Two music business think tanks have come together after some research to present a five step plan for saving the industry. Music Ally and The Leading Question teamed up to conduct an 800 person, one year, study in the UK, studying music users acquisition habits. The researchers found a decline in the percentage of users who regularly purchased music, and no decline in music aquisition by those who downloaded from file sharing sites.

[Music fans] might buy a few tracks from iTunes when they get a new iPod for Christmas, but few go on to become regular paying downloaders. The statistics are obviously worrying, but the research does offer clues as to how fans who merely dabble can be encouraged to engage fully with licensed digital music services.

That according to Tim Walker, managing director of The Leading Question.

Here are the five steps these two companies are recommending.

1. Music needs to be bundled with other products and entertainment packages: Value can be created from many other ways than consumers simply buying the occasional download. Music needs to move away from per unit sales and become more of a service than a product. It should be pre-loaded into devices, bundled with mobile tariffs, offered as part of TV/Entertainment/ISP packages.

2. Labels needs to experiment with new release schedules and formats: The old model of single and album releases has run its course. Labels needs to be more innovative if they are not to be freezed out altogether. Look at the likes of Radiohead, Nine Inch Nails and Prince and experiment with new and varied formats, new pricing models and release schedules, digital only releases and promotional partnerships with brands.

3. Free doesn’t mean no money: The music industry should not fear free. It needs to embrace it. The culture of the net is free or at least feeling free. But money can still be made from other sources: everything from advertising supported services, to brands paying for an association with the artists to newspapers paying for giveaway CDs.

4. Change the charts: The Charts don’t make much sense anymore. Now that fewer and fewer people are buying music the charts need to reflect the other ways that people are consuming music.

5. Trust the DJ: Online means anyone can access or own John Peel’s entire record collection, but the instant and massive availability of music on demand means you need a trusted guide like John Peel more than ever. The new layers of value will come from the social connections that come about through music as much as from the music itself.

How does this work for Bluegrass? (more…)

With 2007 now under wraps, CD sales figures are starting to come in, and things don’t look good for the labels.

Variety.com is reporting that CD sales during the Christmas shopping season were down 21% from 2006.

From the week of Thanksgiving up through the day before Christmas Eve, 83.9 million albums were sold, a decrease of 21.38 million from 2006’s 105.28 million.

What this doesn’t take into account is the sale of gift cards for downloads. I received an iTunes gift card for $25 as a Christmas gift and have yet to spend it. That’s the equivalent of 2-2.5 albums depending on how you count. The thing is, I won’t spend it all at once, and I most probably won’t purchase entire albums when I do spend it.

These declining sales numbers don’t necessary represent the current state of affairs for the bluegrass industry, though I have heard a number of artists speak of drooping CD sales in the last year. The decline of major label CD sales will affect our little niche in the industry though.

As sales continue to decline, at some point retailers will decide they have a better use for floor space than CDs. When retailers like Wal-Mart start shrinking the amount of shelf space dedicated to CDs, the sales will slip even further since the consumer won’t be able to find the CD they’re looking for in the store. My guess is, this will drive even more people online in their search for music to purchase.

A good selection of bluegrass music isn’t readily available in most retail stores as it stands, and when they start cutting shelf space, bluegrass will probably be one of the first genre’s to get pulled. The downside for our industry is that the music might not be available online either, which means it simply doesn’t get purchased.

If a large and varied selection of bluegrass were available online from retailers such as iTunes and Amazon, we’d still have to compete for the consumer’s attention, but at least we’d have a chance.

So let’s have a poll. How many of us received a CD or download gift card for Christmas?

This post is a contribution from David McCarty, a music journalist, songwriter and musician who writes regularly for Bluegrass Unlimited and Flatpicking Guitar magazines, and performs as a member of The Hot Club of Naptown. Your comments are welcome - agree or disagree.

After seeing the recent AP story of a low-rent Tucson bar owner sued by ASCAP for $210,000 for failing to obtain a license to perform copyright protected material, I am convinced something needs to be done to restore a sense of order and fairness in the world of performance rights. Too many small bars, coffee houses, restaurants and other venues have given up hosting live music due to onerous licensing fees, which do not directly benefit the musicians whose music is being covered since these fees are paid to all members according to a formula based on overall record sales - not the individual copyright holder whose creative work was performed or exhibited.

