P2P online services

In regards to engaging with the legal side of this feature, it has been discussed that we should be looking at P2P online services, and how these services affect the modern artist. So this blog entry will have a detailed look at the history of online piracy, which will lead into a feature about its current relevance.

 I'm going to pose a question now, which we will come back to at the end of this blog, and that question simply is.... Would you???

THE BEGINNING....

NAPSTER

Napster was initially set up as an independent peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing  internet service by Shawn Fanning, John Fanning, and Sean Parker in 1999. Its technology allowed people to easily share their MP3 files with other participants. Its ease of use led to massive copyright violations of music and film media, as well as other intellectual property. 

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) served Napster with a lawsuit for copyright infringement in December 1999 for $20billion. Napster lost the suit in the Ninth Circuit Court, and settled in 2001 to pay $26million to music creators, and a $10million toward future licensing royalties. 

CASE FINDINGS - A&M RECORDS, Inc. v. NAPSTER, INC., 239 F.3d 1004 (9th Cir. 2001)

Although the original service was shut down by court order, the Napster brand survived after the company's assets were liquidated and purchased by other companies through bankruptcy proceedings

Napster logo

 FULL STORY HERE 

THE ONLINE FILE SHARING BOOM

Shortly after its loss in court, Napster was shut down to comply with a court order. This drove users to other P2P applications and file sharing continued its growth. The Audiogalaxy Satellite client grew in popularity, and the LimeWire client and BitTorrent protocol were released. Until its decline in 2004, Kazaa was the most popular file sharing program despite bundled malware and legal battles in the Netherlands, Australia, and the United States. In 2002, a Tokyo district court ruling shut down File Rogue, and the RIAA filed a lawsuit that effectively shut down Audiogalaxy.

 "We thank you for your interest in Kazaa. However we no longer offer a music service"

From 2002 through 2003, a number of BitTorrent services were established, including Suprnova.org, isoHunt, TorrentSpy, and The Pirate Bay. In 2002, the RIAA was filing lawsuits against Kazaa users. As a result of such lawsuits, many universities added file sharing regulations in their school administrative codes (though some students managed to circumvent them during after school hours).

In 2006, police raids took down the Razorback2 eDonkey server and temporarily took down The Pirate Bay.

In 2009, the Pirate Bay trial ended in a guilty verdict for the primary founders of the tracker. The decision was appealed, leading to a second guilty verdict in November 2010. 

In October 2010, Limewire was forced to shut down following a court order in Arista Records LLC v. Lime Group LLC but the gnutella network remains active through open source clients like Frostwire and gtk-gnutella. Furthermore, multi-protocol file sharing software such as MLDonkey and Shareaza adapted in order to support all the major file sharing protocols, so users no longer had to install and configure multiple file sharing programs.

legal infringement - Limewire

THE CURRENT CLIMATE

It appears a tough and short life for those wishing to start an online P2P file sharing service. Since Napster founded in 1999 and was shut down in 2001, people have constantly tried to challenge big business by sharing their files online. However in the current climate, copyright laws around the world are becoming tighter to govern what the music industry is calling a problem. There has been a plea from artists around the world to stop piracy, with some high profile celebrities releasing statements and videos to try and 'protect their industry'. Here is Jack Black's plea:

"Don't be a Douche"

The Australian Recoding Industry Association (ARIA) released a myth and fact sheet recently which aims to put into perspective for people just how damaging free music is to the music industry. The fact is that despite the music industries stressing the illegality of file sharing and governments around the world cracking down on copyrighted file sharing, there will always be an industry for P2P online services. Even with the knowledge that their time is short, people constantly spring up sites that allow online file sharing.

Technology is being advanced so rapidly that government and industry control of this issue will never be fully achieved. BUT, is this a bad thing??? What we hope to investigate with the legal site of this feature, is exactly how P2P services affect individuals within the industry. Anonymous interviews with heavy P2P users, as well as contact with emerging artists will help us to better understand exactly what role P2P services should play in the current music environment.



So...would you??? Let's here what Futurama's Bender has to say

Inspiration and creativity

As Connor said in his earlier post, covering a popular song is a very effective way of being seen online because once it has gained enough exposure, it is likely to appear in the search results for the song being covered. In fact, whenever you search a popular song on Youtube, there are normally hundreds of results of videos from people around the world performing the song. So it is not only important to perform the song, it is important to stand out and be creative.

