artist

Jango Airplay: Pay-for-play isn't effective

Yes, beginning bands need to do some marketing, and sometimes this requires an outlay of money.

In the old days, it was going to Kinko's to print fliers and postcards for your mailing list. Now it's registering a domain name, building your own Web site, or establishing an online store to sell downloads, CDs, and merchandise (though there are more and more ways to do this with no money up front, like Audiolife and Routenote).

There's a slippery slope between these necessary expenses and one of the oldest scams in the music industry: pay-for-play. The idea's … Read more

Musicians don't deserve money, they earn it

I've been invited by Sonicbids CEO Panos Panay to speak on a panel at SXSW later this month entitled "Artist as Entrepreneur," and as I've been thinking about the subject, my attention was drawn to this recent post on CD Baby's bulletin boards (it was first posted elsewhere). Katie Taylor, the artistic director of Opera Theater Oregon, is worried about the rising perception that art--particularly music--should be available for a very low price or free.

To change this perception, she argues, artists need to convince the general public that there's a fundamental difference between … Read more

ID theft up, and 20-somethings suffer most

Update at 9:30 a.m. PST: A new chart has been added to the end of the article.

This was originally published in ZDNet's Between the Lines.

Identity theft cases surged in 2008, according to the Federal Trade Commission.

Last year, ID theft was by far the biggest complaint to the FTC, representing 26 percent of total problems reported. The next biggest one--third-party and creditor debt collection scams--represented only 9 percent of complaints.

The FTC's annual Consumer Sentinel Network report (PDF), released Thursday, details that ID theft complaints totaled nearly 314,000 in 2008, up from about … Read more

Calling all 'bullshot' artists!

A recent job posting by Activision (found on Gamasutra) is advertising for an "Art Services Screenshot Associate." In the description, it lists how "typical end use will include screenshots for editorial, packaging, advertising, manuals and more, as needed." One of the listed duties is to perform "advanced retouching of screenshots and teach skills to others as needed."

"Bullshot"--a hybrid of screenshot and bullsh*t--is a term used for a screenshot that's been altered through Photoshop to appear a little snazzier than it actually is. Things will become a little crisper, … Read more

Morocco issues biometric ID cards

Morocco's national security service has begun issuing millions of "contactless," biometric identification smart cards to simultaneously fight terrorism and guarantee respect for "citizens' rights and liberty," according to that North African government.

Moroccan citizens over 18 years old are required to carry the new ID, but on the upside; the card conveniently supplants birth certificates, certificate of residence, certificate of life, and certificate of nationality in "all procedures for which these documents must be provided."

Artists, however, will continue to be issued a professional ID card by the Ministry of Culture.

The smart … Read more

Amazon launches artist stores

If you're a gearhead and have a bunch of MP3 players from different companies, the Amazon MP3 Store is your best source for buying music downloads. It's the only store in which all tracks are unprotected MP3s, meaning they can be played on any player and in any software. (Microsoft's Zune Marketplace is getting close, but you need to download and install the Zune software to access that store, while Amazon is accessible from any browser.)

Yesterday, Amazon took a step toward making its store a place you might actually want to spend some time, rather than … Read more

The 404 137: Where Justin will not be censored

Big Daddy Wilson can't make it on the show today, so we scoured the office and found his lovechild with MTI, CNET Account Coordinator Eddie Nguyen. He joins us for another wild show- this time, we address the not-so-recent trend of DVD piracy, the George Dubya Bush Sewage Plant (GDBSP), and Google's plan to redirect socially inept nerds. Most importantly, we expose a CON ARTIST within The 404 family. Seriously, we're fuming. EPISODE 137 Download today's podcast

Exploring the music industry's other alternatives

This morning, I read a fascinating blog post at the Lefsetz Letter that explored reasons why artists should start giving their free music to those people who attend their concerts.

"As it is, you're announcing your tour almost a year before it happens, getting all that revenue up front, before anybody else does," he writes to the artists. "If you give away the music with the ticket, the audience has a long time to become familiar with it! Hell, the dropping of the album and the on sale date happen simultaneously!"

Throughout the entire post, he outlines exactly why artists should offer free music -- maybe as little as four or five tracks -- and why he believes that it's not only good for all parties involved, but a worthwhile idea if they want to make it big in the business.

But all this talk about what artists should do to promote themselves has me thinking: what sort of alternatives are available to us right now that will let us get free music, while still helping the artists? Unfortunately, there are very few.… Read more

More song information, please

Last night, I had an interesting experience that pointed out a drawback of digital music services compared with the tried-and-true CD (or LP, or cassette). For the last few years, I've played with a very occasional pickup band--maybe one party a year, preceded by a half dozen rehearsals, then everybody back to their jobs/families/"real" bands. This year, we're playing a St. Patrick's Day party, and in the past, we've done a version of the Phish instrumental "First Tube." We wanted a quick refresher, so one of the guitarists fired up … Read more

Fan-funded music

Making a professional-sounding recording can be expensive, particularly for ensembles (like rock bands) who want to capture at least some semblance of a live performance.

Sure, you can get an decent recording with a portable stereo recorder, or a couple of inexpensive mics panned left and right and plugged directly into the mixer, but most artists want their music to sound as good as it possibly can--as good as any other artist played on the radio. That takes an array of microphones and other audio gear and somebody who knows what they're doing. In other words, money.

In the … Read more