BTTV BLOG

Tom Windish has been booking bands for 16 years. In that time a lot has been seen and so maybe it’s all a lot more simple than everyone is making it out to be. Music has been on the hunt to crack the code about success and music. Maybe it just as simple as touring, and working with people who give a shit, back you up and get you great shows. As the industry gets smaller, it becomes time to multi-task, and handle more aspects of everything. Sounds like Windish and Co. have that formula dialed.

Give us the quick one-two punch on the history of you starting Windish…it’s humble/or not so humble beginnings.

Started from my apartment in 2004.  I started booking tours from my parent’s house in 1995 with a small roster of artists.

It seems like the role of the booking agency has expanded a bit in the last few years. Is it true and if so how?

The role of touring has always been important but has become increasingly important in recent years.  An agent has always been critical to developing an artist’s career, perhaps increasingly so as other areas of the music business downsize.

How important is touring for a young band these days? How soon and how far should they start trying to tour?

It’s incredibly important.  For many bands, it is the foremost way to promote themselves.  What works for each band varies and there is no hard and fast rule about how much or little touring is best.  I think the more one on one connections that are made between an artist and their fans and potential fans, the better.

What’s some advice for a young band coming up, looking/hoping for an agency to pick them up (besides being a good band)? What do you look for?

It helps to have a team in place that will help to promote the artist.  A publicist, a record company and a manager can all be valuable assets.

What’s on your breakfast plate in the morning?

2 eggs, 2 sausage links with spinach, tomatoes and mushrooms, a handful of almonds and a cup of black coffee

It’s about this time every year that we steady ourselves for the incoming tsunami that is SXSW. We are local to Austin, so we know what it’s like when “the event” is not happening. Needless to say, it looks nothing like the 10 days of SXSW mayhem. That said, we cherish those 10 days because we meet a million people. Like last year when David Dufresne of Bandzoogle responded to our Tweet offering him white wine and shrimp while riding around in a rusty 1985 Chevy van listening to us pitch BTTV. That said, we gave him the mic for a little interview about all that is BZ and why your band’s website can’t suck.

Tell me about the beginnings of Bandzoogle?

Bandzoogle was started by my partner Chris Vinson, Bandzoogle’s founder and CTO, back in 2003.  Before Bandzoogle, Chris had built many band websites, including one for his band, which helped them get signed by a major label. When the band broke up, the label hired Chris to build and maintain websites for all of their artists.  At one point Chris built a control panel so that artists and managers could update the sites themselves and that’s how the idea of Bandzoogle came to him.  He bootstrapped and launched his startup and started signing up bands. 7 years later Bandzoogle is a steadily growing and nicely profitable company (a rare achievement in the world of music tech companies). More than 10,000 artists now use the platform and new sites get built every day.

What’s your background…how did you get here?

I’m the only one on the Bandzoogle staff who’s not a musician or singer. I used to DJ a lot but apparently that doesn’t count (heh… and I agree 100%). My own background is in venture capital, mostly investing in web, mobile and video game startups.  When I met Chris I had started working nights and week-ends on my own music tech startup (called Backfed, stay tuned for that one…) and I was looking for a tech and product oriented co-founder.  Timing was perfect, since Chris had been looking for a more business and strategy focused partner, so we merged our projects and I became CEO last summer.  Best deal I’ve ever made, and it’s been a blast since.

Where does a band’s website fit into the mix these days considering there are so many “places” to have presence?

Having a strong website, your own “.com”, is more important than ever.  And now it’s easy and affordable to do it yourself.  We often advise artists to think of their online strategy as a “hub and spokes” kinda deal. Your website is your hub. Social networks, blogs and digital music services are spokes.  You should use these spokes to make your art “discoverable”, reach new fans and engage them.  But, as often as you can, you should re-direct those fans to your site (for example, when you link to one of your videos, don’t link to Youtube, link to your site, where you can embed the video).

Why, you ask ?