One of the most successful covers I have seen within the last year is newly founded band Walk of the Earth who covered Gotye's "Somebody that I used to know" using one guitar between the five members of the band.

Walk of the Earth currently have over 130 million (yes million) views on their video. From this they have gained widespread recognition all over the globe and are renowned for their low-budget music videos of both covers and originals. This band could be another great case study to have a look at in our feature. 

This is another example I love of multiple people using one instrument from a group called The Piano Guys. Have a look...

I find it extremely inspiring to watch videos such as these, and hopefully our audience will too, because it shows there's an endless number of ways to be original and creative out there. I think it would be great if our feature really focused on being motivational and inspiring for the readers by posting regular examples of new ways to be different, and assuring them that there are endless opportunities.

The Amanda Palmer Formula

Following Carmen's post about a feature looking at successful and unsuccessful music artist campaigns, with a case study on Amanda Palmer, I started brainstorming ideas for content to accompany the feature.

We could create a video of "The Amanda Palmer Formula", combining footage of her with animated graphics and voice overs to give a run down of the various facets of her campaign and the extent to which they were successful. This includes her forum, blog, music/social networking sites and direct-to-fan marketing which have been rife with controversies due to her confrontational and unrestrained approach both online and on the stage.  Her twitter feed @amandapalmer was listed amongst Boston Phoenix's Best 2012 and her kickstarter campaign (online fundraising site) reached over $1 million earlier this year, exceeding her $100k goal.

We could potentially mimic the style of her video too, using words on paper rather than graphics (an homage, more than a parody). This also is suited to sharing on social media platforms! Do you guys have any more ideas for this video or others?

Show Me the Money!

As Aloe Blacc says:

❝ I need a dollar, dollar, dollar, that's what I need ! ❞

This refrain could well be the unofficial international anthem for musicians around the world. Raising the capital to tour and record has always been a Sisyphean task for aspiring musos. Despite the glamorous mythology surrounding the music industry, it's not all sex, drugs and rock'n'roll.

Quite the opposite, in fact. 

It takes a lot of metaphorical blood, sweat and tears to succeed. Raw talent alone is rarely enough to pave a golden path towards a lucrative, or even sustainable career. In this scene from Jean-Michel Basquiat's cult film Downtown 81, the narrative of indie artist Walter Steding epitomises the hard slog of the aspiring musician:

Since the birth of pop music in the 1960s, success in the music biz has been contingent upon:

1.   A & R whims and gimmicks

2.   Image creation

3.   Marketing

4.   and THEN, maybe, Talent

BUT... in the last 10 years, the digital revolution has changed the game. 

Platforms like Myspace, YouTube, Soundcloud and Beatport have closed the gap between musicians/DJs/producers and their audience. Big wig music biz middlemen are losing their stranglehold over artists... and having to find new day jobs!

It's an exciting time to be an independent artist. The technology now exists and is affordable enough to turn young hopefuls from bedroom bangers into self-made multi-media superstars.

One particularly important development for tomorrow's indie legends is the birth and BOOM of crowd-funding. In the past, musos had to beg, borrow and steal to raise the bucks for their creative projects. NOW, if they are digital media savvy, they can use sites like Rockethub, Kickstarter, Pozible and Sponsume to fund their albums, tours, etc.

There are plenty of crowd funding projects that don't raise the desired amount to finance their projects. For the feature, I'm going to take a closer look at some unsuccessful projects and analyse where they went wrong. I'm also going to analyse the now-legendary crowd funding success story of indie artist Amanda Palmer - to see where she went right!

 

Stay tuned for interviews with:

* New York based DJ, MC, producer, Social Media Afficionado and Renaissance Man, Melo-X

* Dutch DJ, producer and Rejected music label owner Edwin Oosterwal

* Founder of Australian crowd-funding site Pozible, Rick Chen

* Musicologist, DJ, Promoter, Educator, Simon Caldwell

* Artist Manager & Founder of the Hip-Hop Loves Foundation, Rene-John Sandy

And remember...

In a Nutshell

As Danielle mentions, visual storytelling is definitely a great way to engage our audience. By distilling the essence of each interview into a compact quote and then presenting these 'essential wisdoms' in a consistent visual format, our feature will have a strong, readily identifiable style and aesthetic.

The longform interview material is there for more indepth content; but, for the web-surfers who are just flicking from page to page on their smart phones in between train stops on the way to school/work, these 'visual sound bites'... sight bites you might say... are our hook.

