Digital Signature Music Business Proposal Made Easy

Digital signature music business proposal

Alexandra Palace England dance legends faithless are on tour to promote their new remix album celebrating 20 years of global success for anyone working in the music industry it's been two decades of upheaval the digital revolution has transformed how we all consume music but one thing has been slow to change the business model if someone makes a record for a major label the label still owns the record the only thing that's comparable to is if you take out a mortgage to buy a house and you pay back the bank and then the bank owns your house but there's a new disruptive voice in the industry that's getting louder it's from a tech startup called cobalt and they're using the same digital revolution to rewrite the rules I have never liked a bullets I don't see why bullish we'll walk around and make other people's lives bad we're taking on the big boys and we've said to people you can be the Masters of young destiny across the world old industries are facing disruption on an unprecedented scale people are not making other taxes confronted by ever-changing technology the pressure to adapt has never been greater it is always survival the fittest that's capitalism because were those threat there's also opportunity in the music industry it's always been survival of the fittest after decades of technological change today just three major record labels own well over half of the Western world's music it's a ruthless business music business it's a very tough business to succeed in the biggest label of them all is universal Nick Raphael runs their UK imprint of Capitol Records and has helped sustain their success by investing heavily in new talent like Grammy Award winner Sam Smith the most important thing for a record company is to find talent and to find repertoire you know the A&R process and it doesn't matter whether we are in streaming downloading seventy-eights cassettes vinyl or CDs it doesn't matter what era we're in the truth is the way Capitol Records succeeded is by signing and having great artists and we invest millions upon millions find the next superstar trying to find the next brilliant artists trying to find your wedding song not that we trying to find it your weddings on but ultimately the songs that will make the soundtrack to your lives that soundtrack may have been created by the artists but it's the labels who retain the rights to the music we make all the investment in terms of skill set and money right and we take the risk it's a model that some artists have been questioning for years including one of the biggest rock bands on the planet Radiohead artists contracts were so heavily weighted in favor of the record companies it was just hugely unfair you know and I don't think anyone anyone in any in the red convers anything would dispute that they might put their head on a go where you know what we've put lots of investment yeah you have but you know let's talk about you know something that's truly fair let's just see it for what it is you know we we didn't have a choice we wanted to make music the rapid rise of digital music gave Radiohead an opportunity to challenge the status quo at the end of their contract with label EMI in 2007 they released their new album in rainbows over the Internet themselves and they allowed fans to pay whatever they liked there was a cover of music week which had a figure of a penny I think on the on the front so look a you know what if you're in the camp of being excited by innovation and change then you loved it you know clearly within the recorded music business there's a lot of people who are not that way and are still not that way so that kind of change is a little bit of a threat Radiohead's pioneering move proved a critical and commercial success in rainbows earned them more digital income than all their other albums combined and stunt the entire industry that resonates today you know we were like that you you speak to a lot of you know well-established acts they will quote back that thing of well if radio can go and do that then you know what a bunch of us can - while Radiohead were publicly challenging the music establishment a small technology company was busy behind the scenes developing a system that would enable more artists and writers traditional industry model cobalt is the brainchild of Swedish musician an entrepreneur Willard R dreads the old model is on the way out so I'm building the new music industry structure Corbett has a big mission it's simple but it's a big mission to take the music industry into the digital age weird trance Paris and trusts we wanted to make everything transparent and open and fair which doesn't sound like a big thing but in the music industry that's quite revolution Cobalts opportunity came when music downloads started to give way to a proliferation of streaming sites like Deezer and Spotify for artists it was becoming virtually impossible to keep track of who was consuming their music cobalt was one step ahead of the industry with its technology and the appealing prospect it offered artists of getting paid suddenly he is a company that actually going to tell you what you're earning help you earn more money help you own your own money quicker and handle those billions of transactions from billions of different sources and and pile them all up make sure that the writer got paid every little percentage of a cent they should have been paid cobalt now represents over 8,000 artists and songwriters and the technology has been embraced by some of the biggest names in the industry including multi million album selling band Snow Patrol not only does cobalt system monitor every digital download of a song thanks elf comfortable but it's able to collect the tiny micro payments artists and writers get from every play on a streaming site to dine with the Snow Patrol record fall empires is what's the biggest performance song do you think is it would it be New York or I think it is yeah we can have a look on the report and we're definitely kept in the dark before this is very transparent very easy to understand they've been able to collect money that no one else has been able to see through their their software and we've seen 23 percent more income on on a song through cobalt today cobalt has a global turnover of nearly a quarter of a billion dollars and the confidence to take its revolution to the next level the company now wants to challenge the entire structure of the industry by taking on the vexed issue of music ownership four years ago Cobalt started offering services to help artists record and distribute their music similar to a record company but unlike a record company cobalt lets the artist retain the rights to the music they simply charge them fees for the services the artists want them to provide really good loads of energy I think it's ready to go it sounds perfect to me that whole idea of owning your own record and getting someone to mark and distribute it for you is the biggest threat to traditional major record labels we've said to