New Flickr slideshow on the future of digital music and the need for a public music license
... take a look and let me know how you like it:)
114 posts categorized "Music Flat Rate"
November 05, 2012
October 31, 2012
JWT's Things to Watch: Music Edition (October 2011 slideshow): Must-read!
From 2011 but totally current stuff - must-read and think!!!
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
September 06, 2012
The Future of the Music Business - a new Ecosystem (the ultimate slideshow)
July 15, 2012
In German: my reply to the Swiss music industry response on my music-flatrate proposal / Das Lamentieren der Ewig-Gestrigen: meine Antwort
Sorry for posting this in German-only; I will provide an English translation soonest! For now, here is a somewhat OK Google translation :)
Am 1. Juni 2012 habe ich einen Vorschlag für eine neue digitale Musik-Lizenz (die in Konsequenz eine sog. Musik-FlatRate ermöglichen würde) an die Schweizer Regierung und die Musikindustrie veröffentlicht, siehe hier (blog) und hier (Facebook Page) und hier (mein deutsches 'DerFuturist' blog); das PDF ist hier.
Am 6. Juli erhielt ich dann schliesslich eine Replik von SUISA, SIG, IFPI Schweiz, Swissperform, Audio-Vision Schweiz, und von Musikschaffende Schweiz (via Poto Wegener / Swissperform), mit der Überschrift "Musik Flatrate - mehr Schnapsidee als Segen!". Leider gibt es die gesamte Replik wohl nur als PDF - deswegen habe ich den Text unten nochmals angehängt.
Liebe SUISA, SwissPerform, IFPI Schweiz, Audio-Vision Schweiz und Musikschaffende Schweiz:
Zunächst möchte ich vorausschicken das ich mit eurer (* ihr / euch / eure bezieht sich im nachfolgendem dann übrigens auf alle Unterzeichner der Replik) Stellungnahme wirklich sehr enttäuscht bin - es gibt in eurer Replik nicht einen einzigen positiven Ansatz, nicht ein 'Ja' zu irgendetwas, sondern nur ein grosses 'Nein'. Schade. Ihr reiht doch tatsächlich wieder uralte Floskeln, Schubladen-Antworten und verstaubte Angst-Phrasen aneinander und stellt dann meine vorgeschlagene Lösung auch noch als Weg in die perfekte und legale Piraterie dar...
Mehr lesen ... read more here or here (via my new German blog 'Der Futurist')
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..."
April 12, 2012
Cloud-based music streaming trends: told you so!
From a new eMarketer post (and related report), here are some interesting snippets:
"In a sign of how important online streaming and subscription music services have become to the recording industry, trade publication Billboard recently updated its weekly Hot 100 song chart to include data from Spotify, Slacker, Rhapsody, Cricket/Muve, Rdio and MOG. The revamped methodology went live in March 2012, after several months of testing that showed a rising curve for audio streams, from 320.5 million in the first week of 2012 to 494 million during the week of March 4, 2012. By comparison, digital track sales during that period decreased from 46.4 million to 27.1 million, according to Nielsen..."
This is, of course, totally obvious: as good as it is, iTunes is essentially an inadvertent punishment for being interested in more music, since every desire to listen to aka 'consume' new music results in having to spend another dollar on downloading the track. Cloud-based services don't have that problem - and clearly I won't pay $ 20.000 to fill up my iPod with Apple's music, while I have no problem saving 2000 Spotify tracks on my iPhone anytime I want to (and for $10 / month). I have been talking about this for the past 10 years, but here it is again: access is replacing ownership, like it or not (and I don't see a reason not to like it, as user or as creator). We can wish for this to be different, but it's not. End of story. Participate or become insignificant.
"Another indicator of the popularity of cloud-based streaming was a 50.5% increase in online music listening hours in 2011. According to a February 2012 report from AccuStream Research, US consumers spent 1.3 billion hours listening to music through internet radio and other streaming services in 2011, up from 865 million hours in 2010. The media spend associated with US internet radio and on-demand streaming services amounted to $293.7 million in 2011, according to AccuStream Research. This compares with $171.7 million spent on subscriptions to those services. AccuStream forecast that the total market would grow by 78% in 2012... Ad monetization is expected to grow at a healthy clip on the mobile side as well. eMarketer expects US mobile music advertising revenues to hit $591.5 million in 2015, more than doubling 2012’s total of $264.5 million. According to eMarketer estimates, the advertising component of mobile revenue is much higher with music than with gaming or video, largely because of the popularity of Pandora and Spotify on mobile devices..."
