I. a new social contract

Copyright law was the core element in the social contract between authors and audiences that was negotiated in the 18th and 19th centuries. It worked well in regulating the relationship between commercial parties in the culture industry. The digital revolution has fundamentally changed the media — technological basis of the production, distribution and consumption of cultural goods. Private persons, whose actions have until recently been outside the scope of copyright law, can now be producers and global distributors of creative works. Therefore a new social contract concerning culture has to be negotiated.

The overall goals of this contract remain the same: to ensure the possibility of all citizens to have access to and participate in the knowledge society and their freedom of expression, to ensure the freedom of a diversity of authors and artists to create and their right to an equitable remuneration for the use of their works, and to ensure the freedom of technologists to innovate, in particular the freedom of the Internet that has brought us a wealth of novel ways to communicate, cooperate, and do business.

Also the two core elements of this contract remain: the willingness of authors and artists to create works and the willingness of audiences to pay them for doing so. This payment will continue in a range of ways, from market transactions, donations, corporate sponsorship to forms of collective redistribution like public funding and collective rights management.

For a large number of uses by a large number of individuals of a large diversity of works the conventional response of copyright law is collective management. When in the 19th century composers were unable to individually collect a remuneration from each cafe house and bar that performed their music, they joined hands and formed the first collecting societies that since then collectively collect the money for the community of music authors. When in the 1950s audio tape recorders became available for private use, enabling people to make non-commercial reproductions in their homes, in response the private copying exception was invented in 1965. Neither could the technology or their use for making reproductions be prohibited, nor could authors or even their collectives go after each individual owner of a tape recorder to collect their fair remuneration. Therefore the German legislature decided to permit private copying and required the producers and importers of tape recorders to add a copyright levy to the price of their devices. The music collecting society collects this levy and redistributes it to its members. This private copying exception was quickly adopted throughout Europe and other droit d’ateur countries. The levy was later extended to other recording devices like photocopying machines and video recorders and to recordable media.

Collective rights management organizations (CMOs) thus developed as crucial institutions in the social contract between authors and audiences, ensuring authors a fair remuneration for mass-scale secondary and tertiary uses of their works and ensuring audiences the informational freedom of private copying. Because of their special status, CMOs are subject to legal regulation and public approval and oversight. Internally they are membership organizations with democratic decision-making. Currently in Germany there are 13 CMOs for different work categories (music works, music recordings, text works, images, movies and other audio-visual works). Peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing is a mass-phenomenon comparable to private copying, practiced by about half the Internet population. The adequate response is again a collectively remunerated copyright exception.

II. repression does not work

Today there is a discrepancy between copyright law and the widespread practice of file sharing. So far attempts to resolve this discrepancy were directed at repressive measures in order to make cultural practices conform to the law: in the form of technology (Digital Restrictions Management (DRM)), deterrent campaigns à la “Pirates are Criminals,” and mass-scale civil and criminal proceedings. None of these have had any measurable impact on file sharing. But instead of recognizing the failure and changing the approach, the same logic is bringing forth evermore extremist forms of repression. Excluding infringing citizens from the Internet for up to one year was pioneered in France and is now being called for by culture industries in many countries, including Brazil. The secretly negotiated multi-lateral Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) is intended to introduce this digital death sentence globally. Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) for filtering file sharing out of the Internet is now being tested by UK Internet Service Provider (ISP) Virgin Media and others.

All this is done under the unproven assumption that repression will improve sales opportunities for copyrighted products and with the proclaimed but equally unproven intention to increase revenues of authors and artists. A much more likely and, indeed, observable result of repression is not a decrease of file sharing but an increase of trackerless P2P networks encrypted and anonymous P2P file sharing, of closed trackers, file-hosting, sharing on Usenet, offshore hosting, and hard disk-copying. Repression predictably calls in the next round of the technological arms race. As U.S. law scholar Lawrence Lessig explains, the criminalization of the whole generation of our children “can’t stop these activities, it can only drive them underground.” He points out one dramatic effect it does have: the erosion of the trust in the legal system. If cultural reality cannot be made to conform to copyright law, then copyright law has to be adapted to reality by legalizing what can not be prevented anyway and at the same time ensuring an equitable remuneration to authors.

III. the file sharing exception

The model has been discussed under different names: “alternative compensation system” (William Fisher), “noncommercial use levy” (Neil Netanel), “licence globale” (Alliance Public Artistes), “culture flat-rate” (privatekopie.net and FairSharing.de), “contribution créative” (Philippe Aigrain). Variations of its details are, of course, being discussed, but the contours of the general model have emerged by now. Following the precedent of the private copying exception, the goal is:

a legal permission for private online sharing of published copyright protected works for non-commercial purposes subject to a collectively managed levy.

The permission refers to private, natural persons, thus excluding companies and other legal institutions. It refers to published works, ensuring the right of first publication to the author. Secondary and tertiary uses are already regularly collectively managed. It refers to non-commercial uses: anybody earning money from the use of another’s work will continue to be required to obtain a license. “Sharing” refers to both up- and downloading. While downloading is already covered by the private copying exception in some countries, permitting uploading requires an exception to the exclusive right of making available. “Online” refers to networks using the Internet protocol, both wire-based and wireless. “Levy” refers to a fixed sum to be paid by the beneficiaries of the permission and allocated by CMOs to authors based on the measured popularity of their works. Finally the permission should be implemented in copyright law in order to achieve legal certainty for authors, performers, exploiters and Internet users alike.

A. the culture flat-rate in copyright law

Three models for implementing such a file-sharing permission in copyright law have been suggested.

Mandatory collective management of the exclusive making-available right
This was first implemented by Hungary. Silke von Lewinski from the Max Planck Institute for Intellectual Property in Munich analyzed the Hungarian provision and found it in accordance with international and European copyright law. 18 The French Alliance Public-Artistes commissioned a legal study from France’s most renowned copyright scholar André Lucas who also found mandatory collective management compliant with French, European, and international law. This model was supported by French Members of Parliament from both the socialists and the conservative parties who passed it into law in December 2005. Alas, the decision was reversed soon after.

Extended collective licensing
This instrument has been widely used in Nordic European countries since the early 1960s for broadcasting and cable retransmission and has recently been applied to the reproduction of works for educational purposes and the digitization of works in libraries, museums, and archives. 20 It extends a license concluded between a CMO and a group of users of certain rights to authors, performers and exploiters who are not a member of the CMO. These non-members usually have the right to opt-out of such an agreement. With respect to file sharing, this model has been discussed particularly in Italy, leading to two bills introduced in parliament in July 2007 and in April 2008.

Copyright exception
A third option is to model a file-sharing exception on the time-tested private copying exception. This has been tested by Alexander Roßnagel and his team at the Institute of European Media Law (EML) on commission from the German and European Parliament factions of the Green Party. Their study has shown that such an exception is feasible within the framework of existing German and European law, even though it requires changes in both. They conclude that “[t] he introduction by law of a culture flat-rate therefore requires amendments to both national and European law, yet it remains nothing less than the logical consequence of the technological revolution ushered in by the internet.”

It seems that by subjecting the complete scope of the making-available right to mandatory collective management, the first model is going too far, while the second model is not going far enough. Permitting exceptions to the exception would still require policing the boundary between licensed works and those that have been opted-out of the agreement. Therefore a clearly defined copyright exception is the best option to achieve legal certainty for all parties involved.

B. which works to include?

Empirical research shows that nearly all categories of copyright protected works are being shared to varying degrees depending on the characteristics of the different P2P protocols. Therefore the permission should extend to all categories that are also covered by the private copying exception. Whether computer software and games that have been exempted from the private copying permission and thus also from receiving a share from the levy should be included is up for discussion with the respective industries. 

C. who should pay?

The beneficiaries of the permission, i.e., the individual private Internet users, owe the creators of the works they share. Internet Service Providers (ISPs) do not download music or movies, just as the makers and operators of photocopying machines, audio recorders, and MP3 players do not copy. The argument of a “contributory liability” is not convincing: by the same token the providers of electricity, search engines, computer monitors, chairs, etc., would contribute to file sharing. Conversely, no Internet users would cancel her broadband subscription if P2P were to disappear.

However, for practical reasons, one cannot expect consumers who acquire these devices, media and services to pay the copyright levy in a separate transaction. Therefore legislatures in many countries have tasked the producers and importers of devices and media with collecting the private copying levy. For reasons of transparency and fairness, German copyright law since its 2008 reform requires that end-consumer bills separately indicate the copyright levy included in the price for these products. Likewise, ISPs and mobile phone companies that provide Internet access to private homes are the logical parties to add the file-sharing levy to their monthly customer bills and transfer the money to the CMOs. LAN houses provide a large number of Brazilians who cannot afford broadband at home with access to the Internet. Assuming that their clients actually use file-sharing applications for up- and downloading copyrightprotected works (this needs to be empirically assessed), LAN houses, like ISPs, should add a copyright levy to the price they charge. The rate, however, cannot be so high as to exclude a significant portion of the population from Internet access altogether. Just as with the current plans for establishing a national broadband service, public policy has to balance the interest of society to include all citizen in the opportunities of the digital age with the interests of authors and publishers as well as those of ISPs and LAN houses.

D. are they willing to pay?

The Swedish music collecting society STIM in a survey published in February 2009 found that 86.2% of responding Internet users are willing to pay a monthly copyright levy entitling them to file sharing. 26 This willingness has also been shown when bands like Nine Inch Nails and Radiohead released albums for free download and received significant amounts of voluntary payments from their fans. The online indie label Magnatune.com releases all its albums under a Creative Commons license expressly permitting file sharing, which effectively makes payment voluntary. Magnatune also allows its customers to pay a price of their own choice on a scale from 4-14 Euros. Rather than paying the lowest possible price, the average payment is between 8 and 9 Euros, clearly indicating that listeners are willing to pay creators a price they deem fair.

The same willingness was shown for computer games when in October 2009 the developer 2DBoy offered its game “World of Goo” on a pay-what-you-like basis. Remarkably, it found the average price paid higher for GNU/Linux users than for Windows users and, mapping average payment per country onto per capita GDP, it found the “generosity factor” to be exceptionally high in Brazil. 27 Quite the opposite from industry claims that what is gratis is considered worthless, one can conclude that people acculturated in free and sharing culture are more aware that creators need to be remunerated and more willing to behave accordingly.

E. but I don't share

The copyright levy should be mandatory for all Internet users. Just like permitting opt-out for individual works, making payment optional would require policing the boundary between those who pay and those who do not, which would largely defeat the public policy purpose of the file-sharing exception.

An objection often raised against a levy mandatory for all Internet users is: “I don’t file-share. Why should I pay?” This should be alleviated by differentiating the rate by access speed. Email-only dial-up access should be exempt. Given that half of all Internet users file-share already and nearly 90 percent are ready to pay for legalized P2P, one can expect the number of people to whom this objection applies to shrink even further once a file-sharing exception is introduced. Also non-file-sharers benefit from decriminalization and wider access by gaining a richer cultural sphere.

Cross-subsidizing is already common in many cases. Taxes of citizens without children are used for funding schools. Someone who buys a detergent in a supermarket pays for the advertising-funded movie on “Free TV” that she is not watching. The private copying levy on a recordable DVD is due even if the buyer uses it for a back-up copy of her own data. Finally, if 86.2% of the Internet population are willing to pay for the right to file-share, may the other 13.8% stop it? If so, by the same logic we would not have public broadcasting, opera, health care, police or national defense.

F. how much?

Objectively, it is impossible to determine the positive impact due to its “discovery effect” versus the “damage” of file sharing that a levy might compensate. Subjectively, the pay-what-you-like models give an indication as to how much certain works are worth to certain people. In actuality, rate setting in collective management is a very difficult procedure. In case of the private copying levy, rates are negotiated between CMOs and the associations of device and media producers. For the file-sharing levy, negotiations would include not only ISPs but also artists and Internet users who are paying in the end. Also public mediation by the newly proposed Instituto Brasileiro de Direito Autoral (IBDA) would be helpful, if not even essential, for successfully concluding an agreement in the public interest.

Ever-since Fisher calculated the fair amount to be roughly US$5 per month, five has been the magic number in the debate, varying between dollars, pounds, euros, reais, etc. For a Brazilian household that can afford broadband Internet access, five reais per month is not a prohibitive amount. Assuming 6.6 million households with broadband Internet access in Brazil, R$5 per month yields an annual amount of R$396 million.

Revenues for music CDs and DVDs reportedly decreased by 31.2% (or R$141.7 million) to R$312.5 million in 2007, while in 2009 ECAD (Escritório Central de Arrecadação e Distribuição ) was able to distribute 17.06% (or R$46.34 million) more revenues from collective management of music rights to its members than in the previous year. Movies generated revenues of R$966 million in 2008 at the box office, which was an increase of a full 25% over the previous year. Movie DVDs reportedly saw a drop by 10.83% from 27.2 million units sold in 2007 to 24.7 million in 2008. Conservatively assuming a sales price of R$40.00 this amounts to a decrease by R$120 million. The Brazilian book market showed a slight annual increase as well, by 6.03% to R$2.286 billion in 2007. The increases in cinema and book revenues occurred in spite of widespread file sharing, and there are reasons to assume that also the decrease for recorded music and movie DVDs are unrelated to it. But even if one assumed that file sharing is the single cause for the decline of the market for music and movie discs (by approximately R$261.7 million) and that the levy would have to compensate for it, the levy proceeds of R$396 million would be more than sufficient to do so.

A realistic approach, of course, cannot start from such a simplistic and flawed assumption. It will have to take into account the complex dynamics in each of the sectors and include the whole range of revenue channels for creative works like live performances, cinema screenings, commissioned works, merchandizing, etc., that have been shown to be positively impacted by file sharing.

For the music industry it has been shown that the revenues from 2000 to 2008 remained stable, with the decrease in recorded music made up for by increased revenues from live music and collective management. Recorded music sales are shifting rapidly from CDs to digital distribution. Commercial download services, by ensuring quality, speed and freedom from malware, will be able to compete with legalized P2P, which, being open networks, will continue to suffer from these three issues. After all, iTunes was established at a time when P2P use was already widespread. In particular new business models based on fairness, benefit sharing, and transparency like Magnatune and those promoted by the Fair Music Initiative will increasingly attract both artists and paying audiences. According to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry’s (IFPI) 2010 annual report, album downloads globally rose an estimated 20% in 2009, with Internet and mobile downloads and streams now accounting for more than a quarter of all recorded music industry revenues worldwide. An important public policy goal is cultural diversity. Since 2000, the worldwide annual release of new music albums has more than doubled. Thus the digital environment is clearly promoting diversity. The increase is due to the activities of independent labels and, since it occurred during the time of the rise of file sharing, one can conclude that file sharing is helping rather than hindering cultural diversity.

Last but not least, a realistic approach has to start from recognizing the fact that current levels of authors’ income are far below the average national income in all professions, that a few stars gain a disproportionate percentage of the revenues, that female authors earn significantly less than their male colleagues, and that the typical author’s income has been decreasing since 2000. These facts are unacceptable for a society that defines the culture and creative industries as its central dynamic. In fact, audiences are aware of this unbearable situation of authors and artists, leading to voluntary payments that are on average higher than the forced payments in services such as iTunes. Therefore, it is not unlikely that negotiations about fair rates for the file-sharing levy that primarily involve artists and audiences will result in higher rates than if collecting societies and industry associations were to conduct them alone.

Thus, rather than “compensation” of alleged “damages,” the system should strive to create “sustainable resources for creative activities in the digital era” that ensure that this creativity can flourish and grow. The seemingly simple question “How much?” actually leads to the core of the social contract between artists and audiences that is currently being negotiated.

To read the full article, please visit here.

If you haven't made it out to one of our events yet, take a look at this video to see what we've been up to for the last couple of years. We're constantly evolving our processes and we will be launching on two new continents this year as we land in Brazil and Israel for two brand new transmitNOW initiatives.

Posted on our MediaCore video channel, this short piece will give you "cliff notes" version of what to expect when attending a transmitNOW initiative. Enjoy!

Many believe the world needs a new digital infrastructure for the management of rights and attribution.

It’s about credit, but it’s also about compensation, and addressing the 800 pound gorilla in the room- that existing revenue flows are not making their way back to the artists, because of incomplete information. This creates a significant disincentive to solve the problem of insufficient data - a source of considerable frustration and discussion among the delegates.

A metadata coordination body

With so many parallel and competing efforts in process to push standards forward in metadata, there was a clear need stated for a coordinating body to connect the efforts and ensure interoperability and collaboration where possible. Various groups identified the leadership gap, and the need for a neutral organization to step in to fill that void in order to ensure coordinated progress.

Open Registry

Some argued for the creation of an open registry for rights and attribution, turning to a market model based on the example of internet domain registrars, which would force rights holders to participate in order to avoid mis-attribution. Others argued that this could be a dangerous and irresponsible invitation to fraudulent and malicious registration much like the cyber-squatting that has plagued domain registries.

Metadata Omnivores

From the perspective of service providers, the lack of comprehensive metadata in a central registry is not perceived as a problem, but is simply a condition among many others which has forced them to apply other approaches to managing the complexity of identification.

One group explored user-generated “swarms” of data, which would gather around files, be it behavioral or contextual, which through time would be of sufficient density to allow for robust analytics. Mapping the “lifecycle” of a file, they discussed how this spontaneous metadata could be used to target advertising, aid discovery and otherwise provide avenues for the monetization of a piece of content. By building intelligence into platforms, they could make up for the lack of official metadata by being “metadata omnivores”.

User driven, user-centric models

Related to the generative approach to metadata, above is the stream of behavioral data which results from users “doing what they do” - an entire stream of data that is currently captured by platforms and service providers as a mode of tailoring and monetizing their interactions with users.

This is just an excerpt from the full 2012 report. Each attendee at all of our transmitNOW events receives a comprehensive report after each event.

Take a look around, we've got all of our latest video content up on the site, as well as all of the interviews from TGS 2012, so if you missed the event this year, you can still see some of the interviews that took place on our stage.

New content includes exclusive interviews between CBC's Michael Enright and Microsoft Research's Bill Buxton, Michael Enright and Paul Hoffert, CM. of York University, and CBC's Nora Young and Angel Gambino (Co-founder, Rosa Parks).

From the outside looking in, this year’s transmission: GLOBAL SUMMIT (TGS 2012) didn’t appear different from the one held in the exact same location roughly one year ago. There were familiar faces. The tables in the banquet room/auditorium were laid out in much the same way. Founder and CEO, Tyl van Toorn, looked slightly disheveled but composed, his hair frantic from being pushed back ten thousand times while making ten million decisions leading up to launch. And a delicious scent of croissants, eggs and bacon wafted through the air upon arrival.

Indeed it was by all sensory accounts very much the same as last year on day one. On further inspection, however, noticeable differences appeared. The opening interviewer was again to be a CBC Radio One host, but this time it was Michael Enright instead of Nora Young (she would be on stage later). The focus of the conference was more refined, too, zeroing in on the singular theme of sustainability in the creative industry rather than the larger, broad stroke questions of 2011. But probably the most profound difference between this year and last was that the glorious breakfast buffet put on by the Inn at Laurel Point, from which a savory fragrance had previously inspired intellect in the minds of not just a few tired souls, was horrifyingly designated: For Hotel Guests Only. (Aghast!)

Yet, interestingly, in the face of such a hurdle, the line up for breakfast remained the same as it was last year. Groggy but deep, it was populated by a defiant group of trespassers amongst the legitimate paying guests – brainiac bandits pinching fruit plates and pancakes.

It may seem off point to be using the apparent disregard for breakfast protocol by a few at TGS2012 as the intro to this piece, but it isn’t. What’s important to remember about Transmission participants is that they are part of this event because they are of a different kind – they’re not your average worker bees; nor are they happily herded away from something they desire. Participants of TGS are those who look beyond protocol. They are innovators, artists, creators, entrepreneurs, business execs – and many of them are rule breakers who have at one point or another advanced their respective fields by doing what they saw as suitable rather than what was expected, often with outstanding results. It just so happened that what several of them determined as suitable in the early moments of the conference, was breakfast.

CREATING A SUSTAINABLE INDUSTRY

The concept of sustainability in the creative industries is not a simple one. It has many moving parts, and many people have many perspectives on what those parts are and how they are valued. And during the few days of TGS 2012, participants were to hear almost all of them.

After launching the conference with a speech from Butch Dick, a representative from the local Songhees First Nation who granted TGS 2012 permission to use the traditional land, Michael Enright took the stage. Venerated journalist and host of the CBC Radio One program, The Sunday Edition, Enright was joined by Bill Buxton, Principal Researcher at Microsoft Research.

The pair discussed Buxton’s work – an impressive catalogue of innovation built over 30 years of involvement in research, practice and commentary in and around design and human interaction with technology – as well as his passion for riding horses, ice climbing and his 20 year music career.

Buxton is a casual person, his look bordering on boomer-hippy, yet through the conversation it becomes apparent that he is a man with compelling perspectives.

“Technology is like plumbing,” he says. “The only time you should know how it’s working is when it’s broken and there’s crap all over the floor.”

For Buxton, the issue of sustainability relies on innovation in the creative industry. One has to look beyond the status quo and take risks. But he isn’t willy-nilly about that. “Practicing risk requires training, tools, fitness and partners,” he says. Risk can be calculated (like the way a person might determine through experience that pocketing a croissant isn’t that risky at all). To find success, "use the skills of the people who are where you are going,” he suggests.

The conversation between the two is fascinating, and it leads easily into what is arguably the most interesting element of TGS – the roundtable discussions, which are facilitated by The Value Web.

The Value Web is a team of highly engaged individuals whose sole directive seems to be getting participants to engage in heated debate. For TGS 2012, they placed participants at randomly determined, pre-designated tables and had them study seemingly unrelated subjects, such as coral reefs, the human body, ants and bees. The groups were to then make connections, drawing analogues from the natural world and linking them to those of the creative industry. The resulting dialogue and passionate discussion were a pleasure to be a part of, if you can handle the obvious ideological clashes.

The roundtable discussions are where the real genius of TGS can be seen in action. At any given moment, a table can be comprised of titans of the music industry, early-stage start-up developers, writers, band managers or musicians – and the list goes on. At one such table, David Basskin, head of CMRRA (Canadian Musical Reproduction Rights Agency), who vehemently believes his industry is being undermined by thieves who are pirating music without penalty, was put together with Conor Holler, founder of Deebo, a revolutionary online game that turns having diabetes into something more fun. Holler is certain consumers won’t ever revert to paying premiums on downloaded music. Coming at it from opposing perspectives, the pair was forced to amicably debate sustainability issues such as piracy, with input from others at the table. Then, they had to share the outcomes with the group at large. It was a scene that played out across all the tables throughout the two days.

Of course the roundtable discussions don’t immediately result in a kind of creative industry utopia where everyone gets paid and everyone is happy and everything finds equilibrium. Far from it. In fact, most people at opposing ends of the spectrum only become more staunch in their perspectives. But for those who are slightly more ambiguous, there is real meat to these debates, which continue away from the tables, at meals, over cocktails, and during coffee breaks. They provide serious insight into a constantly changing industry landscape, and if one can separate from his or her emotional ties, they may ultimately trigger legitimate ideas for solutions.

The outcomes of transmission: GLOBAL SUMMITs have always been somewhat vague due to the conferences’ unique design. Friendships and clandestine deals to develop new approaches, technologies or organizations tend to move into email correspondence during the weeks that follow the event. Participants take what they learn and apply it to their respective projects and a large number of people check out until the subsequent event, where they meet the familiar faces again to argue, debate, drink, eat, laugh and do it all over again. But that's all about to change.

At the end of the first full day of the conference, Founder and CEO, Tyl van Toorn, took the stage with Dr. Don McLean, Dean of Faculty of Music at the University of Toronto, to make an announcement that may have a serious and lasting impact on the direction of the creative industry. Together they announced their intention to establish a unique, strategic partnership between Transmission and U of T, creating a global institute for the creative industries unlike any other.

"After six years of developing and executing a series of events around the world,” says van Toorn, “Transmission is ready to evolve into an international institute.”

Through its many different and connected pieces of creative endeavor, the Transmission Institute will become an academic space for research, training and discourse, and a driver for creative industries innovation that is permanently functioning – year round.

Dr. McLean, who is heavily leaning on van Toorn to become Transmission Institute’s first director (an obvious fit), had these words about the partnership: “We are very excited about the Transmission Institute initiative at U of T. We hope to sustain the mission of Transmission between summits and to develop a dynamic research and training environment that will ensure leadership presence and problem-solving capacity in creative digital media technologies."

So it seems that after over a dozen events internationally, Transmission has finally found somewhere a home.

WHERE DOES TRANSMISSION GLOBAL SUMMIT GO FROM HERE? 

With the introduction of the Transmission Institute, many questions arise. One immediate question is, why? If Transmission really is a global think tank, why can’t it remain loosely based out of Victoria, BC? The events already happen in Toronto, China and Brazil. Why make a permanent move?

Sitting outside with van Toorn late at night during a wrap up party, I pose a personal question to him with that in mind: is he going to sell his house here?

“No way!” he says, leaning up from the wall to get in my face about it. “I love Victoria and I’ve got a plan. I’ll be back here in five years.”

For those who know Tyl, the comment is valid. Boisterous and confident (some might say cocky), he is a person who genuinely says what he means, even if you don’t want to hear it. His commitment to this project is commendable, especially considering the personal risks he took over the years to see it through. But it still doesn’t answer the question of why.

van Toorn never really offered a clearly defined answer, but there are obvious reasons. Toronto is major metropolitan city with endless amounts of creative thinkers passing through it everyday. The University of Toronto already has a rich history of innovative research initiatives and they are fully behind keeping the tenets of Transmission in tact. Tyl himself is an explorer of new opportunities and this represents something he cultivated over years – he’s seeing it through.

One answer van Toorn does offer is that it doesn’t actually matter where the Transmission Institute is housed. Being that its relevancy is global, it could be placed anywhere. He has a good relationship with U of T and they saw an opportunity and this puts Canada at the center of innovation for creative endeavor. Personally, I think what he really wants beyond anything else, is an honorary PhD, which may or may not be in the cards.

Despite a new home in Toronto, the transmission: GLOBAL SUMMITs will continue internationally and in Canada. van Toorn has openly admitted that a conference of this design couldn’t be held in Toronto, so Victoria, the Province of British Columbia, and all the partners who have helped grow this project into what it is today will remain a big part of the Transmission into the future.

Whatever the outcome, it was obvious at TGS 2012 that Transmission is becoming something big. It has always had the credibility of being an interesting event with a participant list that could make any creative industry geek drop dead from heart palpitations. But it has been on an arc of legitimacy over the years and is now finally being centered somewhere. Let us just hope that going into the future, breakfast is included.

Innovation Camp was an intensive time for 4 startups leading up to, during and following the summit. I stopped by Shoal Point’s Royal Roads campus to check out the proceedings as the pre-summit portion drew to a close.

One of the first things I recognized almost immediately was the intimacy of Innovation Camp. During the first two days, I believe there was a bonding that took place between all those involved, and I most certainly didn’t want to come in and disrupt that flow – or seemingly “mess” with what they had achieved in the first two days. So I excused myself from the area until close to the end of the activities, returning when the teams were in breakout session with their mentors so I could get a glimpse of what Innovation Camp had to offer and not intrude while doing so.

Camp participants engaged and discussing over each other's Business Model Canvas. 

Wednesday was dubbed “Act Day”, and there certainly was a lot of action going on as I moved from station to station. The energy at each station was electric; there was passion flowing through both those presenting and those taking in the presentations. The ideas were flowing freely. I noted that there was a richness – an abundance – of not only energy and passion, but talent, creativity and innovation that was bubbling over.

Throughout the campus offices, there were inspirational quotes on the pillars – you couldn’t miss them. They were emblematic of the activity going on inside. They didn’t stand out to anyone walking past the office, where the light from outdoors easily shone through the numerous windows. But they definitely were reminders as you walked around; they drove me to action just being around them for a few moments. I can only imagine what they did for the Innovation Camp attendees over the entire period they were around them.

Some of the ways The Value Web and Jonathan Imme, facilitators of the Transmission Innovation Camp, presented concepts served to spur growth in very unconventional ways. From asking startups to compose an elevator pitch that their young nephew could understand to having each startup come up with full stories to be used by their counterparts rather than themselves, this isn’t something you’d get at a traditional startup event. The approach used by The Value Web really allows the flow to occur – I’ve always found that the analog methods so many of us toss aside are far better for this type of work than digital or electronic methods. The platform makes for frictionless flow – and I could tell that it was working for the participants.

Transmission Co-founder & Executive Producer, Tyl van Toorn, drops by and gets down to action with mentors and startups at the Innovation Camp.

The curation process for these startups is crucial; they need to be receptive to what Innovation Camp offers on all levels, or no one wins. I felt that even while I was there at the tail end of things, the camp moved with all of the momentum of a perpetual motion machine; the gears were constantly turning. Ideas were being taken to new heights, minds were wide open, barriers were being taken down and doubts were being challenged – and in most cases, even quashed.

As I semi-patrolled the landscape, dotted not only with those pillars of quotes, but with Post-Its, Sharpies, flip-charts and whiteboards, there was never a sense of “the glass being half empty” – there was “fullness” no matter where you turned. There was structure within the flow and flow within the structure. That’s incredibly rare.

Even as The Value Web team tried to pull everyone back to the plenary room before lunch, it was a challenge to pull them away from their breakout sessions. There was still much to do – and learn – in their minds.

Since I wasn’t actively participating in the process, here are some of the “overheards” that caught my attention afterward, right from those attending:

• “…the most fun I’ve had talking about business in a long time.”
• “I’m usually so busy with my own business. To analyze everyone else’s business was fascinating.”
• “…it was fun to inject yourself in situations you’re not usually remotely exposed to.”

As for what could happen with Innovation Camp, some suggested bringing in more startups – one mentor even said he could have handled more than the four that were present. It was even mentioned that Innovation Camp should go abroad, to tackle markets beyond the scope of what North America has to offer.

Ultimately, the takeaways for those present – including myself on a much smaller scale – was that Innovation Camp was an amazing experience. Despite it only being in its first year, it may already be time to take it to the next level, as it has for those who were lucky enough to be part of it.

To read Mike's full summary of transmission 2012, please visit his site: www.vardy.me

transmission GLOBAL SUMMIT 2012 Photo Set

Participants take in the opening remarks at the first day of transmission: GLOBAL SUMMIT 2012, in Victoria BC

In order to preserve the cross-sectoral platform for dialogue and balanced international representation unique to TGS, organizers are now becoming increasingly selective with the 10 additional spots.  While TGS organizers are still considering all applicants, preference will be given to those representing film & tv, digital video, gaming, and information technology.

TGS's 150 coveted spaces have been taken up by some of the world’s leading creative industry leaders, thinkers, creators and entrepreneurs.  In 2012, participants will have the opportunity to have frank discussions with some of the biggest and most leading outfits such as Beggars Group, Microsoft, Nokia, Live Nation, Sony, WIPO, PacketVideo, Sonos, Rdio, Slacker, and more.  For more participating companies, please click here.

TGS's intimate roundtable format will also provide exclusive opportunities to intimately engage – for 3 days – with key leaders and thinkers that are inspirational figures on stage, such as Bill Buxton, Principal Researcher at Microsoft Research and renowned author of Sketching User Experiences; Michael Enright, Host of "The Sunday Edition" on CBC Radio One; and Angel Gambino, WIRED Top 100 Entrepreneur, whose latest project is Rosa Parks, a new incubator invigorating the creative industries of Detroit.  For more on-stage presenters,please click here.

TGS will elegantly engage all participants in specialized B2B discussions based on specific topics curated by TGS's network of experts, such as metadata, digital video, screen-based entertainment, and more.  For full descriptions on our B2B programme and our supporting partners, please click here.

For more information on TGS, including Transmission Innovation Camp, transmitLIVE evening programme, conference programme and current registration rates, please visit:

http://www.transmitnow.com/transmission2012

To request an invitation to participate, please visit:

http://www.transmitnow.com/request-invitation

TGS has received support from the following partners to date:

A world-class interview with global thought leader in design and innovation will set the tone for all 150 participants at TGS 2012.  

transmission: GLOBAL SUMMIT 2012 is extremely pleased to announce that CBC’s Michael Enright and Microsoft Research’s Bill Buxton will be joining us for a live interview on stage to open up TGS on Thursday, February 9^th.  

A Principal Researcher at Microsoft Research, Bill Buxton has had a 30 year involvement in research, practice and commentary around design, innovation and human aspects of technology. Following a 20 year career as a professional musician, he morphed into a researcher at Xerox PARC, then Chief Scientist of Alias Research and SGI Inc. He has been awarded three honourary doctorates, is the co-recipient of an Academy Award for Scientific and Technical Achievement, received an ACM/SIGCHI Lifetime Achievement Award, and is a Fellow of the ACM. He is the author of the acclaimed book on user interface design, Sketching User Experiences, and is a frequent columnist on design & innovation in Business Week. 

Michael Enright’s journalistic talents span over decades as he has written for Time magazine, held the role of editor of Quest and was an assistant managing editor of Maclean’s Magazine, where he oversaw the magazine's shift from a monthly to a weekly publication. Enright has also worked for The Toronto Star as a political writer and was a Washington correspondent for the Globe and Mail.  Michael Enright’s extensive history at CBC (Canada's national public broadcaster) includes hosting Radio One’s The Sunday Edition since September 2000. Before joining The Sunday Edition, Enright hosted This Morning for three years, and spent 10 years hosting CBC Radio's As It Happens. 

Michael's past interview subjects have ranged from concise, investigative coverage of the Gulf War to interviewing dignataries like the President of Iceland on where the country is heading after the collapse of their economy. Unafraid to drill down and head straight to the point, Michael has been the source of information to all Canadians who care about what's happening in their world, and demand journalism that provides answers.

And this doesn’t really even begin to dive into either one of these men’s accomplishments over the years. Please check our website to read their full, extensive bios, as well as links to a few pertinent essays by Bill Buxton.

We are very fortunate to be able to open our conference up with such a high level of dialogue this year and we can’t think of a better way to set the tone and intention for this exploration of sustainability in the creative industries. Also worthy to note, not only will Michael and Bill be presenting at TGS this year, but they will also be engaging in the roundtable discussions with fellow transmission participants. 

Please visit our Speaker page for a full list of our speakers' bios.

Transmission is excited to welcome four startups that represent a cross-section of sectors within the creative industries to take part in TGS.  While these companies will be undergoing a transformation of their own over the eight-day camp, they will also have the chance to interact and collaborate with participants during the conference, bringing a new level of involvement and understanding to sector-specific issues. 

Two BC-based, music-centered startups who will be joining the Innovation Camp: CafePlaylist and Songspin.fm. 

CafePlaylist: An online service dedicated to improve retail venue performance licensing compliance and to provide related value-added services to venue owners, consumers and industry organizations. CafePlaylist aims to dramatically improve the value proposition of licensing compliance to venue owners through ways such as: a simplified, one-stop licensing subscription that covers 90%+ of the popular catalogue, new advertising and social media opportunities through their online consumer portal, and value-added offerings via the company’s partnerships with audio hardware manufacturers and streaming music services.

Songspin.fm: A music discovery website that creates custom radio stations made of the hottest and freshest tracks on the internet. Songspin.fm began as a way discover new music by simply clicking a button to “spin” and get a new song that, ideally, the user has never heard before. With an aim to have users beginning to hear great music as soon as they come to the site, Songspin.fm is shifting the focus to providing playlists of great music from legal sources. With this shift, discovery will be not from “stumbling” through random songs, but from algorithms that will insert top quality music from a variety of external charts and sources into the stream. For more information, visit: www.songspin.fm.

Representing video and online platforms is BC-born Mediacore:

MediaCore: A cloud-based online video platform that allows anyone to create, customize, and monetize their own video community. MediaCore is a online video content management and publishing platform. It enables any company to create their own video site where they can control every aspect of the user experience. MediaCore allows organizations to upload, encode, manage and deliver their videos to desktop and mobile browsers and makes it easy to publish videos either publicly or privately to groups of users.

And touching on the latest area of "gamification" is Ontario-based Deebo:

Deebo: Deebo is a web and mobile application that improves the quality of life for people with diabetes by providing an incentivized, game-like approach to blood glucose and lifestyle management. Unlike traditional approaches of managing diabetes, Deebo transforms the day-to-day requirements of the condition into a more engaging interactive experience, thereby converting them from medical “necessities” into an interesting and fun daily activity. For more information, visit: www.deebo.com.

TGS’s 'Monday-to-Monday' Innovation Camp is set to begin in just twelve short days. Joining us will be our conference facilitators, The Value Web, fresh off the plane from Davos, Switzerland, due to their work at the World Economic Forum, as well as Jonathan Imme, from untilweseenewland, Germany. Transmission also welcomes the support of visiting mentors, Paul Hoffert, CM. (Professor, York University and Chair of Bell Broadcast & New Media Fund), Steven Masur, Esq. (Managain Partner, MasurLaw) and David Neale (President, Neale and Associates). With support from our Innovation & Host Partner, the Province of British Columbia, our Programming Partner, CFC Media Lab, as well as our Research & Education Partner, Royal Roads University, the Transmission Innovation Camp has a wide pool of resources and support to provide to the first intake of startups in this inaugural program. 

Full more information on the Transmission Innovation Camp, please visit our website. 

Innovation Camp is supported by:

THIS IS TRANSMISSION GLOBAL SUMMIT 2012

Two weeks from launch and inside the Transmission team office there is already a palpable sense that something huge is about to take place. It’s a “no time for mucking about” kind of feeling that gets rolled into the boardroom, where Tyl van Toorn (founder and CEO) is laying out how and why February’s conference in Victoria, BC, is incredibly important to him and you and everyone you know.

“Our platform has been increasingly described an aperture between various artistic and industrial interests," says van Toorn. "We play at an intersection where academic, artistic and entrepreneurial activity converges very chaotically, and we consider it our duty to contextually support the strategic decisions participants are making for themselves and the organizations they represent have greater bearing and more valuable outcomes."

In a very real sense, transmission: GLOBAL SUMMIT (TGS) is a congress, a convergence of key decision makers from all positions within the creative industries, who come together to make legitimate choices that can spark sustainable shifts in a turbulent digital ecosystem. 

THESE ARE THE PIECES

 But let's be honest, industry conferences happen. A lot. So why is TGS 2012 unique, or even important? Why is it that some of the most influential players from the creative industries and media block off time to attend each year? Simply put, it's because no other conference in the world puts as much focus on delegate integration. Curators and programmers use physical space, socio-anthropological disciplines, technology, and creative media to facilitate connections and nourish new ideas. It is about voyagers within the creative industries interacting and showing others how they see the world from their own positions.

Punctuated by keynote speeches, forums with senior industry executives from around the world, and interviews by renowned CBC journalist, Michael Enright, TGS provides participants verifiable opportunities to find inspiration in new ideas.

While Transmission tends to focus on a unique roundtable design process there are some key interviews hosted by media icons such as Michael Enright (CBC’s Sunday Edition) and Nora Young (Spark). Key interview guests include Bill Buxton, Principal Researcher at Microsoft, and a pioneer in human-computer interaction; Eric Garland, CEO of Big Champagne and GM for LiveNation.com; Paul Hoffert, Composer and Professor at York University; and Angel Gambino, Serial Entrepreneur & co-founder of Rosa Parks LLC. The interviews are less about highlighting the achievements of celebrities and tend to focus on adding an intellectual, artistic and entrepreneurial context to the roundtables and B2B forums.

On top of this is a powerful series of B2B forums sponsored by private and public sector institutions such as Slacker Personal Radio, PacketVideo, CFC Media Lab and you quickly realize that this project prides itself on solving problems by creating a framework to analyze the facts.

Also added to TGS 2012 is a newly evolved program called Transmission Innovation Camp, an innovation camp/business accelerator with four dynamic startups, each chosen for their capacity to be game changers at global level.

Plus, each day is jam-packed evenings of artist showcases, exhibits, and digital media installations.

All of these elements work together with a specific objective of connecting people to ideas and to each other, and you begin to understand what makes TGS 2012 so unique and inspiring.

