I Will Survive

Happy November, Everyone. Rox just heard some great news from my friends the What's The Download Board. Congrats, you guys. I heard you roxed New York today at CMJ. To find out what these total roxstars -- and my buddy Chris Brown -- have smacked down on the industry, check out:
www.WhatsTheDownload.com

Or check out this story from ABC.com & PC Mag:

Music Academy Unveils Treatise to Downloaders
A group created by the Recording Academy (Grammy Awards) has unveiled "7 Music Survival Tips" aimed at bringing the music industry and music downloaders closer together.


Erik Rhey - PC Magazine
Nov. 1 - On Wednesday morning, a group created by the Recording Academy (Grammy Awards) called What's the Download (www.whatsthedownload.com) held a press conference at the CMJ Music Marathon in New York to unveil its "7 Music Survival Tips."
The list takes a decidedly softer stance on downloading than the RIAA does, aiming to educate consumers about legal downloading and give tips to retail outlets about how they can reverse the tide of plummeting profits.

The 7 Survival Tips the group announced are as follows:
1. Educate to Eradicate Piracy (If people know they are stealing money from musicians and laying off record industry employees by downloading illegally, they will think twice.)

2. Make Music Retail Therapy (Retail outlets can foster a better album-buying experience through live interaction with other like-minded music lovers.)

3. Declare a Music/Tech Truce (The music industry can do more to make legal downloading just as easy and accessible as piracy.)

4. Commit to Artist Development (Record labels should be more dedicated to developing artists' careers instead of tossing them aside when their hit singles no longer receive radio play.)

5. Embrace New Music Avenues (Labels and artists should spend more time interacting with fans online to ensure continued support.)

6. Offer What Piracy Doesn't (They don't seem to have this one figured out yet.)

7. Make Music a Priority (Again, there didn't seem to be a clear message here. A quote from the group's Web site: "There are tremendous challenges facing traditional music businesses, but for artists this is an incredibly exciting time.")

David Wurzburg, a music supervisor from The Rights Workshop (a copyright clearance company) and member of What's the Download's Interactive Advisory Board said that in order to compete with peer-to-peer sites, the industry should work harder to make music—both old and new—easy to find and download.

"And as for artists, they should focus on creating albums, not just hit songs that will rocket them to the top," he said.

R&B artist and Board member Chris Brown said that he embraces technology by taking time to chat with his fans online, write entries on his blog regularly, and keeping up with his MySpace page. In response to a question, Brown also said that he could imagine a time in the future when all music will be free, and artists will make their money solely from touring and merchandising. Further, the power of MySpace and social networking is creating a new distribution model in which people are buying music from their friends or directly from the band, instead of downloading from iTunes or going to a brick-and-mortar store to purchase a CD. In fact, during the Q&A session, three audience members mentioned the imminent demise of Tower Records, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in February.

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