Yes, of course, streaming music currently makes much less money for the content owners and rights holders than downloading does - but the key to making this work is to get EVERYONE involved in streaming legally via one of the existing or future services and platforms, just like radio, i.e. starting with a more or less free / feels-like-free or freemium offering. The math is simple: if 200 Million people use Spotify or Simfy or Rdio - whether they pay 'with attention' aka advertising, via telco bundles, or with their own cash - then the rightsholders will see some serious money coming their way. If they can't allow this market to grow, then it won't be created (at least not in a legal way)
The bottom line is: the music industry has to monetize AROUND the music, not just WITH the music. Think advertising, bundling, added values... new generatives. There is no sense whatsoever in fighting the obvious trend of access replacing ownership.
February 24, 2012
Midem 2012: Understanding Marketing in a Networked Society (video)
This video just went live on the MIDEM Youtube channel, see the panel description here
"We now live in a digital society, networked, mobile, social and always-on. In this super-noisy, decentralised world of constant self-broadcasting, liking, sharing and networking, how will an artist, a manager, a label or publisher, or any other business get attention, and reach their audiences? If interaction comes before transaction, what does marketing look like in the next few years? How does one build a strong brand in this world..."
January 17, 2012
Must-read: Spotify's Daniel Ek: The Most Important Man In Music - Forbes (but are they licensed to kill?)
Read this nice piece, below.
I love spotify and am addicted to it, and Daniel is cool, but here is the key question: can the seriously ingrained Egonomics of the music industry really be changed by Daniel Ek? Can artists and technology companies actually cooperate for a win-win-win solution, without resorting to power tactics? Can some kind of ecosystem be build in a space where ego ruled since the days of Elvis ? You tell me.
IMHO, as the image conveys, I don't think Spotify will ultimately be allowed ie licensed to kill the CD or the unit-sale-centric business model of the traditional music industry. Many artists don't agree with this trend and demand more money, now, from Spotify (utter foolishness, of course - talk about killing the golden goose), many publishers and rights societies (such as GEMA) live in a different universe and have nothing better to do than to strangle technology innovators like Spotify and Youtube with last-century licensing provisions, and the telcos don't care enough to get engaged. We'll see.
Spotify and Daniel Ek: The Most Important Man In Music - Forbes
...The music industry has been waiting more than a decade for Ek. Or more specifically, someone—anyone—who could build something (a) more enticing to consumers than piracy while (b) providing a sustainable revenue model
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.
October 24, 2011
Announcing my new Kindle book "The Future of Content"
Today is a very big day for me. My new Kindle book "The Future of Content" just went online at Amazon, and is already gaining a lot of traction. You can view a very short video greeting about the book on my GerdTube channel (Youtube:)
Of course I would be very happy if you would consider buying the book for yourself (only $3.90, Kindle-only) but beyond that it would be really great if you could help me spread the word via rating and / or 'liking' the book on the Amazon.com page, tweeting about it or just forwarding this mail to some friends that may be interested.
As you probably know, I have published my last 3 books as free pdfs (which are quite popular) but really wanted to try something new with this book; after all reading on the Kindle is a much better experience than reading a PDF, and thus is, to quote Kevin Kelly, one of those "New Generatives" :)
"The future of content" will also be available in dead-tree-versions aka print, via my Lulu store, soon - please stay tuned. Happy reading!
Gerd Leonhard
(Media Futurist and CEO of The Futures Agency),
Basel / Switzerland
http://twitter.com/#!/gleonhard
My public Amazon / Kindle profile
(sharing all my book highlights there)
Update October 25 2011: this nice review may be helpful:
Increases brain power for content creators, October 25, 2011This review is from: The Future of Content (Kindle Edition)
"I challenge you to expand your brain and read this book. What Gerd Leonhard is always doing is informing the global brain (or the collective brain) in ways that help us all get where we're trying to go. He builds the buildings in front of us.
This collection points toward several compelling answers for content creators. As a writer who is already swimming in the changing currents of "content," I found it intensely informative. Leonhard shores up my courage to continue embracing a digital world without DRM, and ebook prices "for the masses." He makes the all-important concept of curation crystal clear. If you are providing any kind of content in print or on the web, it's relevant. If you want to stay on the front edge of content creation and publishing, it's basic. I'm making this book mandatory reading for my epublishing circles"
Amazon Kindle German Store
Amazon Kindle French Store
Amazon Kindle UK Store
ABOUT "THE FUTURE OF CONTENT"
Futurist Gerd Leonhard has been writing about the future of content i.e. music, film, TV, books, newspapers, games etc, since 1998. He has published 4 books on this topic, 2 of them on music (The Future of Music, with David Kusek, and Music 2.0). For the past 10 years Leonhard has been deeply involved with many clients in various sectors of the content industry, in something like 17 countries, and it’s been a great experience, he says. “I have learned a lot, I have listened a lot, I have talked even more (most likely:) and I think I have grown to really understand the issues that face the content industries - and the creators, themselves - in the switch from physical to digital media.”
