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Category Archives: Music
Kobalt Music deep dive, Part 4
The last article in my series on Kobalt and the future of the music industry steps back and assesses Kobalt market position in recorded music, publishing, and copyright/royalty management give what we’ve learned. Read it on TechCrunch >>
Kobalt Music deep dive, Part 3
Part 3 of my series on Kobalt Music and the state of the music industry digs into the rise, and challenges, of recording artists gaining success without traditional record label deals. Read it on TechCrunch >>
Kobalt Music deep dive, Part 2
Part 2 of my series on Kobalt Music and the state of the music industry breaks down the complex structure of copyright tracking and royalty payments in music and how Kobalt has pushed the industry forward through centralization and transparency. Read it on TechCrunch >> How Kobalt is simplifying the killer complexities of the music […]
Kobalt Music deep dive, Part 1
Similar to my past series on Patreon and the efforts of independent content creators to monetize their core fans, I’m writing a series of posts on the music company Kobalt and the state of the music industry. The fist post explores the founding of (London-based) Kobalt and its overall structure. Read it on TechCrunch >> […]
Interview with Northzone’s PJ Pärson
Today I posted an interview in TechCrunch that I did with Northzone general partner PJ Parson at the SLUSH conference in Helsinki. We talked about the core investment thesis that has guided him for 20 years, how he went from running a fish distribution to running a VC firm, his best practices for effective board […]
What Spotify can learn from Tencent Music
Read my post on TechCrunch: https://techcrunch.com/2018/10/05/what-spotify-can-learn-from-tencent-music/
The war over music copyrights
Read my post on TechCrunch: https://techcrunch.com/2018/09/30/the-war-over-music-copyrights/
Spotify starts signing artists directly
The big news today is that Spotify is offering advances (in the hundreds of thousands of dollars range) to select indie musicians and talent managers in exchange for licensing their music directly to Spotify. By direct licensing, they will get up to a 50% share of royalties plus retain all rights to their work. (link) The […]
Business Models for Media Companies
How do media companies make money? There are 5 overarching business models to generate revenue from content your company creates: 1) transactions, 2) subscriptions, 3) licensing, 4) content marketing, and 5) advertising. Let’s review. 1. Transactions Transactional business models are the simplest way to make money off content: slap a price tag on whatever you create […]