Sony Music to drop promo CDs I actually thought this would have happened a long time ago.  I understand that some people in the industry (reviewers, radio stations, etc.) still want a physical product, but CDs make little or no sense in 2010. There is far less environmental impact from digital downloads and digital files are far easier to manage from a delivery standpoint. They're also easier to use. Finding a particular track amongst ten thousand songs in an iTunes-like system is a breeze. Finding …

Absolutely terrific interview with Jim Selby (CEO) of Naxos of America Inc.

Two of his answers regarding sales and profit I found very interesting:

Regarding sales.... "The physical (distribution) portion would be probably 70 percent (of sales). In profit, it would be around 10 percent. Ninety percent of the profit is generated by the non-physical."

And regarding digital sales... "Our sales for digital downloads and streams for Naxos the label are well over 50 percent. Most of the industry is around 25 percent. We have our own distributor labels that are well over 35 percent."

I never would have guessed that a Classical label would have this high a percentage of digital sales and profit. Definitely interesting...

 

Record industry faces liability over `infringement' Hard to believe this is even true.  You have to wonder the logic behind Warner Music Canada, Sony BMG Music Canada, EMI Music Canada, and Universal Music Canada's decision to "exploit now, pay later if at all."  Maybe it's simply pure greed.  Maybe it's bad management. But as the author Michael Geist ponts out: "After years of claiming Canadian consumers disrespect copyright, the irony of having the recording industry face …

Nice interview with Donald Passman. I liked his last insightful comment: "The more pain the industry feels, the easier the legal side gets. The better the technology gets, the closer we get to delivering an experience people want."

This article shows what is pretty clear to me -- music creators and copyright owners are moving to a vastly different way of getting music out there. Still, I'm not sure anyone has found "...ways of monetizing the creative content” that in any way equals what the record industry saw pre-2000.

Some sharp comments from a great guitar player...

Internet radio tuning in

Who says people aren't passionate about radio? I think the comments to this article are absolutely great! People want a sense of integrity and diversity from broadcasters and one of the places they're finding it is online.

Two very nice posts by Andrew Goodrich over at Artists House Music:

Are Music Industry Stats Relevant to You?

More On Music Industry Stats and Relevance

Be sure to check out the link to the Neilson's 2009 presentation at NARM.  There are some very interesting numbers in their report...

Trent Reznor recently posted this to his blog and I think he's absolutely right on with most of his points! Everything he says makes sense to me... but speaking as an independent artist myself, I feel that his suggestions, as good as they are, are hugely time consuming. I spend an enormous amount of time (in my opinion TOO much time) in front of a computer. Still, I suppose we're lucky as independents to have sites like  ReverbNation and BandCamp  that can help lessen the amount of grunt work …