JPF Home Page Forums General Messages General Message Forum MySpace talking to independents Posted by: "Derek at CD Baby"

Welcome to Just Plain Notes
Just Plain Notes: Volume 1.169, April 7th, 2008
Written by Brian Austin Whitney
Visit the Website: www.jpfolks.com
Mail CD's @ 5327 Kit Drive, Indianapolis, IN 46237
Copyright 2008 Just Plain Folks Productions.
Just Plain Folks Member Population: 46,519
***************************************************
Just Plain Quotes:

"Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep." -Scott Adams

"There's no business like show business, but there are several businesses like accounting." -David Letterman

"We believe that an artist, in order to be true to himself and his work, must be a free man." -John F. Kennedy

"Freedom is a relative thing. It's often determined more by what you allow yourself to do than what others allow." -Brian Austin Whitney

My Take:

As I was putting this newsletter together, a big announcement was made about MySpace Music signing a deal with 3 of the 4 major labels (with indications the 4th, EMI may follow suit soon). I’ve heard all sorts of excitement about this deal from our members. But I suggest using a great deal of caution and some healthy skepticism as to whether this is really a good turn of events or not.

The jist of the deal is that MySpace can’t afford to pay the licensing on major label content so they’re going around that problem by giving part ownership to each of the labels of a spin off from MySpace. This new stand alone MySpace Music will offer free streaming music of the entire major label catalogs in exchange for sharing the income from advertising and subscription fees from a download program (which hasn’t yet been defined). In addition, it is offering the labels participation in merchandise sales and ticket sales and any other commercial exploitation of their catalog. This is very attractive to the labels of course because right now they only make money from the recorded music. But I don’t view this as a good thing for artists, especially those who make up 99.9% of the artists already on MySpace Music.

MySpace Music claims they have 5 million major label, independent and unsigned artist pages on their site. (By the way, I am strongly suspicious of that number, but I’ll roll with it for now). I visited all 4 major label sites and counted up the rosters listed for each. The number was under 1000 total. If their numbers are correct, that means that the label artists make up less than 1/50th of 1% of the pages. The other 4,999,000 are from the indie and grassroots music communities. So while these negotiations are happening, I have to ask the obvious question: Who is watching out for and representing all of us (our grassroots/indie community), the 99.995% who collectively make MySpace Music what it is? As far as I am aware, the answer is no one. That should be a concern to any non-label artist on that site.

If the majors are going to be co-owners of the new site, what would make any of us believe that they’d treat the artists/writers not on their labels fairly? After all, these are the same people who have thumbed their nose at fair competition with schemes such as radio payola for many years. The major label system has regularly shut indies/grassroots artists out of significant radio play, off most shelves at record stores, out of corporate controlled music venues and relegated to the commercial music equivalent of the “back of the bus.” These are going to be the new owners/gatekeepers for MySpace Music? Really?

Now, perhaps utopia will prevail and the new company will find a fair and transparent way to compensate all 5 million artists for the traffic they bring to the site to increase ad revenue. Perhaps they’ll pay our folks the same rate per play that they’ll pay the majors. Miracles sometimes do happen. But without any representation behind the scenes, that’s a pretty big leap of faith to make. It's been stated that the major labels will have representatives on the board of the new company. Maybe we can hope for some board representation for the indie/grassroots community as well. But none has been offered so far. In the meantime, a site that was populated and made popular by the folks from the grassroots/indie community first is now being assimilated by the “Borg-Like” corporate major label system. Once again, the little guy helps blaze the trail and the big guy swoops in and gets the money and benefit.

This deal isn’t happening in a vacuum. For the last 10 years the indie and grassroots music community has found a way to survive and thrive outside the label system. Expect those stodgy old labels to swoop in on every other good idea and approach used by all of us. We’ve collectively led the way and now the modern day carpet baggers are coming. This week I heard about a major label head who thought he’d come up with an original, earth shaking idea that was going to change the entire music industry as we know it. His idea? He wants to launch an “all digital” label that will release music directly to the web for download only. Somebody hasn’t apparently told him that the idea was more than 10 years old and has been happening all over the web in the indie community and by countless start up companies for years.

Here’s a link to our message board where we’re discussing this and where you can find multiple links with more information about this new deal.
http://www.jpfolks.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/ubb/showflat/Number/604077/page/1#Post604077

Freedom is a relative thing. It's often determined more by what you allow yourself to do than what others allow. Are we going to collectively roll over once again and give our freedom back to the new boss who is frighteningly the same as the old boss?

Learn, Succeed, Thrive. We're All In This Together!
***************************************************
Excerpt from today's newsletter
Copyright 2008 Just Plain Folks Productions