Your site is where you control the experience and the design (your artwork, no ads for “sexy singles in your area”), and where you control the narrative and context for your music. Your site is where you can build and own the mailing list. Ask yourself how much those hundreds of MySpace “friends” are worth now.

Don’t you wish you had their e-mail addresses?

Your site is where your fans are always 1one or two clicks away from buying your music (digital or physical), your merch and in some cases, concert tickets with no middle men to worry about.  Bandzoogle takes no commission on your sales and other providers take a very small (or no) cut. A sale on your site is worth a lot more than a sale on, say, iTunes, and you get to signup fans to your mailing list at the same time.

Why do you think a band’s website fails to serve them how it needs to?

Some mistakes we see often:

- Website isn’t kept up to date and never gets new content.

- Bands “outsource” their site to their label, or to their cousin’s friend, the know that “knows computers”.

- Bands hire a pricey designer to make an “artsy” website that might look really really good but is impossible to navigate.  As we often say, your music is your Art, your website is your business.

- The home page is often too busy. What you should have there is a sampler of your music (your latest Youtube video for example) and a very short bio or elevator pitch, for the new fans that visit for the first time, and the latest updates for your loyal fans.

- You should also have one strong call-to-action above the fold (“sign up for mailing list”, “download a free track”, “buy the new e.p.”, “pledge on my fund-raising campaign”).

- Anything using Flash is usually a mistake, or lots of external widgets and plug-ins that slow down the page, always break, and won’t render on smart phones and tablets.

The music service ecosystem has really taken off and matured in the past couple years, taking a lot of administrative load away from labels. Can bands really make a go of it themselves or where do labels come into play now? OR can bands put together a “team” around them i.e. manager, publicist, websites/services and make real go of it.

I think all of the above can be true.  Labels are becoming more providers of “à la carte” services and bands should be able to pick and choose what they need.  They still have very competent and well connected folks working for them.  Also in this day of unlimited and over-abundant music, established indie labels can play an important role as tastemakers and as a “filter” for music fans (for example I’ll pay attention to anything that come out on Daptone Records. I know it will be amazing soul music. And I trust Warp to expose me to cool electronic music).

The biggest change is that labels aren’t gatekeepers anymore and you can get much further on your own than was possible before.  In theory you can go the full DIY route, but often bands will quickly figure that they lack certain skills, connections, and that they like to keep some time for writing songs and practicing once in a while.

What advice would you give to bands about maintaining a consistent online/social presence that engages current fans and makes new ones?

Don’t drink and tweet.  Our good friend Ariel Hyatt wrote a post called “The Social Media Food Pyramid” that I think is a good recipe to follow more or less closely.  Ian Rogers (I think ?) often says you should do one small thing every week and one big thing every month, at minimum.  I would say find out what tools your fans and potential fans typically use (these days, probably Youtube, Facebook, Twitter and e-mail lists are the most important) and if you’re comfortable with it, do that.  Then, make sure the conversation is authentic, that it goes both-ways, and remains constant without becoming obnoxious. And bring people back to your site often.

What’s the future for Bandzoogle?

Right now we’re in the middle of a major software upgrade, changing our programming language and our core platform to a much more flexible and modern one. That’s a big investment, but when we’re done we’ll be able to build new features much more quickly.  Then we have lots of stuff on the roadmap.  On the business side we’re going to announce new distribution partnerships soon and we’re working on a small acquisition.  We also plan to launch Backfed later this year. Details to come, but Backfed will be a platform to enable artists to turn their fans into patrons of their art (and not just consumers of their product).  Longer term, we’d love to offer more services that go beyond the website, either directly, or through carefully picked partners.

What’s on your breakfast plate in the morning

Heh, I have a 1-year old daughter and the deal is that I cut her small pieces of fruit and then daddy eats the rest.  Favorites lately are bananas, grapes, strawberries and, somewhat surprisingly, grapefruit.  Bacon only happens on occasion, on week-ends.  There’s a kick-ass Portuguese bakery nearby, too.

