If you're interested in digital music, David Byrne's article in Wired is a must-read. He highlights the changing economics of the music business and also outlines 6 different models for artists to follow ranging. Generally there's a spectrum where the more control you retain, the greater the risks for you, but the greater the potential reward and vice-versa. Anyway, great article with some good graphics on the economics of a CD, the economics of the industry and audio interviews. Some choice passages:
We'll always want to use music as part of our social fabric: to congregate at concerts and in bars, even if the sound sucks; to pass music from hand to hand (or via the Internet) as a form of social currency; to build temples where only "our kind of people" can hear music (opera houses and symphony halls); to want to know more about our favorite bards — their love lives, their clothes, their political beliefs. This betrays an eternal urge to have a larger context beyond a piece of plastic. One might say this urge is part of our genetic makeup.
...
These models are not absolute. They can morph and evolve. Hausman and Mann took the total DIY route at first, getting money orders and sending out CDs in Express Mail envelopes; later on they licensed the records to distributors. And things change over time. In the future, we will see more artists take up these various models or mix and match versions of them. For existing and emerging artists — who read about the music business going down the drain — this is actually a great time, full of options and possibilities. The future of music as a career is wide open.
Comments