Without those incubator sites, where will future generations of musicians find a fan base and learn to entertain a live crowd, discover what material stirs their souls, and learn to discern the subtle differences between hot licks and true music? Without just, equitable payments based on actual popularity of a copyrighted work, how can the artists creating it survive and create even more?

The answer, I believe, must come from within our own industry. Each musician must stand up and say that without venues where new talent can grow and develop, without fear of onerous copyright fees and performance royalties, music as a commercial activity cannot survive in a digital age. It is the songwriters and copyright holders themselves who own ASCAP, BMI and related groups, and it is up to them to lay down the law and say that without a fair, equitable means of establishing exactly what copyright-protected music is being performed with direct compensation to the individual copyright holder, then no fees should be collected. And the same holds true for digital downloads, file sharing and other means of digital distribution.

Of course, the very same debate rages across all areas of creative expression in today’s online environment. Every artist, I believe, will eventually have to become their own agent, copyright enforcer, distributor, promoter and collection agent to survive in this new era. Great opportunities exist, I am certain, for new business models to arise that pay musicians, graphic artists, writers, photographers and other creatives on a per-user basis based on unique visits to websites, downloads, file sharing fees, one-time licensing fees and other financial mechanisms that allow the audiences who are enriched by the genius of an individual human mind to provide the financial support that makes such creative endeavors possible. Create a digital watermark, for example, so that each time it appears on screen, on iTunes or an mp3 player, is used as a ringtone or whatever means of digital utilization can be imagined, a fair fee automatically goes to the originator. If you’re looking for the next Google, folks, here it is.

Humanity is lost without art that expresses its collective soul and heart. Like all media revolutions starting with the first cave paintings, artists must utilize that very same creativity to ensure they are rewarded for bringing art into this often soulless and pain-ridden world. Musicians survived sheet music, player pianos, wax cylinder recordings, radio, broadcast TV, MTV, Napster and more. Surely we can develop the appropriate legal and financial tools necessary to survive – and thrive - in an era of file sharing and “free” online content.

End of soapbox - for now.

David J. McCarty
Copyright 2007, all rights protected and reserved

Tomorrow, June 28, The Small Business Committee of the US House of Representatives will conduct a full committee hearing on the hotly contested new royalty rates proposed by the Copyright Royalty Board. The topic of the hearing is officially given as: Assessing the Impact of the Copyright Royalty Board Decision to Increase Royalty Rates on Recording Artists and Webcasters.

The slate of panelists invited to speak includes the groups that have been active in the roiling debate over these new rates - artists and labels likely to insist that the new rates provide them a fair share of income generated from their work, the musician’s union which will agree, and public radio and webcasters who will declare that the new rates hamper their ability to offer a wide variety of music programming online.

We should mention that banjo player, songwriter and storyteller, Cathy Fink, is among the artists invited to speak.

In a number of previous posts on this topic, we have noted disagreements erupting within our bluegrass community over this debate, breaking into the same camps as indicated above.

At The Bluegrass Blog, we encourage the artistic side to be wary of the incentives that these new rates create for businesses who produce - or might produce - web radio content that features bluegrass, old time, folk or acoustic music. Regardless of the intentions of this new structure, making it far more costly for our music to be streamed online will inevitably result in less of it being heard on the Internet. In a narrow, niche segment of the market, we see little gain in artists/labels fighting for a larger share of what would become a rapidly shrinking pie.

Further, we feel that the direction the market is taking is one where distribution as we have traditionally known it becoming ever more irrelevant, and the ability to filter content and promote/publicize your music online will be the dominant factor in increasing sales. This is not to say that a royalty rate where artists and songwriters get a larger share isn’t a defensible position, only that looking for it as a replacement for income lost by declining CD sales might end up throttling an important promotional vehicle in its cradle.

Tomorrow’s hearing is set for 10:00 a.m. (EDT). C-SPAN has not yet posted its full schedule for 6/28, as they often make decisions on which hearings are of higher import at the last minute, so check their schedule on Thursday morning if you have interest in catching it live - or perhaps shown pre-recorded later in the day.