So our friend J Sider had a wild idea one day and he realized Facebook didn’t have a really good way for bands to represent themselves and share their music. He thought up BandPage and it quickly took off to be the #1 music app on Facebook. The music site/service/app world is heating up again and a little funding is hitting startup’s pockets. It’s a good time to have a great idea so we asked BandPage about their’s…

Tell me about BandPage, what does it do?

Finally Facebook has real BandPages! Yup, Seriously. With BandPage by RootMusic, musicians can upload all their songs, shows, photos, Twitter and more to Facebook. With BandPage Plus, musicians can customize a Facebook fan page for the first time – without knowing any code or HTML! All you need to know are your favorite colors. Fans can explore music and share it with their friends, who can share it with their friends, who can share it across the globe. Give it a try at RootMusic.com.

You have been growing like crazy? Tell me about it…

As BandPage continues to grow, more and more artists are using it to get their music on Facebook. Big name artists like Lil Wayne and Rihanna have added BandPage to their fan pages on Facebook, and fans are inspired to use the same technology to share their music with their fans. We’re continuing to offer BandPage as a solution for both big time artists and local, independent artists, and it’s becoming the go to solution for musicians on Facebook. We’re the number one music app on Facebook,  but, at the end of the day, if it weren’t for all the awesome music and rad bands out there, we wouldn’t be growing.

Where do you think things are going to go in relation to a band’s online presence. Do you see a movement back to individual “.com” type sites? Will they stick w/ MySpace? Is it a combination of sites/services? Is BandPage the ultimate answer?

We’re living in the era of the Social Web, and, for musicians, that means getting your music out there on social networks like Facebook and engaging on Twitter. Fans want to search your band on Facebook, like your page and share your music with their friends. And BandPage makes that happen. Musicians can put music, shows, videos, photos, bio, Twitter and more in one place on Facebook. Because Facebook encourages sharing, it’s becoming increasingly important for musicians to have a strong presence on Facebook. As MySpace fades to the wayside, we’re also seeing a decreased relevance in custom websites. Fans are less likely to remember your website’s URL and visit it – the first time they go there, they won’t know where to find the music or search your shows. Likewise, individual websites don’t necessarily encourage sharing the way that Facebook does. As we continue to release features and improve our product, we want to make BandPage the ultimate answer for musicians.

What’s in the future for BandPage? What new features will we see in the next few months?

We’ve got some exciting things lined up – but we’re going to surprise you with our new features when they come out.

How can bands best use not only BandPage but their Facebook Page to grow their fan base?

The ability to share on Facebook is what makes it such a powerful tool for musicians. Engaging a fan base on Facebook is essential to generating an organic conversation about music, to getting fans to share your music with their fans, and to keeping fans up to date on your latest and greatest. Writing new songs? Headed to the studio? Preparing for a tour? Let ‘em know! And with BandPage by RootMusic, you can use Autoshare to let fans know about upcoming tour dates, new music and new videos. Autoshare automatically sends updates to fans’ feed whenever new content is added. And make sure to keep your latest tunes and videos on your Facebook so your fans know to come back for more.

Illustrations by Johnnie Cluney / From left to right: Diplomats of Sound, Dirty Beaches, Alejandro Escovedo and Tegan & Sara

We’ve been fans of the DT folks for a while, probably since before BTTV was even an idea. Come SXSW 2010 and through the events of life DT got a taste of BTTV hospitality. Good times where had. Lots of Pabst and tacos where consumed. Hay bales mimic’d couches and the formation of Eagle Meat occured. On the cusp of  SXSW 2011 we bring you a little one-on-one time with Sean Moeller, he who started it all.

For those who are not privy. What is Daytrotter?

