Want to own a hit song?

[arXter]

the industry is suffering so badly, companies are now investing and benefiting from its doom.

Dream On: Own Part of a Hit Song

By ETHAN SMITH
September 10, 2008; Page B9

The digital revolution has turned recorded songs into commodities, sold for 99 cents or downloaded free and illegally. Now a start-up called SongVest Inc. is betting that the songs themselves -- the music and lyrics -- are still valuable to die-hard fans.

Reuters

SongVest plans to auction portions of the rights to 18 songs recorded by Garth Brooks, Aerosmith, Cher and others. Above, Aerosmith's Steven Tyler on stage in July 2007.

Starting next month, Madison, Wis.-based SongVest plans to auction on its Web site portions of the rights to 18 songs recorded by Garth Brooks, Aerosmith, Cher and others. People who buy the songs will receive a share of royalties the tunes generate, but they won't have input into important matters like the songs' use in television commercials or movies. That right will reside with who controls the publishing rights to the songs -- usually a large music publisher that will continue to collect half the royalties generated by any given song.

SongVest is acting as a broker between songwriters, or their heirs, and possible buyers of the rights. When a song is sold, SongVest will collect commissions from both seller and buyer that will range from 25% to 40% of the sale price. After the sale, the company says it will handle royalty payments.

One of SongVest's co-founders, David Prohaska, says his company is pitching the songs as the ultimate memorabilia, rather than as money-making investments. Among the tunes SongVest is selling rights in are the "(Theme from) The Monkees" and "Friends in Low Places," which has long served as the signature anthem of Mr. Brooks. Some titles are expected to fetch more than $250,000 on the auction market.

Music-publishing transactions normally involve hundreds or thousands of songs, bundled together into "catalogs" that reliably throw off a certain amount of revenue thanks to royalties from sales, public performance and the like.

"They're bought and sold on a pure investment basis," says Mr. Prohaska. "What about people who really love the music?"
A test auction conducted last year garnered $25,000 for 25% interests in two songs by the '80s Christian-metal band Stryper, Mr. Prohaska says. That is at least 10 times as much as the songs -- "Always There For You" and "Keep the Fire Burning" -- would be expected to fetch as part of a standard music-publishing sale, based on the songs' typical annual earnings.

For songwriters like Mark Hudson, who has written songs for Bon Jovi, Ozzy Osbourne and Ringo Starr, the proposition represents a way to make up for revenue that has been lost amid crashing music sales.

Lately, he says: "No one is buying records. This to me is just another angle."

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1221...googlenews_wsj

[smoothcriminal12]

I'm bidding.

[TeharaMJ]

wow! I can almost envision a future where poeple like everyday people will be owning songs like playing the stock market!

[LovelyOne]

The future of music is in new technology. As soon as record labels and musicians understand this, maybe they won't be broke a** fools! LOL. The internet, cell phones, digital sales, that's where it's going.

Just ask soulja boy lol.

[arXter]

The future of music is in new technology. As soon as record labels and musicians understand this, maybe they won't be broke a** fools! LOL. The internet, cell phones, digital sales, that's where it's going.

Just ask soulja boy lol.

well some artists are now doing the Prince thing:

New Marillion album free to share

By Kevin Young Entertainment reporter, BBC News

Fans have financed recent albums by paying up before studio sessions began

Rock group Marillion are to make their new album available as a free download through file-sharing websites.

But a pop-up box will appear on computer screens when the tracks are first played, encouraging fans to give the band their e-mail address.

Keyboardist Mark Kelly said downloaders would be contacted with offers of gig tickets and other merchandise, to try to make some money back for the band.

"We're willing to try new things and we want to see what happens," he said.

"Everybody's aware of the effect of peer-to-peer file-sharing on CD sales and the music industry in general," he told the BBC News website.

"Up until recently we've felt fairly immune to that because the fans have been really supportive of the band and, I suppose, because of the age demographic, they do tend to prefer CDs to downloads."

People forget Radiohead were still number one in the album charts Mark Kelly Marillion keyboardi

Bands have been exploring new ways to release music in recent months, with Radiohead making their last album available online on a pay-what-you-like basis and Prince giving his most recent CD away with a newspaper.

Kelly acknowledged that making Marillion's music available for free was against his natural instinct - "we come from a long tradition of selling it".

But he still expected fans would buy the CD version of Happiness is the Road when it is released on 20 October.
"People forget Radiohead were still number one in the album charts," he added.

"They also say they weren't very successful because they only got an average of £2 per download.

"But they wouldn't have got £2 per sale from [record company] EMI, so in those terms it was actually a big success, and they still sold CDs."

'Loyal fanbase'

Paul Williams, who edits record industry publication Music Week, said Marillion had always been "pretty ground-breaking in terms of doing things differently and they have a very loyal fanbase".

Taking that into consideration, he said, the download plan would "probably work for them quite successfully".

Marillion have bypassed record companies in the past by asking fans to pay for albums before recording began, thereby securing funds for studio time.

"Most acts these days certainly don't make their fortunes based on the traditional way of selling recorded music," Mr Williams noted.

Matt Phillips, director of communications for the British Phonographic Industry, said: "There's nothing unlawful about peer-to-peer technology per se, and it can be a powerful distribution platform for artists and labels.

"The issue arises when that technology is used unlawfully to avoid paying for the music you download - as it is in 99.9% of cases.

"Ultimately it's emerging acts that suffer most from illegal file-sharing since they don't have a large fanbase or touring income to rely on, and they need the investment of music companies at the beginning of their careers.

"It may be the case that artists and labels are happy to give some music away for free from time to time, but like anyone else, creative people have the right to be paid for their work."

[LovelyOne]

^Smart!!!! Musicians need to find whatever ways they can to make that money! They deserve it, they work hard.

[SIDEWALK]

i don't get it ?

[LovelyOne]

i don't get it ?

Me either just play along.