Negotiating the terms and upfront costs associated with adding the labels’ music is laborious.  There’s no denying that, but these intense negotiations only make it appear to the consumer that the labels are the bad guys and they don’t understand the value of a service such as Spotify.  As Ek stated, “Most people in the world do not pay for music today,” and went on to say, “the music industry should be worth a lot more.”

Will Spotify make the labels as much money as before?  I’m willing to bet that it won’t.  However, that’s why labels have 360s.  They want a piece of touring, merch, licensing, endorsement deals, and whatever new revenue stream that might pop up in the future.  Furthermore, I truly believe that Spotify won’t hurt the amount of money their currently making from physical and digital sales.  In fact, I bet it might help.  But only time will tell.  Lets hope for Spotify in the U.S. by beginning of Q2 in 2011 and see what happens.

However, if a company trademark is grounds for a potential sale, could the same happen in music with logos or band names?  Would there be a demand and supply?  And more importantly, would the fans be cool with it?

In theory, such a sale would go against everything that music stands for.  On the other hand, if bands and fans can get over the fact that it isn’t selling out anymore and accept corporate sponsorship, then this could be a possibility.  For example, a broken up band could sell their name or logo to other bands to reuse, to brands for advertising, or even directly to fans.  But then again, would they be able to have their inevitable reunion tour if they sell their trademark?

The fans would be an interesting possibility especially since they buy broken drum sticks, tore sweaters, nail clippings, and so forth.  What prevents Lady Gaga from selling her stage name to a rich and crazy superfan in 40 years?  I don’t suggest that that should happen, but it might be an inevitable possibility.

I’m not going to make a legal argument. It may be valid but just isn’t relevant in practice. A law is only as effective as the means by which you can enforce it. And, unless something crazy happens in the world of Internet regulation, no one will be able to forcibly stop people from sharing music. After all, if there was no bouncer outside a concert venue, we could expect to see ticket sales plummet just as fast as CD sales. The problem is that many people just don’t value music in a meaningful way. What do I mean by that? Well, I understand perfectly well that people value music in the sense that they enjoy it, and love rocking out on their iPod. However, they don’t value it in the sense that they will willingly fork over $1 for a song, thus helping the artist who made it continue to produce awesome music. If I’m going to convince you to buy your next record, it’s not going to happen by scaring you with abstract arguments about copyright law.

I used to illegally download in high school. I remember when Napster first came out. It was incredible. It was fast, free, and delivered on-demand music; what could be bad about that? I can say, in all honestly, I did not once think about how it could negatively impact a musician, until I saw first-hand what it was doing.

After high school, I went to NYU, hoping to become a recording engineer. At the same time, I began to record my own music, in the hope of someday making a living from it. In an effort to get a grander perspective on the business I longed to enter, I got an internship at an indie record label. There I saw artists, with sizable fan-bases, question whether they could record another album. The demand was there, but the audience was not paying for the product they claimed to love so much. This directly translated to artists not recording albums, plain and simple. Instead, they embarked on relentless tours, leaving little to no time for writing new material and recording it.

During this time I also started to look for work in recording studios. There, I saw an effect of file sharing that was not immediately obvious. Musicians could no longer afford to pay recording engineers (amazing artists in their own right). As music sales continued to decline, studios all over New York City were shutting their doors. And it wasn’t just the big time Hit Factory places; small independently run studios were going under as well. It wasn’t that they were creating inferior products. It was a direct result of people not paying for music. This led to a decline in the quality of recorded music, at least when talking about independent artists who don’t have a 1 million dollar advance to burn through.

As I saw this going on around me, I stopped to think. If I want to be an audio engineer at a studio, how can I download music illegally? It would be utterly hypocritical of me to download an album for nothing, and at the same time hope that someone else would buy one I worked on. I realized that if I wanted things to change, I would have to start by doing it myself. Hands down, the best way to support your favorite artist is financially. Of course, telling your friends about songs and re-tweeting alerts helps, but it does not necessarily enable artists to produce moremusic. At the end of the day, what good is a fan who tells 1,000 friends about your album if none of them actually buy it? Sure, those people might go see the band live, but concerts and recordings have totally different budgets and costs. When you go see a live show, it doesn’t make up for the record you ripped off LimeWire. Your ticket price pays the roadies, the sound guys, the tour manager, the gas bills, the van insurance, and maybe, if they’re lucky, the band. That form of logic reduces recorded music to a PR Tool, aimed at promoting the sale of tickets and t-shirts. And what does that say for recorded music as a medium? Will recorded music be reduced to the importance of a T-shirt, used to promote a live show? Recorded music provides a listening experience that is unique and rewarding in its own right, and listeners should strive to preserve that. Fans should respect the wishes of the artist. If a musician asks that you pay for an album, you should respect the time and effort that went into its creation, and pay for it.

