A disruptive transition towards digital music discovery, consumption, and distribution carries with it infinite possibilities, and a fair degree of romanticism. But it also comes with a large amount of practical baggage, including licensing issues, accounting problems, and difficult financial realities. That has already grayed the bluest of skies for ambitious entrepreneurs, and war stories seem all-too-common. At a technology roundtable at Musexpo on Tuesday, Lisa Tiver, senior vice president of Business Affairs at eCast, described some of the onerous heavy-lifting that often accompanies ambitious digital music startups. Tiver, whose company specializes in digital jukeboxes in restaurants and clubs, discussed an uphill licensing process that often becomes acute when urban tracks are involved. Relaying a recent situation in which an Eminem track featured a large number of hard-to-reach rights holders, including several with "PO Boxes in Harlem," Tiver lamented that one missing approval nullifies the entire clearance process.
Unfortunately, the result is an incomplete catalog, and one that often disappoints patrons. "People want obscure versions, which they already have on their iPods," Tiver said. Of course, those tracks are almost always available online, usually on P2P networks. "P2P is still one of the only places to get a complete catalog," said Jay Frank, head of Music & Label Relations at Yahoo Music. "Who's fault is that?" The answer is complicated, though consumer demand for immense, on-demand, and free catalogs have caused file-sharing volumes to multiply over the past few years. That has more executives calling for monetization, not litigation, though major labels appear far from that possibility. "You can’t litigate behavior anymore, you have to monetize it," said Ted Cohen, a managing partner at digital consultancy TAG Strategic. That sounds like an enticing possibility, though like other big digital music visions, the pragmatic weeds are incredibly daunting. >>DMN
Recent Comments