Deadlines/Brief

Music videos are so 80s/90s, right? They belong with the era when MTV screened wall-to-wall vids instead of 'reality' TV? Try telling that to the millions who bought Gangnam Style; were they really simply loving the music? 1.6bn (and still climbing) have viewed the video on YT, not to mention the many re-makes (school eg, eg2), viral ads + celeb link-ups (even political protest in Seoul) - and it doesn't matter how legit it is, this nightmare for daydream Beliebers is making a lot of money, even from the parodies + dislikes. All this for a simple dance track that wouldn't have sounded out of place in 1990 ... but had a fun vid. This meme itself was soon displaced by the Harlem Shake. Music vids even cause diseases it seems!
This blog explores every aspect of this most postmodern of media formats, including other print-based promo tools used by the industry, its fast-changing nature, + how fans/audiences create/interact. Posts are primarily written with Media students/educators in mind. Please acknowledge the blog author if using any resources from this blog - Mr Dave Burrowes

Wednesday 9 November 2016

INDUSTRY 360 deals rip off or service?

Since Napster and its successors ate away at the CD cash-cow, the music industry has aggressively sought to develop fresh sources of income.

An exemplar of this is the now common 360 deal, wherein an artist signs over a percentage of rights to every money-making activity to their label - in return (in theory) for support from the label. It is a controversial practice from an industry historically mired in controversy over its treatment and exploitation of artists.

Excerpt from an interview featured on ezine Blabbermouth with the Staind frontman, & (above) Indie innovator Alan McGee (Creation Records) pulls no punches!
BELOW: a definition + research tips/examples





THEBALANCE.COM GUIDE (click through for their take on the controversies aurrounding this model)

Under 360 deals, which are also called "multiple rights deals," record labels may get a percentage of revenue that may have been previously off limits to them, such as:
  • Digital sales
  • Tours, concerts and live performance revenue
  • Merchandise sales
  • Endorsement deals
  • Appearances in movies and television shows
  • Songwriting, lyric display and publishing revenue
  • Ringtone sales
In exchange for getting a bigger cut from the artists they represent, the labels say they will commit to promoting the artist for a longer period of time and will actively try and develop new opportunities for them. In essence, the label will function as a pseudo-manager and look after the artist's entire career rather than only focusing on selling records.
Similar to traditional recording agreements, the 360 deal allows the label to acquire the copyrights in the artist’s recordings and options for multiple albums. In addition, the 360 deal agreement also includes the traditional deal agreements where producer royalties, net sales, foreign sales, reductions for packaging, budget records and "new technology" are all deducted from the artist's royalties.

Under traditional deals, artists would be paid a small royalty by the record label, which was even smaller after all the deductions were made for producing an album or track. Unless the artist's album was a major commercial success, no recording royalties were expected for the artist, instead profits from publishing, merchandise, touring, endorsements, and other sources of revenue all belonged to the artists.
READ MORE - A SIMPLE SEARCH...
You can easily find articles on this, a still highly controversial business practice by an industry that has a longstanding reputation for cynical mistreatment and exploitation of artists. A simple 'music 360 deal' search will offer up definitions, and some news articles, but you can also try adding a publication (newspaper, magazine, ezine) name to the start of this search, or a genre (or artist!), or terms like controv* (the * means you get all words starting controv) to the end of it....

You can see some results examples below with search links, revealing TV show The Voice (backed by Universal) as a good example of the controversy, Lady Gaga as an example of a beneficiary of this approach, .

A simple search...

Adding a news outlet...

An ezine...



Here I added a genre (electro-pop)...


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