Who is the RIAA?

 The RIAA works in conjunction with most major labels to protect and help the music industry flourish.  They help spread the work that piracy is bad news for the economy as well as for music fans.  They file lawsuits again most piracy websites and other sources of online piracy downloads.  They also help keep explicit albums off children’s hands by informing parents about the foul language used on albums with labeling a parent advisory on them.  They also keep count of sales and give out awards for specific plays /sales. They also keep data on consumer habits, genres and ages for future marketing. 

   The Institute for Policy Innovation estimates that the economy loses $12.5 billion a year due to music piracy. 71,060 US job loses, with $2.7 billion in workers’ earnings. $422 million in tax revenue, $131 million lost in corporate income and $291 million in personal income tax. (RIAA, 2011). While piracy is still active on the net, RIAA works with Universities to teach the youth not to steal music online. They also encourage Universities to teach their students new technologies to prevent piracies.  They don’t expect to completely remove piracy. For that’s impossible, however they want it to be controllable in other to flourish out economy.

  The RIAA awards record trophies for amounts of albums/singles sold.  They Provide a trophies for 100,000 units sold which is Silver.  500,000 units would be Gold Record. 1 million units sold will fall under Platinum and over 10 million sold is Multiplatinum. These awards help artist establish better deals through other major labels, and gains recognition in the industry. So we can clearly say that the RIAA is here for the better of our music culture.

RIAA, (2011). For Students Doing Reports. RIAA Organization. Picture also retravied from:

http://www.riaa.com/faq.php

Music Industry and Piracy

Another year of plunging music sales has caused many thinking the unthinkable in the music industry. Due to piracy in the last decade in the music industry; experts agree that digital sales can top off at 5 billion this year. Which is half of what was expected for 2011, and a third of the whole music market. An analyst at Forrester Research said. “ Music’s first decade is behind us and what do we do?”. 

    However music executives say that is not the case. They say that there is hope. As long as they control piracy, which according to industry federation is the vast majority of downloads online.  In numerous countries today, they are cracking down on illegal online downloads. Due to these crackdowns, experts say illegal downloaders will convert into consumers,  and help flourish the music industry once again. Many countries are also contemplating whether to disconnect users that are illegally downloading. However while thousands of e-mails have been send out to suspected copyright cheaters. No disconnections have been enforced. 

   Countries around the world are taking strong actions to increase music sales. Many competitors towards iTunes are fading away. Nokia recently stated that they are giving free phones out with subscription, that include music free downloads. A British pay-TV broadband provider named SKY, recently canceled subscription for music services.

  However while these drastic measures are taken for music sales. Experts say that the main source to fight piracy and redeem music sales is online. Putting stop to illegal downloads is the answer to save the music industry from drowning in its own pool.  

Pfanner, Eric (2011). Music industry braces for the unthinkable. Yahoo Finance. Yahoo 2011. 

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Music-Industry-Braces-for-the-nytimes-310084089.html?x=0

Post 2 for BPD

In my last post I talked about Steve Ells and Mark Cuban and the key components they look for when negotiating a deal. I have noticed that both investors strongly believe in an organized business plan. They both agree that deals are usually turned down when they show lack of business plan.  Mark Cuban believes that if a business plan is thoroughly thought out properly and execute on plan, the business should be a success. So I have been planning my business plan with cautious. Making sure everything makes sense and that they are no issues. Getting the business plan revised should always be an option.

Another key component Mark Cuban pointed out is how much the person looking for a loan is welling to pitch in to the plan. Mark Cuban thinks that if the individual seeking investment for a business, also invests his own money into the business, they will work harder and would be more dedicated to their business. I have not been saving anything for my business plan, so I would need and should start saving my launch money. When I do approach an investor, I will make sure I have a lump sum of cash to pitch in. This will bring ease to the investors and boost their confidence towards my business plan and I.

I believe the most important section of my business plan is the description of the business, for the investors to see. I think my plan is very unique and as soon as they read what my plan is they will be interested. There is a need for what my business plan is and no business is proving this need.  There are over 6 million people with tattoos in the USA, but there is no dedicated school for it. Not yet at least. 

