An American Dream With Free Music
jj
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Wednesday 18 October 2006
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Early this week Axel Postinett reported
in the Weblog of the German Handelsblatt on Nettwerk
Music. The interesting point is not that the music management
company sells the songs of its artists via the net. Interesting is
that it does not restrict its fans via some DRM C.R.A.P.
but the very contrary – the fans are asked to play with the
different soundtracks - bass, guitar, vocals and background singers
- and remix the song at will. To do so with e.g. „Rule
the World With Love“ of „Barnaked
Ladies“ (BnL) all you need to do is to pay 2,49 US$ for 11
tracks and than you can do with it what _you_ want with it –
Nettwerk also encourages the fans to upload the remix again. Moreover
Handelsblatt claims that BnL would profit if a remix would become a
mega-hit as the songs were copy-righted. Another thread of Nettwerk:
Lots of their artists publish their music under their own label –
not really common in this business.
And Nettwerk seems to be active in the legal/political arena as
well: Early 2006 it conducted the defence of a family which had been
sued by the Recording
Industry Association of America (RIAA) because of illegal
downloads. One of the songs should have been „Sk8er
Boi“ of Avril Lavigne
– an artist of Nettwerk. Nettwerk Manager McBride considers
lawsuits like this a threat to his artists because the music exchange
were an excellent marketing tool for unknown artists. And
international music establishment would fear for its benefices. And
this might be reason enough for McBride to found savethemusicfan.com
– a platform that fights for consumers and artists.
But it looks as if the newcomers can play actively with the
establishment on all levels: The filesharing platform Limewire
has sued RIAA vice versa. The Blame: Restriction of competition,
cartelization, price fixing. The only intention were to kick
competitors out of the market in order to control the filesharing
market together with its partner iMesh.
By the end of the day McBride seems to be successful: In the first
week when „Barnaked
Ladies Are Me“ has been published the company has made about
1Mio US$ - Isn't that a really a good American dream?
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