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Re: [bijansabet.com] the personal tumblelog of Bijan Sabet

Gabriel Nijmeh — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 11:21:52 -0000

Major labels and artists can negotiate deals with social music services, assuming that the social music service is a legit business. Napster v1.0, illegal torrents, darknets... well those are harder to control and really, are you going to waste most of your resources fighting them? There will always be underground activity whether we like it or not.

I know that there are workable solutions.. humans have solved a lot more complex problems. Hopefully greed doesn't trump what could otherwise be a great value-added service that consumers would gladly pay for.

Re: [bijansabet.com] the personal tumblelog of Bijan Sabet

bijan — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 08:58:02 -0000

Napster v1.0 and darknets scare the daylights out of the labels. but social music services are different. They promote music. At least that's been my exprience.

Re: [bijansabet.com] the personal tumblelog of Bijan Sabet

Gabriel Nijmeh — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 08:52:41 -0000

I couldn't agree with you more. I spent much of my youth hitting the record shops in downtown Toronto (or what we used to call 'the fly') buying LPs and CDs. My collection also grew to the point that I ran out of room. There was always the thrill of discovering new releases in person but we were limited by time and distance.

Social music sites is now the new reality. I can discover new music everyday... much faster than I ever have and I can share music with more people. Blogs, personal radio, social music sites... you have millions of people around the world who are now the record stores of the past. We, the fans, are the distribution arm for the major labels. Work with us, embrace us... it can be a win-win for all involved.

For the major labels, stuck in the past, this is a disruptive business model they have failed to embrace. Give me more opportunities to discover new music and I bet you that I will spend more money supporting talented artists. Don't go to war with me as a consumer who is eager to spend my money on your product. Doesn't seem like good business sense.

Re: [bijansabet.com] the personal tumblelog of Bijan Sabet

bijan — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 21:23:02 -0000

Cool. Thanks for letting me know.

Re: [bijansabet.com] the personal tumblelog of Bijan Sabet

bahmanzakeri — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 21:16:05 -0000

This post made it to the Tumblr Radar!

Re: [bijansabet.com] the personal tumblelog of Bijan Sabet

bijan — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 20:10:03 -0000

@maia
Thanks for the comment. I like Seeqpod. And we need more ways to help artists and their fans. There is life outside of MySpace. !

Re: [bijansabet.com] the personal tumblelog of Bijan Sabet

bijan — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 20:01:02 -0000

Yeah, a few annointed players isn't the right way to do this.

I need to spend more time checking out RCRD LBL

Thanks.

Re: [bijansabet.com] the personal tumblelog of Bijan Sabet

maiab — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 17:59:56 -0000

I certainly think the music industry is changing quickly. I think the Live Nation deals are just the first steps of artists divorcing themselves from the big label companies, and that the music industry will be hardly recognizable in 20 years. I work for Seeqpod, and we're trying to enable artists to profit directly from their fan base while letting listeners easily discover new music.

Re: [bijansabet.com] the personal tumblelog of Bijan Sabet

nabeel — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 17:28:10 -0000

I'm hearing -some- good things from the labels. This seems to be the year they figured out that they are going to have to do some of these deals because online distribution is their future.

But at least from my conversations their thinking is exactly the opposite of what you talk about. Regardless of the particulars of the Project Playlist deal, i've heard more than one remark that after Last.Fm, Imeem and MySpace, there frankly might not be that many more full on-demand music licenses they will dole out -- regardless of the warrants + minimum guarantees.

It seems like a strange choice to have an "annointed portal" strategy of a few key partnerships at the same time as the web is turning into a collection of platform utilities. They seem perpetually stuck 3-5 years behind.

RCRD LBL and the like have got it right, dealing on an individual artist basis is just an entirely different ball of wax from catalog-wide deals. Unfortunately, that means less choice, and fewer products, for consumers.

Re: [bijansabet.com] the personal tumblelog of Bijan Sabet

bijan — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 17:24:03 -0000

I hope you are wrong.

Re: [bijansabet.com] the personal tumblelog of Bijan Sabet

Chris Rechtsteiner — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 17:21:10 -0000

The implications for HypeM.com are going to be pretty serious.

I am sure there are 'technical differences' between Project Playlist & HypeM ... but not enough for anyone to not go after them too.

Sad day.

Re: [bijansabet.com] the personal tumblelog of Bijan Sabet

bijan — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 10:46:04 -0000

That's right. Plus those fees are going to have some type of chilling effect
on VCs that want to back these types of services. It's going to happen at
some point but the timing is still messy.

Re: [bijansabet.com] the personal tumblelog of Bijan Sabet

aweissman — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 10:41:37 -0000

and those fees may ultimately bankrupt imeen, i hear they are that large $$ wise. Rojas and Co at RCRD LBL are doing interesting things, but thats just one of what could be, should be, many.

Re: [bijansabet.com] the personal tumblelog of Bijan Sabet

bijan — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 10:37:03 -0000

They went after the big guys too. Last.fm paid big fees (maybe equity too?).
Same with imeem.

Re: [bijansabet.com] the personal tumblelog of Bijan Sabet

Greg Brown — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 10:33:30 -0000

It seems an odd choice to sue Project Playlist. Perhaps it's embedded enough in the social music scene to warrant notice but not one of the "big guys" like last.fm (i.e. NO resources to fight back)? What exactly is the RIAA expecting to accomplish beyond a decision in the courts? Is PP going to be the tipping point in this ultimately futile fight against the artists and consumers? This one makes SO little sense...

At this point I think many (most?) musicians realize the importance of social media/music to their careers. No doubt more will follow. And that SHOULD mean a closer relationship between fan and artist, where tracks are recorded and spread in the span of days. And real-time interaction. A normative shift in the creative process that should explode into the lives of us fans. Certainly the 21st century music consumer knows this. When the RIAA makes such an arbitrary move like this, I feel terrible for the artists caught up in limbo while their overlords try to stop history.

But what really bothers me is the deliberate muting of creativity, artistry, and expieriences that such a foolish lawsuit invariably entails. For the artist and for the fan. And for art and for our culture.

Re: [bijansabet.com] the personal tumblelog of Bijan Sabet

bijan — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 10:31:04 -0000

I'm optimistic but then when I hear about these lawsuits I realize that we
still have a lot of work ahead of us.

Re: [bijansabet.com] the personal tumblelog of Bijan Sabet

aweissman — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 10:26:41 -0000

Right on. In the past few weeks I have bought 5 CDs from browsing through Muxtape and HypeM. Becuase reading what people write and listening to their interests makes connections for me where they didn't exist before. Thus, I believe, increasing the sum total of music I want to buy and listen to. This seems axiomatic to us, Bijan, but not to the industry - -so how can we help the process -- I dont know but shutting social sites down doesnt do it