Rich Fiscus
2 Mar 2009 9:09
With a history of knee-jerk reactions and paranoia over new technology, record labels are the last place you'd expect to find an innovative approach to music distribution. But that's just what one music industry insider laid out in a keynote address at last week's Digital Music Forum East.
Jim Griffin will be running a new non-profit project called Choruss. Simply put, its purpose is to figure out how to make money licensing music.
Griffin's experience in the recording industry includes founding the technology group at Geffen Records in the mid-90s.
Before you shake your head about yet another clueless music industry executive claiming to have solved the digital distribution problem it's worth paying attention to what he's saying. Much of it is a message we've heard many times, just never from the labels.
"Music’s greatest financial power is its ability to draw a crowd," said Griffin, "not our ability to control its quantity."
More importantly, he admitted "We do not pretend to know the answers, but we are certain that now is the time for experimentation and learning cannot come fast enough."
Unlike other approaches that have been attempted in the past, and ultimately failed, Griffin said Choruss will work with various universities to offer subscription music services using some variations of a basic business model.
Griffin told his audience, "We will include purely voluntary payment (opt in), opt out and all-in systems with lower fees spread evenly across campus, like library or gym fees."
He even went so far as to suggest that the industry's main focus needs to be competing for consumer dollars with other forms of entertainment.
There's no guarantee that just understanding some of the questions means Jim Griffin will be able to figure out any good answers. And if he does there's no reason to assume the labels will implement any of his suggestions.
If nothing else, this shows there's someone working on a real solution to music licensing and distribution. If current label ownership fails to take advantage of it perhaps the companies who buy them out further down the road will.