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Rock On by Dan Kennedy is a brilliant book. The subtitle is “How I tried to stop caring about music and learned to love corporate rock”.

Anyone who has been inside the machine of the rotting, old-school music industry will relate to almost every word.

But you don’t need to have been inside the system to love it – the book makes great reading for anyone who enjoys observational humor and a dose of dry wit.

Click here or on the above picture to find it on Amazon.

Enjoy

All of these activities, that benefit everyone either directly or indirectly, are under threat. This is because Ofcom, supported by Government, has decided to clear out and sell the radio frequencies that the industry relies on, and move those evicted elsewhere. The precise location of this new much smaller ‘home’ remains for the most part undetermined. Meanwhile, all proceeds from the sale of the old ‘home’ will go to the Government.

As a consequence of the enforced ‘migration’, the vast majority of the UK’s valuable stocks of wireless microphones, which are essential tools for content production in the creative industries and beyond, will become unusable. If the activities and events listed above are to continue, then all affected equipment will need to be replaced at a stroke. This will cost tens of millions of pounds.

If the Government does not provide adequate funding to cover the costs, then live music, newsgathering, musical theatre and other events including those listed above are likely to become impossible to stage. There is little doubt that companies will go bust, individuals will go bankrupt, employees will be made redundant, and charitable and community organisations will have to divert funds from core services.

The impact will be so severe due to the fact that the UK’s pool of equipment for professional use is generally owned by small specialist firms and individuals that supply to end users when required. These businesses work to very tight margins and either cannot, or will struggle to cover the cost of replacing entire inventories. If they are forced out of business, which is likely under current proposals, then all productions that depend on their equipment and expertise will be under threat.

Inadequate redress
The funding scheme that Ofcom has put forward is totally inadequate. It is analogous to a compulsory purchase order with little or no compensation. This might be because the regulator is constrained by legislation. Under their proposed terms (1) only equipment that tunes to 8MHz out of the total 120MHz due to be sold would be eligible and (2) amounts provided would be based on an estimate of ‘residual value’ of equipment rather than what it will cost to replace. If Ofcom’s proposals are implemented, many will only receive a fraction of what it will cost to replace their equipment, and the rest will receive nothing at all.

What needs to be done?
The Government must act, if and where Ofcom cannot, to provide what the industry needs. The Government must ensure that (a) the funding package covers all affected equipment, not just some and (b) that funding is based on what it will cost to replace equipment with like-for-like alternatives.

Harvey Goldsmith CBE, legendary music promoter and organiser of Live Aid, said, ‘Yesterday SAVE OUR SOUND UK wrote to Lord Mandelson to raise these crucial issues and urge the Government to intervene. The valuable real estate we are talking about will be sold-off very soon, and there will be no second chance to secure the future of those affected. The time to act is now’.

Louise de Winter, National Campaign for the Arts (NCA) Director, said, ‘We see this as a matter of moral obligation as well as public policy. It would not be right for those affected, which includes charitable organisations, to effectively pay for their own eviction. As this process will generate very significant sums for the Government in auction revenues, it must put aside a fraction of those proceeds to fully compensate those forced to move’.

READ THE FULL STORY AND LEAVE A MESSAGE OF SUPPORT at www.saveoursounduk.com

GENIUS:

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When it comes to music industry, I have strong views on the speed of change and the realities of what that change looks like. You can read these points by choosing ‘The Manifesto’ from the top menu.

Today, the talk of the town is Spotify.

I have commented on the service several times but here, I wanted to outline a few things that don’t seem to be reported much – yet are the cornerstone’s of the service’s success chances, in my opinion.

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Cornerstone #1:

Currently, Spotify is aided by some advertisers thinking that advertising on the service is a worthy part of their media mix.

A mix that surely sets out to drive awareness, drive interaction and above all, drive sales.

For the few advertisers on the service, Spotify apparently is a good bet.

Luckily, for Spotify, we live in an age where assumed accountability is still just about good enough for some advertisers.

Fast forward to a world where every £/€/$ spent needs to prove a return and the above may not hold for long.

Cornerstone #2:

Currently, Spotify’s advertisers are OK with the fact that Spotify is intentionally interfering with user experience to drive people to subscribe.

This is the same as saying to an advertiser – we need your ads peppered through the service so we can make a tenner from subscription when people get really pissed off with you.

Oh – and by the way, here is our invoice.

In Spain, the ad breaks are even longer and more intrusive which is reported gleefully as ‘great news for Spotify’ as this gives people even more reason to go premium.

Cornerstone #3:

The 4 big UK record labels are willing the service to succeed – especially as they took a collective 16% stake in the company in lieu of licence fee income – despite this being diluted when Wellington Partners and Li Ka-shing threw in $50m.

However, the labels will not relent on their remarkable licence demands and ironically, it is these fees that throttle the ability for services like Spotify and We7, to flourish. That, in addition to diminishing advertising revenues and peoples innate desire to avoid intrusive ads.

Cornerstone #4:

Much hope is placed on the iPhone app which requires a premium subscription but few commentators are recognising the incredibly small device penetration of iPhones. Added to which – forcing people into any situation is a dangerous game and the average app store feedback score of 2 out of 5 from punters shows there is a low appetite to pay anything for content that is often seen as free.

Cornerstone #5:

When people don’t pay a subscription, its mainly because they can ignore the adverts or they don’t want to pay for the service – not because they like the adverts.

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In summary, the below 5 cornerstones are the key variables I see:

#1. Advertiser spend on service versus focus on strict return on investment. What is the length of time to mature from fluffy to strict?

#2. Advertiser attitude to being used as the fall guy. How long with advertisers mind being used as a negative sell?

#3. Greed of record labels. Will the model ever loosen? Is the model still valid, actually?

#4. Volume of application enabled handsets and willingness of people to subscribe to a premium app. How long until enough phones are enabled and enough people want to pay?

#5. People’s willingness to ignore adverts. Will people always tolerate or will people find alternatives?

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It is a waiting game to see which of the above variables grow or shrink, quicker or slower. My thoughts are as follows:

Bet #1. People will only pay for what they value – not through blackmail. The price may be zero, or more – but ultimately people will set the price.

Bet #2. Artists will increasingly go direct and bypass traditional record labels. They will find ways of being directly in contact with people who value them.

Bet #3. Application enabled handsets will eclipse standard handsets as we know them today. Applications that are most useful will become most successful.

Bet #4. Brands will favor provable returns, directly linked to purchase. The links in the chain that delay this will eventually diminish through lack of demand.

You can decide whether this paints a rosy picture for Spotify or not. Either way, it will be interesting to watch the way the cards fall. Personally, I would only buy shares in a company that was moving in the combined direction of the four bets. Is yours?

Read the full article here.

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So…in the ever more pointless quest for the litigation of individual citizens whilst ignoring an epidemic, the RIAA attorney correctly points out that fining an individual may not be ‘enough’.

If you look up ‘missing the point’ in a dictionary, this story surely has pride of place.

It is mandatory reading y’all

Brilliant.

Thanks to @catarino