A VC - Latest Comments in Something Important Is On The Horizon In The Music Business

Re: Something Important Is On The Horizon In The Music Business

Howie L — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 12:45:46 -0000

Well this is extremely late to the conversation....
but there are compromises, like Lala.com (stream your own personal iTunes for free, unlimited, anytime anywhere).
I've started using it and love it.

Re: Something Important Is On The Horizon In The Music Business

KeithCowing — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 16:20:49 -0000

Also, don't forget the importance of live shows. Some artists are already giving in on MP3's, distributing music for free, and focusing on promoting live events. There is a lot of money in the concert biz and nothing can ever replace that. Historically, concerts were used to promote record sales. Maybe in the future MP3's and streaming services will be used to promote concerts.

http://hightechweekly.com/t...

Re: Something Important Is On The Horizon In The Music Business

Kevin Kertes — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 10:39:28 -0000

Fred,

There is also another point that you missed in this post. In part, what you've written about is true, but I believe the future of the record business goes beyond the experiences you've listed above.
I've written about it here.

Re: Something Important Is On The Horizon In The Music Business

mfish1 — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 01:22:46 -0000

Great points...I already have 1000's of radio stations on my smartphone from downloading a great piece of software called RESCO radio... with my bluetooth headphones they sounds great...at the gym I use my motorola Q with my 4gig card to listen to music...totally wireless.

finally i have 1 device that does it all..sure it doesn't have an iphone interface..but who cares...it's 1 device..radio, tv, internet, phone, IM,

Re: Something Important Is On The Horizon In The Music Business

Pierre — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 11:52:18 -0000

I agree. I use Pandora sometimes but I usually Last.FM and Rhapsody daily. I LOVE IT! Once I hear something on Last.fm or through another service like Hype Machine I can immediately go to Rhapsody, track down the artist and dig into their entire catalog and become a full fledged fan. Easily.

Terrestrial radio needs to figure out how to combine the best of those models and combine it with personalities that are able to reach out and touch people in their markets. The Last.fm/CBS deal was a harbinger of that.

It may be in about 5 years or so once the wi-fi, 4G or 5G roll out is more widespread in order to allow data interchange from listener's in cars to the radio station... but once they are combined we will see something very cool for the casual fans. The personal connection is important and that's one thing the digital services are overlooking. I don't mean cheesy worthless DJ's that annoy, but there's a place in the new world for the Rodney Bingheimer's of radio that know music and are interesting folks to listen to.

Hard to say if the big broadcasting companies outside of CBS Radio are focusing on that particular future with the intensity they should be right now. From looking at their current offerings it seems that they aren't. It's possible for them to take a few steps down that road today but I don't see it happening yet. I started my career in radio so this is particularly depressing to me. I'm not in that biz anymore but watching that business go off the rails in such a slow and deliberate fashion is like watching a relative die of starvation because it's too lazy to walk to the refrigerator. It's just so unnecessary.

Maybe the big broadcasters already missed the boat. Maybe it's in the cards for the fine folks at Last.fm, Rhapsody, iMeem or Hype Machine to take it and run with it. Rhapsody has a guy named Quincy McCoy over there who gets it so I can't wait to see how they look down the road. They are big enough to do some cool things without being hampered by the same restrictive licensing issues that most other services have to contend with. As everyone knows, licensing IS the devil in the details. Even if you have the licenses from the labels for your current biz model it doesn't necessarily mean the license covers the next incarnation of features you'd like to add. It will take a big company like Real or CBS to run amok and push boundaries.

No matter what, there's going to be a lot of very cool new ways to consume music that makes it easier to discover and enjoy it while paying the artist fairly.

Re: Something Important Is On The Horizon In The Music Business

Pierre — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 11:48:05 -0000

Video is a whole different ball of wax. I like the direction the television business is going in with Hulu and their other initiatives. They seem to be more open minded than the music companies.

