The new model is to be aware that you might only have one chance to grab attention of new fans. Creating a digitally synchronized effort to expose, then grab those fans to create an ongoing dialogue. Consumers now, more than ever, want to have a personal connection with the artist and their identity. What your story is and what you represent is as important as the content you're creating. Of course there are more dimensions involved, but I agree with the article. I believe"if you learn how to create and engage fans, they will reward you, and the revenue model will reveal itself".

Hi Nick,

I am not sure what you say is new. I mean, that could be the same as in the 60's , 70's, 80's on a different scale.

In my wiew, the "new model" is a potential emergence of DIY artists or faster celebrity (bieber, lana del rey... many others), that's to say that it is easier to emerge or promote but I am not sure it is a revolution. The revolution is in the ability to copy/paste content without quality loss. what is done with it is another story :-)

So how much is Mike Errico really making from music? Is it his fulltime professional source of income or is he also suplementing his income with another job or jobs (which I highly suspect).

According to Soundscan he's sold a grand total of 7,892 albums since 1996. His best selling album was in 1999 at 3,584 units and his last three releases since 2007 have sold a grand total of 258 units cume... so how is this better?

I understand the "Freehadist" movement of Empowered Hobbyists. That's awesome. But it's not a professional recording industry if people can not sustain a living from it.

I'm pro-choice. The artist should have the choice to choose the path that is best for them. But piracy removes choices by devaluing everyone's work.

What I've been hoping to see is the emergence not of Empowered Hobbyists as Freehadists, but rather the emergence of a new professional middle class of musicians.

That simply is not happening. David's obersavations are entirely correct and if Mike want's to truly refute David's argument he should do so in the same capacity be also presenting his actual revenue stats.

So let's hear it Mike, break down for us how much you are making, and how you are making a professional living as a full time musician under the "new boss".

I won't hold my breath.

What I've been hoping to see is the emergence not of Empowered Hobbyists as Freehadists, but rather the emergence of a new professional middle class of musicians.

I think we need to take a step back here. Successful public policy on music is not achieved by the existence of professionals - at any level. It is achieved by the existence of music and a rich cultural life. If the latter can be achieved without professionals then that is what will happen.

If it can be shown that professional musicians are necessary then the obvious remedy is public finance. This is what happens in most "high art" music such as opera and other classical. It also happens at a lower level. Do not the thousands of music teachers employed in schools constitute a "professional middle class" of musicians?

In case you forget, one of those music teachers was Gustav Holst.

I'm confused. We are living "in the middle of a riot", in a state of "chaos", with no "new model", where  attempting to stop looters is "an

exercise in unenforceability."  Yet you say "things have never been better". This sounds like straight-out contradiction. Having my creative work looted does not sound like "things have never been better".

Please explain.

- Versus

You obviously have never been in a riot before.  Best time of my life!

(JK) ;)

State of the Music Union

It seems to me that everyone is looking at this mistakenly.  First of all we as artists need to all relax about the whole “piracy” thing. No one can truly say that they themselves have ‘ABSOLUTELY’ never written something that somebody else half a world away had already written or recorded.  The fact is that not every thought that every single person on earth has can be “Original of and personal too each one of us” we have a biological memory, as a collective, whether we wrote it, own it, or not, we should be expressing ourselves, and if majors get what they want in a way possibly like the Personal I.P Act that they’re trying to Steam Roll thru congress by means of the money they say they ‘Don’t have because we all stole from them.

“Maybe some of us stole digital files, but all that which, which  amounts to something which is no longer propagated  “physically” , music is becoming less and less real, something unavailable to  us in a natural way. We don’t experience music the same way these days, nothing left to see, smell, taste, to "FEEL". 

BUT! THE THING TO REMEMBER IS THIS: There is a hugely substantial amount of people, virtually everywhere on the map- Who want The Real Items’, they want the CD’s, They want the Vinyl.  IF VINYL IS STILL VIABLY SOLD IN 2012, AND HAS A REAL DEMAND,then there is money to be made. Or at the least, what 'I personally’ care about, that there is enough demand and market to allow me to live a musicians life and have enough money to buy smokes, food, drinks, Gas to the next city and sometimes a room to sleep in for the morning, get up at the crack of noon and do it all over again. Think about how many passionate musicians there has to be in the U.S. alone, and we all spending money on REAL MUSIC PARAPHERNALIA OURSELVES. So at the very least we have the potential to become a self-sustaining Industry, or a Union like society.

