the dotmatrix project

I’d rather pull out my eardrums with tweezers that listen to most 50 Cent tracks, but you gotta give him credit for staring technology in the face and not blinking. I guess he has an advantage over Doug Morris and the rest of his ilk in that he’s previously dealt with raining bullets.

Dodging the damage of MP3 downloads must be cake by comparison.

Check out this exchange from an interview by Pål Nordseth at a club in Oslo, Norway:

[…] “How are G-Unit Records doing in these times of file-sharing?

“Not so good.” he responded. “The advances in technology impacts everyone, and we all must adapt. Most of all hip-hop, a style of music dependent upon a youthful audience. This market consists of individuals embracing innovations faster than the fans of classical and jazz music.”

“What is important for the music industry to understand is that this really doesn’t hurt the artists.”

Thats quite a statement. Organizations like the RIAA are always talking about how the artists get hurt by file-sharing but 50 Cent clearly doesn’t agree. In fact, he appears to appreciate the value of a good fan, whether he buys or file-shares his music, as he explains:

“A young fan may be just as devout and dedicated no matter if he bought it or stole it.”

Indeed. It’s been said time and time again - get the music out there by any which way, fill the gigs and capitalize on the merchandising and ends will meet. 50 Cent agrees:

“The concerts are crowded and the industry must understand that they have to manage all the 360 degrees around an artist. They, (the industry), have to maximize their income from concerts and merchandise. It is the only way they can get their marketing money back.”

He finishes up: “The main problem is that the artists are not getting as much help developing as before file-sharing. They are now learning to peddle ringtones, not records” he said.

“They don’t understand the value of a perfect piece of art.” […]

50 Cent is using marketing terminology like “360 degrees” to describe the value proposition surrounding an artist and the major labels can’t come up with anything better than suing their customers and boycotting iTunes.

Amazing.

UPDATE: Cayocosta, over at RecProAudio, has a different take on 50’s revelation:

Apparently not realizing that piracy-catalyzed 360 deals are actually recouped directly out of the artist’s pocket, he went on to offer the following when addressing the issue of lost recorded-music sales revenue, “The concerts are crowded and the industry must understand that they have to manage all the 360 degrees around an artist. They, (the industry), have to maximize their income from concerts and merchandise. It is the only way they can get their marketing money back.”

Further expounding on the negative effects of piracy, he offered, “The main problem is that the artists are not getting as much help developing as before file-sharing. They are now learning to peddle ringtones, not records. They don’t understand the value of a perfect piece of art.”

I could be off here, but 50 Cent’s perspective sounds steeped in the shoes of an artist / label executive, not in naivety.

With most major deals, all money put up by the label must be recouped prior to an artist getting a dime of profit from any revenue stream managed by the label. With fans that download music for free, it seems to me that 50 Cent is looking at the silver lining of the situation and chalking it up to a marketing expenditure — similar to producing music videos in the golden age of MTV.

Maybe instead of suing people for spreading the goodness of an act, labels should focus on the remaining opportunities to maximize their profits and stop trying to force their will on both a market and open technology? 360 deals don’t represent an ultimate answer, but neither does suing their fan base.

Eric Fink on the RIAA

I hate the RIAA so much that I won’t even use their standard EQ curve when making my home recordings! […]

I feel you, Eric. I was so pissed about the occupation of Iraq a few years back that I dropped red and blue from my wardrobe color choices to match my mental model of modern day America. Sure, it didn’t do much to change the overall situation — I did my best along those lines — but it did make me feel like I had gained some degree of control.

(originally uploaded by rahen z)

Gene Simmons

[…]

The record industry doesn’t have a f*cking clue how to make money. It’s only their fault for letting foxes get into the henhouse and then wondering why there’s no eggs or chickens. Every little college kid, every freshly-scrubbed little kid’s face should have been sued off the face of the earth. They should have taken their houses and cars and nipped it right there in the beginning. Those kids are putting 100,000 to a million people out of work. How can you pick on them? They’ve got freckles. That’s a crook. He may as well be wearing a bandit’s mask.

Doesn’t affect me. But imagine being a new band with dreams of getting on stage and putting out your own record. Forget it.

[…]

There’s so much crap in that blurt, I almost don’t know where to begin. I agree 100% with Simmons that the music industry has had no clue in evolving their business model to work with the open mechanisms of the internet since its inception… but that’s where we go our separate ways.

