I loved how this interview started. "How can you save music thats gonna die?"
With those words began my interview with John Buckman, who is the founder and CEO of Magnatune.com, a website that offers music, licensed directly from the site. All of these artists have made a deal with Magnatunes that allows the site to offer the music for sale, and the artists get half. Ask alot of independents who are members of BMI/Ascap about their royalties, bet you get a blank look.
As John pointed out, the days of going into a record store, and buying a CD are pretty much over. The future is now in terms of buying music online, but at the same time "not everyone is jumping on the fair use bandwagon just yet". The majors want to try and control this medium, but haven't figured out how and probably never will, given the vastness of the internet.
One thing about John that I didn't find out until right before the show was that he is also on the board of the EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation) which is a watchdog group that watches out for the rights for the rest of us online. I wish I had known this beforehand, guess this will teach me to do more research (outside of the press release) on my guests, I would have had more questions about that aspect of what he does, thank goodness Deb was in chat (couldn't make it on the show, her voice was SHOT) and was able to feed me questions.
We really learned some neat stuff on this interview, I encourage you to check it out! The show ran 2 hours, but the interview itself only ran an hour (first hour of the show) so check it out in the player or you can go directly to the show page (click here) and give it a listen.
Also, be sure to check out magnatune.com you won't regret it!
Monday, January 26, 2009
Sunday, January 25, 2009
President and CEO of Magnatune to be on NewsTalk tonight!
Show starts at 9 pm (EST), just follow the BTR link and I'll see ya there!
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Just want to toss out some links
Anyone who's been reading my blogs, or following my shows on blogtalkradio (and feel free to hang out and listen to the last 3 in the player if you haven't) knows that I've been doing a series of shows on Indie artists, and the whacked out insanity that is the music business.
I wanted to take a second and post some links to the artists that we've been talking to, as well as some other links.
Here goes....
Deb's show on blogtalkradio. She broadcasts every Saturday night at 11 p.m. eastern. A great place to unwind, chill, listen to some great music. This is also where you'll hear some of the artists talked about on my show.
Pete Berwicks website and his myspace page, he was on last Sunday, and mentioned that he had one of his new song on there, "I Fought With Angels". Awesome stuff
Black Angel on Myspace it seems that he can upload again, I'm taking bets on how long it lasts.
Finally, if anyone out there is looking for a free dating website, that doesn't totally suck ass, check out bookofmatches.com I can personally vouch for this one, I've helped them out over the last couple of years as a forum moderator, and met the incredible woman who would eventually become my wife from there. The sites owner recently started his own blog on here. Check out my comment on it, you'll find out more about me than I think you ever wanted to know!
Still working on this Sunday's guest, stay tuned!
I wanted to take a second and post some links to the artists that we've been talking to, as well as some other links.
Here goes....
Deb's show on blogtalkradio. She broadcasts every Saturday night at 11 p.m. eastern. A great place to unwind, chill, listen to some great music. This is also where you'll hear some of the artists talked about on my show.
Pete Berwicks website and his myspace page, he was on last Sunday, and mentioned that he had one of his new song on there, "I Fought With Angels". Awesome stuff
Black Angel on Myspace it seems that he can upload again, I'm taking bets on how long it lasts.
Finally, if anyone out there is looking for a free dating website, that doesn't totally suck ass, check out bookofmatches.com I can personally vouch for this one, I've helped them out over the last couple of years as a forum moderator, and met the incredible woman who would eventually become my wife from there. The sites owner recently started his own blog on here. Check out my comment on it, you'll find out more about me than I think you ever wanted to know!
Still working on this Sunday's guest, stay tuned!
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Pete Berwick on Special Report last Sunday
Another week, another awesome interview.
Pete Berwick was an awesome guest on the show. He kept us in stitches talking about the music industry, when he was on Wife Swap (which will repeat on Feb. 20th on ABC) and his upcoming album.
Some of the things that we talked about go right to the heart of what we've spent the last couple of weeks talking about (and Deb even longer than that on her show Unsigned Musicians). Unless you are with a major label, good luck finding avenues to get your work out. The major labels practically have a monopoly on the over the air radio stations, there are only so many gigs you can play, and keep a band together living in tight quarters, ect. ect.
But......
We do have the internet!
What the majors hate, is the fact that they can't control that aspect of it, although they are trying to. JC Martin is having issues at Myspace again, YouTube is pulling videos down for copyright infringement because (you're gonna love this) of music playing on a radio in the background!
