New Study Points Out What A Boon Sports Streaming Piracy Could Be To Leagues

from the making-use dept

When it comes to cable cord-cutting and the set box vs. streaming revolutions, I have always argued that professional and college sports plays an outsized role. In fact, sports programming is one of the few threads by which the cable television industry is currently hanging. Some leagues have made better use of these trends than others, with Major League Baseball still representing the gold standard in sports streaming, with the other major sports leagues riding along in its wake. And, yet, one of the most common complaints about streaming copyright infringement one can find out there is that of live-streaming professional sports. While much of this comes from the broadcast partners of these leagues, the leagues themselves still make a significant amount of noise about pirated sports streaming.

It's never made sense to me. Sports league revenues generally are dominated by two categories: merchandise and advertising revenue. The former gets boosted with the maximum number of eyeballs on the product while the latter becomes something of a complicated mess, given that ad revenues have traditionally gone to broadcast partners, which translate into large contracts with revenue going from the broadcasters to the leagues. Despite that complication, the interest here is in advertising revenue. I wrote the following paragraph way back in 2012:

Here's my question: why is any of this necessary? With that same smart phone, I could have gone to one of dozens of websites (evil, evil websites) that would simply stream the games I wanted directly to my device for free. More to the point, they'd stream the local broadcast that I wanted, complete with commercials. Why wouldn't the major sports leagues do the same thing? If advertising is still the major money-maker for professional sports (and, along with merchandise, it is), why wouldn't they want to increase their reach by offering their own free advertisement-laden stream? Coupled with location identifiers, I'd think the leagues could partner with local broadcasters to make sure that people were getting the same geographical broadcast they'd get watching at home. Again, the same commercials can be in place, so what's lost? Why charge me $50 a season to watch the game on my phone or tablet, but not levy that same charge for watching on my television? It's the ads that matter, isn't it?

The ads, and the eyeballs, of course. Pirate streams increase reach, full stop. Why wouldn't leagues and broadcasters see that reach as a good thing? Well, according to a recent MUSO study, they absolutely should.

In their study, the companies looked at eight matches of the previous Premier League season. They found that these matches had an average pirate audience of 7.1 million viewers across as many as 149 countries. Most of these unauthorized viewers came from China, where nearly a million people tuned in per match, followed by Vietnam, Kenya, India and Nigeria. The U.S. and the U.K. took 10th and 11th places among the piracy audience.

These numbers were complemented with GumGum’s marketing and sponsorship insights. After factoring in the exposure of different brands in various regions, they came to the conclusion that there is £1 million in uncaptured sponsorship media value per match. The majority of value is linked to field-side LED advertising and the sponsorship placements on the front of the players’ jerseys. While pirates may not pay, they definitely see these sponsored messages.

Based on the study, it seems that even a lack of localized advertising still leaves an enormous amount of money on the table in the form of on-the-field sponsorships. I would add that, at least for large global brands, there is value in the commercials as well in pirated streaming. Per the study, the retort from broadcasters and leagues thus far appears to be complaints that, because they cannot control or directly count the streams in question, those viewers aren't represented in advertising or sponsorship contracts.

But all that tells me is that that's the problem. Not the pirated streams themselves, but the failure to capture the boon of those streams in the contracts with sponsors and advertisers. Given that, and considering the laughable game of whac-a-mole that is blocking pirate streams, how is it not the better solution to put these pirate stream numbers in front of sponsors and increase contract costs for sponsorships as a result? When MUSO, an antipiracy outfit, states the following, it's probably time for rightsholders to listen.

MUSO co-founder and CEO Andy Chatterley hopes that the findings will change the perception of pirates. He emphasizes that this audience should certainly not be disregarded.

“Piracy audiences have too long been disregarded as offering no real value to rights holders and distributors, but the reality is that these huge audiences still see the same shirt sponsors and commercials as people watching the game via a licensed channel,” Chatterley says.

In other words, these streams are not an enemy, but an opportunity, if only the leagues would finally take notice.