1. The music industry should’ve dropped the moniker “record” as soon as digital tracks became available. No one buys records to listen to records anymore. It’s apropos, though, that someone as musically irrelevant and ancient as Gene Simmons still uses that language.
2. There is no henhouse. Never has been. The internet as a protocol is close to being P2P native, but software designed to transfer files across the internet in a collaborative fashion simply took advantage of music as a file format, like any other document of bits. Who do you sue for that?
3. Suing fans into perpetuity does nothing to improve “record” sales or halt the evolution of technology and culture. A better approach would’ve been to figure out how to make money off P2P instead of trying to eliminate it while ostracizing the market with fear tactics.
4. Who is this class of 100,000 to a million people out of work? Throughout time and across industries, the middleman has never enjoyed a guaranteed existance with technology in play. And if Simmons is referring to artists, he’s on crack. Artists — of any kind — are not guaranteed a career by anyone, in any medium. If they were, I wouldn’t be a commercial artist to pay the mortgage and an artist on the side to fulfill my soul. Simmons is still experiencing a coke high from the seventies with that perspective.
5. People who copy files that were designed to be copied are now crooks? Either lock the goods in the safe (DRM) and change the very DNA that defines a digital document or monetize the actual process of being “looted.” There’s no in-between and the market is clearly not buying into the future of DRM.
6. Hey Gene, hate to break it to you, but bands are still hitting the stage and they’re more empowered than ever to make a “record.” The difference? They don’t live in an age where long tongues, fake blood and platform boots can sell millions of copies of a two-hit record for $10, all the while being fronted big cash by a label who could sell an igloo to an Eskimo and get him to pay an extra $100 to see a grade B act fill a Colosseum show. This is the information age; those days have been dead for years now.

I do love you in Gene Simmons Family Jewels, though.

The title pretty much sums up Edgar Bronfman Jr.’s take on how the music industry ended up in the place it is now — missing out on the digital revolution and instead of thriving in a forward-thinking model, busy instead suing their own customers for loving and sharing music with others.

Speaking at the GSMA Mobile Asia Congress in Macau, Bronfman said:

“We used to fool ourselves,’ he said. “We used to think our content was perfect just exactly as it was. We expected our business would remain blissfully unaffected even as the world of interactivity, constant connection and file sharing was exploding. And of course we were wrong. How were we wrong? By standing still or moving at a glacial pace, we inadvertently went to war with consumers by denying them what they wanted and could otherwise find and as a result of course, consumers won.”

Three Four things I want to point out:

1. No shit
2. “Your content” has never been the issue (though I’d argue that no matter what contracts have been signed with artists, the music is not “your content”). The issue has been with you unnaturally twisting “content” by controlling the format, price point, distribution and promotion of music to a degree that the market found insulting. It started with omnivore music fans in the nineties questioning the holistic value of albums hitting the market at a $15 price tag while MTV was simultaneously dropping off the radar as an alternative vehicle for artists to explore their creativity and gain fans. On the heals of the death of radio, digital tracks became available for preview & sale and the jig was up; everyone could see that the emperor had no clothes. YouTube and it’s Web 2.0 cousins are simply another nail in a buried coffin
3. It’s interesting to hear an executive speak of constant connection as being such a revelation, but I guess it’s understandable. I mean, back in the day, I couldn’t get my music fix until I got home from school and turned on MTV or hit my room to blast the latest Men Without Hats on vinyl. And the only connection I had then was one way, through either the TV or my speakers. Apparently, when industry can program a market — via TV, radio, controlled sales & format — people up top can get fat and lose sight of the shifting earth.
4. Another slip: “consumers won.” I’m sorry, but what exactly have “consumers” won? The RIAA is not only suing kids, but trying to extort universities into feeding this industry hand to mouth under the threat of shutting down federal financial aide. Where’s our consumer trophy for living in a state of fear, where we can be set back thousands of dollars because absolute proof of guilt without a shadow of a doubt isn’t an issue? And what would the opposite scenario look like? You know, where the music industry “wins?” Probably something very similar to the warm, bloated, cash cow feeling these guys had in the 70’s and 80’s, a time when “consumers” were being taken advantage of because we loved the product so much and would do anything — pay anything — to experience it. Until the very language the music industry uses to describe their customers changes — consumer describes this stud, not me — I don’t foresee the music industry “winning” anything again anytime soon.

The really sad part of this speech comes later on, where Bronfman tries to sell the idea that albums packaged with ringtones is an example of a forward-thinking content bundle that meets the needs of a digital “consumer”:

“By packaging a full album into a bundle of music with ringtones, videos and other combinations and variation we found products that consumers demonstrably valued and were willing to purchase at premium prices. And guess what? We’ve sold tons of them. And with Apple’s co-operation to make discovering, accessing and purchasing these products even more seamless and intuitive, we’ll be offering many, many more of these products going forward.”