WHY IS IT IMPORTANT?

transmission: GLOBAL SUMMIT’s very design reflects the fluid nature of the creative industries and technology. Far from being a static entity, Transmission is ever expanding to become a valuable crossroad between education, production, science, consumerism, creation and delivery of all aspects from within the creative industry. Transmission has initiated the development of businesses challenging traditional media structures, helped connect individuals building genuine revenue models that benefit both creators and consumers, and has been an integral facilitator for a game company developing gaming modules to tackle degenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s. 

“Transmission tends to attract people who are intellectually and entrepreneurially inspired,” says van Toorn. “We’re bringing elements of an aspiring world together into one place and helping create serious, legitimate and effective outcomes that will help add value to the creative arts ecosystem.” 

Two weeks out and there is already a very tangible sense that something huge is about to happen… 

For more information on programming for transmission: GLOBAL SUMMIT please visit our website.

transmission: GLOBAL SUMMIT 2012 Program and Participants Released

transmission: GLOBAL SUMMIT 2012 is about driving results and providing participants an opportunity to strategize and plan for a more sustainable future in their respective creative sectors. Our Facilitation Partner, The Value Web, have taken an integrative approach to our conference design this year and participants can expect to take part in a number of B2B Focus Groups that will allow them to connect with a wide range of their contemporaries.

 David Neale and The Value Web's Aaron Williamson at the TI Summit at U of T, November 2011

Through The Value Web’s general architecture of Scan, Focus and Act, the proceedings will enable participants to collectively create shared context and language, identify the most important challenges and ideas, and formulate actions to be taken to address them. This process will enable participants to achieve this year´s conference objectives, which are to envision and plan for current and future developments of the digital industry, develop a long-term vision for its sustainability and to identify what that means for participants and partners. 

// B2B focus groups

This year's menu for B2B topics include:

• Setting universal standards to apply metadata across the music and entertainment industries (hosted by SOCAN). The SOCAN Metadata Forum is almost full, register now to ensure your spot. 
• Standardized metadata and reporting systems in the digital music ecosystem (hosted by Canadian Music Publishers Association)
• The importance of Screen-Based Entertainment (SBE) and how the SBE sector might change over the next five years (hosted by the Province of British Columbia)
• The ongoing relationship between consumers and artists (hosted by CFC Media Lab)
• Creating value in the digital music ecosystem (hosted by Slacker Personal Radio)   
• Value creation for end-users of Digital TV and Movies (hosted by PacketVideo)

                                      

                                                                   

Jonas Woost, Paul Hoffert, Richard Stursberg, Omri Dolev, David Ben Kay, Eric Garland and Angel Gambino at the TI Summit at U of T in November, 2011.

// thought leaders on stage

This year we are welcoming a variety of thought-leaders, scholars and innovators on stage from all sectors including television, software development, interactive media, gaming, music, literature and news media industries.

• On stage for a “fireside” collaboration will be Paul Hoffert, CM. CEO, Hoffert Communications, Professor, York University, Dr. Don Mclean,  Dean at the Faculty of Music at University of Toronto and Sandy Pearlman, Visiting Scholar, McGill University.
• CBC’s Spark Host, Nora Young, will be interviewing Angel Gambino, SONOS Advisory and Co-founder of Rosa Parks LCC, Detroit’s newest incubator.
• Eric Garland, CEO of BigChampagne, will be taking lead as our General Facilitator.

For a full programming details on our Presenters please visit our website.

// roundtable participants to date

This year’s roundtable participants will include leaders and thinkers from some of the world’s most respected organizations involved in the delivery of digital content.  Companies to date include:

• AUX TV
• Berklee College of Music
• BigChampagne
• BMI
• CBC Radio One
• CFC Media Lab
• Digital Media Centre
• Emily Carr University Of Art + Design
• Gowlings
• Great Northern Way Campus
• International Confederation of Music Publishers
• IODA
• Lewis Silkin LLP
• Live Nation
• McGill University
• Microsoft
• NARM
• Nokia
• PacketVideo
• Province of British Columbia
• Rdio
• Roadhouse Interactive
• Slacker Personal Radio
• SOCAN
• Sonico
• Sonos
• SonyDADC
• Telefilm Canada
• University of Toronto
• York University

For more companies to date, please visit our website.

// Transmission Innovation Camp: A Unique Acceleration Programme for Startups Between Content and Technology (February 6 - 13, 2012 | Victoria, Canada)

Launching for the first time in transmitNOW’s history, the Innovation Camp is a unique acceleration programme integrated with transmission: GLOBAL SUMMIT dedicated to startups at the intersection of creative content and technology that leverages the expertise from transmitNOW’s international network of creators, academics, and business leaders. 

Held over the course of eight days, three to five selected startups will be working in focused business modeling sessions in conjunction with a group of renowned mentors and The Value Web. Transmission Innovation Camp participants will have the opportunity to engage face-to-face with decision-making leaders and experts in the content and technology industries through the intimate surroundings established at transmission: GLOBAL SUMMIT 2012.

Startup companies to date include:

• CafePlaylist: an online service dedicated to improving retail venue performance licensing compliance and providing related value-added services to venue owners, consumers and industry organizations.
• MediaCore: a cloud-based online video platform that allows anyone to create, customize, and monetize their own video community (www.mediacore.com).
• Songspin.fm: a music discovery website that creates custom radio stations made of the hottest and freshest tracks on the internet (www.songspin.fm).

For more information on the Innovation Camp, including the mentors, supporters and how to still apply, please visit our website.

//transmitLIVE Showcase

The centerpiece of our transmitLIVE Showcase will feature a Gala & Dinner in the Dark at the Atrium on Thursday, February 9^th, in downtown Victoria. Each transmission participant will be treated to an amazing multi-course, locally sourced dinner by celebrated chef, Bradford J. Boisvert, of Cowichan Valley’s Amuse Bistro. Local BC wine will accompany each course, and the evening will be illuminated by candlelight in the expansive glass and wood interior’s of the stunning Atrium. After dinner, participants will get to watch the premier of Malcolm Levy’s digital media installation on the interior of the Atrium, as Junior Boy’s Jeremy Greenspan plays a live DJ set to accompany the performance.

For a complete list of creators involved in the transmitLIVE showcase please visit our website. 

// conference schedule

Partners to Date:

// Late Registration Rates are now in effect!

2012 is a Year of Change; Expect New Things on the Horizon

We are officially less than one month out from transmission: GLOBAL SUMMIT 2012! Following up on our sold out event last February, we have reached even higher registration numbers to date this year and we expect to sell out in the very near future.

We have formed more partnerships this year, increasing our B2B Forums, as well as offering the highly anticipated SOCAN Metadata Forum. We have also spent the last month revamping our entire conference process with our facilitation partner,The Value Web, which will revolutionize the experience at this upcoming edition of transmission: GLOBAL SUMMIT.

We would like to take a moment to announce our partners to date and thank them for supporting transmission: GLOBAL SUMMIT 2012:

We gratefully acknowledge the financial support of our Host Partner & Innovation Partner:

• The Province of British Columbia

Research and Education Partner

• Royal Roads University 

Metadata Forum Partner

• SOCAN

Programming Partner

• CFC Media Lab 

B2B Partners

• Canadian Music Publishers' Association 
• Slacker Personal Radio
• PacketVideo 

Media Partners

• CBC Radio One
• CBC Radio 3

transmitLIVE Partners

• Radio Starmaker Fund
• BC Hydro Powersmart
• Red Bull 

Facilitation Partner

• The Value Web 

Stay tuned for next week's mail out as we will be announcing our major programming elements and B2B Agendas. For our most current conference schedule please click HERE.

Register Today! Late Registration Rates will be in place after January 15^th, 2012!

transmitLIVE at transmission: GLOBAL SUMMIT (TGS) 2012 is about bringing the cross-sectoral collaborations of the daytime into our live programming at night. With an intent to blur the lines between music, art and digital media, a wide variety of artists will be taking the stage over the course of three days during TGS. Highlights include:

Innovative Film/Light/Video Installations

• In partnership with CFC Media Lab, transmitLIVE will bring together digital media creators and custom installations that will be interwoven throughout transmitLIVE venues 
• Canadian artists, Malcolm Levy and Peter Hagge, will both be presenting visual and digital media installations over the course of transmitLIVE 

Artist Showcasing

• Artist highlights include performances by Jeremy Greenspan of Junior Boys, Dan Werb of Woodhands vs. Kids & Explosions and the Red Bull Scratch Series, which will put three DJ’s on stage to collaborate and produce a live video scratch show

Gala and 'Dinner in the Dark' at The Atrium

• This VIP dinner by the candlelight will host all TGS participants and launch a live video mapping installation that ‘brings buildings to life’ on the interior of this architecturally stunning and environmentally sustainable building

The Atrium, venue for the Gala and Dinner in the Dark

Curating this diverse programme has involved one of the most celebrated creative minds in Canada, Malcolm Levy, of New Forms Media Society. 

Malcolm shares his plans for Victoria and what participants can expect from this year’s showcase. “For transmitLIVE, we are looking at how audiences can experience a performance in new hybrid ways and showcase how the industry can progress towards fostering this type of live performance. You're going to see an incredible lineup of cross-genre Canadian artists who are incorporating elements such as AV and interactivity into their sets.”

Malcolm’s work has been presented across the world in India, Australia, China and Germany, and most recently in Istanbul in September, as he presented on 'Other-Frames' at ISEA, The Inter-Society for Electronic Arts. His most recent Canadian installation, A Place to Reflect, premiered at Nuit Blanche Toronto in 2011. Malcolm was also the curator of CODE Live at the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, where he oversaw the programming of over 40 interactive media artworks and 8 performances across the city.

Joining Malcolm for transmitLIVE is Rob Calder of Secret Study, who’s attended 7 out of 9 of all transmission events (!) both in North America and Asia. Rob’s extensive experience with transmitLIVE complements Malcolm in curating the transmitLIVE series. As well as leading Secret Study, Rob also co-owns the west coast independent record label and artist management company, Boompa Records.

All delegates participating in TGS get VIP access to the full transmitLIVE programme.

While the lofty nature of transmission’s roundtable conversations have been our signature offering, our respect for moving ideas from “vision to action” has led us to our highly successful B2B format. These are specialized, expert-level meetings that enable participants to accelerate the narrative on the real issues affecting the creative content industries. One of the best examples is the SOCAN Metadata Forum at transmission: GLOBAL SUMMIT (TGS) 2012.

In the context of this year's conference theme, Sustainability in the Creative Industries, no topic right now is arguably more pertinent than that of metadata, and SOCAN is returning to host Part Two of the SOCAN Metadata Forum, a programme that was first introduced and met with critical acclaim at last year’s TGS, and is almost at maximum capacity for this coming February.

The goal of the SOCAN Metadata Forum is to raise awareness amongst business decision-makers regarding the importance of metadata to the content creation sector and to develop an action plan to effectively integrate metadata development into business processes.

“The inspired discussion about metadata amongst various players in the content creation industry at last year's transmission will be taken to a whole new level at the 2012 event,” said Eric Baptiste, CEO of SOCAN. "The interactive and collaborative approach to problem solving at transmission will help us move quickly in developing a way forward for the industry.”

While there are a number of key directions these meetings can go in, there are two focuses that are already being refined.

One focus is geared to stakeholders seeking to build common language and systems that will directly address the technical and regional incongruities that presently exist. Key topical questions that have been put forward include:

1. What metadata and identification systems are required across the whole music (and media) industries, and by sectors within it, and is it currently available? If not, what needs to be done to create it? 
2. What are the constraints within individual organizations and across the entire industry to the creation, management and communication of well-formed metadata and identification systems and how can these be overcome? 
3. How are metadata and identifiers to be communicated around the whole ecosystem for the benefit of all players that need them?

The second focus is dedicated to authoring clear, concise messaging for non-expert decision-makers aimed at shining light on the massive benefits of developing universal identification systems supported with a cross-sectoral, international implementation strategy.

This will be one of eight major B2B forums presented by industry, academic and governmental partners from around the world this year. Stay tuned for more announcements coming shortly.

There are only 7 spots remaining in the SOCAN Metadata Forum and with the highest recorded pre-event registration numbers coming in, now is the time to register before prices increase and spaces fill up quickly in January.

In order to register for the SOCAN Metadata Forum, participants must first REGISTER for transmission: GLOBAL SUMMIT 2012. Due to the limited space available, spots in the Forum will be based on first-come, first-serve registration for the conference.

transmission: GLOBAL SUMMIT (TGS) continues to take a new, innovative approach to evolving dialogue and outcomes at the intersection of creative content and technology. We are focused on providing a unique meeting process that connects “transmitters” to a network of experts who will challenge, stimulate and drive participants to identify insights and goals essential for sustainable business practices.

Sounds heady and ambitious, right? Exactly the opposite, this is about being impactful, innovative and relevant, and it all comes down to the method.

Our new method to be launched in February is geared to participants seeking to define balance in their long-term strategic goals with the immediate challenges of a complex industrial environment. Leading this new process will be The Value Web who have worked with us for the past three events on two continents. Their expertise in working with organizations like The Aspen Institute and the Harvard Graduate School of Education, not to mention the annual World Economic Forum in Davos, resonates well with the network of experts that have increasingly made TGS their priority meeting of the year.

The Value Web facilitator, Todd Johnston, explains, “The structure and flow of the event will facilitate the open, emergent conversations and ah-ha's! that have branded TGS as a 'spa for the mind' while also providing a platform for delegates to design with specific scenarios and outcomes in mind.”

Keeping in mind the needs of all of our attendees, Johnston remarks, “We're excited by the challenge of designing an event that is at once unifying for the whole ecosystem of the creative industries, while also providing inspiration, relevance and usefulness at the level of individual delegates.”

Less is More: One Overarching Theme for 2012

Traditionally TGS has always featured three themes for discussion, but as we move towards a more action-oriented format, we have chosen to focus on only one overarching theme throughout the event.

TGS founder and CEO, Tyl van Toorn provides some context, “Over the past years at transmission, we’ve essentially tried to break out our roundtable as simultaneous conversations. But now we’re starting to realize that less is more.  Having said that, there are likely going to be anywhere from 12 to 15 hotspots of “intent” that people will be able to voluntarily gravitate towards during the roundtable sessions. We’ll be providing more structure, but on the other hand, it will be much more voluntary in the sense that you can decide what you want to work on”.

2012 Theme: Sustainability in the Creative Industries - The long-term vision for the digital content ecosystem

The commercialization of creativity comes hand-in-hand with standards to quantitatively measure this output in terms of growth such as ROI, etc.  However, unlike the case in most consumer products and commodities, artistic output is not often measured in traditional economic terms.

Looking forward, it is essential to build business models around creative content that integrate the current digital environment while anticipating future developments that may affect the distribution of creative content. For an industry that’s constantly in flux, a balance must be struck between planning for the present and the future, while respecting the need to encourage creativity.

Registration for transmission: GLOBAL SUMMIT 2012 will be offered at the Regular Rate until January 15th.

Putting pen to paper, weaving thoughts into plots and bringing images to life

As the Transmission Institute begins to embark on a narrative of what we do, how we do it, and what we believe in, it seemed natural to adopt the role of a storyteller, sharing our experiences of our events and the ideas we take away from them with the world.

Chapter One: Facilitate is the first of a 3-part video series on our most recent initiative, transmitCHINA 2011, which took place in Beijing from September 14^th- 17^th at the Commune by the Great Wall. A fascinating three days, we’ve distilled the event’s discussions and revelations into three chapters, each one encapsulating a video linked to the Transmission Institute’s signature event process of Facilitate, Exchange and Leverage.

Embodying the first theme of Facilitation, this story illustrates how a transmission event encourages the breaking down of traditional barriers that separate the creative and digital sectors.

transmitCHINA doesn't stand alone

Each year, the Transmission Institute produces an international summit in Victoria, Canada called transmission: GLOBAL SUMMIT (TGS), which is the flagship event in our worldwide series. While more international in scope in comparison to transmitCHINA, TGS is the very event that started it all and gave shape to every other event we’ve put on over the past 7 years. Everything you see at transmitCHINA, started at TGS, plus so much more.

Running from February 8-10^th 2012, TGS will include the signature roundtable format (as seen in Chapter One) specialized B2B sessions, Keynote Speakers, the signature transmitLIVE concert series, and the inauguration of a venture acceleration programme.

Registration has already opened and is filling up quickly. We only invite 150 delegates out each year and transmission: GLOBAL SUMMIT sold out last year, so register today and join us as we start the next chapter in our story.

REGISTER NOW

Or

REQUEST AN INVITATION

The narrative at transmission: GLOBAL SUMMIT 2012's signature roundtable initiative is about breaking down silos amongst creative content sectors, technology companies and the investment community. It is about intimate and candid conversations between influencers within the film, television, interactive media, gaming, music, literature and news media industries. It is about balancing topline, roundtable discussions at 10,000 ft. with B2B forums that drill down on relevant issues that affect the future of the ecosystem. It is about a new programme that is designed to accelerate new ventures and commercialize innovative business models by entrepreneurs who want to create better and sustainable delivery systems for creative content.

BUILDING VALUE BY BREAKING INDUSTRY BARRIERS

Since its inception, transmitNOW events throughout North America, Europe and Asia have traditionally been anchored in the mission of creating opportunities for creators and innovators in the global media industries. However, the project has evolved to be something much greater as transmission uncovers an interesting irony through reaching its ultimate goal. 

“After evaluating some of the outcomes we were having with a media-centric event, we realized that other sectors could find great benefit in opening up narratives with players outside their comfort zone," says Tyl van Toorn, transmission Co-founder and Managing Director. “Our sense of it was that media industry leaders would gain greater strategic value from being at a table with technology companies, academics and the investment community rather than meeting amongst their peer group from the same sectors.”  

In order to effectively break down the industry silos that typically prevent the growth and birth of innovation, it is essential that a wider section of constituents are present at the roundtables, including tech companies, bandwidth providers, content creators, non-traditional business models, innovators, artists and creative content producers, disseminators and owners.

A NEW INTERNATIONAL ADVISORY BOARD   

The transmitNOW initiative has always been guided by roughly a dozen or more international members. The International Advisory Board advises on the themes and participant selection process of transmission events, resulting in a more strategic invitational methodology. 

The new International Advisory Board is comprised of the following members:

• Julien Bares, CEO China, 2K Games, China
• Omri Dolev, Co-founder, Lev Group Media, Israel
• Angel Gambino, VP Business Development, Sonico, Argentina
• Eric Garland (Chair), Founder and CEO, Big Champagne Media Measurement, USA
• Paul Hoffert, C.M., CEO, Hoffert Communications, Professor of Digital Media at York University, Canada
• Mark Jowett, Co-founder & VP International A&R/Publishing, Nettwerk, Canada
• David Ben Kay, Chairman, Yuanfen~Flow, China
• Ralph James, President, The Agency Group, Canada
• Kaiser Kuo, Director of International Communications, Baidu, China
• Mark Montgomery, Founder and CEO, FLO, and EIR, Claritas Capital, USA
• David Neale, President, Neale & Associates, Canada
• Jim Rondinelli, SVP Corporate Development, Packet Video, USA 
• Catharine Saxberg (Past Chair), Executive Director CMPA and Vice-Chair Popular Bureau ICMP, Canada
• Rob Wells, President of Global Digital Business, Universal Music Group, USA
• Simon Wheeler, Director of Digital, Beggars Group, United Kingdom
• Lisa Whynot, Attorney, Hertz & Lichtenstein LLP, USA

Citing the need for a more diverse board Eric Garland, CEO of BigChampagne and the new Chair of International Advisory Board, noted: “It was apparent that this new direction was best served by a more diverse set of perspectives that represent a greater overall ecosystem."  

Jim Rondinelli, SVP Corporate Development, Packet Video, and current member of the International Advisory Board also comments on the progress taking place. "transmission has evolved from being a meeting of content creators looking to share thoughts about the challenges in the digital landscape to become a Davos-like confab of thought leaders, innovators, disruptors and financiers. Everyone attending transmission events are looking to gain and/or grow personally from the robust interaction with people outside their usual lines of business."   

IN-DEPTH B2B STRATEGY SESSIONS

And as with many things, it comes down to balance and harmony. transmission: GLOBAL SUMMIT 2012 and onwards is about balancing out the inter-sectoral, macro-level narrative with more outcome-oriented, ground-level B2B meetings that benefit companies here and now. 

"Our aim is that innovation and entrepreneurship find a foundation to take root on the ground this year," says Garland. This is important as a focused effort begins with nurturing ideas into meaningful business models through increased sector-specific B2B sessions followed by more effective, real-time reporting structures.

A NEW VENTURE ACCELERATION PROGRAMME 

transmission: GLOBAL SUMMIT 2012 will also see a brand new element within the transmission family, a venture commercialization programme executed by the newly founded Transmission Institute. With all of the right people in the room with the right knowledge, it seemed natural for transmission to evolve into a platform where ventures can receive professional guidance and opportunities for funding. More details will be released in November surrounding this new offering.

HOW TO PARTICIPATE    

For more information regarding transmission: GLOBAL SUMMIT 2012 and other Fantan Group initiatives, visit www.transmitnow.com. To request an invitation to attend, please complete an Online Invite Request Form or contact the Registration Coordinator at reg.coordinator@transmitnow.com. 

A Fantan Group initiative, transmitNOW has hosted over 10 conferences worldwide since its inception in 2005.transmission: GLOBAL SUMMIT 2012 is by invitation-only and allows for a maximum of 150 creative industry executives.

// missed out on transmitCHINA?  Register today for our international flagship event, transmission: GLOBAL SUMMIT, held in Victoria, Canada from February 8-10, 2012!

REGISTER NOW

or 

REQUEST AN INVITATION

Introduction

In his last State of the Union Speech, President Barack Obama used the terms “innovation” and “innovate” over eleven times.  One of the few areas of political consensus is that the West needs to increase its innovation and creativity in order to avoid terminal economic and cultural decline.   Where do innovation and creativity come from in the sectors most of us work in?  Differences in relation to the question of the extent to which intellectual property rights support or hinder innovation and creativity are often the backdrop to how we conceptualise the approaches of East and West.  Assumptions are often made that the East has looser intellectual property law systems and that these must be tightened to reward original creators, reduce piracy, and create safe conditions for technology transfer. It is perhaps a timely moment however to consider our own Western intellectual property systems, systems that an increasing number of commentators are arguing are so broken and dysfunctional that they now damage rather than support innovation and creativity.

A Broken System?

There has always existed radical critiques of intellectual property laws and in particular their creation of state sponsored monopoly rights.  These have always been minority voices, often centered on the work of libertarian economists; what’s different now is that mainstream voices are becoming increasingly critical of both copyright and patent systems.  In August this year, the influential Economist magazine declared in a leader article that “the patent system has been stifling innovation rather than encouraging it”, and around the same time, the UK’s Guardian newspaper asserted in an editorial “Patents are now a multibillion-dollar industry in which companies find it more attractive to make money suing each other for infringement than actually making things”.   Against this background, it may be useful to explore these criticisms before continuing to pressure countries such as China to further harmonise their intellectual property systems with those of the West.  

What are Intellectual Property Rights For?

The traditional argument has always been that a society provides legal property rights in inventions and creative works in order to reward, and create incentives for, innovators and creators.  This system of law is said to benefit the owners of intellectual property but also the society as a whole.  The wider society benefits not just from the steady stream of inventions and creations but also from the dissemination of ideas, knowledge, and information that would, in the absence of legal protection, tend towards secrecy or limited dissemination.  In the light of the public dissemination of ideas, knowledge and information, any follow-on innovation can avoid unnecessary repetition and instead focus on pushing forward the cutting edge of progress.     In addition, intellectual property law systems are designed to embody checks and balances that further ensure the balancing of rights holders’ interests with those of the wider society, through the limited duration of the rights granted and the allowance of “fair use” and other permitted acts.

All of this sounds reasonable enough, so what has led to the increasingly fractious debate about the functionality of Western intellectual property systems?

Two Competing Themes

Two competing themes in western strategic thinking have been developing during the last two decades.  The first theme has been the increasing realisation that the manufacturing base of most western economies has been seriously eroded in the face of competition from the east, that this erosion is probably permanent, that the value of western economies now lies in its past and future production of intellectual property, and that intellectual property laws and their application must be tightened up in various ways to enhance the protection and value of these assets and ensure their safe and profitable exploitation in domestic and global markets.    The second theme is that enhanced protections in intellectual property law may actually be undermining innovation and future economic growth because innovation and creativity become unduly obstructed by the overly oppressive recognition, scope, duration, and enforcement of intellectual property rights.  The patent system can be explored to better understand the premise of the second theme.

Patents

There has been massive growth in levels of patenting, with over 6 million patents operative worldwide, and nearly 200,000 new patents granted in the US alone every year.   A large part of this growth is coming from the computer software and information and communication technology (ICT) sectors.   It is in these highly incremental, collaborative, complex sectors that the scope and validity of patents is often inherently uncertain compared with technological sectors where innovation tends to work in a less sequential, more stand-alone manner such as in the pharmaceuticals sector.  In a strongly sequential environment it can be difficult to ascertain where the boundaries of protection claimed by one patent lie in comparison with another patent. The proliferation of patents of uncertain scope and validity leads to an environment where litigation or the threat of it is commonplace.   Smartphones are perhaps the most obvious market where there is a “thicket” of overlapping and uncertain patents leading to both aggressive and defensive strategies on the part of those working with these technologies. 

Aggressive Patent Strategies

Aggressive patent strategies are perhaps most apparent in the rise of companies and organisations (Non Practising Entities – N.P.E.s – or “trolls”) that are not themselves involved in the patent activity but that accrue patents as a resource with which to profitably license or litigate.  In such an uncertain patent environment, NPE’s can disrupt even the largest companies, as was seen in the patent infringement case brought by NTP Inc. against Research in Motion (RIM) who came under pressure to settle the case in order to avoid an injunction that may have forced closure of their BlackBerry service. In a complicated settlement, they ended up paying NTP Inc. over $600 million.   In another case pending, an N.P.E called Lodsys, is suing many companies involved in Iphone app development on the basis of a controversial patent they own that purports to cover buying things from within a smartphone app.   A series of very widely drafted patents have had a profoundly disruptive effect within these sectors, as most ongoing innovation cannot but infringe them.  The limited range of materials that that the Patent Office will examine in determining “prior art” appears to have enabled the grant of some uncertain patents of ambitiously drafted scope.

Defensive Patent Strategies

Defensive strategies are perhaps best illustrated by large technology companies amassing software patents (usually by purchase or by expensive membership of patent portfolio companies) not for their fundamental innovative value, which may be highly suspect, but for their potential in defending legal actions brought by those exercising the aggressive strategies referred to above   Earlier this year, 6,000 patents of the tech company Nortel were put up for auction as part of the company’s liquidation.  Silicon Valley’s biggest companies entered into a bidding war for this patent portfolio, and it eventually sold for $4.5 billion to Apple and a consortium of other tech companies including Ericsson and Microsoft, the largest patent auction ever. Google’s bid for the Nortel patents was unsuccessful, but this summer it successfully purchased Motorola’s mobile phone activities for $12.5 billion. Google spent this vast sum in part because they acquire over 17,000 software patents under the purchase.   Amassing these arsenals of patents is rarely about pursuing actual lines of innovation but using them as a shield against litigation (often by arguing the litigant has itself infringed the defendant’s patents) or as a bargaining chip in cross licensing negotiations (we will license you our patents if you license us yours and drop all threats, or we will reach an agreement to pool them).   Cross licensing arrangements of course are rarely available to innovative small and medium size enterprises (SMEs), on the basis that they can’t usually afford to hold these arsenals, and, in any event, the offer to cross license will rarely be of interest to an NPE pursuing an aggressive patent action because they do not require the licensed use of the defendant’s patents.

Higher Transaction Costs, Reduced Innovation

In short, in fast moving sectors, the burden of patent searches, clearance and licensing, together with the risk of litigation has created an environment of high transaction costs, barriers to entry and, most likely, reduced innovation.   The situation in the US is worse than in Europe where there are certain restrictions operating on the types of computer program that may be afforded patent protection and also restrictions on the patentability of business methods.  The US Congress will shortly be considering certain reforms to the patent system but few commentators believe that the problems referred to above will be adequately addressed.  

Prior Innovative Leaps not Associated with Intellectual Property Rights

It is interesting to consider the profound innovation that characterised these sectors at an earlier time before they were characterised by intellectual property rights.  Bill Gates has spoken almost nostalgically of these times noting that “If people had understood how patents would be granted when most of today’s ideas were invented, and had taken out patents, the industry would be at a complete standstill today”.   Prior to 1981 it was not possible to patent software at all in the US (see Diamond v Dier 1981 and also 1994 re Alapat).  Graphical user interfaces, widgets such as buttons and icons, search algorithms, font displays, databases, compilers, assemblers, linked lists, word processing, computer languages and numerous other innovations that have generated inestimable growth and a flowering of follow-on innovation all occurred outside of patent protection because they occurred prior to 1981.  Had these innovations been locked down under the patent burdens described above for the full 20-year patent duration it seems probable that our computer and ICT sectors would be nowhere near where they are today, and yet we risk creating exactly such a stifling scenario for the next 20 years.   Fortunately, some important software innovations made even since 1981 have escaped the patent stranglehold by virtue of the fact that their developers didn’t have the resources or inclination to attempt to patent them; perhaps one of the most significant examples being the web browser, first developed not by Microsoft but by NCSA, who put the NCSA Mosaic browser on the market in 1993.  Similarly, the open-source software movement has ensured a continued environment free of intellectual property monopolies, an environment where competition determines the allocation of resources and revenues and innovation is maximised.  What is interesting about the open source movement is how despite the lack of monopoly controls over reselling it commercially, powerful profitable companies still emerge within the movement.   (Boldrine and Levine 2005). 

Old Myths Examined

The recent dissatisfaction with the operation of Western intellectual property systems in relation to enhancing innovation, has led some commentators to review the history of intellectual property and innovation.  Old myths have been re-examined in the light of new understandings.  For example, the heroic inventor of the stream engine, James Watt, has been subjected to the scrutiny of two economists, Michele Boldrin and David Levine (“Against Intellectual Monopoly, 2005).  They conclude that the patents granted to Watt actually served to slow down innovation and the development of industrial society.  Watt was shown to be aggressively using his patents to delay and inhibit rival development of the engine.  By his refusal to enter into licensing agreements, innovations that were superior to the patented steam engine technology were held back from market until the expiry of Watt’s patents despite having been developed very soon after Watt’s innovations (and in some cases prior to them, but frustrated by Watt’s superior use of the legal system).   Boldrine and Levine examine many other examples of IPRs holding back innovation, for example in the agriculture sector.   Before 1930 patents were not granted in this sector, and yet the advances in agriculture enabled most agricultural workers to move from the land to industrial sectors, such was the increased agricultural innovation and productivity in this pre-patent period.  After 1930, patents could be granted for only a narrow range of plants, and it wasn’t until the 1970s that patents were extended to a wide range of plants, and then in the 1980s extended to biotechnology.  The authors studied total factor productivity in the sector throughout this period and found no increase after the granting of enhanced patent protections, and note that the astounding increases in corn yields actually levelled off.

After examining many sectors the authors find an almost unlimited number of cases that leads them to question the relationship between patents and innovation.  Added to the already existing substantial body of research that questions the relationship between international patent enforcement and economic development, and this work raises serious questions about our reliance on intellectual property law systems that may actually be damaging our long term abilities to innovate and grow.

Innovation Reconsidered

When Isaac Singer invented the sewing machine he innovated in ways that didn’t just provide us with the sewing machine, but a whole new interface for consumption of his product.  By understanding the cultural context of his invention, he effectively invented the instalment plan and the “trade-in”, both novel methods of selling to women.  It seems likely that the most valuing-adding forms of innovation will increasingly embody this aspect of inventive technology being harnessed to a greater understanding of the cultural context of the technology. “Code is culture” may be the refrain we need to align ourselves with, rather than traditional notions of backroom, top down invention, and restrictive IP regulations.    

Pete Dyson

Barrister

Senior Lecturer London Metropolitan University

Founder of The Future Music Business Research Unit

As the team prepares to fly home and return to the reality outside of the Commune by the Great Wall, we felt it was essential to give a quick highlight of the best event we've put on in China yet. For those who attended and for those who couldn’t make it, here are the “best of show” in our minds for the past four days in Beijing.

The Welcome Reception at Cantilever House - We’d seen the photos online but we quickly realized that the architecture and scenery at the Commune could never really be done justice by the photos. The environs at Cantilever set the perfect tone for the next two days as people got to know each other in this inspiring space.

The Roundtable Discussions - We witnessed the simultaneous discussion of all three themes at each session, at each table. Never before have we seen such a rapid and open exchange of perspectives from the East and West across the tabletops at transmitCHINA.

Keynote Presentations - Participants were privy to intimate stories from a wide cross-section of the creative industry leaders, ranging from social gaming, to television, to music. Delegates were witness to inspiring stories about a startup's sharp ascent to success and dealing with adversity (PapayaMobile), to perspectives on content in the age of internet from the Head of Music and Entertainment of Baidu.

B2B Sessions - We heard from a number of participants that this year’s B2B sessions were the most enlightening they had been to yet in the transmitNOW history. Partners received the opportunity to discuss their own business agendas in curated spaces with selected attendees, while participants received the opportunity to connect with their new sectoral allies on the issues of the future.

Social Gatherings - Networking continued long into the evenings as participants enjoyed a most memorable evening around the pool and were treated to unique performances such as Mongolian throat singers, Dawang Gang.  We also enjoyed the rare opportunity to have a champagne toast on the Great Wall of China, a memory that will stay with many of us for years to come.

And of course, a big thank you to each and every one of our partners who made this event possible for all to enjoy, as well as a special thank you to our host producers in Beijing, Split Works, for all of their support on the ground.

And for those of you who missed out, you can register here for our international summit in Victoria in February, transmission: GLOBAL SUMMIT 2012.

Photo: Mongolian throat singers, Dawang Gang

Photo: transmitCHINA 2011 General Co-Facilitators - Eric Garland, CEO, BigChampagne and Kelly Cha, Host of ZhaZhaClub Show 

Photo: Keynote Speaker - David Ben Kay, Chairman, Yuanfen~Flow

The transmitCHINA team has touched down in Beijing and the journey has begun! Rest assured, there’s still plenty to do before we start welcoming participants tomorrow, but Richard Gottehrer, Founder and Chief Creative Officer of The Orchard, managed to arrive a bit early at the Commune by the Great Wall to check out the scene and we thought we’d take a minute out to join him.

The Commune has surpassed all of our expectations. It’s simply amazing. Set high in the mountains, we discovered a path that led us directly to a secluded section of the Great Wall. We took on the twenty-minute walk up hill and were well rewarded when we arrived at an unrestored, historic section of the Great Wall of China. We can confidently say that this is truly off the tourist track, so of course we couldn’t resist a great photo-op; we even had a willing model to strike a pose!

Richard is happy to say that he can now cross something off his bucket list and we’re willing to bet that this will be on a few other bucket lists of attendees this year.

We hope you’re all excited as we are about the next few days. Happy packing and safe travels, looking forward to seeing you all at the beginning of transmitCHINA 2011 tomorrow!

Mark your calendars. The dates have been set and registration is already coming in for transmission: GLOBAL SUMMIT 2012. On February 8^th, 9^th, and 10^th we’re once again hosting this international, invite-only summit in our amazing home base of Victoria, BC, Canada.

Pre-registration opened in August and we’ve been honestly surprised by the depth of the response. We are experiencing an early surge in registration while still many months out from the event. This is quite unprecedented in the history of transmitNOW events as invitees tend wait until we announce speakers and programme

As we look forward to transmission: GLOBAL SUMMIT 2012, it is clear to us that certain aspects of our programme  are perfect just they way they are  while other elements should continue to evolve. The very nature of the world that we operate in is constantly in motion and shifting in context of new discoveries, innovating thinking and consumer preferences.  We have always been of the opinion that events tend to be fairly good indicators on the health of an industry. We are constantly amazed at the speed change taking place in the creative content and digital media sectors. As a result we are excited to leap forward alongside these changes.

// A few diversified options that participants can look forward to at transmission: GLOBAL SUMMIT 2012:

• Expanded B2B Discussion Forums: A sold-out 2011 conference has resulted in increased interest from partners and key industry leaders in getting real insight into how the creative sectors view the future of digital developments. Expect to participate in more focused B2B sessions and even a few micro-conferences in and around our dates for transmission.
• Increased International Involvement: As we head into transmitCHINA 2011 next week and continue to build momentum with our transmitNOW initiatives, one thing is becoming clear to us: people are starting to get this. As more and more people leave our events with valuable knowledge, leveraged business ideas and new networks, more people are beginning to see the inherent value in an event that lets them interact, face-to-face, with other thought-leaders in the creative and tech industries. As a result we’ve had a major breakthrough in terms of international interest in attending our events.
• Curating the Curators - redefined transmitLIVE Showcases: Expect to see some of the most refined and interactive global music showcases and multi-media displays that transmission has ever presented in Victoria. We’ve got some of the most innovative music curators such as New Forms Festival, Radio Starmaker Fund and CFC Media Lab on board to ensure that this year’s showcases are fully aligned with the latest in cutting edge technology with the freshest talent on stage. 
• Innovation Camp for New Ventures: Working with a global team of serial entrepreneurs and investors, transmission: GLOBAL SUMMIT will be playing host to a new accelerator design to equip a shortlist of new ventures with early stage investment, legal and financial management resources, mentorship and exposure opportunities. This new feature will be announced in 30 days.

// Staying true to what put us on the map:

 Don’t worry, not everything has changed!  We are strictly loyal to our core programme design, which we believe to be vital to the success of transmission: GLOBAL SUMMIT:

• transmitNOW Signature Roundtable Discussions: Feedback and exit surveys have consistently come back with the clear response to what is best about transmission: Excellent format, amazing people! The most valuable experience for participants is having the chance to talk one-on-one to each other in intimate roundtable sessions. We will continue to focus our efforts on finding the best people from the most relevant sectors to attend our event, and we will continue to work on defining each individual roundtable (over 50 of them) by handpicking each table to ensure healthy, cross-sectoral representation.
• Innovative and Enlightening Keynote Presentations: Every year we strive to seek out the presenters that will deliver information that isn’t just significant, but meaningful to each participant. These unsolicited talks aren’t just speeches; they are stories, candid accounts and relevant insight delivered by industry insiders who have the passion and drive to make their dreams a reality, and they deliver crucial global industry intel to all participants.  
• 150 Participants, No More, No Less: It has always been our objective to stay true to this number. It has deep socio-anthropological significance, as it is the optimal number for maximum members of a clan before communication becomes a problem, and resource management increasingly confronts tribe unity.  After transmission: GLOBAL SUMMIT 2011, feedback from our participants came through loud and clear; don’t change the amount of people involved, and we couldn’t agree more. Yes, we sold out last year, but changing the number of people would change the entire energy of the conference and would negatively impact communication amongst participants, presenting a direct conflict with the transmitNOW vision.

transmission: GLOBAL SUMMIT 2011 is a tough act to follow, but with increased interest, support and resources available things are starting to take shape.

Looking forward, the possibilities for transmission: GLOBAL SUMMIT 2012 are looking the most promising yet.

// Don’t miss out on Early Bird Rates for transmission: GLOBAL SUMMIT 2012, closing at the end of the month on September 30^th.  

// Shortlisted invitees will receive their personal invitation emails in the next 12 hours. If you have not received your invitation and would like to participate, please Request an Invitation.

transmitCHINA presented by BlackBerry.  Only 19 spots left.

This is the business development tour of the year that includes:

• Amazing experiences such as meetings overlooking the Great Wall of China, inspiring incubator sessions at Beijing's famous 798 District and music showcases at D22, Beijing's legendary punk rock venue.
• Engaging events including transmission's signature roundtables, keynote presentations by international and Chinese thought-leaders, receptions, dinners and a VIP pass to Beijing's hottest new music festival featuring over a 120 domestic and international artists.
• 150 hand-selected delegates representing the international content and creative industries. Visionaries like: Catherine Leung, General Manager of Music & Entertainment at Baidu; David Ben Kay, Chairman of Yuanfen~Flow; David Neale, Office of the CMO, BlackBerry and Si Shen, CEO & Co-founder of PapayaMobile.

