The New Contract Rider

A new contract rider that's being inserted into recent artist concert appearance agreements might surprise you. It's a condition that prohibits the artist's show advertising from appearing on a pirate site or any site that exploites artists in any way.

Another provision sets the condition that any show advertising can't confuse the artist's brand with one not consistent with the artist. That means that if the artist doesn't like firearms or tobacco or even Republicans, then the advertising for their concert can't be associated with those people, places and things in any way.

As far as brand association, this is just good business. If you're Taylor Swift, for instance, you don't want to be associated with a site that's biker oriented, and if an artist is a proponent of a vegan lifestyle, then being joined at the hip with Ted Nugent just wouldn't work either. This probably wouldn't happen to begin with since any adverts would be badly missing the target market and be just a waste of money, but the contract language now ensures that it won't.

That said, both the promoter and artist are trying to sell tickets any way they can, and let's face it, it's tough going in most markets these days. While all artists hate to be pirated, the fact of the matter is that at least some of the piracy is the reason for the visibility of the act in the first place.

Still, the new contract language just goes to show that everything in the business, including the agreements, is evolving as our media technology progresses.

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When Kickstarter Doesn't Work

Crowdfunding campaigns are sometimes considered an almost can't-miss way to raise money for a project, but that's often far from the case. Even though slightly over 50% of music projects do get fully funded, there have been some high profile failures (think Public Enemy) recently.

The latest is Bjork's Kickstarter campaign to crowdfund the development of a new version of her Biophilia album app, this time for Android and Windows 8. The campaign was cancelled just 10 days in when it reached just 4% of it's goal of 375,000 pounds (about $580,000US).

The original Biophilia iPad app offered interactive modules for each song on Bjork's Biophilia album, which included games, animation and the ability to remix songs. Porting it to both Windows and Android platforms was a way to get it into more low income households in the interest of music education, according to the site.

When it comes to crowdfunding campaigns, there are 3 main impediments to funding:

1. Is the project sexy? Porting an app from iOS to Windows and Android just doesn't grab the imagination somehow. iOS owns the market (at least for now), and a great number of potential donators are Apple fanboys, so the basic premise was never going to work.

2. The reward tiers. There just wasn't anything sexy with the Biophilia app award tiers either. Art prints of the app graphics from a B list artist won't cut it, no matter how cool they might be (and they are very cool).

3. The monetary goal. Let's face it, the lower the amount of money you're trying to raise, the more likely you'll achieve it. While I don't for a second think that the amount Bjork was trying to raise was out of line with its needs, it was just too big a chunk to bite off. Bjork isn't successful enough as an artist to pull a campaign like this off.

For those of you who intend to create a crowdfunding campaign in the future, use this as a template of what not to do.

Here's the promo video for the project.

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Music Delivery Via Balloons And USB Drives

USB flash drives have been a music delivery format of choice for some time. Let's put it this way - nobody ever turns one down because it can always be used for something other than delivering your music. That said, you get a better chance that someone will at least give a quick listen to something that's on the drive, even if they delete it shortly thereafter, which is not the case with most other delivery formats these days.

Here's an interesting way of delivering their delivery system from a Belgian band called Garcia Goodbye having to do with balloons and thinking out of the box. Good job, guys!

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The Grammy Bounce

It seems that this year's Grammy Awards show was the most successful ever in many people's minds (although viewing was down more than 20%), thanks in part to a big social media push on Twitter. Host LL Cool J leaned on the show's hashtags and handle quite a bit, and it seems to have paid off handsomely. The Recording Academy was smart enough to constantly tweet and post behind-the-scenes info during the show, and LL Cool J frequently quoted tweets during the show that indicated that they were listening.

What's more, the Grammy bounce (increased sales after an appearance on the show) seems to have really taken effect this year, after many years of very modest performance. Here's a look at how both songs and artists fared after the Grammys, thanks to 7digital, which powers music on a host of smart phones and tablets.

Songs:

• "I Will Wait" -- Mumford & Sons +394 percent
• "Lonely Boy" -- The Black Keys +367 percent
• "Could You Be Loved" -- Bob Marley & The Wailers +367 percent
• "Adorn" -- Miguel +353 percent
• "Blown Away" -- Carrie Underwood +195 percent
• "Ho Hey" -- The Lumineers +166 percent
• "The A Team" -- Ed Sheeran +133 percent
• "Over You" -- Miranda Lambert +133 percent
• "Home" -- Dierks Bentley +133 percent
• "Daylight" -- Maroon 5 +133 percent
• "Suit & Tie" -- Justin Timberlake featuring JAY-Z +119 percent
• "Carry On" -- Fun. +91 percent

Artists

• Dierks Bentley +294 percent
• Elton John +282 percent
• Carrie Underwood +194 percent
• Ed Sheeran +192 percent
• The Lumineers +170 percent
• Mumford & Sons +158 percent
• Frank Ocean +104 percent
• Kelly Clarkson +71 percent
• Fun. +56 percent
• Wiz Khalifa +48 percent
• Bob Marley +35 percent

We'll take a look at how these acts far with their overall sales in a couple of days.

I've been a critic of the Grammys for a while, but I have to say that I thought this year's show was great. For the most part, it had terrific energy and seemed to answer some of the criticisms that it garnered in recent years (like the forced artist collaborations). Way to go Recording Academy!

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How Much Did Psy Really Make?

Everyone seems to be weighing in on how much K-Pop star Psy made with his global hit "Gagnam Style." According to numerous accounts, the 1.23 billion views earned a total of around $8 million on YouTube, in which Psy received $4 mil. But other sources seem to dispute this and say the overall take is much lower.

Indeed, you hear estimates that vary from $.05 all the up to $.65 per view, but NPR estimates that Psy's take was more like 4 cents per view. The fact of the matter is, any kind of digital stream monetization always seems to be a moving target so it's difficult to tell for sure, and just when you think you have a handle on it, everything changes yet again.

Then add to the fact that most videos don't start out using advertising, and only begin to employ it if it appears to be a viral hit. This can mean that quite a few million views go by the wayside earning zero because it took so long switch to the advertising model.

I don't know about you, but I personally hate ads on YouTube and will do anything to avoid them, especially the 30 second ones. 5 seconds I'll give you, but not much beyond that. Yet, I can't blame anyone for trying to monetize their art and create a new revenue stream.

All that said, you'd expect that over a billion views would generate well over the $8 million figure that's been thrown around. The real fact of the matter is that however much was generated, it's inconsequential to the overal income of Psy. Consider the billion views a huge marketing bonus, since Psy registered big dollars from worldwide concerts and television appearances. As always, your music is not your product - it's your marketing.

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Help support this blog. Any purchases made through our Amazon links help support this website with no cost to you.

Interested in the Music 3.0 archives? Buy The Music 3.0 Guide To Social Media. The best of over 800 posts.

You should follow me on Twitter for daily news and updates on production and the music business.

Check out my Big Picture blog for discussion on common music, engineering and production tips and tricks.