Daytrotter is essentially a music web site that has its own analog recording studio in Rock Island, Illinois, and access to other analog studios in Austin, Texas and Asheville, N.C. and in these studios we record bands/artists as they’re passing through, as a document of where they were that day. The sessions are recorded straight to quarter-inch tape and they are honest and raw. They are then placed on our site for people to download and stream for free — accompanied by an essay and a hand-drawn illustration.

You’ve grown a lot the last few years. You now work out of two studios, one in Rock Island and one in Austin. Tell me about the first few years getting things off the ground. War stories if you have some?

I think that our war stories are rather minor. I don’t know that they really even count. We’ve been awfully fortunate to have been able to grow up the way we would have liked and we’ve not hit too many bumps in the road. I think a lot of that is owed to how we go about doing it. We do it out of passion and we work our asses off and I think that anyone who’s ever met us, recorded with us, etc. gets and respects that immediately and that sort of currency pays huge dividends. We’ve been lucky and yet it’s all felt very natural.

You push out an amazing amount of sessions and writing. Talk to me about your writing process.  How do you go about it? Do you have a routine?

The writing process is just me sitting down for hours and hours every day and letting it come to me. Some days are harder than others, but it really is a muscle for me. The more I write, the better I feel like my craft gets. I get inspired by the people who make this great art. I find inspiration in them as people and as artists and I take little sparks from the stuff I’m reading at the time too. It’s always remarkable to me how I’ll read something in the morning that I feel at least oddly applies to someone I’m writing about that day. I’m not afraid of the odd tangents and you shouldn’t be either.

How is it different writing for the sessions out of Austin because, obviously you can not be in two places at once. How does proximity effect the writing?

It usually does help meeting people, but I really do try and just let their art inform me and it’s nice sometimes to be able to take the posture of someone, their fashion, their mannerisms, etc. out of the equation entirely and focus exclusively on the music. I think most artists really appreciate that — to have their music taken at face value and to have someone really, really listen and even if that essay is a weird little fucker when I’m done with it, at least it was thought about long and hard and something drawn from the images in the words and music they wrote. That’s a win to me.

You curate most of the content on DT. Talk about your tastes and how they’ve evolved over time?

I don’t really know how they’ve evolved. I think you — and the regular Daytrotter listeners could tell me better than I could. My wife tells me that I listen to slower music now, but I don’t think that’s necessarily right. I don’t think it would do me much good to analyze the evolution of my listening habit because, lord knows, they’ll be different two months from now. I sure do buy a lot more old bluegrass records now than I ever thought I would. And I love Odd Future so go figure.

Why do you do DT?

I can’t think of anything else I’d rather do. I don’t think it’s wrong for me to say this just because it’s me doing it and it’s my baby: I think Daytrotter is important. I feel like we’re doing some awfully important chronicling for history and posterity-sake. It’s so much bigger than just the five of us here at this point. It’s something I’m very proud of.

Where does DT go from here…can you lift the lid on future plans?

Not really sure. We’re just going to plan on getting better and better at what we do. I don’t think we have to change anything with the formula. You will start to see some of this great stuff in physical form — on wax — very soon.

Talk about where things are going musically these days? It appears there’s never been more of a separation between the mainstream appetite and what “good/great” music really is. Thoughts?

I think the world of music — the world of the ARTIST — couldn’t be healthier right now. As far as where things are going, who fucking knows. I think this is potentially the most exciting time for music in history. Honestly.

What’s on your breakfast plate?

I wish I made a regular point of breakfast. It’s usually nothing as it takes forever to get the kids fed and at that point it’s monitoring and making sure they’re not busting their heads open on hard stuff and us needing to rush to the hospital. If I had my way — a waffle with maple syrup and strawberries every goddamn day!

“Never ask for money”. That’s Benji Roger’s mantra. While crowdsourced funding for the arts has taken off and slowly breaks mainstream; Benji and his crew at Pledge Music have a different take on how bands and fans can share the experience of making a record or tour. We’ve been chatting with Benji the past few months about a lot of things and felt it was time we dropped a slew of questions in his lap and let him have at it. So here we go….read all of it.