Filed Under: opportunity, piracy, promotion, sports, streaming

Hollywood Narrow-Mindedly Sees Google Fiber As A Threat, Not A World Of New Opportunities

from the glass-half-full dept

Most reasonable people and businesses are excited about how Google Fiber is shaking up the uncompetitive broadband industry, and bringing new opportunities to a select few cities. That doesn't include Hollywood (with its deep love of Google in tow), which apparently thinks Google Fiber is a bad thing because it might spike piracy rates. Leaked data suggests that Warner Brothers and Sony Pictures Entertainment launched a survey back in 2012 to track piracy rates before and after Google Fiber deployment in Kansas City. About 2,000 individuals between the ages of 13 and 54 were asked about Google Fiber, piracy, and their media consumption habits.

Unsurprisingly, more than half of those surveyed said they were interested in signing up for $70, 1 Gbps connections (or Google's 5 Mbps connection, which is free after a $300 installation fee). Of those survey participants who said they pirated content, roughly a third stated that they'd likely pirate more often with a connection of that speed. In traditional entertainment industry logic, each instance of infringement is counted as a sale loss, and therefore the survey magically concludes that Google Fiber would be responsible for $1 billion in additional piracy losses annually:The survey continues and ties piracy rates directly to downstream broadband speeds, proclaiming this is "another indication that piracy becomes more attractive with Google Fiber":If you haven't come to this conclusion yet on your own, all of this logic is utterly stupid, given that faster speeds result in an overall increase in all online behavior, including the use of legitimate content services. Everything becomes more attractive with better broadband connections. The survey even notes this, 39% of the respondents stating they would use paid streaming subscription services more, and 34% stating they would rent and purchase online videos more frequently. Unsurprisingly, the entertainment industry doesn't bother to calculate these potential sales, nor does it calculate the potential sale opportunities created by offering better services that would only work on ultra-fast connections.

It's yet another example of the entertainment industry's ridiculously narrow thinking when it comes to, well, everything. A reasonable businessman (or woman) would look at those ultra-fast speeds and see opportunity. The entertainment industry looks at these same connections and can only see menace and bogeymen.

Filed Under: broadband, google fiber, hollywood, opportunity, piracy, threat
Companies: google, mpaa

Why Industry Vets Should Play Nice With Startups

from the rather-than-regulating-them-out-of-existence dept

What's the secret behind the most successful tech startups? No, it's not having founders with perfect SAT scores or sealing a dozen coders in a room with cases of Red Bull. The answer often has more to do with refining and capitalizing on an established idea, than with conjuring up something new out of thin air. Or, as Isaac Newton quipped in 1676, "Success is standing on the shoulders of giants."

More than a dozen search engines were already online by the time Google's Sergey Brin and Larry Page debuted their hypertextual search algorithm, redefining the browser landscape. Netflix reimagined the DVD rental market – and upended an entrenched business with disruptive technology – by cutting out the brick-and-mortar rental barrier. And Pandora found a way to let listeners customize their own radio stations, with or without advertisements, while still paying artists royalties to play their music.

So why, in a culture that praises disruptive technology and innovation, do policymakers keep looking for ways to regulate promising new startups into oblivion?

Over time, incumbent business models build protectionist walls to help stave off competition – walls like regulatory hurdles that new competitive businesses have to clear before they can operate. We see this tension at play today as a number of innovative startups run into protectionist barriers supported by industry giants. Uber, for example, is fighting through one roadblock after another from the taxicab industry as the company struggles to gain market share in new cities. And as Airbnb offers travelers new options when they're on the road, it's in the crosshairs of city regulators and hotel lobbyists across the country.

When the costs of regulatory policies are diffused and the benefits are concentrated, the interests of the incumbents often begin to stray from the interests of consumers. Consider the 1984 Sony Betamax Supreme Court case, which pitted the behemoth movie industry against the emerging video recording device market. In that case, the court ruled that time shifting did not infringe on copyright law, and today the thriving home movie market rivals the box office, ultimately giving us more options for our Saturday night entertainment.

Often, benefactors have strong incentives to support protectionist policies, so they push for both greater regulation and enforcement. They seek to exclude new business approaches even when they provide consumers benefits like lower prices and more options. Just look at how TV broadcasters reacted to streaming-TV service Aereo – entangling the innovative startup in a lengthy legal battle that also made its way to the Supreme Court. Ruling in favor of the broadcasters, the court's decision ultimately hurts consumers, providing them with fewer choices for pay-TV service.