“transmitCHINA 2011 is not just a conference, in fact, it’s not a conference at all. Our belief is that that all participants in our events should be offered a full palette of inspiring and even challenging experiences that complement their business objectives. transmitCHINA is the experience that confronts your pre-conceived ideas about this region and what is important to us as human beings.” Tyl van Toorn, Executive Producer & Co-founder, transmitNOW

Let us walk you through the experience of what’s on the menu in Beijing at transmitCHINA 2011 from September 14^th to September 17^th.

// A true departure from the typical conference experience.

"transmission is the exception in the conference year, where top level people come together to contribute rather than be talked at." Simon Wheeler, Head of Digital, Beggars Group (UK)

September 14th: Take a 45-minute drive to escape from the smog and frenetic pace of Beijing and arrive at the Commune by the Great Wall. Forget hotel, this is a retreat: a sprawling property in the middle of a forest featuring 12 individually designed villas set against the stunning backdrop of the Great Wall of China. Prepare to relax here, put your mind at ease and focus on the stimulating discussions at hand in the most inspiring environment possible.

The Commune by the Great Wall provides a number of unique spaces for both quiet reflection and social gatherings. In fact, we’re taking you out on the evening of the 15th and to enjoy a bottle of fine wine on the Great Wall itself. Then, later on by the pool, dozens of floating lanterns will illuminate the evening while delegates unwind underneath the expanse of the stars.

// Two days of roundtables with some of the sharpest minds in the creative content space can only improve your business strategy.

With the transmitNOW signature roundtable format our job is to invite the finest minds in the creative content and technology industries and bring them together with innovators and entrepreneurs for the purposes of collaborating through face-to-face interactions on issues that matter.

At the roundtables, expect to drill down on some of the most relevant themes around creative content and technology today. Our team has carefully selected three themes to deconstruct at this year’s transmitCHINA TALKS.

They are:

• Understanding the Technology of Culture
• Content in the Cloud: De-centralized Data Storage and the Future of IP
• The Global Relevance of China’s Creative Industries

For a full review on programming and themes, please visit our website.

The over-used panel format of most conferences has no place at transmitNOW events. transmitCHINA is no exception. Our roundtables, however, are punctuated by keynote presentations that speak to globally relevant topics that inspire us to think differently about our plans for the future. Expect to capture words of wisdom and knowledge from a great selection of leaders, thinkers and creators:

• David Ben Kay, Chairman, Yuanfen~Flow
• Catherine Leung, General Manager of Music & Entertainment, Baidu
• Larry Namer, CEO & President, Metan Development Group
• David Neale, Office of the CMO, Research In Motion (BlackBerry)
• Si Shen, CEO & Co-founder, PapayaMobile
• Kelly Cha, Host, ZhaZha Club Show
• Eric Garland, CEO, BigChampagne

// Live music in Beijing: Whether it's in the coolest, sweatiest college venues, or in front of 20,000 Chinese kids these are the shows that remind even the oldest road dogs what "punk" actually means.

Our China-based transmitNOW partner, SplitWorks, is presenting their inaugural Black Rabbit Festival happening on September 17th and 18th in Beijing and Shanghai, respectively. With artists like 30 Seconds to Mars, Yellowcard, Hanggai, Carsick Cars, Ludacris, PK14 and more throwing down on the stage, this is the festival to hit in order to better understand where young people are going in China. Registration to transmitCHINA automatically includes a VIP pass to this festival.

// Attending events with innovative young entrepreneurs presenting their latest start-ups? Why not do it at the centre of China's hottest contemporary art district in a gallery with a 50 foot glass bottomed, lap pool suspended from the ceiling?

It’s Beijing’s version of New York’s famed SoHo district, but newer, edgier and thriving with Eastern inspiration. On September 17th, part of your registration package includes a VIP invitation to the Yuanfen~ Flow Incubator Launch. transmitCHINA keynote speaker, David Ben Kay, former Microsoft General Counsel and Chairman of Yuanfen~Flow, has extended a gracious welcome to join him and his team at the exclusive incubator launch in the heart of the 798 District.

At this moment there are still 19 spots available to attend transmitCHINA 2011. If you’re interested, you need to fill out an Invitation Request Form or get in touch with us at reg.cooordinator@transmitnow.com. And all of those who attend this year can be expecting a little something extra from our Presenting Partner, BlackBerry.

"This is an opportunity to understand the Chinese marketplace. This is an opportunity to connect with some of the brightest thought-leaders in Asia. This is an opportunity to relax, socialize and get off the beaten track. This is a truly unique experience. This is transmitCHINA 2011." Tyl van Toorn, Executive Producer & Co-founder, transmitNOW

// transmitCHINA partners to date:

Catherine Leung, GM of the Music and Entertainment division at Baidu, has just been confirmed as a keynote presenter at transmitCHINA 2011 presented by BlackBerry.

Baidu, China’s biggest search engine, has recently made news with their breakthrough legal music downloading service, Baidu Ting. The service, currently being offered to China’s 450 million web users, offers free, streaming music for downloads and at no cost to the user. As the general manager of Baidu’s Music and Entertainment Division, Catherine lead the way into providing fully-licensed music for online consumers, forging landmark partnerships with major international labels including Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group and Sony BMG.

Baidu Ting is the pioneering legal downloading service in China, and the first platform to make a resounding statement against piracy in a country often singled out for its rampant illegal downloading activity.

Catherine brings almost 20 years experience in the music, media and entertainment industry to transmitCHINA, previously holding the position of general manager of Universal Music Group’s China division. Catherine’s presentation will provide transmitCHINA participants with insider information and insight into the complex copyright laws and the issues affecting digital music content in the Chinese marketplace

We are extremely pleased to welcome Catherine to transmitCHINA 2011.

Once again, transmitCHINA 2011 will be featuring our signature roundtable discussions. Our unique model continues to be successful beyond our expectations and, with close to 150 key decision makers and executives from the creative industries, the knowledge base and expertise at this conference is unmatched.

Participants to date include:

• Baidu
• PacketVideo
• BlackBerry
• Cisco
• Warner Music Group
• Huayi Brothers Media Corp.
• Nike
• NetEase
• Sohu
• Beggars Group
• Rdio
• Polar Mobile
• BigChampagne
• Universal Music China
• PapayaMobile
• 2K Games
• CAA
• R2G & WAWAWA
• AEG China
• Bertelsmann
• London Metropolitan University
• Sire Records
• The Orchard
• The Value Web
• International Confederation of Music Publishers
• Sonico
• Pegasus Entertainment Film Company
• and more

This year, we’re pleased to offer the option for participants to truly experience perspectives from the East and West.  Connect and do business in San Francisco with the thought leaders at the convergence of Internet, music and technology and then, fly to Beijing to participate in roundtable discussions with creative content thought leaders at transmitCHINA. The San Francisco MusicTech Summit brings together visionaries in the music/technology space, along with the best and brightest developers, entrepreneurs, investors, service providers, journalists and musicians at the convergence of culture and commerce. A perfect prelude to anyone in the music and technology industries, participants in transmitCHINA can fly from San Francisco on Monday night or Tuesday morning and attend transmitCHINA 2011, which begins the evening of Wednesday, September 14^th.  For more information about how to arrange this, please contact Eric Leong, Participant Outreach Manager, at reg.coordinator@transmitnow.com.

Register today to participate in a roundtable discussion with key leaders and decision-makers at transmitCHINA, the international platform for dialogue in creative industries in China.  Regular Registration Rates are valid until August 15, 2011!

REGISTER NOW

or

REQUEST AN INVITATION

For questions related to registration, please contact Eric Leong, Participant Outreach Manager, at reg.coordinator@transmitnow.com.

Based at its headquarters in Santa Monica, California, Rob Wells is responsible for the strategic development of UMG’s digital business worldwide. He is charged with ensuring its continued growth and leadership as the company – and the music industry – continues to make the transition from physical media and embraces new revenue streams. This includes managing relationships with global business partners such as Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Vodafone, Nokia, MSN and YouTube, among others.

In this video, Rob is interviewed by Jim and offers his views from the perspective of a major media company on topics such as emerging markets, collective licensing, and piracy.  Jim starts the interview by getting right away to the burning question: Why is it taking so long for my company to get a deal done Universal?   

Watch the interview below to see his response:

This is a Virtual Roundtable that discusses the Roundtable Theme of Cloud Content, one of the key topics that will be discussed at transmitCHINA 2011 presented by BlackBerry in Beijing from September 14-17, 2011.

Roundtable Participants:

Mark Montgomery (USA) - Founder of FLO{a thinkery} and Co-founder of echomusic

James Eron (China) - CEO of ChinaNetCloud

Ben Perreau (UK) - Director of Digital Content of Global Radio

Security and reliability of the cloud has been widely discussed in recent months with critics saying that the current technology is not advanced enough to keep data save. Can we not trust the cloud? 

Mark Montgomery: Of course we cannot fully trust the cloud.  The reality is when they built the first bridge, or the first plane, or the first anything, you couldn't trust it.  Pioneers usually have arrows in their backs, but they blaze the trail for the settlers.  Failing is the key to success, without early failures, there would be no success, no innovation.

James Eron: It is human nature to be concerned about things we don't fully comprehend. IT professionals understand physical "box" servers as we grew up with them. The cloud is new(er) and less well understood. When thinking about keeping data safe in physical servers vs. the cloud, it is important to consider each specific category of risk that one is trying to mitigate, and the relative magnitude of potential risk per category.

Ben Perreau: I can't profess to be an expert in technology security and you should ask encryption experts and hackers before you listen to tech bloggers and loudmouths, but my view is that the cloud is likely to be more secure as your home or office - though it depends on your circumstances. Think about it: companies like Google and Amazon have huge data warehouses which are of great commercial importance to them, they are highly motivated and well funded to protect these assets from fire, flood, hackers and such - itwould make sense that you should be afforded a similar level of security, especially whilst cloud storage is a marginal business for them. Alternatively, data stored locally is on your laptop or office LAN, now unless you work for MI5 then you're unlikely to have an office LAN as secure as a cloud facility. Use good, strong passwords and be careful with your settings.

James Eron: In most cases, the largest risk [concerning the cloud] comes from a weak password or poor network security and default or unsecureserver configurations - having nothing to do with a physical vs. cloud server. There is also the issue of private data being subpoenaed. For the most part, data security is not a technology question, but a technology implementationquestion.

Law enforcement within the decentralized nature of the internet has always been a big issue. With data being stored across borders, does the cloud need to be regulated? Or should it be a self-regulated space without laws?

James Eron: The question of regulation is meaningless without considering the specific threats that you want to control or regulate. Many countries have enacted specific regulations regarding internet usage, illegal content, and right to subpoena content. I think regulation for certain purposes is prudent, but because the internet is a global phenomenon, attempting to restrain content within borders is typically not realistic.

Ben Perreau: It probably would be good to set some standards and expectations around privacy and data in the cloud. Often on the English-language web, US law pervades, not least because most of the data centres are in the US. This is fine, but if that is the case then we need to understand the precedents which have been set by the cloud service provider. Some international standards might be a good idea, especially if the cloud is going to be truly 'in the cloud' - think about local CDNs etc.

Mark Montgomery: Typically, more regulation equals less innovation.  As businesses mature there is a greater need for regulations to prevent abuse, but early on, these businesses will face enough challenges without uninformed public policy wonks "helping grow" these companies.  Certainly if there are blatant abuses of IP law, fraud, etc., there is a need to regulate.

If devices can restrict access to certain cloud content (for example by restricting availability of certain apps), do they become new gatekeepers of the content industries?

Mark Montgomery: This is a complicated question.  The way I see it, having fewer gatekeepers between the creators and their respective audiences - whether you are authoring Angry Birds or "Stairway to Heaven" - is a great thing.  Apple and its other competitors clearly have a position of great power, but seem to generally be neutral and "unpurchaseable". Remember the old record biz where you could buy positioning and effectively eliminate everyone without big dollars to throw at end caps? So generally, I think we are headed in the right direction.  Bottom line, someone is powering the plumbing of all this and it’s not realistic to think that all gatekeepers will be eliminated.  

Ben Perreau: It will become more competitive to offer more open access to the cloud and the internet will find a way to let you store the information how you want it and where you want it. I wouldn't worry about this issue as consumer demand is so powerful on the web - more powerful it turns out, than any conglomerate/cartel of Copyright owners or Creative Industries.

James Eron: Certain governments restrict access to sites like YouTube and Google Apps, but that is not considered gate keeping. The more likely scenario is that some companies, specifically some news organizations, have erected "Pay Walls" to make users pay for content.

Register today to participate in a roundtable discussion like this with key industry decision-makers at transmitCHINA, the international platform for dialogue in creative industries in China.

REGISTER NOW

or

REQUEST AN INVITATION

For questions related to registration, please contact Eric Leong, Participant Outreach Manager, at reg.coordinator@transmitnow.com.

transmitCHINA is proud to welcome two of China’s most prominent women in entertainment and mobile startups to the stage during the transmitCHINA.TALKS: Si Shen, CEO of PapayaMobile, China’s face of future-focused entrepreneurship, and Kelly Cha, host of the ZhaZhaClub Show and one of China’s most critically acclaimed radio and television personalities.

After spending her years managing product and mobile advertising at Google, Si left Google and co-founded PapayaMobile in 2008. In a few short years her company has become the darling startup of Beijing whose explosive growth has drawn attention across the Pacific from Silicon Valley.  By offering a ‘plug and play’ platform for mobile game developers, PapayaMobile gained over 15,000,000 users on its social gaming network over the past three years.  PapayaMobile has since raised $22 million to date in venture financing as it positions itself to be the leader in social gaming platforms for the Chinese mobile gaming market.

Kelly Cha joins as one of transmitCHINA’s co-hosts, sharing the stage with Eric Garland, CEO of BigChampagne.  Born in China and raised in the U.S., Kelly is now living in Beijing as one of China’s most popular media personalities.  Known for her charisma, talent and her innate ability to bridge between East and West, Kelly caught international attention as one of The Hollywood Reporter’s “Next Gen Asia 2010” and Billboard Magazine’s “China’s Top 5”.  Kelly is a highly sought after emcee and has played host to a number of widely recognized personalities visiting China, including Bill Gates and Warren Buffett.

Kelly Cha and Si Shen join other transmitCHINA presenters, including:

• Eric Garland, CEO of BigChampagne (USA)
• David Ben Kay, Chairman of Yuanfen~Flow (China)
• Larry Namer, CEO of Metan Development Group (China)
• David Neale, Office of the CMO, Research In Motion/BlackBerry (Canada)

To see full speaker bios, please click here.

Register today to participate in transmitCHINA, the international platform for dialogue in creative industries in China.

REGISTER NOW

or

REQUEST AN INVITATION

For questions related to registration, please contact Eric Leong, Participant Outreach Manager, at reg.coordinator@transmitnow.com.

In response to the overwhelming positive feedback from their first involvement at transmission: GLOBAL SUMMIT 2011, event organizers are thrilled to welcome back The Value Web as the facilitators for the fourth edition of transmitCHINA in Beijing.

Photo: The Value Web scribing on the Knowledge Wall at transmission: GLOBAL SUMMIT during the interview of Rob Wells, Global President of Digital Business for Universal Music Group. 

The Value Web is a renowned group of international facilitators that utilize creative methods to craft compelling narratives and facilitated experiences for conferences and organizations from around the world.  In addition to transmission: GLOBAL SUMMIT, The Value Web has participated at the World Economic Forum, Harvard Social Enterprise Conference, the Caritas Internationalis General Assembly and dozens of other global gatherings that convene the world’s social, economic, and political leaders.

At transmission: GLOBAL SUMMIT, The Value Web introduced their creative and innovative approaches to facilitation at all the keynote presentations and roundtable conversations. Much of the intensive two days of events was documented graphically on a Knowledge Wall, which chronicled the issues, ideas, and concepts debated by creative industry leaders regarding the monetization of digital content.

// the value web process at transmission: GLOBAL SUMMIT 2011

transmitCHINA is excited to work together with The Value Web this September. Register today to participate!

REGISTER NOW

Or 

REQUEST AN INVITATION

For questions related to registration, please contact Eric Leong, Participant Outreach Manager, at reg.coordinator@transmitnow.com.

Jun is a well-known IT visionary and is widely regarded as one of China’s leading Internet entrepreneurs with an impeccable track record having been involved in three startups – Sendit, Intrinsic and Linktone. He founded Intrinsic Technology which designed and implemented more than one-third of the mobile data billing systems for China Mobile and China Unicom and was a major contributor to the success of SMS in China. Jun was also the founder of Linktone, one of the first mobile value-added services providers to China's wireless operators. Linktone was successfully listed on NASDAQ in March 2004. A Shanghai native, Jun received a first degree in Computer Science from the Imperial College of Science and Technology at the University of London. Prior to returning to China, Jun was the Chief System Architect of Sendit AB, a Swedish-based mobile messaging company that he co-founded and was acquired by Microsoft in 1999.

At R2G, Jun has led a pioneering team to establish an unprecedented approach in the distribution of online music in China which has provided Content Providers a more efficient and reliable delivery of digital music content to the China market place with proper revenue accounting mechanisms in place . More significantly, Jun and his team have established processes in the market for the licensing of digital music in China which protect the interests of copyright owners while curbing the rampant online piracy practised by Service Providers.

Jun continues to lead the team to greater influence in the distribution of music in China even as we see dramatic changes in the global music industry.

"The big shift in most personal communications is the shift when things become miniaturized and portable. Phone calls that used to be made to the house, are now made to the pocket. You used to store music, videos in your house, now they're in your pocket."

From September 14-16, 2011, international leaders, thinkers, innovators and creators will have an exclusive opportunity at transmitCHINA TALKS to hear a cross-section of preeminent thought leaders from some of the world’s most innovative organizations in the digital and creative content ecosystem. Larry Namer (METAN Development Group), David Neale (Research In Motion/BlackBerry), and Eric Garland (BigChampagne) will be on stage at China’s most unique, invite-only think tank summit dedicated to developing solutions to the delivery and monetization of digital content over 3 days in a sanctuary environment framed by the Great Wall of China.

Co-founder of E! Entertainment Television, a company now valued at $3.5 billion USD, Larry Namer today leads METAN Development Group as President & CEO in developing entertainment and media specifically for the Chinese marketplace.  Through METAN, he has secured content partnerships with some of China’s most widely recognized media companies, including Tencent, owners of one of the largest internet services portal in China with over 630 million users, QQ.com.

Sharing the stage will be David Neale, Office of the CMO of Research In Motion/BlackBerry, the globally renowned pioneers of mobile media devices and makers of the BlackBerry PlayBook.  David will share his insights on the significance of mobile platforms in creative content delivery.  

Taking the role as General Facilitator of transmitCHINA will be Eric Garland, CEO of BigChampagne.  As one of its co-founders, Eric has transformed BigChampagne into an authority within the media and entertainment industries, and the company’s metrics and analysis have been cited by major media outlets including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Financial Times, and more.

To learn more about transmitCHINA 2011 presented by BlackBerry, please visit the event’s website: www.transmitnow.com/transmitchina2011.

Note: transmitCHINA 2011 is an invite-only think tank event.  Participants must request an invitation before registering.

// Register now to take advantage of Early Bird Registration Rates! 

Early Bird Registration Rates are in effect from now until June 15, 2011.  For questions related to registration, please contact the Registration Coordinator at reg.coordinator@transmitnow.com.

REGISTER NOW 

or

REQUEST AN INVITATION 

While many may agree that the Cloud has offered huge conveniences for consumers to access content, it has also opened a new avenue for content distribution.  In many media and entertainment industries, content distribution was always restricted to carriers (eg. ISP,s CDs, DVDs, etc.).  With cloud-based content, some may argue that there is simply no need to ‘own’ discs, papers, or hard drives that contain content if it’s available easily through different devices.

Cloud computing does, however, expose a new range of questions regarding rights and ownership. When content is accessed across country borders, whose laws are governing this transaction? Are there any liabilities if the cloud provider’s service is being disrupted and content cannot be accessed? When consumers are adding content they have previously purchased to a cloud based ‘locker’, should content owners be compensated for any of those transactions?

When accessing cloud-based content and information, the device that acts as the information gateway is suddenly in a powerful position; device manufacturers may decide to block access to certain cloud content services or charge for it. They may insist on receiving parts of any revenue that content creators may generate through these devices.  Device platforms may also not support certain technologies and, therefore, directly influence how cloud-based content is distributed to the consumer.

The consumer’s relationship with their devices (and, therefore, their relationship to content) has been changing rapidly over the last few years.  With the continual innovation of more capable and compact mobile technologies, consumers tend to be much closer to their devices and, in many cases, have them nearby at all times. Consumers have become accustomed to having instant and constant access to information and entertainment as a result, and this places content owners under pressure to constantly ensure their output is available once it has been created. Unlicensed sources may be preferred if their legal alternatives do not yet offer the access to desired content. This may suggest that there has been a huge power shift between consumers and creators of content – with new devices occupying the space between them.

While lack of control may be perceived as an obstacle in cloud-based distribution, this isn’t a subject matter that’s out-of-the-ordinary with content owners.  In fact, consumers have been able to easily share digital content since the advent of network computers. Nevertheless, new and open channels of distribution can also be seen as opportunities to access new consumer bases and find new revenue streams for media, entertainment, and other content-based industries.

// opening up the floor for discussion

What are your thoughts on cloud computing and its effect on the creative content ecosystem?  Express your opinion and questions by:

• Commenting in the blog post below; 
• Tweet the conversation via @transmitGLOBAL;
• Send us an email at info@transmitnow.com. 

// next week: a virtual panel of leaders and thinkers discussing this roundtable theme

Next week, a panel of Chinese and international leaders, thinkers, innovators and creators will discuss this roundtable theme. Questions and feedback from the post's discussion will be incorporated.

// REGISTER TODAY FOR TRANSMITCHINA 2011 

Discuss this topic as well as many others at transmitCHINA 2011 presented by BlackBerry. 

REGISTER NOW 

or 

REQUEST AN INVITATION

This has been cross-posted from The Global Outpost, an industry blog written and curated by Mathew Daniel.  Mathew has spoken at past transmitNOW events and has also contributed to the transmitNOW magazine.  See his other article from February 2010 on Music Licensing in Asia.

New music copyright protection guidelines have been announced by the Beijing Copyright Bureau which aim to redress the burden of proof imbalance between copyright owners and those engaging in and in many cases, profiting from institutionalized piracy.

The Beijing Municipal Bureau of Press and Publication (Copyright Bureau) brought together Copyright Owners including representatives of record labels, publishers, composers, music distributors and industry associations amongst them Taihe Rye, Dong Music, Music Copyright Society of China and R2G who voiced their opinions and support for the guiding framework late last week.

It was noted that the law needs to objectively state what defines Copyright Ownership, as currently there is a heavy burden of proof upon Copyright Owners with the balance tilted in favor of Service Providers. Copyright Owners have an inordinate amount of work to not only prove their ownership but also to issue take-down notices whilst Service Providers seek sophisticated ways to perpetuate music piracy, most commonly abusing Safe Harbour Laws and using their technology platforms as a cover to facilitate users’ uploading of copyrighted content. In fact, Service Providers including music Search Engines themselves get into the act and simply upload the copyrighted content whilst conveniently blaming their users.

As Music Ally stated in its China profile report (subscription only) last month:

“Only two online companies have fully-licensed music streaming and downloads services in place: Google-backed Top100 offers free ad-funded downloads and streaming, while R2G’s wawawa has paid-for streaming and downloads, too. Both companies, however, face fierce competition from other dubious portals and services, amongst which stand out Sina, QQ Music, Xiami, VeryCD, and the infamous Baidu.

Although some of these have some form of licensing in place, they all carry pirated content too, fueling traffic levels that generate advertising and adjacent service revenues in the hundreds, if not thousands, of millions of dollars. Whereas piracy in the West remains, for the most part, an activity based on end-users sharing and downloading contents by themselves over one platform or another, in China it is mainly driven by commercial operations”

As traffic is important to these infringing Service Providers, they constantly feed users with unlicensed free content and cite their users’ habits and attitudes which are actually shaped by these corporations as an excuse and human shield to deflect from the institutionalized piracy that they engage in. As these companies are profiting from music piracy, their attempts to undermine actions against music piracy include feeble if non-existent efforts to take-down infringing content. It will be interesting to observe how Baidu will also join this “partial licensing as cover for pirate activity and traffic magnet” model once they launch their upcoming Ting music service

The Beijing Copyright Bureau has recognized that the law can be seen as a polariser as in practice it is an arduous task to prove Service Providers’ subjective intent even as their actions contribute to copyright infringement. As such, a new framework of guidelines to complement the existing laws have been proposed by them.

The most significant of the guidelines which will come into effect from 1 June 2011 are the following:

The full list of the Guiding Framework on the Protection of Copyright is available here.

Currently, Service Providers have been able to employ a variety of means to perpetuate illegal use of copyrighted material by counting on the arduous tasks and barriers that Copyright Owners have to overcome if they are to take legal action:

1. Service Providers require take-down notices to be accompanied by an Authorization Letter from the Copyright Owner or an exclusive Authorization Letter from the assigned distributor
2. Some Service Providers contend that Authorization Letters are insufficient proof of ownership and demand that lyrics be also provided before they will consider a take-down while others require notarized Authorization Letters
3. URLs of each case of infringement have to provided.
4. The Service Provider then sneakily moves the infringing content to a new URL or simply ignores the take-down notice.
To then undertake legal action, every page on the website showing the infringing content will first have to be printed and notarized as proof
5. The infringing content itself has to be downloaded, and as further proof, a video camera will have to capture the download/ streaming process
6. A full chain of authorization from the artist, the music composer to the label and distributor has to be provided, and each of these has to be notarized.
7. Physical CDs will also have to be provided which indicate the copyright information [(P) and © symbols]
8. And then begins a long wait to have the legal case accepted in courts, before a further waiting period yields a hearing.

As Wu Jun, CEO of R2G summarized it, current difficulties include:

It is thus important that Copyright Owners play their part  in registering their works with the Beijing Copyright Bureau so that the new regulations can be enforced once it becomes active from 1 Jun 2011.

There will definitely be a trend towards licensing but at the same time, this will not happen in a vacuum if Content Owners do not pursue the required piracy monitoring and necessary legal actions to inhibit infringing companies from their practices of theft. It will also require investment and collective pressure from Content Owners against infringing companies  if they are to effect the necessary change in action and attitudes, and this will likely be reciprocated by accompanying government support.

The bold and united stand taken by Chinese authors against Baidu’s Wenku site which hosted and made available millions of copyrighted books and documents for free and the subsequent announced step down by Baidu is an example of collective action at work.

The other area to note is that the major infringing companies will periodically announce that they are pursuing a licensing strategy when faced with mounting pressure only to revert to their infringing habits once the spotlight is off them. So it is partly in the hands of a united music industry to effect change - Content Owners that undercut each other are effectively devaluing their own market

With the Beijing Copyright Bureau seeking the views of the music industry as part of this year’s initiative to address the endemic copyright problems in China, a cautiously optimistic approach might be in order.

Mathew is Vice-President at R2G.

Formed in 2007 between four friends from Manotick, Ontario, Hollerado is a Canadian rock band that has quickly grown to success in Canada and around the world, including Asia and South America.  Much of this has been due in part to their relentless DIY approach: everything from designing their website (“I decided to just draw the whole thing with sharpies,” Menno Versteeg, guitarist and lead vocals, has been quoted) to developing their music video that went viral, Americanarama, which was accomplished with a minimal $5,000 budget.

Hollerado has also gained substantial success in markets outside of North America, especially China.  Hollerado’s first entry into China started with the transmitCHINA Artist Showcase in April 2009, where they performed in front of a new crowd of listeners in Beijing and toured across China with stops in Shanghai, Zhenjiang, and Shenzhen. 

It wasn’t long before Hollerado developed a strong fan base in China.  As a result of their participation in transmitCHINA 2009, Hollerado received various offers and touring opportunities, including being selected as one of the few Canadian acts to perform at the 2010 Taiwanfest as a result of their combined Western and Asian appeal. 

transmitCHINA 2009 helped to kickstart Hollerado’s chapter in China, and also bore several learning points and impacts for an overseas band entering the Chinese market: 

• Unique, culturally-relevant ways to connect with Chinese consumers: The band developed an online Chinese presence through Chinese video streaming websites, such as Youku, and launched their own Chinese website (hollerado.cn).  The band even released two original songs sung in Mandarin as a way to better connect with their Chinese fans.
• More dedication to China as a touring market: When Hollerado won $250,000 from the Live 88.5 Big Money Shot contest in November 2009, they decided to take the money to return to China and embark on another tour, which resulted in deeper consumer market penetration and also generated national media coverage.
• Explosive grassroots outreach and promotion in China: Hollerado’s music and videos are now broadcasted and shared by fans in Chinese blogs and online communities, including sites such as Douban and Renren.

“The China experience has become part of Hollerado’s story,” says Adam Berger, Hollerado’s Band Manager. “It will continue to be one of the many taking points surrounding the band and their tirelessly DIY work ethic and unquenchable thirst for world travel.”

Watch the video below to check out Hollerado’s experience in China, which also shows clips of Hollerado performing during transmitCHINA 2009.

// if you would like to participate in transmitCHINA 2011, please visit our website for more information, or get in touch with us at info[at]transmitnow.com.

transmitCHINA, the international hallmark of creative industry events in China, is proud to announce a new strategic collaboration with BlackBerry, who will be the Presenting Partner for its 2011 installment. With this step, BlackBerry puts itself at the centre of the dialogue between Content Owners, Digital Retailers, Entrepreneurs and Innovators in the Chinese market and confirms its relevance as a Platform within the creative industry ecosystem.

In light of this partnership, transmitCHINA 2011 presented by BlackBerry is now hosting the fourth edition of its event on September 14-17, 2011, in Beijing.

Tyl van Toorn, Executive Producer of transmitNOW initiatives, is confident that with BlackBerry’s participation, transmitCHINA will only increase its value proposition for participants and facilitate open and honest discussions focused on developing solutions around the monetization of digital media in China.

“There are three things that make transmitCHINA the most relevant creative industries conference in China: our signature roundtable format, the calibre of our attendees and relevance of our partnerships,” says van Toorn. “We take real pride in announcing BlackBerry as the event’s Presenting Partner and believe that this alliance will set the tone for the conference and other events that we will be holding at the same time. This partnership creates a powerful opportunity for digital retailers and content providers to connect with one of the world’s leading device manufacturers and develop culturally relevant, forward-thinking strategies to distribute creative content in the Chinese market.”

“Bringing digital retailers and content providers together in transmitNOW’s intimate spaces is essential to developing and evolving a forward-thinking narrative around the successful commercialization of digital content, especially in light of emerging media trends and the evolution of smartphones and other mobile/portable devices,” says David Neale, VP Special Projects of Research In Motion (BlackBerry's parent company).

“From our perspective, BlackBerry has always represented an elegant balance of design, user-focused engineering, and messaging and media capabilities. A partnership role in transmitCHINA reinforces their commitment to be an active, engaged stakeholder in the value chain of digital media and entertainment,” adds van Toorn.

In line with fostering an environment that supports an inspiring, thought-leadership agenda within creative industries, event organizers have chosen to host the roundtable programme of transmitCHINA at one of the region's most architecturally appealing luxury hotels, Commune by the Great Wall, just outside of Beijing. This will be followed by a packed menu of entertainment and media events for delegates and fans in the heart of Beijing over the evenings of September 16th and 17th.

“Over the course of our 6-year history producing transmitNOW events, we have recognized that providing intimate spaces for participants facilitates high level, think-tank style discussions,” says van Toorn. “The inspirational setting of Commune by the Great Wall will make transmitCHINA a sanctuary for international executives looking for a unique way to connect with Chinese leaders, thinkers, entrepreneurs and creators.”

transmitCHINA 2011 presented by BlackBerry is also supported by the following partners to date: Province of British Columbia, Royal Roads University, the Canadian Music Publishers’ Association and the Province of Ontario.

Participation in this event is by invitation-only and space is very limited. Please visit the transmitCHINA 2011 website (www.transmitnow.com/transmitchina2011) for further information.

// upcoming announcements

transmitCHINA 2011 keynote speakers will be announced on May 12, 2011.  transmitLIVE Festival artists will be announced on June 9, 2011.  Keep these dates in mind for the release of further transmitCHINA 2011 information. 

// sponsorship, speaking, and artist showcasing opportunities

If you are interested in becoming involved with transmitCHINA 2011, please get in touch with us by contacting info@transmitnow.com.

// register now to take advantage of Early Bird Registration Rates!

Early Registration Rates are in effect from now until June 15, 2011.  For questions related to registration, please contact the Registration Coordinator at reg.coordinator@transmitnow.com.

REGISTER NOW 

or 

REQUEST AN INVITATION

Scott Belsky, CEO & Founder of Behance, shares some views and suggestions on how creative project teams can enhance their productivity to bring their ideas to fruition at transmission: GLOBAL SUMMIT 2011.

He's committed his professional life to help organize creative individuals, teams, and networks. He is the author of the national bestselling book MAKING IDEAS HAPPEN and is the founder and CEO of Behance, a company that develops products and services for the creative industries. Behance's products include the Behance Network (Behance.net), the world’s leading platform for creative professionals; The 99% (The99percent.com), Behance's think tank for leadership and execution in creative industries, and Action Method (ActionMethod.com), a popular online/mobile productivity application and line of organizational paper products. He is a frequent contributor on MSNBC and has worked with leading companies and organizations including General Electric, Hewlett-Packard, and Proctor & Gamble as well as the United States State Department and the CIA. Scott serves on the boards of Cornell University's Entrepreneurship program and the Art Director's Club. In 2010, Scott was also included in Fast Company's list of "100 Most Creative People in Business." He attended Cornell University as an undergraduate and received his MBA from Harvard Business School.

Video produced by: thenumber creative (www.thenumbercreative.com), slides provided by: Behance Network (www.behance.net)

"When the Chinese reach the point where they have a lot invested in intellectual property, you're going to find them getting very interested in copyright."

Catharine Saxberg has been the executive director of the Canadian Music Publishers Association since May of 2005, where she has been focused on expanding the profile for music publishers both domestically and internationally. Catharine represents publishers and their interests on the FACTOR National Advisory Board, the music section of the Cultural Human Resources Council, and the Music Café Committee for the Toronto International Film Festival. Prior to that, she was the executive director of the Radio Starmaker Fund, where, as part of the overall responsibility for the day to day management of the fund, she guided the expansion of the fund to include international touring and marketing programmes, and prepared policy recommendations for the Board of Directors. Catharine also worked as a consultant for the Canadian Country Music Association, executing an extensive research project of their members, and writing eight policy papers on their behalf on issues of key importance to the music industry.

Interested in learning more?  Request an invitation or register to attend the next transmission event, transmitCHINA 2011.

// video highlights from transmission: GLOBAL SUMMIT 2011

Featuring testimonials from Seymour Stein (Chairman, Sire Records), Paul Hoffert, C.M. (CEO, Noank Media), Christian Sarrazin (VP Industry Development & International, SOCAN), Jim Rondinelli (SVP Corporate Development, PacketVideo), Isaac Bess (Sr. Director of Business Development, IODA), and more.

Filmed by thenumber:creative.

// photo highlights from transmission: GLOBAL SUMMIT 2011

The slideshow above is taken from the official transmission: GLOBAL SUMMIT 2011 Group Pool on Flickr.  If you took any photos during the event, please feel free to share with everyone by adding to the group.

// summary

Somewhere in the 72 hours that have passed since the final reception of transmission, there has been time to ruminate over what the conference meant and accomplished. It’s evident that meaningful discussion and important ideas were put into the room, but where they will go and what they will translate into is still being determined. So rather than speculate on outcomes, perhaps it’s a better approach to touch on the highlights, the great moments, quotes, tweets and talks that collectively turn transmission into the juggernaut of effective change that it is.

// summarizing the summary

The first thing that becomes apparent when following the twittersphere, is that the food provided by the Inn at Laurel Point was fantastic. But now people are suffering withdrawal, having a tough time letting go of the danishes and fruit cups. So, for those of you missing it, click here: http://vcam2.com/breakfast-blues

Now that the breakfast burnout can thankfully be put to rest, it feels right to just lay down some great lines from the conference:

“The final frontier for deep thinking is probably the shower.” – Scott Belsky, Founder/CEO for Behance and the99percent.com, discussing the importance of setting time aside to be unavailable to the digital distractions of work and life.

“I don’t really believe in love at first sight, so I don’t believe in business models at first sight.” Jonathan Imme, CEO of until we see new land, referring to the ongoing nature of idea development.

“The core of innovation is happening on the wild side.” Nora Young, transmission MC and Host/Creator of CBC program, Spark, discussing where change begins.

“This summit shouldn’t be about control. It should be about establishing a sustainable environment.” Eric Baptiste, CEO of SOCAN.

“Canada is at a crossroads, and can go with one of two options. [Canada] can make a number of decisions that could drive the economies.” Rob Wells, President of Global Digital Business for Universal Music Group, in reference to the potential licensing laws that Canadians are considering. 

What is evident from the various quotes above is that there were several opinions represented at the conference, each one valid from the standpoints of the people offering them. And in the mix of opinion lies the relative advantage of a conference like transmission. No matter which angle you happen to be coming from, there are opportunities throughout to be heard and to hear other perspectives. 

Aaron Williamson, designer, facilitator and scribe for The Value Web, brought up the idea of curation in his summary of the event. The Value Web had people stationed at each table who took notes and looked for key themes from each discussion, and Williamson and company created a great image and word based presentation of the common themes that can be seen here: 

Overwhelmingly it appears that while we are all ready for a single device to connect us to every platform of digital media, we mostly still want to remain in control of our own destinies. That said, Nora Young did note that some people will eventually just want to turn their devices on and be told what to listen to.

It was this kind of point/counterpoint discussion that flew between the delegates at the conference. Much was discussed regarding models for success that will allow creators to connect with fans, while keeping the systems that help them do that financially viable into the future. Ideas about emotional connections to media were very present in all the discussions and there was a notable feeling in the air that we were all working toward legitimate solutions.

All up, the conference was huge hit. For those that had been before, transmission 2011 was largely reported to be an outstanding success; and it might be worth noting that it was the first time in transmission history that the entire conference was at capacity, proving that there is a growing inclination to ongoing dialogue that can be sustained year round.

For fist-timers like me, transmission was nothing if not a revelation, an insider’s peak into a fascinating and important part of the creative industries around the world. I look forward to future events and thank everyone who made this one so amazing.

// thank you to our sponsors and supporters for making transmission: GLOBAL SUMMIT 2011 possible:

9:17 AM – Day Two. The day after the night. We are groggily recounting the events from the evening portion of transmission. Delegates came together all over town it seems, and several of us are reminiscing about the art installations and bands we saw (and the parties we had). Several people are still talking about the peculiar, yet highly interesting digital installation put on by the New Forms Festival and the Canadian Film Center Media Lab. Its interactive capacity appears to have left an impact.

9:22 AM – Croissants. Coffee. Eggs. Bacon. Coffee. Coffee.                                        

10:18 AM – The conversation and reminiscing has finished and Wu Jun, CEO of R2G, has taken the floor. Jun is a highly respected and well-known visionary and is thought of as one the leading entrepreneurs of the digital realm in China. He is on stage to kickoff the third theme of transmission: Globalization and Localization.

In the scope of creating systems that benefit the creator and consumer as well as the distributor, China is a gigantic nut to crack. Currently inside China, piracy is rampant and the systems that are in place to protect copyright are largely ineffective. But to Jun, there is positive developments happening that can protect international labels as they move to capitalize on opportunities provided by the nearly 900 million mobile and 450 million internet users inside the country.

Accordingy to Jun, “there is a legal framework that protects IP in China that can help you protect your content.” But in order for that framework to effectively create financially viable models, the content providers need to be diligent in pursuing the legal options currently available. 

Jun believes that although the changes are happening incrementally right now, valid infrastructure for IP protection and monetization will come if sustained pressure is put on illegal websites and pirates.

“It’s important to invest in IP protection,” he says, noting that most gaming companies in China spend upwards of 20% to 30% of revenues on protecting their intellectual property.