Tell me about Pledge Music. What is it that you do?

We’re a direct to fan platform specializing in fundraising, digital marketing and the creating of amazing direct to fan releases in general with a part of the profits from each campaign going to a charity of the artists choice. We focus on the experiential side of the releasing of music via a system of Pledgers only updates from which the artists offer the fans anything from rough mixes, video blogs, demos, live tracks and that sort of thing to private concerts and memorabilia. We help our artists come up with the most imaginative and exciting way to get their music to their fans. We’re not a fan funding company, we don’t really do pre-sales. PledgeMusic is first and foremost a music company. We also have a record label and a publishing company.

There are other crowdsourcing sites like Kickstarter, but Pledge takes a more “hands on” roll with bands, correct?

Yes as I stated above we don’t consider what we do fan funding, or to put it another way: all music is fan funded, it’s just a question of where in the timeline the transaction takes place. The reason I do not favor the terms “fan” or “crowd” funding is that they refer to and focus on a transaction. “Fund my album” or “Donate to my tour fund” are not, to my mind, appealing. This is also why we do not disclose the target amount of money to the fans. It’s hard enough to get fans to buy albums once they are made, let alone fund them before they are even in the can and so, by placing the emphasis on the bands “needs” seems to me to look desperate. Crowd sourcing sites are fantastic for proof of concept types of projects, but I would argue that you never want to offer your music to the people who in most cases look up to you, and say in effect: This is worth $10,000 and if you think it’s good enough give me $10 and I’ll go make an album.” Worse you don’t want to let your fans know that your album is worth $250,000 and then not hit your target. The way these campaigns are conceived is what’s key and that is where we really have been effective. If a band signs up from the web we succeed in getting them to their target 75% of the time. If it’s an artist who really engages with us or that we have approached, our success rate is over 85%. If you do some digging you will see that this is very high indeed. Fans want experiences, they want to share what they are doing and not what they are buying. It’s not about a dollar amount at the end of the day. In fact this is a hindrance rather than a help. It’s about a shared experience. It’s not about bundles or straight up-selling either. It’s about what and who the artist is and the way in which they engage with their fans. We help people to get their records made or their tours under way with as much integrity and, to quote one our current Pledge artists, Cornershop, “as much decorum as possible.”

What spawned the idea of Pledge in the first place?

Something had to give. I was making music and doing pretty well but something in me saw that the industry as it was, was just not going to be able to sustain itself. There were some amazing tools out there for independent artists to use but none that popped into my head the way that Pledge did. I saw in my head “artists, fans & charities” and set about building it. All of a sudden, I realised that it was a much bigger undertaking than was possible by just one man and a computer and so we took it to the next level. The guiding principle is that everybody wins. It has been from the start and continues to be so today.

Tell me about a couple success stories and/or bands that wanted to but didn’t work with Pledge and how they faired in the long run?

We have had some incredible success stories. Multiple artists have been signed to record and publishing deals from indies to majors and we have also worked with artists who have been dropped and it has, in their words, given them a new found confidence in their abilities to engage with their fans and to carry on or even surpass where they were. Something that their labels were, in most cases, not set up to do. We have artists raising hundreds of thousands of dollars which is amazing but equally incredible is when a new artist gets what they need to make the first trip to SXSW happen or to get their first CD made. We are firm with the artists we work with on what we think they can realistically achieve using the system and, as such, artists will often go to different sites where they can shoot for higher target amounts than we would let them launch with. They mostly fail to hit these targets and so get nothing which is a shame. The point is that it’s not just a simple whack it up there, choose a number and go for it game. It requires knowledge and organization to achieve success in the direct to fan space. We have been lucky, in that, management companies use us multiple times, as do artists. Most of our business comes from other artists who have used us. Just check the homepage for their testimonials. We are fortunate indeed to have earned such loyalty and we fully intend to keep it that way.