How do industry mainstays fair in highly-regulated economies? You don't need to be an economist to predict what happens next. Research suggests businesses of all sizes operating in strictly-regulated environments are often less productive. A report published this year by the Mercatus Center found over a four year period the most regulated industries experienced 33 percent growth in output per person, and a 20 percent increase in unit labor costs. Does that sounds like good growth to you? Before you answer, consider that over the same period the least regulated industries experienced 63 percent growth in output per person and a four percent decline in unit labor costs – yes, the cost of labor dropped with less regulation – which almost always translates into lower prices for consumers.

Any time new businesses pose even a perceived threat to the current profitability of existing incumbents there is a strong urge to sweep these new businesses into the existing regulatory framework, often at the expense of consumers' best interests. But it's time for legacy businesses to stand up for themselves and look for ways to adapt and innovate, rather than cower behind over-regulation. A closer look at disruptive innovation over the last decade reveals a strong tradition of industries cropping up next to preexisting industries and bolstering the overall market – for industry vets and startups alike.

There are dozens of examples of how industries have figured out how to pivot and adapt in order to compete with emerging technologies. Look at Makerbot's 3D printer, which is disrupting traditional manufacturing while providing innovative solutions for producing items that are otherwise hard to get. In response, traditional manufacturers are finding ways to incorporate 3D printing technology into their own practices for product development and testing. Apple's iPod changed the way we listen to and buy music, breathing new life into an industry plagued by piracy. And Amazon's Kindle has changed the book publishing industry by revolutionizing the way content is brought to consumers.

If the research holds, these markets – when not hindered by large regulatory burdens – should show strong productivity gains and broadly benefit consumers. Technology can be used to make markets more efficient by getting products into the hands of those who will use them the most and gain the most from their use. In other words, it helps balance otherwise lopsided markets, where suppliers and buyers weren't matching for any number of reasons.

The most successful startups haven't stumbled upon an entirely new service offering – they've simply found a better way to do something that's already being done. Rather than fighting a tsunami of change and potentially drowning the disruptors that strive to improve consumer choice, incumbent businesses should find ways co-opt technological solutions and in turn produce change themselves.

Shawn DuBravac is the chief economist of the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA), the U.S. trade association representing more than 2,000 consumer electronics companies. Follow him at @Twoopinions.

Filed Under: competition, innovation, legacy companies, opportunity, startups

Innovation, Optimism And Opportunity: All Coming Together To Make Real Change

from the keep-it-going dept

Over the past few years, we've had a bit of a "New Year's" tradition around here for my last "regular" post of the year. It started in 2008, in response to an email asking how I didn't go crazy with anger over all of the bad stuff we wrote about all the time. In response, I explained why I was actually quite upbeat over all of the amazing and wonderful things going on, if a bit frustrated by the attempts to hold them back. The following year, I talked about the nature of creativity and innovation and all of the examples of people starting to recognize the possibilities that were being enabled, rather than just fighting against them. In 2010, I pointed out that despite the roadblocks, innovation was an unstoppable force, and last year I talked about the fact that people were finally speaking out and making a difference.

This year, I'm going to follow along with that thread, in looking at some of the amazing things that were accomplished in the past year -- things that seemed impossible just a short while ago. I'm using the slot we normally use for the "favorite posts of the week," because in some ways this will be my "favorite posts of the year" post. First up, obviously, was the amazing blackout day last January 18th, in which the internet rose up and said NO! to some awful legislation proposed by Congress: SOPA and PIPA -- leading to millions of people deciding to take action and protest the bill.

To this day, very few people realize how amazing that situation was, and how unlikely a scenario it was just a few months before. This was bipartisan-supported legislation that was seen as a "no-brainer" by most in Congress. Previous attempts at similar types of legislation tended to pass easily with little or no debate. Yes, some of us would make some noise, and maybe the absolute worst bits of a law would get excised (after being put in the bill for that purpose), but a bill like SOPA/PIPA was a foregone conclusion: it was going to be law. Until it wasn't. That is amazing. Last year at this time I was excited about the fact that people had finally come together to speak out, but the bill was still alive and we hadn't fully achieved anything yet. And a few weeks later... we did. It was an amazing moment of real representative democracy in action.

And it didn't stop there. Almost immediately following the SOPA victory, a large group of people suddenly discovered ACTA. ACTA was an ever more foregone conclusion than SOPA. It was basically done -- and all but "signed" in Europe (the US had already signed it). It was a mere formality. And, yet... the success against SOPA energized the opposition, leading to a months-long process that resulted in the EU Parliament loudly rejecting ACTA, and the EU Commission finally giving in just a few weeks ago. Without the success against SOPA, that doesn't happen.