11:15 AM – Round table number three. I decided early on to just sit back and listen as the debate bounced between those at the table, and this has been an amazing conversation to watch.

Among others positioned here are Nick Black, VP of Concerto Marketing, Omri Dolev from Lev Group Media (representing labels like Warner Music and Beggars Group in Israel), as well as Richard Gottehrer, CCO and Founder of The Orchard. It’s an informed and intelligent chat, often made humorous (though no less smart) by Black, who has a knack for making complicated topics clear and funny.

One of the debates is about tacit experience, and whether there is any parallel between seeing/hearing a concert or event through some digital device to that of actually being there in the flesh. The consensus is that, no, there is nothing like being there to smell, taste and touch, but that at least digital devices provide opportunities that consumers didn’t have in the past.

Gottehrer has the belief that through all the integration of tech into our lives, generations coming up are going to be less primordially instinctive. That is to say that since everything will be immediately available to us through digital delivery, we are going to lose our connection in physical ways that aren’t yet realized. What is most interesting, however, is that he has no opinion of whether or not this matters. It’s simply a fact that has occurred to him and he believes that even the way we experience/define emotion could alter. But he’s concretely neither here nor there.

1:30 PM – The post meal laziness has appeared again and I’ve just been schooled by the Director of Marketing and Communications for SOCAN, Betsy Chaly, about the rules of the game “Shotgun” after I claimed the couch in the hallway for a nap.

“You have to be able to see the couch if you want to call shotgun on it,” she says.

Well played, Chaly.

1:34 PM – Co-founder and Executive Producer of transmission, Tyl van Toorn, has taken to the mic for an announcement. Deals have been struck. 

It has just been confirmed that transmission will again be heading back to China.

And… 

For the first time ever, transmission will host an event in Israel! This is an exciting development and there is nothing if not a lot of flabbergasted and impressed discussion post-announcement.

1:35 PM – I am trying to figure out how to make myself a necessary component for both of the China and Israel conferences.

1:42 PM – Scott Belsky, creator of The99percent.com, and Founder and CEO of Behance is the final keynote speaker.

Belsky is an unassuming, but clearly confident individual who takes to the stage without the slightest trepidation. It’s seems he was born to do this kind of thing. It’s fitting that he be the last speaker of the conference, since most of what he focuses on for his talk is the execution of ideas; how to sustain them to a point that they actually become reality.

His argument is that while most of us are struck by potentially great concepts, very few get to see the light of day because most fall off what he calls the “Project Plateau.”

“Most ideas never happen,” he says, adding jokingly, “some never should.”

But he is serious when he says, “It’s why there are probably more half-written novels in the world than there are novels.”

This an important thing to think about. What if all the shared ideas at transmission never left the hotel where they were born? It’s a serious possibility unless we take action on the inspiration, according to Belsky.

5:20 PM – Tyl van Toorn is closing the conference, sneaking in the final word. He is thankful and encouraging and he leaves us with some final thoughts, similar to those of Scott Belsky.

“I call it the 72-hour rule,” he says. van Toorn believes that unless we take action on the discussions had and ideas shared at transmission, 50% of what we took in will be lost in 3 days, severing “the visceral connection to the event.” 

He also tells us that any of these ideas can happen and that we need to transmit these ideas into action. 

“transmission is not about product,” he says just before leaving the stage. “It’s about people.”        

Seconds later the champagne starts flowing.

9:13 AM – Breakfast. Today is the day. Kickoff. Set in a sunny atrium along the water, the space fills with delegates – some chipper, some bleary-eyed after the previous evening’s showcase of music, some appearing for the first time – and the preliminary conversations begin. 

I eavesdrop to hear amazing conversations between people from a wide swath of the creative industries. Many are people who are completely clear as to what they do, why they are participating, but some take time to explain themselves, leading to the best breakfast quote so far: “She’s got her thumb in all kinds of pies, but don’t call her a baker.”

The room is fascinatingly diverse, the mood is light and many are purposefully unaware of what the day holds, other than idea sharing and round table conversations (the round table facilitators, The Value Web, have left details to be discovered and so no one is entirely clear on what will come).

10:04 AM – Nora Young, host of CBC program, Spark, and Master of Ceremonies at transmission, takes the podium and now, really, the conference begins. Young passes through some of the minute details, protocols, etc., with precision and speed, before passing over to Butch Dick, a member of the Coast Salish First Nations, who welcomes all the delegates to his territory.

Dick is a calm but powerful man. He absorbs the eyes and ears of the audience as he explains why we all need to recognize and be thankful for our privilege, lending wisdom from his culture.

He relates how the Coast Salish harmonize their efforts to find the best solutions. “We paddle together to make things more efficient, to get the most of our work,” he says.

It’s a sentiment that reflects what is about to unfold here today.

10:43 AM – After hearing from the Honorable Ida Chong, Minister of Science and Universities for the Province of British Columbia, and from Tyl van Toorn, Co-founder and Executive Producer for transmitNOW, who promised to keep his talk to four minutes or less (it was six, I timed it), we are introduced to The Value Web.

The Value Web is a new addition to transmission, but after speaking with Aaron Williamson, Designer, Facilitator, and Scribe for the group, it appears as though there has never been a better fit.

The Value Web itself is a creative group, made up of what Williamson calls “misfits”, who are hell-bent on developing deeper and original conversations through new approaches, then facilitating the harvest of the ideas that spawn from those conversations. They are an interesting set of 23 individuals from all over the world who are spread out between events (Toronto-based Williamson just got back the World Economic Forum in Geneva) where they take traditional models and give them a new bend. In the case of transmission, there are artists behind the speakers scribing, drawing, and colouring with precise strokes that reflect the conversations happening on the floor. It’s a compelling art piece that provides a tactile connection to the issues at hand.

11:00 AM – Let the keynotes begin. First up is Rob Wells, President of Global Digital Business for Universal Music Group, who is being interviewed by Jim Rondinelli, Senior Vice-President of Business Development for PacketVideo.

The pair obviously have a history, making a grand entrance and leading directly into serious ground. Rondinelli pins Wells right away, jokingly asking why it is taking so long for him to get a deal finalized between his company and Universal.

The question is relatively harmless in delivery, but it sets off one of the major themes for the day: How can the major labels position themselves toward continued success in a market where consumers are now accustomed to instant gratification and are used to paying little, if anything, for the content they consume?

Wells believes there is a shift and that the industry decline seen over the past decade is turning around. He cites Sweden, once a place of unbound opportunities for piracy, as a success story. After years of huge losses, it is set to turn a profit this year. But he acknowledges pirates remain the biggest challenge to the biggest labels.

“Three years ago 98% of people got their music for free. Now it’s 95%. I see great potential in that 95%,” he says.

This will lead us to the first theme of the day: Protection and Connection. How do we strike a balance between supporting business and protecting intellectual property of artists, while providing broader access to consumers?

It’s question that will be asked over and over again between the delegates at the round table conversations.

12:14 PM – I’m at a table discussing ideas about the future of digital media – how to develop financially sustainable options for creative industries. Of course there’s no way we’ll ever solve the problems in an hour, but the process is fascinating and is really why transmission exists at all.

Across 15 individual tables, delegates are matched up with people they may or may not know.  We’re given an assignment and let loose to share our various perspectives.

This is hugely important.

As Nora Young told me during a conversation, by doing this you are, “Putting people out of their comfort zones.” By forcing people to sit with those who they may not generally choose to sit with, you create opportunities for people to be exposed to different ideas.

“The core of innovation is happening on the wild side,” she says, referring to groups who are not institutionalized within the scope of the conversation. By randomly placing creators with delivery agents and consumers, for example, you are potentially exposing each of them to a new set of ideas, which is what Young believes drives innovation.

This is definitely not your typical BBQ. The Value Web has people scribbling in markers on tables, giant cardboard boxes where ideas are meant to be supplanted are plonked onto the tables and big-wig execs are mish-mashing ideas with creative types they may have never had the opportunity to meet…

2:25 PM – transmission translates to a good feed – and after an amazing lunch there is not just a little grumbling about stealing away to have a nap somewhere. The urge settles though when Eric Baptiste, CEO of SOCAN takes the podium.

“Nothing was ever easy,” he says, referring to the past struggle of the creative industries. “Talent is rare. Creating is hard.”

Baptiste is discussing the environment of licensing, the delivery models and the financial reparations for creators and providers. But he, like Wells, is optimistic. His argument is succinct, leaning toward missed opportunities of the recent past where creating single licenses for large markets could have solved many of today’s problems. He feels there are too many proverbial hoops to jump through in order to legally deliver digital content to the consumers who want it. The prices reach too high a level after all the administration, and so it’s no wonder consumers opt for piracy, even when the product may not be up to snuff.

But there is discussion, meaningful discussion (he says this but doesn’t necessarily elaborate), between several of the agencies involved in the processing of license.

3:15 PM – The final speaker of the day: David Neale, Vice-President of Special Projects for Research In Motion.

Neale is being interviewed by Young (this is a hugely obvious opportunity to make a joke about Canadian content with a Neale/Young comment, but I’m refraining – barely).  He is an obviously intelligent man, careful with his words. With Neal’s arrival to the stage, the next theme has arisen: Inspiration and Realization. 

He has brought tech stuff to explore his ideas. On his lap is, fittingly, a laptop. Beside him, a BlackBerry, and beside that a new product from RIM – a tablet. Neale’s conversation is less about how to monetize the sharing of IP (although he does touch on it) and more about how to make the sharing easier for the end user.

“It’s important to get rid of the lumpy bits,” he says.

For a man in charge of developing special projects for one of the largest digital hardware companies on the planet, that statement may seem rather benign. But it isn’t. His whole belief is that by creating interfaces and products that are seamless, that work flawlessly and deliver exactly what the consumer wants, the focus can then shift to what really matters in his mind: “the transactional capture behind the tablets.”

To Neale, the most important aspect of monetizing an industry that is struggling to capitalize on the free flow of digital content is the development of systems behind the tools (smartphones, tablets, etc.) that rapidly and easily capture the transactions occurring between consumers and providers.

3:34 PM – It is nearing the end of the Neale/Young conversation, and Young is curious about one last thing: how do we continue to sustain the development of innovation?

Neale is confident. “You cannot solve all the problems simultaneously,” he says, although he feels that problems can be solved. He goes on to explain that it takes an ongoing conversation from all across the spectrum of creative industries. One must look beyond the current technologies, or even the ones expected to follow, into the future beyond what we currently know. And the only way it is possible to do that future is by continuing the discussion.

7:00 PM – I’m weary and wired from the day, and know that there still remains hours of writing ahead. But I buck up and head over to see the Digital Media Installations at the Rialto Hotel. At first I’m confused. What looks like a video about liquid constellations is being projected against a screen. Then Rob Calder’s, owner of Boompa Records and Secret Study Projects, name pops up onscreen, and I see him fiddling with a smartphone, somehow directing the little froglike stickmen across the strange universe.

It’s explained to me that the exhibit is all about how we interact with the digital screens that surround us. It’s an art piece created by New Forms Festival and the Canadian Film Center Media Lab. It’s strange and I like it, especially seeing as how the exhibit somehow landed a vodka on the rocks in my hand…

With still two weeks to go, transmission: GLOBAL SUMMIT has reached full capacity – making things interesting for organizers. transmission’s always been guided by a philosophy to keep the capacity at no more than 150 people to maintain the intimate nature of the conference; an anthropological principle asserts that clans have always thrived when under this number, but tend to lose cohesion when they exceed it.  However, with the enormous interest that’s been generated due to the conference’s migration from music to creative industries as a whole, transmission’s producers are trying to make room for a dozen more seats at the table. 

All 150 coveted spots at transmission’s unique roundtable format have already been filled by some of the world’s leading creative industry leaders, thinkers, creators and entrepreneurs.  In 2011, conference participants will have the opportunity to have frank discussions with thought leaders of some of the biggest and most progressive outfits such as Behance, Research In Motion (BlackBerry), Google, BigChampagne, Warner, Beggars Group, Universal, Amazon, SoundCloud, Rdio, Slacker, Microsoft and more.   To see a shortlist of these companies to date, please click here.

An exciting addition to the 2011 program is the introduction of a renowned group of facilitators, The Value Web.  As the facilitators for the current and past editions of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, their creative approach to facilitation has inspired new ways of problem solving amongst global leaders including Bill Clinton, Bill Gates, Tony Blair, and more.

Photo: Alicia Bramlett of The Value Web scribing as Al Gore speaks at the 2009 World Forum on Enterprise and the Environment.

The Value Web’s unique graphic facilitation is a method that engages all participants, especially visual learners and listeners involved in the conversation.  The graphic facilitators, known as ‘scribes’, capture the ebb and flow of a conversation in words and pictures through colourful, relevant, and robust illustrations done in real time.

Each illustration is photographed and available to participants in a variety of forms such as a PDF file, a PowerPoint document or on a website. For more examples, visit The Value Web’s  collection on Flickr.

For more information on transmission: GLOBAL SUMMIT, including the conference program, speakers, and a shortlist of participating companies, please visit:

http://www.transmitnow.com/transmission2011

To request an invitation to participate, please visit:

http://www.transmitnow.com/request-invitation 

transmission: GLOBAL SUMMIT 2011 has received support from the following sponsors to date:

transmission: GLOBAL SUMMIT 2011's unique and intimate roundtable model will put participants up close with 150 key decision makers and executives of the creative industries.  Some key participants to date include:

• Kevin Arnold (CEO, IODA)
• Scott Belsky (CEO, Behance)
• Hannes Blum (CEO, AbeBooks)
• Eric Baptiste (CEO, SOCAN)
• Charles Caldas (CEO, Merlin)
• Angel Gambino (VP Business Development, Sonico)
• Eric Garland (CEO, BigChampagne)
• Richard Gottehrer (Co-founder & Chief Creative Officer, The Orchard)
• Wu Jun (CEO, R2G)
• Alexander Ljung (CEO, SoundCloud)
• Alistair Mitchell (SVP BlackBerry Messenger Platform & Integrated Services, Research In Motion/BlackBerry)
• Brad Navin (CEO, The Orchard)
• David Neale (SVP Special Projects, Research In Motion/BlackBerry)
• Jim Rondinelli (VP Business Development, PacketVideo)
• Seymour Stein (Chairman, Sire Records)
• Rob Wells (President of Global Digital Business, Universal Music Group)
• Simon Wheeler (Director of Digital, Beggars Group)
• Nora Young (Host & Creator of "Spark", CBC Radio One)

transmission: GLOBAL SUMMIT 2011 participants are encouraged to network and book appointments with each other through our transmitNOW member tools portal.  If you have inquiries regarding your login information, please contact Carol Cheung, Participant Services Manager, at carol.cheung@transmitnow.com.

Registration is still open!  Limited spots at our roundtables are still available for participants looking to build networks with some of the world's most influential leaders in the creative and digital industries.

REGISTER NOW 

or 

REQUEST AN INVITATION

This creative industries' festival will introduce cutting edge creators' showcases that feature various medias to transmission: GLOBAL SUMMIT 2011 participants and the general public.  Some of the transmitLIVE artists include:

• Jets Overhead
• Todor Kobakov
• Egyptrixx
• KEYS N KRATES
• Bonjay
• Longwalkshortdock
• Sweatshop Union
• Poirier
• G.I. Blunt
• APOK Industries
• Cityreal
• Longshanks

For more information on artist bios, please click here.

transmitLIVE tickets are now on sale!  Click here to find out where you can get buy your tickets NOW!

Note: all transmission: GLOBAL SUMMIT 2011 participants are guaranteed VIP access to all transmitLIVE venues and shows.

"We do think that the culture of sharing is really important. Word of mouth is fundamental to the music we produce. It's not the kind of music that makes it onto everyone's radio station."

Simon runs the Beggars Group of record labels' digital business. The group consists of the groundbreaking labels XL Recordings, 4AD, Rough Trade (all UK) and Matador Records (United States) and represents a seminal catalogue stretching back 30 years, as well as current multi-platinum acts such as The White Stripes, Radiohead and Basement Jaxx. Beggars has been licensing digital services since 1997, making the entire catalogue available to download by the track through Liquid Audio and Amplified.com as well as through the original Napster as part of the AIM and IMPALA deal.   Previously a musician, remixer, engineer, producer and promoter, Simon has been with The Beggars Group since 1990.   Starting work with online distribution in 1997 - licensing the entire groups catalogue for individual download and delivering the first territorially restricted download in 1998 - Simon has since worked with almost every significant entity in digital media.  He is chairman of AIM's New Media Committee in the UK, has spoken at most music conferences around the world on digital music and media, made statements to the UK parliament on DRM and has testified at the United States's CRB webcasting proceedings, but the most important role is keeping the Beggars Group of labels at the forefront of all new technologies to deliver its award winning roster of artists to the widest possible audience.

Want to meet Simon Wheeler at transmission: GLOBAL SUMMIT 2011?  Register today!

REGISTER NOW 

or  

REQUEST AN INVITATION

People who are creators come from one place, and the technology people come from another place and there are very few people who actually understand both worlds.

Walter F. McDonough is the General Counsel and one of the founders of the Future of Music Coalition (FMC). The FMC is a non-profit research institute that examines the law, economics and technology of the music business and is renowned for its annual policy conference. Mr. McDonough is a practicing attorney in Boston and a former adjunct professor of copyright law at Suffolk University Law School.  He also serves as a board member on the United States performing rights society Sound Exchange and the AARC. 

Continue the conversation at transmission: GLOBAL SUMMIT 2011.  

REGISTER NOW

or 

REQUEST AN INVITATION

With less than a month to go before 150 international leaders, thinkers, creators and entrepreneurs from the creative and digital industries convene in Victoria, Canada from February 9-11, 2011, transmission: GLOBAL SUMMIT 2011 readies a program that speaks to the issues and opportunities of digital content monetization.

In addition, for the first time, transmission: GLOBAL SUMMIT 2011 will also offer participants an opportunity to establish their agenda for global markets through highly intensive focus groups dedicated to international business development in countries where technology and creative industries are expanding rapidly (Brazil, China, and Israel).

// conference themes

150 international decision-makers and thought-leaders from sectors including content, digital platforms, investment, R&D and retail will discuss issues around the following themes in transmission’s unique roundtable format:

protection | connection

While copyright owners need to protect their intellectual property in order to sustain their business models, the camp that supports alternative copyright solutions is growing: a more open approach to information, content, and ideas is heavily supported by a new generation of creators and consumers.

inspiration | realization

Entrepreneurs are the key creators of new technology and business solutions that help to maintain profitable creative industries. On the other hand, traditional and well-funded businesses have the resources to support new ideas and bring them to market; a valuable, but challenging, co-dependence.

globalization | localization

While organizations in all creative industries are looking at new markets to expand their business, successfully exporting content is never easy. At the same time, local monetization of media and entertainment has had a long history and continues to be important on new digital channels.

// conference process

In order to enable meaningful discussions at transmission: GLOBAL SUMMIT 2011, the focus will be on transmission’s signature roundtable format. The roundtable facilitates result-bearing talks between leaders in content, digital platforms, investment, R&D and retail while enabling all delegates to participate in intimate and meaningful discussions.

New for 2011 will be the facilitation expertise from The Value Web, who will not only re-design our roundtable process, but also implement a new and unique graphic facilitation approach.  The Value Web has experience handling mediation for conferences around the globe, including the World Economic Forum, held in Davos, Switzerland, and worldwide.

// business development (B2B focus groups)

transmission: GLOBAL SUMMIT 2011 will host several high intensive B2B groups that are focused on specific business development topics. These B2B groups will include:

• ‘Focus on Music Publishing’ - presented by the Canadian Music Publishers’ Association 
• ‘A Global View on Performing Rights Associations’ - presented by SOCAN  
• ‘China & the Creative Industries’ - hosted by transmitCHINA and Splitworks 
• ‘Is Brazil the Real Emerging Market?’ - hosted by transmitBRAZIL and Coquetel Molotov 
• 'Israel: a Start-Up Nation’ - hosted by transmitISRAEL and Lev Group Media

// conference schedule

// conference speakers and participants

transmission: GLOBAL SUMMIT 2011 has already confirmed an amazing line of speakers, including: 

• Rob Wells (President of Global Digital Business, Universal Music Group)
• David Neale (SVP Special Projects, Research In Motion/BlackBerry)
• Eric Baptiste (CEO, SOCAN)
• Scott Belsky (CEO & Co-founder, Behance)
• Wu Jun (CEO, R2G and Wa3.cn)
• Conference MC: Nora Young (Host & Creator of “Spark”, CBC Radio One)

Confirmed companies in attendance include: Beggars Group, Behance, BigChampagne Media Measurement, BMI, Bookriff, Boompa Records, Canadian Music Centre, Canadian Music Publishers’ Association, CBC Radio One, CBC Radio 3, Centre for Digital Media, Epitaph, Exclaim!, Gowlings, Grooveshark, Research In Motion (BlackBerry), Royal Roads University, Shore104/Shore Media Group, HMV Canada, Indoor Recess, INgrooves, International Confederation of Music Publishers, IODA, IRIS Distribution, Lev Group Media, MasurLaw, Merlin, Metrolyrics, Nettwerk Music Group, PacketVideo, Polaris Music Prize, Province of British Columbia, R2G, Rdio, SOCAN, Sonico, SoundCloud, Splitworks, Techvibes Media, Telus, The Agency Group, The Orchard, Toolshed, Warner Music, Universal Music Group and many more.

For a fuller shortlist of participating companies, please click here.

// transmitLIVE creative industries festival

The evening program of transmission: GLOBAL SUMMIT 2011, transmitLIVE, will feature select artists that are at the forefront of connecting content with digital technology.  A few of these artists include: Jets Overhead, Gordon Blunt /w Blunt Faktory Visuals, Half Moon Run, Ghislain Poirier, Longwalkshortdock, Bonjay, Keys n Krates, Sweatshop Union w/ Kyprios, Todor Kobakov, and more. To see artist bios, click here.

// sponsors and supporters

transmission: GLOBAL SUMMIT 2011 is proud to announce the partnership and support of the following organizations to date:

// register by January 15, 2011 to take advantage of Regular Registration Rates!

Late Registration Rates will be in effect from January 16 to February 4, 2011.  For questions related to registration, please contact Carol Cheung, Participant Services Manager, at reg.coordinator@transmitnow.com.

 

REGISTER NOW 

or 

REQUEST AN INVITATION

"When I was a kid, we used to go to the store and wait for the new Police LP to come, so the delay was a factor. Now there's no delay. We need to look at everything as a flow of data that we need to maximize. And it's different."

Omri Dolev, Co-founder of Lev Group Media and the exclusive representative of Warner Music Group in Israel, presses on how people need to see music and content in a different way in the Information Age.

Omri is presently leading the Lev Group Media - a privately held company mainly involved in digital music (web and mobile). In Israel, Lev Group is the exclusive rights holder of the Warner Music and Beggars Group catalogues. Omri is founder of YonYon - a web boutique focusing on turn key management with projects in South America, East Europe and Israel. Omri is technology oriented and has combined his knowledge in content, online marketing, mobile, overall penetration strategies and digital music.

In the past, Omri was the chief editor and VP of Logiamobile - Israel's leading mobile content aggregator, was in charge of the digital re-launch of the Israeli sport channel web portal (Sport5) and was founder of NoveBox.com - a leading telenovela (south American soap opera) in Argentina.

Meet Omri and many other creative industry executives who come from Israel, China, Brazil, and all around the world to transmission: GLOBAL SUMMIT 2011 in February 9-11, 2011.  

Planning to attend?  Register now or request an invitation!

From February 9-11, 2011, transmission: GLOBAL SUMMIT will feature 150 executives, thinkers, creators, and entrepreneurs from the creative industries and deliver an unparalleled conference experience including a stellar group of internationally respected keynote speakers; roundtable discussions with an elite group of leaders and decision makers; and highly intimate social and recreational activities within the beautiful environs of the Pacific Northwest. 

"This isn’t about seeing people speak on panels and keynote speeches, it’s really about creating an environment where people can interact in groups and discuss things." - Walter McDonough, Co-founder of Future of Music Coalition.

See what Walter and others have to say about transmission: GLOBAL SUMMIT 2011 in this video.

Rob Wells will be making his first conference appearance as President, Global Digital Business of Universal Music Group at transmission: GLOBAL SUMMIT 2011.  Scott Belsky, Founder and CEO of Behance, will also join the roster of speakers.  

We are also proud to announce that CBC Radio One's Nora Young, host of the critically acclaimed show, "Spark", will be the MC at this special gathering of leaders, thinkers, creators, and entrepreneurs of the creative industries in Victoria, Canada, from February 9-11, 2011.

Keynote speakers at transmission: GLOBAL SUMMIT 2011 include:

• Nora Young (MC), Author, Producer and Host of "Spark", Canada’s nationally broadcasted radio show, blog and podcast focused on Technology and Culture airing weekly across the country on CBC Radio One
• Rob Wells, President, Global Digital Business, Universal Music Group 
• Scott Belsky, Founder of Behance.com and Author of "Making Ideas Happen" 
• Eric Baptiste, CEO of SOCAN and past CEO of CISAC 
• Wu Jun, Founder and CEO, R2G and Wa3.cn
• David Neale, SVP Special Projects, Research In Motion

The Regular Registration Deadline is January 15, 2011.

REGISTER NOW

or 

REQUEST AN INVITATION

"Are you building [a business] to exit it?  Because that’s like signing a record deal."

Mark Montgomery is a pioneer in the e-commerce and business to consumer marketing space. Over the past 15 years, he has worked with hundreds of entertainment and corporate clients, including names like Sony, Kanye West, Keith Urban, RIM/Blackberry, the Dalai Lama, Bon Jovi, Pearl Jam, Best Buy, Gnarls Barkley, Rascal Flatts, and General Motors to name a few.

Mark has been working in the web space since the early 90's, launching his first B2C ecommerce play in early 1996.  In 1999, he co-founded echo, a company focused on building communities around entertainment brands.  He was the co-creator of the patented platform echotools™, a direct to consumer delivery and data management system which ultimately grew to serve millions of users and distribute hundreds of millions of pages, data feeds, and e-commerce transitions.  The company was sold in 2007 to IAC/Ticketmaster for eight figures, returning nearly a ten multiple to echo's investors.

Agree, or disagree, with his views?  Continue the conversation with individuals like Mark Montgomery at transmission: GLOBAL SUMMIT 2011, held in Victoria, Canada, from February 9-11, 2011.  Register now, or request an invitation to attend.

"I do believe there's a 'fix' in the [music] industry; just not the 'fix' that the old business was looking for."

Eric Garland is the founder and CEO of BigChampagne Media Measurement, a new kind of music metrics company charting the new business of music.BigChampagne's Ultimate Chart is the first and only measure of all of the ways in which music is popular, everywhere. Eric contributed data and analysis to Chris Anderson's best-selling book "The Long Tail" and partnered with Radiohead on "In Rainbows, On Torrents," a critical examination of the band's pay-what-you-wish album experiment. Colorful stories from his early career were told in Steve Knopper's history "Appetite for Self-Destruction: The Spectacular Crash of the Record Industry in the Digital Age." Eric's advisory board memberships include Tapulous (acquired by Disney) and the digital initiative of the Recording Academy (The Grammys), where he has served alongside artists Kelly Clarkson and Kanye West. Eric was formally recognized for his outstanding contribution to the Recording Academy in 2007.

This is the second issue of the transmitNOW interview series which are held with select creators and leaders in the creative industries from around the globe. This week's focus is Eric Garland, who speaks on the challenges of being an entrepreneur in the entertainment industry. He also discusses how other creative industries are starting to face issues that the music industry had previously faced in the past, and offers his views on how this industry can be 'fixed' in the future.

Continue the conversation with individuals like Eric Garland at transmission: GLOBAL SUMMIT 2011, held in Victoria, Canada, from February 9-11, 2011.

"People talk about viral all the time, like things magically go viral, but as you know things don't magically go viral."

Angel Gambino is a WIRED Top 100 executive with over 15 years experience working with innovative media and tech businesses around the globe.  Her past experience includes senior positions at Bebo, MTV and the BBC. A serial entrepreneur who has a passion for music, media, technology and social issues, Angel holds a number of directorships and is on the boards of several companies, including advisory roles at start-up companies such as Media Friends, Just-b Productions, and Sellaband.

Angel talks about the realities and challenges of being an entrepreneur in the creative industries with transmitNOW.  This topic is further explored at transmission: GLOBAL SUMMIT 2011, the premier event for the creative industries focused on monetizing digital content.  If you would like to join the conversation at transmission: GLOBAL SUMMIT, please register or request an invitation to attend.

The following article is an opinion written by Jonas Woost, Director of Community Development for transmitNOW.  Jonas has over a decade of experience in the music and digital industries and has been regularly invited to speak publicly at international conferences to discuss issues within the digital music and media business, including Popkomm (Berlin), Canadian Music Week (Toronto), In The City (Manchester), NARM (USA), Porto Musical (Recife, Brazil) and Futuresonic (Manchester).

Over the last year or so, I noticed a worrying trend among corporate decision makers - as well as legislators around the world - who are trying to monitor internet traffic in order to prohibit unlicensed usage of copyrighted material (also referred to as 'piracy').  The part that concerns me most is the fact that not more people are outraged about this potential threat to our freedom of information.

Needless to say, digital files and connected computers have changed the economy around creative content and continues to do so. Companies and individuals that monetize media and entertainment content are all affected by the changes of distribution, consumption and discovery that come with digital technologies. Many of those organisations have reacted defensively to those new developments and have not fully embraced new technologies to try and develop new business models.

File sharing is often seen as one of the biggest reasons for declining revenues and there have been various strategies to stop people from sharing digital content via the internet; legal action against music downloaders has been a widely popular method with disastrous PR consequences for the RIAA and its member labels. Threats of the legal repercussion are often used in the movie business, too ("Warning: the unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted..").

More recently (and potentially because of the ineffectiveness of the methods above) we have seen the trend where content owners, or their representatives, attempt to monitor internet traffic of individuals to see if any unlicensed content is being shared. One popular variation is that there should not be any legal action; instead, internet connection may be compromised after a certain amount of 'offenses'. This variation has been discussed in Ireland (but was not blocked by the High Court) and was implemented in France. It has been widely discussed within the music industry.

In a letter to Google, various music industry organisations encouraged "ISPs and other intermediaries to take measures to deter unlawful activity". While they have not been more specific what those measures could be, it is obvious that the industry is looking at the internet providers to take more responsibility in this matter. As a side note, the fact that those music industry organisations compared copyright infringement to child pornography in this letter is not only out of context in this discussion, but distasteful and misleading. I believe 'disgusting' was the term someone used in a conversation with me some weeks ago.

Unfortunately, there is a broad lack of understanding what monitoring internet traffic means for us: content accessed through the net is highly sensitive and personal, and privacy has to be guaranteed at all times in a society that praises freedom of information as one of the main pillars of democracy. While this sounds exaggerated, it is now that we all have to agree to a important principle: do we give digital communication and information the same status as we give towards more traditional counterparts?

Imagine a law, which would allow (or even force) your mailman to open all your letters and packages to see if there is any copyright infringing material sent to you, being passed. By the third time you received a pirated copy of 'Brokeback Mountain' you will not receive any more letters. Needless to say that this would be unconstitutional in most Western countries. Even opening a letter without the recipients permission is a crime in many countries.

In this context, Cory Doctorow has recently warned of "embedding control, surveillance and censorship into the very fabric of the information society’s infrastructure" and refers to the French HADOPI “three strikes” rule: "they’re sending out 10,000 legal threats a week now, and have promised 150,000 a week in short order. After three unsubstantiated accusations of infringement, your whole family is disconnected from the internet – from work, education, civic engagement, distant relatives, health information, community."

There are two other big concerns I have with monitoring internet traffic to combat file sharing:

1. Often it is unclear to the consumer that files downloaded, or shared, are unlicensed. With the amount of free files on the net it's easy to end up with content that has not been cleared with the rights-owners. Granted, common sense often helps navigation through those issues, especially for more popular content (eg. downloading all albums by 'The Beatles' for free on a Chinese website has probably not been signed off by EMI). But there are countless sources for amazing free independent music such as mp3 blogs and it's often not clear what the rights situation is on those sites.

2. It seems that execution of any three-strikes policy is currently in the hand of the rights owner as well as the ISPs. I have not yet seen an independent agency that would set up a policy and deal with disputes. Giving the accusers the right to police themselves leaves far too much room for mistakes and even misuse.

To be clear: we need to deal with, and combat, illegal activity on the internet. And if this means having to wire-tap internet connections (of course with a court order) in order to prevent crimes then I'm fully supportive. The net should not be a law-free space; but a 'guilty until innocent' approach is not only limiting my civil liberties but also not practical in the process of building new business models for creative industries.

(This is a continuation of a 2-part article about the Virtual Roundtable 1.  To see what was said in the first part, please click here.)

Participants:
Charles Caldas (CEO, Merlin, UK)
Martin J. Thörnkvist (Founder of Songs I Wish I Had Written, Media Market Analyst of Media Evolution, Sweden)
Vickie Nauman (VP North America, 7digital, USA)

* * *

Do we need to change legislation in order to transform loss of control into an opportunity? If so, how?

Vickie Nauman: There definitely needs to be a reduction of complexity around music licensing globally -- with transactions at $.99 instead of $24.99, the level of revenue shares and licensing deals required no longer makes sense in the marketplace.  I am an advocate of having a simple licensing layer that sits in between content owners and application/service creators; reduce the gateholders and barriers for legal services, simplify, and sell more music at a lower cost.  

Martin J. Thörnkvist: From my point of view the legislation is just fine. What we need to do is to start thinking about the obligations that comes with a (copy) right .

What happened was that "we" decided to protect our rights by running to lawyers and politicians to whine about the need of new laws that enabled us to maintain our OLD way of doing business. We put rights first and our own business second instead of vice versa.

Charles Caldas: My view in terms of legislation is not so much to create systems that punish consumers or file sharers. I would rather see the creation of a legislative framework that encourages the creation of ubiquitous, new, and compelling business models that disincentivizes illegal consumption by ensuring equitable access to the market for all creators, and that needs to be a market focused on creating compelling consumer propositions.

Vickie Nauman: An important shift also needs to take place from a business strategy standpoint -- while there is a 90% piracy rate globally on digital music, we must also recognize that there ARE 10% of people who are buying music -- and we need to be smarter as a global industry to identify their characteristics and what they love, and create more compelling consumer offers that build upon that and attract more consumers like them.  There is a percentage of people who will never pay for music - this is toothpaste out of the tube and we need to accept it and focus on creating services and attractively priced music for those who will pay!

Charles Caldas: We have to satisfy our customers, and with the availability of efficient, centralized mechanisms by which to access repertoire on a global basis, it is easier than it has ever been for services to offer their customers a full choice. It is clear that in a market where all labels have access to market on sustainable terms - and where consumers can thus enjoy better, deeper and more compelling offerings - the likelihood of new services succeeding is far greater.

Martin J. Thörnkvist: We need to understand that those services are trying to build a future business for us; in other words, a way to sustain our right. Nobody knew about copyright before we failed to deliver our music in a way our fans wanted to consume it.

For that reason I'm a great advocate of Creative Commons licenses as a layer to copyright law. It's a really good way to communicate that we understand that our right comes with obligations because we clearly state how listeners can spread and build upon our work.

* * *

Will there be a time when content producers and owners will regain control over their output?

Charles Caldas: In a healthy market, control becomes less of an issue. When there is a diverse, sustainable business environment in which creators can operate in the comfort where remuneration rewards their efforts, then control becomes more about trying to control how you get your content to the market rather than how you get paid.

Martin J. Thörnkvist: I don't feel that we lost [control]. It's obvious that we still have it. If we are good at arguing to people why they should pay us, I'm certain they will. A CD is not a good argument in 2010. Of course we need to be creative with the ways we make the music we love available. Unfortunately a good song isn't enough. And, again, this is an area where we need to team up with software developers. They are the ones with abilities to code future music products and platforms. And hey, that means we can focus on what we are really good at, developing music and artists!

Vickie Nauman: Yes - some of this is already happening at both the artist/band level as well as at smaller labels that have remained true to the music and their fans. I believe that music labels can still serve an important function to artist development and A&R - but "control" as a concept is less important than being smart and accepting the reality of our digital economy and adjusting overhead and business strategy in kind.

(This is Part I of a two-part article. Stay posted for the next part of this Virtual Roundtable.)

Participants:
Charles Caldas (CEO, Merlin, UK)
Martin J. Thörnkvist (Founder of Songs I Wish I Had Written, Media Market Analyst of Media Evolution, Sweden)
Vickie Nauman (VP North America, 7digital, USA)

In the days when physical data carriers were the only ways to deliver entertainment to the consumer, it was easy to control the flow of the content. Rights owners could decide at what point to release their product and run the distribution; even though unlicensed releases were available, they were not always easy to get.

Digitization and networked computers suddenly made entertainment and media content easy to share, and technologies such as p2p file-sharing not only became vastly popular but also surprised the industries that manage and monetize information.

It is now well documented that all content industries have since struggled to see the free flow of content as a business opportunity but always focused on the threat that came with new technologies.

Some might argue that the real change for all digital creative industries over the last 15 years is a sudden loss of control which neither fits into their existing business models nor the current legislation.

This panel does not discuss the effect of p2p on existing businesses but wants to understand what a sudden loss of control does to businesses and how this can be seen as an opportunity.

* * *

What kind of new opportunities have opened up to content owners through the free flow of information?

Martin J. Thörnkvist: First of all it's important to remember that many wouldn't be around without it. This is certainly true for labels like mine and the artists I'm working with. As a label with no money and no contacts to start with the ability to distribute music for free was a great opportunity. It meant that with "only" some really good songs in our hands we could establish a relationship with fans, the media and other music business functions such as booking agents and publishers that enabled us to get a business going.

It was a good way to start, but I'm also certain it's a good way to sustain and grow the business. I've always said that I rather have 100 000 listeners and 100 buyers, than 100 listeners and 100 buyers.

Charles Caldas: The clearest opportunity is the creation of a market in which the barriers (that often prevented content owners reaching their audience) have been dismantled. A market with no tightly controlled “shop window” - where presence in that window depends on financial power and influence - and where the ability to globalise your reach is far easier is clearly an opportunity for the distribution and consumption of a more diverse and broad set of content than was possible under a physically restricted market.  In theory, a market such as this offers consumers a broader, deeper and more diverse choice than they have ever been able to access, and potentially gives content owners a much broader audience for their art. The challenge is, of course, how to harness that possibility into a financially sustainable ecosystem that rewards creation, fosters an environment that encourages investment and creates new business models for the benefit of both creators and consumers.

Vickie Nauman: Certainly the broadest change and opportunity [in the free flow of information] is access to more varied content from every corner of the world. Consumers have more choice and more options than ever before -- and the distribution of music to people's phones, homes, and mobile lives opens up vast new ways to find and enjoy music.

* * *

Why have content owners always struggled to work together with disruptive technologies and organizations over the last 15 years?

Vickie Nauman: There is an inherent loss of control over distribution and the traditional revenue that was tied to that controlled distribution system.

Martin J. Thörnkvist: I think it's - to a large extent - about fear. Fear of losing a monopoly-like position. The big content owners used to own and control the whole chain from recording to packaging to distribution. Of course they want to sustain it.

Charles Caldas: The simple answer is fear.... of disruption, of loss of control, of the potential for the status quo to be severely disrupted.

Vickie Nauman: For the last twenty years of the 20th Century, music became a highly lucrative "product" -- content owners were able to drive physical format changes and packaged music (songs vs albums) and had great influence at all points along the supply and distribution chain.  Now consumers are empowered, distribution is dispersed, and the core function of labels and studios needs to be redefined; with lower margins, the overall structure and licensing complexity need to be reduced.  The past strategy for music licensing has been to create scarcity in the marketplace so that a higher price can be charged. This no longer works as there is NO SCARCITY.  

Martin J. Thörnkvist: But I also think we need to be fair and acknowledge that it wasn't that easy to understand the magnitude of the digital shift in the first five of those years. Sometimes I think we are a little bit too hard in our judgement. The duo, She & Him, says it well: "Change is hard."  Content owners that are still suing their customers are just ridiculous and have disqualified themselves from this discussion many years ago.

