Archive for the ‘Music Industry’ Category

Beatport cancels affiliate program abrubtly

Saturday, November 8th, 2008
Beatport Affiliate Temporary Cancellation Email

Beatport Affiliate Temporary Cancellation Email

Beatport Affiliate Cancellation Email

Beatport Affiliate Cancellation Email

The venerable Beaport, according to some the most popular DJ download store in America, continues to amaze us with their extraordinarily piss poor vendor support and customer service skills. Sure, we love the service, but they don’t seem to love us–the DJs, blogs and web sites that have helped them brand their service and become the first, succesful dance music download store on the Internet.

On October 20th, Netmix received a cryptic email from Beatport’s affiliate support department notifying us that we had been temporarily removed from their affiliate program. The email implied that we had done something wrong and our partnership is now terminated

All of the Netmix mix shows in the Podcast section have links to purchase titles through Beatport. Without prior notice, Beatport made a decision to shut down the program, without notifying us (or anyone else for that matter) in advance.

As you can see from the emails we have posted above, first we received notification of termination with no explanation. We replied to that email and received the second one, which simply confirmed everything.

If Beatport knew they were shutting down their affiliate program, didn’t they consider it would make sense to do it in phases? They should have let blogs and web sites know that they were going to terminate the service in 30-days time to give their partners (and I use that term very loosely) enough time to remove hard links to titles.

This is especially true in the case of a new DJ culture site, ILOVETHATTRACK.com, which provides DJs with the ability to upload play lists and link titles to services like Beatport for their fans to purchase and download. It must be a stunning blow to their revenue model. Maybe they have some side deal with Beatport to link up to an API or something, but after testing the site tonight, all the Beatport links are broken.

It’s got to be pretty devastating to a new service that is dependent on a partner like Beatport. Just pull the plug and lave ILoveThatTrack’s team high and dry to figure out something overnight. It’s not easy to make a wholesale change to your web database that pulled in and hosted all of those links. It will take days if not weeks and real, hard dollars to remove Beaport from their system, or switch to another service that may not have the same catalog.

This is why I’ve never been a big fan of the affiliate model. Your partner can pull the plug at any time and leave you holding the bag after you’ve invested time, resources and real dollars into building a business that depends on that ongoing relationship.

The company gets all the benefits of your partnership, especially in the form of marketing and promotion of their brand name, as well as the long term customers you’ve pushed into their system. Since you’re not taking the transaction, that customer is never really yours. Although ILoveThatTrack is a great service we hope succeeds, they’ll never be able to build a real business on the affiliate model for this very reason. You can see that dependency on affiliate partnerships as a revenue driver is a risky proposition. They’re going to have to go out and build a music service of their own to fulfill their customers expectations, if they haven’t started already.

It’s just another example of Beatport having absolutely no clue when it comes to relationship building with its partners. The perception is now that they’ve reached a certain level of success, let’s turn off the program that helped get tens of thousands (if not millions) of dollars in FREE exposure and good will through hundreds of web sites from around the world, without any prior warning.

One Beatport executive told me that there were a variety of problems with the affiliate program and it was costing the company more than it was making. Okay, we understand. You need to shut it down to ensure that you’re not spending more than you make.

But, the good will that has been squandered by just turning if off overnight is the same mistake that company after company has made with supporters, suppliers and vendors for hundreds of years. Has anyone at Beatport gone to business school? Don’t they read Seth Godin’s or Guy Kawaski’s blogs?

It’s part of the ethical code of running a business that you notify your partners well in advance that you are going to make a major change to your business model, which will affect their revenue and their content IMMEDIATELY. You must give your partners time to prepare. Beatport did not, and for that they deserve a letter grade of “F” for failure.

What’s worse is, not only did Beatport shut it down, but in our mind slapped all of its partners in the face by telling them that they’ve been removed from the program for negative reasons, without any explanation whatsoever. That’s real warm and fuzzy for ya! A great way to run a business in this day and age. Kick the people who put you where you are today.