The wider internet spoke up on other occasions as well, including on cybersecurity and on internet freedom. Not all of these campaigns led to victories, but these activities are no longer being ignored by those in power. The wider internet is finding its voice, and that's a good thing -- and something worth being quite excited about.

Of course, it is still early, and there will be setbacks. Politicians and legacy industries have been at this for too long and are too good at "playing the game" to just give up. But, the playing field has shifted notably and the opportunity to speak out and have an impact has increased drastically. At the same time, the tools for such activism have grown and expanded. The ability to use innovative new platforms -- and for those platforms to exist and be useful -- continues to expand.

At the same time, more and more people are engaged and aware. More and more innovators are recognizing that there are new opportunities for disruption. More and more amazing things are within our grasp. Countries are suddenly taking things like copyright and patent reform seriously. There are growing discussions about the power of innovation to help an economy. People are recognizing that new platforms and services are enabling things that used to be impossible (rather than merely updating old things).

It's an exciting time, full of opportunity. There are, as always, threats and those who wish to get in the way of that opportunity, but we're on the cusp of a new era, in which more and more people are able to stand up and speak out and put a stop to those attempts to block innovation and opportunity. And that's incredibly exciting. Once again, I want to put forth a huge thank you to everyone who makes up the Techdirt community. We've continued to grow and expand quite a bit over the past year, with many new people, new insights, new opinions and great conversations. It's an exciting time to be covering all of the opportunity out there, even if it also means covering those who stand in the way of such opportunity. We're continuing to work hard to do even more for the community in the next year, and we appreciate the insights and support you continue to provide to the site. We started Techdirt as a place to have a discussion on these issues, and that ongoing discussion has continued to be amazing, thought-provoking and wonderful.

I've now been writing Techdirt for more than 15 years, and I wouldn't keep doing it if it wasn't an absolute joy and pleasure every single day -- and much of that is because you come here to read, to comment, to share and to suggest other stories and ideas. It's an amazing experience in and of itself, so thank you.

Filed Under: innovation, opportunity, optimism, year in review

Piracy Is A Cultural Opportunity; Embrace It

from the sharing-is-fun dept

Piracy has become a force of nature in the entertainment world. No matter what you make or how you release it, there are pirates waiting around the corner to try to get it for free. No matter what you try to stop this from happening, you just can't -- much like a storm, you have no control over its movements and power. All that is left is to embrace it and hope to harness the storm's power for your own benefit.

This is what Daniel Cook from Spry Fox has decided is best. In a reprint of his comments at Gamasutra, Daniel explains that piracy is a fun activity that can be harnessed for good.

Being a 'pirate' was being part of a community. You and your friends shared games like social gaming gifts on Facebook. It didn't cost you anything to copy a game and give it to someone. A game was a social token to chat about, a gesture of kindness to reciprocate. A key takeaway from that time is that copying and sharing vast quantities of digital goods is a deeply fun, social and highly useful activity. This is a new thing, a new behavior in a post-scarcity world.

This is perhaps the most commonly ignored or overlooked aspect of piracy by those who want to end it. For many people, sharing games, movies and music is a fun activity that allows them to share what they love with their friends. Despite what those who seek to stop piracy think, there is very little animosity involved in the activity. It is this love of sharing that can be, as Daniel puts it, hacked for the benefit of the creator.

With shareware, we hacked the copying behavior. People would play the random floppies and some of clever programs would say "Hey! Did you know that you can pay for this?" And a small portion of users did. 'Pirate' and 'consumer' are not mutually exclusive properties. In our capitalist society, almost everyone (with a few notable exceptions) is trained to buy stuff. People who like checking out new software for free are really just another audience of potential consumers.

It was just recently that Ubisoft learned a similar lesson. That the percentage of people who pay for single purchase games is about the same as those that pay in free to play games. If you want people to pay for games, one of the best ways to get them to do so is to let them experience the game first and for free. By giving fans the ability to share the games with others who may not have heard about it on their own, you can expand the pool of potential paying customers.

Unfortunately, there are many creators and gatekeepers out there that want to vilify such behavior. They can't fathom that someone is playing, listening, reading, watching their work without paying for it. They see no benefit in it. This mindset has dangerous outcomes for their paying customers.

