As the title says Good Copy Bad Copy is a documentary about the current state of copyright and culture. The team behind the film visits a variety of countries at different development stages, and through interviews with musicians, film makers and copyright experts, casts some interesting light on how tremendously out of sync today’s copyright legislation is with technology, and the implications this has for especially the mashup culture.

I found the parts about the Nigerian film makers and the techno brega movement in Brazil to be the most interesting. It’s fascinating to see how these countries in many ways are ahead of western countries when it comes to copyright and culture.

The film can watched at the Good Copy Bad Copy site, where you also can get the link to the BitTorrent file.

As a follow up to the post about Francis and the Lights turning themselves into a company, and receiving a $100 000 investment from Normative Music Company, I thought I should point you towards this post on TechCrunch. Michale Arrington of TechCrunch reports on how 360″ deals apparently have become mandatory for new artists signed to the major labels.

Albeit this is not really something new it’s well worth checking out for those interested in the future of the music industry. And, of course, the discussion goes on in the comment section.

I just wanted to share this one with you today. PerfSpot.com, one of the largest and fastest growing social networks in the world, has worked hard to build a community where everyone and anyone can socialize, share, discover and create. The service has several interesting aspects, but one that really stands out is the Music Section. It doesn’t focus on any one specific genre or region, rather, it features artists both well-known and independent equally and fairly, and instead of offering a critique PerfSpot leaves it up to the reader to decide what they like. These are two aspects of the Music Section we really like a lot. We strongly believe in giving artists the same opportunities and for people to decide for themselves what they like. This should be an ideal for all music services as they are two of the key components in making a real democratization of the music industry happen and we are happy to see that one of the biggest players are taking this seriously. With digital distribution enormous progress has of course been made, but there is still a way to go. And the Music Section at PerfSpot sure is on the right track. After all, as they say, music is life and this is important stuff!

The Music Section of PerSpot is also right on with regards to distribution. For those of you interested in streaming your favorite music for free anywhere, make sure you keep an eye on the future development. Huge changes should be around the corner.

Just wanted to share this with you. A couple of days ago The Normative Music Company announced that Francis and the Lights have turned themselves into a limited liability company and have received an investment of USD 100 000 at a USD 1000 000 valuation. This likens the deal between a venture capitalist and a start-up and represents a new way of handling the financial side of an artist’s career. The proposed advantages of the deal are artistic freedom and an avoidance of compromises.

“When we hear the term ‘independent music’, we should recall its actual, forgotten promise of unmolested artistic integrity. In 2008, such music cannot exist with submission to the whims of a brittle industry, nor with automatic rejection of anything ‘corporate’. Artistic freedom requires an awakening, from the artist, that business is good — because music requires it, because life requires music, and because life is good.

NME ran an article on this titled “Indie band turns itself into company instead of signing record deal”. It can be found here.

Our good friends over at brilliantlyDifferent pointed us towards an interesting article titled The State of Music Video over at the Creative Review blog. Although NYLVI is all about vinyl records we also like to keep an eye on what’s going on in the rest of the music industry, so in light of this post I thought it would be good to take a quick look at what’s happening within the music video space.

The music video has been incredible important as a promotional tool since the 90’s back when the major labels controlled the distribution and spent tons of money on them, and pushed them out through MTV. However, as the Internet came along and the distribution was changed, leading both to lower prices, due to marginal costs approaching zero, and lower barriers for making and distributing music, the revenues have declined at a rapid pace. This has of course lead to a major reduction in the spending on music videos, creating a need for doing more with less, and someone would argue that this has reduced the quality of what is produced in an era where the music video is more important than ever, and quality of content is the key factor for adoption.

However, the same way as digital distribution has disrupted the old music industry model the same has also happened within the music video space. With each break from the old lies great opportunity, and as it is pointed out in the article, lots of kids are now coming out of film schools and art colleges armed with MacBooks, Final Cut Pro and great ideas. Although not being an expert with regards to what it takes to create a great music video I would assume that with new technology it should be possible to do a lot of what was previously done cheaper and also do many things that previously were not possible.

So in a period where amazing content is the key to attention and lots of kids, who have grown up with the Internet are ready to act on the opportunity, I think we will start to see music videos become increasingly interesting. These words from Academy’s Liz Kessler pretty much sum it up: ¨…being bold and brave is the only way forward. Defy convention and received wisdom…¨. However, we need to figure out a way to reward the creators.

Read the full article here.

Radiohead, House of Cards, directed by James Frost

Justice, Stress, directed by Romain Gavras

We met up with Oliver Chesler in his Berlin studio a few weeks back. Oliver is a great guy better know as the artist The Horrorist. He runs the label Things To Come Records and he also operates a great blog called Wire To The Ear. We had an interesting discussion about the music industry, new technologies and exchanged some about what the future will bring.

Last week we got together with Oliver again, this time via Skype, and he asked us a few questions about NYLVI. Thomas (from our side) outlined a few things we’re trying to achieve with nylvi.com. You can listen to the full interview here.