Every time a company goes out and makes poor judgments like this one, they can’t expect to go back to the same people for support in the future. Why would anyone want to help you now? They’re probably laughing right now reading this, but I say to them, look at GM and Ford. Two of the greatest car companies in the world are on the brink of collapse, all because they refused to see the future.

Whether something is working on not, you have to ask yourself, is it in my best interest to shut the program down without any prior notification? Or, should I let everyone know what the deal is before I pull the plug? The way I work, I think letting people know is the fair and right thing to do. The way Beatport is run, it seems like a very few in that organization care about their customers or their partners. And that’s what the dance music industry never learns, which is certainly the subject of a future post: How come the dance music industry can’t get out of it’s own way?

It’s all about Beatport and no one else. That’s a lonely road to travel as your competitors chip away at your lead. Sounds like an election we just had.

– by Tony Z.

Oasis lets street performers “leak” new album

Thursday, September 11th, 2008

While I haven’t given Oasis much thought since I microwaved my What’s the Story, Morning Glory? CD when I was 14 (true story), the Brit band has cooked up an album release stunt that I find absolutely fascinating. No, it’s not another name your price scheme à la Radiohead; today, September 12th, Oasis will have street musicians scattered throughout Manhattan parks and subway platforms, performing songs from the band’s upcoming record, Dig Out Your Soul (due in the U.S. on October 7th). Among the performers are indie rockers, a funk group and a shred violinist, and though Oasis isn’t scheduled to perform anywhere, Pitchfork reports rumors that the band’s members may be peppered throughout some of the performing groups. Oasis fan or not, you’ve got to admit that this is one interesting take on the increasingly popular album release stunt.

For more information and a map of where to find the performers, visit nycvisit.com/oasis.

- Melanie Donnelly

Photos from the DJ Times Expo 2008

Sunday, September 7th, 2008

djtimes1.jpg

After attending the Virgin Mobile Festival a few weeks ago, I swung through Atlantic City on the way back to NYC for the 2008 DJ Times Expo. Organizer and DJ Times Editor, Jim Tremayne threw me on a panel at the last minute to speak on alternative business models and careers for DJs and what they should be thinking about for long term success.

Just a few years ago, the Expo was filled with CD turntables. How times have changed. This year, the Expo was loaded with digital DJ products. From software to controllers and DVD VJ decks, the transition to digital is in full swing. Even the remix services, X-Mix and Promo Only, are promoting digital downloads through private, subscription only stores, which will be launched soon.

We loved the Hercules RMX digital controller, show above. The key features are the jog wheels and ability to interact with your audio library. We also were really excited Numark’s NS7 Motorized Computer DJ System with Audio/IO. A very sleek looking product with real vinyl emulators, this is could very well be the digital controller to watch. Numark collaborated with Rane to create a product that syncs easily with Serato. Sending signals over USB, Numark claims the resolution is double that of midi.

The Hercules controller was being promoted in conjunction with Virtual DJ, a similar product to Traktor Scratch and Rane’s Serato, available for both PC and Mac for U.S. $299 after discount from their web site.

Numark NS7

Buy Products from JR.com:

Hercules RMX

Tony Zeoli

Music news roundup: Thursday

Thursday, September 4th, 2008

Snow Patrol to release a special “iPhone album” — NME

WMG demands larger fees for Guitar Hero tracks — Rollingstone.com

Usher plans intimate, ladies-only club tour (is that legal?) — MTV.com

Like the stock market, or a pyramid scheme? Popcuts launces new digital music service — Rollingstone.com

Beck adds North American tour dates — NME

Original Rolling Stones logo sells for a pretty penny — Rollingstone.com

-Melanie Donnelly

Daddy Yankee Endorses John McCain…WHAT!?!

Tuesday, August 26th, 2008
YouTube Preview Image

That’s right!

You didn’t read the title wrong and no, this is not a joke.

Daddy Yankee has publicly endorsed John McCain.

