JWT's Things to Watch: Music Edition (October 2011 slideshow): Must-read!
From 2011 but totally current stuff - must-read and think!!!
50 posts categorized "Music2.0 Book"
October 31, 2012
October 11, 2012
Join me November 28 2012 for an important public debate on the future of digital music in Switzerland, and the proposed music flat-rate (in German)
Cross-posted von Rote Fabrik Zürich
Vorstellung eines Modells einer öffentlichen digitalen Musiklizenz, Stellungsnahmen und Diskussion
Präsentiert vom Konzeptbüro Rote Fabrik gemeinsam mit Dock18 - Institut für Medienkulturen der Welt.
Unterstützt von Digitale Allmend
Der Eintritt zur Veranstaltung ist frei.
BITTE UNTER FOLGENDER ADRESSE ANMELDEN:
http://diemusikflatrate.eventbrite.com/
Die These:
Musik fliesst heute überall, jederzeit und auf allen Geräten, egal ob
wir einen Download oder einen sog. Stream wollen. Der Unterschied
zwischen Anhören und Besitzen ist bereits fast vollkommen verschwunden -
und genau das ist die Herausforderung für die gesamte Musikwirtschaft.
Wir brauchen dringend neue Geschäfts- und Kulturmodelle die diesem
unwiderlegbaren Trend Rechnung tragen.
Programm:
18.30:
Eröffnungsrede / Begrüssung
18.40:
Präsentation: Eine neue Internet Musiklizenz und die Musik-Flatrate: was, wie, wer und warum?
Gerd Leonhard, Autor, Musiker, Futurist und CEO TheFuturesAgency (Basel)
19.00:
Stellungsnahmen zum Thema:
Acht eingeladene Gäste, u.a. Tim Renner / MotorMusic Berlin, Poto Wegener / Swissperform.
Zusätzlich werden eingeladen: Vertreter der SUISA, IFPI, Musikschaffenden, Parteien, IGE.... etc.
Teilnehmer werden nach Zusage umgehend bekanntgegeben
20.00:
Öffentliche Diskussion und Debatte
Update: ein kurzes Video von Gerd
Resourcen zum Thema
Diskutiert wird auf dieser Facebook Page
Twitter Hashtag ab sofort:
#musikzukunft
Vorschlag zum Thema Musik Flatrate, Gerd Leonhard 1. Juni 2012
Das PDF mit dem Vorschlag
Replik der SUISA, IFPI, SwissPerform, Musikschaffende CH et al 'Untaugliche Schnapsdee' vom 6. Juli 2012
Gerd Leonhard's Antwort auf die Replik der SUISA IFPI et al
Tageswoche: Billag für Musik aus dem Netz
Musikmarkt Magazin Deutschland Bericht über die Schweizer Flatrate
Diskussion
May 31, 2012
My proposal to the Swiss government and the Swiss music industry: Die Musik Flatrate - das Schweizer Modell (in German!)
Update: Friday June 1 5pm EST: we now have the whole thing online (in German, for now), here, and the discussion is starting on this brand-new Facebook page.
I just finished this open letter to the Swiss government and the music industry, proposing a new, standardized digital music license, and a digital music flat rate of 1 Swiss Franc per week per user, paid by the retailers or telcos or the users.
Note: The PDF is in GERMAN until I get around to translating it: http://db.tt/IfIYAS3U
The blog post on my German site is here: http://www.gleonhard.com/2012/05/die-musik-flatrate-ein-schweizer-modell.html
More very soon!
Gerd
PS: This video says it all, really, and in English:))
May 04, 2012
Resetting the music business (good review of my keynote at SPOT festival)
Wired UK's Duncan Geere has just published a really astute summary of my keynote at the annual SPOT music conference in Arhus, Denmark, see below. It's not that I haven't been saying this for the past 10 years but I think I may have phrased it all a bit bitter:) See the slides below; and feel free to download my Music 2.0 book, here.
"At the Spot music conference in Århus, Denmark, musician and futurist Gerd Leonard discussed a series of possible futures for the music business. Leonhard isn't a fan of how the record industry has been run over the last decade or so. "The whole economy of music is based on big companies owning the rights. It's unsustainable," he said, comparing the major record labels to big oil companies.
"Do big oil companies represent nature?" he asked. "Of course not. Do the big record labels represent music? Probably not." Leonhard sketched out the reasons why people pirate music, blaming high costs and a lack of legal alternatives, and he also argued that cracking down on filesharing doesn't benefit artists. "We had 52,000 people sued in Europe over copyright infringement," he said. "That earned nothing for the artists. Only the lawyers."
But Leonhard is optimistic, arguing that music is simply migrating into something larger. "The business model of merely selling 'copies' of music is over," he said. "Let's redefine the meaning of selling. No-one knows what it means." Leonhard is a firm believer in the power of access models over ownership ones. Models where you pay a small recurring subscription fee to gain access to an enormous jukebox in the sky, just like Spotify (which he says he's a big fan of).
