Mind the Gap: February 2009 Archives

Being a fan of minimalist repetition and experimental music, you'd think I could handle the overloaded information loop that is Headline News, but l even had to skip my normal morning dose of NPR this a.m. because the local station is in on-message telethon mode. I get that it's time to cough up the voluntary subscription price, but why is it kosher to whine for it with all the determination of a four year old in a grocery store? Seriously, is this the best way to attract the dollars of the hybrid-driving, latte-drinking intellectual elite?

And lord help us if newspapers decide to go this route. I don't think Walter Isaacson, who's been getting a lot of press play in recent weeks, really has it figured out either. He brings up some salient points, however, and I see a lot of parallels to figuring out optimum new business models for music, so it seems like it's worth some study. (For those who like their content with moving picture, Isaacson chatted with Jon Stewart about his ideas here.) As with many things, there are plenty of other proposals for solving the crisis on the table, and the answer is probably not a one-size-fits-all solution.

I know subscription models like TimesSelect failed, but I can still see paying yearly modest subscription fees for access to sites I already visit as a matter of daily procrastination routine. Maybe there's always a guest pass for low volume users (First five articles absolutely free! Well, except for the advertising we're going to make you watch.) and then a monthly/yearly charge once you're hooked and are motivated to kick in? Kind of like Rhapsody. That way, it's all about access, but there's an appropriate motivating hook already embedded: the content itself. We're already trained to pay $1.99 if we want to watch otherwise freely available network T.V. without wasting time on advertising, so it might not be such a stretch.

Or maybe we should go the telethon route. Maybe at the end of the day, annoying people is the fastest way into their wallets. I probably best respond to threats, however, so I'll leave you with this: If newspapers fail, we may be left to get all our news from Tweets.

*image courtesy SoundsLikeNow

I'm in the middle of a little vacation, though in uncharacteristic fashion, I haven't packed a suitcase and jetted off to someplace exotic. It's really more of a staycation, as my colleague Frank likes to say, and it's been a good week. In between catching up on boring adult stuff and building fantastic (or, in my case, ridiculous) contraptions, I can now recommend a couple of awesome restaurants (1, 2) and a movie to you.

In addition, I spent Wednesday with the good folks from the Future of Music Coalition for their 2009 Policy Day. What can I say: A time out from time off was in order when I saw the all-star guest list. For those who get giddy when debates over copyright reform and net neutrality crop up, I couldn't imagine a more lovely February day inside the Beltway (aside from the moment that nice man told me I had to toss my coffee before entering the auditorium). It was a great relief, though not much comfort, to listen to legal professionals from YouTube and the RIAA play out on stage the internal debate I have running in my head when trying to sort out intellectual property rules and licensing issues in a digital environment. Look, mom, they don't know either! Or at least they can't agree, which leads to effectively the same end result for anyone out in the field hoping for a fair and reasonable playbook to follow. The short answer I took away was: No one has the magical solution to how we're going to get out of this predicament (though a pristinely accurate database of metadata for every music track ever recorded would sure help us with the "how to efficiently log, monetize, and distribute" equation), but waiting for Congress to legislate us out of this or for the courts to litigate us clear is probably not the way to go. Meanwhile, however, that's sort of what we're doing.

You can catch the recap of some of yesterday's panels here (though my favorite session--#3--in not currently available for some reason. Perhaps it's a copyright issue?). Ahem. Anyway, I'll be drawing on a lot of what I learned when Mind the Gap hosts its first book club event in March. Some of my blogger heros have agreed to read and discuss Lessig's new book Remix: Making Art and Commerce Thrive in the Hybrid Economy in this space next month. We haven't figured out how to email the wine and cheese around yet, but if early plenary emails are any indication, it's sure to be a hot week of discussion. If you're interested in playing along, get reading. I'm also gathering resource links, so if you've read anything great on this or related issues that you'd like to toss into the mix, please do float links and source directions my way.

I've been thinking about the site Etsy.com a lot lately, as it might relate to the composing and performing market. If you've never shopped there, it's basically a connector site for crafty people, allowing them to sell their wares in an Amazon-like online shop. It's popular among Baltimore crafters, which is how I first encountered it. I've stood behind young women balancing towers of packages at the post office as they sent out their creations to customers across the nation. It inspires me in a way that kicks me gently in the butt every time. They get to do what they love, and despite the odds, they've found a way to sell it to a much broader base than the traditional card table at the local flea market. That probably translates into an exponential increase in units moved and income earned. And they haven't had to change their art one bit to make it happen.

In the age of the digital copy, the money for music is arguably best found where the real people are, and ordinary people don't often know how to buy new music (the creation itself, not the recording--a la Corey's project) or any of the arts for themselves. What if everyday people could link up with everyday artists to buy original art or performances in an organized, store-front way? Steve Reich might not need/want such commissions, but I bet there are a few composers out there who would. Samples and user reviews would help customers wade through the offerings with less pressure to pander to a single imagined demographic. Want to buy local? Search by zip code! Old concept (immortalize me in oil paint and I'll let you sleep in my barn), new packaging.

Am I out of my mind?