UPDATE 1:00 p.m.: On a related note… Gracie Muldoon, General manager of WorldWideBluegrass.com, has a post on The B where she discusses WWB’s reasons for not going silent during this past Tuesday’s Day Of Silence campaign to protest the new CRB rate proposal.

This is the third in a series of articles about The New Music Business.

Before I undertook the writing of this series on music business I wrote about the decline of CD sales and mentioned a book called The Long Tail. I mentioned that book as an information resource to help you understand the way the internet is affecting the marketing and sales of CDs. I know there are objections to The Long Tail and I’ll discuss those in the next post, but here I want to review ideas contained in The Long Tail for those that haven’t read it.

Fist a definition. Wikipedia defines the statistical distribution feature known as the Long Tail, in this way.

In these distributions a high-frequency or high-amplitude population is followed by a low-frequency or low-amplitude population which gradually “tails off.”

Take a look at the image to the right. The Long Tail is represented by the yellow portion of the graph.

The book, The Long Tail, was written by Chris Anderson, editor of Wired magazine. Anderson focusses on the long tail in the retail distribution world. He talks a lot about Amazon.com and Rhapsody (he didn’t have access to figures for iTunes). The basic idea is, the internet has changed the way people shop and interact with culture. Before the internet people only knew about music that was played by local bands or on their local radio, and was sold in their local record store. He describes this as a “world of scarcity” where retailers simply did not have enough shelf space to carry every recording that was available. The ones they did carry were the hits. The hits live on the left side of that curve. There are few of them and they sell a lot.

Our culture, and the marketplace, is changing though. (more…)

A lot has been said recently about the business of music here on The Bluegrass Blog. We have covered the recent changes in copyright legislation surrounding internet broadcasting. We’ve also recently talked about the decline in sales of physical CDs in the overall music industry.

While this blog is mainly concerned with news about bluegrass music, we find these topics important ourselves, and feel that the state of the industry as a whole is important to our many readers who are involved with bluegrass music on a financial level. Ours is a small genre that does differ in many ways from the mainstream music industry, but ultimately we are still impacted by changes to the overall music business.

Like it or not the industry is changing. What exactly are those changes? How will they affect bluegrass music professionals? What about the fans? Will the changes be for the better, or worse? These are just some of the questions you may be asking yourself.

In an effort to answer these questions, I have undertaken the task of writing a series of articles discussing recent changes/trends in the music business, and giving some concrete ideas and examples of how bluegrass bands large and small can navigate these changes and take advantage of the opportunities they might provide.

I’m calling this series of articles The New Music Business and will begin each post title with NMB. I encourage you to share you thoughts, ideas, and questions in the comments section of each post as we go along. Let’s get started!

The numbers are in for the first quarter and they don’t look promising, at least not on the surface. Nielsen SoundScan reports that 89 million CDs were sold from January 1 through March 18. That’s a drop of nearly 20% from last year’s number of 112 million. This is the latest in a series of declines that began as early as 7 years ago. Year after year the industry has seen declines in the 5-10% range. This year could bounce back somewhat, but many analysts are suggesting we’ll continue to see sales of physical units slip.

The first follow up question you want to ask is “Did digital sales make up the difference?” The short answer is “no.” The longer answer is “somewhat.”

Breitbart.com reports that online sales of “digitized albums” fell from 119 million (during the first quarter of 2006) to 99 million. That’s a 17% decrease. What exactly is meant by “digitized albums” in unclear since later in the article they indicate that physical CD sales still account for 90% of sales.

Individual digital track sales did increase from 242 million tracks during the same time period last year to 288 million this year. That’s an increase of 16%. Industry wide though, estimates place total revenue at 25% less than it was a year ago.

So how is this to be viewed as good news? Michael Arrington, author of the popular technology blog Techcrunch, thinks it’s a good thing because it will force the industry to face the facts. (Story here)

The faster music labels realize their massively profitable days are over, the better it will be for them, as well as the bands they represent and us, their customers. Digital music sales are not going to make up for lost revenue. Suing their customer base is not going to make up for lost revenue. In fact, absolutely nothing is going to make up that lost revenue. The industry, revenue-wise, is going to continue to shrink.

As the marginal price of recorded music continues to fall towards zero, its natural price, bands will need to make money elsewhere. Live concerts will become more and more popular, and will be the largest source of revenue for many artists. Recorded music will be used to promote those live events.