How screwed up is that?
I totally understand the need to protect copyrighted material, the copyright laws exist for a reason, and artists have every right to earn royalties on their work.
Herein lies the problem, unless you are a MAJOR success, you don't see a dime, and yet the licensing fees are paid. Where does the money go?
Why the overkill on enforcement that benefits so few?
Just a thought.
You can catch Pete Berwick on Myspace, and on his website peteberwick.net. We played a few of his songs on the show, including a special live performance of "Hello Hand" which was freaking hilarious and a hell of alot of fun to listen to. It really was an awesome show.
It is over 3 hours long though, you can follow the blogtalkradio.com link on this page, or my homepage at www.geocities.com/jstrapus and download the podcast. It'll be worth your while.
Pete Berwick was an awesome guest on the show. He kept us in stitches talking about the music industry, when he was on Wife Swap (which will repeat on Feb. 20th on ABC) and his upcoming album.
Some of the things that we talked about go right to the heart of what we've spent the last couple of weeks talking about (and Deb even longer than that on her show Unsigned Musicians). Unless you are with a major label, good luck finding avenues to get your work out. The major labels practically have a monopoly on the over the air radio stations, there are only so many gigs you can play, and keep a band together living in tight quarters, ect. ect.
But......
We do have the internet!
What the majors hate, is the fact that they can't control that aspect of it, although they are trying to. JC Martin is having issues at Myspace again, YouTube is pulling videos down for copyright infringement because (you're gonna love this) of music playing on a radio in the background!
How screwed up is that?
I totally understand the need to protect copyrighted material, the copyright laws exist for a reason, and artists have every right to earn royalties on their work.
Herein lies the problem, unless you are a MAJOR success, you don't see a dime, and yet the licensing fees are paid. Where does the money go?
Why the overkill on enforcement that benefits so few?
Just a thought.
You can catch Pete Berwick on Myspace, and on his website peteberwick.net. We played a few of his songs on the show, including a special live performance of "Hello Hand" which was freaking hilarious and a hell of alot of fun to listen to. It really was an awesome show.
It is over 3 hours long though, you can follow the blogtalkradio.com link on this page, or my homepage at www.geocities.com/jstrapus and download the podcast. It'll be worth your while.
Monday, January 12, 2009
Awesome Show Last Night
All I can say is holy crap what an awesome show we had last night.
We had JC Martin from Black Angel on the show last night. We weren't sure if he was going to be able to make it up until the last minute.
Deb and I were starting to go into who BMI/Ascap are, and how they've fallen hard and fast from their original purpose when JC called in.
Those of you who aren't familiar with Black Angel, I would encourage you to check out their Garageband page here and check them out. I promise it will be well worth your time. Also here is their Myspace page here in case anyone is interested in checking that out as well.
I almost wasn't provided the opportunity to post that link to Myspace. Why you ask? Well, it would seem that one of the music companies that have a stake in Myspace thought that JC was committing copyright infringement. He uploaded on of his own songs to Myspace, and somehow it hit a trigger that mismatched it to someone else's song. (something called "wasted"?)
After 3 weeks he was able to get it straightened out (thankfully) and can upload music to Myspace again, but he had to jump through about 50 hoops and almost stand on his head and spit pennies to make it happen. Anyway, check out the music, it's totally awesome! In fact I have the Myspace player going right now as I type this.
It was really interesting talking to JC. He's not just some fly by night musician he's been around a while, and lived to tell it....lol After he talked to Deb and I about the Myspace fiasco we got to talking about some of his experiences out there in the music world and some of the stories he could tell and did. It was a really fascinating experience as a radio host to sit back and just talk and listen to the guy.
It really turned out to be a great show, it's in the player right now, take some time and listen to it. Or go to blogtalkradio and download the podcast. You won't regret it.
Also, we'll continue to have guests and talk to them about the music industry as well as their lives in the music world. Check us out every Sunday night at 9 pm (eastern U.S. time) on blogtalkradio we would love to have ya hang out and listen.
We had JC Martin from Black Angel on the show last night. We weren't sure if he was going to be able to make it up until the last minute.
Deb and I were starting to go into who BMI/Ascap are, and how they've fallen hard and fast from their original purpose when JC called in.
Those of you who aren't familiar with Black Angel, I would encourage you to check out their Garageband page here and check them out. I promise it will be well worth your time. Also here is their Myspace page here in case anyone is interested in checking that out as well.
