you get 2 millions pennies? Nope. But in the new model you would. It's WAY more money than you ever dreamed of. But from a blanket licensings sense, it still works financially for the provider based on a subscription fee.

If your concern now is how much can be made compared to what is currently available, the model being suggested pays dramatically more money than similar use/airplay or album sales does today. But you'll never get it because apparently you don't want to.

So once again, how do you suggest an indie artist will ever be able to support themselves? Lets say the model above doesn't happen. What's your solution? Same old/same old status quo? I have a lot of friends who are 100% full time artists. Many sell far above the average numbers in CD's and are getting booked 4-5 times per week. They are still struggling to get by. The current model sucks. The iTunes model sucks even worse. Only the artists that get mega promotion will ever be found on a scale large enough to produce any income that could help an artist earn a living wage. Venues are paying less and less for live music. The PRO's are coming under more and more fire for not paying for airplay, or internet radio airplay. (remember the raging argument from earlier this year?). So nothing is currently working. Digital download sites based on a per song sales model are going absolutely nowhere. It's not convenient enough and even the largest services still have huge chunks of popular music missing from the offerings. If we never go to an on demand model, then it will never get better? Is that what you're hoping for?

Brian

I'd LOVE to see Mike Laskow's model come to fruition and both JPF and Taxi become major filters in the music industry.

What can I do to help.

Mike


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Mike Dunbar Music

Personally, I'd much prefer a small percentage of something than 100% of a hope & a prayer.
I think the model is better, in the overall picture that the present situation for most artists.
To me, it all relates to volume, volume, volume.
If I can get 1000 plays were I now get 10 plays I can afford to take less per play and still gross the same, or more, without adding to my costs. That would result in a better net profit allowing me to put more money back into the effort and push for exposure and that should translate to even higher numbers.

I certainly think the overall model is worth looking into a bit deeper but will be one of those giving it a shot & I don't think I'll be giving away the farm either. Again, it harkens back to the 1% of something is better than 100% of nothing.

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DakLander

Dak,

I agree with you. The ol'paradigm is shifting. The marketing of recorded music will be completely different within the next few years.

My earlier, somewhat "tongue-in-cheek," comment was meant to illustrate this:

We belong to the world's largest internet networking group of musicians. Most, nearly all, of our members have been disenfranchised with the business conducted by the major labels. Now, with these major labels in trouble, one of our allies is in a good enough position to be expounding his theories for the future of the music business to Newsweek, one of our nation's three largest news magazines.

My Mama didn't raise any fools.

I'm going to wish Mike Laskow's model well. If I were to find any problems with it, I would offer my findings, along with any theoretical solutions, in a spirit of teamwork and friendship. I want JPF and our allies to become powerful forces in the music business. It is people, not models, who do business with each other, and even if I never do any business with Taxi, having them become a major music filter can only help Just Plain Folks which can, in turn, benefit our entire membership.

All the Best,
Mike

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Mike Dunbar Music

Mike:

Everything you've said bodes well for the writers, arrangers, pruducers and most aspiring artists. But you seem to have left the listening "public" out of your rationale.

Like it or not, the general public loves Superstars about as much as wannabe artists hate them. Will Mike's "model' or any other model with filters or whatever produce the Superstars of the future? If not, we at JPF may be happy with the outcome, but I doubt the general public will be.

P.E. Knudsen

This is an intriguing idea, but I dont see it happening. It overlooks a couple of vital factors: entrepreneurship and competition. Those are the factors that drive American business. They are doing it poorly right now because the technological paradigm is changing. But they will adjust.

One paradigm is not changing: people-- particularly young music fans--rely on record companies to determine what they listen to. This is borne out by the facts. By FAR, the most common illegal downloads are the big hit records from the major labels. Kids are not sophisticalted enough, nor energetic enough to plow through 1000's of titles to find something they like. They are perfectly content to like what they hear on the radio. They like what their friends like. They WANT labels to provide them easy access to an attractive product. It is the same with every other thing we buy--from cars to shampoo. We do not want to "test" 1000 brands of shampoo before buying. We are content to let the manufacturers court US.

