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.
songplacements on 16 Mar 10Ways for musicians to make money in their sleep. Place your songs with other recording artists. Let them do the touring and the twittering, while you earn money. Place your songs in films and television shows. Not only does it publicize you as an artist-it generates sync fees and performance income. Place your songs in video games or other products. The licensing rates are pretty low, but the exposure is ridiculously high. And you don't have to travel in a van, tear-down or set-up. Place your songs in advertisements. It's not only about grabbing that Apple iPod spot. There are national, local and international advertising opportunities that could fund your band's next road-trip. Create new music for film/TV libraries, which license "needle-drop" music to a wide variety of media. The sync fees are virtually non-existent, but because these are non-exclusive licenses, the same piece can be used again and again, generating significant performance money....