It has been a really confusing time for businesses. Some lashed out by labeling consumers as evil, some tried to protect the old ways with DRM. Relationships with customers...who see themselves as just having fun sharing cool stuff...became antagonistic. 30 years. When you raise kids in a warzone, they grow up parroting propaganda. No wonder the conversation is polarized.

It is actions like adding DRM, anti-piracy ads and threatening fines of hundreds of thousands of dollars that will end up costing the entertainment industry more in the long run. As those in the industry seek to threaten and lash out at paying customers, many of those customers will begin to lash out as well. They will end up doing exactly what the industry wants to stop, pirate. For many purchasers of games, it often starts by downloading cracks for games in order to remove restrictive DRM. But there is a lot that can be done to turn the tide.

Detach yourself from the emotions of history. Give up the past forms of what games were. Adapt to the current environment with one eye firmly fixed upon the future.

People copying digital goods as an inherently joyful social activity is an opportunity. It is an artistic opportunity. It is a business opportunity. It is a cultural opportunity.

There are opportunities out there that many creators have found and are enjoying. It can be things like adding a "Cockroach Edition" to your payment options. It can be adding pirate hats to all your characters and putting the game on the Pirate Bay. It could be giving players the ability to set their own price. It could be anything really. By embracing the sharing culture of your fans, you can expand you fan base and increase the potential to make a living.

Filed Under: culture, opportunity, piracy

DailyDirt: Mars Missions

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

The successful landing of NASA's Curiosity rover on Mars will hopefully be followed by several years of fascinating data collection about our planetary neighbor. The mission has already gathered tons of useful radiation measurements on its journey that will give scientists a better idea of what kind of radiation levels a future manned mission would face on a similar trip to Mars. Here are just a few other interesting Mars-related missions to peruse while Curiosity performs its self-diagnostics before roaming around the surface of Mars.

• Last year, Opportunity found some "slam dunk" evidence of water having existed on Mars. There may have been an ancient "wet" Martian surface that was hospitable to our own biology, and Curiosity may find additional geological evidence to support a watery history on Mars. [url]
• NASA also recently tested an inflatable heat shield, capable of withstanding hypersonic speeds of up to Mach 10. The Inflatable Re-entry Vehicle Experiment 3 (IRVE-3) could help designers create spacecraft that can land on Mars without the use of fancy rocket cranes. [url]
• India is planning its own mission to mars in 2013 at an estimated cost of $70-90 million. But India's Department of Science hasn't fully approved a Mars mission with full funding, so these plans could be delayed. [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post.

Filed Under: curiosity, heat shield, india, mars, opportunity, rover
Companies: nasa

In A World Where Recorded Music 'No Longer Has Monetary Value,' The Artist Is King

from the if-you've-got-nothing-to-lose,-what's-stopping-you? dept

This post is a followup to a recent piece dealing with Wayne Coyne's enthusiasm for utilizing "all technologies" to connect with fans (including using "pirate sites" for the distribution of the Flaming Lips' music) as well as Bas Grasmayer's terrific post "Why The Internet Has Been Awesome For Both Musical Artists And Fans."

With the discussion of SOPA still ongoing, a lot is being made of how bad things are right now for content creators. But are they? Or is it just a matter of perspective?

Chuck Klosterman, in his very entertaining review of Lou Reed/Metallica's new album "Lulu," makes this observation:

As a rule, we're always supposed to applaud the collapse of the record industry. We are supposed to feel good about the democratization of music and the limitless palette upon which artists can now operate. But that collapse is why Lulu exists. If we still lived in the radio prison of 1992, do you think Metallica would purposefully release an album that no one wants? No way. Cliff Burnstein from Q Prime Management would listen to their various ideas, stroke his white beard, and deliver the following 45-second pep talk: "OK, great. Love these concepts. Your allusion to Basquiat's middle period was very apt, Lars. Incisive! But here's our situation. If you guys spend two months writing superfast Diamond Head songs about nuclear winter and shape-shifting, we can earn $752 million in 18 months, plus merchandizing. That's option A. The alternative is that you can make a ponderous, quasi-ironic art record about 'the lexicon of hate' that will outrage the Village Voice and mildly impress Laurie Anderson. Your call." Ten minutes later, Bob Rock would be parking his Lexus at the studio...