Over the weekend, the presidential candidate John McCain made a campaign stop at Central High School, a dominantly Latino school located in Phoenix, Arizona. While attempting to encourage the group of students to “be involved”, McCain softly acknowledges the real reason any Latino student would stand to listen to him. He begins to introduce his “special friend”, whom he describes as an “all American success story” and list this guest’s credentials, but falls short of mentioning the house with the white picket fence and the little dog in the backyard.

Right after miserably failing to make a joke out of Yankee’s hit song “Gasolina” and the rise of gas prices, McCain introduces Daddy Yankee to a number of screaming and excited Latino high school students.

Now beside the obvious shock of Yankee endorsing John McCain, there is only one thing I find very curious about this whole video. Right as Daddy Yankee makes his greeting, he is quickly interrupted by a man in a blue collared shirt (obviously a man who works for the McCain camp). After stopping Yankee’s speech for about 20 seconds, Yankee gets back on the mic and proceeds to continue his speech. But alas, Yankee is once again interrupted by the presidential candidate himself. McCain, quickly grabs Yankee’s arm and directs him to the group of students behind him.

Yankee, always being the crowd pleaser, proceeds to greet every single one of the Latino students. Once he does finally get to speak, Yankee begins to slowly state how he chooses “him [McCain] as the best candidate”.

Now I don’t know about you, but I just find this whole scenario a bit odd. I mean, whats the deal with all the interruptions! If your going to bring out someone to endorse you, wouldn’t it be a good idea to let them TALK!

And honestly, how much did they pay Daddy Yankee for that endorsement? Or did they threaten to revoke his passport or something. I dunno, maybe it’s just me. But I don’t really picture McCain drinking a Corona and shouting CAPICU at the Domino table.

-Jacklyn Mendoza | J.FRESH

Silicon Insider’s Peter Kafka muses on what ails the music business

Monday, August 25th, 2008
Peter Kafka on Tech Ticker

Peter Kafka on Tech Ticker

Everyone seems to have an opinion on what ails the music industry. In this Yahoo! Finance Tech Ticker video interview, Silicon Insider managing editor, Peter Kafka proposes that labels drop supporting new music and focus on their valuable catalogs. Doing so would leave the door open to independent labels to figure out how to sell music in a digital era.

Then again, if things continue the way they are, major labels will end up getting dropped from the stock exchanges anyway, once their stock drops below a buck for a few quarters. Once that happens, they could feasibly take themselves private and go back to the way things used to be. Cultivating artists instead of churning out pop crap to see if it sticks to the wall.

On the other side, Sony Music Entertainment, the new entity born out of BMG’s desire to extract itself from the music business, may know something we don’t. Or, they may be doing exactly what Kafka thinks is going to happen, control the masters of all those hits over the last 50 + years and/or simply control the music in a convergence strategy tied to their original video content.

We’ll keep watching and waiting for the music giants to figure it all out, while the digital era continues to chip away at their profits.

Netmix Hot 100 Classic Rave Tracks

Wednesday, July 23rd, 2008
Rave Party

Rave Party

From big, block rocking beats to a marathon of lush strings, synth stabs, speedy beats and beautiful vocals, the Netmix Hot 100 Class Rave Tracks iMix brings back the energy of the 90’s through the 2000 and beyond. Break Beat, House, Techno, Drum N Bass and Trance are all represented here. You can either page through the widget featured here, or click this link to go to the iTunes store to purchase the list. icon

We’ve also added links to iTunes for each individual track below:

  1. Love U More (Original Mix) - Sunscreem
  2. Lift - 808 State
  3. Chime (New Version) - Orbital
  4. Papua New Guinea (12″ Original) - The Future Sound of London
  5. Brutal-8-E - Altern 8
  6. Go - Moby
  7. Energy Flash - Joey Beltram
  8. LFO (Leeds Warehouse Mix) - LFO
  9. Charly (Alley Cat Mix) - Prodigy
  10. Feeling So Real (Main Mix) - Moby
  11. Everybody In the Place (Original) - Prodigy
  12. Next Is the e (I Feel It) - Moby
  13. James Brown Is Dead - Housebeat
  14. Dominator (Original Mix) - Human Resource
  15. Anasthasia (Out of History Mix) - T99
  16. Get Ready for This - 2 Unlimited
  17. I Like to Move It (Erick More Club Mix) - Reel 2 Real featuring The Mad Stuntman
  18. Can You Feel It - Todd Terry
  19. Witch Doktor - Armand Van Helden
  20. Take Me Away (Little Louie Vega and Aldo AIM Marin) - 2 In A Room
  21. Feeling for You - Cassius
  22. Born Slippy (Nuxx) - Underworld
  23. Radio Babylon - Meat Beat Manifesto
  24. More Beats and Pieces (Daddy Rips It Up) - Coldcut
  25. Where’s Your Head At - Basement Jaxx
  26. I See You Baby - Groove Armada
  27. Block Rockin’ Beats - The Chemical Brothers
  28. Ain’t Talkin’ ‘Bout Dub - Apollo 440
  29. On a Ragga Tip ‘97 (Original Mix) - SL2
  30. Thunder (DJ Die and Clipse Remix) - Photek
  31. Pacific (808:98) - 808 State
  32. Caterpillar (Original) - Keoki
  33. Krupa - Apollo 440
  34. Days Go By - Dirty Vegas
  35. 3 A.M. Eternal - The KLF
  36. Give It Up - The Good Men
  37. The Climax (PCP version) - Paperclip People
  38. Lifetimes (Silicon soul mix) - Slam
  39. Around the World / Harder Better Faster Stronger - Daft Punk
  40. Big Time Sensuality (The Fluke Minimix) - Björk
  41. Rock 2 House (Plastikman’s Acid House Remix) - X-Press 2
  42. Submarine - Felix da Housecat
  43. Jealousy (Original) - Keoki
  44. On and On (Featuring Stamina MC) - Roni Size
  45. Ready, Steady, Go - Oakenfold
  46. Castles In the Sky (Extended Mix) - Ian Van Dahl featuring Marsha
  47. Adagio for Strings - Tiësto
  48. Where Are You Now? (Extended) - Ian Van Dahl
  49. Sandstorm - Darude
  50. Are You Ready (The Phone Call Mix) - ADRENALINE
  51. He Never Lost His Hardcore (N.R.G. Original Mix) - N.R.G.
  52. Ease the Beat Back Up (Club Mix) - DJ Icey
  53. Hardfloor Will Survive (Club Mix) - Hardfloor featuring Phuture 303
  54. The One - DJ Icey
  55. Move Your Body (Elevation) - Basement Beatmix
  56. I’m Not In Love - Olive
  57. Set You Free (TTF Remix) - N-Trance
  58. Everyday It’s 1989 - Moby
  59. Outlaw - Olive, Ruth-Ann & Tony Foster
  60. Falling Up - Theo Parrish
  61. Darkness - Carl Craig
  62. The Lost Souls - Hardfloor
  63. Body Movin’ - DJ Baby Anne
  64. Helikopter - Plastikman
  65. Beauty Never Fades (12 Inch Cut) - Junkie XL & Tom Holkenborg
  66. Dim the Sky - DJ Icey
  67. Harder Better Faster Stronger (Radio Edit) [Live] - Daft Punk
  68. Vicious Games (Art of Trance Remix) - Hardfloor & Yello
  69. Positive Education (Carl Cox In Tec Mix) - Slam
  70. Silver Screen Shower Scene - Felix da Housecat
  71. 3.1.98 (Bedrock Remix) - Humate
  72. Better Off Alone - Alice Deejay
  73. Ecstasy (Clubb Mix) - ATB
  74. Toca’s Miracle (Inpetto Remix) - Fragma
  75. Take Me Away (Into the Night) [Original Vocal Mix] - 4 Strings
  76. Northern Lights - Way Out West
  77. Cafe Del Mar (Nalin & Kane Remix) - Energy 52
  78. God Is a DJ - Faithless
  79. Beachball (Extended Version) - Nalin & Kane
  80. Apollo - Way Out West
  81. Rhythm Is a Dancer - Snap!
  82. Set You Free (Original 12″) - N-Trance
  83. Strings of Life - Derrick May
  84. Killa - Way Out West
  85. Toca Me (Inpetto 2008 Mix) - Fragma
  86. Children (Full Length) - Robert Miles
  87. Saltwater (Original Mix) - Chicane
  88. Greece 2000 - Three Drives
  89. Right In the Night (Fall In Love With Music) - Jam & Spoon
  90. Love Comes Again (Original 12″ Version) - Tiësto
  91. For an Angel - Paul van Dyk
  92. 9 PM (Till I Come) [Club Mix] - ATB
  93. Flash In the Night (1998 Club Mix) - Calderone Inc.
  94. Masters of the Universe (Eternal Basement Remix Version) - Juno Reactor
  95. Harleqin the Beauty and the Beast - Sven Väth
  96. Welcome to the Factory (Featuring Sally Cortes) [Angel's Journey Mix] - Angel Moraes featuring Sally Cortes
  97. Are You There? (Size 9 Remix) - Josh Wink
  98. Good to Be Alive (DJ Rap & Tyler Revata Remix) - DJ Rap
  99. Angel - Goldie
  100. Rainbows of Colour - Grooverider