Re: Something Important Is On The Horizon In The Music Business

fredwilson — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 14:51:03 -0000

I am less sure about video because it requires a level of user engagement that audio, particularly music, does not

Fred

Re: Something Important Is On The Horizon In The Music Business

Jshap — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 14:38:55 -0000

Fred-
Compelling perspective, thanks.
Does your vision of a fully-licensed music platform extensible via an open api extend to the future of Online Video streaming of professional-production content? (Will studios and networks open up (their current online presence is encouraging)? Will viewers become the most powerful distribution points for video making sites like Joost and Vongo a dime-a-dozen?)
-Joe

Re: Something Important Is On The Horizon In The Music Business

Christien — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 23:53:57 -0000

Oh, the endless possibilities of streaming media!! Love it!

Re: Something Important Is On The Horizon In The Music Business

qwang — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 23:41:32 -0000

People will always split their listening time between "play what you want" and "discovery mode"--where innovative channels look for ways to connect to music they are highly probably to buy. The industry must find a proper balance between sales and promotion which is why streaming will still serve a powerful purpose. The trick is finding the right platform and policies which maximize promotion while minimizing cannibalization. I bet this is the quintessential trade-off that is top-of-mind for many label execs when thinking about online distribution.

Re: Something Important Is On The Horizon In The Music Business

fredwilson — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 12:46:03 -0000

Different strokes for different folks. But I already opt for streaming when I own the song and its on my ipod and laptop. Streaming is way more social than listening to something in your library

Fred

Re: Something Important Is On The Horizon In The Music Business

fredwilson — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 11:04:03 -0000

Yup

But I really am not interested in files anymore

Fred

Re: Something Important Is On The Horizon In The Music Business

Jeff Grill — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 09:47:44 -0000

Pandora has an interesting streaming model that combines the desire to listen to known artists streamed with similar unknowns.

Re: Something Important Is On The Horizon In The Music Business

Adam Hodgkin — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 05:21:15 -0000

Some follow up on what this type of publishing environment would mean for books and print

http://exacteditions.blogsp...

In the world of print the library function is analogous to what you identify as the 'radio' future, where every one creates their own radio station. It might also be seen as a music library because I reckon that the preservation and classification aspects of the collective effort will be very important.

Re: Something Important Is On The Horizon In The Music Business

arthole — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 22:33:38 -0000

Have you tried amiestreet.com?

Re: Something Important Is On The Horizon In The Music Business

arthole — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 22:25:28 -0000

I think you are wrong. if you can stream it, you can rip it. so will you rip music you want in your car? of course. that's what you do now with your ipod/laptop right? when you go running how will you stream music? what about djing, or just playing your favorite tunes at a party? never mind that perfect mood music for a little love making...

"just a minute honey, stupid 'superstream.com' stopped carrying Barry White...I'm trying to find another service and sign up... hey where's the visa?"

unless your mythical streaming server has all "your" music, it wont ever work.

and here is the other thing. Hard drives and bandwidth costs go down down down, while while hard drive storage and bandwidth speeds go up up up. At some point, why not just have all of recorded music on your laptop?

Besides, what everyone wants is to enjoy songs they like, and find new stuff they want. And finding new stuff is always about other people. Myspace is great for that because your friends friends friends know some cool bands you've never heard before. And you like them. Wouldn't it be great to listen to that album on your next drive to grandmas house?

You want to have music to use it where you want. Streaming doesn't benefit the user MORE than downloading and owning does. It actually is more difficult to stream than to own. Just like DRM is more difficult than MP3.

Why would users opt for streaming when they could download? I know where all my music is. It's in my itunes. I know where my documents are. they're in my home folder. I know where my code is. I know where my pictures are. I know where my movies are.

It would suck to have 8 different services "streaming my music" when I just want to hit "random play" for my music.