You started a label and publishing company recently to help some bands who’ve used Pledge. Tell me about that.

It was the next logical step. We have an amazing A&R tool at our disposal and we actually found ourselves competing with labels who wanted to sign acts out of the system in some cases. An artist can really prove themselves to a label, manager or publisher using the system and can do so without looking desperate or needy as they go about it. Also, in the cases of artists we have signed, we have seen how they perform and they have by their own success proven their viability. Since often, the artists have paid for their album already using the system, we can spend on marketing & promotion and therefore offer a better deal than other labels can. But it has to be something that we can put our hands on hearts and say that we can make it work. The deals we offer are incredibly fair to the artists and involve limited terms. I have no interest in offering an artist anything that I myself would not sign as a musician and when the deal leaves us, it does so in that fashion. Whilst it is a new label, we have the most incredible people with decades of music business experience who are now running things at PledgeMusic and so it wasn’t a big leap. I am obsessed by what works. If we can make it work we will try. If we can’t then we will say so. It’s a very open and fair thing. It is a lot of work but it is amazing. Our first release is with The Damnwells album, on March 15th, and we couldn’t be happier. We have a great team working the record. Their campaign was amazing and truly showed us the potential of the band and the system.

How are you different from Kickstarter and/or a site like Crowdbands?

“Never ask your fans for money!” You have no idea how sick my team are of hearing me say this but it’s the truth. I love Kickstarter and what Yancey and his team have built, is truly an amazing funding tool. I have pledged on a few of their projects, including an artist who went with them rather than us. The thing is, that as a musician myself, I would not want to open up my finances in that way to my fans. Simply asking your fans for money, which is what crowd funding sites do, does work in some cases but in general is not successful enough of the time for my comfort level and I believe that it’s because it is just that; fundraising. For products, software, movies etc… it all makes total sense but not for music. I built what I wanted to use and what I thought would stand the best chance of succeeding. I mean, if you want to simply ask your fans for money, then a paypal button on your website with a “donate here” should do the trick. But it’s not really too compelling and isn’t something I would ever want to do. The way in which fans receive their information from you is of critical importance, no matter what level you are at. Our Pledgers only updates page, which is where artists reward their fans for their participation no matter the financial level, is really where our campaigns shine as this is ultimately where the fan is getting the experience or the journey of the album/tour as it is being undertaken. We try and help our artists to come up with new and interesting things to offer their fans, but more than that, we challenge them to deliver what they would want to receive from their favourite artists, to the people that they are making this music for in the first place. In turn, the fans reward the band by spending more and in the process the charity makes a little something too. So in short, everybody: artists, fans and charities, win. Can’t beat that really.

Is it important for bands to have a “.com” type site or do you think they can get by with a mix of services i.e. MySpace, BandPage, Bandcamp and Bandzoogle?

Bandzoogle is one of the best platforms I have come across and I use it to this day and have done for years. I think it’s important to have all means for people to get involved with you, made available to them. But the key is to let your fans share what they are doing. A website with no one on it is pointless. If you can’t upkeep one, don’t! But primarily our Pledge success come from e-mail addresses (essential to have an email list) Facebook and then Twitter. The point is to interact with fans in the setting of their choosing. If they want to do this on Facebook, fine! But always get an e-mail address. There are tons of great tools out there for doing this. Free ones at that!

What’s the future hold for Pledge…what can we expect to see?

We want to stay excellent and to keep the quality of what we do and the service that we offer at the front of our minds . I think that we will be working with more labels in the future as part of the release strategies for their artists and we are also in the process of signing more artists to the label and to the publishing company. I think that we can achieve a 90% success rate across all of the artists that we work with and so we haven’t got that far to go. The system will get smarter, and I hope we will too, and we are just now lining up some incredible music for this new year and we are already beating our own expectations. I want to get as much money into the hand of our artists in the shortest possible time and to get more amazing music out there and into the ears of the fans who so desperately want it. It’s going to be brilliant!