people you can be the Masters of your own destiny you don't need to give away your rights to earn your money in fact you'll earn more money if you don't give away your rights 10 years ago if you were a new artist or a new band really the first step on the ladder was to get a record deal now that's just an option that you don't have to take Cobalts new model may work for established artists such as Paul McCartney Lionel Richie and Nick Cave but they are yet to break a new act into the mainstream which is one area where the major labels have a powerful defense their proven track record so what cold well in my opinion offer is for artists writers that do not need advances that do not need development that's great for the privileged few that can afford to do that but actually if a new writer comes along and needs developing and needs time and needs money and nurture that's not their strongest point we've signed artists in the past didn't have one song that we liked that was good enough to go to market for 18 months so we spent 18 months with them writing every day writing with different people meeting different people getting into understand what we thought took to make a record and I think the record company can help mold and develop artists labels also provide their artists with expertise from in-house promotional marketing and accounting teams services they can afford to offer thanks to their rich back catalogs stretching over 80 years of recorded music one classic one from our catalog these are seminal records one calling classic that's one of ours on Columbia it's quite pleasing to know that those labels that I used to watch turn around when I was a teenager in the 80s is not something I you know pays my salary that's quite exciting Sony Music has one of the most lucrative back catalogs generating over a billion dollars in revenue every year I think the back catalog is absolutely vital to our business because back catalogue creates the flow of cash that allows us to invest in new talents that kind of equity in the brand is something that allows us to then fund our acquisition of new talent so catalog is absolutely vital always has been and I suspect always will be it's a virtuous circle the funds generated by back catalogs help to build success for new artists whose back cutter locks the label will then go on to own but there's a growing number of new artists who don't seem to need the record labels to become a star I love you so guys Jacobs my entry for the Perez Hilton can you sing cover competition jacob whitesides was just 13 years old when he started posting videos of himself singing on youtube now just 18 he's completed two American tours and his first sellout tour of Europe Jacob was able to build his fan base himself through social media he now has more Twitter followers than Madonna and Bruce Springsteen combined I have 1.8 million on Twitter 1.5 million on Facebook 1.2 million on Instagram the fans have just really their more powerful and most in any label that you can or any they post my music they go and find other people that are searching for new music and send them on music people pay like hundreds of thousands of dollars to get this kind of promotion you know a lot of artists don't need deals you know if they can establish a solid touring foundation they can they can make money they can pay their bills those fans Artie captured they create that freedom and I feel like a lot of artists lose that when they jump straight to the major label Jacob is just the latest in a new generation of emerging artists who grew up inside the digital revolution and seemed increasingly skeptical of the sales pitch from the traditional labels who predated it at Alexandra Palace in North London some other emerging artists are preparing for their biggest ever gig supporting faithless in front of thousands how long have we got to a person so normally about at exactly an hour before I start kind of doing this bit yeah which would normally be now so and it does this for a long time not see wrong look at the stamina that you stage until the ribbon breaks is one of Cobalts latest signings rather than dreaming of starry-eyed celebrity the band was drawn to the tech companies pragmatic approach someone like Col Volt is amazing for like a career based project rather than a flash in the pan the idea of kind of making it it is a very different idea to the idea of having a career it's not about thinking of this moment you think you're gonna have where everything changes and you've hit some kind of plateau or suppose I think I think it's just nice to to be able to make music full-time you've made it as more bands choose to control their own careers this poses a challenge the major labels can't afford to ignore I think we've had to recognize that to get to progress and to get to continue to have a place in there in the echo system of music going forward and to be able to continue doing what we do we've needed to look take a good long hard look at ourselves and kind of evolve they're now investing in not just the artists but also the platforms on which their music is played some sources claim that together they own nearly 20% of streaming subscription service Spotify a stake that's estimated to be worth at least one and a half billion dollars and they've also acknowledged that they no longer hold all the cards when dealing with talent part of what's happened is we've become much more service-oriented in our mentality thinking a lot more about what specific set of needs does this particular artist require to commercialize their art that can be the verisimilitude I mean it's pretty it's pretty there I say a little sexy Jacob oh that's gonna go after years of fierce independence in 2015 social media star jacob whitesides signed a record deal with BMG under terms unthinkable even a few years ago it's Jacob not the label who retains all rights to his music I don't my music I decided when I wouldn't go on tour there's really like no I have a 100% creative control which was just the one thing that I wanted and that's not a popular thing most deals is not like alright you decide what you want to do if I just went in with my talent alone then they would have been able to to craft it the deal however they wanted to but they saw the leverage I had and they knew that I didn't necessarily need them that it was more of a partner partnership type thing so I feel like that was the most and the most important thing is just going in with something instead of nothing we're in an age where people who nothing to do music can build up a profile and a business based on their opinions or their looks on social media I don't see its disruption it's an opportunity and I love that opportunity and I hope I get to share an opportunity for the rest of my working days it's this adaptability that's kept the labels on top a skill they need now more than ever the major labels thought that they were more important than the artists and they never were and now as the artists leave they're clearly seeing that in the world of music nothing is bigger than the music itself you