Those of you following the story of my new business venture, matchmine, know that there’s a part of it that came from discussions my brother and I had back in ’95. Specifically, we were talking about the implications of music jumping off their prison of plastic discs and being more freely distributed online as bits and bytes. We knew the paradigm shift was coming, and we worked out some concepts for what that’d mean to end users.
Around that time Mark was working on an open source project with some MIT alum to build a digital jukebox. Keep in mind, though, that this was before “MP3″ was a household term (I even remember some debate raging as to which format it’d support). Using some nifty AI tricks, the jukebox was able to cleverly serve up a good mix of tracks that’d largely hit the interests of the folks connected to it. Amusingly, this whole project was primarily driven by the desire to help his staff listen to their collective tunes.
That was then, and this is now. And now I just fielded a call from him with another clever idea, this time including the artists in the mix. The basic concept is rooted in the fact that the music industry as it has been for the past fifty years will have to change to remain relevant. There’s a lot of debate about the actual form the new model will eventually take, but the dust isn’t close to settling on the right solution just yet. In fact, unlike the monolithic solutions of the past, it’s distinctly possible that multiple models can simultaneously exist.
To that end, the idea du jour is how to take the digital jukebox concept and pay the artists directly when people listen. As it stands now, for any one artist there are all sorts of contracts with multiple parties (eg. producers, labels, distributors, etc.) the majority of which are governed by the RIAA. It’s obvious why that has historically proven to be “the way of it”, but the rules of the game have changed significantly enough in recent years that it’s worth evaluating new opportunities.
With this recent conversation rattling in my head, I stumbled onto a post by Jason Kolb that sketches a basic concept speaking to the plan Mark and I discussed:
One of my friends was handing out CD’s for a band that his friend was a part of, which got me thinking. If people are willing to hand out CD’s for bands because they like them, why not capitalize on that and turn it into an associate program? It would be cheaper and easier to just hand out cards with some information including a URL to get free MP3 downloads from the Web site. The Web site could offer the rest of the tracks as a paid download along with selling merchandise and tickets—the cash cow. Just put a unique identifier in the URL so you can track it back to the person who gave the card out, and give them a cut of any revenue that comes in as a result of their evangelism. All the benefit of record label marketing without the gatekeepers and middlemen.
Formalizing the idea, then, and without further adieu here’s basically what Mark suggested — to build a tool that an end user can:
- Identify yourself (either directly or by representation)
- Listen to music you’d like (either by parameter command, or based on a preference profile)
- Get track, album, artist information (so you can learn more about them)
- Action on purchase events (such as buying tracks, albums, concert tickets, or “tipping” the artist directly)
- Access standard social networking tools (that are too obvious at this stage to enumerate)
This could be in the form of a web site… though I’d suggest a simple web service that other websites and applications could use. To do so, some light-weight API would do the trick. There are already too many end user destinations as it is; why add to the noise? This approach would also allow existing (or new) destinations to generate some revenue of their own with a piece of advertising, etc.
All very well-and-good, but how’s the music gonna’ get in there to be fed back out? The answer is that the music catalog only contains tracks released under a generally compatible open license (eg. Creative Commons). A lot of which can already be obtained online under various licenses, but these specific artists never expected to see a dime off of these tracks. To encourage wider support, though, they’d need something more than nothing for their work. To service them, another tool set would need to be rolled out for the artists:
- Manage your identity and public info (by legal name or by pseudonym)
- Manage your tracks (upload, modify, retire, etc.)
- Set the license by which the tracks are released (from a closed set of compatible licenses)
- Select an economic model (eg. free, pay-per-listen, pay-per-download, downstream revenue percentage, etc.)
These tools would probably need to be coupled with similar ones geared toward downstream revenue generators. It’d be reasonable to assume something like what Kolb mentions could be the simple first step (ie. referral service to direct purchase). Following that, additional services can be added to the portal and associated APIs over time as it builds momentum.
Anyway, there’s a brief sketch of the new thought. Given the accelerating pace, I’m guessing it won’t be long to see something like it come to fruition. In fact… at matchmine we’re already building [CENSORED BY MATCHMINE DEPARTMENT OF SECRECY] and we’re really excited about it!
Shaking the Music Industry Tree
Those of you following the story of my new business venture, matchmine, know that there’s a part of it that came from discussions my brother and I had back in ’95. Specifically, we were talking about the implications of music jumping off their prison of plastic discs and being more freely distributed online as bits and bytes. We knew the paradigm shift was coming, and we worked out some concepts for what that’d mean to end users.
Around that time Mark was working on an open source project with some MIT alum to build a digital jukebox. Keep in mind, though, that this was before “MP3″ was a household term (I even remember some debate raging as to which format it’d support). Using some nifty AI tricks, the jukebox was able to cleverly serve up a good mix of tracks that’d largely hit the interests of the folks connected to it. Amusingly, this whole project was primarily driven by the desire to help his staff listen to their collective tunes.
That was then, and this is now. And now I just fielded a call from him with another clever idea, this time including the artists in the mix. The basic concept is rooted in the fact that the music industry as it has been for the past fifty years will have to change to remain relevant. There’s a lot of debate about the actual form the new model will eventually take, but the dust isn’t close to settling on the right solution just yet. In fact, unlike the monolithic solutions of the past, it’s distinctly possible that multiple models can simultaneously exist.
To that end, the idea du jour is how to take the digital jukebox concept and pay the artists directly when people listen. As it stands now, for any one artist there are all sorts of contracts with multiple parties (eg. producers, labels, distributors, etc.) the majority of which are governed by the RIAA. It’s obvious why that has historically proven to be “the way of it”, but the rules of the game have changed significantly enough in recent years that it’s worth evaluating new opportunities.
With this recent conversation rattling in my head, I stumbled onto a post by Jason Kolb that sketches a basic concept speaking to the plan Mark and I discussed:
Formalizing the idea, then, and without further adieu here’s basically what Mark suggested — to build a tool that an end user can:
This could be in the form of a web site… though I’d suggest a simple web service that other websites and applications could use. To do so, some light-weight API would do the trick. There are already too many end user destinations as it is; why add to the noise? This approach would also allow existing (or new) destinations to generate some revenue of their own with a piece of advertising, etc.
All very well-and-good, but how’s the music gonna’ get in there to be fed back out? The answer is that the music catalog only contains tracks released under a generally compatible open license (eg. Creative Commons). A lot of which can already be obtained online under various licenses, but these specific artists never expected to see a dime off of these tracks. To encourage wider support, though, they’d need something more than nothing for their work. To service them, another tool set would need to be rolled out for the artists:
These tools would probably need to be coupled with similar ones geared toward downstream revenue generators. It’d be reasonable to assume something like what Kolb mentions could be the simple first step (ie. referral service to direct purchase). Following that, additional services can be added to the portal and associated APIs over time as it builds momentum.
Anyway, there’s a brief sketch of the new thought. Given the accelerating pace, I’m guessing it won’t be long to see something like it come to fruition. In fact… at matchmine we’re already building [CENSORED BY MATCHMINE DEPARTMENT OF SECRECY] and we’re really excited about it!