I fear that the Laskow model caters mostly to people who feel disenfranchised by the current model. Unfortuneatley, we are a minority. The great unwashed horde is perfectly content with their musical choices and the way it is delivered. I don't think the Laskow model addresses that fact.

Knute,

They'll get over it.

Mike

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Mike Dunbar Music

Now there's a simplistic answer if I ever saw one. Fortunately, it is the general public who will determine what they will and will not choose to get over, not you, not me, not even Michael Laskow.

American kids want heros and Idols, and the entertainment industry "creates" them as needed to meet the demand. That system won't be changing any time soon.

I find it almost amusing that many writers and artists want unencumbered free enterprise to flourish in everything but the music industry where they somehow need a new model to follow that will lead into a self-serving commune. I, personally, would hate to see that happen...

P.E. Knudsen

Truman,

The big record companies are changing. Warner Brothers just fired a whole slew of employees. Radio is very slowly losing it's stranglehold on the buying public to TV and movies (think of O Brother Where Art Thou as one example, MTV and CMT as a few others.) I can't see why that won't continue.

My 14 year old daughter and her friends listen to hip hop, country, rock, and Christian. They spin the dials looking for their favorite songs going from "filter" to "filter" in a way I never did. They also cruise the net masterfully.

I think this change is reminiscent of the cable tv revolution. Everyone thought that would be the end of the networks and the death of quality programming and production. Now we get the Sopranos, Band of Brothers, Taken, not to mention specialty channels like gardening, golf, Animal Planet, and Court TV. There are more, rather than fewer, quality productions.

The same with the home video revolution. It was going to be the end of the Hollywood Movie. Tell that to J.R.R. Tolkein's inheritors or Mel Gibson.

I just don't see things staying the way they are. Mike Laskow presents a model that is thoughtful and well researched. Better thinkers than I can come up with all kinds of reasons why it won't work, but lesser thinkers than I have changed the world in the face of greater "naysaying." Mr. Laskow, a friend of JPF, has proven himself to be a doer, and a successful one at that. Here's to his continued success.

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Mike Dunbar Music

Knute,

Who created the idols before tv? radio? transportation? printing?

If things are changed the way they were by those develompents, the general public will get over it. Guaranteed. If they don't, you can have my guitar.

Maybe the kids will even see through some of the blatant "selling" of these "idols." That would be a good thing.

Mike



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Mike Dunbar Music

I think Trueman has got about the best handle on this lot.
Graham

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http://www.soundclick.com/bands/2/grahamhendersonmusic.htm

Dak,

I just don't understand why you and others think this model would produce LESS money or is a matter of getting paid LESS? It boggles my mind. Right now, if you get airplay on radio (or anywhere else) you don't get a penny per play per listener. You get a mega fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a penny per listen. Remember, we AREN'T talking about people BUYING tracks for a penny. We're ONLY talking about people LISTENING to tracks for a penny. Is this why folks aren't getting the model?

Ironically, this model doesn't replace (or even try to) the other models. People could still (and likely will still be offered) actual ownership of tracks, CD's or DVDs or any other format). Of course, you'd have to wonder WHY anyone would actually BUY a track or CD when they can access ANY song ever made for less than the cost of 1 CD per month on a subscription service. But for those who want to "own" songs, they'll still be available. All the hand wringing is for nought. But once an on demand system is fleshed out, "ownership" will seem far less important or useful. People still buy 8 track tapes at flea markets. Folks still hang on to older technology far after it is relevant. I am sure that CD type sales will always be around on some level. But people are suckers for instant gratification and convenience.. this model works towards offering that.