But if the fundamental goal of Metallica is to make good music, it seems like trying to get rich while doing so dramatically improves their creative process. The constraints of late capitalism really work for them; they're extraordinarily adept at making electrifying heavy rock that's designed to generate revenue. The reason Lulu is so terrible is because the people making this music clearly don't care if anyone else enjoys it. Now, here again - if viewed in a vacuum - that sentiment is admirable and important. But we don't live in a vacuum. We live on Earth. And that means we have to accept the real-life consequences of a culture in which recorded music no longer has monetary value, and one of those consequences is Lulu.

To be fair, Klosterman is stating this as a conclusion, rather than an indictment. There's an underlying tone of accusation there, but I don't think that his overall point is to decry file sharing as ruining music, but rather pointing out that an album like this could only be made in this day and age.

Essentially, this ("the democratization of music and the limitless palette upon which artists can now operate") becomes a situation that artists can view as either half empty or half full. When there's nothing to gain, why even bother? Conversely, when there's nothing to lose, why not take risks? When faced with piracy, you can either handle the challenge like Eileen Siedler (poster girl for Why The DMCA Does Not Work), whose glass will be eternally half empty or you can do what Metallica and others did and view it as the perfect climate for experimentation. As frustrating as it is to see your efforts spread all over the web without your consent or control, it's an exercise in futility to expend your energy attempting to snuff out every last flame of infringement. Wouldn't that time and energy be put to better use by creating and exploring options?

It's happening all over. Drake tweeting amiably about an album leak. The Flaming Lips doing everything from recording a 24-hour song (and embedding it in a skull) to tossing out rough cuts and half-formed ideas onto file sharing sites. Jack White teaming up with the Insane Clown Posse. Chino Moreno of the Deftones releasing an album of witch house music (and giving it away). Bjork putting out an album-as-app for the iPhone and inviting pirates to make it cross-platform. DJ Screw acolyte and obliteration-as-remix artist Nattymari using Youtube as his "label," having uploaded nearly 200 videos/tracks to date. He claims it pays him the same amount a label would: "nullset." It also gives him a free platform to get his stuff out there which he has leveraged into a rather high profile Kreashawn mixtape for influential NYC music/fashion blog, Mishka Bloglin. When you've got restlessly creative people itching for release, the normal time frame of label day and date release schedules will never be fast enough.

Need more examples? Take a look at Bradford Cox. Not only is he the founding member of Deerhunter, but he continues to produce quality music under the name Atlas Sound, his "bedroom production" project. Cox moves too fast for Sony, who accidentally took Cox's freely released music down from his account at Mediafire. Chillwave artist Neon Indian sells scarcity by teaming up with Bleep Labs to offer a deluxe edition of his latest album, bundled with its Pico Pasa mini synth. Not only that, but he takes the time to shoot a bizarrely hilarious informercial for the product. Other artists are finding that fans still want physical items, even if it's just a physical piece of music they could acquire for next to nothing (or nothing itself) somewhere else. Vinyl sales are up. Cassettes, of all things, continue to make a comeback. All of these are efforts that would have been unimaginable in the past when the labels decided your next moves and kept a constant eye on the bottom line.

Many other success stories utilizing technology and non-conventional methods have been featured here at Techdirt. Still, the complaints roll in. The most common argument is that this particular method "won't work for everybody" or "won't scale." This is true. Each content creator will likely have to try out many methods before finding one that works for them. Getting lost in the chaos of the internet is very easy if you can't command attention, and yes, that means solutions won't scale.

But looking back at the golden years of the recording industry, their solution didn't scale either. Lost in this nostalgic view is the fact that the old method of "sign-with-label, make-record, sell-record" didn't scale either. For every artist that made it big with a major label, many, many more ended up hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt with no control over any of their recorded output. With royalties slowly being applied to their outstanding balances, these bands had to tour and sell merchandise to make money. Sound familiar?

With labels investing less and less in their artists, it's up to the artists to creatively use all the tools at their disposal to get their music into people's heads and their names on people's lips. Not every band or artist has the kind of money that Metallica has, or the clout, but then again, most smaller bands/artists don't have to keep sweatered therapists on the payroll or pay for a Lou Reed-sized drug habit. Yes, the odds are tough and the signal-to-noise ratio completely out of whack, but there has never been a time in history where musicians had the opportunities than they have today.

