Music Industry - How to Make Money from Youtube

If sales of CDs are in a permanent state of decline and illegal downloading continues to gather pace, how are music artists and record labels going to make money out of music?  This article from The Guardian breaks down one of the key new revenue sources - sharing ad revenue with Youtube.  There are lots of great statistics and commentaries in here.  It's well worth mining for exam material. It even has figures for the Beggars Group, which part owns Rough Trade.

Music Industry - An Artist's Perspective

For more on the imminent closure of HMV and the reasons behind it, have a read of Irish musician Bressie's take on events.  It's interesting to read how an artist views issues around 360 record deals and illegal downloading. In particular, it's worth noting how he finds it difficult to resolve his understanding of the consumer's demand for easy and cheap access to music and his own need as an artist to make a living.

The Bad News That Should Help You In The Exam

So it's finally come to pass. I remember how in the months leading up to the death of my dog he stank something awful as his insides began to decay. Such has been the slow and drawn out demise of HMV that it seems such a smell has surrounded it for years. In any case, dog deaths aside, read this article on the BBC News site to explore the reasons for the end of HMV. If you don't mention this in the exam, one of two things will have happened: it will have been a very odd question or you will have been horribly distracted by the graffiti of previous exam candidates.

Copyright Law Catches Up

Today sees a change in law that makes legal what has been very common practice for a long time.  Ever since iPods and MP3 players came along, many people have been digitising their CD collections so they could listen to them on the go.  Most people were probably unaware that doing so was actually illegal as it infringed the copyright of the producer.  So now you can do so legally, provided you don't share the digitised music with anyone else - put it on a device owned and used by someone else - that it remains for personal use.  If you read this article on the BBC News site, you'll see that the Musician's Union and other groups representing musicians and artsists object to the law because it doesn't include any way for musicians to be compensated for individuals not purchasing music specifically for their portable devices (through iTunes etc.).  Do you think this change in the law will make a real difference to the fortunes of musicians and the music industry or do you agree with the government that it is just bringing the law into line with people "reasonable expectations" and help to "boost respect for copyright"?

Technology, Philosophy, Meaning and More

I saw this guy, Jaron Lanier, on Newsnight last night discussing the controversy over Instragram's new terms and conditions and I had to look him up.  He made a great point on Newsnight that if we continue to share everything for free over the internet, all that people will be able to make money from on the internet is advertising.  However, he goes on, if in an information economy we can only make money out of advertising, then what is the point of the advertising if there are no longer any 'products' to be sold and, consequently, advertised because they have all been shared for free.  You can think about music and other intellectual property type products here.  I looked him up and found the following clip on Youtube where he talks to an audience at CalArts - a third level educational institution in California.  It's inspiring stuff and takes in everything from Science Fiction, Karl Marx, Industialisation, Aristotle to slavery.  Stay with it because it will make you think about everything we study in Media, including copyright, meaning making (Hall's encoding and decoding) and, of course, technology. I'm definitely putting his book, "You Are Not a Gadget" on my wish list.  Of course, his is only one point of view but it is great to see someone combining so many different ideas and historical moments in an effort to make sense of our world today. 

Generic Trailers

It's slightly tongue in cheek but this article on The Guardian website should serve as a useful reminder of the conventions of trailers for different genres.  Read it before committing to your storyboard.

Great Titles in One Short Video

The Art of the Title has packed some great titles from the history of cinema into a quick 2.5 minute video.  Pay close attention to how well edited this is.


A Brief History of Title Design from Ian Albinson on Vimeo.