We’re here in sunny Austin for SXSW! Just a few minutes ago, we saw a fascinating panel called “The Cloud vs. the Paradise of Infinite Storage.” Some real brainiacs on this one, let us tell you. The discussion featured FMC board and advisory board members Bryan Calhoun and Sandy Pearlman, the brilliant Eric Garland from Big Champagne, Mike McGuire from Gartner Research, Wayne Marshall of MIT and WayneAndWax and Peter Biddle, one of the first authors to describe the “Darknet” — a closed private network of computers used for file sharing.

The discussion was a continuation of a breakout session hosted by legendary rock producr/manager Sandy Pearlman at our most recent Future of Music Policy Summit. Consider this our “executive summary.” read more

We’re currently in the midst of another “Snowpocalypse” here in Washington, DC, but we figured a blog post would give us a nice break from all that shoveling.

Today, reports emerged about Warner Music backing off of “free” music streaming. As digital entrepreneurs and rights holders continue to explore ways to get fully-licensed music to the masses via the internet and mobile, issues in licensing and revenue generation continue to bedevil players on all sides. read more

For those of you who watched the Grammy Awards on Sunday night (and apparently there were more of you this year than any year since 2004), you may have had a feeling of déjà vu when you saw virtually the same group of stars that clustered together in 2009, 2008, etc. Does this perhaps remind you — at least a little — of the 1993 film Groundhog Day? You know, like Bill Murray’s character hearing “I Got You Babe” every morning?

Now, if you happen to want to hear the same song at the same time every day, that’s fine with us. But sometimes it’s fun to let the needle find a new groove.

Today happens to be Groundhog Day, which is why we bring it up. And if the modern artist or fan feels like they’re “stuck in a loop” when it comes to music on commercial TV and radio, who can blame them? Perhaps the industry is a bit like the groundhog, who hopes that if it waits long enough, springtime will finally arrive. But what if it’s already here? read more

Over the past couple of weeks, we’ve heard a lot of chatter about “breaking” new musical acts. The current bone of contention: can a truly DIY artist sell more than 10,000 albums?

The debate kicked off in mid January when Tom Silverman — founder and president of the legendary hip hop label Tommy Boy Records — was featured in a series of articles on musiccoaching.com. During the first interview, Tom referenced 2009 data from SoundScan, the company that tracks retail purchases of music, which indicated that only 112 records reached platinum status in 2009 (that’s 1 million albums). He then focused on the other end of the sales spectrum, pointing to the dearth of artists that have broken the 10,000 sales barrier without label help. Tom said:

In 2008 there were 1,500 releases that sold over 10,000 album units. Out of that there were only 227 of them that were artists that had broken 10,000 for the first time. So in the whole year only 227 of the artists were artists that had broken what we call the “obscurity line.” When you sell 10,000 albums, you’re no longer an obscure artist; people know about you. […] We looked at the 227 and identified that only 14 of them were artists doing it on their own and all the rest were on majors and indies; a little more than half were on indies.

By now, you’ve probably heard all about the iPad and seen the pictures of Steve Jobs displaying his new “tablet” in a manner undoubtedly familiar to the late Charlton Heston. So far, reaction to the device has been mixed at best, with some people already lining up to take potshots at Apple’s latest doohickey.

We still think it’s pretty neat, mostly because we’re curious about what it could mean for the music biz, which is still struggling to find an attractive replacement for physical product. And as long as whatever new gadget plays nice with independent and unaffiliated creators who want to join the digital party, we’re cool.

But back to the gadget in question. read more

In 2006, OK Go’s video for “Here It Goes Again” — also affectionately known as “the treadmill video”— became a web sensation. By decade’s end, it had been viewed approximately 50 million times — no small feat for a homemade clip. Although the video made its biggest splash on sites like YouTube, many fans embedded it on their personal pages and social networks. At which point “Here It Goes Again” went viral, increasing the band’s exposure on a global scale and boosting the band’s record sales (and the bottom line of their major label, EMI).

Fast-forward to 2010. OK Go releases its newest album, Of the Blue Color of the Sky, still on the EMI imprint. To coincide with its release, the band creates another insanely clever and watchable video, this time for a tune called “This Too Shall Pass.” Rinse and repeat, right?

Not so fast. read more

On Wednesday, Dec. 16, Future of Music Coalition will participate in a FREE Educause Live! webinar about — what else? — music, technology and policy.

FMC Education Director Kristin Thomson and Policy Director Michael Bracy will take part in a session called “Music 2.0: Revenue Streams, Consumer Behavior and Policy Issues.” Here’s the official description:

Thanks to the Internet, there are now a mind-boggling array of tools and services that help musicians and record labels promote, distribute, and sell their music. And as this legal marketplace for music matures, consumer behavior is shifting away from ownership of music (legal or illegally acquired) toward on-demand access to music. This presentation will start with a virtual tour of a small array of licensed music services and include a discussion of the policy positions that would optimize the growth of a legitimate digital marketplace for music, one that would ensure artist compensation while also promoting legal music discovery and consumption.

Sounds pretty cool, huh? And you can’t beat the price. Head to the Educause site to pre-register for the event.

If you’ve been following the music-tech news lately, you’ve probably heard about the rather sudden and unexpected acquisition of digital music service Lala by Apple, Inc. Speculation has run rampant about why the country’s largest music retailer — which sells individual music downloads via its iTunes store — would purchase a company that’s made a name for itself via “cloud-based” access.

Lala has had a few different business models since it was launched by Silicon Valley entrepreneur Bill Nguyen in 2006. Originally it was a CD trading site, where members would rip and trade their discs with other members. From there, the company morphed into a MP3 hosting service that offers on-demand streaming. Currently, users are able to listen to a broad catalog of fully-licensed albums one time for free, after which they can purchase individual downloads or, for ten cents, buy the right to stream a tune as many times as they want. Customers are also able to upload their own MP3 collection and access it remotely from any computer.

Read on for more about what this could mean for digital music. read more