Independent Artists Embrace Technology
The other highlight for me was a fireside discussion with Terry McBride, the founder and CEO of Nettwerk Music Group… Here is [sic] some of the points he made during the discussion:

On the subject of DRM:
• DRM will go away this year.
• If the major labels get rid of DRM, online sales will likely double within the first few months.
• We need a price war for online music to evaporate the free market. The tipping point for this to happen is somewhere between $0.49 and $0.25.
• The RIAA’s litigation is based on fear and control.

P2P effect on legal music sales “not statistically distinguishable from zero
A new study in the Journal of Political Economy by Felix Oberholzer-Gee and Koleman Strumpf has found that illegal music downloads have had no noticeable effects on the sale of music, contrary to the claims of the recording industry.

CPCC Goes For Broke
The blank CD increase represents an astonishing request as the CPCC is now openly asking that more than half of the retail price of blank CDs to be comprised of levy costs. A backgrounder on the CPCC notes that blank CDs cost about 50 cents and that the levy currently comprises 21 cents of that cost. That is an enormous cost – 42 percent – and the collective wants to increase that by an additional 28 percent. This is a staggering market distortion …

They’ve got the music in them — and in their garage
At $30-and-up per hour, cutting an album in a professional studio can run into thousands of dollars. For unsigned, do-it-yourself musicians, setting up a pro-quality home studio is the ultimate fantasy.

Tags: ,