NY Times article

[AGREENBA <AGREENBA...>]

In case you missed this:
Very well written article that spells out the trouble we're all in...


The Many Futures of Music, Maybe One of Them Real

January 10, 2002 

By JON PARELES

WASHINGTON, Jan. 9 - These are some of the possible futures
of music: 

a) Everything ever recorded will be available on demand via
the Internet, through a high-speed wireless connection to
your wristwatch. 

b) No one will be willing to pay for any of that music,
leaving songwriters destitute and bands trying to make a
living from touring and selling T-shirts. 

c) A handful of multinational corporations will control
virtually all recorded music, limiting public access to it
while ruthlessly exploiting musicians. 

d) Musicians will reach listeners around the world
instantaneously, with no need for intermediaries, so fans
can support their favorite performers directly. 

Those forecasts and others were in the air at the second
annual Future of Music Policy Summit, held Monday and today
in Gaston Hall at Georgetown University. Musicians, members
of Congress, recording-company executives, Internet
entrepreneurs, copyright lawyers, union representatives and
computer experts gathered to wrangle over what boiled down
to a basic question: How will musicians make a living in
the Internet age, preferably without a day job? 

The conference was presented by the Future of Music
Coalition, which has sought to represent musicians and
listeners while legislation and technology reshape the
music business. The coalition, which includes a full-time
lobbyist, has taken up both technological visions and the
sometimes numbing but financially crucial technicalities of
contracts, licensing and royalties. 

Representative John Conyers Jr. of Michigan, the senior
Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, spoke to the
meeting on Tuesday morning. "Technology is forcing the
record labels and the artists and the writers and the
composers to come together," he said. "The Internet says to
the industry that you folks are yesterday's news, you're
following outdated models, your business strategies don't
work anymore, and your profit motive is showing rather
vulgarly." 

Last year was a time of disarray and repositioning in the
music business. "We have to rethink our business, and it
may not be the record business anymore," said Miles
Copeland, who owns Ark 21 Records. Soundscan, which
tabulates retail sales, says the number of albums sold in
2001 dropped 2.8 percent from sales in 2000, the first
decline since Soundscan began in 1991. 

A panel of recording-company executives at the conference
depicted a beleaguered business in which a major-label
album needs to sell at least half a million copies to break
even and only 10 percent of albums ever recoup their
investment. Marketing and promotion costs are high: good
placement in retail stores can cost up to $250,000, and
promoting a single Top 10 hit to radio stations can cost
millions. 

Representative Conyers said he hoped to hold Judiciary
Committee hearings this year on what he has called payola:
promotional payments to radio stations, often channeled
through independent consultants. He also denounced the
consolidation of the media business, saying it pressured
musicians into signing unfair contracts. 

Five multinational companies now dominate the record
business. And since the Telecommunications Act of 1996
removed limits on how many radio stations a single company
could own, two companies, Clear Channel Communications and
Infinity Broadcasting Corporation, a subsidiary of Viacom,
have come to control the leading stations in most major
markets. "The music business is getting more and more and
more concentrated," Mr. Conyers said, "which makes it in
the end, and not so far away, harder to get into the
business and start up." 

Musicians and listeners have been looking to the Internet
as a way to exchange music without corporate bottlenecks.
The music business has been shaken up by unlicensed file-
sharing services: first Napster, which is dormant, and more
recently Kazaa, Audiogalaxy, Music City's Morpheus,
Grokster and others. 

"If you don't offer it on the Internet, people are going to
take it for free," said Cary Sherman, the general counsel
of the recording-industry association. The free
file-sharing services do not pay royalties. Late in 2001
the major labels introduced their alternatives. Two
competing paid, licensed music-subscription services have
begun: MusicNet, with music from AOL Time Warner, BMG and
EMI; and Pressplay, with music from Sony and Universal.
Both limit the number of songs that can be received and
what the listener can do with them. 

But the major labels have not licensed their full catalogs
to other outlets. Mark Cuban, the founder of the Web site
Broadcast.com and the owner of the Dallas Mavericks
basketball team, said: "The people who had the keys to the
mall decided to burn it down rather than try to make money
from it. The premium wasn't on making money, the premium
was on control." 

Record retailers who contacted the major labels for
licenses have been offered only the chance to carry
Musicnet or Pressplay rather than designing their own
sites, said Pam Horovitz, the president of the National
Association of Retail Merchants, which represents record
stores. She said that retailers' credibility depended on
being able to inform customers objectively about albums
rather than simply carrying the labels' own promotions. 

Konrad Hilbers, the chief executive of Napster (which is
now in partnership with BMG), said he still hoped to
license major-label music for a revived, paid version of
Napster. But he warned that if the labels continued to hold
back, he would seek government action to spur competition.
Representative Rick Boucher, Democrat of Virginia, spoke at
the conference about his Music Online Competition Act,
which would require companies to license their music to all
comers on equal terms. But that bill faces an uphill
battle. 

At the conference, Kevin Murray, a Democratic California
state senator, announced that he was introducing a bill
that would make musicians free agents after seven years. In
California, personal-service contracts are limited to seven
years except for recording contracts. Mr. Murray wants to
remove that exception, comparing it to indentured
servitude. 

