Music2.0 Book Official Press Release: Read & Innovate. Now.

Here is the official press release that is going out right now.... Enjoy. And spread the word!

March 30, 2008, Basel, Switzerland.
Futurist Gerd Leonhard releases timely new book:
"Music2.0" now available as pocket-book and as pay-what-you-want PDF

The Wall Street Journal calls Gerd Leonhard one of the leading media futurists in the world. Gerd has been an activist, pioneer and thought-leader in digital music for the past 10 years; in addition, he has served as Co-Founder and CEO of several startups such as music widget provider Sonific. Many of his predictions on the future of digital music have come true: among others, the death of DRM for music downloads, the advent of digital music flat rates, and the fact that social networks are now in fact becoming the new broadcasters.

As Co-Author of the influential music industry book "The Future of Music" (Berklee Press, 2005) Gerd has helped to launch and popularize the term "Music Like Water" (originally coined by David Bowie) which has now become synonymous with the much-discussed digital music flat rate.

Music2.0 presents an edited collection of Gerd's most popular blog posts, white papers, essays and talks from the past 4 years, and further expands on the key issues that were raised in "The Future of Music". Music2.0 offers 228 pages of hard-hitting yet engaging and inspiring views on what the new music industry will look and feel like, covering topics such as copyright versus usage right, the future of music marketing and promotion, user-generated content and the explosive rise of music social networks, viral music syndication and widgets, next generation revenue models, mobility, P2P, the logic behind the music flat rate, the culture of participation, the attention economy in music, and the future role of labels, managers and publishers. If you are interested in forging a new path and creating the music company of the future, this book is for you!

Gerd comments: "the Music2.0 book is very timely indeed, now that the future is finally within reach: the events of the last 3 months have clearly shown how quickly we are now moving towards an open and transparent music ecosystem. We are heading into a new era where both the creators or artists as well as the consumers are taking the power back from the middlemen that really have not served them well on the Internet; an era where most rules, traditions and paradigms of the past 50 years will be rendered useless, and where deep intuitive understanding of the new consumers and a focus on rapid innovation are crucial. This book aims to provide the road-map - read, think, digest, remix... innovate!"

True to two of his most popular themes - Open is King & The End of Control - Gerd is releasing the book in print as well as a complete PDF that is being made available under a pay-what-you-like 'Radiohead model' and creative commons license.

Apart from his work in music, Gerd has also worked with many clients in Radio, TV, Film, Broadcasting, Advertising, Marketing, Branding, Telecom, Search, Internet and E-Commerce, and is in high demand as a keynote speaker, presenter and think-tank leader, in Europe, the U.S. and in Asia.  Clients include SonyBMG, the BBC, Nokia-Siemens, DDB, TribalDDB, Omnicom, France Telecom / Orange, ITV, Deutsche Telekom, and RTL.  Order the book at www.music20book.com. From time to time, copies of the book will be offered on eBay (.com and .de) as well... give it a try.