Last week I was wondering if music subscription will be the future of music industry and now it seems that more and more companies are embracing subscription based music distribution models. Universal Music for one is planning a business model that is based on Napster’s and Rhapsody’s subscription model, but with a little twist. The fee for using the service is added on the Internet service provider bill or alternatively, if you want to access the music catalog with your phone, on the mobile access provider bill. However, this is a very complicated process since there are many different parties included in the process. It may take a while before we see Universal’s plan coming together in practice.

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Here is something that escapes my mind: there are many studies concerning how music piracy impacts on the record sales, music industry and economy, but only a few researches about why people engage in the piracy behavior. Why? For example every year International Federation of the Phonographic Industry releases a commercial piracy report that shows piracy statistics, distinguishes problem countries with high level of piracy and explains how these figures affect negatively on the music industry, but there is only little discussion about the reasons that lead to the current state of piracy. It is crucial to study the motives of people when they engage in the piracy behavior. This way we might understand the issue better and influence it much more effectively.

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Content. Music. Message. It all boils down to the actual product eventually.

When you think about the old model of record industry, hit music wasn’t the music that people would normally like. Major record companies made people like music with huge marketing and advertising campaigns. Today when I first time hear MTVs hit songs I really don’t like 95% of them, but after being bombarded I kind of start liking many of the songs that sounded horrible in the beginning. It’s one form of brainwashing. We are just absorbing what our environment feeds to us and adapting to it as good as we possibly can.

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You’re thinking of iTunes or a similar online music store, aren’t you? Well, I have something else on my mind. It’s true that online digital music sales worldwide account for around 10% of the entire music market, which in value is around US$2 billion. The growth of online digital music sales has been impressive from the start and the 2007 IFPI report shows that from 2005 to 2006 the sales have doubled. People are adapting to downloading digital music, but still the majority prefers CDs. The main reason for this is probably that for most people it is still more convenient to go and buy CDs from brick and mortar stores. Many older people especially are not yet so familiar with computers and Internet, so they try to avoid online music stores. Also paying with your credit card via Internet still arouses doubts and people feel usually safer paying with cash.

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Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about the idea of music streaming subscription models as the answer to tomorrow’s music industry. Napster, Rhapsody and many other music services are already offering a subscription based music streaming service, where the customer can listen to as much music as he/she wants through a streaming media player and pays a fixed fee every month, which isn’t a bad sum at all when you think about how many songs you get access to.

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Music sales widgets are online mp3 players that have an integrated option to also buy the track you are listening to. Personally I find the idea just brilliant. Selling and promoting your music with a music sales widget that can be placed on your webpage or a social networking site like MySpace. In most cases your fans can copy the widget and place it on their own website/blog/social networking site. This way you get even more visibility, possibly more revenue and in some cases the fan get also a small cut of the revenue.

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You’ve just finished recordings of a new song/album and now you’re wondering what to do with your new masterpiece. You could send it to a dozen of record companies without ever getting a reply. You could also make 100 copies of it and give it to your family and friends, who smile forcefully and say “It sounds very nice dear…”. Or what if you just skip all the hassle of signing a record deal, spare your relatives and become DIY music manager.

The “magic” that a record company in practice does is marketing and distributing your recording with the help of their vast marketing and distribution networks. Getting your potential fans listen to your music is a really big dilemma for many DIY artists, but thanks to the Internet there are some really efficient online services to help you with this big task.

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The first time I started to research the whole Creative Commons licensing system was when I started this blog. I am planning to publish music on this blog so I want to be sure about the copyright issues. For starters let’s take a closer look at UK copyright law.

To get copyright protection to your song you don’t need to register it anywhere. A song is legally protected when it is created in tangible form. After you’ve managed to record your song or write it in the form of musical notation you get some exclusive rights to your work. These rights are as follows:

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