Charles Caldas: From the point of view of an independent, ironically, independent music companies have been at the forefront of innovation and creation throughout the past 15 years, yet have been damaged by the behaviour of the most powerful organisations who have dealt the worst with change as much as they have by illegal consumption of their repertoire.

The possibility that all of the players in the industry could operate in a market where creators and investors are rewarded and incentivised to create value-added, consumer friendly and sustainable music and entertainment services seems achievable. Yet for many independent companies, it is often the industry itself that throws as many obstacles in the way of the quest for success of any illegal service.

(See Part II of this Virtual Roundtable here.)

Dr. Daniel Levitin, Professor at McGill University, talks to Discover Magazine about why we are able to remember music despite circumstances that may prevent us from remembering other things - such as where our keys are.

Levitin explores the power of the brain in remembering music, and shows how music can still be recalled (and sung) by those afflicted with Alzheimer's. Levitin's work with cognitive psychology and music is highly regarded and well known internationally. His book, "This Is Your Brain On Music", was published in eleven languages and spent over a year on the New York Times Bestseller list. 

To learn more about Levitin and his experiences, please see his biography here.  

(This is a guest post by Andrew Dubber, originally published in 2008 on the New Music Strategies blog. This topic continues to be relevant as digital technologies and traditional copyright struggle to co-exist and it is vital to keep the discussion going.)

This one’s easy. I’ve been saying this for a while now, and it never fails to get me into an animated discussion. I’ve listened to all the arguments, read all the reports, heard convincing arguments about copyright extension and for complete overhaul of the copyright system.

And I’ve come to the following conclusion: The ideal term of both recording rights and composer’s rights is five years.

That’s right: Five. Not 95. Not 75. Not 50 or 25. Five. That number again: 5.

 Arguments

Now, we could get into a long discussion here about the purpose of copyright being a way to incentivise creativity.

Or that extended copyrights prevent orphaned works from entering the public domain.

Or that music is not simply commerce, but is more importantly culture.

Or that copyrights should not be a way for businesses to continue to exploit artists’ work decades after they have moved on to other things.

Or that musicians should have the right to earn from their creations forever.

Or that record labels take such risks, they should be allowed to continue to reap the reward of their investment.

All seemingly sound arguments, when looked at from a particular point of view. But I’m not even going to engage them in debate. In one sense or another, they’re all right. But there’s something more fundamental at stake here.

Blanket licensing

The core assumption is that when a copyright term is decided upon, that’s the copyright term for all things in all circumstances. And those who want copyright terms extended (usually corporate organisations sitting on vast mountains of back catalogue) generally get their way on these matters, as happened in Europe recently.

But the problem is – that doesn’t suit everybody. Least of all the audiences and creators of content who want to build, share and engage in culture.

How it works

What I am proposing is a 5 year renewable term of copyright. All works are registered at the point of their creation. In five years time, if there is still commercial potential that the rights owner wishes to make use of, then that person or organisation re-registers the work.

And they can renew it again after another five years. And so on.

Cliff Richard can still use royalties as a kind of retirement deal if he wants to. But works that are not considered economically viable properties by their owners can enter the public domain and become part of the rich tapestry of human culture, for use in independent films, hip hop samples – or whatever else.

But most importantly, this happens automatically. Inactivity at the five year mark will lead to the default position of public domain – not the default position (as is currently the case) of ‘you can’t use this’.

The technology to make this happen is simple and readily available, and with an open database of works, clearance would be greatly simplified and re-registration a very straightforward procedure (comparatively speaking).

Most importantly

It’s estimated that less than 2% of all music that has ever been released in a commercial format is currently for sale in any way, shape or form. That 6-million tracks thing that iTunes goes on about is hardly even the tip of the iceberg.

But long-term blanket licences prevent people from lawfully accessing that other 98% of music and breathing new life into it.

One stipulation I’d add to my renewable 5-year term is a ‘use it or lose it’ clause. If you have a registered work and you do not make it available to the public in a commercially available fashion during a 5-year term, then you lose the right to renew that licence.

Stockpiling creative works just to hoard them, without making them available to the public, loses you those works next time around.

Just think of all the amazing collections and compilations that would be available to listen to and explore if the archives were opened up as public domain for independent entrepreneurs to work in niche areas of music that the majors had just been warehousing because they didn’t consider it economic to re-issue and release.

Talk about your Long Tail…

The problem (mostly) solved

Current blanket copyright terms ‘protect’ (I use that term in the sense of ‘racket’) copyright owners so that they can continue to be paid over and over again for work they did years ago. It prevents anyone else from making money out of works that have been shelved.

It does not, in any real sense, ‘incentivise creativity’.

A five year renewable copyright term for recorded works and for compositions allows for people to continue to earn from their works, encourages the development of under-utilised assets, pours far more music into the public sphere for the good of culture, and provides opportunities for enterprise.

It doesn’t fix the fact that copyright law is still based on an old technological environment, and simply doesn’t work in the online environment – but getting that term thing sorted out would be a great start.

What a summer it’s been for music! Fantastic albums are being released… bands are touring… and festivals are on. The Arcade Fire are consuming all of the headlines recently - having picked up the number one spot for record sales recently. Coincidently, their new album Suburbs is a combination of my two passions: music and urban studies. Menomena and The Books have also finally released new albums after fantastic previous efforts, and have songs featured on the episode. Two of my favourite modern composers, Ólafur Arnalds and Max Richter, also return with some haunting ambient tracks. The global beats of Bonobo and Emancipator are again featured (would love to see those two collaborate), joined by Arms and Sleepers and Kaya Project. John Lennon’s Imagine is also covered typically well by Antony and the Johnsons.

Check out The New Balearic on Twitter and Facebook.

Tracklisting: (1 hour, 30 minutes)

 The Wilderness of Manitoba - ‘Orono Park’ (Self Released)
 The Arcade Fire - ‘Rococo’ (City Slang)
 Evening Hymns - ‘Dead Deer’ (Out Of This Spark)
 Jordan Klassen - ‘In Bodrum, Near the Castle’ (Self Released)
 Ólafur Arnalds - ‘Þú Ert Jörðin’ (Erased Tapes)
 Forest City Lovers - ‘Phodilus & Tyto’ (Out Of This Spark)
 Gotan Project - ‘Rayuela’ (¡Ya Basta!)
 Emancipator - ‘Greenland’ (Self Released)
 Peter and the Wolf - ‘Nora’ (Whiskey & Apples)
 Menomena - ‘Dirty Cartoons’ (Barsuk)
 I Am Oak - ‘On Trees And Birds And Fire’ (Snowstar)
 Plants and Animals - ‘Game Shows’ (Secret City)
 Laura Marling - ‘What He Wrote’ (Virgin)
 Broken Social Scene - ‘All to All’ (Arts & Crafts)
 Max Richter - ‘Infra 2’ (Fat Cat)
 The Books - ‘Thirty Incoming’ (Tomlab)
 Bonobo - ‘Kong’ (Ninja Tune)
 Kaya Project - ‘Dust Devil’ (InterChill)
 Arms and Sleepers - ‘The Paramour’ (Fake Chapter)
 Antony and the Johnsons - ‘Imagine’ (Rough Trade)
 JDH - ‘The Great Comforter’ (Self Released)
 The Magician & The Gates of Love - ‘A Gentleman’s Harvest’ (Self Released)

Photo taken by Bruce Mans, All Rights Reserved.

DOWNLOAD HERE
or
DOWNLOAD MP3 VERSION HERE
or
STREAM AT 
or
CLICK HERE TO SUBSCRIBE THROUGH iTUNES

Change is one of the great inevitabilities.

Last year at transmission and last spring at transmitCHINA, we witnessed an amazing shift in energy with the presence of new content platforms within the mobile space. While music has always been the core and soul of transmission, our work in emerging markets has led us on a natural migration towards the other creative industries - film, television, interactive gaming, publishing. We've seen the connections between music, mobile, streaming video and the challenges and opportunities that face all of these sectors. Time is right to embrace a change.

We are working to bring the other creative economy sectors to the table, to make transmission more relevant and to deliver increased value and opportunity to our delegates.

In embracing this shift we have attracted several new partners including Canada's own Royal Roads University. FanTan Entertainment Inc., producers of transmission, and Royal Roads University are coming together to respond to market changes taking place at the intersection of the creative industries, digital media and entrepreneurship. This partnership is designed to engage leaders, thinkers and creators from around the world with the purpose of establishing new business models, generating intelligence and, in turn, playing a role in the development of new creative industry policy. Our partnership with Royal Roads will bring extraordinary strategic value and opportunity to the Canadian creative economy as transmission migrates to being an international platform for discourse in all matters to do with creative industries, digital media and future-focused entrepreneurship.

The re-imagining of transmission - as an idea marketplace and conference for the creative industries – has further motivated us to shift from our traditional September date and apply a new vision to the timing of the conference. transmission will be held from February 9 to 11, 2011 in Victoria, BC, Canada. It was a big decision for us to make, but we feel that the opportunities and benefits are enormous.

To be clear, music is still the blood in our veins. We are excited to announce this important expansion of our mandate while assuring our loyal stakeholder base that transmission will remain an important showcase event for artists, creators and creative content.

Change isn't always easy. Nothing truly worth it comes easy. Join us in February. We will be worth the wait.

As promised, I’ve finally gotten around to making the first episode of the New Balearic this year… in June. The first half of 2010 has demanded lengthy papers and in-depth projects, a handful of Maritime trips, and daily World Cup commitments (Hup Holland)… all of which have distracted me from my podcast duty. The second half of 2010 looks equally as busy, but I’ll be more shrewd with my time and keep regular updates.

Well then…. music! It’s been a great year so far. Great new bands have emerged and old favourites have released new material. New to the podcast are some great new bands from all over Canada, including folk from Halifax’s The Prospector’s Union, and Winnipeg’s Ah Sage, pop from Calgary’s Ghostkeeper, and dreamy synthesized beats Vancouver’s Teen Daze. I’m also exited to have Langley’s The Magician & the Gates of Love and Abbotsford’s Jordan Klassen back on the podcast with some new material.

Outside of Canada, some of my all-time favourite musicians have also been busy. Four Tet and Pantha du Prince have both offered new full length albums full of tasty beats. Argentina’s Gotan Project have also returned with some more Nuevo Tango brilliance. Last year the Netherlands brought us some beautiful folk music courtesy of the Black Atlantic. This year, the country brings us I Am Oak, a sincere songwriter from Utrecht by the name Thijs Kuijken. Finally, one of my favourite albums of the year so far has got to be the Black Keys‘ Brothers, and will surely be featured in many more episodes to come.

So with that, enjoy the music!

Check out The New Balearic on Twitter and Facebook.

//Tracklisting: (1 hour, 18 minutes)

Slacker - ‘Start A New Life’ (Godlike and Electric)
Emancipator - ‘Nevergreen’ (Self Released)
Plants and Animals - ‘Undone Melody’ (Secret City)
The Black Keys - ‘Tighten Up’ (Nonesuch)
Ghostkeeper - ‘Haunted’ (Flemish Eye)
Broken Social Scene - ‘Sweetest Kill’ (Arts & Crafts)
Jordan Klassen - ‘Written on Collarbone’ (Self Released)
Teen Daze - ‘Shine On, You Crazy White Cap’ (Arcade Sound)
Four Tet - ‘Angel Echoes’ (Domino)
Pantha du Prince - ‘Bohemian Forest’ (Rough Trade)
Crystal Castles - ‘Celestica’ (Polydor)
I Am Oak - ‘Don’t I Know Enough’ (Snowstar)
The Magician & The Gates of Love - ‘The Lions’ (Self Released)
Ah Sage - ‘Suburban Witchcraft’ (Self Released)
The Prospector’s Union - ‘Salt City Blues’ (Just Friends)
The Acorn - ‘Slippery When Wet’ (Paperbag)
Shugo Tokumaru - ‘Tracking Elevator’ (p-vine)
Janelle Monáe - ‘Tightrope (Feat. Big Boi)’ (Altantic)
Bonobo - ‘Stay The Same (Feat. Andreya Triana)’ (Ninja Tune)
Gotan Project - Desilusion’ (¡Ya Basta!)

Photo taken by Bruce Mans, All Rights Reserved.

DOWNLOAD HERE
or
DOWNLOAD MP3 VERSION HERE
or
STREAM AT

It was June 1, 2010 in Beijing during our first B2B focus group that we realized the gamble had paid off.

Archie Hamilton, Mathew Daniel and I all had smiles of relief on our faces as we shared a look 30 minutes into our first attempt to host a transmission roundtable in China. It was a truly awesome moment. It was working, like a Swiss watch. While the group was a little larger than we would have liked, we had a room evenly split between Western industry heavies and their Chinese counterparts. All were rolling up their sleeves and openly sharing inspirations and frustrations, ideas and challenges in a way we had never witnessed before.

// Beijing, June 1

“Terry Tang, CEO of DMCS, discussed the relevance of long tail theory in China”

Everyone around the table chuckled as Terry Tang, head of DMCS China, broke the ice with a response to a Canadian question on the issue of recorded sales models. The interpreter, not really understanding the jargon, tried to translate what everyone around the table knew and understood as a common point of debate in the West. She wasn't sure what she meant as she cautiously translated, "this argument is irrelevant. There is no....long tail? in China?"

Everyone laughed. Nothing like a joke to break the ice, especially when it comes from the Chinese side of the table.

It was at that moment that we knew that the upcoming roundtable conference in Shanghai was going to be a breakthrough.

Let's start by placing credit where it is due. First, a big high-five to Mathew Daniel, VP at R2G (China) and member of the International transmitNOW Advisory Board for pointing out the obvious: transmission has become famous for its unique roundtable format. So why weren't we doing them in China? This was a question that Mathew posed to me in one of our 2am Skype sessions.

My response was superficial at best: “Well, uh, the presentation format tends to be better in terms of dealing with the language barrier we face when trying to find common ground in China." As this came stumbling out of my mouth, I realized that Mathew's query was a gentle nudge for me to review the transmitCHINA format we had used in '08 and '09.

But while making excuses for programming assumptions, the epiphany of the scope of our breakthrough was almost instantaneous: we had had it all wrong. While it was important to accommodate the language barrier, it was vital that we build a format that bridged the gaps between business cultures in China and the West.

// Shanghai, June 3

Kaiser Kuo presents the realities of online content in China

While the transmitCHINA events in 2008 and 2009 were informative, featuring speakers from both sides of the Pacific, improvements were needed to connect Chinese and Canadian delegates on a B2B level. Many of the Chinese presenters remained more comfortable with a more subtle approach to sharing their opinions, views and perspectives in front of large audiences. This style goes contrary to the sensationalism that we have come to embrace in the West.

At the same time, back-to-back presentations increasingly led to a passive atmosphere amongst participants – sitting back and letting the information simply roll over them. As a result, the rare opportunities that delegates got to mingle still left something to be desired. There had really been no opportunities for people to bond as we have had at transmission.

And yet, there it was: the answer was right under our noses.

While a roundtable format might move a little slower due to language barriers, the opportunity and the responsibility to offer an environment that could overcome the barriers of two business cultures was far more important. Our roundtables offer a shared space of confidentiality that allows people to talk candidly about the challenges they are faced with: regulation, rights management, technological change, consumer trends. Roundtables are what we are known for. What has worked for transmission ended up working for TransmitCHINA fourfold.

The project was hard and exhausting on everyone involved. With over 25 different events in seven cities over only eight days, transmitCHINA 2010 set the bar for connecting people in local markets. Our feedback has been universally positive in how our format and frame brought people together for meaningful, valuable talk.

We almost decided to abandon transmitCHINA in 2009 as a result of sponsorship shortfalls. I’m so glad now we stuck it out. We had always asserted that there was no short game when developing a relationship with China. Staying in the game is paying off.

// learnings from transmitCHINA 2010

As we have come to realize, working in China isn’t always about doing business in China. Our experience there continues to have a positive impact on our programming decisions for future projects.

Many amazing people and organizations from around the world are already preparing to leverage the transmission roundtable format to the fullest. As a result of our test runs at transmitCHINA, we are now introducing a new B2B Focus Group programme that puts specific emphasis on the challenges and opportunities that exist amongst key stakeholder groups such as mobile apps developers, publishers, labels and managers. Our B2Bs in China proved very successful: sector-focused sessions that were both juxtaposed and highly complementary to the cross-sectoral nature of our featured roundtable programme.

And while we know it’s good to have our programme nailed down well ahead of time, it’s also important to leave lots of room for the issues that will be hot topics by the time we reach the conference. Stay tuned for additional speakers, presentations and features that will be added as we cruise through the year.

Eight full days of programming, 36 showcases, four roadTALKS and three B2B sessions later… The word on the street is that this is one of the busiest schedules most of the delegates have ever experienced. It's not over yet…

This morning we are fortunate to be hearing from Wu Jun, CEO of R2G – a company that has established an efficient and reliable delivery system of digital music content with proper accounting as well as a process for licensing digital music in China that protects copyright owners and curbs piracy. Jun is regarded as an IT visionary and a leading Internet entrepreneur in China.

Jun's highly informative presentation is called 'Value of IP in China.' He breaks everything down clearly and precisely, stating right off the top that it's difficult for people to reach a consensus if conversations are too abstract. Jun explains that R2G was founded six years ago and specializes in the digital distribution of music in China. The reason we are all here today is because of the market potential here: 384 million Internet users and 700 million mobile users as of the end of 2009. There are an estimated 7,200 music websites in China and that number is growing.

To date, R2G has been involved in nine legal cases against seven companies in China with successful conclusions in terms of protecting the interests of copyright owners. The cases resulted in CNY 60,000 each (which is about CAD $9,000) – CNY 5,000 to 7,000 per song. However, this also resulted in a revenue of CNY 3 million from subsequent licensing to five of the companies. "So this gives you an idea of what intellectual property is worth if you decide to fight for it," states Jun. "There is regulation in place in China where artists can demand what is rightfully theirs." He says it's simply a matter of valuing your intellectual property and working in a disciplined manner.

Looking at China's digital music revenue last year, Jun explains that the consumer spend on music is USD $2.74 billion, but only about 1.57% (approximately USD $31 million) is actually collected by labels, publishers, artists and some service providers. The potential user base in China is massive, but Jun claims it's a symptom of 'dog eats dog.' He says, "Every label is willing to undercut the other label in trying to be the next big hit, which devalues the market further." He says if we concede, it will only push the value of the entire music industry down further. As a result, a large part of the consumer spend on music goes to the major carriers in China while there is another part that doesn’t seem to be accounted for properly. Why are people giving up on intellectual property management in China? The two fallacies that Jun cites are: piracy is human nature and especially intrinsic to Chinese culture; and secondly, Internet is technology and should be tolerant to piracy.  Instead, it has to be noted that piracy in China is mostly driven by commercial operations.

But there is no reason why piracy can't be reduced, it will just take more time. "The basic logic is in place," says Jun. "It just takes a lot more effort and a lot more commitment to make that happen… In the west, the onus is on the company using the content to ensure that licenses are cleared. In China, the onus is on copyright owners to enforce their IP, otherwise companies (especially the big ones) try to get away with profiting from unlicensed content." He says we can't expect the government to provide a perfect world as the Internet is always changing, but it's moving in a direction in which the content providers will get more and more bargaining power.

Jun's message is clear, "unless you protect your IP today, no one will value your content. This is the key to any business negotiation with any channel in China." He stresses that the discipline and commitment need to be there – protecting intellectual property provides value to your partners. "Should I do this now? Shouldn't I come back when everything is perfect?" which Jun claims is the common hesitation. "Unless you start to protect your IP today, you are encouraging the pirates in China to steal."

Jun notes that it is difficult to do business in music in the digital age. "We are so used to the old way of doing business as there is little consensus on how to do business going forward, but it is in the interests of the entire value chain to move into a structured environment." he says. Whether that be the pay-per-download model, the free-to-stream model or the subscription-based model. All of these forms can co-exist provided the structure is in place.

"A new product cycle is emerging in the music industry. In the new environment that is developing, it's very important that IP owners should offer partners a value proposition: the latest content, marketing and anti-piracy support." Jun brought up the example of the online video market in China which is starting to assert its IP rights. He mentions the recent Youku versus Sohu legal spats and argues that it is in the best interests of providers such as Youku to protect its content from being misappropriated by the biggest search sites in China, like Baidu.

Baidu is currently the largest Chinese search engine for websites, audio files and images with over 50% of the market share. Its revenue for 2009 was greater than USD $650 million and it's been included in the NASDAQ-100 index since 2007. The company also proactively censors content according to China's government regulations.

Jun admits he is not in agreement with the practice of Copyleft, as proposed by Kevin Leflar yesterday at the conference. "if you do not help your partners, your business will not be sustained." Jun says. The way that companies can help with piracy support is to provide letters of notice and certification, as well as notarized letters from the artist. "R2G will be able to make sure it's a financially viable business for you… One song will make a huge difference. Some cases will last 18 months, but we get it to work." Jun says there needs to be a consensus among content providers. It's important to partner with social networking sites to help promote content, but the infrastructure comes first. To be more specific, Jun says, "we work together on particular projects to make a case against certain portals that have violated IP the most… Baidu is the worst pirate in the Chinese Internet community. The significance of such a case would serve as an example for the industry. The laws are very clear – you will win your case."

Jun says they are gathering more and more support from content providers because R2G truly believes in what it is doing and how long it will take to achieve. IODA founder and CEO Kevin Arnold is still struggling with the overall environment. In the question period following Jun's presentation, he comments, "IP copyright enforcement is not something that can be easily achieved. We need to look beyond that to other solutions enticing consumers to do the right thing and by creating compelling user experiences and products."

Jun noted that Spotify seems to be on the tip of everyone's tongues here at transmitCHINA, but Chinese Internet users are already familiar with free streaming music on demand – some of services have decent usability too. Google's music service is sanctioned by the major labels in China and other search sites such as Tencent, Sina and Baidu as well as telecom operators including China Mobile, China Telecom and China Unicom all have their own music online streaming portals.

Jun concludes that there is no particular functionality between the different portals that can draw people away from piracy, and ad revenue share hasn't really worked in China, but some sites are much more transparent to their content providers and work within an IP framework.

Before lunch, delegates participate in a third set of roundtable discussions – the theme is 'Leadership and Innovation.' All of the discussions have touched upon this theme – what will define successful leadership in the music business in China over the next 10 years? It's clear that creative industries are in a transition period and a sustainable music business model will require fluidity combined with technological innovation and a defined legal framework. The key attributes to a healthy ecosystem that continue to resurface are: conversation, collaboration, support and patience.

The afternoon wraps up with an intimate interview with Seymour Stein by Yang Haisong of P.K. 14. Stein says that recorded music is dying and he'll do anything to help see it live. He believes recorded music and live shows go hand-in-hand. "Breaking a Chinese artist in America is key," he says. "The Chinese will become champions of the music business if they see this work."

As a conclusion to this year's transmitCHINA conference, the managers of Flash Lightin', The Racoons, Ohbijou and Parlovr take to the stage to provide their thoughts and feedback on touring in China for the past week. Closing remarks came from Tyl van Toorn, followed by a final reception on the second floor of the beautiful River South Art Centre.

This evening, the final showcase (presented by the Province of Ontario) features Ohbijou, illScarlett and Flash Lightnin'. There is a large crowd at Dream Factory tonight and everyone is in the celebrating mood. Thoughts are being shared and experiences are exchanged.

Many people have a long journey ahead of them tomorrow to get back home, but they are leaving inspired, full of information and new ideas, and with fond memories of China. Until next year… 健康与幸福 (Jiànkāng yǔ xìngfú).

To see the full Gallery for Shanghai Day 2, please visit Tobyns site HERE.

The first day of the transmitCHINA conference began at 10:00 am today at the River South Arts Centre, a beautiful, raw space situated on the Bund in downtown Shanghai. Delegates arrived early for coffee and a chance to mingle before the presentations and round table discussions.

This year, transmitCHINA was favoured with the emcee skills of Nic Harcourt, Music and Culture Editor at Large for the LA Times. Harcourt served as Music Director for the highly acclaimed 'Morning Becomes Eclectic' program on KCRW in Los Angeles and is widely considered to be the ultimate musical tastemaker.

Shanghai based, Archie Hamilton, Managing Director of Splitworks, one of China's leading youth marketing and indie promotions companies, gave the official welcome and set the tone for the two-day conference. Hamilton's introduction emphasized that China is a long-term investment and business here can't be rushed. "No one – especially me – says that China is an easy place… after five years of living here and running a business here, I'm just beginning to understand a little bit about how this great country works," said Hamilton, also citing an article from The Economist. He used the example of Bacardi. The company has been operating in China significantly for about four years and finally went cash positive earlier this year. However, they were spending in excess of $50 million each year trying to get to that position.

Hamilton stressed that multi-national companies that come here with colonial practices and stacks of cash have to take the time to diligence. "You have to come here and understand what this place is, who the people are and how they do business," said Hamilton. "The scale of the task is enormous. China is a long-term project. It's a partnership. It requires give on both sides."

There are cultural, linguistic and habitual problems for Westerners, coupled with the Chinese government's protectionism of it's domestic industries. "Local companies have a real hunger to succeed and occasionally this leads to cries of foul play, but that's normal, and it exists anywhere in the world," said Hamilton. "There is huge growth in infrastructure, transparency and accountability. International companies are succeeding and it's exciting." Hamilton gave the example of the Midi Festival, which was the only festival in China four years ago when his company began operating. "Now, there is probably between 40 to 60 festivals this year across the whole country and some of them entertain upwards of 30,000 people… There's a lot of talent, there's a lot of people and there's a lot of potential."

Hamilton adds, "Consider that only a tiny fraction of the population have ever seen a live show… the production is low quality, and the artists aren't the best artists they can be. But there are at least 10 Beijing bands as well as bands from all over the rest of the country who are creating tribes, creating fans, creating fan bases… and it's happening incredibly quickly. That's not to say to that it's not hard. It is. But bands are beginning to see people making a future for themselves. As they do that, and as they set this example, more and more want-to-be bands flood into the market, more and more people get involved, more media, more investment…"

As Hamilton asserts, we have a long way to go, but it's not as far as everyone thinks. The motivation behind the next two days of keynote presentations and roundtable discussions is that music in China is no longer small. It's happening, and it's happening now.

The transmitCHINA conference program was introduced by Catherine Saxberg, Executive Director of the Canadian Music Publishers Association, followed by two highly informative presentations from Kaiser Kuo out of Beijing and Kevin LeFlar head Canada based Official Community.

Kaiser Kuo is a writer, rock musician, technology watcher and cultural commentator. He is a consultant for China's leading Internet video site, Youku.com and his presentation is called 'The Future of Chinese Digital Culture'. With his background, Kuo has made some observations on the digital ecosystem in China, which he says is inextricably intertwined with the music industry. "To understand the future of music in China, one has to have a very good grasp of how the digital economy here works."

He begins by pointing out that our almost exclusive focus on censorship has blinded us to the dynamism of China's Internet culture and digital ecosystem and that we fail to appreciate what is actually happening behind the 'Great Firewall' of China. Kuo cites Google's tussle with the Chinese government as an example of a topic that fell into this familiar narrative. "Internet censorship is a very salient feature of China's Internet landscape, but it is by no mean's the only feature, and when we see it only through that one lens we are really missing out on a lot," says Kuo, who argues that piracy has done more good than harm. "The world behind the great firewall, like the iron curtain 2.0, has made us believe in these very basic archetypes of the Chinese Internet user."

Kuo also explains that Internet in China is fully fledged. "There were 400 million Internet users at the end of Q1 in 2010. There are 1.75 million commercial Internet sites in China. It is an incredibly dynamic ecosystem and we really do ourselves a tremendous disservice if we don't take pains to understand it better," he says. "A paradox is at the heart of this: in the same couple of years where we've seen a significant tightening of the icy hand of the Internet censor, we have also seen an incredible flourishing of the public sphere on the Internet in China. it is both more tightly controlled and more politically potent than ever before."

Kuo attests that the Internet in China is full of critical discussion on all matter of subjects. "Rarely a week goes by when we don't see policy makers at some level changing their minds in direct response to Internet public opinion. This may be more participatory, it may be more inclusive now – it's certainly no substitute for some more institutional democratic mechanisms – but we need to acknowledge that this is actually happening and, believe it or not, music actually fits in to this whole thing," Kuo affirms.

His other key point on Chinese Internet culture is that it is diverging from it's Anglophone counterpart. In terms of services that are on offer, there are superficial similarities that shouldn't be ignored (search engine systems, social network systems and micro-blogs) but Kuo claims that the actual content is significantly different. He uses the example of the BBS (bulletin board system) to point out a major feature of the Chinese Internet landscape that has no parallel in the West. "The BBS, a relic from the American Internet scene from the mid-1990s, is a source of current vibrancy here that North Americans tend not to be able to wrap their heads around. These are not the basic threaded conversations that we saw back in the 90s. This is where conversations are actually happening. Eighty percent of commercial Internet sites in China have a BBS attached to it."

Kuo also argues that we are living in increasingly isolated cultural spheres and music plays a less identity-forming role in Chinese youth culture, and therefore, there is a lack of association between music and artist. It's caller ringback themes that bring in the highest digital income in China. "In China, it is not musical consumption as we know it," Kuo says. "There is a poverty of musical culture in China. It's an uphill battle." He adds that eighty percent of all venture capital in China comes from the United States. He touches upon the 'copy-to-China' model of Facebook that exists. "China is not, and will not be, a source of disruptive digital innovation… it's all low-hanging fruit and no one is reaching for the higher branches yet."

Next up is Kevin Leflar, the Founder, President and CEO of officialCOMMUNITY. officialCOMMUNITY is a leader in online community commercialization for established recording artists and their brands. This company extends artist brands online by creating and managing autonomous but integrated online businesses centred on the artist's loyal community.

Leflar has become one of Canada's best-known authorities on the impact of digital technology on the music industry and his presentation centres around Copyleft and the idea that information wants to be free. He claims that the Internet is a hostile environment for rights holders and when it comes to next generation leadership, legislation is not going to be the answer. In his presentation, Leflar makes the bold statement, "Content isn't king, conversation is king."

Following the presentations, delegates broke out into smaller groups for the first roundtable session. The theme was 'Opportunities and Challenges between the West and China'. The discussion focused on the unique characteristics of China and the barriers that have led to failures of Western businesses in the market: the expectations of music consumers; the impact of the Chinese regulatory environment on the local record business; localized versus globalized sales strategies; language; patience that is required in the market; Internet and mobile culture; and the infrastructure and revenue potential for live concerts.

In a recap of the roundtable discussions, one of the main topics that emerged was branding – the opportunities in working with brands as well as the inherent challenges that accompany these types of relationships between artists and brands. It was noted that money from brand partnerships in China doesn't always make it down to the creator, it often gets tied up with event organizers. There is a sophistication in the West that provides a filter for artists – like managers and booking agents – and these gatekeepers don't exist in China so it often comes across as blatant advertising.

In terms of independent artists, the notion that they are doing something subversive does not really exist, or it's not generally the intention. In terms of art and commerce, even for an independent musician, there is never really a debate on why they would want to be associated with a corporate identity. In China, artists tend to aspire to this and being associated with a brand helps with their credibility and will certainly help their career.

Another topic that was briefly touched upon was China's 'Soft Power Initiative', which is basically the idea of China expanding its use of cultural, educational, and diplomatic tools to increase its appeal around the world. When it comes to music, the Chinese government is actually trying to get the word out there through western channels and there is more of an opportunity now for independent artists to reach a wider audience.

A basic insight that emerged on the subject of doing business in China was that contrary to the way business is done in the West, contracts with Chinese partners are more or less a formality or the starting point of a relationship – the negotiations start afterwards. This highlighted the importance of 'Guanxi,' or relationship-building in Asia.

One of the main challenges discussed at the roundtables was the difficulty in developing and supporting original Chinese music. Both Chinese and Western delegates agreed: the standard of Chinese independent music is much lower and therefore less likely to be export-ready, and Western music is still very much a niche market in China.

Emerging from the first roundtable discussions was a unanimous feeling that copyright and monetization issues won't be solved overnight. The focus needs to be on music discovery and cross-pollination between China and the West. In order to further develop the Chinese market, the West would need to offer more inroads, such as Western producers coming over to work with local independent artists and bands. Greater promotion of Chinese artists in the West and tapping into Chinese communities in the West will be key. Looking forward to 2011, bands need to work together and help each other. Collaboration is organic and inherent in the music scene all around the world, but mentorship for Chinese artists and bands will help build a stronger independent music scene in China. If there was one great success story for China in the West, it would truly instigate change.

Following lunch, delegates reconvene for a feature artist interview by Nic Harcourt with Yang Haisong, the frontman of Beijing post-punk band P.K. 14 and one of the leading figures in Beijing's underground music scene. P.K. 14 were hailed by Time Magazine as one of "Asia's Best Bands" in 2008. Haisong explains that there are very few bands in China and there used to be labels only in Beijing. When they founded P.K. 14, they wanted to establish their own scene, develop their own strategy and build something that was their own. They became friends with fans and performed to new audiences in Beijing. Haisong says that at the time, even playing at different Beijing clubs was exposure. He claims the best time to be in music is now, because things are really changing. "China's music industry is still developing… ten years is a short period for China," he says. "The independent industry is very young. It's interesting and exciting. We are creating history for popular music in China."

Haisong talks about some of the challenges the music industry faces in China. Concert ticket prices are very low, but this must be maintained so more young people can participate. In the meantime, he says that Chinese Internet users don't buy albums – they download for free. While Haisong supports the sharing of information and agrees this is one of the benefits of the Internet, he says that rampant piracy is damaging. "So long as something is free, people will take it."

P.K. 14 has toured in the United States. Haisong adds, "U.S. fans are the most critical. They care least about music from outside the U.S. We are facing the biggest music market, but we are willing to go anywhere."

The difference in China is that the industry is still young. There are no rules, no laws and no principles. "How to do a festival? How to open a label? Do a tour?" he says. "There are no standards." When their label (Maybe Mars) started in China, they had decided they didn't want to wait to work with a major – they could start with the basics and do it themselves. "Bands are developing their own networks," Haisong says. "But very few bands have the opportunity to get support from an indie label. We need more indie labels."

Later in the afternoon, a second session of roundtable discussions focuses on the theme of intellectual property. It's an ongoing conversation as the West tries to articulate its position in terms of trying to do business in China. Although China has been identified as a market defined by copyright abuse, the issue is oversimplified. The feedback that emerges from this particular roundtable discussion is that our Western-style copyright regime is broken. Why would China want to adopt this model?

The alternate view is that the slate is clean for copyright in China. There is a system in place and artists are being paid by companies such as China Mobile, but things are falling into place more organically and China is figuring it out as it goes along. Subscription-based listening is the immediate future, but there are new models invented all the time. China may adopt some of the models that the West has to offer, but it does not need to adopt everything.

While the event's organizers were initially apprehensive about the effectiveness of the the roundtables in context of China's often challenging business culture, it's obvious now that it's working. TransmitNOW Executive Producer Tyl van Toorn ponders on the breakthrough. "The roundtables became our signature conference format we saw the impact it had on the dialogue amongst delegates in 2006 (the first Transmission conference held in Vancouver)." At that time, the format was immediately recognized amongst participants as a more effective platform for transparent, open dialogue. "What made it special at that time was an inherent need for honest dialogue, a space that removed the increased presence of 'panel posturing' and lame promotion of antiquated models and philosophies," he adds. "It is really hard to self-promote at a roundtable and it is even harder to just drop an obvious falsehood. This is even more contrasted when trying to connect two different business cultures," says van Toorn. "I get the sense that Westerners often say they want to understand how to do business in China but we are generally poor listeners when it gets down to it." This seems to be even more amplified when dealing with emerging markets. As we sign off for the night, van Toorn adds that this format seems to have leveled the playing field. "Roundtables ensure everyone gets a voice and we all know that the quietest person in the room tends to have some pretty bright things to say."

Later that evening, transmitCHINA delegates are whisked off to the delectable Sichuan Citizen for more spicy local cuisine. For those who manage to make it through dinner without the jet-lag setting in, it's off to see the live show (sponsored by the Province of British Columbia) at Dream Factory. Tonight Wil, The Racoons and Parlovr, along with Han Han's own band, Duck Fight Goose, will perform. It's the first day of the conference and delegates have already been on their feet since 8:00 this morning. At midnight, the last band hits the stage: The Racoons. All of the talent on this tour have proven to be export-ready, but The Racoons has clearly been a favourite with Chinese fans on this tour. This band has a serious buzz going on one of China's hottest social network sites. All this activity and positive feedback culminates into an agency deal for The Racoons for all of China. A great success story for the band and for transmitCHINA.

Everyone is enjoying the music tonight, but it's no business holiday – the evening will end at the last band. The roundtables earlier today were an eye-opener for everyone, so delegates are planning to come prepared tomorrow morning. If there is one lesson learned today, it is that the roundtables have proven that there is a effective way to connect Western industry leaders to their Chinese counterparts. Watching Chinese industry participants unabashedly dive in and challenge ideas and opinions was testament to the impact of this format. This made the conversation a sincere sharing of ideas and perspectives. Some would tell you that this is not a common approach in China. Directness is a uniquely western way of negotiation and arguably a fairly unsophisticated tool by Chinese standards when it comes to the art of negotiation.

As everyone quickly heads back the Intercontinental Puxi hotel for rest before tomorrow's big day, there is no question that delegates have had their perspectives altered for the better. Greater intelligence with better connections equals more success businesses. Time to get to work. One more day to go...

To see the full Gallery for Shanghai Day 1, please visit Tobyns site HERE.

We arrive at the stunning Intercontinental Puxi hotel in the Zhabei District of Shanghai in the early afternoon. Tonight the transmitCHINA conference will officially begin with a welcome reception at Glamour Bar. But, to kick things off a bit earlier, there's another first for transmitCHINA – a daytime B2B mentoring session sponsored by Ontario with the legendary Seymour Stein, co-founder and chairman of Sire Records. Stein famously signed the likes of Madonna, the Ramones and Talking Heads. The informal session was held at 228 Quxi Road in the Xuhui District. Formerly a bomb shelter, it's now Shanghai's most popular music rehearsal space below a restaurant and a hotbed for Shanghai's underground rock scene. A poetic location for a "how to" session with the man who signed the Talking Heads after witnessing them play CBGD's by accident.

Stein says that the reason he comes to China and India so frequently is that he feels the future of recorded music depends on Asia. "Markets in the West are dropping off tremendously. In the United States, every year, down 9 to 10 percent. It's very difficult to continue. Germany is the worst in terms of losses… All of Asia is important, but the two most important – because of the number of people they have and the tremendous success they've enjoyed recently, in the last 15 or 20 years – are China and India… Unless we get China and India on board, we're dead."

Stein is interviewed by Han Han, who is the co-founder of one China's most successful independent labels, Miniless Recordings, as well as the frontman of three Shanghai-based bands – Duck Fight Goose, LAVA|OX|SEA and Booji. Han Han is also a designer for the t-shirt brand, The Thing.

Han Han asks Stein what the key element of a rock band should be if they want to be famous. "This is the music business, so it's the songs," Stein insists. "The songs are everything." He emphasizes that just as real estate is all about location, music is all about the songs. "Great musicians know the importance of great songs and young bands will only become better musicians… Stage performance is also very important – most people have to work on this."

Stein says his personal view is that the internet has done a lot of damage to the music business, but it's also had a positive outcome. "There's more good music now – accessible because of the internet – than ever before, but it brings home how difficult it is to make it in the business." He also believes the Chinese government should make an investment in the music industry and be more supportive of local artists, using music to draw people to China. "With good marketing and if the government were behind it, it would be tremendous," says Stein. "If you don't think it's possible to be successful from China, you're wrong." He cites a tradition of music in Asia that pre-dates Europe and the United States, and claims there is no reason why the Chinese can't export their music to America.

Stein's advice to young artists: don't sell your principles and join the rest of the pack, but do allow yourself to be inspired and influenced by something new and re-invent yourself based on that. It's important to be original. You have to have the courage of your own convictions. Be determined and dedicated. Throw yourself into what you do and make it your life. Be patient. He reminds everyone in the room that it took the Beatles more than a year to release a record in the United States, even after their success in the UK.

