I just read an interesting article about the reality of the music industry from the perspective of the artists vs the mass news articles about the health of large labels. In essence, the internet and digital distribution of music is changing the business model from a tightly controlled big label structure to a more egalitarian structure in which artists have the recording and marketing tools to go directly to the people. Here’s a link to the article that discusses this with Ian Rogers - CEO of Topspin Media – a company that sells tools for musicians to publish their own tunes.

Think about the before and after scenarios:
Before Digital Music
- an artist/band would toil at the club level playing live gigs for some amount of time until they got a deal with a label.
- the label would pay them some amount of money up front as a front loaded deal on royalties on sales of CDs/Songs/Cassettes/etc.
- it would take a significant amount of time to pay back the label and still be locked up at a low royalty rate until they become established.
- the band makes money on touring
- the band depends on the label for marketing to it’s fan base.

After Digital Music
- an artist/band plays clubs, records and posts songs online, creates music profiles
- the artist sells the music directly from their own web site and promotes their music online
- the artist/band gets a higher percentage of revenue, lower volume, exposure to a wider audience and has control over their own marketing and messaging.

I happen to think there is a great big ocean of opportunity for artists to take ownership of their own marketing and promotion using the internet that will give the fans an opportunity to connect with new music that rattles our cage. I’m looking forward to the next 10 years!