Netmix Global House Podcast featured on Beatportal.com

Thursday, June 12th, 2008

Beatportal Community Home Page

Beatportal.com, the daily blog journal run by the folks at Beatport.com, where kind enough to run my latest Netmix Global House Podcast in the Community feed section. You can check out the posting here.

Many companies are now looking to users to generate content for their blogs. Hiring bloggers is an expensive proposition against revenues. If you’re traffic doesn’t cover the cost of the hosting and content production, then it’s smart to look to the user community to develop content for a web site. We may be doing that ourselves very soon!

Netmix Global House Sessions e-Flyer for June 2008

On another note, we’re moving away from Podpress for Wordpress as a Podcasting plug-in. It seems the developer is no longer supporting the application since 2007. As far as we can tell, Podpress has become extremely problematic, conflicting with more recent plug-ins, to the point that it breaks the plug-in repository in your Wordpress admin. We found the new Podcasting plug-in. When used in conjunction with a Feedburner_Feedsmith plug-in, we think it works quite nicely.

Podcasting supports iTunes, but it does not have links to the other podcasting web site featured through Podpress. It also does not host a download link with its player, nor does its player show the number of downloads. A bit disappointing, yes, but do I really need to tell people how many podcasts have been downloaded? Or, is that just a bit of ego on my part? I’ll go with the ego and forgo displaying the number for now. As long as I know what it is and that number is in overall subscriptions, I’m going to say that’s more important to Netmix growth over the long term.

That being said, my workaround was to simple. I added a text link under the Podcasting player provided by Feedburner to allow anyone to subscribe to my podcast feed. That way, it will ping users who have subscribed to the podcast with updates, in the same way that Podpress functions.

In a nutshell, I think we’ll be better off for the time being. Feedburner is quite a powerful way to organize and distribute feeds. For Netmix, that’s another great analytics tool, which compliments our Google Analtyics and GetClicky accounts.

If you’ve stumbled across this post, Netmix Media is the parent of Netmix.com. The company consults to media & entertainment organizations on web strategy, including blog and site development, rich media application development, Internet marketing and promotion and a host of other services. Contact Netmix Media if you need help with your web site or blog.

Giving up equity in exchange for copyrights

Sunday, May 25th, 2008

In Should Music Startups Give Equity to Copyright Holders?, Wired’s music industry blogger, Eliot Van Buskirk, shines a light on the often implemented but rarely discussed trend of Internet music start-ups ceding equity in exchange for the right to exploit rights holders music copyrights.