I see it like this: Yes, it looks and feels like a warzone sometimes, and it can be cut throat. The people who don’t but the real deal probably wouldn’t have spent money on the labels investments anyway.  The romans had a saying “Ordo Ab Chao” in English, “From Chaos, Order” or “Order Out Of Chaos” I think that pretty much sums things up.  There is always a Revolution brewing somewhere not far behind nor far ahead of the “PARENTS”. I miss the label’s Orchestration capabilities that have largely fallen out of fashion due to the inevitable revenue discrepancy, spending Truly Awe-Inspiring amounts of cash on terrible artists, and wannabe’s who never sold one unit.

All The Majors participated in the practice of Spending more than they should have been on Huge Artist Launch’s That Failed. Now suddenly comes along technology that changes thing’s up and they saw an opportunity to write off all those artists that got signed by an A&R Rep on way to many drugs, I call it the “sounded better when I was drunk effect” bands that spent half a million recording IN A STUDIO to never even get the chance, to be Released, they got shelved. So, now they are trying to stick us with the bill, and leave us the ruins in their wake. What we do with it, as much as it leaves me uneasy to say, ultimately depends on what kinds of communities are founded, and what kind of people we leave in charge, the rest, we’ll have to wait and see if we left the oven on and burned down the house while we were “asleep at the wheel”.

***Let’s hope we make it, and lets’ all try to make things just a Little better, little by little, day by day. SUPPORT INDIE MUSIC, AND LOCAL MUSIC, AND ART. ***

The cultural phenomena of music and art, is a result of ‘sense’s’ that a lot of us aren’t aware of, Music and art is a byproduct of something much more valuable and priceless, The communication of our souls, whatever our spirit is no matter what happens when we die, Music and Art come from the conversation with and between each other, God and the legions of angels’ and Arch-Angels, and ourselves. 

-Joe Brien Jr. -                                                                  

Thursday, February 16, 2012.-

Joebrienjr@Gmail.com also @ www.Facebook.com/joebrienjr

More bullshit from people who can't be bothered to work 8-10 hours a day on their craft and stupidly hope that Google (!) and Pirate Bay (!) will allow them to feed their families with "exposure".

If you are that naive, then by all means go work as a cop or join the military, it's not like they will turn you away because you are too smart for them. You bend over for Google, you will bend over for the Pentagon. Same industry.

Yup.  You know exactly how hard this guy works without even knowing him.

seriously, what is everyone's gripe with google?  they are not the internet.  they are a search engine.if you wanna complain about the man, complain about the riaa or halliburton.  google is not piracy.  it's like blaming the ocean for blackbeard.

The problem with Google is that it is the most evil company in the US, so evil that even the Feds have slapped it in the face for its business practices. $500 mil of slap in the face, in case you haven't heard already.

Your argument doesn't make any sense, you say Google is not the internet so don't blame them but then you say its like blaming the ocean for blackbeard.  The internet would be the ocean so you're basically saying Google is the internet.

The other problem wiht your argument is Google is an action-based company where the RIAA is a response-based organization.  The RIAA exists solely to represent the legal grounds of an industry in the court of law which means the arguments they're representing are not new, they are in existance and the organization is merely making sure they're followed through on.

Google is a business looking to monetize on innovation.  A great company that has accomplished many great things but have gotten to a size where they're able to dictate new laws to best benefit their core business.  This is the problem with Google, if y ou control so many web properties and have a monopoly on a huge section of web interactions, you have a power that no one else has.  When you're doing this and you're a business you will end up making decisions and formulating your beliefs around what benefits you, thus as a result the content industry ends up in conflict with Google who makes billions of dollars every year off content.  

Google is nothing without value in the products you search for.

Youtube is nothing without value in the videos it contains.

Etc.

This in turn creates an issue that they're monetizing off of these properties which have built their value on the products you discover on them, yet they continue to fight against the rights of those they monetize off of.  

I should also note that no one blames Google for piracy, piracy in itself existed before Google made it searchable.  People blame Google for not caring about the rights of those they monetize off of and for manipulating it's user base with false information to support its beliefs.  They're abusing their power and continue show resistance to anything that wont benefit their bottom line.

They are happy to license content and have converations with the music industry around Youtube and Google Music since it profits them, but the minute the content industry engages in a conversation that would benefit the content industry over Google?  All of a sudden the content industry is the evil ones.  Please.

Google IS the new man.  Make no mistake about it.  They dwarf the entire music industry by multiple times.  Their lobbying influence is unparalleled (in terms of White House access with former Google execs populating Obama's inner circle and in terms of being able to shape - or distort - the public's perception of legislation they oppose). 

