"The Future of Music": CORANTE Interview with Gerd Leonhard and Dave Kusek

From CORANTE "The record industry as we know it is dying, but the music industry is exploding" write authors Gerd Leonhard and Dave Kusek in their new book, "The Future of Music." Due to the digitization of music and the possibilities that digital media technologies afford, Leonhard and Kusek see a future where more musicians, more artists and more companies will share in a bigger pie.

In their book, the authors envision a future in which a good portion of digital music is provided via a utility-type arrangement - like water or electricity -, for a flat monthly payment, rather than sold ‘by the unit’ (i.e. as single downloads). The authors predict a promotion engine not driven from the top-down (i.e. by music industry tastemakers and kingmakers), but from the bottom up - by online music communities with members eager to share, and to communicate with each other about new artists. Depending on your point of view, that statement may sound alarming, pie-in-the sky, wise, or simply wrong. Yet through their experiences, both Kusek and Leonhard have earned the right to weigh in. Kusek is co-developer of the Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI) standard to enable musicians to record in inexpensive home studios. In 1993, Kusek worked with A&M Records to design and develop the first commercially available enhanced CD able to connect audio CDs to a PC. And Leonhard has high-level experience on the executive, entrepreneurial, and creative sides of the music industry. In 1997, he founded and served as CEO of LicenseMusic.com, a company that until 2002, streamlined music licensing for such clients as Disney, Paramount Pictures, and Fox TV.

Corante recently sat down with Gerd and Dave to talk about the future of the music industry in this digital era....