I agree with Van Buskirk’s assessment on how something like this would work. He writes:

“Why go through the heartache? This lengthy, complicated process is scary for startups, clumsy for copyright holders, and tends to leave indie bands and labels out of the equation.”

Of course, there’s always someone willing to offer up a new idea as to how start-ups might be able to achieve their objectives without having to pay royalties while building their businesses. Van Buskirk discusses this option, saying:

“Will Page, chief economist for the MCPS-PRS Alliance (a U.K. royalty-collection group), and David Touve, a Ph.D. student at Vanderbilt and former Lycos/Sony/AOL employee, have proposed a novel solution (.pdf) to the problem: a music license specifically designed for startups that would give copyright holders an equity stake in the businesses.”

I caught this discussion on the Pho List, of which I am a long-time member. The Pho List is a digital music industry list-serve. What’s a list-serve? It’s a Web 1.0 era technology based on group communication by email. A person may send an email to the main list and everyone on the list receives it. If one person responds to the list address, all list members receive the reply, and so on.

Proper list etiquette dictates that one should ask other list members if it’s alright to post their responses to a blog. In this case, I haven’t haven’t done that, but I will do so in future. I’ve also gone to the trouble of deleting email addresses in my replies for privacy reasons.

In the meantime, I will start to post my comments to the list here. It’ll probably be a bit difficult to follow if I’m not posting other responses to the subject matter. My responses without context may seem a bit hard to follow, but rest assured, I’ll try my best to briefly give a synopsis of the discussion, so that you’ll be able to follow.
Here are two of my responses to the discussion about whether start-ups should give equity to copyright holders in exchange for the right to exploit their content.

from Tony Zeoli <djtonyz@netmix.com>
to Fred W <address_deleted@gmail.com>
cc address_deleted@pennydistribution.com,
Pho List<
address_deleted@onehouse.com>
date Sat, May 24, 2008 at 10:57 PM
subject Re: Pho: The Record Industry Innovation Prize
mailed-by gmail.com
hide details 10:57 PM (2 hours ago)
Reply
This is nothing new and its already happening, especially at UMG. They have an investment arm that takes a look at fledgling start-ups. I’ve gone through this process personally. It’s not that simple. UMG, or any label for that matter, has to believe that the business is going to be viable to invest the time and energy into doing the deals. Record labels can’t just let anyone and everyone use their catalogs, because there have to be some controls in place.

According to the writer, the record labels should set up some kind of independent entity where new start-ups can register. The problem with that is who decides amongst the labels who gets the right to exploit my catalog? Each major label has a competing philosophy. And, if I’m the start-up and most of my success comes from two out of the four majors, why should I give equal equity to all four, when only 2 our of the 4 should be rewarded for giving me content that grows my business.

Also, if I’m the business development executive at UMG (or any label for that matter), I’m definitely going to keep a watchful eye on how the companies catalog is being exploited. Remember, the artists control their image, not the label (although it seems so). And if an artist finds out that he or she is being misrepresented or improperly exploited on a 3rd party web site, all kinds of problems can ensue.

I went through this at StarStyle.com with Gwen Stefani’s management, because Interscope simply didn’t notify Jim Guerinot that we were working on a co-promotion with Gwen’s brand Lamb, which was in conjunction with Interscope’s Strategic Marketing. Someone in business affairs at Interscope didn’t realize that we had a deal with UMG or that we’d gotten approval from the SM department. Instead of checking on the rights, that person went straight to management, they complained and we were subsequently asked to take down the video and the promotion. Because we were so small, we had to oblige lest we cause problems and word spread throughout UMG that we weren’t “doing the right thing.” All this, even though we had a deal with UMG corporate and we got approval from Strategic Marketing. It’s all highly political. And in fairness, if I were Jim Guerinot, I would have done the same thing.

Artists like Gwen Stefani command heavy upfront minimum guarantees to exploit their image beyond what the record label can or can’t control. So if I was running a promotion with Gwen Stefani through the label’s Strategic Marketing department, because I didn’t clear it with management, it becomes problematic.