Leonhard claims that it would only require each person in Europe to pay two euros each month to generate revenues larger than the global music industry. That's not necessarily a practical thing to demand individuals to do, but companies have begun to roll subscriptions of this nature into other products, making this music tax more palatable. Telecoms providers have begun to bundle music subscriptions into their contracts, which is a way of making music "feel like free" to the consumer.
But that's not quite enough, he said, projecting a list of hundreds of legal music services from across the world onto a screen, compiled by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI). He claimed that most of them are dead or dying: "90 percent of the legal music services are bankrupt, or there but sorta not doing anything," he said.
To fix this, compulsory licenses, like radio licenses, are needed. "The free markets won't fix this problem. They won't work. We need must-license provisions, public oversight, regulation for the common good," Leonhard said."In 2017, we'll have five billion connected devices," says Leonhard. "75 percent of that will be mobile, accessing 50 or so platforms of content, sharing a €250 billion ad market."
To capitalise on that potential, Leonhard says, music companies are already diversifying beyond simply selling records. Labels have begun taking a chunk of all sorts of revenues -- merchandise, touring, premium content, sync licensing (getting music on television, and in adverts and movies) and other sources. "We're going to make money in 50 different ways. The first music business was a grand illusion."
Ok... so far so good. There are 2 things you may want to look at in this context:
My slideshow from today:
From Ego to Eco: the future of the music business (Futurist, Author and Keynote Speaker Gerd Leonhard)
View more presentations from Gerd Leonhard
My 2020 video on Music Like Water (via Ericsson)
My most popular video on Youtube: Music Like Water (Ericsson 2020 Shaping Ideas)
Check it out. Thanks to Ericsson for the nice production work.
See more videos at http://www.ericsson.com/campaign/20about2020/.
"Music used to be a product that we bought piece by piece. Now it is becoming a public utility, says media futurist Gerd Leonhard, who argues that we will soon be constantly connected to an infinite library of songs. And when music is like water or electricity, our friends become the new music critics..."
February 04, 2012
January 11, 2012
Get the free PDF of my Music 2.0 book - just pay with a tweet or Facebook post!
Attention is the new currency is one of my favorite memes. So: simply tweet about my 2009 book Music 2.0 (even if you already have it, in print or as PDF) and receive the link to the free download. Use this link to PAY WITH A TWEET and spread the word. If you really must get a dead-tree edition, the print version can be ordered via my bookstore at Lulu.com
About Music 2.0 (from the free mobile site): "This book was self-published in 2009 and is an edited collection of my best essays on the future of the music industry, and continues the work I presented in my first book, The Future of Music, co-written with Dave Kusek. It further describes what I think the next generation of music companies will actually look like – hence the term Music 2.0, a description derived from the now increasingly popular “Web 2.0.” I have been writing and blogging about digital music and the next generation of the music industry for almost four years now – in airplanes, taxis, trains, busses, hotel lobbies, conference halls, and at home. In Internet time (and it certainly feels that way to me), this is almost forever! In many ways my message and my opinions may have evolved a bit but the bottom lines and visions have not changed a whole lot.
Looking back at some 1,000 blog posts and over 20 essays it is evident that by far the most often covered subject is indeed what I (and many other people – I make no claim to having invented this moniker!) have come to call Music 2.0, the new principles that define the next iteration of the music business. All of this is also closely connected with a few other terms that I have co-coined and have come to be associated with: Music Like Water (MLW), the Flat Rate for Music, Feels Like Free (FLF), the Usator, Friction is Fiction, and the People Formerly Known As Consumers. In this book, I aim to just fine-tune the best of my writings from the past four years, while not altering the content too much, in order to preserve the timeliness and context of when it was actually written..."
You can also read the book on pretty much any mobile device just by going to MusicFutures.com.
Also, be sure to follow my music-business specific tweets via @music2dot0. To see all my blog posts on the Music 2.0 book (and the topics covered in the book) please go here. For the music-business specific videos, visit my Youtube channel. Slideshows are here.
July 27, 2011
May 12, 2011
Bakers not Eaters: the new music industry (short video for MIDEM)
MIDEM just published an exclusive video with me: check it out below. "In this exclusive video post for MIDEMBlog, media futurist & CEO of The Futures Agency cites Guy Kawasaki's notion that we should be "bakers, not eaters," or contributors to an "ecosystem", i.e. a collaborative economy, as opposed to an each-to-his-own "ego system". Food for thought!
http://www.thefuturesagency.com
http://www.guykawasaki.com/enchantment/
January 13, 2011
November 06, 2010
A new social contract for digital music (short video from the Future of Music conference in Dublin)
Here is a short clip from the Future of Music event in Dublin (June 2010) - best soundbite, imho: "It's about the creator and the user - period". Enjoy and RT. More videos (incl. download feed for iTunes) are at GerdTube.