Don’t you get it? Since we all have cell phones, there must be a segment of suckers willing to buy these bloated packages of “content” just like the suckers who bought a Corey Hart album based on one catchy single in 1984 (yes, I was one of those suckers).

So sell naive folk bloated crap and sue anyone with a clue.

They’re still trying to win, not partner with or serve their market.

VRM, anyone?

Other reactions:

• Beating the RIAA: Warner Music boss regrets attacking consumers
• Warner Music CEO Fesses Up to Music Industry’s Mistakes, Slams Mobile Operators, Pats Self on Back
• Music biz bigwig Edgar Bronfman tells mobile industry to get lively, music-wise
• Music exec regrets going “to war” with consumers
• Putting the “DRM” in “drama”: Bronfman changing his tune?
• Warner Music Boss: We Were Wrong
• Edgar Bronfman admits to “inadvertently” going to war with music consumers
• Warner Music Do As We Say Not As We Do
• Music Executive Makes Startling Deathbed Confession: “We Were Wrong”
• Bronfman’s Epiphany an Insult

(originally uploaded by lounger)

Senate Bill Would Empower DOJ to File Civil P2P Lawsuits

A bipartisan bill introduced in the U.S. Senate on Wednesday would give the Justice Department the power to pursue civil copyright enforcement actions against individuals who use file-sharing networks. The Intellectual Property Enforcement Act was introduced by Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and committee member Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas).

The bill would authorize additional funding to investigate and prosecute intellectual property crimes involving computers and the Internet, and allocate additional funds to the FBI to assign more agents to work on intellectual property crimes; it would also classify both the importation and exportation of pirated works as infringement.

“Copyright infringement silently drains America’s economy and undermines the talent, creativity and initiative that are a great source of strength to our nation,” Sen. Leahy said in a statement.

Similar legislation (also called the “Pirate Act”) has previously cleared the Senate three times, CNET News.com reported, despite contentions from civil liberties advocates and others that the legislation would essentially have the government filing the lawsuits currently being pursued by corporate copyright interests like the Recording Industry Association of America.

“I applaud Senators Leahy and Cornyn’s leadership in working to ensure that adequate resources are available to enforce our nation’s intellectual property laws,” said Motion Picture Association of America chairman and CEO Dan Glickman.

I think I’ve officially seen it all, now.

The head of the MPAA — an outfit whose primary role is to censure artistic vision in order to “protect” the average American — applauds two Senators for pushing legislation through Congress to allocate money straight out of our pockets to police and prosecute his industry’s headaches?

Mr. Glickman, let me be the first to applaud you. Seriously. Way to teach the kids about how capitalism works. At least they’ll have that life lesson in tow as they forgo college to pay into perpetuity for downloading a copy of Rocky IV.

The only good this will do is reinforce the notion that we all need to become greater creators of culture, while only consuming independent goods.

That’s my silver-lining and I’m sticking to it.

UPDATE: Apparently, on the very same day the above legislation was introduced, the Democrats pushed through another bill to extend the Higher Education Act of 1965.

ZDNET
Democrats: Colleges must police copyright, or else

The U.S. House of Representatives bill (PDF), which was introduced late Friday by top Democratic politicians, could give the movie and music industries a new revenue stream by pressuring schools into signing up for monthly subscription services such as Ruckus and Napster. Ruckus is advertising-supported, and Napster charges a monthly fee per student.

The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) applauded the proposal, which is embedded in a 747-page spending and financial aid bill. “We very much support the language in the bill, which requires universities to provide evidence that they have a plan for implementing a technology to address illegal file sharing,” said Angela Martinez, a spokeswoman for the MPAA.

According to the bill, if universities did not agree to test “technology-based deterrents to prevent such illegal activity,” all of their students — even ones who don’t own a computer — would lose federal financial aid.

Pulling financial aid from students without computers? Man, that’s low.

“Such an extraordinarily inappropriate and punitive outcome would result in all students on that campus losing their federal financial aid–including Pell grants and student loans that are essential to their ability to attend college, advance their education, and acquire the skills necessary to compete in the 21st-century economy,” a letter from university officials to Congress written on Wednesday said. “Lower-income students, those most in need of federal financial aid, would be harmed most under the entertainment industry’s proposal.”

