Industry Innovators Gather to Rethink Music

On October 2, more than 150 people gathered in Boston’s Innovation District to join Berklee in addressing the issue of fair pay for music creators in the age of online streaming.

October 22, 2015

The Berklee Institute for Creative Entrepreneurship (BerkleeICE) recently addressed the issue of fair pay for music creators in the age of online streaming at the Fair Music Workshop, a sold-out event held at District Hall in Boston on October 2, 2015. The event was moderated by Rethink Music, a research initiative under BerkleeICE that explores the changing dynamics of the music industry. The workshop drew more than 150 people to Boston’s Innovation District, and attendees ranged from artists, managers, and music industry entrepreneurs to Berklee faculty, alumni, and students, all with the unified goal to not just discuss, but to collaborate, and create ideas that could blaze new trails for the future of the music business.

The event sought to build on the momentum of the report, "Fair Music: Transparency and Money Flows in the Music Industry,” which was produced by Rethink Music. The paper was spearheaded by Allen Bargfrede, professor of Music Business/Management at Berklee and executive director of Rethink Music, and was the culmination of months of research surrounding compensation for music creators. The report—the bulk of which was written by Berklee students—was published in July 2015 and sparked an international conversation in publications such as the Guardian, Forbes, Bloomberg Business, and on NPR.

Watch video highlights from the October 2, 2015 Rethink Music event:

According to Bargfrede, the report was about research and identifying the problem. “Today,” he said at the beginning of the Rethink event, “is about action.”

Here are some of the ideas and perspectives generated from the various thought leaders and event participation throughout the day’s packed schedule.

On Transparency in the Music Industry

“Even the government today needs to tell where it has spent the tax. I don’t see why we don’t have the same situation for creators. . . .[Currently] salaries [for artists] cannot be monitored or audited, and that is completely unacceptable. . . .To me it’s absolutely clear that with clearer licensing and clearer rules we could double the music [industry's revenue streams] in two to three years.” — Willard Ahdritz, CEO of Kobalt Music

“[Transparency] is something that everyone can agree, I hope, is a good thing, but when you come to talking about what it actually is in substance, that’s when it gets quite tricky. So within that context, one of the things we need to focus on is education; we need to focus on making sure we’re all talking from the same principles.” — James Duffet-Smith, global head of publisher and songwriter relations, Spotify

On the Role Technology Should Be Playing

“The music industry is just years behind other types of industries, such as financial technologies, which can be tracked in real-time at the granular level. . . .To clean up [the] data [surrounding music usage and revenue streams], it needs to be aggregated into a single place before you can then distribute it out and democratize access to data. The data is available, it’s just in thousands and thousands of places, so getting it together and cleaning it is one of the big jobs.” — Phil Sant, chief engineer and cofounder, Omnifone

“We need to have standardization of information sets and they have to be global. This is a moment where we truly could have a global music industry. . .with microcash registers ringing all over simultaneously.” — Casey Rae, instructor, Berklee Online, and CEO, Future of Music Coalition

On the Overlap Between Consumers and Creators

“When I look at teenagers now, they’re all creators and they’re all consumers. . . . [What's] interesting for me with the next generation of kids, and the next generation after that, is how we match those guys up to transact between each other.” — Brian Message, manager (Radiohead, PJ Harvey, Nick Cave)

“I see the technology companies and consumer electronic device companies as the new record stores. These are the only people that are able to make sense of a catalog, take it to a consumer, and create a meaningful experience.” — Vickie Nauman, founder, Cross Border

On the "Problem" of Free Music

"We really have to stop talking about 'free'. . . there is no 'free music.' Anybody who says that is not thinking through the value chain. . . . Our music is being monetized every day, every year, to the tune of hundreds of millionsif not billionsof dollars. . . . The problem isn’t that there’s free music; the problem is that the people that make the music aren’t getting any of the millions of dollars that’s being generated." — Eddie Schwartz, cochair of Music Creators North America/Fair Trade Music

“Don’t try and criminalize music fans. . . . What we need to do is try and show people that there is true value in music. I think people understand that there’s value because they want it, but what we need to try and do is persuade them to pay for it.” — James Duffet-Smith, Spotify

[The music industry] has always been in this strange view that the artist always feels like the end of the food chain somehow, even though the music is the core of the industry. . . . We always seem to be the last people in the chain. . . . [Even] the musicians making the music or the actual performers—these people aren’t recognized in the current systems that we have."Imogen Heap (via Skype), artist/songwriter

On How to Better Educate the Consumer Base

"Artists now have a new set of responsibilities that’s come along with all the change that’s happening—artists are going to have to change. It’s their responsibility to educate their own fans about what they believe the best way to access their music is. If they want to keep their music behind a pay-wall, then they should explain to the user why they’re doing that." — Joe Mendelson, musician/entrepreneur and artist advocate

“The artist is a channel, has a voice and a context to what they are doing creatively. Fans are fascinated by what artists do.” — Benji Rogers '92, founder and CEO, Pledge Music

“[The consumers] don’t know; we haven’t told them. . .we haven’t tried a very simple thing like a certification stamp [on streaming services]. . . . The thing about fair trade [music] that I take hope from is when you just give people the right choice very clearly—and you’re educating them, you’re educating consumers—you’re also educating the artists and the songwriters and the musicians at the same time. If you certify with Spotify, for example, everybody who makes music is going to say, ‘Hey, that’s where I want my music.’ " — Eddie Schwartz, cochair of Music Creators North America/Fair Trade Music