The Music Business- Why we aren’t so discouraged by the changes!

[bheatproductions]

-Brandon Broadnax/B-Heat World

It is only merely a distraction how it’s publicly portrayed that the music business suffers from such a loss now with album sales at a low, bootlegging and Internet piracy now playing a part in the big picture of entertainment. In my opinion this is all a part of a greater revolution in entertainment.
In 1997, I started my first internet-based multimedia production company when the web was nowhere near as popular as today. But yet this company had the ability to sell product online to people all over the world. At the time I happened to be on a world tour and was able to attract internationally both Internet users and even 1st time Internet users to listen to music, look at pictures and get a feel for new artists. This was a great tool then because we introduced hundreds of thousands of people to the Internet and it’s functionality. A model classic example of, music introducing new formats, to the consumer with life changing results. As for the production of such quality products you could spend between $75,000+ for a modest studio post setup, duplication cost of CD’s were ridiculously high priced between $3,000-$4,500 for good packaging of only 1,000CDs Then, you would still be responsible for shipping your CDs to your buyers.
Then in 2002, I joined another production company that had even more industry connects than the previous one. The interesting thing about this company is they spent money on the production and the visuals, but because they were more industry based than consumer based, they weren’t as successful in Internet sales as the previous company. But in 2002 you were able to sell your music as a fully packaged product without paying for duplication. Just simply upload your music and artwork and sell it directly to your customers via the web. They were even able to send it to the labels as a finished product
The craziest thing at the time was the execs, a&r’s, and other major label industry persons had no clue of use web. I even heard statements like, “we’ll never need the internet” and visit a label that didn’t even have Internet service. They slept the web-phenomenon which shortly after exploded in the face of the industry.
iTunes, Rhopsody, eMusic, Amazon, Napster, Verizon V-CAST, Liquid Digital Media, PayPlay, AudioLunchbox, GroupieTunes, Ruckus at the same time social network sites like myspace, facebook, friendster, etc became the new avenues of music marketing, sales, and distribution all in one sweep.
This year ASCAP, BMI, & SESAC has finally got the pipeline to all of these companies so that artist, producers, and writers can receive royalties from song plays even if the consumer doesn’t buy.
So every artist that makes sure their music is in the digital distribution world has the ability to sell just as many or even more than major projects given the right marketing and promotion. The retail music store is almost completely out of the picture and can only be used as a venue in which major artist travel to promote their music signing autographs and meeting fans. Indie artist now have the power to direct their fans to a more dependable source than the retail music store.
So we aren’t discouraged by the changes because we realize that it is a blessing in disguise.