Of course, we're all keen to find out how all of this wisdom will help local bands in China. It certainly helps if you stick around until the end of the session to have Seymour Stein write down his personal contact info on where to send your demo.

Back at the hotel, conference attendees are arriving one by one, and before too long, a delegate-packed mini-bus is on it's way to the elegant Glamour Bar. This late-night hot spot is located at the corner of Guangdong Lu and the Bund, which runs along the western bank of the Huangpu River facing Pudong. Nestled between the historical buildings along the Bund, Glamour Bar boasts a breathtaking view of central Shanghai. It's the perfect introduction to this wonderful city.

The Canadian delegation mix with a diverse group of internationals who will also be attending transmitCHINA, including at least 30 of China's leading innovators in the music space. Scanning the representation in this room, it is clear that music in China is a vital part of many people's business. Along with record executives, publishers, promoters, journalists and bloggers, there are a number of representatives of Chinese-based social media firms, not to mention the head of rights for the NBA in China who happens to be using music as a driving force behind his promotional efforts. There is no question that the music industry in China is as diverse as the guest list at this cocktail reception. It's only Day One, and things are already getting interesting…

To see the full gallery of the Shanghai Reception, please visit Tobyns website HERE.

Today we return to where it all started – Beijing. The city of bicycles. TransmitCHINA began in this city three years ago and has since grown into a two-day conference in Shanghai and seven-city tour of China, including Guangzhou, Changsha, Wuhan, Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai and Hong Kong.

transmitCHINA's global program now includes small, localized meetings between businesses – B2B focus groups – the first of which is happening today in Beijing at Bed Bar, Jiugulou Dajie, Zhangwang Hutong. Today's topic is "Defining an Independent Music Business". The discussion revolves around a comparison of major versus independent business models; the challenges that independent companies face; new music models; and the evolution of digital and mobile content.

It's a vital conversation between independent music companies in the West, and similar companies working in China. The goal is to share and exchange information, primarily about the opportunities and challenges that independent music companies face on a day-to-day basis and what the music landscape will look like for them over the next five years.

The focus group concentrates on China and its issues with intellectual property protection and lack of infrastructure, but also on the emergence of an independent music scene and defining new opportunities for mutually beneficial partnerships between Chinese companies and Western companies. The intimate and relaxed setting allows participants to engage in a two-way dialogue and address the issues at hand. The group dialogue then encourages one-on-one conversations following the session.

There is a sense that the music landscape in China is very difficult for smaller labels and many of them are giving up or turning to creative execution and design for brands rather than releasing new acts. It is noted that major labels cover only about 40 to 45 percent of the market in China, but there are some larger independent labels with revenue streams from endorsements, public appearances and mobile music, and these labels also have substantial revenue. So, there are two ends to the scale, even when it comes to independent labels or companies.

For independent Chinese companies two of the major challenges identified were access to start up capital (or how to get revenue) and lack of funding from the Chinese government for music events and festivals (and the issue of flexibility when funding is provided).

The digital problem in China is that Long Tail does not exist. The question posed: how do you turn consumers into customers? Long Tail, popularized by Chris Anderson in an October 2004 issue of Wired Magazine, is the niche strategy of selling less of more – small volumes of hard-to-find items to many customers rather than large volumes of a reduced number of popular items. The Long Tail is the total number of sales of the large number of niche items. In his article, Anderson used Amazon and Netflix as examples.

Another challenge that arises in China is the lack of live events. There is a need for more festivals and greater competition in the live space. One of the key points made is that large gatherings of people were illegal in China not that long ago, so one cannot underestimate the power of connecting a Chinese audience with a band or artist in a live space. It's important to remember that only a very small portion of the population in China has actually seen a live band in the proper environment. The live show needs to be a part of a music culture in China – and it is happening, slowly.

At the end of the B2B focus group session, one of the Chinese delegates stands to say, "In North America, it's easy for the indie labels to meet. In China, not so much. We don't often have the opportunity to meet with other indie music companies, so we are happy for it and hope to have the opportunity to do so again."

The buzz of the B2B focus group was immediately followed by a delicious Chinese banquet dinner around a Lazy Susan (three Lazy Susans, actually). The evening in Beijing came to a close at the live venue Yugong Yishan, where The Racoons, Wil and Parlovr impassioned an audience of both fans and transmitCHINA delegates.

To view the full gallery of Beijing, visit Tobyns site HERE.

Changsha during the day is chaotic. Everyone and their dog rides a scooter, and there doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to the direction in which they drive. With an extra day to spend in the city, members of Flash Lightnin' are keen for more of a glimpse of local life. Drummer Chris Henry was up early for some breakfast. "We took a tour around and found some little traditional shops and grabbed some nice breakfast. I couldn't tell you what we ate, but it was wonderful!" Henry says.

Chris Henry and his bandmates Darren Glover and Darcy Yates negotiate a taxi ride to a large market they noticed on the way in to town yesterday. Walking around the market is a onslaught of the senses and finally we get to see some of the things we are eating in their raw state!

"Changsha is a very cool town and I'm totally happy to be here, I'm loving it," says Henry. "It's our first time in Asia and I would love to come back here. My grandmother was raised in Hong Kong as a child when she escaped from Peru, so there's some family history here for me that I would like to come back and have some more time to check out – and play some more shows of course. But there's a little bit of family and a little bit of heart here."

Later in the day, Kimberli Persley who manages The Racoons and Flash Lightnin', shares her thoughts on new frontiers for business and why she's eager to dip her toes in the Asian market. Persley works with Nick Blasko & Piers Henwood Artist Management and has attended transmission for three years running. Nick Blasko has also attended transmitCHINA for the past two years. "It's two fold in terms of a general experience: fun and travel, and having your music heard in a new market and by an entirely new audience," says Persley. "I don't have pie-in-the-sky hopes that one of these bands will come here and make it big on one tour because that's just not how it works. But, nothing ventured, nothing gained. We want to get bands experienced in the market and see if it's something they want to continue to invest in, because you have to pick which markets you want to invest in, pour some money into touring and if it's the right time and the right place, then it will pay off in the long run."

transmitCHINA's roadTALKS and the conference in Shanghai are rapidly approaching, and Persley is ready to meet local players, promoters and brands. "What we've been hearing at transmit for the last couple years is that the way to make it happen in Asia is through branding and partnerships. People in Asia and China in particular consume music in an entirely different way and have different ideas than the West about what is worth money – they don't pay for records even more than North Americans pay for records – so touring and live shows are even more important here and that's where the brands come in. They help you get over here and so it's win-win. When it comes to combining your name with brand it's a different attitude over here… it's acceptable. You get a brand that you feel good about to underwrite your tour and you get to come over here. It's your ticket into a new market." Persley adds, "I'm excited to meet some of these people and see if they have interest in the bands and what opportunities there are for Canadian artists who have an interest in investing in Asian markets."

During soundcheck at the club, John Doherty and Anthony Carone of illScarlett and James Bunton of Ohbijou engage in a friendly gambling dice game. Dice games are quite popular in China and you can often find cups and dice on the tables inside bars and clubs. With everything set up and ready to go for the evening performances, a large group head down a small alleyway near the hotel, where we find a very small, local restaurant. It's more of a kitchen than a restaurant. There's no sign on the door and a few tables are scattered on the main floor. The hosts lead us upstairs to a tiny room with one large banquet table for our group. There's one fan for the room and the air conditioner doesn't appear to be working. Tour manager Dostav and the sound technician Marcel both speak Mandarin, so they order for us and the food arrives quickly and in large quantities. There's a sweet barbecue pork dish, bean curd and green vegetables for the vegetarians, noodles and soup. The dishes are simple, but they taste amazing. We leave stuffed and happy. As we do, one of the ladies tells Marcel that it is a huge honour for them to have a room full of foreigners eat there. We are honoured too...

Back at Live House 4689, Anissa Hart comments on Ohbijou's performance. "Tonight's venue was awesome. I think it's a good size for a band coming for the first time to a new market. The sound is good there." Hart is already looking forward to the next cities. "I'm super excited to see Beijing; the Olympics were there. And Shanghai is going to be nuts with the Expo on right now. It will be fun to play a club in a big city like that." She adds, "I would love to come back. I feel like the indie music market here is just kind of starting to grow now, so this is a good first step into it. But it would be nice to come back when there's a bit more of a scene going on. China is a great country… We can't believe how many places we've already been and China was kind of a dream come true. Asia in general is a dream come true. We're always open to going anywhere we can with the music."

To see the full gallary of Changsha Day 2, please visit Tobyns website HERE.

It's another 7:30 am lobby call at the hotel in Guangzhou. This morning, the full transmitCHINA touring party is off to Guangzhou airport to catch a 9:55 am flight to Changsha.

Some of the crew are heading straight on to Beijing, but the bands are splitting up – Wil, The Racoons and Parlovr play in Changsha today and then head to Wuhan to play the following night. Flash Lightnin', Ohbijou and illScarlett will all perform in Changsha on Monday and then Wuhan on Tuesday.

It's a scramble to get a travelling party that's approximately 40 people deep through airport security, but everyone makes it just in time to board the plane. It's one and a half hours to Changsha, which is in the Hunan province and has a population of more than 6 million people. To put that in perspective, the total population of Canada is 34 million people. Changsha is also where the founder of the People's Republic of China, Mao Zedong, began his political career and converted the country to Communism.

Like Guangzhou, Changsha is one of China's major industrial and commercial centres and signs of the city's massive growth and development are everywhere – large industrial buildings in the outlying areas of the city, massive consumer markets, fields of construction rubble, buildings enclosed in scaffolding, chaotic traffic and heavy pollution. Changsha feels like a massive metropolis and even after the tour bus enters the city, we are driving for more than 40 minutes.

Bands and crew check into the hotel and then it's off to soundcheck for Wil, The Racoons and Parlovr. This time the venue, Live House 4698, is conveniently just down the street. The members of Flash Lightnin', Ohbijou and illScarlett all have a day off in the city today, so they wander off to explore. The prospect of finding lunch quickly in Changsha is daunting. There is very little written in English. Ohbijou's cellist Anissa Hart will attest to that challenge. "We've definitely faced some language barriers with ordering food. Today we went to a restaurant and it was so difficult. We tried to order, and everyone was trying to speak a bit of English but we are just so hopeless at Mandarin that it was really difficult… but we ended up with some great food!" She adds, "Heather is vegetarian so that's been a bit of a challenge!"

While exploring the city of Changsha, members of Ohbijou also made a stop in a more commercial, trendy shopping mall. "That was just overwhelming because there was just such huge volume of human traffic… you couldn't even walk into some stores because they were so packed! It's was a little insane," Hart comments. "It definitely makes you appreciate the space that we have in Canada – personal space, street space. It's a different world here. I love being able to escape North American culture completely, but it definitely makes you appreciate things about home – like space – more now than it ever did before."

Two and a half weeks before coming to China, Ohbijou toured in Japan and Taiwan. Hart says coming on the transmitCHINA Ginger Beef tour was a great opportunity to play in a new market and the idea of sharing that experience with five other Canadian acts was exciting to the band.

Also on a relaxing day off, illScarlett opt for the luxuries of the Sheraton Hotel, about a 30 minute walk from the venue to Changsha’s downtown central business district. There, they discover Zenbar Restaurant on the third floor, which offers italian fare and a great wine selection. The Changsha Sheraton also boasts a decent Hunan restaurant called Feast, where another bunch of the transmitCHINA group enjoy fresh noodles, Chinese green vegetable, bean curd, crispy baby prawns, barbecue pork and plenty of Tsing Tao!

In the early afternoon following a massive lunch, a large group congregates at Zenbar for a spirited sing-along around a grand piano. The Zenbar staff are thoroughly amused and provide microphones for the occasion. Soon after, the gents are puffing on cigars, the Prosecco is flowing, and transmitCHINA's photographer, Tobyn Ross, is belting out the tunes alongside illScarlett's John Doherty and Alex Norman, as Anthony Carone tinkles the ivories. Doherty seems to know the words to every song written by Billy Joel and manages to get the entire group singing on a lounge rendition of "Band On The Run" by Paul McCartney & Wings as well as Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody." We spend more than five hours on the third floor of the Sheraton hotel and illScarlett are endlessly entertaining – even on their day off.

Back at Changsha Live House 4698, Wil, The Racoons and Parlovr are ready to take the stage. In comparison to Guangzhou's lofty venue, 4698 is a much more intimate night club environment. Fans surround the stage but also sit at small tables covered in checkered tablecloths and tall stools at the tiny bar at the rear of the club. At the shows in Changsha, the performances from the Canadian bands will be interspersed with local talents for the first time – tonight the local act is Red Truck.

Following his performance tonight, Wil seems pleased. "There were just a lot of happy faces looking at me and smiling, he says. "You want to engage with people. It kind of says it all when you finish your set with how people respond – it's a really great meter to establish whether you've done your job properly and well, and that's pretty remarkable. I know there's a natural fixation with North Americans, and they have a bit of an affinity for that and our culture, but I think that can immediately change when you start to portray your art… It shifts from 'gosh, it's so cool' – the look of the North American culture – to the sound of it, the emotion of it, the human being of it. Then you contact them as a human being, and it's no longer about what looks cool because they are literally moved."

To see the full gallery of Changsha Day 1, visit Tobyns Website HERE.

It's a 7:30 am lobby call at the Harbourview Hotel for the bands, managers and transmitCHINA crew. Caffeine is essential – it will be a long day of travel for the group. Enroute to a coffee shop, a few team members notice the late-night stragglers leaving the Wan Chai clubs. transmitCHINA host producers Archie Hamilton and Nathaniel Davis are busy wrangling everyone in the lobby. Shortly thereafter, more than 60 pieces of gear and luggage are loaded onto the tour bus and about 40 people squeeze into the narrow seats as it shuttles off to Hung Hom train station in Kowloon. This station in Kowloon connects Hong Kong to the Guangzhou East railway station.

"This is the largest travel party that transmitCHINA has ever seen," comments Archie. The band members and their gear have now filled up an entire corner in Hum Hong station. In less than an hour, the large touring party of transmitCHINA has managed to clear customs and board a train on it's way through the New Territories of Hong Kong and then into the southern People's Republic of China.

Skyscrapers are replaced by low-rise buildings and farmland. Guangzhou is about 120 kilometres northwest of Hong Kong, in the middle of the Guangdong Province. This sprawling city is the primary manufacturing hub of the Pearl River Delta, and one of mainland China's leading manufacturing regions. It's the third largest city in China (following Beijing and Shanghai), with a population of six million people, or nearly 12 million if you count the urban areas surrounding the city.

For Westerners, Hong Kong is a fairly easy Asian city to navigate. Business if often done in English and there is a significant expat community in Hong Kong, so Western amenities are not difficult to come by. On the other hand, mainland China can be somewhat of a culture shock for first-timers. On the train to Guangzhou, one of the musicians notices than while there are still billboards everywhere, there are now almost entirely in Chinese – and off the train, the language barrier becomes even more apparent.

The Racoons recently toured in Indonesia. illScarlett performed in Japan, and Ohbijou previously played gigs in Japan and Taiwan. But for all of these Canadian bands, transmitCHINA's Ginger Beef tour marks their first foray to China.

Stepping onto the train platform in Guangzhou East railway station, the traveling party gets it's first real wave of the humid, subtropical climate. Guangzhou has a lengthy monsoon season, and apparently, we've arrived just in time for it. In the drizzling, hot rain, everyone is struggling with gear and weaving through the busy station.

Today is a tight schedule for all the bands. They quickly load their gear onto another tour bus, then it's off to the hotel. Everyone has 15 minutes to drop their bags off before heading out to lunch. After a long, hot journey, the group is ravenous and ready to eat. Thank goodness they are serving everyone's favourite: sandworms!

Following lunch, it's off to the venue – the Yangcheng Creative Industry Zone Live House – for soundcheck. The shows tonight begin early, at 6:30 pm, so it's a long day of travel, loading-in, and performances. Guangzhou is sprawling, and this particular venue is located in a more remote area of the city. The industrial building is somewhat dilapidated and reminiscent of an abandoned train station, but it makes for an exotic setting for the Canadian bands. On top of the usual traffic in this city, the Guangzhou fans have also managed to make their way out to this venue in torrential downpour to hear some music.

Wil takes to the stage first. He's a passionate performer and easily wins over the crowd. "I've only ever toured Canada and the US. I've been doing this for 15-17 years. Just being here doing this has popped my cherry," says Wil. "You hear a lot about bands going elsewhere, making impacts, or not making impacts, but just doing something and moving people in different languages. What I hope to get out of it is that if I can move one individual – as deep as that sounds – who has no idea what I'm actually singing, then that's pretty fantastic because that's sort of the whole point."

Wil says he doesn't have specific places he wants to conquer – he doesn't think of the future like that. He hopes to just keep playing music in front of people, and he'll do it anywhere. "I feel like I was designed to be up on a stage and emote things that I've written for people, so if that's Tuktoyaktuk or if it's in a prison, or an old folks home, or to 30,000 people in a stadium, or my Mom's kitchen… I'll sing a song that I wrote that means something to me, and that's all I can hope for – that it will mean something to somebody else."

Next, Victoria-based band Racoons sweat it out on stage, delivering a high-powered performance to the receptive crowd.

Montreal indie rockers Parlovr keep the energy high, especially when Alex Cooper leaps off the stage to play his guitar in the audience.

Flash Lightnin' led Guangzhou fans to the crossroads of dirt blues and desert metal.

Ohbijou lets the beautiful sounds of their instruments and their tender lyrics soar to the ceiling.

Mississauga's illScarlett rocked the end of the night with hand claps and head bopping, along with their rock-reggae cover of Ace of Base's "All That She Wants." Before the show, lead singer Alex Norman commented, "It's my first time in HK and China. So I had no idea what to expect… There's a certain freedom playing for people who have no idea who you are and what you do."

China is not without it's challenges… The monsoon made it difficult to leave the venue in search for food, so everyone tucked in backstage under tents for beer, pizza and oreo cookies. By midnight when the show ended, both crew and bands were back on the bus, nodding off, and headed back for the hotel.

Partying like rockstars will have to wait until Changsha...

To see the full gallery of Guangzhou, check out Tobyns Website HERE for day 1.

Louis Jackson of Parlovr gazed out of the tour bus window as it rattled along towards Hong Kong. On first impression, he was overwhelmed by the site of the harbour and profusion of ports and shipping containers along the Western Harbour Crossing that carries traffic from Hong Kong International airport to the Island. Hong Kong, meaning "fragrant harbour" in English, is nestled between the Pearl River Delta and the South China Sea and it's widely regarded as the gateway to China. Scanning Hong Kong's expansive skyline and clusters of looming skyscrapers and apartment buildings, one can begin to imagine how seven million people live in this tiny landmass.

It's Jackson's first visit to Hong Kong, and the first stop on the transmitCHINA 2010 Ginger Beef tour that will take his band, Parlovr – along with The Racoons, Wil, illScarlett, Ohbijou and Flash Lightnin' – to seven cities across China.

Hong Kong is a city full of nooks and crannies, with a multitude of textures, colours, lights, signs and symbols. It's overwhelming to all the senses and it's a juxtaposition of new and old; shiny and weathered. From bustling intersections, the highly efficient MTR transportation system, designer fashions, luxury brands, and fancy hotels to back street kitchens, mahjong tables, chinese medicine shops, winding streets, hanging laundry, wet markets, dry markets and night markets – Hong Kong's got it all.

" I first noticed the mountains as you leave the airport, and the heat was shocking," said illScarlett's John Doherty. "We walked to Times Square and tried to do some shopping but walked around in a confused state… Victoria Park was lovely!"

Some of the transmitCHINA group are jet-lagged and head to the hotel for some rest. Night time descends on the city, and transmitCHINA's first roadTALK is right in the thick of it all. Nestled between the rowdy bars of Lan Kwai Fong, in a fairly nondescript building on D'Aguliar Street, is Mama Chau's Sichuan Kitchen. It's a dining speakeasy, and a true hidden gem. Take the wobbly old elevator to the fifth floor and it's like being in a family kitchen – the food is served up spicy, and it's delicious and inexpensive. There may have been some heated conversations about the state of the nation at roadTALK #1, but guaranteed, the food is hotter!

To see the full Gallery of Hong Kong, visit Tobyns website HERE for the day shots and HERE for the night shots.

 So here we are in 2010 and our first major initiative of the year is out of the gates like a hot pick at the Kentucky Derby. Four weeks from today, players from over one hundred companies, organizations and agencies will be meeting with drinks in hand at the opening party of the 3^rd edition of transmitCHINA.

The conference has been moved from its traditional stomping grounds of Beijing to the 2010 host of the World’s Fair; the fast-draw city of Shanghai. The dates are June 2-4, if you haven’t already marked them down. This is going to be two and a half days of very intense meetings, presentations and showcases.  And knowing our notorious host producers, Archie, Nathaniel, Claire and the rest of the team at Split Works in Shanghai, we will be in good hands. If last year’s experience at the transmitCHINA showcase at Yuyintang was anything to measure from, no one will be sleeping much.

And that is just fine. Who has room for sleep anyway?? It’s time to talk about the future and the future looks quite bright.  And so for those of you coming, let’s get on with it and meet up in Shanghai.

Or for those who are a little “punchier,” there are still a few seats on the train for the full transmitLIVE expedition. That’s right.  People who are crazy enough to travel across China with some of Canada’s hottest new bands will be joining us on a six city tour (May 29 – June 5) that takes us through Hong Kong, Guangzhou, Wuhan, Changsha, Beijing and Shanghai…in that order. The combined population of these cities is just over 80 million potential super fans, so I suggest bringing a lot of business cards.



And just so we’re clear that I “walk the talk,” I will also be on this run with helmet on and a four point racing harness fastened. Arguably insane, completely exhausting, and the most amazing thing one could ever do. This is not Kansas, folks. This is China and it is unlike any other business culture on the planet.

Totally unique in its business practices and its relationship with other international markets, China defies expectations and pre-conceived ideas (let alone the laws of economic gravity).  While I originally went to get a handle on market opportunities in China, I left learning more about myself.  Trying to develop a working relationship in China is humbling to say the least. To the point where one really comes to terms with how little we understand our new place in the world. The “we” I refer to is “us” Westerners.

After three years of doing projects in China, I feel I am just about ready to start actually learning something. I know this sounds cliché but it’s really hard to explain the opportunities that exist in China unless you go there and it’s really hard to leverage opportunities until you surrender yourself to its ideas and practices.

This doesn’t come easy. Someone recently asked me when I was going take what I learned and actually do something…in China. I was also thinking along those terms three years ago. Sure, we are now developing several business partnerships as a result of our work in China. But, when asked this question, I thought to myself a more important question.  What makes you think that I intend to apply what I have learned in China to the Chinese market place? Wouldn’t it be much more interesting to bring what I have learned in China back home?

And in that brief second of clarity I realized something incredibly important about the process of exposing oneself to non-Western markets driven by non-Western culture and supported by non-Western business practices; our biggest weakness in the West is that we actually believe that our systems, our models and our ideas are better than everyone else’s.

Call me crazy (I am) but I think it is time to get away from the noise of our own market and remove ourselves from our comfort zone.  To be quite honest we are killing our capacity for creativity and innovative thinking when we go somewhere familiar to just “sell.” Real entrepreneurial behaviour comes with being open. It comes with the practice of listening. It’s time to sit down at the roundtable, to share ideas and to be exposed to the ideas of others.

And it is for this reason that I am so excited to be doing the third edition of transmitCHINA. The programme has been in the making for over a year now and I would say that this is probably the most relevant series of questions for the "gloves-off" nature of transmitNOW’s signature roundtable format.

After three years of hard work and tireless commitment the transmitNOW team, the Transmission Advisory Board and our sponsors can proudly say that this project has real legs.  True to our first observations when we started looking at the development of an event in 2008, there is no question that building a tangible, result bearing relationship with China is a long game. transmitCHINA itself is proof of this. We are going into our third year of a five year plan and things are just starting to become clearer, our process more effective, and our outcomes more impactful. We have better relationships and more realistic expectations.

I say this as transmitCHINA itself has been a case study on how to do business in China and it should be perceived as such by everyone who is directly and indirectly involved in it.  The execution of this initiative opens a window on all elements of doing business.

So enough blah blah blah. What is on the menu for this year?

• We are showcasing more artists in more cities than we have ever done before. This year’s showcase artists are: Ohbijou, Parlovr, Flash Lightnin', illScarett, The Racoons and Wil.
• We have some amazing sponsors on both sides of the Pacific that are really working to leverage this opportunity in context of a long-term vision.
• The conference is going to be a major step up from the past two years as we are going to be introducing transmitNOW's signature roundtable format for the first time in Shanghai.
• We have more Canadian delegates attending than ever before along with quite a few international delegates who have been key in promoting and developing Canadian artists abroad.
• Keynote speakers include Chinese industry heavies Jun Wu (CEO, R2G) and Kaiser Kuo (Consultant, Youku.com). We will also be featuring several interesting presentations including a once in a lifetime interview of PK14's Yang Haisong by Nic Harcourt of the L.A Times. Chairman of Sire Records and self-described champion of Canadian music, Seymour Stein, will be hosting several mentoring sessions over the days of the conference (June 2-4).
• Another new element will be at least four B2B focus groups with targeted themes in various cities that transmitCHINA will be touching down in. These sessions will target priority topics such as; “The Evolution of Music Publishing in China” sponsored by the Province of Ontario and the CMPA and “The Focus on the Independent Music Scene” facilitated by Merlin CEO, Charles Caldas. There will also be a specific focus on the unique attributes to Mobile Application development in China. Plus, we have added some feature B2B sessions on innovative thinking and future business models in the digital content world.

At this point in the article I am supposed to wrap it up with a nifty conclusion, but I began to wonder whether anyone actually reads conclusions anymore. So here is the bet, anyone who gets to the end of the this article and calls me on fact that I was too lazy to write the last paragraph gets a free bottle of really nice wine of my choosing. See you all in China!

transmitNOW’s first international project for 2010 is gearing up to be one of the most important and most impactful music industry events in Asia this year. As it heads into its third year, the transmitCHINA Conference will take place in Shanghai, China (June 2– 4, 2010)

The three-day conference will include roundtable discussions, keynote presentations, B2B Focus Groups, showcases and receptions with a focus on connecting Canadian and international music, technology and media professionals to leaders, thinkers and creators in China.

“The conference is going to be a major step up from the past two years as we are going to be introducing transmitNOW's signature roundtable format for the first time in Shanghai,” says transmitCHINA founder and Executive Producer, Tyl van Toorn.

transmitNOW’s unique roundtable format enables participants to engage in candid discussions with a spotlight on transmitNOW’s three global themes including; Intellectual Property, Next Generation Leadership and Emerging Markets.  The overarching focus for this year will be innovative business models that take the creative industries sector beyond the traditional goal posts of measurable success.

Keynote presentations from Chinese innovators including Jun Wu (CEO, R2G) and Kaiser Kuo (Consultant, Youku.com) will be joining us to provide insight into the aforementioned themes. The conference also includes several first ever presentations including a once in a lifetime interview of PK14's Yang Haisong by Nic Harcourt of the L.A Times. Furthermore, up and coming leaders and participants will be engaged in a series of mentoring sessions led by Seymour Stein, Chairman of Sire records and self-described champion of Canadian music.

“transmitCHINA is quite simply the most important cross-cultural meeting of minds for international music professionals looking to understand China and for Chinese music professionals looking to formulate a workable music business  model for China,” says Archie Hamilton, Managing Director of Split Works.  Split Works, one of China’s leading music promoters and brand marketing companies based in Beijing & Shanghai, has been recruited to produce transmitCHINA with The Fantan Group providing valuable on-the-ground knowledge related to the Chinese market and its leaders. 

As a music, technology and media conference, transmitCHINA puts emphasis on developing short-term and long-term opportunities for Canadian artists, companies and entrepreneurs in the fastest growing markets. This year, six bands were selected to participate in the transmitCHINA artist showcase tour (May 28 – June 5). Artists this year include Ohbijou, Parlovr, Flash Lightnin', illScarett, Wil and The Racoons. This is an opportunity for artists to gain valuable exposure and develop relationships with local Chinese audiences and buyers in six cities including Shanghai, Beijing, Hong Kong, Guangzhou, Wuhan and Changsha.

transmitCHINA has received major support from FACTOR, the Province of Ontario, and the Province of British Columbia. It has also developed long-standing partnerships with key organizations including the Canadian Music Publishers Association and MERLIN.

“We have some amazing sponsors on both sides of the Pacific that are really working to leverage this opportunity in context of a long-term vision.” says van Toorn. “I think what really makes this event special, is the Canadian support we received from key organizations  such as FACTOR and the provinces of Ontario and BC who see great value in this event because of the opportunities it provides in connecting with industry leaders and generating exposure for Canadian talent in China and throughout Asia. We are offering something truly unique and our supporters recognize that. ”

For both domestic and international participants transmitCHINA is an exclusive, invitation-only event that will host a maximum of one hundred and fifty international delegates from China, Canada and other key international markets. To request an invitation to the conference or receive information regarding the artist showcase tour please visit www.transmitnow.com/transmitchina2010 .

As the Internet began to transform society around the world, the possibilities of access and the so-called "free flow of information" was celebrated. But this original idea was eventually hijacked by a cross-section of geeks who promoted the unconditional notion that, "information wants to be free" as if by divine right — and subversively concluding that all media consumption should be free.

Despite the intentions of those championing a "free-flow of information", it is increasingly clear that there are many barriers to the legal distribution of media/entertainment products online.

Technology has enabled this flow of information to all corners of the world, but "access" has oftentimes been just an idea and not a reality. In truth, the "free-flow" philosophy has been undermined by stakeholders trying to control and restrict access to their products — and imposing their respective wills and value systems in conflict with differing social, cultural, language and legal norms in other territories. The recent Google-China spat has only served to magnify the issues around access and the challenges that exist in bridging the divide that exist between various cultures.

The music industry (already struggling to adjust to the impacts of technology) has failed to overcome these socio-economic divides. This has been particularly evident amongst multi-national music companies attempting to develop viable consumption models in Asia, and in particular China. In this situation, the Western music industry has had difficulty grasping the opportunities even though access to a few billion potential customers is only a click away. For many people working and operating in a global capacity none of this comes as news.

But what is rarely discussed is the perspective of Asian consumers and their understandable frustration in remaining unable to conveniently obtain legal music, much less comprehend licensing complexities that inhibit the access of said music. Even ten years after the advent of file-sharing technology, exponentially increased bandwidth, storage and processing, the right-holders and digital distributors have failed these consumers in the most basic platforms for the legal delivery of music.

With the dearth of fair and convenient access, it is no wonder that Asia's music consumers have had to resort to file-sharing networks and other unlicensed platforms to obtain their music. In doing so, Asian music consumers are often arbitrarily labeled as the stewards of said piracy with the result that top-down discussions on music consumption in Asia tend to focus mainly on piracy.

A more in-depth look at the Asian music consumer's plight has been covered in a separate extensive post on the MIDEM blog here.

Western record executives that throng music conferences trying to find the "single-solution" silver bullet to conquer Asia, might do well to first "re-boot" their approach or it will be akin to trying to fit a square peg in a round hole.

While this piracy is prevalent across Asia, China, in particular, has been singled out by rights-holders in the west as a market irreverent to copyright protection. By virtue of its sheer size, potential and recent economic ascendancy, China has been an easy target on the matters of IP abuse — some of it justified, but it also has to be realized that convenient and fairly priced access to content is necessary to counter any vacuum that can only breed piracy. Of course there is no quick fix and as with many things in life, it just isn't that simple.

Asia is a complex beast that requires patience, investment and an understanding of socio-economic and, in some cases socio-political norms. It is thus imperative that labels and music retailers conduct the necessary due diligence and planning, in order to make an informed decision on licensing music in Asia as follows:

1) Asia is not just Japan… or Australia.
International artists, their agents and labels have a habit of promoting their music and playing in only Japan and/or Australia while bypassing most other Asian markets. Piracy in Asia like anywhere else is a problem worth solving. Ignoring these markets or even restricting licensed access to music is not going to solve anything. In fact it will be the primary cause for increased unlicensed activity. Without the requisite investment of resources in comprehensive market development at every level (in particular live), it is likely that the majority of Western artists will be untroubled by piracy in Asia. This is particularly the case if the plan is to eventually develop these markets.

Failing to pay appropriate attention to these markets right now is an opportunity lost. In ignoring them, rights-holders fail to contribute to and cultivate the many growing music niches in Asia in a more active manner. Instead, train-wrecks like Britney fuelled by the global gossip news networks entrench themselves in Asian markets. Combine this market reality with the advent of hundreds of domestic artists that are also competing for the attention of local audiences and it will become increasingly difficult to get a foot in the door.

2) Provide not just access to content but context
The problem of piracy in Asia should not take sole precedence over that of artist obscurity. Licensing music to an online store is not enough. Labels have to also organize promotions and social network campaigns to reach out to a relevant target audience - or at least work with a promotion partner. For example, it is basic marketing sense that if an artist wants to reach out to Chinese audiences, there should, at the very least, be an artist website in Chinese as a focal point. Anything less is gross negligence.

3) Understand music preferences and cultural norms
Find out what kind of music genres, languages of music consumed, types of music, local vs foreign music appetites, etc are relevant country by country in Asia. For example in non-English speaking Asian countries, it is usually local language fare that dominates but there is also the possibility that this might be due to the lack of translated material for users. In China, genres that the Western music world are familiar with do not even have proper names in Chinese, much less the expectation that labels have of realizing sales on music in these genres.

4) Understand how music is consumed
Factors to consider with regards to the target market include technology usage, existing popular services and devices, formats, online/mobile/physical/live, competing online activities, etc.

To illustrate the diversity in consumption habits in Asia, Synovate published a survey of more than 8,000 youths (aged 8-24) in 12 countries, and the following chart illustrates channel/device usage for listening to music.

In general, the computer is the device used most often for listening to music

Overall, only 11% paid for music, and mainly via mobile. Even then, the cash cow of mobile music is being eroded as more users are side-loading from their computers and from unlicensed sources like P2P and BitTorrent.

5) Music pricing, payment mechanisms and revenue share rates
Cost of living and average salaries, consumer price Index, competing services' pricing and piracy are all important factors to consider when defining pricing in the respective Asian markets. Instead some labels have tended to dictate retail prices to Asian digital retailers with reference to the USD 0.99 unit rate. Artist contracts that set their standard royalty at a fixed US dollar value per unit sold are unmindful of global marketing needs and fail to accommodate currency differences and living standards around the world.

This has to be balanced with the fact that credit card take-up is low in large parts of Asia and local payment engines demand revenue shares that are much higher than that of credit card systems and can even go up to 30% of revenue.

Furthermore, in nascent markets, the retail partner has to invest an inordinate amount of resources but some foreign labels are sometimes still insistent on using the 70:30 revenue share rate that iTunes has arbitrarily decided in the US is the fairest one for them, knowing that their real revenues come from ancillary iPod sales. In Asia, with mobile carriers requiring between 15%-70% of revenue (depending on country) and mobile service providers requiring between 20%-50%, it is an irrefutable fact that the balance of power is stacked against music retailers and labels.

High delivery fees charged by some foreign music distributors are often in high US dollar or Euro values and do not take into account the inability of retail partners to recoup this high upfront cost as a result of low retail pricing per unit in the respective market — though in recent times, some more enlightened distributors have been more flexible with their pricing in Asia.

6) Due diligence on potential partners.
A standard upfront advance from a potential retail partner is always tempting for labels to seek — however, it can amount to blood money as the retail partner might not grow the market and could well be devaluing music in order to simply build traffic and increase valuation of the service provider or worse, cheating artists of their rightful royalties.

For example, EMI failed to conduct the necessary due diligence required of it and inexplicably partnered with infamous music infringer, Baidu in China. Expediency of this nature simply harms the market in the long run by emboldening illegal operators and inhibits others who are trying to build a viable market. There exists many service providers in Asia that use music to drive traffic to other more lucrative parts of their portal while others that simply build up their value in order to flip their companies or use music to sell devices.

As Charles Caldas, CEO of Merlin warned at the advent of the free music hype three years ago:

"If you so choose, you can be very aggressive in the early part of your career in giving away your music and making it easily accessible on the internet. The difficulty comes at the point when those copyrights maybe fall out of your direct control and start to be used to enhance other people's businesses. So monetizing is a challenge, not for everyone, but certainly for the independent sector at the moment."

The record industry in the US has yet to dig itself out of the hole it got itself into as a result of being beholden to one of the largest tech firms in the world which uses music to sell its devices and the lessons are still not learnt well.

Choose trusted partners Work with trusted partners instead of blindly licensing every operator in the market, which would inevitably include untrustworthy ones. This might mean that in the early development in some markets, it might be necessary to work with a single trusted partner in an exclusive manner for a finite period in order to ensure stability and the bedrock for future success. Consider it the label's investment in the market.

7) Lobby for the cessation of US/European financial institutions' support of pirate sites in Asia
Oftentimes, a lot of the piracy in Asia is funded by Western cash influx. For example, when institutions like Fidelity and Morgan Stanley are funding the likes of Baidu's illegal mp3 activities as reported by The Register, then the battleground that international labels should focus on first is their own backyard.

8) Understand the legal framework and how to best utilize it
Content owners cannot expect the government to police their content online. For example, the law in many countries takes its lead from the DMCA and the Safe Harbour provision in the US which allows the proliferation of user generated content — and this has led to potential abuses by many websites. However, the law also states that a take-down notice needs to be served and complied with before liability of the content hosting company can be established. At the very least, labels and publishers should invest in resources to protect their content.

9) Understand business models and technology adoption in respective countries in Asia
Transplanting and applying Western licensing, sales and promotion models can be at odds with the Asian market. Micro-managing Asia from headquarters in say, the US by having its head up the proverbial posterior can be a huge problem.

"When the core of your business is operating in mature markets with similar user habits, this strategy can work. However, applying this strategy to a rapidly developing, dynamic market with vastly different online behaviors spells disaster… and a quick market exit."
- T.R. Harrington, CEO of Darwin Marketing, an online search marketing specialist based in Shanghai as reported by AdAge.

Labels, publishers and distributors should not apply the same rigid licensing models and fees to potential partners without first examining their business models and their contribution to building a robust music distribution model in the long term in Asia.

Strand Consulting highlighted that dissonance in the flow of information inhibits a better understanding of differing business models and technology adoption in countries beyond the American mothership.

"A great deal of the communication in the press will derive from the USA and be written by American media, who most often do not have their finger on the pulse regarding the telco world outside the USA. The total USA market is still only 7% of the global mobile market. We believe that a great deal of the press coverage that will attract global attention will be created in large international media; thereafter a great many smaller media will uncritically quote the international media. In our opinion there is an enormous difference between the mobile market in the USA and what Strand Consulting is seeing in countries like Brazil, India, Kenya, China and large parts of Europe."

By no means is the above a guarantee of success in the Asian market but will hopefully help cut through the endless chicken or egg debates on piracy vs lack of legal options.

As TorrentFreak duly noted,

"Yet while millions flock to file-sharing networks and the knowledge on how to use them continues to spread, there is still a huge and largely untapped market out there, eager to funnel money through the official channels."

There is also the possibility that the years of neglect have already eroded the market substantially, but without competitive alternatives for Asian consumers, unless labels face up to their Hobson's choice and decide to give up the market for dead, then they are beholden to give it a proper shot. As Tim O'Reilly presciently stated in 2002:

"Services like Kazaa flourish in the absence of competitive alternatives. I confidently predict that once the music industry provides a service that provides access to all the same songs, freedom from onerous copy-restriction, more accurate metadata and other added value, there will be hundreds of millions of paying subscribers. That is, unless they wait too long, in which case, Kazaa itself will start to offer (and charge for) these advantages. (Or would, in the absence of legal challenges.)"

For more information on licensing music in Asia, especially China, you can refer to The Global Outpost blog

Jets Overhead toured with transmitCHINA last year. (April 28 — May 5, 2009) They performed in Beijing, during the MIDI Festival and in various venues in Shanghai, Zhenjiang and Shenzhen.

“It was nice to go somewhere where we were fairly anonymous. We were also playing a lot of different size venues, from small sweaty clubs all the way up to outdoor festivals for 5,000 people. Right now China is just discovering the enjoyment that live concerts can bring. They were going crazy. They were so receptive, not only to us but any band we played with. They cared and listened and just wanted I think to be part of something new…”

— Adam Kittredge, Lead Singer, Jets Overhead.