Check out this move by the lobbyists for the MPAA and RIAA:

The old language over the summer required schools to develop “a plan for implementing a technology-based deterrent to prevent the illegal downloading or peer-to-peer distribution of intellectual property.” The new language requires “a plan for offering alternatives to illegal downloading or peer-to-peer distribution of intellectual property as well as a plan to explore technology-based deterrents to prevent such illegal activity.”

In other words, if universities pay large, lump sums for providing campus-wide subscription services for their students to download music and film legally, then the federal government won’t be forced to turn off financial aid.

Of course the cost of these subscriptions will be pushed onto the incoming class of 2010 and beyond in the form of an extra bump to the traditional yearly tuition increase that occurs each year across our land in these fine institutions.

What a racket. Organized crime isn’t this fucking organized.

UPDATE II At least I’m not alone out here:

• No Rights Reserved: The Role of the University in Student Copyright Infringement
• New Bill Would Cut Financial Aid To Schools Who Don’t Police P2P, Sign Up With Napster
• Thank you, RIAA
• New Bill Wants Colleges To Become Copyright Cops For RIAA
• Colleges: deter copyright infringement and subscribe, or no aid
• Bill Would Tie University Anti-Piracy Efforts to Federal Funding
• RIAA Demands Universities Subscribe…or Else!
• RIAA: Now attacking School Funding
• Democrats: Colleges must police copyright, or else
• Use Napster or lose federal $: universities threat
• Bill before Congress to end college funding for schools that don’t kiss RIAA/MPAA ass
• The RIAA and MPAA Destroying Our Schools
• The College Opportunity and Affordability (and record industry subsidy) Act of 2007
• Democrats can be evil, too
• Would Congress Withhold Financial Aid From Colleges That Don’t Offer A Subscription To Napster?

So, you know how the RIAA and the majors — Sony BMG, EMI, Universal and Warner — get so righteous about protecting artist’s copyright by going after disabled women and children who download music from the internet without paying, right?

Remember, these are the people who drag their crosses to crucify others — in their words — to prevent “starving artists” from littering the American landscape.

Check out this amazing story of hypocrisy:

Robert Fripp

[…]

We are looking, inter alia, at payment by EMI for illegal out-of-period (post 2003) sales, and returns of unsold CDs. A concern with returns is always that they are not dumped back onto the market by mistake (by mistake, dear reader). We seem to be close to agreement on these two matters, on the basis of our current researches.

The third item for consideration is more difficult: downloads.

After the license expired, King Crimson tracks repeatedly appeared on various download websites licensed from EMI. If this had happened during the license period, it would have been disturbing — even though shit happens and we should have gotten over it! — because EMI never had download rights from us. At the beginning of the license period, there was no such item as downloads; at the end of the period (December 31st. 2003), downloads were clearly an important part of the future. The EMI license was not renewed because we were not willing to approve download rights –- even though they aren’t important! but it’s standard EMI company policy that we have to have them! even though they’re not important! –- because the royalty terms offered sucked (these are current industry standard royalty terms).

[…]

What galls is the cavalier approach to copyright ownership of someone other than EMI. It’s a little too rich to punish punters for illegal downloads of EMI copyright material when EMI are themselves guilty of copyright violation. The response, many months ago, of the EMI lawyer (the one who also said shit happens! get over it) effectively told us I’ve done my best! we’ve told them to take it down! This isn’t quite good enough when making publicly available the copyright material of others. How bad do EMI management systems have to be that the company has no power of control over its licensing to download companies? What checks were made to ensure that EMI had the rights to King Crimson / RF material? What systems did EMI have in place to ensure that all licensees were promptly informed when the license ended? Why did these systems fail in several EMI territories? What did EMI do to ensure their licensees honour the reversions?

[…]

Clearly, EMI as dinosaur doesn’t have a great deal of intelligence; does have a series of system failures to acknowledge, address & accept responsibility for; and compensate those who have been impacted – in this case, Panegyric, KC & DGM.

A general comment on large record companies: inefficiency in departments can rarely be remedied by outside parties who lose because of it. This is a full-time job, is very expensive, a major distraction from the creative life, and almost wholly a negative experience. This is the good news.

The bad news: this is known by the company, and allowed for within its operating structure. That is, efficiency is not seen as being in the direct interest of the record company - because it profits from its carelessness.

[…]

The majors are nothing but suits in corner offices, protecting the world they’ve know, enjoyed and gotten rich from for the past 50 years. Suits don’t care about the music industry; they care about their net worth. They’re not passing a family business down to their kids; they’re making what they can, while they can.

So they screw the very artists who shed the sweat, blood and tears that puts money in their pockets.