There are so many tools available now for speedy (and cheap) distribution. Bittorrent. Digital lockers. Cloud services. Bandcamp. Tunecore. Soundcloud. Youtube. Beatport. Spotify. Rdio. Hell, even turntable.fm has been known to host album debuts. If you're looking to get your music into people's ears, the possibilities are endless. A million bloggers, from small-time writers with a few hundred followers to 800-lb. gorillas like, well, Gorilla vs. Bear and Pitchfork are dying to get their hands on new music.

Keeping contact with your fans has never been easier or more instantaneous. Webcasts, twitter, Facebook, Google+ and countless other social media platforms and tools allow artists to enjoy actual conversations with their fans, which is a huge step up from stapling up flyers and hoping for the best.

If the complaints are to be believed, the ones that state that piracy and free/cheap digital goods are killing the creative industries, anyone on the outside of the argument would look around the internet and have a very hard time believing that. The playing field, especially for recording artists, is the levelest it's ever been. The real question is, as you face the "wild west" of the internet: Are you looking at how much you have to gain? Or are you just looking to minimize your losses?

Filed Under: artist, control, culture, opportunity, power

Creativity, Innovation And Happiness

from the thanks-to-everyone dept

Last year, for our final post of the year, I wrote a message On Staying Happy. It seems, at time, that people think that I am filled with anger or rage, because of all the annoying or "bad" stories that show up here all the time. Of course, for folks who know me, this is pretty funny. I'm pretty laid back and quite happy and content for the most part -- which was the point of last year's post.

This year, for my final post of the year, I wanted to take that a step further, and point out how in awe I am of the continued amazing creativity we've been seeing. In just the last year alone, we've seen and written about so many incredible stories of creativity and innovation in a sea of negative from those who insist that it can't be done. We've heard that music and movies are "dying" because of piracy, even as we've seen incredible new music and movies being created by people who are embracing new and innovative business models.

We've seen things like how Amanda Palmer connected with her fans and gave them a reason to buy, allowing her to create some fantastic new music. We've seen how a guy in Israel by the name of Kutiman, that no one had ever heard of probably broke all sorts of copyright laws to create create an amazing album (one of my favorites of the year). We've seen how Nina Paley went from being stifled by copyright to embracing alternatives and how she's used that to build a different kind of business model. We've seen how the business models we talk about are suddenly being applied widely to things like books, photography and even everyday objects. It's been an incredible year for amazing creativity both in content creation and in business models.

As a part of that, I've personally been blown away at the reception I've received (sometimes from initially "hostile" audiences) when I've been granted the opportunity to go out and present and discuss these business models and how they're working.

Finally, as a result of all this, we've had a lot of fun running our own experiments, from which we've learned a ton and were able to work with some amazing and talented partners and content creators. Seeing all this happen even as the stories (without any evidence) of doom and gloom get louder and louder from those who aren't willing to embrace change is even more exciting and encouraging. The pace with which these ideas are being adopted (and adapted) is breathtaking and exciting. We're looking forward to the pace of this activity to only increase in 2010, and we've got a bunch of surprises in store as we look to not only continue discussing these concepts but to really help more people join in the fun as well. Thanks to everyone here for making it yet another fun year. We've been at this for over a dozen years now, and each year is more exciting than the previous one -- in large part due to the amazing community of folks who spend at least some of their free time here. We hope that you had a wonderful and exciting year as well, and look forward to more opportunities in 2010...

Filed Under: business models, creativity, happiness, innovation, opportunity

Instead Of Nasty Lawsuit Against Counterfeiter... Why Not Look At Partnership Opportunities?

from the not-everything-needs-a-lawsuit dept

It's all too common for IP lawyers to go to the legal nastygram first, rather than recognizing that perhaps the "infringement" is an opportunity. Take, for example, this (amusing) story about how when Prada, the famous design company, first got started, Miuccia Prada got angry about someone making knockoff products. Except... rather than sue Patrizio Bertelli, who was making the knockoffs, she was convinced by him to make use of his manufacturing capabilities, and the two teamed up... even to the point of eventually getting married to each other. Obviously, that's a pretty extreme example, but the key point is worth repeating: sometimes the better solution is not to freak out and sue over infringement, but to see if that infringement can be used to your advantage.

Filed Under: counterfeiting, infringement, opportunity, partnership
Companies: prada