I agree with him (more…)

Many products these days come with a money back guarantee of some sort. Jason Feinberg at the Music Business Blog suggests that maybe artists should consider offering a guarantee when a consumer purchases their music. It’s an interesting idea that I’ve been pondering for a few days now.

Here’s a thought - so many retail products (and often services) offer a money back guarantee. Very few artists have ever tried this with music.

Very few? I don’t know of any artists that have tried this. The idea intrigues me though, because I think it might really encourage people to buy your music online. If someone comes to your website and hasn’t heard you perform live, or at least perform this music live, a guarantee might encourage them to give it a try. If you are a member of a band and have solo projects, the fans may have heard the band play, but does that guarantee they’ll like your solo CD? Just how confident are you?

The obvious objection to the idea is that you may run into a loser or two who will buy the music, copy the CD, or just use the download, and then say they didn’t like it and want their money back. That’s ok, give it back to them. They’re the type that would steal it anyway. Most bluegrass fans actively support the artists they love and offering them a guarantee is only likely to encourage that spirit.

It’s a risk, not doubt about that. As every good business man knows though, the amount of risk you take is directly related to amount of potential upside. Playing it safe, isn’t always the safest thing to do.

Yesterday I posted about about the controversy that Steve Jobs stirred up with his open letter to the music industry concerning digital downloads and DRM. Today two things caught my attention while doing some reading online.

The first is a rumor that EMI is considering licensing it’s entire catalog to online retailers as unrestricted mp3s. The Wall Street Journal (subscription required to read full story) recently reported on this rumor.

In a move that could signal a shift in the music industry’s antipiracy strategy, EMI Group PLC has been holding talks with several online retailers about the possibility of selling its entire digital music catalog in the unprotected MP3 format, which can be freely copied and played on virtually any device…

My understanding is that EMI at first sought upfront cash payments from the retailers in an effort to insure against what the label deemed “potential losses.” The retailers didn’t entirely like the idea and are now offering counter-proposals as negotiations continue. My take on this is that EMI still thinks that selling their music online, unprotected by DRM, will result in piracy and a loss of sales. If Steve Jobs is right and EMI is wrong, this could provide an opportunity for online retailers who have the available capitol to take advantage of the labels fear by negotiating an initial payment followed by lower per track payments on the backend. I don’t know the details of the offered deal though, and it seems likely that EMI is trying to position itself to gain from either scenario.

Other major labels are taking the defensive against Jobs’ challenge. It should be interesting to watch where this goes in the next year or so.

The second matter is only slightly releated, but an article on the CMT.com website is drawing parallels between Jobs’ attitude toward the industry and that of the early Flatt & Scruggs. The author of the piece traces the condition of the industry in relation to anemic sales of country music CDs and talks about Jobs’ idea of selling unprotected mp3s. He then goes on to talk about the soon to be released Flatt & Scruggs DVDs and the band’s attitude toward being on TV. At the end of the article he compares their attitude to that of Jobs.

Flatt & Scruggs never met Steve Jobs, obviously. But if they had met, they would have recognized themselves as brothers-in-arms. For they had a common goal: to dominate their market and leave a mark. And they both did so.

To our friends all over the world who celebrate the joyous Feast of Christmas, we offer our hope that you will experience the peace this day portends.

May you find yourself surrounded by those dearest to you, and know the love above all others as you share gifts and remembrances with family and friends.

A very Merry Christmas to you all from The Bluegrass Blog!

On the heels of the heated discussion on this site about trading live shows, comes this story about sites that share tablature.

Major music publishers are continuing to pursue unauthorized music sites, including those offering tablature (mostly rock guitar tabs). The practice of sharing tabs online has existed for years, but publishers are now targeting destinations that are profiting from the use of copyrighted material. During a recent interview with National Public Radio (NPR), National Music Publishers Association (NMPA) attorney Jacqueline Charlesworth pointed to a campaign against,

sites that have hundred of guitars tabs, sheet music, often with lyrics, especially those running ads and making money off of other people’s copyrights.

One site that has been targeted by this campaign is Guitar Tab Universe, a massive destination that recently received warning letters from both the NMPA and Music Publishers’ Association (MPA). Owner Rob Balch complied with the requests, though he questioned the logic of the legal threats.

