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Loiterers Should Be Arrested. The CMJ Music Marathon ended last week but the lessons learned have just begun. Kevin English, blogger at eleetmusic.com took some time to talk about the lessons that he took away with him from the many panelists. His conclusion; there is no concrete answer to surviving in todays music industry. Old school pundits stressed the importance of networking and buzz generation by any means possible while New Media progressives represented new media applications, widgets and digital services that promised to strengthen direct to fan relationships. It wasn't until the Sudanese rapper Emmanual Jai took to the stage that he realized industry survival was about constantly adapting, bending the industry to specifically cater to your needs. Figure out what your number one need is right now as an indie artist and exploit that need. Kevin's short but enlightening read this morning brings me to the idea of a (wait for it, wait for it) digital manager. Not loading up all of your tracks on myspace, but actually hiring a manager to surf the web all day and submit your music to opportunities world wide. Has anyone tried something like this yet? let me know how it works, and what you have been doing to try to adapt.

The Sustainable Musician Its such a great feeling that we can look past the grammy awards and come out saying "that's not MY music industry". Musicians are excited that they now have the opportunity to create a sustainable career without the permission of the gatekeepers we all know as the recording industry.

The good the bad and the ugly of the academy awards. Last week i touched on how the music industry was not MY industry in a basic attempt to relay how i felt while watching the Grammys. It was an okay post, but i was really waiting on Eric Beall of the berkleemusicblog to really take the reins on this one and go in. Fortunately we walked away from the grammys with practically the same message. Music has become a spectacle, The recording industry doesn't know how to invest in its future and music is going global. Hit the jump to READ MORE

Are The Record Labels Biting the Hand that Feeds Them Radio broadcasters around the country are growing increasingly concerned about the long-standing relationship with the music industry. The record labels are demanding an additional "tax" (not including the hundreds of millions of dollars paid annually to groups like BMI, ASCAP and SESAC, which goes to compensate songwriters and music publishers) on local radio stations for every song played. The music industry must be in panic mode to intentionally put a strain on the over 80 year mutually beneficial relationship that previously had radio promote record labels and artists and generate millions of dollars in music, hospitality, small-business and merchandise sales. Free local radio reaches 236 million listeners/week but record labels seem to not really give a hoot about free promo, pay up or shut down.

Forget the Record Deal, What about the Publishing Deal. While labels are understandably trying to mitigate their risk, by targeting artists who are already as "developed" as possible, it seems that publishers have taken on greater roles as nurturers of talent. Taylor Swift go her start by honing her songwriting abilities under the guidance of Arthur Buenahora at Songy/ATV Music publishing. Keri Hilson speaks about having first developed as a songwriter with Universal Music Publishing, and how that experience helped her launch her solo career with Interscope Records. HERE is a full interview with Eric Beale, who began his tenure in the industry as a songwriter, writing songs for the Jacksons and Diana Ross. Hopefully this interview gives you some further insight into the world of publishing and some hints on how you can either get into the publishing business as a working artist or as a career, helping other artists hone their skills!

Get Famous enough and Fans could actually be on tour to see you. Matin Contempree is driving this innovative concept with the Rock and Pop tours. The very first tour, 'Good Vibrations Tour of Los Angeles' is kicking off in April (2010). Offered is "the chance to delve behind the music industry: to hear the music live, taste the excitement and experience the iconic locations and famous venues where rock and pop history was created and still lives on". READ MORE

2009 Future of Music Policy Summit CCC: California Copyright Conference NARIP: National Assn. of Record Industry Professionals AIMP: Association of Independent Music Publishers PMA: Production Music Association NMPA: National Music Publishers Association Record companies often earn money that cannot be paid to artists, managers, songwriters, or publishers because of paperwork problems. I know what you're thinking: yeah, right, paperwork problems. NMPA president and CEO David Israelite and Special Master/lawyer Kenneth Feinberg, who will be overseeing the distribution of nearly $300 million to music publishers from the big four record companies.

1. The best approach is slow and cautious. Right now, we are in the jungle. In the jungle, you don't rush blindly ahead. You dip a toe in the sand, and see if you sink. We have no hope of predicting which of these services might catch on. We need to move slowly, with very short-term agreements and see what works and what fails. And we need to be sure not to undermine our other business partners while we do that. Which leads to… 2. We should support our allies and punish our enemies. Rob McDaniels for InGrooves estimates that it takes 150-200 streams of one song to equal the royalty income on a single download. Right now, our industry still relies on the sale of physical product (believe it or not, it's still the primary source of revenue) and on digital downloads. Perhaps streaming is the future. Perhaps not. But we would be very unwise to cut ridiculously low-cost rates to a business model that obviously threatens both physical retailers and iTunes. Let's take care of the people paying our bills. At the same time, we should continue to press ahead with legal efforts against things like Pirate Bay- efforts that are finally starting to show some results. 3. We need to recognize that "bundling" and ad-revenue sharing is a marriage, and it works both ways. If we bundle the cost of music access into the cost of a mobile phone or the sale of a computer, we're now not only in the music business, we're in the electronics business. Any economic factors that hurt the sales of phones and computers will now hurt us as well. 4. Most of all, we need transparency in the negotiations and setting of rates, so that everyone in the music community understands what they're being paid and how it's being calculated.

