Kicking off the second day of conferences and panels in Brighton, Cooke said: ‘Nobody really knows exactly what they are doing in the post-web world and that’s extremely exciting. It’s fascinating to watch companies and individuals old and new explore new ways of working… Artists and managers are starting to realise the opportunities and are changing the game.’
Read his full address below:
In the last 10 years since the internet and Apple revolutionised the business of music, we’ve read many articles in the newspapers that tell us that Apple is going to save the industry; that Spotify is going to save the industry; that Google is going to change the industry.
Obviously all of those companies have brought fantastic services to the table that have changed the way that fans can listen to and engage with music. But I don’t think that Apple or Spotify or Google are going to ‘rescue’ the music business. In the first place, I think there’s a misassumption that the business needs rescuing. Perhaps the record industry did, but I think the wider music business is doing well.
Actually, for me, the challenge is less about waiting for the next digital start-up or tech giant to come to table with a service that will start pumping nineties-style CD revenues into the system – that’s not what we are looking for. What we are looking for is a way of restructuring our business and restructuring the way artists work with record companies.
In the business, we’ve talked a lot about 360 degree deals, which were very much in vogue around five years ago. These discussions recognise that the way artists and labels structured their partnerships with each other were going to have to change. But that’s not to say that 360 deals are the panacea – the one solution. Indeed, if you took 360 to its extreme meaning and an artist signed all of their rights and activities to one company, it could be suicide.
Instead, I think we are in an exciting time and the industry is finding new approaches to look at artists and their fans – the consumers – and is working out how to build a business of products and services that will engage those people to get money out of their pockets.
In the past there was a conventional model that most artists pursued. Generally artists did a number of different deals with a number of different companies. For every revenue an artist had open to them they would do a different deal. One deal for their sound recording, another for their publishing rights, another for live, for merch and more recently for brand partnerships. Artists would often do six or seven deals with different companies based around one revenue stream and that business partner would get a cut, control or maybe even ownership of that stream.
The record deal would dominate because generally the record company would provide the upfront cash to allow acts to launch themselves and develop. Then, all of those other revenue streams were suddenly worth money and therefor the label deal was seen as the most important. In return, labels often took more than their fair share of control over the artist and maybe even the music.
When it worked, the system could really work and there are many millionaires that can testify to that in the ageing end of the artist community and among the people who used to work at the record companies. But we all know it often didn’t work. For every artist that succeeded, many more artists failed. Some of them did because their music was no good, some of them failed because they didn’t work hard enough. But a lot of them failed because that one model that the record industry used to pursue just didn’t work for them.
The really exciting thing that’s happening now is that artists and managers are starting to realise there are opportunities and are changing the game. They are not saying to labels, ‘Ok then, fair deal, you’re putting up the cash up front, you can have 10 percent of merch’, or, ‘You can do a lot with online revenues streams, have 50 percent.’
Those artists and managers who are entrepreneurs at heart are seeing the opportunities. Do they need to do a deal with a record label at all? Then if they do decide to sign a deal with a label, does it have to be the traditional model where they sign over the sound recording copyright? Obviously the label has always brought more to the table than just investment, they bring expertise and infrastructure, marketing and A&R support. But, are there other people that can provide those functions, whether it’s finance or marketing expertise, there are alternatives out there.
We are starting to see distributors reinventing themselves as service providers; we’re starting to see publishers dabble in more sides of the industry. It’s an exciting time. If you have any entrepreneurial spirit in you, everything is up for renegotiation.
I remember one music manager, who had worked in the industry since the sixties, saying that the music business post-web was the most exciting it had ever been since then. Most people working in the business during the sixties were making it up as they went along. By the eighties and nineties people knew what they were doing so if you were a quirky artist, or the model didn’t quite fit you, you wouldn’t make it.
Nobody really knows exactly what they are doing in the post-web world and that’s extremely exciting. It’s fascinating to watch companies and individuals old and new explore new ways of working.
Read his full address below:
In the last 10 years since the internet and Apple revolutionised the business of music, we’ve read many articles in the newspapers that tell us that Apple is going to save the industry; that Spotify is going to save the industry; that Google is going to change the industry.
Obviously all of those companies have brought fantastic services to the table that have changed the way that fans can listen to and engage with music. But I don’t think that Apple or Spotify or Google are going to ‘rescue’ the music business. In the first place, I think there’s a misassumption that the business needs rescuing. Perhaps the record industry did, but I think the wider music business is doing well.
Actually, for me, the challenge is less about waiting for the next digital start-up or tech giant to come to table with a service that will start pumping nineties-style CD revenues into the system – that’s not what we are looking for. What we are looking for is a way of restructuring our business and restructuring the way artists work with record companies.
In the business, we’ve talked a lot about 360 degree deals, which were very much in vogue around five years ago. These discussions recognise that the way artists and labels structured their partnerships with each other were going to have to change. But that’s not to say that 360 deals are the panacea – the one solution. Indeed, if you took 360 to its extreme meaning and an artist signed all of their rights and activities to one company, it could be suicide.
Instead, I think we are in an exciting time and the industry is finding new approaches to look at artists and their fans – the consumers – and is working out how to build a business of products and services that will engage those people to get money out of their pockets.
In the past there was a conventional model that most artists pursued. Generally artists did a number of different deals with a number of different companies. For every revenue an artist had open to them they would do a different deal. One deal for their sound recording, another for their publishing rights, another for live, for merch and more recently for brand partnerships. Artists would often do six or seven deals with different companies based around one revenue stream and that business partner would get a cut, control or maybe even ownership of that stream.
The record deal would dominate because generally the record company would provide the upfront cash to allow acts to launch themselves and develop. Then, all of those other revenue streams were suddenly worth money and therefor the label deal was seen as the most important. In return, labels often took more than their fair share of control over the artist and maybe even the music.
When it worked, the system could really work and there are many millionaires that can testify to that in the ageing end of the artist community and among the people who used to work at the record companies. But we all know it often didn’t work. For every artist that succeeded, many more artists failed. Some of them did because their music was no good, some of them failed because they didn’t work hard enough. But a lot of them failed because that one model that the record industry used to pursue just didn’t work for them.
The really exciting thing that’s happening now is that artists and managers are starting to realise there are opportunities and are changing the game. They are not saying to labels, ‘Ok then, fair deal, you’re putting up the cash up front, you can have 10 percent of merch’, or, ‘You can do a lot with online revenues streams, have 50 percent.’
Those artists and managers who are entrepreneurs at heart are seeing the opportunities. Do they need to do a deal with a record label at all? Then if they do decide to sign a deal with a label, does it have to be the traditional model where they sign over the sound recording copyright? Obviously the label has always brought more to the table than just investment, they bring expertise and infrastructure, marketing and A&R support. But, are there other people that can provide those functions, whether it’s finance or marketing expertise, there are alternatives out there.
We are starting to see distributors reinventing themselves as service providers; we’re starting to see publishers dabble in more sides of the industry. It’s an exciting time. If you have any entrepreneurial spirit in you, everything is up for renegotiation.
I remember one music manager, who had worked in the industry since the sixties, saying that the music business post-web was the most exciting it had ever been since then. Most people working in the business during the sixties were making it up as they went along. By the eighties and nineties people knew what they were doing so if you were a quirky artist, or the model didn’t quite fit you, you wouldn’t make it.
Nobody really knows exactly what they are doing in the post-web world and that’s extremely exciting. It’s fascinating to watch companies and individuals old and new explore new ways of working.