Recording contracts usually call for a specified number of
albums rather than a length of time. The Recording Industry
Association of America, the trade group, released a
statement opposing the change, saying, "No one can compel
an artist to record," and adding that the losses from
musicians who did not fulfill their commitments would make
it difficult to invest in new talent. To prevent contracts
from being signed in jurisdictions outside California, Mr.
Conyers said he wanted to introduce a federal version of
Senator Murray's bill. 

While it grappled with such pragmatic issues, the
conference also featured more utopian notions. Grass- roots
entrepreneurs like Ian MacKaye, the leader of the band
Fugazi and the owner of Dischord Records, said that through
simple hard work and without written contracts for the
bands on his label, he had been making a good living in the
music business and even providing health care to his
employees. Derek Sivers of CD Baby, a company that sells
independent CD's from about 14,000 groups, said he had
recently passed $1 million in payments to musicians. 

Sandy Pearlman, a lyricist for Blue Oyster Cult who is the
vice president for media development of Multicast
Technology, envisioned having all recorded music available
on demand through wireless connections. He called
unlicensed file-sharing a disaster but suggested that an
"invisible tax" on Internet connections, paid through
service providers, could be channeled to musicians and
copyright owners. 

"It really is a pretty trivial accounting problem," he
said. "But decisions would have to be made at the highest
levels to stop fighting shadows and deal with the hand
we've been dealt." 

Eben Moglen, a professor of law at Columbia University and
the general counsel of the Free Software Foundation,
supported a similar accounting mechanism but in voluntary
form. He urged the conference to think back to "music
before Edison," before it became a commodity in the form of
recordings. "Everything that can be shared will be shared,"
he said. "But people make music because they love it, and
they'll pay for it because they love it."

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/01/10/arts/music/10CONF.html?ex=1011762588&ei=1&en

=a4dbb799203b9c3e



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Copyright 2001 The New York Times Company