At what point does describing how one plays a song on guitar become an issue of copyright infringment? This website, among other things, helps users teach eachother how they play guitar parts for many different songs. This is the way music teachers have behaved since the first music was ever created. The difference here is that the information is shared by way of a new technology: the Internet.

Apparently, the NMPA/MPA believes that the Internet may be on the foul side of the legality line they would like to draw here. For me, I see no difference. It’s teachers educating students and covered as a ‘fair use’ of the tablature. The teachers here don’t even get paid nor do the students have to pay this website to access the lessons.

What he says is true, no money is changing hands between the people downloading the tabs. But a quick visit to his site reveals that he has sold advertising on the site. That is, he is making money off all the visitors to his site who are coming for the purpose of finding tablature to copyrighted songs. At least that’s the argument the publishers are pursuing.

I would suggest that it makes no difference whether he is “making money” or not off the site. If it is copyright infringement then it’s wrong, regardless of any income stream that may or may not exist. So the question really is, “What are the copyright laws regarding sheet music, lyrics, tablature, and fair use?” As far as I can tell, and I’m no lawyer, making a “copy” or reproduction of any “performable” portion of a piece of music is not considered fair use.

I do know this, John (AcuTab) has printed a number of books of tablature, and produced instructional DVDs of bluegrass artists teaching the solos they themselves played on a CD or recording. Most of the DVDs have contained somewhere between 7 and 15 songs and I know that John has always made a good faith effort to pursue and obtain licenses for each copyrighted song on those DVDs and in those books. And I might add that doing so has cost him a good bit of time and frustration, but it’s the right, and legal, thing to do.

We’ll open this thread to comments in case anyone wants to discuss the legal issues involved in the instance of websites sharing lyrics and tablature for copyrighted songs. Let’s hear from you…

John adds: Not only is researching (and paying!) copyright royalties to songwriters cumbersome, time-consuming and almost always incomplete, the explosion of growth in free tab sites has all but killed the market for the sort of authorized tab transcription books that AcuTab was created to publish. That, and the surge in the use of instructional DVDs, has created a market where we are not likely to ever publish another tab book companion to a bluegrass CD release. If bluegrass consumers prefer free tab sites online to authorized, artist-approved tab books (for which the artist is compensated), that’s what they will get.

The following is a contribution from luthier and resophonic guitarist Brad Harper. This post has been adapted from a post that appeared on Brad’s own blog in response to Megan Lynch’s post Trading live shows - good for our music?, here on The Bluegrass Blog. We have enabled comments for this post, as the topic has generated some reader interest. Registration is required to post comments, and they are moderated, but please fel free to add your thoughts if you are so inclined.

Earl: “Hey, anyone heard of Meagan Lynch”?
Lester: “No, who is she”?
Earl: “She”s this incredible fiddle player with 3 Fox Drive. I”ve heard one of their shows on bluegrassbox and bought their disk. They are a great band!!”
Josh: “Alright then, I”ll definitely check her and the band out.”

The essence of the above dialogue has been a common theme for me throughout the past 4 years since my introduction to bluegrassbox.com. A website that”s an invaluable source for live bluegrass and acoustic music.

Meagan Lynch of 3 Fox Drive recently posted here on The Bluegrass Blog regarding live show taping and trading networks. While she did raise valid points regarding stealth taping of artists who”d prefer not to be taped, I question a few of her other premises.

Her first notion mentions the hardships of a musician”s life. The traveling, demanding schedules etc. are undeniably rigorous. As an individual who”s seen day to day life from both sides (albeit briefly) of the fence I feel little sympathy for her. Being a musician is a choice. A choice that comes with trade-offs. Some of those tradeoffs being the elements of a musician”s life that she mentioned. Every occupation features tradeoffs. It can be tough. Being a lawyer is tough. Collecting garbage is tough. Sitting in a cubical for 8-10 hours a day with fiddle tunes going through your head is tough. There are times where I would drive home an hour each way just to be able to pick for 15 minutes at lunch. Sure, I”d rather be playing music for a living, but paying my mortgage each month is a nice thing. For many years, I”ve chosen that tradeoff. Life is all about trade-offs. She enjoys the mental fulfillment of living in a musical realm. Her hard work and sacrifice have put her in the position to choose that lifestyle but every benefit has a cost.The trials of a life on the road in no way constitute a valid argument against recording (with permission) and trading (legally) live music.