For more information on Jets Overhead please visit: www.myspace.com/jetsoverhead

The big four oh! Looks like the podcast is approaching that hill… hopefully there’s no mid–life crisis awaiting on the other side. It’s hard to believe it’s already been forty episodes. Way back on May 18, 2006, Episode One was released. Over four years later (and almost sixty hours of music later!) and I’m still having tons of fun with it, and hopefully you’re still enjoying it.

This episode is 85 minutes of the usual. The first set begins with psychedelic American dream pop. Animal Collective show no signs of slowing down after their groundbreaking album, Merriweather Post Pavilion, with their new EP Fall Be Kind. Beach House’s new album is also sounding very very good. New Balearic favourite Tycho has released a new dreamy single. Heading north, no episode would be complete without some typically great Canadian folk, featuring Wilderness of Manitoba, The Wooden Sky, Said the Whale and Aidan Knight.

The episode is also full of some tremendous tracks from Iceland’s Hildur Guðnadóttir, Ben Frost, and Ólafur Arnalds and Sigur Rós‘ Jónsi. It continues to amaze me how much great music can come out of such a small country. More music from the continent include new stuff from Britain’s The Leisure Society and Rudi Arapahoe, Greece’s Blue Pilot Project, and two more tracks from Holland’s The Black Atlantic.

// tracklisting

• Animal Collective - ‘What Would I Want? Sky’ (Domino)
• Toro Y Moi - ‘Blessa’ (Carpark)
• Beach House - ‘Walk in the Park’ (Sub Pop)
• Kelpe - ‘Caution Site’ (DC)
• Alec Ounsworth - ‘South Philadelphia’ (Anti-)
• Yukon Blonde - ‘Wind Blows’ (Nevado Records)
• The Leisure Society - ‘The Last of the Melting Snow’ (Willkommen Records)
• The Black Atlantic - ‘An Ocean and Peril’ (Beep! Beep! Back up the Truck)
• Hildur Guðnadóttir - ‘Ascent’ (Touch)
• Rudi Arapahoe - ‘To Gather Flowers/Forest of Arches’ (Symbolic Interaction)
• The Wilderness of Manitoba - ‘Bluebirds’ (Independent)
• The Wooden Sky - ‘Oslo’ (Black Box)
• Said the Whale - ‘Holly, Ontario’ (Hidden Pony)
• Blockhead - ‘Hell Camp’ (Ninja Tune)
• Ochre - ‘Raido’ (Benbecula)
• Tycho - ‘Coastal Brake’ (Ghostly International)
• Jónsi - ‘Boy Lilikoi’ (XL)
• Blue Pilots Project - ‘Million Clouds’ (Klik)
• Ben Frost - ‘O God Protect Me’ (Bedroom Community)
• Ólafur Arnalds - ‘Lokaou Augunum (Dyad 1909 version)’ (Erased Tapes)
• Aidan Knight - ‘Sorrows/Jasper’ (Canadian Tuxedo)
• Sea Wolf - ‘Orion & Dog’ (Dangerbird)
• The Black Atlantic - ‘Madagascar’ (Beep! Beep! Back up the Truck)

DOWNLOAD as M4a
DOWNLOAD as MP3

Bruce Mans is the curator of the blog/podcast The New Balearic. Inspired by the late John Peel and his renowned eclectic taste, Bruce set out with the primary goal of creating a quality online space with which to expose an equally eclectic range of bands on a global level. Having accomplished that, Bruce says he's happy simply knowing bands are benefiting from his work, and that people enjoy his mixes. www.thenewbalearic.com | www.brucemans.com

So apparently getting a Masters degree requires a lot of work. These past few weeks have been a mere blur, but I’ve recently found myself in a rare break from the work and thus…. Episode 39!

Oddly enough, the music industry doesn’t take many breaks either. Some amazing albums have been released since September. My Vancouver was at the centre of the action with some fascinating music from Said the Whale, You Say Party! We Say Die!, and two (2!) tracks from Victoria’s Aidan Knight! This episode also features my favourite Dan Mangan song… Elsewhere in Canada, I’ve got some hearty folk from Alberta’s The Wooden Sky and Montreal’s Bent by Elephants, and a pair of spooky slow brewers from Dead Man’s Bones and Montreal’s Champion.

Across the pond, Bibio has been working on a wonderful Boards of Canada cover for the recent 20th Anniversary of Warp Records, while Burial helped christen 5 years of existence at Hyperdub with a new track. England’s The xx also feature in a pair of tracks, remixing Florence + the Machine and performing there own ‘Crystalized’. And of course the podcast wouldn’t be complete without some American folk, with Horse Feathers, Sea Wolf, and Clap Your Hands, Say Yeah’s Alec Ounsworth doing the honours this episode. We’ll see you in December!

// tracklisting

• Said the Whale - ‘Dear Elkhorn’ (Upper Management Records)
• Sea Wolf - ‘Spirit Horse’ (Dangerbird)
• Aidan Knight - ‘The Sun’ (Canadian Tuxedo)
• The Wooden Sky - ‘River Song One’ (Black Box)
• Bibio - ‘Kaini Industries (Boards of Canada cover)’ (Warp)
• Kelpe - ‘Eye Candy Bath’ (DC)
• Lusine - ‘Tin Hat’ (Ghostly International)
• Dead Man’s Bones - ‘Dead Hearts’ (Werewolf Heart)
• Champion - ‘L6 (The Blooded)’ (Saboteur)
• You Say Party! We Say Die! - ‘There is XXXX (Within My Heart)’ (Paper Bag)
• Alec Ounsworth - ‘Holy, Holy, Holy Moses (Song for New Orleans)’ (Anti-)
• The Black Atlantic - ‘I Shall Cross This River’ (Beep! Beep! Back up the Truck)
• Dan Mangan - ‘Basket’ (Independent)
• Silent Strike - ‘Alb’ (La Strada)
• Burial - ‘Fostercare’ (Hyperdub)
• Ochre - ‘Napolese’ (Benbecula)
• Florence + the Machine - ‘You’ve Got The Love (the xx remix)’ (Island)
• The xx - ‘Crystalized’ (Young Turks)
• Bent By Elephants - ‘Mollie’s Song’ (Cooling Pie)
• Aidan Knight - ‘Altar Boys’ (Canadian Tuxedo)
• Horse Feathers - ‘Orphan Girl’ (Kill Rock Stars)

DOWNLOAD as M4a
DOWNLOAD as MP3

Bruce Mans is the curator of the blog/podcast The New Balearic. Inspired by the late John Peel and his renowned eclectic taste, Bruce set out with the primary goal of creating a quality online space with which to expose an equally eclectic range of bands on a global level. Having accomplished that, Bruce says he's happy simply knowing bands are benefiting from his work, and that people enjoy his mixes. www.thenewbalearic.com | www.brucemans.com

PoliTalk48 salon 3 features Archie Hamilton (Split Works), Mandar Thakur (formerly of Soundbuzz for India), Eric Garland (BigChampagne.com), Helen Sildna (Tallinn Music Week in Estonia), and Eric Priest (intellectual property lawyer) on the topic of The Real Deal with Emerging Markets. PoliTalk48 is an interactive salon on music and entertainment industry issues moderated by Paul Hoffert, Media Professor at York University and Chair of The Bell Broadcast and New Media Fund. Each of the panellists has 48 hours to comment and interact with other panelists’ comments. Join us in person to explore this particular theme further at transmission.TALKS 2009.

// salon 3 panelists

Archie Hamilton is the Founder of Split Works, a China based promoter and brand agency. Developing Asian touring networks for hard working bands and alternative communication strategies for forward thinking brands.

Mandar Thakur, formerly GM of Soundbuzz for India (Asia’s largest online and mobile music distributor), is currently pondering over the next venture and living at the moment in Bombay, India.

Eric Garland is the founder and CEO of BigChampagne.com, a measurement company focused on tracking the popularity of entertainment media online and off. Eric has lived in Mexico and Texas and has finally made it as far West as California, where he lives with his wife and twin toddlers. WIRED magazine says “he spent much of his twenties dashing through airports and hotel restaurants telling people how to run their businesses.” Eric is spending his thirties the same way.

Helen Sildna is the founder of the Kumu ÖÖ festival, Tallinn Music Week in Estonia and a promoter with Baltic Development Group (BDG). She has strong contacts on the other side of the Baltic Sea, as BDG works with Live Nation’s offices in Sweden and Finland to bring major international talent to Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

Eric Priest is a platinum-selling songwriter, the former head of Noank Media's digital content business in China, and an intellectual property lawyer with broad China experience. He is an expert in Chinese intellectual property and the Chinese entertainment industry, and has been quoted on those subjects in the Wall Street Journal and other major publications. Eric currently teaches law at the University of Oregon.

// the real deal with emerging markets

Emerging markets, led by the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) and closely followed by their South American, European, South Asian, and Pacific Rim neighbors are target markets for tomorrow’s business and profits. The question is “how far in the future are the profits?” Previous TRANSMISSION events suggest that three years to profit is optimistic and ten years may be too conservative. Many analysts believe there will be a (series of) tipping point(s) or perhaps a black swan event that will bring explosive revenue growth from these emerging markets sooner rather than later.

// here’s what our panel has to say:

Poli: What are the local business and regulatory environments? Are they different from the developed world?

Mandar: Radically different from the developed world. Whether the business structures are right or wrong is a point of view, apart from bureaucracies and corruption, Developing markets have a larger layer of red tape [music and movies]… have recently been granted ‘industry’status by their respective government ministries. Rules are new and importantly from a business point of view - business models and stakeholder structures are different. Some of these have been started from scratch whilst some of these have been thought through to suit the local country needs. Some of them deal with piracy far more effectively.

Archie: Let me take you through what we need to do to get a Western band into China. First, there is a paucity of infrastructure. Beijing, a city of nearly 20m people has one live venue of over 1,000 capacity. 2 venues of 500 (neither of which have the proper performance licenses – i.e. grey) and there are a couple of venues of around 100 capacity. Media is tightly controlled as a key strategic industry, and it is difficult to get anything covered by mainstream Chinese press without paying exorbitant amounts.

The licensing process for a Western show takes a month (if your venue actually has a license that allows you to apply) and the promoter has to provide video of the entire set, a set list, lyrics for all the songs translated into Chinese. Is that different enough for you?

Eric P: Prevalent market protectionism and censorship in China have led to a web of complicated, often maddening rules limiting how foreign media companies can operate. In many cases, foreign media companies cannot operate on their own; they have to set up a joint venture majority-Chinese-owned. Foreign-Chinese JVs often do not fare too well in China. [The culture and regulations are just too different.]

It is much easier for wholly-Chinese companies to operate in the marketplace. They are still ostensibly subject to censorship, state licensing and other regulations, but in practice they know that as long as they steer clear of politically sensitive hot-button controversies… no one will pay much attention, especially if they are just dealing in music. They always live under the shadow, knowing that if they aren’t properly licensed or are distributing unapproved content, some government entity could choose to hassle them or shut them down. That happens more frequently to video-related businesses; music is pretty far down the watchlist as far as ideological influence is concerned.

China was recently found by the WTO to be in violation of its duty to ensure foreign companies have open access to China’s media market and distribution channels. Beijing is planning to appeal the ruling. In the meantime, China’s Ministry of Culture just released new regulations, as it seems to every few years, requiring Ministry of Culture approval of any music broadcast online and requiring online music companies to be licensed by the ministry. So it looks like business as usual for the time being. Time will tell to what extent online music companies choose to comply with the MoC (or to what extent China chooses to comply with the WTO ruling!).

Helen: Again — we come from a regime where pop culture was seen as evil and at most cases prohibited. When the first notorious Rock Summer festival took place in Estonia in 1987 — it was a clear sign that the soviet empire was already cracking up from every corner. In 1989 the Berlin Wall came down. This is all fantastic but there is a strange paradox – even though our countries immediately went along with liberal democracy and liberal economy — the structure of supporting music industry and furthermore — the way it is seen by public sector — is still shockingly [Soviet]. Pop culture still hasn’t quite fought its way to be supported.

To give you an example — in most of European countries VAT on concert tickets (as well as other culture events) is with a lower rate than other services. Here government still believes we are all making too much money whereas we are all fighting hard not to lose money. BUT… with our economies in downfall at the moment, I have to say we are now pushing through significant shifts in mentality — creative industries and culture export are now the hottest topic. We are finally looking at pop culture, rock music and music industry as something that our governments need to start supporting in ways it has been done let’s say in Scandinavia. We are currently living the times of big and important changes, so we are trying hard to keep a dialogue going with our public sector and for the first time we are being listened to as well.

Eric G: … the Wild West is a misnomer when it comes to music worldwide.

Poli: How do the expectations of music consumers in these markets differ from those of North Americans and Western Europeans?

Mandar: They differ radically — in some cases almost like… black and white — from a musical choice point of view. Primarily a lot of these regions (especially India) has its own cultural legacy which dates far beyond the U.S. or some of Europe and hence local choices and musical tastes are radically different for mass consumers.

Helen: …When talking about Eastern Europe and also the post-Sovietblock, we are talking about totally different countries, which all have completely different tastes, preferences, media market, habits of consuming music etc. But for us…, we have something in common — it was prohibited and illegal to consume western music during Soviet times. There are unbelievable stories of music lovers having their relatives in Canada sending them Bob Dylan and Rolling Stones records — which were then of course handed over from friends to friends for copies — or then — those who had some secret access to the “illegal” music were organizing “music listening parties” at their homes with people just sitting next to tape recorders and listening to these in solemn silence. In that sense — I would say that our biggest problem is not illegal downloads or piracy — our biggest problem is low levels of music knowledge and plain lack of interest. Kids at that time did not grow up with music — so they did not develop a need for it.

So — I would say — [music consumers] DON’T have expectations at all. In this environment, where… music journalism being made on half of a page of a weekly newspaper, If you are a clever enough promoter to market your shows, you can create stars locally by putting on a massive marketing and PR campaign, bringing an act to the market and making it a superstar. [But an artist] with rich history suddenly loses it over here as there was a time period that was simply stolen from us. Let me give you an example — let’s say 1 person got hold of a Velvet Underground record when it came out… Now Lou Reed comes here and sells 900 tickets. At the same time anything that is a new, hip and cool marketing product can be hyped into a super. Gotan Project who just had one record [when] we promoted them here sells 1800 rickets.

Archie: … In China, music is pop [and] Celebrity drives mainstream music culture. The market is concentrated wholly on the 25 or so stars who currently claim the lion’s share of radio time, TV appearances and ensuing endorsements (the main financial heartland of the Chinese music industry). Wang Lee Hom, possibly the hottest star in China has been/is spokesman/representative for at least 15 brands, from water to cars to mobile phones. In recent years, the ubiquitous low–rent gossip driven magazines have sprung up in alarming quantities.

Alternative music (i.e. anything non-pop) cannot even be classed as an industry at present… For example, I am sitting in a van with the Canadian 2 piece [band] Handsome Furs, on the way from Beijing to Tianjin to play a show tonight. In the van, we have Lex and Dan (the Handsome Furs), myself, my production manager, an assistant (merch, runner etc) a Western audio engineer who has brought a small console for the front of house (because the system in the club will be atrocious), and Sulumi, a Beijing based noise artist (who is the support act). We are hoping that we will sell enough tickets tonight to pay for the van (US $150 both ways) and for Sulumi (US $150). Around 70 tickets. To put that into context, PK14 (one of the most celebrated “non–pop’ bands in China went to Tianjin last weekend and sold 70 tickets. Lydia (our runner) reckons we will only sell 35 tickets at US $6 each, a total gross of US $210.

Eric P: … Chinese consumers by and large expect music to be free. While cynics will claim that’s no different from the West today I can tell you there is a difference. iTunes still sells over a billion downloads per year [in the West] despite the prevalence of P2P downloading while the online music retail model in China has already failed. Major US companies… have invested in Chinese services that provide free, unlicensed streams or downloads, because they know that is the only [consumer choice at present].

Musically, the average consumer doesn’t expect much beyond pop fluff… Rock is still way behind and less accepted in the mainstream. That said, when an artist does come on the market with some substance, that does seem to garner due appreciation by Chinese fans. Wang Fei, a huge 80s–90s pop star who had some depth and good quality songs, was generally recognized as being the best of the best in Chinese pop.

Eric G: [If the question was] “How are expectations the same?” Our answers would be shorter! … the proportion of music consumers in emerging markets who expect recorded music to be completely free, and who are comfortable participating in pirate markets online and off, is higher (by the numbers). The traditional (per unit) recorded music businesses in North America and Western Europe, though depressed, will not be matched elsewhere.

Poli: Are the top 10, top 40, and top 100 English titles in these markets the same as in North America and Europe? What percentage of music is consumed in English and how much in local language(s)? Does it matter if locals understand English lyrics and, if not, should western music be re-recorded with local language lyrics? Avril Lavigne made a huge dent in international markets by recording her albums in many language versions including Chinese.

Eric G: …by the numbers, no. Music is most often a regional (even local) phenomenon the world round. This is pointedly true of many of the emerging markets we are specifically addressing here, but increasingly true everywhere. In other words, as traditional broadcast media lose relative mindshare (as they are in most places), the homogenous culture that they tend to promote is undermined by more eclectic tastes. Michael Jackson sold many tens of millions of records (there is still a great deal of argument about how many tens of millions) worldwide. There will never be another artist who will match that feat.

There is a substantial preference for local and regional music in most places in the world. The English language seems less likely to be the barrier than cultural relevancy. To put this another way, most people seem to relate more easily to artists whose own experience, references, and ultimately…identity are a bit closer to home. The Avril song seemed more like a novelty than a precedent set, imho [in my humble opinion].

Eric P: … Popularity in the West influences which Western titles are popular… but the exposure for most Western songs still represents… a relatively small percentage of overall music consumption in China. The great majority of music consumed is Chinese-language, from Mainland China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. Re-recording with Chinese lyrics would certainly help an artist set her or himself apart in the marketplace and gain some recognition and appreciation. But I don’t think language barrier is the biggest obstacle. I think Chinese people just like Chinese artists, whose lyrics, looks, musical stylings, etc. are familiar and speak more to the Chinese experience.

Avril certainly has name recognition in China, and her Mandarin song did well but did not crack the top 100 ringtones… it came nowhere near the ringtone sales of the biggest Chinese artists.

Archie: In the absence of a true recorded music industry, caller ring back tones are one of the only ways to truly understand the extent of Mandarin language domination amongst Chinese consumers. According to research done by R2G (owner and operator of the best digital music shop in China www.wa3.cn ), there wasn’t a single English language track in the top 50 most downloaded CRBTs in 2008. Xie Jun achieved top spot with 14.5m downloads. Number 50 was Shi Yan with 1.5m. Contrast this with the highest placed English language band, “My Hump” by the Black Eyed Peas clocked in at a non-eyewatering 60k downloads in 2008. There are separate charts for English and Chinese top 10’s, top 20’s, but the CRBTs best illustrates the obstacles faced by English language music.

It takes an outsider years to master the tonal Chinese language, and there have been examples of Western born Chinese and even Westerners with excellent Chinese coming here to try and break the marketing in Mandarin. I haven’t really seen it working yet, and foreign artists learning phrases often fail to get the tonal elements of the language. Honestly, don’t even bother. There have been a few instances of western singers or bands doing English-language translated cover versions of Mandarin pop songs and or duets with the original singers which have had some appeal.

Mandar: In most cases they’re not [the same], at least for India. To give you an example: International music is 1.5 % of digital sales and at best 4–5 % of physical sales. This has been the case for the last few years. International music is 1.5 % of digital sales and at best 4–5 % of physical sales. This has been the case for the last few years. [But] Western Music is probably consumed more widely than the above sales percentages due to internet downloads and free radio stations.

However, a western artist recording their music in local language — that will differ region to region and country to country — for example — Avril Lavigne’s local language CD might have been a hit in China but will probably do lesser sales in Hindi language than her English CD in a market like India. That is because India is (by population) I think one of the top 2–3 English speaking regions in the world where English basics are understood widely apart from a China whose largest drawbacks is English language penetration.

Helen: … The system of charting here is completely random- every record shop and every radio station has their own charts — and you can see each of them differ quite a lot. If you are a promoter and want to estimate your ticket sales by checking how the album has sold, it will never take you anywhere — I mean if new album of Metallica has sold let’s say 700 copies, it still doesn’t mean that the live show couldn’t sell 70,000 tickets. What I am trying to say - people are not so much dedicated fans here as they don’t have the history for it — but they are much [more inclined] to follow a massive media campaign and a well crafted hype, and — living in a small country like Estonia with population of 1.3 million — it is I guess a million times easier to create a national hype than in China.

… Tiny countries that we are, we ALL speak different languages. So – being a local band, you won’t have much of a chance to go tour in neighbouring countries and sing in your mother tongue. We are all very much used to consuming music in English, but this brings about an interesting aspect – our audiences don’t pay that much attention to lyrics – I mean if you have Morrissey playing here – only a few die-hard fans will sing along. So yes – all the bands who want to do something abroad, have a dilemma – they know they need to be singing in English and they need to be singing in clever English. That having said, we all hope we’ll be able to sustain our beautiful mother tongue that, of course is best preserved through literature, poems, lyrics, songs…

Poli: Do we need to adapt our business strategies to the different cultural environments or can we repurpose first world techniques locally? This is a different way of asking whether globalization can thrive in the 21st century or whether it needs to be replaced by localization.

Archie: International companies have tried since the turn of the century to graft their Western industry practices onto the Chinese market. Millions of $$s later they are no further forward. The industry in China at least needs to be understood and adapted incrementally. The problem we face as non–Asians in Asia is that the Chinese particularly are very, very nationalistic about the music they listen to.

In the 4 years I’ve been doing this, my attitude has changed beyond all recognition. The culturally imperialistic overview that I had of the market (that China needed Western music) has softened. I still believe there is a big place for English language music, but the transition will be more gradual, and most importantly incremental. We are now bringing bands that our research shows us the Asians will like rather than bands that we think they should like and we are working hard with the local music industry to understand and help develop it. And the kicker – we are finally beginning to make a little bit of money. Not enough to survive just yet, but a little…

Eric P: You definitely have to localize in China, at least for the foreseeable future. If you don’t intimately understand the music and general culture there or the regulatory environment, you’d be well advised not to bother doing business there. You also have to have far different expectations and definitions of success for that market compared with Western markets.

Mandar: … The world IS far more localized… “Global thought with Local approach and practices” is the key here. Some of the western “Globalbest practices techniques” are and should be locally adapted but other business models should NOT follow the west as these have been locally developed to suit the local environment. For example, the music industry in the West is suffering from massive cost issues and structures and everyone taking a percentage whereas the music industry in places like India and other BRIC nations [can] end up faring better…

Eric G: In the realm of recorded music, I find myself increasingly promoting localization. In short, these markets are so specific as to be almost unrelated, and therefore must be respected and approached individually. This is not so much a comment on the West versus the East as it is a broad observation about the peculiarities of local markets. I remember being struck by the vast differences among Western music markets: the USA versus the UK or France or Germany…

Helen: To be able to do anything at all in the area of music here you really need to localize. Absolutely no way around it. Something that works in Finland (60km from us!) does not have to work in Estonia at all and something that works in Latvia (we share a border!) might be an immediate flop in Estonia. If you are not local, you will not get it, well… even we dont get it sometimes, but… there’s a bigger chance let’s say.

Poli: Is there an infrastructure of artist and content development as well as production capacity locally or do the incumbent majors and indies have a role to play in artist development and/or production?

Archie: At the moment, there exists a pretty cozy cartel of “Entertainment Companies” in China. These Entertainment companies have effectively been running the 360 degree model for many years – management, label, touring, endorsements, appearences, TV, they manage and control (and make money) from it all. They have fairly standardized and homogenous business models. Get your good looking young pup on music by hook or by crook. TV show, film extra or reality TV (American Idol style reality TV has become huge in the last 3 years here in China (the last final got XX number SMS votes). Young pup gets some fame, record company/management get them into the studio, record, and try and get them back on TV. Endorsements and appearances, plus the ubiquitous gala performances for the major TV networks follow and so the cycle goes. This has been the case for over 10 years.

Avex Japan is a good example of a company that is trying to take a piece of the music market the old fashioned way. They rely 100% on a production partner in Taiwan that gets their artists on TV there. If they succeed, the content will filter across the straits of Taiwan to the mainland video sharing sites. Once they get traction, then the mainland TV channels on the fringes will pick it up (cable, regional). Eventually, with luck, the holy grail of Beijing’s CCTV and Shanghai’s SMG will start to import and expose, and the golden goose will start laying.

In terms of Western companies, the majors have all been at it for a while, but they work almost exclusively with Mandarin artists along these lines. Huge holes exist for genuine artist development and production and this is being led by a handful of small Chinese and Western companies. We are an example of one of these.

Eric P: I think “development” is a pretty strong word here. I’ll give you an example. One medium sized Chinese label in Beijing has about 150 artists signed to it. All are pop solo artists, and all were contestants on a pop idol contest show. If you make it in the top 50, you are automatically signed to this label. Where you sit and never do anything, unless you happen to be the two or three who did very well on the show or gained some notoriety on the show. So the model is, lock in everyone, and then actually produce and release songs for two or three who are already somewhat famous, and ride their momentary fame while you can. (Actually on review it doesn’t sound all that different from the state of the majors in the West, huh…).

The quality of local music production quality is quite lagging, and I know many Chinese labels would love to have help and partnerships with Western entities in this regard. I think the majors play a role in shaping production and development, especially in Taiwan for Taiwanese artists. They have very little budget in China, because they earn so little.

Eric G: Is it too cynical for me to answer this question with a question? (There, I just did!) I wonder if recorded music sales in many of these markets will ever sufficiently support artist development and (presumably more costly) production. The costs of production (recording, mixing, mastering, distribution) are plummeting. I have worked with bands whose major label output was created for a few thousand dollars in real costs (and then a few million more in marketing…).

Poli: 360 deals are new on the block in North America. Is it true that they have been the norm in emerging markets?

Helen: in the Baltics all the majors have had distributors but no actual offices, except for EMI in Latvia and now Universal in Estonia. If the majors had moved in with their actual offices years ago, it might be a different situation, but now — ye 360 model IS a norm here — I would not call it a “deal” but we can say that many and most of the bands who in fact release their records themselves, also cover all these areas of business for themselves — as good as they can. This now gives our bands an interesting starting point at these new times that music industry is going through — none of them have binding contracts that they couldn’t get out of and most of them are more ready to actually work with their careers — they know they have only themselves to count on, which I’d say is a good starting point at the moment.

Mandar: This has been the record industry’s biggest problem — 360. Without understanding the real need of restructuring the record industry to adapt to today’s times — they’ve blindly decided that it will hog everything and eat up everyone’s share and hence some idiot coining the term “360”. In the emerging markets (which have far larger habits of multitasking due to the economic situations of consumers) these been a reality for a while now…

Eric P: Yes, I think 360 deals are the only way Chinese record companies have been able to develop and survive.

Archie: This for me illustrates the problems that are facing us. Tianjin is a city of around 6,000,000, located just 90 minutes from China’s capital, Beijing. An international band like the Handsome Furs (the singer is also in Wolf Parade and the band are on seminal label Sub Pop), but in China they appeal to a tiny, tiny minority and outside of the main cities, virtually no–one. And so we are faced with a dilemma — go to the market and try and make money from other things, or wait on the sidelines (as most people are doing) and hope the market comes to us eventually.

Eric G: Given the scarce revenues from recorded music, bundled rights will have to be the norm.

Poli: In some emerging markets (China?) songs are the currency of popularity and artist recognition is not so important. In others (India?) local artists drive popularity. Do you agree? The answer has consequence for whether music publishers or record companies might dominate the local business.

Mandar: I agree partly. In India the situation comes from the fact that the local Hindi Film Industry — Bollywood — dominates music. Every film is a musical and hence 70% of music recorded is from films. I can foresee that in the near future, songs will play a more critical role.

Archie: In China both it is relatively clear that both the songs and the artist are important. The song creates the popularity of the singer and not vice–versa. However, the fame that results from one hit song may propel a singer to such stardom that results in the aforementioned endorsement opportunities and further potential TV and film roles. In these cases, the celebrity may sometimes eclipse the songs and go off in different directions. There are certain stars whose celebrity is essentially untouchable no matter what the quality of their musical output actually is.

Eric P: Based on my own casual observation, I think artists are the currency of popularity. Chinese people are big on brand recognition — I don’t just mean designer brands, but brands as a proxy for all sorts of information including quality, and artists, especially today, are a brand. I don’t think the song is as important as the artist, though like anywhere, a great song can make an artist. Phenomenally popular songs also take on a life of their own, and may quickly be recorded by several artists looking to ride the wave. Like anywhere, you can also have popular songs by relatively unknown artists (everyone knows Come on Eileen, but who remembers Dexy’s Midnight Runners?). But I think big–name artists are bigger than the big songs.

Eric G: Not to quibble with the term, but I do think the answer to this question depends on what you mean by “popularity.” Generally, songs command more awareness, more intuitive recognition, than artists — at least initially. The song is the introduction to the artist, in a sense. In any healthy music market, the conversion rate (the conversion of the popularity of a song or songs into recognition and appreciation of an artist) is relatively high. Too often, however, popular (or “pop”) songs remain just that. Awareness and appreciation of artists remain low. The economic value of career artists is very high. The economic value of a jingle or popular song has never been lower.

Helen: Every country’s tendencies are led by actual tools that they have available. Consumer behaviour develops around it — believe it or not — we do not even have iTunes available here and we don’t have specialist music newspapers or magazines — so knowledge about music comes still from weekly album reviews and stories around artists/stars/celebrities etc. It is easier to sell music if the artist is well–presentable: good promo pictures, some gossip stories in yellow press etc. So — I’d say people over here need a face to link to the song.

Our music markets at this point are greatly led by the live industry — as the way to promote live concert is through artist promo then this is the way. Also live shows have a very direct influence on album sales. You would not believe it, but it can happen that an UK electronica band the Cinematic Orchestra might be nr. 1 sales article in the main record shop for a week after the show. Why? Live promoters are currently the ones that actually “promote” artists.

Poli: How does the infrastructure and revenue potential for live concerts compare with North America and Western Europe?

Mandar: From an India perspective — the infrastructure for live concerts does not compare much to North America and Western Europe. From a revenue potential — given economic reality, ticket prices need to be and are low, hence the business model is sponsorship through and through, at least for now.

Eric P: I’ll let Archie answer this.

Archie: We have touched on infrastructure already – there are clearly opportunities for development of infrastructure, although the current danger in China is that the development outpaces the actual need. We have AEG who have come into China very strongly within the last year really with development of a large number of venues in Beijing and Shanghai and plans for cities across the country. The question is if there are actually enough viable money–generating shows to put into these venues. Chinese artists will certainly take to the road and there is already the history of money–making tours of upwards of 10 cities for a number of the top pop artists from both the Mainland and Taiwan and Hong Kong, who can fill 10–30,000 capacity stadia, often at high prices. For top international artists, the market is much less developed, with tours typically only hitting Beijing and Shanghai. The sole international arena tour was Avril Lavigne in 2008. She visited 6 cities, and while brave, it was most probably too early and the tour must have lost many 100’s of thousands of dollars. In Shanghai, she played the 60,000 capacity Shanghai stadium and sold under 10,000 tickets. There is opportunity at the other end of the spectrum, and artists are coming through the country regularly, although covering (frugal) costs is the most that can be expected at present. This development will be vital for the future of Western music in Asia.

Helen: I think our new generation is really ready to do a major digital jump — all we need is a massively and well–promoted digital music shop to enter the market that would be easy to use and inexpensive, and it would change everything around. After all, we are the country that is brain–power behind a brand like SKYPE, we are also a country where 90% of population uses internet banking on daily basis and a country where this summer 70, 000 Madonna tickets where only sold online even though it was never tried out before – so there is definitely loads of space for innovation and new ways of doing things, and this is what us – the new generation is in fact attempting to do.

Eric G: Infrastructure: no comparison. Most emerging markets don’t compete. Revenue potential: I don’t think it meaningfully compares, in most emerging markets. The economics of live are going to have to be reworked radically in order to realize an opportunity here.

Mandar: I’d like to get back to the original theme. How long does it take: to break an act and/or to break even in your music business… especially considering that most companies these days live quarter to quarter?

Archie: From a personal perspective, I came here with a 10 year plan. Nearly 5 years in, I feel that to do what I set out to will take a minimum of another 10 years. What is our ultimate goal? It isn’t really set, but I am hoping to help in setting the foundations for a vibrant and enduring Chinese music business, and of course I would like to achieve financial independence to be able to continue working in China, or to take on other projects that… will focus on making the world a better place to live.

As I alluded to in another part of the conversation, I’m not convinced that there are many spaces for foreign companies to really succeed here, but that isn’t to say that a few really innovative and smart companies and individuals won’t succeed and/or make money from China. There is certainly a place for Western Music in China in the long term, and so there will be places for "cultural bridges" between the Western and Chinese industries.

But the main reason for the [long market development] is it takes a lifetime to understand China. I look at 10+ year veterans like my (bilingual) American partner, and I see that he is only just beginning to truly understand how the country works. Yes, you can take on local partners, and sometimes it works (the car industry being a great example) but too often it doesn’t. Google, facebook and MySpace’s ongoing struggles are testament to this. In summary, it is perhaps better to look at this, not from a perspective of time, but from a perspective of investment.

I believe that successful (non-Chinese) companies/individuals in China will have to make a huge investment in the country to succeed. Either from a financial perspective, or from a time, intellect and effort perspective. You can try to buy success by coming in, hiring the best people/agents and building the best infrastructure, or you can take the time to live in and understand China. As a band, you also need to decide to make the investment.

Mandar: I can’t but help agree with Archie that ultimately the ability to crack emerging markets… will depend on ‘staying power’ (read as ‘ivestment’) in both money and time and over a few years!

Original illustration by Dushan Milic, a Canadian illustrator (frequent contributor to the Globe & Mail) currently making his home in Amsterdam. www.dushanmilic.com.

As he climbs into the ring for his second round, DJ Champion is fearlessly ready for any opponent. With Resistance, DJ Champion chose to wipe his record clean from the success of Chill’em All (2004) and start fresh. With less instrumental tracks, accented dirty guitars and more accessibly constructed songs, Maxime Morin aka DJ Champion, fulfilled a new challenge. His self induced challenge of discovering music again with the humble hope of sincerely sharing it with thousands of eager ears.

The pressure of delivering a new and ‘better’ sophomore record, given the recognition of the previous one, was tangible for Champion. The doubts generated by the release of an artistic piece are seldom expressed: “When you write and record, you’re in a bubble. Once you’re done with the mastering of the album and it’s ready to go out, you go through a series of questions: is this really me? Is it really good? Am I really comfortable with the result? And this time around, it was a horribly panicking moment for me.’ DJ Champion is finding relief in sharing his thought process with the public and the press and even finds some answers to some, up until now, fuzzy questions. What do you do when your signature vocalist (Betty Bonifassi) moved on to another musical project and you are left with the fear of selfishly repeating yourself with an already tested recipe? “You can’t keep hammering the same nail over and over. You have to go back to basics, cut some ties and choose to hit on a brand new nail. I needed to find a new purpose and take some risks.” That’s why the first draft of new materials that DJ Champion wrote after his endless tour last year, he just deleted. “It’s crucial for an artist to first and foremost create for his own needs. It’s the only way you’ll be able to ‘see’ yourself in your work. You can’t think of pleasing others and want to compromise. Honesty, authenticity is what will please people. Music fans are not stupid.”

Champion’s says his track ‘No Heaven’ was never intentionally written for radio airplay yet chart numbers attest to its popularity. Same goes for the first Nirvana song. “I’ve had requests to remix some songs and people expecting a carbon copy of ‘No Heaven’. It doesn’t work that way. I wrote that one song and can’t do it again.”

With a new male vocalist Pierre-Philippe ‘Pilou’ Côté by his side, a revisited attraction for earscratching rock and roll energy and a family of very loyal musicians, the flavour is different yet the aftertaste remains the same. This time around, DJ Champion transported his live style performance to the studio. DJ Champion is proud to have this new vocal color added to the album. His Maestro abilities were stirred to get a new texture that resembles and respects all the artists involved. “I like to push people to go where they wouldn’t normally go sometimes. We tried a lot of things on this album. It wasn’t all automatic. It’s a fine balance between intervening with personal taste and letting them be who they are.”

So has this reflective outlook been influenced by his worldwide travels and a wide open access to the international market? Not so much. Yet the answer is not so simple. Champion likes to focus on the sole indicator that your musical direction should be aligned with how you can and will deliver a song on stage. In his case, keeping some liberty for him and his band to rewrite the story every night is important. “I knew I needed to go towards something closer to the live show. That’s the natural side of me, when I improvise and let lose. That’s what I enjoy. I hate a show that is too staged, prepared, with too many added effects. The raw energy on stage is how most fans discovered Champion in the first place.”

So there is no expected result and there is not quest for happiness. Just an understanding that success will shine through with hard work and crude truthfulness. And in order to enjoy success, you have to have lost a few battles. All winners have once been losers. That’s a less popular lesson: “People won’t and shouldn’t tell you who you are and what you are. You need to build on your ‘natural’ talent. You need to trust yourself because really, not many people will ever be as honest with you as you can be with yourself. You need to feel and be a loser in order to rethink your objectives, adjust and evolve. I think that’s key for established artists as well as new ones.”

This new album will surely keep DJ Champion busy. He welcomes that with a contagious enthusiasm. This means promotion, more critics and best of all, new tour dates and renewed contact with the audience. With recent shows that have already taken him to TIFF in Toronto and his official launch concert under his belt, DJ Champion is making his way to the TRANSMISSION Conference as the headliner for transmission.LIVE 2009. How does he see it this time around? “Transmission is the coolest and one of the better organized showcase platforms we’ve had the chance to experience. You get to play for key tastemakers who are there to listen. There are so many showcasing opportunities where you play for drunken jocks that just don’t care. I am happy to be back to play at TRANSMISSION and sincerely support the event.”

You know you’ve encountered an uncommonly creatively defying artist when the twists and turns of the interview are positively unexpected much like the honest reflective creative process behind his second opus. He’s resisted the music business and is showing strategic perseverance. His story is one of resilient resistance. See DJ Champion and his G-strings during transmission.LIVE 2009, on Thursday September 24th at Market Square.

Andréanne Sasseville oversees Canadian Content Development investments and Music Industry Relations for SIRIUS Satellite Radio in Canada (since 2004) and calls on her reporter duties to feature and support Canadian artists on weekly segments for eTalk, daily segments for TVA in Quebec as well as artist interviews for Cineplex movie theatres and music reviews for various Canadian magazines.
Photo by Francois Hogue, Montréal 2008.

The time has come for another fantastic ninety odd minutes on The New Balearic. Summer is over, classes have started, but thankfully, the music always continues…

This episode is happy to welcome back some familiar sounds. Port O’Brien is back with a somber and melodic track from their upcoming album Treadbare. One of my favourite artists, Lusine is also on the verge of another full length, which I am very impressed with… and I’ve got a new track for you by him. Also featured from the American Pacific Coast is some impressive new tracks from Sea Wolf and The Dodos.

Of course it wouldn’t be a new episode without some fantastic new bands, and 38 doesn’t disappoint in that category either. Sweden’s Little Dragon and Taken By Trees both take care of beginning and ending this episode, while Vancouver is well represented with great new music by Dan Mangan, Lightning Dust, and Dan Bejar’s Destroyer. From the UK, I’ve also got a pair of tracks from The xx and electronic artist Gold Panda, respectively. Expect to hear a lot from both of those in the future. I’m also very excited to introduce the very first track on the New Balearic by a band from the Netherlands! The Black Atlantic, from Groningen (the birthplace of my Oma), have just released a really great album, and I’ll be doing a Spotlight on them soon, so stay tuned from that. To wrap things up, I’ve also got a remake of Fink’s “Sort of Revolution” by the Cinematic Orchestra, and Radiohead’s new track needs no introduction…

And so with that… happy listening!