I like streaming. I've been listening to streamed radio from japan. Hopefully I'll hear something I really like and then I will begin the hunt to find where I can buy or download it. Of course, I could just rip it from the stream, but I want the artist compensated. I want that artist to make more cool stuff I like. I want to own it. I want to be fan. I want to buy the tshirt.

If streaming really worked. It would have happened in literature a long long time ago.

So honestly. If storage were not an issue. Would you rather have all the music you liked on your hard drive or would you rather stream it from somewhere? Which would you choose? Sure you want to hear some things once or twice (stream). But for the stuff you want to hear now, and all day tomorrow, and send to your friends, and listen to while skiing next year, and maybe listen to with your kids. You want to stream that stuff? REALLY?

huh. good luck with that.

Re: Something Important Is On The Horizon In The Music Business

Michael Christoff — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 20:51:05 -0000

We're working on that part =)

Re: Something Important Is On The Horizon In The Music Business

mndoci — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 18:12:57 -0000

As a sometime musician with a few friends who would like to earn a living making music, I am not sure whether what we need is a YCombinator style investment model or an Amazon-style ecosystem for distribution and payments. If musicians could be plugged into platforms which allow them to write music, distribute it in various formats and earn revenue. Of course, these are not mutually exclusive scenarios.

Re: Something Important Is On The Horizon In The Music Business

fredwilson — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 17:23:02 -0000

Nothin' wrong with streamin sabbath v4. I've done it a bunch. With my bose headphone, it rocks!

Fred

Re: Something Important Is On The Horizon In The Music Business

jackson — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 15:36:12 -0000

I listen to the radio in the car, I listen to records at home. If this is the future of music as a whole, and not just radio (background music fro the office, whatnot), then I quit.

I will ALWAYS want more than the ability to hear a song. I want a package.

Screaming in the wind I guess.

No, you cannot borrow my 180 gram copy of Black Sabbath Volume 4, go stream it.....

Re: Something Important Is On The Horizon In The Music Business

fredwilson — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 14:15:02 -0000

What is your name on hypem?

I want to follow you

Re: Something Important Is On The Horizon In The Music Business

Robert Preskill — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 13:31:38 -0000

It's interesting that we no longer place the kind of value on the physical thing you hold, but instead look at the immediacy and omni-access (It's Sunday morning, and so I will make up words if I want to). Having said that, I agree with Fred, and see this happening with other media to come. I have less optimism, since the increase in payments to subscription and technology services, will create new challenges for the media industries. The checks and balances of the big business media markets hinge on the fact that they are a leaky boat, easy to bypass and expensive to protect/enforce. So, my main concern is that people on the whole will gravitate toward a watered down free media experience than a richer purchased-media experience. Commercial based aggregate media combined with live event revenue may be the only way to make a big business out of music comprimise there is if it means you can have a richer experience. A precise every-part-of-the-cow ad rev system would mean that an unsigned band with an audience does not need to compete against huge acts to earn some income and book some dates. Having said that, I wonder--what will be the role of ASCAP and BMI, Harry Fox Agency, or is there room for one consolidator of that data to work with the major advertising agencies to take a campaigns down the licensed ad chain. I probably should know the answer but nothing comes to mind.

Rob- A Media Lawyer in SV

Re: Something Important Is On The Horizon In The Music Business

fredwilson — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 11:59:44 -0000

i was not even aware that imeem had launched a media platform that allows third party developers to create applications that leverage all of imeem's content licenses. the one thing that makes me nervous is "create applications on imeem" part. i think the applications should be able to exist anywhere and everywhere.

fred

Re: Something Important Is On The Horizon In The Music Business

fredwilson — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 11:56:44 -0000

if spotify is a platform, that is fully licensed, and extensible via an open api, then it's damn close.

fred

Re: Something Important Is On The Horizon In The Music Business

fredwilson — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 11:54:59 -0000

joe, that would be great if the rights holders would allow it. i didn't propose it because i think it's a non starter. but it makes all the sense in the world

fred