> --- Begin Message ---
> This article is from yesterday's Times. 
> For those of you interested in this subject, I recommend visiting the Future 
> of Music Coalition (I know, sounds silly) web site. Pablo
>
> The Many Futures of Music, Maybe One of Them Real
>
> January 10, 2002 
>
> By JON PARELES
>
>
>  
>
> WASHINGTON, Jan. 9 - These are some of the possible futures
> of music: 
>
> a) Everything ever recorded will be available on demand via
> the Internet, through a high-speed wireless connection to
> your wristwatch. 
>
> b) No one will be willing to pay for any of that music,
> leaving songwriters destitute and bands trying to make a
> living from touring and selling T-shirts. 
>
> c) A handful of multinational corporations will control
> virtually all recorded music, limiting public access to it
> while ruthlessly exploiting musicians. 
>
> d) Musicians will reach listeners around the world
> instantaneously, with no need for intermediaries, so fans
> can support their favorite performers directly. 
>
> Those forecasts and others were in the air at the second
> annual Future of Music Policy Summit, held Monday and today
> in Gaston Hall at Georgetown University. Musicians, members
> of Congress, recording-company executives, Internet
> entrepreneurs, copyright lawyers, union representatives and
> computer experts gathered to wrangle over what boiled down
> to a basic question: How will musicians make a living in
> the Internet age, preferably without a day job? 
>
> The conference was presented by the Future of Music
> Coalition, which has sought to represent musicians and
> listeners while legislation and technology reshape the
> music business. The coalition, which includes a full-time
> lobbyist, has taken up both technological visions and the
> sometimes numbing but financially crucial technicalities of
> contracts, licensing and royalties. 
>
> Representative John Conyers Jr. of Michigan, the senior
> Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, spoke to the
> meeting on Tuesday morning. "Technology is forcing the
> record labels and the artists and the writers and the
> composers to come together," he said. "The Internet says to
> the industry that you folks are yesterday's news, you're
> following outdated models, your business strategies don't
> work anymore, and your profit motive is showing rather
> vulgarly." 
>
> Last year was a time of disarray and repositioning in the
> music business. "We have to rethink our business, and it
> may not be the record business anymore," said Miles
> Copeland, who owns Ark 21 Records. Soundscan, which
> tabulates retail sales, says the number of albums sold in
> 2001 dropped 2.8 percent from sales in 2000, the first
> decline since Soundscan began in 1991. 
>
> A panel of recording-company executives at the conference
> depicted a beleaguered business in which a major-label
> album needs to sell at least half a million copies to break
> even and only 10 percent of albums ever recoup their
> investment. Marketing and promotion costs are high: good
> placement in retail stores can cost up to $250,000, and
> promoting a single Top 10 hit to radio stations can cost
> millions. 
>
> Representative Conyers said he hoped to hold Judiciary
> Committee hearings this year on what he has called payola:
> promotional payments to radio stations, often channeled
> through independent consultants. He also denounced the
> consolidation of the media business, saying it pressured
> musicians into signing unfair contracts. 
>
> Five multinational companies now dominate the record
> business. And since the Telecommunications Act of 1996
> removed limits on how many radio stations a single company
> could own, two companies, Clear Channel Communications and
> Infinity Broadcasting Corporation, a subsidiary of Viacom,
> have come to control the leading stations in most major
> markets. "The music business is getting more and more and
> more concentrated," Mr. Conyers said, "which makes it in
> the end, and not so far away, harder to get into the
> business and start up." 
>
> Musicians and listeners have been looking to the Internet
> as a way to exchange music without corporate bottlenecks.
> The music business has been shaken up by unlicensed file-
> sharing services: first Napster, which is dormant, and more
> recently Kazaa, Audiogalaxy, Music City's Morpheus,
> Grokster and others. 
>
> "If you don't offer it on the Internet, people are going to
> take it for free," said Cary Sherman, the general counsel
> of the recording-industry association. The free
> file-sharing services do not pay royalties. Late in 2001
> the major labels introduced their alternatives. Two
> competing paid, licensed music-subscription services have
> begun: MusicNet, with music from AOL Time Warner, BMG and
> EMI; and Pressplay, with music from Sony and Universal.
> Both limit the number of songs that can be received and
> what the listener can do with them. 
>
> But the major labels have not licensed their full catalogs
> to other outlets. Mark Cuban, the founder of the Web site
> Broadcast.com and the owner of the Dallas Mavericks
> basketball team, said: "The people who had the keys to the
> mall decided to burn it down rather than try to make money
> from it. The premium wasn't on making money, the premium
> was on control." 
>
> Record retailers who contacted the major labels for
> licenses have been offered only the chance to carry
> Musicnet or Pressplay rather than designing their own
> sites, said Pam Horovitz, the president of the National
> Association of Retail Merchants, which represents record
> stores. She said that retailers' credibility depended on
> being able to inform customers objectively about albums
> rather than simply carrying the labels' own promotions. 
>
> Konrad Hilbers, the chief executive of Napster (which is
> now in partnership with BMG), said he still hoped to
> license major-label music for a revived, paid version of
> Napster. But he warned that if the labels continued to hold
> back, he would seek government action to spur competition.
> Representative Rick Boucher, Democrat of Virginia, spoke at
> the conference about his Music Online Competition Act,
> which would require companies to license their music to all
> comers on equal terms. But that bill faces an uphill
> battle. 
>
> At the conference, Kevin Murray, a Democratic California
> state senator, announced that he was introducing a bill
> that would make musicians free agents after seven years. In
> California, personal-service contracts are limited to seven
> years except for recording contracts. Mr. Murray wants to
> remove that exception, comparing it to indentured
> servitude. 
>
> Recording contracts usually call for a specified number of
> albums rather than a length of time. The Recording Industry
> Association of America, the trade group, released a
> statement opposing the change, saying, "No one can compel
> an artist to record," and adding that the losses from
> musicians who did not fulfill their commitments would make
> it difficult to invest in new talent. To prevent contracts
> from being signed in jurisdictions outside California, Mr.
> Conyers said he wanted to introduce a federal version of
> Senator Murray's bill. 
>
> While it grappled with such pragmatic issues, the
> conference also featured more utopian notions. Grass- roots
> entrepreneurs like Ian MacKaye, the leader of the band
> Fugazi and the owner of Dischord Records, said that through
> simple hard work and without written contracts for the
> bands on his label, he had been making a good living in the
> music business and even providing health care to his
> employees. Derek Sivers of CD Baby, a company that sells
> independent CD's from about 14,000 groups, said he had
> recently passed $1 million in payments to musicians. 
>
> Sandy Pearlman, a lyricist for Blue Oyster Cult who is the
> vice president for media development of Multicast
> Technology, envisioned having all recorded music available
> on demand through wireless connections. He called
> unlicensed file-sharing a disaster but suggested that an
> "invisible tax" on Internet connections, paid through
> service providers, could be channeled to musicians and
> copyright owners. 
>
> "It really is a pretty trivial accounting problem," he
> said. "But decisions would have to be made at the highest
> levels to stop fighting shadows and deal with the hand
> we've been dealt." 
>
> Eben Moglen, a professor of law at Columbia University and
> the general counsel of the Free Software Foundation,
> supported a similar accounting mechanism but in voluntary
> form. He urged the conference to think back to "music
> before Edison," before it became a commodity in the form of
> recordings. "Everything that can be shared will be shared,"
> he said. "But people make music because they love it, and
> they'll pay for it because they love it."
>
> http://www.nytimes.com/2002/01/10/arts/music/10CONF.html?ex=1011762588&ei=1&en
>
> =a4dbb799203b9c3e
>
>
>
> HOW TO ADVERTISE
> ---------------------------------
> For information on advertising in e-mail newsletters 
> or other creative advertising opportunities with The 
> New York Times on the Web, please contact Alyson 
> Racer at alyson (at) nytimes(dot)com or visit our online media 
> kit at http://www.nytimes.com/adinfo
>
> For general information about NYTimes.com, write to 
> help (at) nytimes(dot)com(dot)  
>
> Copyright 2001 The New York Times Company
>
>
>
> Visit my tango music site at <A HREF="http://www.avantango.com";>
> www.avantango.com</A>
> Information, Education, Calendar, Articles
>
> --- End Message ---