Her next statement is arguable” (more…)

Update 8/04, 8:45 a.m.: Owing to a number of reader requests, we have enabled commenting for Megan’s post. Comments are moderated, so they will not appear immediately, and we require a simple, free registration in order to post them.

This post is a contribution from Megan B. Lynch, fiddler with 3 Fox Drive, and a respected instructor at fiddle camps all over the US. Megan was inspired to contribute this commentary after giving some consideration to the growing availability of file trading sites where fans can make live shows of their favorite acts available for others to download.

“Hey, anyone out there got New South shows from 2004-06? How about Rhonda, anything with stuff from the new album? I’ve got a bunch of Blue Highway and Alison that I got with my minidisk - good stuff! Oh, and I uploaded most of it on this site, so just take what you’re looking for, and enjoy!”

Sure, go ahead. Take what you’re looking for. The bands and songwriters responsible for that music don’t mind. Most of them just do this for the fun of it. That and the driving. They love the driving. All night to a festival, then two sets and back in the van to the next show. Barely making enough to pay for fuel. Hoping to sell a few dozen CDs to make sure the other band members break even on the tour. So it’s fine if someone records the whole show, uploads it to a site for everyone to have, no cost. And what a bonus if the band plays a bunch of songs from the new album. Whew! That saves $15 bucks!

Turns out that there are a number of websites that are facilitating exactly this kind of thing. I must admit, I was surprised. I figured that whenever people wanted to upload music (mostly live shows, usually without the permission of the festival, and often without the permission of the band) they would ask. Nope. Apparently, if we don’t want them to do it, we have to contact them. We have to find all the sites, figure out how to contact the people running them, and let them know they don’t have permission to trade the illegally-obtained music. Huh? Who would have thought?

I know many bands allow, even encourage, recording of live shows. I respect their choice to do so. (I do still have some concern for the songwriters involved - but one issue at a time.) But for bands and musicians who choose not to allow it, I find it disturbing that the process is backwards.

So, let this be my call to all bands and musicians. Choose for yourself - but understand that this is happening, and it could be happening to you. Log on to www.bluegrassbox.com, and seek out the others. Let them know where you stand.

Megan B. Lynch, 3 Fox Drive

From time to time we have discussed various ventures that involved online video instruction for bluegrass music. The idea has a great deal of appeal to bluegrass instructors, and some are actively involved in providing such instruction. Three that come to mind immediately are Butch Baldassari, Ross Nickerson, and BluegrassCollege.com.

Ours is a small industry and I suggest that we look outside of bluegrass to see what other people are doing and possibly learn from them. There are other artists and companies who are also pursuing this avenue of instruction, and income. One such company that has come to my attention is WorkshopLive.com. They don’t have any bluegrass instruction on their site, it’s all rock, blues, jazz, etc. But what they do have is great quality video. At a reasonable price. Reasonable, but not cheap.

Theirs is a subscription service. You pay by the month and can then access as many lesson as you want from any of their offerings. The lessons include the video instruction, synchronized graphics of the instrument fretboard, and printable exercises. It”s an impressive program.

To be fair, they have spent a lot of money to get set up. I saw it reported just this week that a new investor has just provided them with $3.25 million dollars in funding to bolster their staff, expand the service, and expand their marketing efforts. Not many of us in bluegrass will have that kind of capitol to work with, but let”s not write off the idea of achieving a similar level of success in our own industry. There is much to be said for the idea of emulating success.

For a while the complaint we kept hearing was that illegal downloads were killing the labels. Then along came Apple’s iTunes Music Store to save the day. With millions of downloads, all paid for, the complaining ceased. But it recently started up again. Not complaints about illegal downloads, though that complaint still exists, but rather that the price is to low on the legal downloads. The labels have pitted themselves against the online retailers such as Apple, vying for a larger percentage of the take, and or, a higher retail price. The retailers have refused to raise the prices, saying that the consumers are buying a lot at $0.99 per song, but that raising the price would discourage sales. The labels are wanting to use variable wholesale pricing, increasing the prices primarily on new releases, but the retailers want a simple pricing structure that doesn’t vary from one song to the next.

