A musicians’ summit discusses the best ways to thrive in an age of effortless mp3 downloading

Is there any field that has struggled more with foresight in recent times than the music industry? The compass is spinning wildly, and there is little consensus on where things are headed—much less which direction to go in. Meanwhile, the large questions just loom larger.

To that end, those gathered at the 2010 Future of Music Coalition Policy Summit, held in October at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., debated the issues that the troubled industry is facing, attempted to anticipate emerging ones, and searched for the best possible ways to move forward.

One of the overarching themes that emerged was how musicians need to find new ways to reach out to fans, both directly and indirectly, for all types of support. This holds true whether you’re part of a band that’s just starting out and struggling to build a local following or a mid-level artist on the verge of breaking through to a wider audience.

Former Rhapsody.com executive Tim Quirk advocated recruiting fan volunteers for anything they’re willing to do—they may even jump at the chance to build your Web site, he said. Singer-songwriter Jill Sobule said she puts her most fervent “stalker fans” to work for her, soliciting their help promoting her music and live shows. Sobule particularly understands the significance of fan support. After signing to several indie labels that both went belly-up before she had a chance to enter the recording studio, she decided to put out an album entirely funded by fan donations via her Web site. Sobule offered donors perks ranging from mp3 downloads to house concerts and even guest appearances on the album, which cost $75,000 to produce. In less than two months, she reached her target amount.

Finding innovative ways to connect with fans means going beyond email lists and taking advantage of the powerful analytics tools that social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook offer. There are also a number of other Web services (TopSpin, BandCamp, ReverbNation, etc.) competing right now to help bands identify and target listeners. These services keep track of statistics such as the number of song plays online (and can also tell you if it’s just the same superfan streaming the same song over and over again) and the geographic breakdown of site visitors (helpful when planning your next tour).

Listening to the panel discussions, it was easy to get the impression that in the digital D-I-Y universe, a marketing background is practically a prerequisite to being a successful professional musician. And there is something vaguely discomforting about the fact that we’re now living in a world where rock bands are monitoring their fans online. Yet, the prevailing wisdom is that artists now need a much firmer understanding of who their audience is.

Legendary music producer T Bone Burnett offered a strong contrarian opinion on the topics of D-I-Y and data mining. “A musician can’t be studying and analyzing data,” he argued. “A musician has to be playing music.” He added, “We need infrastructure around us. We need help.”

This is, of course, where record labels come in. Just like artists, some labels (particularly smaller boutique labels) boast hardcore fanbases who generally find that any act added to their list is at least worth checking out. North Carolina-based Merge Records label manager Spott Philpott told the crowd, “finding people who are dedicated fans of a label is the future” if labels are going to succeed, which puts them in roughly the same boat as artists. Still, independent labels can offer musicians greater exposure and the credibility that comes with being associated with the name of that label as well as the other acts on its list.

And as several speakers pointed out, now that music purchasing is more or less optional thanks to file-sharing, consumers will choose to either purchase music or support musicians and labels in other ways because they want to—not because they have to.

But they will expect something in return. That something may include the right to use those songs in creative ways that are difficult to anticipate.

Artists and labels cannot underestimate the promotional value of “derivative works/really awesome user-generated content” according to Google’s senior copyright counsel Fred von Lohmann, who explained how fan-made videos on sites like YouTube (which Google owns) can give a sales boost to songs. He further pointed out that derivative works have fast become one of the primary ways that listeners discover new music, arguing that it is in the artists’ and labels' best interest to support fan-based creativity.

Von Lohmann added that consumers want access to any music anytime, anyplace, via music files that are optimized for any digital device, and they want to be able to share that music with friends on social networking sites—the so-called celestial jukebox. “Until that happens we’re missing a huge opportunity to actually bring consumers and fans onboard,” von Lohmann argued. Licensing and compensation issues are currently holding the celestial jukebox back, he said—and those issues could potentially keep the floodgates closed indefinitely.

There is still that sticky issue of getting paid. In the online world, as Smithsonian Folkways sales and marketing director Richard Burgess pointed out, streaming and digital download royalties are becoming more and more complicated (and being calculated in “fractions of pennies”) and there is no automated way to keep track of them. The current model needs to change.

“We’re in the interregnum,” T Bone Burnett said. New means of music distribution will arise. But what those are is anyone’s guess at the moment.

So where does that leave us? Not too far from where we were before. Positive change may be necessary, but it will happen slowly. That it will happen at all is thanks in large part to the work that those at the policy summit are engaging in.

In the meantime, this YouTube video shows yet another way that the music world has changed since the introduction of smartphones in 2002.

For further information: The Future of Music Coalition

Read coverage of the 2009 Future of Music Coalition Policy Summit in THE FUTURIST.