Angel Investors and Entrepreneurs

  Steve Ells is investing his money on a new hit series called America’s Great Next Restaurant. Steve Ells is the founder of Chipotle and he began his restaurant chain with an $85,000 loan from his father in 1993. He was born in September 1965 in Indianapolis, Indiana. He has been appointed Chairman of the board in 2005. Before Ells launched Chipotle He was working at Stars Restaurant for two years. He graduated from University of Colorado with a bachelor of art degree in art history and graduated from Culinary Institute of America.
Steven Ells is one of the investor for Americas Great Next Restaurant, which they are seeking to invest millions of dollars into opening three restaurants in New York City, Minneapolis and Los Angeles. One of the key components is that they are looking for is a unique name. This is a key component because the name reflects to the owners and what they are portrayed as with their company.


  Mark Cuban is the next angel investor I will speak about. Mark was born in Pittsburgh, PA on July 31, 1958. He started his business venture as young as 12 years old. He sold garbage bags to afford a pair of basketball shoes. He eventually paid off his student loans by collecting and selling stamps. Now he is owner of NBA Dallas Mavericks, Magnolia Pictures and chairman of HDTV cable networking. His key component for a business plan is very simple. If there is an actual need for the product. And this key component is simply for profit reasons. Another important key component he looks for is the track of the business plan and the financial records. Also how much money the one seeking investment is willing to pitch in to the table. He believes that business plans that are strongly planed tend to do better then others. Also if one is willing to invest his own money into a business plan they seek investment for, usually work harder and stick to the plan.

http://bpexpertviews.blogspot.com/
http://people.forbes.com/profile/steve-ells/19160
http://www.forbes.com/profile/mark-cuban
http://www.investingvalue.com/investment-leaders/mark-cuban/index.htm

Promote with Soundcloud

Soundcloud is a very beneficial website for artists, managers and labels. The website is an audio streaming website with mainstream artists, local artists and even producers. Sound designers are now starting to use it as their Foley portfolios to gain more gigs. The website contains dozens of tools to promote work. The site is also heavily active with events, auditions and gigs for a small fee.
Soundcloud provide musicians and others the ability to promote their work. Users can also sign up as a fan and explore local and international work. For artists, you can write a bio and provide beneficial links to others for promotion. You can also create playlist widgets to post on popular social sites and even your personal site. The website also gives the user the ability to connect and share with popular social site such as Facebook, Tweeter and Myspace.
One of Soundclouds beneficial tools is its charts position and artist stats. The charts position provides a local and/or an international chart position of how well the artist is progressing. The artist stats provide play count, widget hits and fans. The more fans the more plays the artist will receive, and the more plays the higher the artist will be positioned in the Soundcloud chart. Soundcloud also provides artist with an audition tryout and other ways to allow their name to be known. I personally use Soundcloud and receive many audition or event notifications locally and virtually.
Over all I believe the website is definitely useful for promotion. Artists and managers can also put up their music up for sale on iTunes and other popular music stores. Each user is also provided with a blog ad-on. Artist can use an emailing service to keep fans in tune. This website has it all for upcoming artist, bands and even producers.

Information retrieved from:
www.Soundcload.com

Templates Make Life Easier

Templates can make a project run smoothly in any application-program, especially in Pro Tools. In this blog I will discuss the advantages in creating a unique template for work process. For one to create a new session and begin creating tracks and aux busses to route sounds through, can fairly take up time and distract your creative thinking. Pro tools just like any other application today allows you to create a session and make a template off of it, for future use.
First you would want to create a session, which will come out empty with no tracks provided. You will need to create the tracks desired. You can add tracks with the “track” menu. Many people work differently in Pro Tools so choose the work flow that best compliments your work. I usually start with about 5 mono/stereo tracks, 4 Instruments tracks, 3 auxiliary tracks, a click track and 1 master fader for final audio result. After clicking on “create”, your session is half way done. Next we would have to use the busses routing matrix to route the audio to the correct aux’s and so on. That would be up to you to decide where you want the audio to be routed to, using the busses I/O settings. Once the routing has been done, your session is complete. Now you can save the session as a template, so you can easily use the custom settings you have arranged.
You can save a session template in the “file” menu; it’s called “save session template”. Once you opened up this window, you will need to choose where you want to save the template. I would save it somewhere you can find it easily. Create a new category and save it in there. Now when you open pro tools the system will ask you which template or saved session would you like to use. Simply click on the new category you have created and you will find the template you have saved inside. I also recommend you save it with a name you will remember. Templates just make life easier.

Digidesign (publisher). (2007). Pro Tools® 7.3 - Music Creation (Part 1). Retrieved from:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=knXGQGpXWCw