A very inspiring organization, the Future of Music Coalition, have released a series of videos that explore new music industry models. The significance of these models is that they take into account how artists need to be compensated, but recognize the need to be relevant in culture. Of all of them, the subscription-based models stick out the most to me. Music consumers are no longer in the mindset of paying for music on a ?per unit? basis. Instead, we have come to expect to get our music for free, immediately, and involve little effort. A subscription service could possibly function within a culture like ours because it mostly matches this criteria. Subscription services, like Rhapsody, ?feel free? because it is an all you can eat buffet ? a once per month, small fee. In turn, a subscription offers the same flexibility and feel of free downloading.

OK, a day or so after my panel at the fantastic Future of Music Policy Summit, and I want to try and toss out a few thoughts. First off, while I?m typically not real big on conferences, I can enthusiastically recommend this one. The values of the conference and the caliber of speakers/workshops makes this - in my mind - the go-to conference. Get yourself registered for 2010 asap. So, my panel was entitled New Musician?s Toolbox. I moderated, and the panelists were: Duncan Freeman, founder, Band Metrics; Charlie McEnerney, Host + Producer, Well-Rounded Radio/Musicians for Music 2.0; and Alexis Rodich, Director of Marketing and Partner Relations, BandsinTown. Excellent panelists all, and certainly people/companies committed to adding value. I urge you to check out each of these companies. I think what really hit me about the conference was that it?s the first time where I felt like the expectations of the attendees wasn?t completely whacked. I?ve been doing these conferences for longer than I care to remember, and, in fact, it was after a conference where I spoke, in which, simply because I had the suffix ?A&R? attached to my name, that my panel was over-crowded with a teeming mass of demo-wielding aspirants attempting to fast track themselves to a record deal, that I decided to write my first book telling people that foisting a demo on a fatigued record label executive in the hopes that this would somehow further your career may not be the very best strategy.

This year’s Future of Music Summit, held from Sunday to Tuesday in Washington, D.C., had its usual mix of intelligence and meaningful discourse. The appearance of Senator Al Franken, who once drew a map of the lower 48 in under two minutes on Letterman, seemed to have piqued reporters’ interest in the annual event and received the most media coverage. But other speakers and topics received coverage as well, and here are some places you can go to read and hear what was said. If you missed the conference, you may have caught its webcast from the Future of Music Web site. Even busy people who only occasionally tuned into the webcast were treated to great commentary from political and business leaders.

At the Future of Music Coalition Policy Summit earlier this week in Washington, D.C., where Spotify co-founder Daniel Ek gave a talk, hallway chatter centered around licensing ISPs the way the music industry does radio, and Spotify was often mentioned as a services that could potentially make that happen. And it has already proven capable of inking deals at the ISP/telco level.

If ISPs in the United States offer the same, opt-in model that Telia will offer in Sweden, consumers will likely relish that freedom. However, it remains to be seen whether labels in the United States will be willing to abandon their dream of licensing 100 percent of an ISP?s subscribers in a single stroke. read more

The Chicago Tribune’s Greg Kot is covering the Future of Music Coalition Policy Summit but as a preview to his coverage he published some interesting album sales info that he received. In 2008 more than 115,000 albums were released, but only 110 sold more than 250,000 copies, a mere 1,500 topped 10,000 sales, and fewer than 6,000 cracked the 1,000 barrier. He doesn’t say so in the article but rather in the comments section that these are based on SoundScan numbers, so it is assumed they are primarily dealing with physical albums sales and not digital.