So, although the intent is admirable, the execution is more difficult than one would think. Once you do the deal with the label, you’re on your own to deal with the individual artists both through the label and through management. The politics of this is extremely volatile and needs to be handled with extreme care.


Best regards,

Tony Zeoli, Founder
Netmix Media
• Web 2.0 Design & Product Development
• Digital Strategy & Online Marketing

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aim / msn: djtonyz | yahoo: anthonyzeoli | skype: tonyzeoli

from Tony Zeoli <djtonyz@netmix.com>
to John Mitchell <address_deleted@interactionlaw.com>
cc Fred W <address_delted@gmail.com>,
address_delted@pennydistribution.com,
Pho List <address_delted@onehouse.com>
date Sat, May 24, 2008 at 11:52 PM
subject Re: Pho: The Record Industry Innovation Prize
mailed-by gmail.com
hide details 11:52 PM (1 hour ago)
Reply
We’ve all heard the complaints about it being “messed up,” but if I’ve got 100 start-ups trying to engage my company to do business, the right decision has to be made about which companies I believe will grow help grow the value of my catalog, for that’s my bread and butter. I see your point, where you say “king makers,” but we have to remember that labels invest millions of dollars (both wisely and unwisely), have thousands of employees who’s livelihood depends on future success, and who have the right to profit from the commercial exploitation of a product (music) they’ve invested in.

If I’m a label, I need to make sure that anyone who comes to the party can execute against the strategy collectively set internally, and that each independent entity is on board with that strategy. If I just list the pricing and let anyone come to the party, control is lost. I’ve worked for and run music-centric businesses and have been on both sides of the equation. As I get older, wiser and infinitely more knowledgeable about how to run a business, control is crucial. No one yells at Apple for their tight control of the iPod ecosystem, but everyone gets pissy with a major label for not allowing other companies to come to the party. I’m sure that Belkin pays a pretty penny for the right to exploit their after-market products to Apple. You never hear about that, you only hear when people (like me…lol) complain that a label won’t do business. In corporate America, you have to exploit your products while keeping control of the image you want out there.

I’ll give you another example of control. I know that Beatport is actually turning down new labels with few releases who want to market themselves through the site, because they want the perception to be that they’ve got the best underground dance and urban music. That is a form of control. They are gatekeeping the new jacks who need distribution to sell their products. Now, what if that music doesn’t really sell? Many of Beatport’s users would be turned off by the overpopulation of sucky music on the site. So, some sort of control is necessary.

For anyone reading this, I am not getting into the debate of whether artists should or shouldn’t get their just rewards. This is absolutely NOT about that. The point I’m simply making is that if you are a business, you have the right to control your distribution and reach so that you can shape the message to the market. That is business 101. If I’m a singer songwriter, I don’t want to be on a head bangers ball web site. If I’m hip hop, don’t put me on a gay dance music site. So, control goes both ways. The artist want to control their image just as the labels wants to control their distribution. That’s not “messed up,” it’s simply good business.

Tony Z.

Interview: Justin Ouellette, The Man Behind Muxtape

Tuesday, April 29th, 2008

The Muxtape.com homepageWired interviews Muxtape founder, Justin Ouellete, but the issue of legality is skirted around like an 8-year old running from the rubber ball in a game of playground bombardment.

I’ve tried out Muxtape, but it’s too eclectic for me. Most of the programmers (regular Joe’s and Susie’s) who are creating their Muxtapes are pretty esoteric. I haven’t yet had the chance to find a Muxtape with the latest tech house vibes, nor can I easily find one because the site doesn’t break out any genres or any other filters for that matter.

It’s great for music discovery, but if you’re not into the broad discovery category, than it may fall short for you. However, if you’re like most Muxtapers, you’ll appreciate the high level of sophistication that goes into making the most obscure mixes possible. Good luck finding what you want to listen to. You pretty much have to sit back and let it be presented to you. Sort of like that good’ol standby…the RADIO! Remember that technology? Well…it’s coming back in more ways than one.

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