Knute, you're 100% right. Kids want to be fed "superstars." A filter system does that for them now. It's called Record Labels and Mass Media. The labels are shutting down, taking their method of filtration with them. This new model replaces the old model. Sure, some (maybe all that are left) of the labels will continue to offer THEIR filters, but it will be hard for a single label with a limited number of artists/writers to compete with a filter choosing from ALL recorded music. Some may still succeed. More power to them. Anyone who can prove that they filter the best music will find great success. Those who attempt any of the old school artificial tactics of choosing "less than the best" music, but using brute marketing force to cram it down everyone's throat will likely loose to those companies who can choose "the actual best" music and THEN use their brute marketing force to cram it down people's throats. That's the beauty of the system.

And thanks to Mike. I really don't understand why anyone would aggressively trash an idea that brings fairness and more wealth to people based on their talent, rather than their mass media company affiliation/indentured servitude contract owners called "label" as we have today. Even the labels seem to hate themselves and their own model for doing business. Why would anyone fight to keep it the way it is if they truly understand how bad it is and how that's not how it really has to be?

Brian

Brian:

I see what you're saying. In fact, I saw it the first time you said it, but just as you and Michael and many others want to see the model change, there are those, some of whom are very rich and powerful, who will do whatever they can to maintain the status quo.

I'm no expert on filters, though I did draft a patent application for applying filters to cigarettes for Philip Morris years ago, but I do know this - there will never be a replacement model for a luxury office with gold and platinum records hanging on every inch of wall space and a drop dead receptionist smiling just inside the door. Call it a shrine to success in the music busines or whatever, I love walking inside just to visit.

That's what I would miss most with the filtered musical freedom of choice coming from all directions model...

P.E. Knudsen

[This message has been edited by Knute (edited 03-09-2004).]

Concerning prices: Let's look at it from the consumer point of view.

They think CDs are expensive (they should come to Europe), yet they willingly buy ringtones for $1.49 (a cheap Bontempi version of a chorus). Concert tickets are also shooting through the roof. No sign of the price coming down there.

This 99 cent thing per download is a toe in the water to see how people react. I think they could charge more, maybe throwing in the lyrics or bundling it with a ringtone to make it worth more for the consumer.

M

writie, ringtones and concert tickets are completely different markets, with different factors that effect purchase decisions. You might as well say: "well, people still pay $20K for cars, so why shouldn't they pay $20 for CDs?"

Mike:

I would not think of disparaging Laskow. In fact, I tip my hat. However, I do not agree that his model will be accepted, for the reasons I mentioned. I believe, in this country, that entreprenurship will ace a nice, tight, fair plan every time. That is not necessarily a good thing. Laskow's model MAY be a good thing, but that does not insure that it will happen. I don't think his model addresses the impact of the entrpreneur.

His plan purports to be a win/win for everyone. But, what is good for the artist is not necessarily the best thing for the label and vice-versa. Just like a contract that is great for the major league ballplayers is not necessarily a great deal for the club owners. There is a huge chunk of vested interest separating the two parties, and I don't see the Laskow plan addressing that, except with a theory that there will be more money to go around.

As to the companies changing--sure, they must, to an extent. But I still doubt that the record companies will give up what they are doing on the talent and production side of the ball. I DO think they will do a lot of changing on the delivery side of the ball.

This plan of Mr. Laskows could work. That is provided the major labels want to get involved. The key words there are want to.
If they don't, I don't see it working.

I've spent many hours surfing the net and listening to some of the worst garbage ever recorded. I finally quit doing it. If a song makes it to radio it has to be good. Radio stations don't want to be known for playing garbage. After all, they're in it for the money too. More listeners equals more advertising dollars.

The major labels, whether you like it or not, search out the best songs and create the best productions. They also get the most airplay which in turn leads to CD sales.

They also controll all the great music from the past. If they decide not to play ball, and from a business point of view they'd be better off not to, it'll be just as it is now. A whole bunch of wanna be's wanting to be.

The cream always rises to the top. If you want it bad enough, you can get it. Maybe all those that can't seem to find their success should step back at look at the stuff they're creating. Maybe the change needs to be closer to home instead of the market place.

I'm not saying the current system is the best, but in the end, the cream is still gonna rise to the top. If Laskows model takes off, then the "filters" will have to do as radio stations do now. That, I believe, is where the problem will compound itself.