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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 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.

As more musicians become producers with the help of their oh so advanced audio software sound quality is actually steadily improving with each update to pro-tools. Pro-tools or no Pro-tools did you know that there is no real correlation between audio quality and music sales. At least this is what this chart is supposed to prove.

Potential Artist Revenue Streams David Sherbow music business visionary has a good outline of ALL POTENTIAL ARTIST REVENUE STREAMS. The list covers publishing, digital sales, merchandise, live performances, sponsorships, endorsements, fan clubs, and the list goes on. It'd be great if this list could actually link to articles that explain how to work the revenue of each stream. Hopefully we'll see this in Potential Rev Streams list 2.0.

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.

Myspace dodges Payment to Imeem Artists. Last week we broke the news that Myspace Acquired Imeem and some of its assets. Immediately it was obvious that thousands of listeners would be playlistless, but there was little insight as to how artists were effected. Now wired has a piece on how many artists that were previously owed money from sales would have to line up behind imeem's bank and other creditors. There was some talks about Snocap being acquired as a part of the "certain assets" and I don't know about you, but if Myspace were to release Snocap in another form it would def makes me think a little longer before signing up with a service that snubbed artists of payment once before. So go a head and change your name Snocap, change the look and feel, we know who you are.

Are you ready for Myspaces audio ads? Regardless if your ready or not they're on the way. Myspace has teamed up wth TargetSpot to find the right balance between music and advertising that will keep listeners and attract investors. Basically the strategy -Short audio ads, increase overall value. As the exclusive audio sales rep for Myspace Music, Target spot, which represents a network of both internet radio providers and some of the largest radio groups has doubled in reach from 20 million unique monthly listeners to as many as 40 million. Target Spots plan for us listeners who still find ourselves on myspace from time to time is to have a "sensitivity to the space" and ensure a good user experience. I hope this solves all of Myspaces problems, so that they can focus on their next task, helping the musicians of it's myspace music service.

4 Killer Articles that you can Start Using to Make Things Start Happening Online.

Here's an interesting one. Remember when the labels were on Apples heels to allow for a more flexible pricing structure than the 0.99 cent that apple had set? It even got so out of hand that _ started removing content from the iTunes store (Like a big baby!), only later to put it all back in, remember this? Well ever since apple conceded in allowing labels to increase popular tracks from .99 cents to $1.29 digital revenue has slowed. Warner saw and 8 percent growth in the holiday quater verses 20 percent the year before while digital album downloads gre 5 percent in december, down 10 percent in the sept quarter and 11 percent in the june quarter. Warner CEO Edgar Bronfman seems optimistic thought saying that the price change has been a "net positive" for warner, but agreed that a 30 percent price increase during a recession probably wasn't the best move. No duh.

EMI has issued a statement saving the good graces of the abbey roads studios, lets preserve history.

Facebook rallies for Abbey Road.

Napsters Impact a Decade Later If you watched the Grammy Awards Sunday night then you probably witnessed the Academy's plea to US music consumers, encouraging the purchase of "great" music. Cnn Money took a 10 year look at the RIAA's 8 billion dollar decline, the free movement and most importantly, the label anti-christ, Napster.