Moses Supposes

Moses Supposes: Sean Parker, high-tech mob boss

Moses Avalon is one of the nation’s leading music-business consultants and artists’-rights advocates and is the author of a top-selling music business reference, Confessions of a Record Producer. More of his articles can be found at www.mosesavalon.com.

Is there no limit to this guy’s narcissism?  The old saying goes, “When three people tell you you’re drunk, maybe you should sit down.”  When the US Supreme Court says, “You are a thief who stole from millions of artists,” and when the Attorney General investigates you for 400 million counts of computer trespass, and then, finally, when Hollywood casts you as the villain in the hottest movie of the season, maybe it’s time you take a look at your values.

With Limewire now due for permanent shutdown, the blogs are lit up with opinions on the fallout. Sean Parker, the co-founder of Napster, thinks all this will do is create more heads of the hydra — in other words, more P2P will spawn from the death of Limewire, thus validating his 2001 position that the labels are fighting a losing battle against piracy and should just give up. Clearly, the tech-heads agree with their icon, even if the statistics tell a different story: piracy is passé, the lawsuits worked, and the “free music” generation is growing up and opting in.

Moses Supposes

Moses Supposes: The new team

Moses Avalon is one of the nation’s leading music-business consultants and artists’-rights advocates and is the author of a top-selling music business reference, Confessions of a Record Producer. More of his articles can be found at www.mosesavalon.com.

Many “how-to” music biz books like to discuss the concept of the “artist’s team.” This refers to the business machinery behind the creative product. Typically the team members are: the lawyer, manager, publicist, and business manager. Each still play very significant roles in the process after the artist grows out of his garage and is headed for stardom. But how about before all that, while the artist is still developing? No one seems to want to talk about what personnel the artist needs to get to that higher plateau.

Moses Supposes

Moses Supposes: Will mobile radio revive the radio star?

Moses Avalon is one of the nation’s leading music-business consultants and artists’-rights advocates and is the author of a top-selling music business reference, Confessions of a Record Producer. More of his articles can be found at www.mosesavalon.com.

Data plans will likely put a damper on Clear Channel dreams of mobile domination

If video killed the radio star, will smart phones revive him?

Announcements from Clear Channel have forced artists and their teams to seriously evaluate the position that mobile content will play in their ability to expand a fan base.

Clear Channel celebrated with a press release, indicating that they had almost completely sold out their advertising lots for mobile-radio commercial spots, ending a long dry spell for radio-advertising sales.

Moses Supposes

Moses Supposes: Google in your pocket, Apple in your mind

Another chapter in the double standard of music and technology. Google protects its stuff, but the music and content biz should give it up for free?

While Google is hard at work trying to make it possible for the public to steal any creative work you can cache in a browser, they are also working hard to make sure that that same public doesn’t steal from them.

Moses Supposes

Moses Supposes: Net neutrality for musicians

Will the Government regulating the Internet mean more or less money for the music space? Internet-service providers (ISPs) say that the net will die if the Fed gets involved. Content companies say the opposite; the FCC will keep the net “free.” Who should you believe?