Browsing the Internet yesterday I found an interesting article in Wired titled; “Designers Work to Rescue a Dying Art Form — the Album Cover.” It was written back in February last year so it´s a little bit dated. However, that doesn´t make it less interesting. The author examines how labels are working to re-create the feeling of the physical album cover online and highlights some of the examples. One example that immediately comes to mind is Apple Cover Flow. Cover Flow is nice enough, but in general I don´t think this is the right direction. The goal shouldn´t be to replicate the way things are done in the real world on the Internet. Rather, the capabilities of the Internet should be utilized to create a new and more interesting context for the listening experience. In this equation the album art is less important than what happens with and around the music. Meaning how people, together with the artist/label, co-create the context. So online it can be argued that the context of the music is the new cover art. The key is then to get the right infrastructure in place to enable interaction, and add the right content and design to make it happen. The most interesting example I have seen of this lately is the super cool SoundCloud player, which let´s users add comments on the track timeline.

It´s fascinating to see how the capabilities of the Internet are shaping the way music is created, distributed and consumed, and how this have lead to new rules for marketing and identity expression. However, here at NYLVI we´re also a bit concerned about what is going on in the physical world and what is happening with the vinyl records we love so much. So while the cover art is coming back in a brand new form on the Internet, there is also interesting stuff happening in the physical world. For reasons discussed here the technological advances have relieved us from the painful CD format, which has always been an ugly compromise between vinyl and streaming, lacking the flexibility and possibilities of streaming and the aesthetics and charm of vinyl. What we are left with now are the two best options, which I think are highly compatible. It´s therefore great to see how artists and labels have started to realize the potential of the vinyl format again.

Lately we have seen Fractured Recordings release Recovery, which is described by Pitchfork as: “a super-limited edition box set compilation with a simple but intriguing concept: take a bunch of well-known tunes and leave them to the mercy of the international avant-garde and minimalist vanguard.” There are also a bunch of other labels, such as London based AI Records, that are releasing awesome and visually stunning records, and this is something I feel confident that we will see more of in the coming years. Vinyl will for sure remain a niche format, but it´s worth paying attention to it, since it will, due to its unique characteristics, be one of the many building blocks of the new music industry gradually evolving.

More information about the newly established Fractured Recordings, which will specialize in one-off editions and artists’ projects, is available here.

For some awesome cover art check out Hard Format, or have a look at some of the releases below.

Although NYLVI is all about vinyl records we also have a keen passion for what is going on in the rest of the music industry. Today we are therefore happy to bring you an interview with James Penycate, who is running brilliantlyDifferent in London. brilliantlyDifferent is a brand new digital marketing consultancy working with record labels, artist management companies and musicians to create and manage an online brand. They specialize in developing online strategy, social marketing, blog promotions and online PR. So let´s get started…

NYLVI: Tell us a little bit about yourself and how you got involved in the music industry.

James: I have a somewhat unorthodox history really - I worked through a royalties department at Warner Music whilst studying Marketing before I got a job for a small, now defunct SonyBMG label called Red Ink. I worked on some fantastic campaigns and have some great memories of what was achieved. After 2 years in product marketing at Red Ink i decided I needed to refresher and left to start brilliantlyDifferent. I am working on launching a quarterly electronica club night in East London as well as an MP3 blog; both with trusted musical friends.

NYLVI: You just started a new company, brilliantlyDifferent. What made you decide to start the company?

James: Firstly my experiences at SonyBMG with digital people often left me feeling confused and somewhat frustrated. Nobody was offering the entire package for digital/pr and blogging from the grass roots to the charts and nobody really had an cohesive ideas relative to the demands of the band and audience. I am sure there are brilliant digital music marketing people out there but I had ideas to start my own blog promotions company to fill a void and it’s all developed out of that really.

NYLVI: What is the idea behind brilliantlyDifferent?

James: Really to harness the Internet to promote each and every act we work on. By building a strong, easily identifiable, interactive and informative web presence -  making is super easy for fans to find the music, communicate with artists of the music they love and hopefully gain a real insight/connection into artists as individuals.

NYLVI: What are your ambitions for brilliantlyDifferent?

James: I’d like to win awards!  As well as continue to grow my brand and educate labels on what can be done. Ideally I am looking to work on a number of acts from their early development to becoming a top ten band.  To garner a reputation of brilliance, free thinking creativity and continue to develop forward thrusting campaigns for truly outstanding musical talent. Beyond that - I would like to broaden my portfolio to non musical projects!

NYLVI: What do you think are the key challenges for an artist or label today?

James: It’s the same old problems really, lack of traditional media outlets, difficult barriers of entry to radio/press, saturated retail space (and media) and ever increasing costs. Whilst the web has clearly broken down many many barriers, very few acts can sell over 5000 records without substantial marketing spend. Burial is one…but there aren’t many others.Of course monetisation of content and a more realistic pricing structure across streaming platforms which the industry needs to work as one to consolidate.