This guy gets your attention, right?

Our sight bites will too!

Photography style

To make our feature and our interviews distinctive we need a recognisable aesthetic to our content which sets us apart. For each interview, I think there should be an accompanying image of the interviewee in a black and white wide medium shot, holding up a blank placard.

Onto this placard we would photo shop the best pull quote from their interview, creating a visual engagement with the story as well as easily shared content on social media platforms. Making these images as interesting and inspirational/useful as possible would encourage people to want to share them with friends; essentially a branding exercise.

If we use a white/plain background we could then play with colour in the quote so to draw attention to it and adding a little more interest through contrast to the black and white image. This house style of photography is easily replicated for consistency while remaining distinctive to our piece.

All the photos could be displayed in a photo gallery (under one of the tabs) as well as in the top left corner of their story, potentially with in-built social media sharing buttons (share, tweet, +1 etc) to facilitate a bit of free viral marketing.


What's everyone's thoughts on this house style? Any suggestions, improvements, criticisms?

BoyceAvenue

Multimedia sites like YouTube, Myspace, PureVolume, and many others allow amateur musicians to post audio or video clips for the general public. The websites are free to access and free to post on, providing a potentially wonderful marketing source at no cost. Both original works as well as covers are uploaded. However, in terms of the probability of an artist or band being discovered, utilising cover songs, to begin with, make sense. The following is a story of a band who used a combination of YouTube and well known cover songs to become famous.

 

BoyceAvenue is an American mainstream rock band. They formed in Sarasota, Florida, when brothers Alejandro, Daniel and Fabian Manzano decided to aim for a career in music. The band is named after a combination of the two streets the brothers lived on as children.

As a band that started out on YouTube as a cover band back in 2007. Some of the first few videos they posted included acoustic versions of songs such as Justin Timberlake’s “LoveStoned”, Rihanna’s “Umbrella”, and Coldplay’s “Viva la Vida”, among many others. They have since reached remarkable heights, touring worldwide, releasing original albums, and as of August 9, 2011, they started their own independent record label called 3 Peace Records.

Early on, the band wanted to set itself apart from other acts that had achieved success online by taking its music straight to the people, live. Believing firmly in the strength of their online fans, and in its music, the band booked a stand-alone show in New York City in January of 2009, for their first ever performance in the city. Surprising label and industry folks alike, the show – perceived by others as a gamble – was an enormous sellout and success. 

On YouTube, Boyce Avenue releases original music as well as covers of popular and classic songs. Boyce Avenue has also collaborated with other YouTube artists such as Kina Grannis, Tiffany Alvord, Megan Nicole, Alex Goot, Megan & Liz, David Choi, Tyler Ward, Savannah Outen, Jourdy Suparjo, Cobus Potgieter and DeStorm.

Behind Linkin Park, BoyceAvenue are the second most viewed band on YouTube (just under 750million video views), and they have a following all over the globe. Their cover of Linkin Park's "Shadow of the day" is their most viewed song on YouTube with over 13million views:

 

Their YouTube page is brilliantly laid out and demonstrates a great model for artists who want to use YouTube as a platform; there is a comprehensive list of their music and tour dates, there are links to all their social media platforms, it is easy to subscribe to and explore, and there are links to purchase their songs as well as suggested playlists depending on your taste in music.

A certain formula for success?

Obviously just posting videos on YouTube will not necessarily lead to fame and success. There are countless amateur musicians who post on YouTube and never get more than a few hundred views. Certainly talent is the most crucial aspect in succeeding in the online industry, and is one of the reasons BoyceAvenue attained so much popularity. But they are most definitely not the only group to get their break because of their YouTube videos. Among others, Justin Bieber (as Maddy mentioned in her earlier post) was also discovered because of his YouTube account. Just like BoyceAvenue, his career began with covering other artists' songs:

Summary tips 

• Multimedia sites allow amateur musicians the chance to access an audience never before attainable.
• Cover songs are often a great way to reach out to the audience - whenever someone searches for "Shadow of the Day" or for "I'll Be", the versions by Boyce Avenue and Justin Bieber will come up.
• With the help of multimedia sites, many musicians will help jump start their career and possibly attain fame and fortune through the digital exchange of cover songs. 
• While social media provides the platform, talent is very important to getting the kick start needed in this tough industry. 
• From the platform of YouTube, original songs can begin to gain reputations and future industry success (through albums and live performances) can start to occur.