Evolve or die means nothing to these fucks, because their souls are already dead.

(via Good Day Sunshine)

(originally uploaded by What What)

Bob Lefsetz

The RIAA can bitch. Songwriters in Nashville can ask how they’re going to get paid. No one’s paying attention anymore. They had EIGHT YEARS to make a move, to fix things, and they didn’t accomplish a damn thing. Mainstream media is now with the public. The record companies fucked up. Music is free. Accept it and deal with it.

Bitches.

Following in the “label darlings gone independent” heals of Radiohead, Trent Reznor is releasing his latest project — the production of Saul Williams’ album, The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of NiggyTardust!, straight to the internet tonight, sans the middlemen label people clogging up the mix and taking their cut.

To that particular end, here’s Saul Williams message to the people:

My Dearest Friends and Fans,

It is my greatest honor to present to you The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of NiggyTardust!, my new album produced by Trent Reznor and mixed by Alan Moulder.

The wall of sound that we’ve created is tagged with such graffiti that a passerby would seek out doors and ways to ENTER. Once inside a world defined by dreams come true they’d find aligned with the simplest act of sharing what we treasure. Most people aren’t aware of the world of art and commerce where exploitation strips each artist down to nigger. Each label, like apartheid, multiplies us by our divide and whips us ’til we conform to lesser figures. What falls between the cracks is a pile of records stacked to the heights of talents hidden from the sun. Yet the energy they put into popularizing smut makes a star of a shiny polished gun. The ballot or the bullet for Mohawk or the mullet is a choice between new times and dying days. And the only way to choose is to jump ship from old truths and trust dolphins as we swim through changing ways.

The ways of middlemen proves to be just a passing trend. We need no priests to talk to God. No phone to call her. And when you click the link below, i think it fair that you should know that your purchase will make middlemen much poorer…

NiggyTardust!

love,
Saul

No doubt a creative and eloquent way to pitch the download of an album while riding the wave of the anti-label froth that has developed in the mouths of music lovers everywhere. The last line is a bit overstated at this point in time — middlemen will continue to find their nut to squirrel away — but the optimism is fresh and well taken.

Here’s the jist of the release approach:

• Download the album for free and receive it in 192Kbps MP3 format
• Download the album for a $5 donation and receive it in one of multiple formats — 192Kbps MP3, 320Kbps MP3, FLAC lossless audio
• All versions include a PDF with artwork and lyrics
• All files are 100% DRM free, and can be played on any device. MP3s are encoded with LAME v3.97

I heard Saul Williams first drop his style in a track called Ohm on Lyricist Lounge, Vol. 1 in 1998 and his Buddhist / kung-fu inspired cut stuck with me for years. I rediscovered him in my iTunes catalog this past week, so I was already planning on supporting this release before Reznor “leaked” three tracks from the NiggyTardust album.

Check them out for yourself:

Ohm (Lyricist Lounge Vol 1)

Tr(n)igger (NiggyTardust)

Break (NiggyTardust)

Banged And Blown Through (NiggyTardust)

While I’m psyched to see artists use the guts of the internet to promote and distribute their craft, this model isn’t necessarily the savior for indie artists everywhere. I mean, it wouldn’t hurt for any artist to develop a site like the NiggyTardust site — chock full of free and donation driven download options, embedded widgets for viral promotion, etc. — but Trent Reznor is already Trent Reznor.

Would this work for him (and Saul Williams) if Reznor hadn’t gone the label route first?

As I see it, the future of independent music isn’t relying on massive shifts in the online distribution model. If Amazon.com and iTunes were as lax as Amie Street regarding entry into their catalog, distribution success would then be simply a question of the right price point — and that’ll work itself out through competition over time as the average kid’s perception of a music track moves farther and farther away from something one pays money to own.

The RIAA is doing their best to fight that losing battle.

So the question that’s popping off in my noggin’ is: What exactly is the draw for an artist or band to sign their lives away with a traditional label?

• Their hold on distribution has slipped away
• Online promotion is open to all with a clue
• Radio is no longer a huge draw to potential fans
• Music videos are probably watched more on YouTube than the reality show driven MTV

What’s the “sell your soul” pitch from a big label in 2007? Seriously, what angles of distribution and promotion do they still have a death grasp on? Big media connections?

How are successful smaller labels working with artists and differentiating themselves from the machine?

What are successful independent bands doing (aside from making great music) that can be replicated by other independents?

Will services like Facebook Music be the answer? Or can a walled garden truly provide that degree of change?

Anyone?