This Kindle book is a highly curated collection of the most important essays and blog posts Leonhard has written on this topic, and even though some of it was written as far back as 2007 - “I believe it still holds water years later. I have tried to only include the pieces that have real teeth. Please note that the original date of each piece is shown here in order to allow for contextual orientation.” Leonhard’s intent to publish this via the amazing Amazon Kindle platform, exclusively, and at a very low price, is to make these ideas and concepts as widely available as possible while still trying to be an example of what digital, paperless distribution can look like, going forward.
October 21, 2011
New video: the Future of Content, my Keynote at Colombia 3.0 (SPANISH)
Here are both parts (90 minutes plus 35 minutes) of my keynote speech on The Future of Content at Colombia 3.0 October 7 2011 see http://www.colombiatrespuntocero.com
The panel discussion afterwards can be viewed here, as well (all in Spanish). Note: even though I am actually presenting in English the overdup is Spanish and very much in the foreground. I will try and get an English version, as well - stay tuned.
files.me.com/gleonhard/gi5dw0 has the PDF with the slides using during the talk (i.e. most of them) Thanks to MINTIC for making this video available. For more context read http://www.mintic.gov.co/index.php/mn-news/469-20111008gerd
Related: check out my new Kindle book "The Future of Content"
El suizo GerlLeonhard, líder futurólogo experto en modelos de comercio electrónico, medios de comunicación e innovación fue el encargado del cierre de la Primera Cumbre Nacional de Contenidos Digitales, Colombia 3.0, realizada por el Ministerio TIC entre el 5 y el 8 de octubre. Después de cuatro días de análisis en los que se reunieron emprendedores, inversionistas, animadores, desarrolladores de aplicación y representantes de la industria de los contenidos digitales del mundo terminó Colombia 3.0. En la cumbre participaron 30 conferencistas nacionales y 50 internacionales, quienes se reunieron en 14 eventos simultáneos.Las distintas actividades y conferencias fueron seguidas en línea en 23 ciudades del país y 15 países. De igual manera se tuvo la participación de Siggraph, una asociación mundial de animación gráfica y técnicas interactivas, espacio en que 19 expertos en animación compartieron sus experiencias exitosas en las firmas más importantes del mundo de esta industria. Bogotá 7 de octubre de 2011.En su intervención GerlLeonhard, realizó un detallado análisis de los cambios que han sufrido los medios tradicionales al migrar a los medios sociales como Facebook, Twitter y otras redes sociales. Además,Leonhard anotó que en la actualidad se vive una cultura de la banda ancha y son los “prosumidores”, consumidores activos, los que producen contenidos digitales.
Mencionó el experto suizo que el mundo digital está regido por la relevancia y no solamente por la distribución, según Leonhard, los contenidos digitales deben ser depurados antes de ser distribuidos a los distintos públicos y subrayó que la nueva economía digital que se está viviendo en la actualidad debe iniciarse desde Internet y especialmente desde los dispositivos móviles. Anotó también Leonhard, que el usuario es quien genera los contenidos digitales en la actualidad através de distintos dispositivos móviles. En su intervención, señaló además que la tendencia actual se desarrolla a través de lo móvil, lo social y lo local. Ademásindicó, en este sentido,que para el 2015se esperaque 7.1 trillones de dispositivos móviles sean usados en el mundo.
September 19, 2011
MUST WATCH: PressPausePlay Movie, related 9-minute excerpt of interview with me (future of music ++)!
I am delighted to be involved with PressPausePlay, a movie about digital creativity, funded and promoted by Ericsson, featuring people such as Hank Shocklee, Seth Godin, ZeFrank, Sean Parker, Larry Lessig and Mike Mesnick. And it's finally out and available! Here is what it's all about:
"The digital revolution of the last decade has unleashed creativity and talent in an unprecedented way, with unlimited opportunities. But does democratized culture mean better art or is true talent instead drowned out? This is the question addressed by PressPausePlay, a documentary film containing interviews with some of the world's most influential creators of the digital era"
You can download it via bit-torrent (free but painful) or iTunes US (paid but much swifter:)
From the blog: "we have had so many people ask "Where can we see your film?" and this week we are very happy to say our digital distribution has begun! PressPausePlay is now available online in many countries around the world, with more coming soon. You can now find PressPausePlay on iTunes US, iTunes Canada and iTunes UK. You can also purchase PressPausePlay on Amazon.com, Walmart.com, Vudu.com, CinemaNow.com, Xbox, and Playstation. Or put us on your Netflix cue where we will be coming soon..."
Please RT and spread the word!!
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