Web 2.0: Music
: Hank Barry of Hummer Winblad starts off with a call to action aginst the Induce Act. He said that the consumer electornics, IEEE, and net guys after a long meeting all sent letters to the Senate saying they will not go along with Induce. Notwithstanding, he says, the sponsors vow to go ahead. “That bill can be opposed. I advise you all to talk to your senators.” There’s a list of senators involved at www.netcoalition.com. “End of commercial. Induce act is not cool.” Mike Weiss of Morpheus says all employees of these companies here should call their senators. (Ernie Miller has more links here.)
Michael Caren, head of A&R at Atlantic, says he looks under every rock to find talent, including reading blogs, checking out local sales, going to small clubs. He says 90 percent of his music is now recorded directly into the computer; that allows them to lower costs and increase cooperation.
Danger Mouse tells the story of the Gray Album. He says he did it all on Acid (the program) and ended up buying a legal copy. Michael Weiss says says Bezos is right: Sampling drives sales.
Weiss, of Morpheus, announces Neonet, next generation peer-to-peer search technology. “The copyright cartel is gonna hate this,” he says.
Cory Doctorow says the question is being framed in how to help the record labels. He says he wants to solve the problem that Danger Mouse’s CD is illegal and 70 million Americans are breaking the law.
Danger Mouse says it’s unfortunate that artists have “sold ourselves to the man, the devil, whatever you want to call it… it’s caught up.” He says the days of “making a song gets you rich and worshipped” will not last long. But he also acknowledges that it is a business that supports a lot of people and you can’t pull the rug out from them.