Google is not piracy, true.  However, music and movies always had to put up with corner bootleggers hawking their counterfeited products.  What those bootleggers lacked was mass distribution.  Google provides that mass distribution and that makes them a huge part of the problem.  That they could quite easily decide to respect creators but choose not to (and fight every effort made to restore creators' rights) because of how much money they're making ad-serving to illegal links to movies, tv shows, music, etc. makes them worthy of the most high contempt.

I dont believe in "exposure" through piratebay. How terrible of me to assume that because your also musicians that you would be open minded enough to not prejudge someone. Think what you want, I have worked in the industry for 14 years now, starting in in a band, then to radio, and lable. I am not bothered to work on my craft 10 hours a day, because I enjoy my "craft" and I am a professional, not a crybaby self loathing "artist." this kind of charecter snipeing is exactly what im getting at. Why talk about me instead having an intelligent discourse about the issues i raised. honesly guys, get a clue.

P.s. why all this Google shit, because i have email thru them instead of "AOL/VIACOM." obviously you guys dont spend as much time on your craft as you claim if your this judgemental.

>>>>

How terrible of me to assume that because your also musicians that you would be open minded enough to not prejudge someone

>>>

terrible disapointments ahead :-)

Hey - I'm not sure if you're referring to me with a real comment, or just trolling. Since I'm not sure, I won't respond, except to say that I would have answered you, had you wanted to discuss something. It took me a day to get back, because I was on the road, doing music.

"More bullshit from people who can't be bothered to work 8-10 hours a day on their craft and stupidly hope that Google (!) and Pirate Bay (!) will allow them to feed their families with "exposure".

If you are that naive, then by all means go work as a cop or join the military, it's not like they will turn you away because you are too smart for them. You bend over for Google, you will bend over for the Pentagon. Same industry."

mike you may have missed this earlier in the thread...

So how much is Mike Errico really making from music? Is it his fulltime professional source of income or is he also suplementing his income with another job or jobs (which I highly suspect).

According to Soundscan he's sold a grand total of 7,892 albums since 1996. His best selling album was in 1999 at 3,584 units and his last three releases since 2007 have sold a grand total of 258 units cume... so how is this better?

I understand the "Freehadist" movement of Empowered Hobbyists. That's awesome. But it's not a professional recording industry if people can not sustain a living from it.

I'm pro-choice. The artist should have the choice to choose the path that is best for them. But piracy removes choices by devaluing everyone's work.

What I've been hoping to see is the emergence not of Empowered Hobbyists as Freehadists, but rather the emergence of a new professional middle class of musicians.

That simply is not happening. David's obersavations are entirely correct and if Mike want's to truly refute David's argument he should do so in the same capacity be also presenting his actual revenue stats.

So let's hear it Mike, break down for us how much you are making, and how you are making a professional living as a full time musician under the "new boss".

I won't hold my breath.

Call me a dreamer, but there is a simple "partial" solution that is rarely discussed.

Now that most musicians have a social presence on facebook, etc. There is an opportunity to talk directly with your fans, why not simply ask for their support.

Instead of arguing with your colleagues about a seemingly endless subjective list of philosophical analysis, why not push the conversation out to people who value your music.  It is really a simple, non-controversial discussion about the musicians needs for fan support.  

"We love the fact that you are our fans, but honestly we need your support to continuing writing, creating and recording our music.  In every other profession people are paid for their work, why shouldn't we?  Please consider our request, because without your support we are severly limited in our ability to dedicate our lives to doing what matters most to us."

Cut through the clutter of the misinformation that surrounds online piracy.  You might be surprised at the response.

Sincerely,

Will Buckley, founder, FarPlay.org 

Great writer, musician and super dude!

Dear David Lowery, what do you think of the Pirate Bay?

Zoe Keating dissapeared when she heard the same question, I hope you have more guts.

excellent read...

Hey I have read read your article and i think artist is not unseuccessful you just have to work hard

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Does no-one remember the mix tape?

Music has been "stolen" (shared) for over 40 years...

In my limited experience (44 years), conscience in this matter is really the only rule - if you like someone, don't steal their stuff; especially if you want them to make more. To argue that never before has it been so easy to steal stuff is ridiculous... stealing is easy; living with it is hard.

Grownups should own up. Kids that can't afford it will always find a way - Legislation will do nothing to change that. Look at them as future fans...

I know MANY artists living "off the label grid" making in excess of 60k a year through a smart consolidated approach to touring, merch, and album sales, many of which won't show up on soundscan, by the way... soundscan is for pussies.