Big labels are f*cked, and DRM is dead - Peter Jenner

[Bob Olhsson]

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/11/03/peter_jenner/ (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/11/03/peter_jenner/page3.html)

Lets kick it off!

Jenner clearly "gets it"

Lots to talk about here...

[oudplayer]

In the future, he also suggests, artists, co-ops and managers will raise their own investment on behalf of artists - and pick and choose their marketing teams.
This could be interesting. We tried something similar in San Francisco - a co-op type affair, except that its extent didn't go towards funding whole recording projects. However, it did suddenly allow a distrbuted, convincing anonymous (3rd party) presence for a bunch of obscure artists who otherwise wouldn't have seen their cds so widely distributed.

A label co-op attached to a good studio or two would also be interesting... perhaps it could function like a non-profit corporation, thus with more favorable tax structures, and the engineers could get paid salary directly from the co-op.

Just throwing out straws here...

[malice]

I did two project last year that were financed by managers, including cd production fees and marketing team.

One did good, the other had a lot of difficulties getting enough airplay.

But both project were coming from a very smal territory (Belgium) so in a way, their idea was to use this tactic to get licenses with bigger companies in other territories.

Still I must reckon that managers and bands are trying hard to get rid of big companies.

Majors are nothing more than banckers nowadays. They license as many projects as they can, puting as minimal amount of money as they can and just wait for the one band that'll start buzzing.

The reality is that I more and more wonder about the use of making Cds anymore. I feel like a band is better off with putting their bio and decent demo online, with a bit of video if they can afford it, and start giging as much as they can.

Then if the buzz starts: record companies will start to bid on them.

malice

[Bob Olhsson]

In practice the only artists that ever made money were the ones who did their homework and let the labels come to them. In a sense this isn't that big a change.

There was one real good thing about label financing which was that you didn't need to pay the label back if you never sold anything and parted company. A huge number of artists only became successful on their second major label deal. When management runs things, everything is effectively cross-collateralized.

[Bob Olhsson]

I don't think things have really changed that much for artists. The only artists that ever made money were almost always the ones who let the labels come to them. Now that the fat has been cut and people have to make money off fans rather than the dreams of investors things should work out ok.

The loss of investment from labels does give managers a lot more power and that can be abused.

[malice]

The loss of investment from labels does give managers a lot more power and that can be abused.

True, I've seen managers that are doing just about everything from producer to publisher to personal manager for that matter.

This is not going in the right direction either.

malice

[GilesReaves]

This could be interesting. We tried something similar in San Francisco - a co-op type affair, except that its extent didn't go towards funding whole recording projects. However, it did suddenly allow a distrbuted, convincing anonymous (3rd party) presence for a bunch of obscure artists who otherwise wouldn't have seen their cds so widely distributed.

A label co-op attached to a good studio or two would also be interesting... perhaps it could function like a non-profit corporation, thus with more favorable tax structures, and the engineers could get paid salary directly from the co-op.

Just throwing out straws here...

That's the model I've been investigating for the last few years. Right now I'm out in Utah from Nashville (Hi Bob!) and I've started the Utah Recording Collective. We are a group of 4 studios/engineers/producers/musicians who are trying to create a whole greater than the sum of our parts. Eventually we would love to start to be more like a record company, but I don't even like to use those words because of the negative connotations. Still looking for the right "title" for everything/everyone. But the COOP model is a good place to start, IMHO