Artists Staying Afloat in the Digital Revenue Stream
As new business models of digital music consumption grow and new services keep launching where does the artist fit in? The headlines all scream about what the artist makes on this service or that. But does the artist have any influence on these new services and is there a way for artists to keep themselves afloat and healthy in the digital revenue stream?
Presenters
A music industry pioneer, Scott Ambrose Reilly is a digital music veteran with extensive and varied experience dating back to earliest days of the world wide web.
Reilly was recruited by X5 Music in 2011 to launch their US office and extend the X5 success into multiple genres. Recently Reilly became responsible for all DSP relationships worldwide for X5 Music Group.
In 2006 Reilly was hired by Amazon to launch its MP3 service, the first to launch all four major labels in MP3 format, effectively leading to the end of DRM. He oversaw content acquisition, label relations, and global operations for Amazon MP3, including stores in the US, UK, France, Austria, and Switzerland, with a catalog of more than 15 million tracks.
Prior to that, Reilly was the president of Digital Club Network, a genuinely before its time website that webcast live from 54 music venues across the country. After he oversaw DCN's acquisition by eMusic, he became president of eMusicLive and head of content acquisition and label relations for eMusic, building the largest MP3 catalog in the world when all other services still had DRM.
Reilly developed and launched one of the first band websites, co-produced one of the first music webcasts, and used BBC systems to sell concert tickets online before the World Wide Web during the decade he spent as an artist manager in the 1990s.
Trevor McFedries aka Yung Skeeter (formerly known as DJ Skeet Skeet) is an anomaly. Not many people can say they consider Katy Perry, Odd Future, Trash Talk and Skrillex friends but that is normal for “Yung Skeeter” a DJ/Producer who has been associated with most of LA’s emerging music scenes for the last 5 years. He has the exploits in “urban music” making beats for artists like Chris Brown and Azealia Banks while having a top 10 album in 2007 with his rap group Shwayze. And all the punk cred one could muster, playing in hardcore bands for most of his youth, straight edge till this day and not too long ago playing a show in between his friends Trash Talk and Touche Amore. Skeet is still noted to be the first DJ to play Van’s Warped Tour and has been commissioned remixes for everybody from Black Eyed Peas to Broken Social Scene. But most people would tell you he’s one of the DJs responsible for the grown of “EDM” in America alongside his label head Steve Aoki and peers like Diplo, A-Trak and others. Having such roots led long-time friend Katy Perry to reach out and book Skeet as support for her entire “California Dreams” stadium tour. In short Yung Skeeter or “Skeet” is a look into the future of creatives – an endless resource of music, culture and technology – that have lead massive companies like Spotify to bring him on as a full time employee and “DJ in Residence,” and magazines like Paper and Blackbook naming him their DJ of the year. 2013 will see Skeet launching a new radio show alongside Steve Aoki as well as a heavy catalog of content – whether that be mixtapes, original productions, or remixes.
Jeff Price,
Founder/CEO Audiam
Founder TuneCore
President / GM / Co-Founder spinART Records;
On January 26th, 2006, Jeff Price launched TuneCore. Over the next six years he raised over $9MM in venture and strategic capital and built TuneCore into the world’s largest music distribution and publishing administration entity. Its’ customer base sold over 1 billion units of music within three years generating over $500,000,000 in Gross music sales. As of July, 2012, TuneCore represented over 5% of all digital music sales revenue in the United States making it 55% the size of EMI and 35% the size of Universal Music.
Jeff is also co-founder and was GM / President of the New York based independent record label spinART records (Pixies, Echo & The Bunnymen, Apples In Stereo, Richard Thompson etc) for seventeen years – his label was in strategic relationships with Sony, Warner Bros., Sire, Polygram Music Publishing and others.
spinART records was the first record label in the music industry to offer its catalog of releases via paid download as mp3s.
From 2004 to Present, Jeff contributed to the founding charter and organization of The American Association of Independent Music (AAIM) – a non-profit non-governmental trade organization representing the interests of its independent label members.
From 1997 – 2001 Jeff Price worked with EMusic serving first as a consultant, next as interim VP of Content Acquisition and finally as the Senior Director of Music/Business Development. He contributed towards the creation of EMusic’s initial business model, played an active internal team role in EMusic’s successfully completed $30MM private placement in March 1999 and $90MM second round financing in September 1999 and created and implement the first subscription-based music sales and distribution structure
From 2005 – 2012 Jeff was the CEO/President of TuneCore.
In 2012, he left TuneCore. He now consults for the Canadian performing rights organization SOCAN.
Mr. Price has has appeared on numerous panels including CMJ, In The City, WebNYC, ECMA, Midem, Winter Music Conference, New Music Seminar, Billboard Music and Money Symposium, Independent Music Festival, Music Biz 2005, Audio Soft, MP3 Summit, South By South West, Digital Distribution and the Music Industry and countless others as well as teaches occasionally at New York University, Pace University, Berklee College of Music and more.
In addition, he has appeared on Nightline, CNBC, ABC News, CNN, MSNBC, CW11, and has been interviewed, quoted and featured in publications ranging from the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Billboard, Fortune, Spin, Crain’s, London Daily Mirror, NPR, National Geographic, Wired News, Business Week, The Industry Standard, Boston Globe, Stereophile, to Salon.com, ON24.com, ZDnet, and CNET to many others.
At the request of a congressional panel, he supplied a written deposition in the SEC investigation of Time Warner’s failed acquisition bid of EMI and has provided a witness statement for the SoundExchange arbitration relating to the royalty rate for webcasting
Eric is the founder of Big Data startup BigChampagne and co-founder of Live Nation Labs. WIRED magazine describes BigChampagne as the "Nielsen ratings" of online music. Fast Company named BigChampagne to their 2011 list of World's Most Innovative Companies. Eric was profiled in the 2010 Forbes "40 Under 40" issue.
Eric partnered with Radiohead on "In Rainbows, On Torrents," a critical examination of the band's pay-what-you-wish album experiment. His work was included in Chris Anderson's best-selling book "The Long Tail" and his insights are featured in the Rob Levine's book "Free Ride." Colorful stories from his early career were told in Steve Knopper's history "Appetite for Self-Destruction: The Spectacular Crash of the Record Industry in the Digital Age."
Eric works with USC's Annenberg School for Communication and is a frequent guest lecturer in the areas of media and technology. He advises a wide variety of young companies and non-profits. Eric's board memberships include the Transmission Institute, Autism Beat, the Big Bang conference, Tapulous (now Disney Mobile) and the digital initiative of the Recording Academy (The Grammys), where he has served alongside artists Kelly Clarkson and Kanye West. Eric was formally recognized for his outstanding contribution to the Recording Academy in 2007.
Wednesday, March 13