November 01, 2010
Social Media for Music Professionals (Berklee College of Music Seminar)
Last week, while in Boston, I was invited by my Alma Mater (Berklee College of Music) to do a workshop on how social media can help musicians and music professionals to build a better career for themselves. The PDF is here (8MB), and the M4V file (iPod, 500 MB) video can be downloaded here. All is provided under the usual Creative Commons Attribution / Non-Commercial license. Enjoy and re-tweet this if you can. Update: audio-only version (MP3)
Gerd Leonhard at Berklee on Social Media (Audio Only)
September 03, 2010
Nice new video: Music Like Water (by Ericsson 2020 Ideas)
I am honored to have the pleasure of working with Ericsson on a few of their pretty cool future-oriented activities, including the 2020 ideas project and the PressPausePlay movie. Here is what Ericsson says about the 2020 project:
"...Broadband connectivity and mobility are changing the way we live, the way we work, the way markets function, and the way societies operate. At Ericsson, we need to collaborate and get inspiration from people outside our business in order to adapt to these changes - people that take a stand, and that want to share and work together. which I think is just fabulous. In 2020 – Shaping Ideas, we ask 20 thinkers to share their view on the drivers of the future and how connectivity is changing the world. They describe a future where a growing population faces never before seen challenges and opportunities; where digital natives will shape their lives and the enterprises they work for, and where technology could create a global golden age...."
This quite snazzy video, below, was just released I believe, and it features me talking about one of my chief memes: the Future of Music and Music Like Water (a theme that I developed with my FutureOfMusic book co-writer Dave Kusek, but that originally goes back to David Bowie in the New York Times, see the picture above).
Naturally, there is a ton of stuff available online, on the Music Like Water riff, but if you want to start somewhere, check out my follow-up book Music 2.0 (free online / mobile version here), my MidemNet 2009 video "Compensation not Control", and my various slideshares on related topics, here (one of the best ones is 'making money with music when the copy is free')
August 16, 2010
MusicNetwork Interview on the Music Business "The Future of the Future"
The Future of the Future: Gerd Leonhard looks ahead (published today in TheMusicNetwork)
16 August 2010
16 August 2010
The main shift is going to be away from the downloading of content and owning of CDs and more towards music in the cloud. That is going to happen with most media, starting first with music and then going into films and books. This is not just a music business issue. We are moving away from the copy to access. This is a very good model for the artist. In the past, most of the money was spent on the physical product – so the reproduction, packaging, shipping and retail store.
The artist basically got nothing in most cases. Skipping that whole process now means that the brand of the musician becomes the most important thing. This is very good news for the artist, the producer and the creator but less so for the industry as it’s much easier to sell a copy than it is to sell access. The idea that the artist just gets, say, 10% of the sold product is now out the window. Now the artist will give his agent or service agency some kind of fee – say 25% just as Nettwerk Records and other companies are already doing.
The issue is to get attention and clicks from consumers. If that attention is converted into a revenue share based on advertising, a subscription fee or an upselling process, then as soon as you have attention, you participate. We are still in the old system of counting on revenue per use. That won’t work in the future. The bigger your brand, the bigger the attention you will get and the more clicks you get, the more money you’ll make. I believe that consumers will ask for the access models to be free initially but then after they use it for a while they’ll be quite happy to pay so they can remove the ads or increase the quality of the stream for example. Music online will feel like free. There is plenty of money to be made from ads, but it’s just not there yet. It’s coming, though. We have seen that advertising just doesn’t work on the Internet.
It’s so easy to click away the ads or avoid them altogether. Advertising was essentially useless until now as today we are starting to see social advertising, such as on Facebook. Plus we have mobile advertising. Finally advertising is becoming more useful. The brands are no longer looking to spend 1% of their budget on social or mobile; they’ll be spending 10% or more. There is a total disconnect between the way a new business can be grown and how a lot of rightsholders perceive how the business will be paid for by Google or ISPs, for example.
That’s a very bad approach because it makes it impossible to legally grow a new model. You will be much more successful – like YouTube and Last.fm – if you don’t have the right licence and you just do it. That’s a real irony. I don’t think we’ll be able to support new services without a compulsory licence.
We need a compulsory licence for music use on the Internet so that companies like Spotify, MOG and we7 can use a licence rather than just bang their heads against a wall like they have in Germany and the US. A cloud-based model has to win out in the end, as the costs are so much lower, the sharing is so much easier. You can put all sorts of ads into cloudbased systems because you always know what the user is doing. There are lots of great benefits there. But the industry hates the cloud-based model as they lose control over distribution.
June 19, 2010
Video: the Future of Music in a digital world (Dublin event)
Below is a short Youtube clip from my presentation at CMC Dublin, June 11, 2010 (more details. and the PDF etc, are here). I also recorded the event on my own Kodak Zi8 but am currently having some trouble converting it into flash, so right now you can only watch it on my GerdTube channel (Blip.tv) in Quicktime, or just download the whole 800MB from there.
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