Just as things started to get heated, cnet.com is reporting that New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer has launched an investigation that involves all the major labels and most of the online retailers. Spitzer’s office has sent information requests to all parties. It seems what he is looking for is evidence that the labels are working together to set prices.

A source familiar with the investigation said Spitzer was focusing on labels’ pricing decisions and is seeking e-mails and other communications that deal with setting prices for online sales.

Under state and federal antitrust laws, record labels are not allowed to work together to set prices for music. Any evidence that executives had agreed to offer similar terms or wholesale prices to companies like Apple and Napster could trigger an antitrust lawsuit against the companies.

The investigation seems to have silenced the labels’ cries for increased prices, at least for now. Steve Jobs, Apple CEO, says the labels are just being greedy. The labels say they aren’t making any money. Who do you believe?

There has been some discussion on this blog about digital downloads, both legal and otherwise. So I thought I’d link to this story on cnet.com. Apparently a number of third party companies are developing peer-2-peer plugins for the popular browser, Firefox. The company AllPeers seems to be getting the most attention with their forthcoming extention.

AllPeers, a company based in the U.K., is in the midst of developing a peer-to-peer tool for the open-source browser, which it claims is “the best thing to happen to Firefox…since Firefox.” The software has yet to be released, but the company says it will allow Web surfers to browse each other’s hard drives and download files.

Of course they claim it is a way to distribute open source software, which is a legitimate use. The fear, or expectation, that exists is that people will use it for file swapping of illegal digital song/movie files. I don’t have any expectation that it will affect the bluegrass industry in any way. I know there is some file trading going on, but by and large it seems that most fans are willing to pay for the music of the bands they love. I know many people who wait to buy a new CD until they can purchase it directly from the band themselves, at a show or festival. That way they know the band got some money for the sale. Some do this because they don’t trust the labels, or more precisely the entire retail chain from label to distributor to retailer and back again, to actually get any money to the artists. Others do it because they understand that the band makes more if they sell a product directly, than if someone else does. So buying directly from the bands doesn’t necessarily mean a distrust of the system so much as a preference for the artist. And that’s as it should be. Either way, it reflects well on the character of bluegrass fans.

On a technical note, checking the stats for The Bluegrass Blog reveals that 6% of our readers are using Firefox. 9% are using Apple’s Safari browser, 38% are using IE, and everyone else is using something else. Rather more diversified than I had expected.

What are you using to surf the web? And how do you purchase your music? Let us know.

The following is a contribution from Kip Martin, a semi-regular guest contributor to The Bluegrass Blog. The views expressed are his, and are not necessarily those of the authors of The Bluegrass Blog. Commenting is enabled for all ViewPoint posts, so please feel free to chime in with your own thoughts.

Recently, Ted Lehmann posted his observations in this space about what he views as a threat to the future of Bluegrass. I empathize with his concerns, but I have to disagree with much of what he said. Although he is seeing changes in Bluegrass, I don’t believe these changes are harbingers of doom–Bluegrass simply will not be homogenized as was the bland, syrupy genre formerly known as Country.

Historically, whenever a big change occurs in Bluegrass, people take sides and often passionately defend their positions. It was no different when Charlie Waller was accused of ‘polluting the waters’ when he brought non-Bluegrass material into his repertoire to expand his audience, nor was it different when Alison Krauss, Nickel Creek, Newgrass Revival, or the Osborne Brothers experimented with heretical ideas such as recording with drums, employing digital tools (e.g., pitch correction, room modeling, etc.), and working up non-Bluegrass material in there efforts to blur the boundaries. The wailing and gnashing of teeth from the opposing side usually stems from a fear of dilution of the tradition, increased commercialization, and a loss of clearly define definitions (e.g., What Is Bluegrass, Anyhow?). In my experience, these visionaries do a service for all of bluegrass. Instead of emptying out the Traditional camp as feared by the Bluegrass Fundamentalists, these crossover ploys seem to instead help the traditionalists grow in numbers while pushing the music out to new audiences. It’s a BIG tent–when new people come in, no one is pushed out! There’s plenty of room for both camps. I’m certainly glad Old & In the Way came along and caught my attention! (more…)

The following is an unsolicited contribution from Ted Lehmann, a regular reader of The Bluegrass Blog. The views expressed are his, and are not necessarily those of the authors of The Bluegrass Blog. Commenting is enabled for all ViewPoint posts, so please feel free to chime in with your own thoughts.