Perhaps people don’t really care about how artists make their living. But there are positive repercussions for the listener. First, I guarantee you, it will make the listening experience more rewarding. You will have a recording whose quality matches what the artist intended. You will listen closer. Just like you would savor the taste of an expensive bottle of wine, you’ll savor the sounds of that record you bought. After all, good music is not meant to be “chugged”. Buying a record will also make it easier for that artist to produce another one, meaning you get a kick-ass sounding follow-up to that record you just sipped slowly with some cheese and crackers. It is, in essence, a “win/win”.

Don’t believe me? Try it out. Wait for the release date, like you would a souffle coming from the kitchen. When it arrives, set aside some time to put it on. You can end the listening session with the comforting feeling that you are enabling the artist you love to continue to create beautiful music, that you will be able to tweet about in the very near future.

At the end of the day, it’s really a moral argument. Unfortunately in the music world, as with life in general, the moral road is not always the easiest route to take. As Plato said, “[Music] gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and charm and gaiety to life and to everything.” In this sense, it is almost as important as the air we breathe. I urge you to meditate on this. How much does music mean to you? How does it positively affect your life? Hopefully many of you will come to the conclusion that while you may not have a fat bank account, ten dollars for a record you will play 100 times is a damn good deal.

I plan on choosing someone from 5 of the following fields:

• music technology
• label (indie or major)
• musician
• promoter/venue
• manager
• booking agent
• music supervisor
• licensing agent
• digital PR
• music lawyer

So if you think that what you have to say matters (which I hope is the case), email no more than 3 blog post ideas and links with examples of your writing to soundctrlblog[AT]gmail.  Stay tuned next week for when I announce who will be writing.

ALSO, expect an exciting announcement on Monday about our Internet Week event.

Our friends at Hypebot report on a site called PiracyPayback.org, which it makes it possible for file-sharing nation to wash off the guilt of your pirating efforts from the night before by donating some scratch. According to the PiracyPayback crew, free music is not the answer. “While we agree that the nature of the music industry needs to change, giving music away for no robust reason lacks imagination and is a cop out – capitulation in face of the not insurmountable threat of music piracy,” the site creators say. Building a revenue model out of P2P remorse seems far-fetched, but there’s always the live show to compensate the music industry we suppose. Read the rest here.

Yesterday, the FTC announced that its revising its rules concerning endorsements and testimonials that have been in effect for almost 30 years. According to the official statement, “the post of a blogger who receives cash or in-kind payment to review a product is considered an endorsement. Thus, bloggers who make an endorsement must disclose the material connections they share with the seller of the product or service.”

The FTC’s move is of course receiving some backlash. In a statement to the New York Times, Linda Goldstein–a partner at law firm Manatt Phelps & Phillips that is representing three marketing groups including the Word of Mouth Marketing Association–argues, “If a product is provided to bloggers, the F.T.C. will consider that, in most cases, to be a material connection even if the advertiser has no control over the content of the blogs. In terms of the real world blogging community, that’s a seismic shift. We would have preferred the F.T.C. to work closer with the industry to learn how viral marketing works.”

Of course, bloggers aren’t the only target of the guideline tweaks; celebrities and advertisers themselves are in the government’s crosshairs as well. The FTC says, “celebrities have a duty to disclose their relationships with advertisers when making endorsements outside the context of traditional ads, such as on talk shows or in social media.” Meanwhile, if advertisers “refer in an advertisement to the findings of a research organization that conducted research sponsored by the company, the advertisement must disclose the connection between the advertiser and the research organization. And a paid endorsement – like any other advertisement – is deceptive if it makes false or misleading claims.”