Interesting interview with Brad Nevin, CEO of the The Orchard. He gives a little background on the origins of the Orchard and where he things digital distro is heading in the future. A nice, lazy Monday afternoon read while you blow off work and wait for Tuesday to get stuff done.

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Brad Navin is the CEO of the Orchard an independent music and video distributor specializing in comprehensive digital strategies for content owners. Brad started his career in the mailroom at William Morris and went on to be an agent at the very successful boutique agency Artists and Audience Entertainment and later managed artists. I first met Brad in the late 1990s when he had moved from management to working at a startup called Digital Club Network. I figured that the heads of one of the largest independent content distributors would have a unique outlook and opinion on the business.Music Consultant:Brad thanks for taking the time to speak today. I wanted to see what was going on with you and the Orchard.

Remind me how you went from doing business development for the Digital Club Network to running the Orchard in a few short years?

BN: Digital Club Network was based on the concept of wiring up live music clubs to record and broadcast emerging bands over the Internet. I loved the model, and was helping build the roster of clubs that would participate. It was a successful run but it was pre-iTunes. It was hard to figure out how to monetize seeing John Mayer live at the 40-Watt club in Athens, Georgia in front of 15 people when there is was no iTunes. I think we were ahead of our time, as you can see from cool sites that exist today that are recording and broadcasting live shows. It ultimately led to where I am now; the principals that bought The Orchard and eMusic also bought some of the aspects of Digital Club Network and asked me to come over and join The Orchard.

Read more @ Musician Coaching.

Put your thinking goggles on and brew up some green tea. A really interesting interview from Hypebot w/ Aram Sinnreich. Let an academic rock your afternoon with his views/ideas on where music and tech are heading.

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This is part two of my interview segment with Aram Sinnreich, who is assistant professor of journalism and media studies at Rutgers University and author of the book Mashed Up: Music, Technology, And The Rise Of Configurable Culture. In this interview, Sinneich talks about the challenges of democracy in the digital age; why we’re all fans and artists, in our own right; and how music provides us with a roadmap for social evolution.

Will the RIAA ever succeed in their mission of disrupting the culture of file-sharing and locking up the web?

Aram Sinnreich: There are pretty much only two choices: either configurability will continue unabated and completely reorder our social and cultural infrastructure, or the powers that be will successfully stifle all cultural innovation and collective production, at the cost of the Internet as we know it, and with a lot of collateral damage in the form of our privacy and civil liberties. There’s not really a workable middle ground that I can see.

Read more @  Hypebot

Really interesting interview from Hypebot about what the public is willing to pay for when so much of what music is about is so easily had for free. What are the scarcities that still remain? What and how much are people willing to pay? Lots of good questions and answers. Worth it, yo.

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This is part two of my interview segment with Hannah, who is the writer behind File Sharing Represents New Generation. She could very well be the new music consumer, depending on who you ask. I found her short essay online and thought it was be an interesting take on the current happenings in the music industry – from the perspective of someone not as deeply as entrenched as most of us. In part two, Hannah shares her thoughts on how the free flow of music has benifited artists and what fans are willing to pay for.

What are fans willing to pay for? If they won’t pay for digital downloads of music, how else are they planning to support the creativity of artists? In what instances do you feel inclined to buy music, compensating an artist?

Hannah: Fans are absolutely willing to pay for concerts. And all this is not to say that we will absolutely never download legally from iTunes, etc. We will, if we can’t find another easy way. Really, it’s all about accessibility.

If someone we know knows how to get it for free, then of course we will do that. But if it’s easier to log on and buy it, we’ll do that too.

Fans are also willing to listen to ads; Pandora has ads now, and many websites like HypeMachine have limits where you can’t skip through songs. That, in addition to being a restriction that we are willing to put up with, also exposes us to stuff we wouldn’t necessarily listen to otherwise.

Read more @  Hypebot