GrindEFX

Donald Passman’s seventh edition of his book “All You Need to Know About the Music Business” is available in bookstores today.

Along with the material from the previous editions – the music industry structure, building a team, understanding copyright and publishing, and literally everything else you need to know about the music business – this new edition adds the latest developments from the rapidly changing music business, including:

* The new 360 model of record deals, wherein record companies share in nonrecord revenue

* The Copyright Royalty Board’s latest decisions regarding online transmissions

* The developing customs on new technologies such as streaming on demand, ringtones, and digital downloads

* Updates on recording and publishing deals, as well as film music

I don’t know what else to say about this book that hasn’t already been said. If you’re even thinking about pursuing music as more than just a hobby, you need this book. If you only get one book about the music business, this is the book to get.

Rather than writing a review, I think it suffices to list the thesaurus entries for “definitive.” This book is: absolute, authoritative, clear-cut, complete, conclusive, exhaustive, precise, and reliable.

I saw Mike Masnick post this on TechDirt a few days ago but only got around to reading it this morning. This is a paper written by Bas Grasmayer as part of the research for his thesis on the future of music distribution. Bas analyses 5 musical releases that used new business models; Radiohead’s ‘In Rainbows‘, Nine Inch Nails’ ‘Ghosts I-IV‘, Groove Armada’s ‘Drop The Tough‘, Danger Mouse and Sparklehorse’s ‘Dark Night of the Soul‘ and Mos Def’s ‘The Ecstatic‘.

Click here to read.

After analysing each one he draws the following conclusions:

What does NOT work (well)

• Not going all the way. Fans love free music and so do people that are not familiar with the artist’s work, but if you’re going to give something away then really give it away. If you don’t, you won’t get the attention you were hoping and might even disappoint some fans instead of connecting with them.

Read more…

GrindEFX has been running for just over 3 months now, and I’ve noticed that we haven’t talked much at all about books you should have in your collection. So here is the first installment of our book recommendation series.

Don Passman’s “All You Need to Know About the Music Business” is arguably the most well-known and praised book on the music business. Now in its 6th edition, the book has been universally regarded as the definitive, essential guide to the music industry for over 15 years.

In the book Donald Passman, who is considered one of the best entertainment lawyers in the U.S. with clientele such as Janet Jackson, Quincy Jones, R.E.M., and Tina Turner, covers everything from copyright and publishing to songwriter deals and how to pick a manager. I’m not going to write a review per se because there are a thousand and one of them out there written by people more qualified than myself, here are some you may recognise:

Read more…