NYLVI: How do you see labels and artists adjust to the changes in the music industry?

James: I think the industry needs to learn to call on the help of external and non-music-industry expertise to truly gain a greater insight into consumer habits, the web as a leisure activity and some major research into how teens are using music, how the would use music if money was no object and how music can be valued again. It was good to see Guy Hands look at this for EMI.  At present the future seems out of everyone’s hands with mp3 bloggers being feared and the cost of live concerts now through the roof to offset the loss of CD revenue amongst others!

NYLVI: Aside from MySpace, what do you consider to be the most important social services for online music marketing and promotion

James: I think it’s a combination of applications according to the challenges of the campaign. I personally love ping.fm for on the move updates to multiple sites and I feel excited about Bandcamp.mu. It’ll be nice when Muxtape is back live again too. I recently read that blogs account for more sales now than Myspace. Facebook does in some markets actually carry far more weight than Myspace which I find fascinating given then limitations of the platform (meaning ‘fan pages’).

NYLVI: What do you think about the vinyl format? Do you think it will be compatible with the streaming based future of the music industry?

James: Vinyl remains essential for sound quality and as a tangible collectable. Opinions differ of course where the market sits outside of proactive music fans and todays uber minimal society and whilst it is no longer the the format of choice for the masses;  the sound of vinyl remains so wonderfully cinematic - and creeps into spaces that a CD could only dream of. I feel that labels should now be offering free download (high quality at 320kbs or FLAC) with all vinyl. For Dj’s, indie kid collectors, whoever and where-ever the market. Does this make music purchasing an experience again? Perhaps not - but it’s a value added argument that should be had.

NYLVI: What music are you mainly into?

James: I listen to about 12-18 hours of music a day - but a few years ago (2004) I was heavily inspired by Sonar in Barcelona and I now listen to a huge amount of electronica, neo-classical and ambient stuff. I’ve really enjoyed records by Portishead, Claro Intellecto, Murcof, Radiohead, plus anything on AI Records, Italians Do It Better or Highpoint Lowlife Records of late.

NYLVI: Top five records?

James:
Pink Floyd ‘Dark Side Of The Moon’ - RIP Rick Wright
Prince ‘Sign O The Times’
Burial ‘Untrue’
Aphex Twin ‘Selected Ambient Works 82-95′
Everything by Radiohead after ‘Pablo Honey’

There’s an interesting column by Neukölln, Berlin based artist and writer Nick Currie, aka Momus, in the Spanish magazine PlayGround today (English version on Click Opera here). We have been waiting for this for a while, because we have been thinking a lot about genres lately, and I was really looking forward to see what Momus would write about it. We have been looking at genres from a more technological perspective, while the article doesn’t explicitly mention technology. Instead it takes more the perspective of an artist, discussing how artists mix together elements from various genres in a post-globalization world, and as a consequence how we end up with tons of sub-genres, making categorization and navigation by genre less and less meaningful. So with music as with most other things today location is becoming less important. As it’s pointed out:

That’s a kind of passive aggression, the same kind of mild subversion that makes people fill in their age as “102″, but it’s also a way of acknowledging that, in this post-globalisation world, you don’t have to be Chinese to make Chinese music, nor African to make Afro-Pop. It’s a statement about how we’re all, these days, genre-splicers.

Moving forward with the development of NYLVI the impact of technology on music is something we’re trying to take into consideration. Searching music by genre, most of the time, just doesn’t make much sense anymore. Or did it ever make sense?

There’s a post up on Gawker now, which takes a look at the Wall Street Journal article: “More Artists Steer Clear of iTunes”. According to the author iTunes, the single largest retailer of music in the US, which sells nine out of every ten digital download in the US, has not done much good for the music industry. Royalties paid to artists are lower than expected and it’s reported that many artists, as a result, have gone back to trying to sell whole albums, which is said to be more profitable than selling singles.

The author outlines a pretty dark scenario for the music industry. As he writes:

“So here’s what will happen: iTunes will continue to dominate, but slowly lose market share to other players in the digital music space. Downloads are here to stay. Wal-Mart will continue to dominate the market for people who desire CDs of horrible, trite songs like “All Summer Long.” When the CD market totally dries up, Wal-Mart will figure out how to dominate the digital space and become a major competitor with iTunes.”

However, there is light in the end of the tunnel: “One day far in the future, some brilliant young person will figure out how to translate the business sensibility that made indie record stores great onto the internet. Till then, bow to iTunes and like it”.

Hopefully someone figures out a new business model for digital music sooner than later. However, I think this scenario is less dark than described above. It’s to some extent depending on the eyes that see and how you utilize the opportunities outside of iTunes. There are plenty of small social web pieces, which can be tied together and be a powerful whole if things are done right. And there definitely are other ways of making a living than sales of digital music, and there will be many more, which have yet to be thought of. However, things have probably not evolved enough yet to make THE thing appear. And I guess that’s where the brilliant young person comes into the picture. “To translate the business sensibility that made indie record stores great onto the Internet.”