The Music Power Network (MPN), which is the brainchild of Dave Kusek, (Some big instructor at Berklee) credited for being an all-around future music business expert, is coming to a YouTube Channel new you! The MPN will be making some of its educational videos accessible for free to help you achieve success in this ever changing industry. Subscribe to the network if online music business lessons and advice are your forte. Also be sure to check out the songplacements youtube channel, send us links to your songs and we'll add them to our playlists for others to see.

The Greatful Dead knew a thing or two about business. "A group of stoners who somehow got more things right than the suits running the record industry, radio and even some high powered new media businesses." Some great business lessons that could be learned from this group are sprinkled through an article on indisdemusicmedia comparing their biz model to that of the Radio Industry's. Some of these points should be laser sketched into your brain (if you simply can't remember). According to the Atlantic Magazine article your fans are key to your ultimate success. But not all your fans. As with every musician you have different levels of fans, cater to only your most loyalist fans because their the ones that are going to purchase your music. Get a team together consisting of the band the road crew and and other organization members and periodically rotate the final decision makers. Your not the only one with good ideas on how to run things. Give it away until they buy it. Some things in life are uncontrollable (death, natural disasters and file sharing fall into this category) Don't try to fight against it. Rather embrace it and exploit it for your own benefit. The greatful dead exemplified this by not having an hernia upon the realization that their fans were taping their shows. Instead they used it to increase demand and drive the sales of other revenue streams. The same way that humanity doesn't fight against death but instead uses it to make the quality of life better the same way a musician should approach the death of the CD. Just because the CD has to die, doesn't mean that your career has to go to.

RIP Imeem. Today in HOLY F*%^$ WHAT JUST HAPPENED, Imeem a favorite among many music enthusiasts has just evaporated, in a deal that has Myspace music acquiring "certain assets". Myspace plans to leverage imeem's industry leading technology and their snocap service. Right now Imeem users are left on their face with no other option to sign up to Myspace. How do you feel about Imeem disappearing?

Theres been a lot of talk about how to survive the music industry, what social networks you should be on and online distributors you should be with but the simple truth is that the music you create is much more important than your current method of distribution. So i challenge you for 2010 to step your game up partner with that one drummer and create amazing music, be relentless and most importantly get out of the house and book some shows. Paying or non-paying, it doesn't matter if your the right person for this, the money will come.

Power, Path and Performance is a three pronged approach that if maximized could give artists more voice than they could ever need. The approach which centers around breath, open throat and authentic communication of message are three synergetic areas that when mastered can prove to be a dangerous weapon in your industry tool bag.

Measurement is the key to success. In the industry this measurement is called (intimidating music please) - THE SOUNDSCAN. Fortunately i've never had to judge my artistic worth based off the soundscan, but for those of us lucky and unlucky enough to under go this tracking system it can be a psychological torment, sucking the creativity and positivity right out of a project. Happily we have a new form of measurement that shifts from pessimism to optimism. READ MORE to find out what they are.

The 10 Commandments for getting into the Composing Game There is no magic bullet, i repeat, there is no magic bullet to getting a foot into the composing industry, but what you might be able to find is a healthy formula that when applied - just makes sense. www.scorecastonline.com has posted 10 huge tips on getting into the composing game, and since TV and Film is a large part of our business these tips could definitely help you land more placements. I'll leave you with tip number 9 which i consider to be the most important tip. Don't give up your dreams.

The techdirt blog goes for the jugular of John Conyers, not the same dude from the terminator movies, but one of the RIAAs biggest backers of forcing radio stations to pay to help promote music. It all started with John delivered a speech at an event put on by the recording industry lobbyists, Conyers made the analogy that the lack of a performance right mandatory fee for radio stations was comparable to slavery and indentured servitude. Techdirt sheds some light on the old practices of shady labels paying off radio stations to spin records fully knowing the momentum that radio promotion can lend to a project. But that was years ago when (the only way to steal music was to run out of best buy with a stack of cds in hand and hope you didn't get spotted by the surveillance)you actually went to jail for stealing music. Techdirt goes on to say that the argument of the lobbyist groups are completely made up and ridiculous, just an excuse for the labels that are unwilling to actually do something to properly capitalize on free promo. As artists who's arguments are more valid the RIAAs or the Radio stations?

As a songwriter it it important to learn where the next big shift is going to be in the industry, that way when it hits you'll be fully prepared to take full advantage of the future of radio.

A new study has found that the the fall of an item's popularity mirrors its rise to popularity, so items that become popular faster also die out faster. Kyle Bylin, Accosciate Editor for hypebot.com has taken that study one step further by relating the new find to the marketing strategy of record labels. It could be said that the Record Labels are killing itself to live, what a weird paradox.

Labels - 0, Songwriters - 1 In a historic deal between labels and songwriters the national music publishers association has come away with a major win in an agreement that will see labels forking out the monies from "pending and unmatched accounts" that are set up in cases where a publisher has not been located by a record label, or an ownership dispute over a song. This is good news for the industry because publishers and labels are finally beginning to see eye to eye.