The major record label groups all operate on an assumption. That assumption is that a label is “about” its current roster and existing (mostly pop) acts and it’s an assumption that has been held for a very long time.
Is this the tail wagging the dog? Why wouldn’t a modern record label flip its priorities and become a catalog of recorded music first and a promoter of new acts second if at all?
The pay-per-download model isn’t financially satisfactory or sustainable to the majors. If the dream of a major label is a successful subscription service or monetization of radio services like Pandora – these experiences won’t be like pay-per-download. They won’t be hit-driven – not current hits, anyway. If you have all-you-can eat music streaming, a percentage of people are going to use that primarily to check out new music. Most people will listen to a lot of what they love. Which will mean catalog.
Pay-per-download isn’t and never has been good for catalog because, unlike the introduction into market of the CD, there is no “replacement” period during which consumers need to re-buy their favorites in the new format. CDs are a digital format and most people capable of buying an iPod are capable of ripping a CD.
I’d love to see a “label” take its history as or more seriously than its present and try letting the dog wag its tail.

Today’s op-ed in the New York Times slamming Microsoft for its lack of innovation got me on this train of thought. (I do think MSFT has the opportunity to innovate, but that’s another post.)

There is a clear difference in DNA between companies that innovate and companies that don’t. A big piece of that is what I call “DRM thinking”.

“DRM thinking” is when you knowingly pit yourself against what your consumer wants, throw barriers in the face of usability, ignore market realities, and continue to convince yourself it’s okay.
DRM as it was applied to digital music is an unbelievable example of refusal to look at the whole picture. While labels and technology providers developed multiple forms of DRM, created differing levels of licensing and access for the consumer, and in general spent a whole lot of time trying to “get DRM right”, it was completely useless tech and a huge waste of time.
Anyone who wanted a perfect digital copy of a record without any copy protection whatsoever could just walk into a big-box retailer and spend $9.99 for the CD. (CD copy protection was tried, but there was never any indication that it was ever going to work, and it didn’t.) This went on for years.
Barring your front door doesn’t work very well if there is no back wall on the house.

DRM thinking is what holds back companies from innovation.

Following upon the really interesting coverage Marc Gobe did in São Paulo – where no outdoor advertising of any kind is allowed, presenting both a challenge and an opportunity for marketers- The Artvertiser is a brilliant next step in public spaces, blurring the lines between public advertising and public art. From the site:

The Artvertiser considers Puerta del Sol Madrid, Times Square New York, Shibuya Tokyo and other sites dense with advertisements as potential exhibition space. The Artvertiser is an instrument of conversion and reclamation, taking imagery seen by millions and re-purposing it as a surface for presentation of art.
The Artvertiser software is trained to recognise individual advertisements, each of which become a virtual ‘canvas’ on which an artist can exhibit images or video when viewed through the hand-held device.
After training, where ever the advertisement appears, the chosen art will appear instead when viewed live through the hand-held device. It doesn’t matter whether the advertisement is on a building, in a magazine or on the side of a vehicle.

Right now you need the Artvertiser’s own binoculars or webcams to see the substituted art, although an Android port is in the works.

Cool, yes? Everywhere a particular brand or campaign appears, it is replaced with a new image.

We live in a time when not only does advertising constantly use art to its own ends, but art subverts advertising.

image courtesy of the artvertiser

It’s remarkable to me that the conversations around digital music remain pretty much identical to the conversations we had in 2000, when Napster was supposedly taking over the world.

I showed this Atlantic monthly article by the very smart Charles Mann, which I loved, to someone very close to me who wasn’t around in the Napster days. He said, “Wait…when was this written? It could have been written today.” And he was right.

Talked about this same subject last night (Halloween night) over dinner with ex-Napster colleague Don Dodge and he agreed…when is this conversation going to change?

Is it licensing? It’s not technology.

Maybe it’s simply imagination. MUCH more on that soon.

At the core of social media today is relatively new consumer behavior in terms of not just a willingness to share content, personal information, and so on- but a downright passion for doing so. The nature of the Web begets sharing, for sure- but the first widespread activity requiring sharing of information not usually publicly exposed may very well have been peer-to-peer music filesharing.

A regret of mine is that we weren’t able to use the information Napster users exposed on their hard drives to create “tribes” or “collectives”, or to connect our users in other ways. Our “Someone Like Me” feature allowed users to search for others with similar music in their collections. This enabled better trading and music discovery, of course, but we always thought it was the beginning of a social network as well. (Not to mention a GREAT dating service….) “Someone Like Me” was disabled through most of Napster’s existence for legal reasons.

We loved the sharing concept and it was at the core of the Napster tagline I created: “Thanks for sharing.”

My friend Derek Sivers, someone I am very fortunate to know and occasionally break bread with (should be more often) wrote an ebook for musicians on how to get music noticed- how to rise above the noise. He should know- Derek founded CD Baby, possibly the most successful independent music aggregator/manufacturer/digital distributor ever, and indubitably the nicest and easiest to do biz with. One of the most beautiful things about Derek is his generosity of spirit, and he makes this ebook available for anyone, free, from sivers.org. You can also download it here:

http://derek.s3.amazonaws.com/DerekSivers.pdf

Derek wants you to spread it around- just please, credit Derek Sivers and link to sivers.org. That’s all.