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UK file-sharers to be ‘cut off’

This is just another example of the music industry pursuing the wrong strategy. You can’t beat the public into submission. I don’t care if you are a label executive. Or a lawyer. Anyway, this is just another example of bad policy.

There is one interesting theme in this article. The ISPs are starting to get upset at the music industry for trying to force their hand to disconnect users. It’s the ISPs job to help make a physical connection to the Internet. The labels are pressuring the ISPs to start policing users for piracy. The ISPs don’t like being put in such a precarious position. On the one hand, they’re getting pressure from the labels through government lobbying to control piracy. On the other hand, the minute they start cutting off users, the word-of-mouth phenomenon will kick in and you’ll have many users switching service providers in protest.

Congratulations music industry. Just when I thought you couldn’t get anyone else mad at you, you prove me wrong. Way to go. We welcome the ISPs to the side of the upset consumers.

This is the economics example of trying to form a cartel. The idea behind a cartel is to control prices and divvy up the profits among the players. If you  don’t want to participate in the cartel, then you don’t get a piece of the profits. Unfortunately, cartels are illegal in the U.S. It violates the Sherman Act. Secondly, cartels circumvent the free market mechanisms to regulate themselves. And these efforts always create less value for the consumer.

The one thing I like about this situation is it’s a classic prisoner’s dilemma. Altough illegal, all the parties would have been better off if they had worked together. But, just like the classic prisoner, no one trusts the other one and everyone ends up in a worse position.

Links:

WSJ: Big Ticket Seller Tried Deal With Scalpers

Hypebot: Project Showtime: Secret Deal Between Irving Azoff, Ticketmaster & Ticket Scalpers Revealed

Ticketnews.com: Azoff tried and failed to make a major move into the secondary ticket market

Link: YouTube to Stream Outside Lands Music Festival

The “I wish the Internet would go away” motivation from the lobbying group seems to think that shutting down the site will create an immediate benefit for the properly licensed businesses on the web. In fact, the end game is going to be greater distrust from the music community in regards to the industry as a whole. And, should the offending sites be taken down, someone else is going to put up an exact replica of the site on some server where the laws are less enforceable. It’s already happened in similar situations.

Link: Publishers File Suit Against Lyric Sites

Your Twitter name should be your band’s name, or something very close to it. As you are finding new fans, you want to create name recognition for your music, which comes from multiple exposures and repetition. If you are using your personal name to tweet info about your band, you are more than likely confusing new fans.

Corollary A: If you want to Tweet on your own, use your own name. (You can point back to your band’s info in your profile.)

It seems like a difficult problem, but if you can answer one simple question, you’ll be on your way to making it happen: “How many fans do you need to quit your job?”

It’s your ‘magic number.’

The question is a trick. In reality, you could find a single patron to fund your band. However most artists won’t find a single source of revenue.

By answering that question, you are forced to start thinking about the business side of your music. The question has built-in sub-questions:

How many fans do I have now?

How am I making money off the fans now?

How much money do I need to quit my job?

What am I doing to get new fans?

These are not easy questions to answer. But they are all relevant. If you don’t have the answers, you should start working on them. Once you know your magic number, you can start working on a plan to get you there.

Sometime I get weird looks when I start using specific numbers. It’s because the numbers don’t match the size of their fan base. For example:

Me: If you do this x and this y using twitter,you could add 1-5 people to your attendance.

Them: Man, I don’t care about those numbers. Our list has xxx (it’s a large number) people of it. 1-5 people doesn’t help us.

Me: Ok. Let me explain what I meant.

And then I do into a diatribe about scale, percentages, and the initial size of the fan base.

You’d be amazed at how many people will turn down an idea because they don’t quite get the numbers. Most people are skeptical and very wary of new ideas, but the next time you hear an idea, you’ll be better off if you ask yourself 3 questions:

1. Is this something we could use?

2. Will our fans respond to this?

3. Will we see significant returns based on our existing fan base?

Using these 3 questions should help you get past the scaling question.

The most egregious of these problems is an uncertainty with time. When you announce a time, make sure that you also announce the details with the time. For example, don’t say that an event will start at 5 and then open the doors at 6. Or, even worse, announce that a band will start at 5 and then push them back to 9.

For many in the music business, when a time is set it means the activity will begin at that time. Whether it’s an interview, business meeting, lunch, or a gig, the announced time translates to “This event will start at time X.” So, as a consequence, most people get to the venue early. In the corporate business world, this is fairly standard practice. When it comes to gigs or rehearsals, well, not so much.

In one situation from my past, all the band members were trying to get to rehearsal as soon as possible after their day jobs. We wanted to fit in as much practice time as possible into our schedule. Unfortunatley, one of the members was consistently running late from work, which left most of us sitting around twiddling our thumbs. Things only escalated from there. Once the pattern started, the other guys would delay their arrival because they knew we weren’t starting on time. It created a vicious circle. We finally fixed the situation, but not after lots of frustration and missed practice time.

My philosophy is this – If you can show up 5 minutes before the gig, plug-in and go, then more power to you. If it takes you longer to set up, then you need to show up sooner.

If you are running into that problem, here’s how to handle it. State the time and include the detailed action. Be specific. Don’t say, “We’ll meet at 6.30.” Say, We’re going to meet at 6.30 to setup and start playing at 7.” Or, “We are meeting at 8 to load up the van and leaving at 9.” Be fair, but be clear. Usually that solves the issue.

There can be other issues with this method, but it helps 90% of the problems. If you’re in a situation in which you are consisitently juggling lateness and missed rehearsals, then you’ll find being specific about the time and the actions will create an instant improvement.

Before the Music Dies

- Director: Andrew Shapter

- Writers: Joel Rasmussen, Andrew Shapter

Update: I can’t get the video to stream through the site yet. I’m working on the issue now. For now, just follow the link above direct to Hulu.com