The recent announcement of Bob Dylan as a broadcaster for XM Radio, added to Howard Stern on Sirius Radio, poses a serious threat the development of bluegrass. The picture of dueling superstars on satellite radio raises red flag of increasing commercialization that can infect bluegrass at every level. Already the bluegrass programming on XM is suffering from neglect as the satellite service appears to have removed its on-air hosts in favor of running recorded programming full time. While I”ve only been listening to XM radio for six or seven months, I”ve noticed a change in their bluegrass programming. During the spring and summer, I heard live in-studio interviews with Doyle Lawson and also Mountain Heart. XM also featured album rollouts, for instance, Jamie Hartford commented on each track of his new disk of his father”s music. Such programming provided important insights into the world of bluegrass. While they still replay these programs on Saturday afternoons, there don”t appear to be new ones in the works.

Another factor affecting XM seems to be the appointment of Kyle Cantrell as program director. His on-line biography emphasizes his roots in Nashville and the Grand Ole Opry, where he served as an announcer for a number of years. There”s no evidence in the bio of a connection to bluegrass. Rather he”s a country music guy with a great voice and a noted on-air personality. Meanwhile, Felton Pruitt, who was an effective and knowledgeable on-air voice has disappeared from Bluegrass Junction, but apparently not from XM.

All this would not seem quite so ominous if it weren”t for what seems to be happening at IBMA. (more…)

Jambase has an article up titled Bluegrass: A Theoretical Study. Here’s the first few sentences.

Bluegrass is engaged in a stylistic civil war. On one side, steadfast traditionalists continue to make music the time-tested way: acoustic instruments with minimal amplification, rooted in gospel and crowded with traditional hymns. On the other side, progressive elements are being introduced via drum sets, electronic instruments, and improvisation, strewn together with a cocky secularism that would be content leaving joints and a few shots of Jagermeister for the congregation on the collection plate. Yet, this is a positive melee.

This is a 5 page article in which the author interviews a number of artists, both traditional and progressive, in and around bluegrass music. He talks with Del McCoury, Billy Nershi from The String Cheese Incident, Ben Kaufmann from the Yonder Mountain String Band, Willy Vlautin from Richmond Fontaine, and finally David Grisman. He asks them all basically the same question.

What are your feelings about bands that are tweaking the traditions in bluegrass like the Yonder Mountain String Band and the String Cheese Incident, i.e. bands that add other elements to bluegrass? Would that be tainting Bill Monroe’s original intentions?

Their answers are both interesting and varied. While they all basically agreed that you have to play what you feel. That’s what Monroe did and that’s what they are doing. My favorite quote from the article is something Del said while discussing Bill Monroe.

Every new musician that came in brought out their own style into his music, and of course, they stuck to the traditional way but in a diverse way.

There are some great photos of Del and Grisman, as well as the other artists involved. If you are a fan of traditional or progressive bluegrass it’s worth a read. I’m not sure I agree with the premise of his piece that bluegrass is at war with itself over which direction to go. I’m not sure he agreed with that premise either based on a few of his comments. Personally I think traditional bluegrass is alive and stronger than ever. I also feel that the progress side of things has done a lot to bring the music to people who wouldn’t have heard it otherwise. So I think it’s a good thing to have that variety. It does open up a discussion about what bluegrass really is, which instruments are “allowed”, and so on. But on the whole, I’m happy with the direction bluegrass music as a genre seems to be headed.

Let’s hear from you. Go read this article and then comment here on what you think of this subject.

The following is a statement from Sammy Shelor, in which he comments on and responds to the many rumors that have been circulating about him and the future of Lonesome River Band. We have enabled commenting on this post so please feel free to respond to Sammy, or share your thoughts about his statement - or my closing comments - here on The Bluegrass Blog.

“I guess it”s time to dispel the rumors that have been floating around the Bluegrass world about myself and the Lonesome River Band.

First of all, I have not gone to work with the Seldom Scene! (more…)