djedna.org » 2008 » January

New DJ Edna Powered Site: spiritofsalt.com

thomas — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 22:16:29 +0000

Jon, my friend and the guy behind spiritofsalt.com and the Phree Musique Blog just launched his online catalog using DJ Edna with the consulting and hosting services of djedna.com. The first release is a greatest hits album to honor the completion of his 2000th Song of the Day. Here’s a sample:

I’m pretty damned amazed that I know anyone who’s written 2000 songs, let alone doing so in 2000 days. Go check out some of the best as chosen by the artist himself.

DJ Edna Is On Twitter: @djedna

admin — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 18:20:56 +0000

If you want to follow real-time updates about DJ Edna, djedna.org, or djedna.com, be sure to follow our twitter account, @djedna.

New DJ Edna Feature — Anonymous Permits and Embedding

thomas — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 20:50:55 +0000

Last night I finished hooking up Anonymous Permits functionality into DJ Edna. This means that users of DJ Edna can now make some or all of their music publicly available to download, stream, and/or play. Along with this functionality, I’ve also added “embed code” on the track detail pages so that your fans can promote the music by putting it in their blogs, facebook, or myspace pages.

Here’s a couple of examples from theskullcranes.com:

I believe that embedded tracks like this represent the future of the “single”. Having artist chosen tracks appear in fans blogs and social media sites will eventually replace radio airplay as the preferred method of releasing songs. Especially if the RIAA succeeds in killing internet radio.

Question Copyright

thomas — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 21:40:55 +0000

Following up on my last post about why artists should, in most cases, simply ignore most violations of their recorded music copyrights, here is a site that bills itself as “A Clearinghouse For New Ideas About Copyright.”

This post in particular is an excellent summary of who copyrights actually benefit (hint: it’s not the artist).

Don’t Worry About Copyright Protection…

thomas — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 22:07:27 +0000

Another interesting article that explains why artists shouldn’t worry about copyright violations of their recorded music. Unless it’s a big time ripoff where the violator is making a ton of money off your work, don’t sweat it. And don’t expect all the web 2.0 companies you’ve put your content onto to look out for copyright violations either. That will only raise their costs, be ineffective, and reduce the number of players in the market. That, of course, will result in fewer choices for you, the artist, and cost you in the end.

So, what’s the moral of the story? Just distribute your own material yourself (using something like DJ Edna). If someone is ripping you off to the degree that you should do something about it, you’ll know (because if you don’t, chances are it wasn’t popular enough to matter anyway) and be able to hire a lawyer to go get your money. Or, for free, you can publicly shame the violator on your artist blog.

As with all things in life, fear can make you do silly things.

Pie In The Sky Idea

thomas — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 19:08:21 +0000

Lots of interesting Music Industry 2.0 news today. Here’s yet another article claiming that the RIAA has gone too far in their claims over music copyright. In it, the author advocates reducing the duration of a copyright from the current, ridiculously long term of 125 years to 5 years. Although I believe that this one move would alone set the industry straight and get them to focus on innovation rather than litigation, I don’t think it’ll ever happen. Certainly not while Disney is lobbying congress.

Instead, I believe that the inevitable change in the industry has to start with the artists themselves. No changes in law are necessary for artists to simply deny giving major labels artistic copyrights to protect in the first place. The music industry won’t change until the artists themselves decide to change it. After all, the artists are the most powerful force in the industry, not the labels. The major labels simply parasite off that forfeited artist power and use it for their own ends.

Financial Industry Thinks Big Record Labels Are Whack Too

thomas — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 18:46:05 +0000

From an interesting article covering the RIAA’s new foolishness:

“As I’ve said before, a good sign of a dying industry that investors might want to avoid is when it would rather litigate than innovate, signaling a potential destroyer of value. If it starts to pursue paying customers — which doesn’t seem that outlandish at this point — then I guess we’ll all know the extent of the desperation. Investor, beware.”

One more lesson for independent artists — don’t sue the fans that are giving you money.

A Must Read For All Independent Artists

thomas — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 17:14:44 +0000

You’ve probably already heard about David Byrne’s Survival Strategies for Emerging Artists — and Megastars, but if not, go read it now. I’ve also added the link to the Resources section of the site. Even if you can’t stand David Byrne’s music, there’s no doubting his insight into the current and future states of the music industry. The DJ Edna team will be using his advice in this article as a roadmap to determine which features are most needed.

23% Of Music Sales Are Digital — And Increasing

thomas — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 16:59:36 +0000

This article is a nice end of year wrap up of the facts and figures around the changing state of the music industry.

If you’re not interested in reading, the short version is that CD sales are down and digital sales are up. So, if you’re looking at using DJ Edna to digitally distribute your music (and you must be if you’re reading this), you’re on top of industry trends. Grats.