I almost wasn't provided the opportunity to post that link to Myspace. Why you ask? Well, it would seem that one of the music companies that have a stake in Myspace thought that JC was committing copyright infringement. He uploaded on of his own songs to Myspace, and somehow it hit a trigger that mismatched it to someone else's song. (something called "wasted"?)
After 3 weeks he was able to get it straightened out (thankfully) and can upload music to Myspace again, but he had to jump through about 50 hoops and almost stand on his head and spit pennies to make it happen. Anyway, check out the music, it's totally awesome! In fact I have the Myspace player going right now as I type this.
It was really interesting talking to JC. He's not just some fly by night musician he's been around a while, and lived to tell it....lol After he talked to Deb and I about the Myspace fiasco we got to talking about some of his experiences out there in the music world and some of the stories he could tell and did. It was a really fascinating experience as a radio host to sit back and just talk and listen to the guy.
It really turned out to be a great show, it's in the player right now, take some time and listen to it. Or go to blogtalkradio and download the podcast. You won't regret it.
Also, we'll continue to have guests and talk to them about the music industry as well as their lives in the music world. Check us out every Sunday night at 9 pm (eastern U.S. time) on blogtalkradio we would love to have ya hang out and listen.
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Notes and Thoughts on our upcoming shows (and other ramblings)
Hey everyone, Happy New Year.
For those who have been following my shows on blogtalkradio, we have a very special series coming up. Deb from "Unsigned Musicians" will be joining me on some upcoming shows about the music industry. We'll be talking about some of the things the music industry "thugs" (or M.O.B.)(Muthas of broadcasting) do to shake down internet broadcasters, and the effect it has on the Independent artists.
Think about this for a second, when was the last time you heard something not just decent, but really, really good on the radio? Outside of a random song here or there, it's probably been a while. It's really hard for new artists, no matter how good the music is (and you can check out the "Unsigned Musicians" on this page if you doubt me about the quality of the music) to break into the mainstream. Many of these musicians rely heavily on the internet to promote their music, with some success, but also with many roadblocks.
Now, I know what you are thinking.......
"Dude, it's the internet, how hard can it be?"
Well, harder than you would imagine. Right now, because Sony/BMG have their hands on Myspace (which is a website that is used by many of these artists to network, and get their music out there) they control the content on that particular website.
The details are still being worked out, but on one of the upcoming shows (hopefully this Sunday) we are going to feature an artist, who wasn't allowed to upload his own music that he had written himself because Sony/BMG decided that somehow they had a copyright to one of the songs. He eventually was able to get it straightened out (kinda) but this is just one example of the kind of crap that goes on.
We started discussing this on my show on the 28th of December, right now it's the show thats at the top of the player. Some of this stuff is just totally unreal.
Join us this Sunday, just click the link to my homepage, or just do a search for my username (riskybusiness04) on blogtalkradio.com.
For those who have been following my shows on blogtalkradio, we have a very special series coming up. Deb from "Unsigned Musicians" will be joining me on some upcoming shows about the music industry. We'll be talking about some of the things the music industry "thugs" (or M.O.B.)(Muthas of broadcasting) do to shake down internet broadcasters, and the effect it has on the Independent artists.
Think about this for a second, when was the last time you heard something not just decent, but really, really good on the radio? Outside of a random song here or there, it's probably been a while. It's really hard for new artists, no matter how good the music is (and you can check out the "Unsigned Musicians" on this page if you doubt me about the quality of the music) to break into the mainstream. Many of these musicians rely heavily on the internet to promote their music, with some success, but also with many roadblocks.
Now, I know what you are thinking.......
"Dude, it's the internet, how hard can it be?"
Well, harder than you would imagine. Right now, because Sony/BMG have their hands on Myspace (which is a website that is used by many of these artists to network, and get their music out there) they control the content on that particular website.
The details are still being worked out, but on one of the upcoming shows (hopefully this Sunday) we are going to feature an artist, who wasn't allowed to upload his own music that he had written himself because Sony/BMG decided that somehow they had a copyright to one of the songs. He eventually was able to get it straightened out (kinda) but this is just one example of the kind of crap that goes on.
We started discussing this on my show on the 28th of December, right now it's the show thats at the top of the player. Some of this stuff is just totally unreal.
Join us this Sunday, just click the link to my homepage, or just do a search for my username (riskybusiness04) on blogtalkradio.com.
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