// tracklisting

• Little Dragon - ‘A New’ (Love-Da-Records)
• Port O’Brien - ‘My Will Is Good’ (TBD Records)
• Lightning Dust - ‘Dreamer’ (Jagjaguwar)
• Destroyer - ‘Bay of Bigs’ (Merge)
• Lusine - ‘Operation Costs’ (Ghostly International)
• Bersarin Quartett - ‘Oktober’ (Lidar)
• Radiohead - ‘Harry Patch (In Memory Of)’ (Self Released)
• Fink - ‘Sort Of Revolution (The Cinematic Orchestra Remix)’ (Ninjatune)
• The Black Atlantic - ‘Reverence For Fallen Trees’ (Beep! Beep! Back up the Truck)
• Volcano Choir - ‘Island, IS’ (Jagjaguwar)
• Sea Wolf - ‘The Orchard’ (Dangerbird)
• Dan Mangan - ‘Robots’ (Independent)
• Feathership - ‘Thunderclapping’ (Maisonnette)
• Kings of Convenience - ‘Boat Behind’ (Virgin)
• AB - ‘00000001’ (Anonymous)
• Kronos Quartet - ‘Tashweesh’ (Nonesuch)
• Gold Panda - ‘Lonely Owl’ (Independent)
• Pogo - ‘Bangarang’ (Self Released)
• The xx - ‘Islands’ (Young Turks)
• The Dodos - ‘Fables’ (Frenchkiss)
• Still Life Still - ‘Lite-Bright Lawns’ (Arts & Crafts)
• Taken by Trees - ‘My Boys’ (Rough Trade)

DOWNLOAD as M4a
DOWNLOAD as MP3

Bruce Mans is the curator of the blog/podcast The New Balearic. Inspired by the late John Peel and his renowned eclectic taste, Bruce set out with the primary goal of creating a quality online space with which to expose an equally eclectic range of bands on a global level. Having accomplished that, Bruce says he's happy simply knowing bands are benefiting from his work, and that people enjoy his mixes. www.thenewbalearic.com | www.brucemans.com

PoliTalk48 salon 2 features Anthony Volodkin (Hype Machine), Jonas Woost (Last.fm), Juha Kyrro (Fullsteam), Vered Koren (EMI), and Nevin Domer (Maybe Mars) on the topic of Next Generation Leadership. PoliTalk48 is an interactive salon on music and entertainment industry issues moderated by Paul Hoffert, Media Professor at York University and Chair of The Bell Broadcast and New Media Fund. Each of the panellists has 48 hours to comment and interact with other panelists’ comments. Join us in person to explore this particular theme further at transmission.TALKS 2009.

// salon 2 panelists

Anthony Volodkin, Hype Machine, USA, 23
Anthony Volodkin created The Hype Machine nearly four years ago in his dorm room and has been unable to stop thinking about how people discover music ever since. In that time, a small passionate team has been assembled around the product and the Hype Machine now reaches over 1.5 million people each month. Prior to that he spent six years working as an IT consultant while constantly carving out evenings to see live music. Anthony was born in Moscow, Russia and has been living in Brooklyn, New York since he was 12.

Jonas Woost, Last.fm, UK, 27
Born in Hamburg, Germany, Jonas first starting working in the music industry at the age of sixteen with PIAS Recordings before relocating to London in 2001 to join dance label Kickin Music. After three and a half years managing Communications and Publicity, he explored his interest in radio with Ministry of Sound, one of the most successful independent record labels in the UK and syndicators of dance music worldwide. where he was responsible for liaising with its worldwide syndication partners. At the end of 2005, Jonas assumed the role of Head of Communications at Last.fm (winners of Best Music Community in the 2006 Digital Music Awards). At Last.fm, Jonas’s main focus is heading the communications team and working in partnership with UK and international recording companies and artists.

Juha Kyrro, Fullsteam, Finland, 27
Having booked shows for this mate’s bands and his own as a teenager, Juha started promoting full-time at the age of 20. He established Fullsteam Records before a two-year stint at Love Nation Finland (Then, Welldone) between 2004 and 2006, after which he added Fullsteam’s booking and promotion arm to a business that had grown to include merchandising, management and a 50 room rehearsal studio complex in Helsinki. Fullsteam, of which Juha owns 51%- also owns a share in distribution company Supersounds Music and two venues (capacity 1,000 and 450).

Vered Koren, EMI, Canada, 29
Director, Music & Brand Partnerships for EMI Canada. Past Vice-President of content and business development for Hip Digital Media.

Nevin Domer, Maybe Mars, China, 29
Nevin Domer is one of the principals for one of China’s hottest indie rock labels, Maybe Mars and also books D-22, Beijings most important live venue for emerging artists in China.

// next generation leadership

About ten years ago, Shawn Fanning worked feverishly to create the first mega-popular P2P music sharing website. He was so driven by his vision that he had no time for regular sleep. Instead he took naps throughout the day and earned the nickname “Napster”. His file-sharing enterprise, also named “Napster”, was so disruptive to the existing music business that we are still shuddering in the aftershocks of the quake it triggered.

Napster was a leader. Against all the advice that experienced pros in the business offered him, he soldiered on in the ultimate faith of his vision a world filled with music that flows through digital networks as freely as water flows through faucets, with low cost for downloading a song and high revenues to creators.

Fanning was nineteen when he launched Napster. He expected that the obvious (to him) advantage of moving the cost of music distribution from record companies to music users would be so appealing to the major companies that they would embrace his scheme establish online paid music distribution as the predominant revenue model for twenty- first century global entertainment.

People at the crucial licensing meetings between Napster and the major record companies report that his investors offered the record companies an initial guarantee of more than US $1 billion to ink a license deal. The leaders of the record companies declined, deciding instead to thwart any attempts to move control of music distribution from their physical trucks and warehouses to user’s computers and their network providers.

Almost ten years later, Napster’s vision has been vindicated. Projections of global revenue for online music sales in 2010 indicate it will eclipse revenue from sales of physical CDs. The rejection of a deal in 1999 resulted in the disintermediation of record companies from their customers and left a legacy of bad will and eroded brands that has proven to be much more costly than licensing Napster might have been.

Did the leaders of the music industry in 1999 make a bad decision? Could they have ensured that their companies would participate in the new online economy and build stronger ties with their customers? If the captains of the record industry would have been younger and less steeped in the historic business culture, might they have made a different decision?

Fanning was a young inexperienced entrepreneur, in touch with his peer music audience and unburdened by historic music business practices. The heads of the major record companies were old pros. Did their years of experience dealing with 20th century music deals cloud their ability to steer the proper course through 21st century business environments?

Is it time for a new generation of leaders who are unsullied by historic and inappropriate business models and practices?

This panel has been chosen from among the young, entrepreneurial leaders who are making their marks as pragmatic visionaries. They have already established themselves as leaders and doers. They see the future more clearly than many and they are firmly grounded in the objective in building a successful and healthy music market of the future.

They are all under 30 years old.

// here’s what our panel has to say:

Poli: What are the more important qualities for music industry leaders today? Which of these do you most aspire to?

Jonas Woost (Last.fm, UK, 27): It seems to me that many music industry leaders, especially in the recording industry, have a limited understanding of their audience and therefore their customers. If I don’t have a good knowledge of how people discover, consume and share music these days it will be very hard for me to build up a good business within the music ecosystem.

The loss of control over ‘their’ content means that the recording industry needs to be able to listen to [its] consumers, understand their behavior and react quickly to changes in the market place.

It’s a confusing situation: as a leader in the music industry you have to be reactive to what’s happening with the music fans but be proactive to get the competitive advantage in the market.

Vered Koren (EMI, Canada, 29): What this industry seems to sometimes overlook is that successful leaders must not only have good knowledge of past and present business models, they must also display the traditional qualities of great leadership: management, operations, organization, and vision.

A great leader will hire people much smarter then him/her. A great leader will empower a team to take initiative to come up with new ideas. A great leader will promote change and progress.

Leadership is measured by the success of a team. I aspire to build a team of great minds and skills. I aspire to be in a position where revenue is generated through honest relationships and positive and progressive working culture.

Anthony Volodkin (Hype Machine, USA, 23): Leaders in this space will be able to think in several dimensions while avoiding echo chambers (there are many: a web 2.0/UGC/VC one in Silicon Valley, a recorded music one in NY/London, an indie 100% DIY in other pockets of the world), overhyped technologies, "solutions" and "open platforms".

They will focus on long-term value and slow sustainable growth, rather than short-term gains to boost their own bonuses or get promotions to VP of whatever. Some of this sounds unsexy (just like Vered’s note about leadership) and lacks shortcuts, but it’s also more in touch with reality than the expectation of rapid growth, massive returns that are often placed on new companies or new initiatives. If it were this easy...

Nevin Domer (Maybe Mars, China, 29): The environment of the Chinese music industry is one of constant change and a leader here has to be innovative and open to new ideas. A small current today could be a huge revenue stream tomorrow so adapting new concepts at the right time is crucial. A good leader will provide support and encouragement to those working to create something new.

Juha Kyrro (Fullsteam, Finland, 27): I think you guys already covered this.

Poli: JW notes that a key quality for leadership is to recognize that the recording industry no longer can control its content; that users now control content. You could say that the 20th century was dominated by the Industrial Age model of mass communication and mass distribution, from a few big suppliers to many consumers. The 21st century is however dominated by the Information Age model of many to many, in which every consumer can be a provider. P2P is a good example of this. In the new model, the few big suppliers no longer have the power and control they had before. Do you think that adopting this approach is the significant differentiator between the new old and old honchos?

Jonas: It seems that the new honchos might have been quicker in understanding this dramatic change which currently might have the biggest impact in the media and entertainment business (with other industries following). However, understanding it is only the starting point actually making a profitable business out of it is something that many haven t mastered. This will be the real task over the next few years and it will be important for senior decision makers to work together with a new generation to make this a sustainable business.

Anthony: While it may not be the suppliers who will have significant power and control in the new model, some businesses will be a dominant force. Today, we can already look at Apple with an overwhelming % of digital sales and there will be more major players soon. The key, however, is that they will be brand new and likely unexpected, much like Google was not expected to dominate the Internet market 10 years ago. They will be able to combine the deep understanding of new models with a good revenue source.

Vered: I think that to a certain degree it is a matter of control, yes. But the great news is that content is being distributed in a much more economical and widespread manner than ever before. We can now rely on the public for distribution. It is our job to create desirable content and to encourage participation. Music is a passion point and people will always value exclusivity, collectables, convenience, and early access.

There are commercial players that can capitalize on this demand without having to control how it s being consumed. In fact, if music consumption is socially driven then it becomes an even more valuable asset commercially.

Poli: Historically, music recording, publishing, distribution, and live performances have been separate businesses with separate execs who know their verticals well but have been largely uninformed about the other businesses. Many believe that the decline of CD sales is leading to a more horizontally integrated music industry in which the previously different businesses are merged. Examples include so-called 360 deals and artist-owned and operated enterprises. Do you think that the new leaders should have a better knowledge of all aspects of the music business?

Jonas: The answer to this can only be ‘yes’ - more knowledge is always an advantage for any leader. The idea of a ‘record company’ is probably something that will go away at some point and ‘music companies’ will appear more and more.

Nevertheless, you can’t do everything at the same time. Future leaders will have to make sure that they build up teams with different areas of expertise: just because you can put on great gigs does not mean you will be able to create a good marketing plan for recordings of your artist.

Vered: Absolutely. Each vertical has a direct affect on sales in other channels. If you haven’t already integrated multiple verticals into your business model, then at the very least there should be revenue based relationships with the partners that manage them.

Juha: Absolutely yes. But I don t think there is anything newhere; the best people in the business have always been able to see the full picture but they ve been smart enough to focus on their core expertise - and there s been enough business with just that for them.

The 360 model was already in place long time ago, before music business became gigantic, and now it feels that we ve just come around to where it started.

Anthony: Yeah, there will be (and is already) a shift away from the focus on revenue from recorded music to an assortment of other revenue streams. We’ll stop calling them record companies and start thinking of them as music companies (totally with JW here). It’s not really an option, those who will not participate, will fail.

Nevin: Yes, all sections of the music industry are becoming more and more interconnected and I believe that process will continue.

Poli: What are major hurdles that need to be overcome for sustainable and profitable music businesses?

Jonas: Understanding music fans, reacting quickly to changes in their behavior and allowing innovation to happen.

Vered: Without a doubt, developing sustainable and profitable digital business models. The industry (especially young music start-ups) has come to understand how the public wants to consume music. But very few organizations have figured out how to properly monetize this activity.

The digital sector sees new players emerge all of the time. But how many of these players are making the numbers work? Raising money isn’t the problem. On the retail side, the margins are too small. And for ad-driven models, the costs are too high. The future must include far more than just digital music sales. Perhaps the solution is twofold: 1) The suppliers (labels) must better manage funds and afford distribution partners more cost-effective content, and 2) Alternative revenue must be generated from unique artist experiences and brand partnerships created from the fundaments of social interaction and UGC.

Juha: I think it all went wrong when music companies stopped developing hardware (or hardware companies gave up releasing music). If that hadn t happened, the music business would have made a fortune with just mp3 players.

The same goes for publishers and media. Why didn t music business come up with mp3.com, MySpace or Pirate Bay? And if we had been involved in all of this from day one, I want to believe the artist would have been secured their share on all the revenue too.

Well, at least now the majors have realized they need to own Spotify... I think that to run sustainable and profitable music business you simply have to be able to understand how music is consumed and make sure you get your investment back from where the money is.

Anthony: Key hurdles are in finding ways to generate revenue that aren’t focused solely on selling plastic discs or selling downloads via a monopolistic digital music vendor. It’s also possible that the realistic sizes of some of music-focused web businesses are smaller than the VCs or entrepreneurs pitching them would believe. Some also need to focus on a more diverse set of efforts (not just showing web users some music data or giving free downloads) than the neat-looking business plans, of say SpiralFrog.

Nevin: The thing to understand about China is that the music industry here is only at the beginning and the big hurdles still are developing a market for underground music and discovering what products and services people will pay for in an environment that has never had widespread forms of traditional physical distribution.

This makes a lot of the basic tasks of music distribution and promotion difficult but also forces people to look into innovative strategies that may have been overlooked or disregarded otherwise. We are dealing with the same problems that others in the industry are facing everywhere but for us they are even more urgent and appear even more basic.

Poli: Juha’s point about integrating hardware and software is interesting. The Edison Company, which developed the first wax cylinder recorders and players was the first major record company. RCA records grew from its roots as a manufacturer of victrolas, and so on. Today it’s Apple making iPods and iPhones. Is Apple or Microsoft poised to be the next major record company?

Jonas: They are staying away from that area for a good reason: those companies know that being in the music content business is not a big money maker and it makes much more sense to focus on what they are good at. Music copyright law is complex (and therefore expensive) and it is very unclear what the monetary value of recorded will be in the near future. All this doesn t really sound like a business you want to into right now.

Anthony: The hardware/software companies will only enter the music world when they see a sizeable opportunity to benefit from their success in their primary businesses. Currently, they don’t find it worthwhile mostly due to the problems JW outlined, but also because the margins from selling their products are great.

Vered: Hardware companies still rely on creative industries to produce content. I don’t know if hardware companies will ever have the inclination and means to develop, market, and license new music.

Poli: Do you think we need to sweep out the old guard and replace them, or do you think young leaders benefit from the mentorship of experience?

Jonas: Of course we don’t want to ‘sweep out the old guard’ - experience is one of the main qualities of leaders anywhere in the world. However with technology changing to fast there needs to be a bigger exchange of ideas and information between senior leaders and younger innovators for this business to move forward successfully.

Vered: Sweeping out is not an option or a solution. But, as with any industry, leaders must embrace and understand their consumers (including their behavioral history). So, if the old guard is able to recognize and value young leadership, then they can only benefit from these fresh perspectives.

Embracing young minds and new ideas will make the so-called old guard look good. You don’t have to be young to recognize the value of a new business model built on logic and knowledge.

That said, industry leadership should reflect the values of the target market. Music is not just being consumed by middle-aged men. Enough said.

Juha: Sometimes it feels that the brightest young talent is definitely somewhere else than in the (recording) music business. Many of them have actually developed new business models that the music business should have come up with.

I think we definitely need both the experienced "veterans" who are willing to share their knowledge and stories and the youngsters who think they are immortal. Even though you need to screw up every now and then to learn, you don t need to repeat every single mistake along the way.

Anthony: Sweeping out old guard only makes sense if the ‘guard’ is unwilling to experiment or change as the world around them evolves. Alas, it’s exactly in those situations where changes are most difficult and business has been suffering because of shifting landscape.

Nevin: The Chinese scene is in much need of experience and often foreign professionals are the ones who run the record companies, recording studios, clubs and promotion companies. The experience that they bring from the US, Europe, Japan and Taiwan has been extremely valuable in helping to build China’s nascent music industry. It’s the young Chinese kids however who benefit from this experience and then adapt in their own unique ways who will have the largest effect on the Chinese industry.

Poli: All panelists believe we should somehow couple the experience of the old honchos with the market understanding of the new honchos. If you were given a blank slate to organize the executive structure of a 1) new major; or 2) existing major music company, how would you structure the mentoring of the new honchos by the old?

Jonas: Open conversations are vital. Unfortunately those are not happening often enough this can be due to structural or geographical hurdles or just because of the sheer arrogance of individuals that should be part of the conversation. And just to clarify: it doesn t have to be the old honchos that are not interested in a discussion; there is also a new generation of individuals that think they know everything already. We all need to be able to admit that there are parts of the business that we don t understand.

Anthony: Jonas is really on point here; it especially applies to certain sectors within tech, that are quite dismissive "of the old music industry ways". A brief visit to Techcrunch.com is a good example. As far as new structures go, it’s difficult to imagine a new major: it’s more likely that smaller music companies will gradually evolve into larger ones as a result of their success in the new world.

The success will come from thinking holistically and not focusing on technology as the answer to everything nor on existing methods of making money with music as the sole solution either.

Vered: I think the key is knowledge. Knowing your consumer and market potential. Everyone in the music business needs to know his or her audience better. Old or new, we all need to understand how best to monetize current and future market activity. I am always restructuring (in my mind)...constantly thinking about how my team can be more productive, more strategic, more profitable. Sometimes this requires upward management It always requires listening (to each other and to our partners/consumers).

Poli: What would have you done you if presented with the Napster deal in 1999? Would you have made the deal or rejected it? Or is the idea of a world without P2P even possible to contemplate anymore?

Jonas: It’s always very easy to have an opinion about this deal 10 years later. Of course we would all have engaged with Napster and make P2P a legal business right from the start. If this had been done many things would be different for the recording industry right now.

But I’m not a fan of looking back and regretting choices that have been made - the problem is that similar choices are still being made today. Innovation can still be prohibited by music owners through very expensive licensing hurdles which means that starting a new service that uses recorded music is extremely difficult. I find it frustrating that in times where we need new ideas and models for the industry to stay sustainable it is still difficult to engage with the recording industry in a legal way.

Vered: Not sure how this question is all that relevant or important. I have no idea what I would have done 10 years ago. Different time, different value system.

Juha: What would you have done if someone had presented you an idea about an audio file format called MP3 in 1990?

Anthony: Jonas said it perfectly: "the problem is that similar choices are still being made today. Innovation can still be prohibited by music owners through very expensive licensing hurdles which means that starting a new service that uses recorded music is extremely difficult. I find it frustrating that in times where we need new ideas and models for the industry to stay sustainable it is still difficult to engage with the recording industry in a legal way".

Nevin: If that had happened in China the decision would have been much easier, mass production of pirated CDs already undermines physical sales and downloading mp3s is as easy as a baidu (and now google) search. In retrospect the decision is pretty obvious but I don’t really know what I would have done at that place and time.

Poli: What’s the most frustration aspect of being a professional under thirty?

Jonas: I don’t get frustrated as a professional. I only see issues that need to be resolved and I hope I can be part of the solution. I would get frustrated if I stopped to learn but in this business this will probably not happen any time soon.

Anthony: The biggest challenge is to keep your mind and heart open to new thinking and people. It gradually gets more difficult to look at a new startup or initiative and accept it on its own terms, rather than dismissively throw it into some been-there-done-that bucket. On the flip side, there are lots of people trying the same things people have tried before without much progress, so sometimes this is fitting too. Otherwise, I have no complaints.

Vered: There is too much talk of the past and not enough affirmative action. We need to develop expectations that make sense today. I hate waiting. And also, I don’t take kindly to old school “boys club” values.

Original illustration by Dushan Milic, a Canadian illustrator (frequent contributor to the Globe & Mail) currently making his home in Amsterdam. www.dushanmilic.com.

Summers are typically slow at The New Balearic. I am always moving between two places. The last two summers I was moving between Seoul and Vancouver, while this summer most of my time has been spent moving across Canada to Halifax. Now that I have arrived, and am (somewhat) settled, I have some music to share. A soundtrack to Summer 09.

Yep, this episode is an ode to the summer past. It’s upbeat, light, and psychedelic… the would be perfect soundtrack for coastal camping trips, et cetera. We’ll kick things off with the result of an epic partnership between Deerhunter’s Bradford Cox and Animal Collective’s Noah Lennox (aka Panda Bear). California’s Dodos have also finished up their follow up to 2008’s stellar Visitor with a new album called Time to Die, and before we leave their country we’ll also check out Chicago’s Netherfriends and revisit Florida’s Blind Man’s Colour. Appropriately, this episode also set a record for most songs from Africa with a pair of tracks from Malawi’s The Very Best, and a fantastic song from the Ivory Coast’s Highlife. Sticking with the same vibe is a great great great balearic song from Sweden’s jj, and New Zealand’s Sola Rosa, and before we leave we make a mandatory stop in France to hear some new stuff from Dan Black, CocoRosie, and Phoenix.

Stay cool, my friends.

// tracklisting

• Atlas Sound - ‘Walkabout (ft. Noah Lennox)’ ()
• Blind Man’s Colour - ‘Heavy Cloud Hustle’ (Kanine Records)
• Highlife - ‘F. Kenya RIP’ (Warp Records)
• The Very Best - ‘Warm Heart of Africa (ft. Ezra Koenig)’ (Green Owl)
• Netherfriends - ‘Friends with Lofts’ (Emergency Umbrella)
• The Dodos - ‘Two Medicines’ (Frenchkiss)
• Bibio - ‘Fire Ant’ (Warp)
• Pogo - ‘SplurgenShitter’ (Self Released)
• jj - ‘Things Will Never Be The Same Again’ (Sincerely Yours)
• Kyte - ‘Boundaries’ (Rallye)
• Our Book and The Authors - ‘Killing Flies (Unsigned)
• CocoRosie - ‘Happy Eyez’ (Not On Label)
• The Most Serene Republic - ‘Heavens To Purgatory’ (Arts & Crafts)
• Phoenix - ‘Rome’ (V2)
• Röyksopp - ‘The Girl And The Robot’ (EMI)
• Dan Black - ‘Symphonies’ (Polydor)
• Passion Pit - ‘Sleepyhead’ (Frenchkiss)
• Discovery - ‘Osaka Loop Line’ (XL)
• The Rural Alberta Advantage - ‘Don’t Haunt This Place’ (Saddle Creek)
• Bowerbirds - ‘Northern Lights’ (Dead Oceans)
• Said The Whale - ‘This Winter I Retire’ (Pop Machine)
• The Very Best - ‘Julia’ (Green Owl)
• Sola Rosa - ‘Humanised (ft. Bajka)’ (Way Up)

DOWNLOAD as M4a
DOWNLOAD as MP3

Bruce Mans is the curator of the blog/podcast The New Balearic. Inspired by the late John Peel and his renowned eclectic taste, Bruce set out with the primary goal of creating a quality online space with which to expose an equally eclectic range of bands on a global level. Having accomplished that, Bruce says he's happy simply knowing bands are benefiting from his work, and that people enjoy his mixes. www.thenewbalearic.com | www.brucemans.com

PoliTalk48 salon 1 features Mathew Daniel (China’s R2G), Sandy Perlman (Music Producer of The Clash, Black Sabbath, etc), Catharine Saxberg (Executive Director of the Canadian Music Publishers Association), and Simon Wheeler (Beggars Group) on the topic of Intellectual Property. PoliTalk48 is an interactive salon on music and entertainment industry issues moderated by Paul Hoffert, Media Professor at York University and Chair of The Bell Broadcast and New Media Fund. Each of the panellists has 48 hours to comment and interact with other panelists’ comments. Join us in person to explore this particular theme further at transmission.TALKS 2009.

Mathew Daniel is the VP at R2G, a music distribution service provider in China and he has also been a key driver in launching China's biggest online independent music store, wawawa. Being a huge music fan and consumer, he hopes to do his part to make more music accessible in this part of the world and bridge the huge divide in Western and developing markets approaches to the application of intellectual property whilst balancing it with the practicalities of customer relevance and social practices.

Sandy Perlman is the Schulich Distinguished Chair, McGill University; Woodrow Wilson Fellow in the History of Ideas; New School Fellow in Sociology and Anthropology; Music Producer, creator, songwriter, manager and theorist for many of the most important bands and musical trends of the last 25 years: Blue Oyster Cult; Clash; Black Sabbath; Dictators; Pavlov's Dog and Dream Syndicate. Described by the Billboard Producer's Directory as the Hunter Thompson of rock, a gonzo producer of searing intellect and vast vision.

Catharine Saxberg is the executive director of the Canadian Music Publishers Association, where she is committed to convincing everybody that the future of the music industry lies in the hands of the publishers. She s an ex-broadcasting executive who trained as an historian, which means she loves nothing better than a well crafted argument

Simon Wheeler runs the Beggars Group of record labels' digital business. The group consists of the groundbreaking labels XL Recordings; 4AD; Rough Trade (all UK) and Matador Records (United States) and represents a seminal catalogue stretching back 30 years, as well as current multi-platinum acts such as The White Stripes; Radiohead and Basement Jaxx. He is chairman of AIM's New Media Committee in the UK, has made statements to the UK parliament on DRM and has testified at the United States' CRB webcasting proceedings.

// copyright isn't going away...or is it?

Paul "Poli" Hoffert (Media Professor at York University and Chair of The Bell Broadcast and New Media Fund): Our first forum is about copyright. On the one hand, there are signs of increasing copyright protection. Pirate Bay, the poster child for illegal file sharing, was busted in Sweden and its owners fined; '3 strikes' laws that force ISPs to cut off service to habitual infringers have been passed in France and Korea; the US government has put universities on notice that they must provide a legal alternative to their students' unauthorized file sharing; Amazon's Kindle e-book is a big success despite it's DRM (digital rights management) that prevents unlicensed users and unlicensed territories from accessing its content; and file-sharers remain in shock after the almost US $2 million fine ($80,000 per song) imposed on Jammie Thomas-Rasset in the US after an appeal of her previous lower-court conviction for unauthorized music downloads.

On the other hand, there are signs that copyright is under attack. DRM has been dropped for music files on iTunes and Amazon; The French '3 strikes' law is unpopular and is being challenged; Spotify and other new legal music services feel like 'free', with no consumer fees or DRM; Creative Commons, a lightweight copyright regime designed to bring copyright abusers into the fold has come under increasing criticism; and the majors are daring to discuss possible futures in which music is freely traded (in all respects) with revenue coming instead from advertising, hardware tariffs, and/or rights bundled with goods and services.

As CD sales plummeted in the past decade, the value of record companies declined faster than the value of music publishers, because publishers had more diversified income from licensing songs and scores into films, TV programs, commercials, and video games. Major record companies also lose out to major publishers in non-English speaking territories where hit songs and ringtones are re-recorded on local record labels with local artists in local languages, but licensed by the original song publishers. Consequently, most publishers believe they now deserve a larger share of the royalty pie than they did in the days of CD sales dominance by record companies. Songwriters and recording artists argue that their publishers and record companies do not provide as much service in today's online marketplace as they did in the older CD marketplace. So creators also want a larger share of the royalty pie. Many creators wish to completely dis-intermediate publishers and record companies, retain all their copyrights, and license consumers directly.

Consumers and online audio/video services are confused and frustrated by the fragmented and non-aligned music rights that they need for legal commerce. Instead of dealing with the nuances between downloads, streams, reproductions, performances, makers, and creators, they are demanding a quick and simple answer for 'how much will the rights cost me and who can I get them from?'. The free market should be best for resolving these complexities and providing a single licensing source, but the music industry has been unwilling and/or unable to do so. In contrast, the pace of new copyright legislation and the creation of new copyright collectives has been much quicker and more reactive to the changing environment. One can argue about the appropriateness of rapid legislation such as DCMA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) in the US. but the likelihood is that we will be in for more government intervention unless and until the many music stakeholders provide industry-wide free-market solutions for easy commerce at reasonable prices.

The future of copyright looked dim to me a dozen years ago. I thought that technologies similar to those that caused the business disruption could be harnessed for the business salvation and might obviate the need for copyright. However, the lack of functionally transparent and interoperable DRM along with unreasonable usage restrictions demanded by the major record companies poisoned consumers against such technical solutions. In the absence of any sustainable industry-wide business model, it seems to me that governmental intervention in the form of additional copyright legislation and enforcement are likely in the near term.

So, is copyright still the essential underpinning of music business or has it (will it) become irrelevant? Given the complexities of national and international copyright laws, does the whole system need a major overhaul? Who knows what the [bleep] is going on?

// here's what our panel has to say:

Simon Wheeler (Director of Digital Beggars Group, UK): There's nothing like a big question to get us started!

Copyright in its simplest principle is still the core of what the creative industries build value around, without the protection of copyright many industries would struggle or cease to exist and that change [could] be too hard to bear for many. Copyright... does work and is working still, [although] there could be more clarity and consistency... particularly across territorial boundaries. [For the most part] I can't think of instances where copyright is holding back development or innovation.

There's no treading water or burying heads in the sand. Digital media consumption is changing our cultures at almost every level and impacting every industry that it touches. Music has been the canary in the coal mine for over decade, and now we're seeing that the inevitable is happening to other aligned industries... it's painful at times to watch them make similar mistakes to the music industry...

Mathew Daniel (VP, R2G China): ... I am in agreement that the challenge is not with the principle of copyright but rather the application of copyright in a digital age, both from the perspective of licensing and enforcement.

Catharine Saxberg (ED Canadian Music Publishers Association): As Simon says, the challenge is not with the principle but rather the application of copyright... There is kind of a yin/yang tension between licensing and enforcement. In a digital world, enforcement is currently extremely difficult because the scale of infringement is so much broader than the ability of most enforcement techniques to stop it.

Simon: Copyright laws have been added to piecemeal, bolted on to principles which [were formulated] a long time ago, and arguably are less relevant today. Even the recent 2000 DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) in the USA feels astonishingly outmoded now. Principles like safe harbours that were originally intended to provide protection for ISP's are now barriers that some copyright users hide behind, to the detriment of copyright owners.

Major changes are needed in how rights holders [manage] their copyrights, and we are starting to see wider and more creative licensing which leads to the development of more innovative services, but this is still very early days. [we have] a longway... to go before we can clear the trees enough to see clearly how copyright should look in a purely digital age.

Mathew: One of the major loopholes that organizations use (in this case abuse) to build value on the back of music content has been the ISP safe harbour provision in the DCMA. As Simon rightly points out, this has been cunningly abused by various organizations.

Poli: Should the music industry continue to focus on preventing ISPs and consumers from accessing the world's music, even if it's without copyright permissions?

Catharine: We are lucky that people want our music. We should be using copyright to focus more on how they can have it (as long as we're paid), not how to keep it from them. Did the RIAA's lawsuits indeed have a deterrent effect? How much? How do we know?

Let people use music however they want, whenever they want, as long as creators and their rights holder partners are fairly compensated, [based] on the type and extent of the use. That s not to say that we should give up on enforcing our rights, but thus far, that seems to have been our primary focus and I think it should instead be providing access to our music. We tend to focus on piracy and piracy alone... heck, we can t even quantify the losses to piracy in a way in which we all have faith, much less add in the implications of all other factors. We know that piracy has had a dramatic effect on the music industry. But so have other things... the unbundling of the album, demographic changes, a song focus rather than an artist focus, unprecedented demands on the discretionary income of key music buying demographics, a more sophisticated consumer who doesn't like the business practices of the music industry... [we have portrayed those] who are, or used to be, our customers are the bad guys... how healthy an attitude is that for a business undergoing a massive revolution?

Sandy Pearlman (Schulich Distinguished Chair, McGill University; Producer Blue Oyster Cult, the Clash, Former Manager Black Sabbath; President 415 Records; founding VP Emusic.com): Copyright law requires immediate and radical change for the special case of 'recorded music objects' [sound recordings]...The extremely hostile technology environment has rendered increasingly irrelevant general copyright and such fanciful extensions of copyright as the DMCA. Given the inexorable parallel advance of technology trend lines... further delay in rectifying this situation will prove fatal for [the recorded music] industry.

However this should not be taken to mean that copyright itself is inherently irrelevant going forward. On the contrary, it is essentially the misapplication and technologically infeasible extension of copyright (i.e. copywrong) as represented, by such legislation as the US DMCA and it's international legal evil twin the WPPT (World Intellectual Property Organization's Performances and Phonograms Treaty) that has created the current copyright spacewreck. it is entirely plausible that technologically informed, state and case specific applications of copyright would actually reverse the fatal trend line.

Poli: Chris Anderson, in his book 'Free: The Future of a Radical Price' argues that digital distribution provides music products at inconsequential incremental cost and so its price should be zero. Creative Commons tries to adapt the older copyright regime to this new reality of free online content access. Does Creative Commons have a role to play?

Simon: Copyright is flexible enough in my mind that Creative Commons is unnecessary. It's within every copyright holders power to allow their work to be gifted for free or to allow people to mash up the works, without working within a secondary layer of copyright.

Catharine: I also agree that Creative Commons is unnecessary, and often dangerous, because few creators understand the implications of a CC license. Simon s reference to copyright that has been patchworked together is an extremely important one, as is the difficulty in seeing into the future...that s why I would focus on the principles in legislation. As a industry, we have not done a particularly good job lobbying for copyright reform.

Mathew: The music industry has been grossly negligent in allowing copyright and licensing issues on a global scale to lapse into a constant state of self-induced paralysis.

Poli: Why is the music industry in such a state of paralysis?

Mathew: 10 years after Napster, large swathes of the world still do not have legal options to download full-length music. Too many labels have their heads up their proverbial [asses] in not making their music easily accessible legally at fair prices in Asia, Africa, South America and the Middle East. That's... several billion people who haven't been given fair access in this digital age, and who have few options other than to navigate the hitherto minefields of P2P and torrent sites and be labeled as pirates.

For example, iTunes, Napster 2, Rhapsody, Spotify, Pandora, We7, eMusic etc are all frustratingly not accessible in these markets users in these markets who are willing to pay have been constantly subjected to the XXX is not available in your country due to copyright restrictions... And now that the larger (and obviously less nimble) labels have been squeezed into a corner like a wounded animal, they are sometimes embarking on desperate / innovative / daring measures (description is based on choice of spin and source) like giving away music for free, moving into non-core competency businesses in the name of 360 etc without realizing that they might further contribute to the erosion of the intrinsic value of music.

Sandy: The recorded music industry succumbed to the grand illusion that it could 'negotiate' any deals it wished, confident in the 'absolute security' seemingly embodied in the unholy trinity of DMCA, WPPT, and DRM, since it possessed legal absolution sufficient to impose its terms. Unfortunately, technology had sufficiently coevolved as to render these inoperative and irrelevant.

Talk about a grand illusion! Technology runs over legality. Wouldn't be the first time. Won't be the last.

Poli: What about 'three strikes and you're out' for ISP subscribers?

Catharine: If a country would decide to enact a 3 strikes law and cut off access to isp accounts for infringers, one at a time, we would have another whole crop of consumers who hate the music industry (is that really necessary?), who no longer would have access to our music.... and we wouldn t be one penny richer. Cutting off infringers one at a time will not build our business. Rather than focusing on the Foucauldian sounding 'control and punish' aspects of copyright, we should focus on the positive [benefits of relatively easy] licensing that copyright provides.

Mathew: Western lobbyists are guilty of hypocrisy and double-standards in trying to enact three-strikes legislation which basically calls for ISPs or 3rd parties to monitor content passing through their networks, and yet when governments in developing countries decide to similarly monitor their networks for pornography or inflammatory racial, religious or political content, the free speech advocates, especially in Western countries decry these governments. [However] I can understand the rationale of targeting ISPs as whipping boys for some of the woes of the recording industry (note: not music industry). As Catherine put it, 'in the online world, ISPs have built out their networks on the backs of the value of our content'. It is just too simplistic to assume that music is the only valuable piece of content flowing through the pipes or that the ISPs are the only ones guilty of benefiting from the added business that digital music has brought.

There is certainly a case for [suggesting the application of] double-standards... If ISPs are guilty of aiding and abetting the distribution and storage of illegal content, then [what about] manufacturers of hard drives and music players, network equipment companies etc. The huge volume of music files being traded and stored on these other products and services clearly benefit the rest of them too.

Steve Jobs in his famous open letter to the industry [Feb. 2007 http://www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughtsonmusic/ ] stated categorically that ONLY an average of 22 songs per iPod are purchased from iTunes, and that 97% of the music on the average iPod was not purchased from iTunes store. For those who might argue that users probably ripped songs from their CDs and put it onto the mp3s, I would ask how many of you have actually tried to rip your CD collection into mp3s and gone through the tedious process? The corollary of this is that the majority of songs on the iPod are pirated and let s admit it that the primary use of the mp3 player is as a repository for pirated music. Shouldn't this be part of [U2 manager] Paul McGuiness crusade too?

There are already laws in place which were used to prosecute Grokster and Kazaa successfully. If a channel or service actively positions and markets [music] that users can obtain unlicensed music, they are an accessory to the crime. If ISPs are likewise aiding and abetting, then they can be prosecuted. But otherwise where do we draw the line on who in the food chain should we demand for the music industry's pound of flesh?

Catharine: While I think 3 strikes is a non-starter, I also think hypocrisy is a big word to be throwing around... under most Western law, copyright infringement is illegal, and therefore an attempt to end it, like 3 strikes, (however misguided) is an attempt to uphold the law. We prosecute child porn on line because it s clearly illegal. In Western democracies, expressing alternate political or religious views is not illegal, and is in fact a cornerstone of democracy. So yes, we do decry the suppression of alternative views.... you can perhaps make the argument that we are intolerant of government repression, but I think the hypocrisy argument is a bit of a stretch. In Canada, these issues get discussed in public courts if the alternative view crosses into propagation of hate, as defined by law.

It s hard for me to see the ISPs as whipping boys, or victims... ISPs have built their businesses on the value of our content... They were running ads encouraging people to upgrade to high speed connections in order to download music faster at a time when when there wasn t a a single legal downloading service.

We've added to ISP value, we can send them a license, they can send us a cheque... how they pass that on to the consumer is their business. I also think the phrase about the music industry's pound of flesh is misplaced hyperbole. We are trying to be fairly compensated when our works are used to add value to other people s business. There's nothing punitive about that...

Mathew: I... stand by the terms I used in context... just as in the Merchant of Venice, Shylock was not getting paid his due remuneration, he was seeking payment in kind. And similarly as the music industry is not getting paid its dues from consumers, it is seeking compensation from ISPs - for now. If that fails then another recourse will be found and that's what I call its pound of flesh. I simply asked the question of where to draw the line in getting its pound of flesh where the phrase is simply used as a euphemism for due compensation.

ISPs as whipping boys - ISPs that "aid and abet" users to obtain music that is unlicensed via their service can be prosecuted, so I am certainly in no way sympathetic to the errant ones. But if they are not breaking the law, why are ISPs the main ones being targeted? There are a whole lot of others in the food chain too.

Catharine: I guess Mathew and I can agree to disagree on Shylock's intent.

If we focus more on effective licensing, what's needed?....Well, Simon has already identified two key areas: greater consistency of laws and regulations between territories, and a streamlined global process. Matthew is right when he says that music is not the only content going through the pipes, but because our files are small and easy to steal, we have been, as Simon says, the canary in the coal mine. As people gain the capacity to download a feature film as fast as they now download a song, this will become as big, if not a bigger, problem for movies as it is for us.... and again, as Simon notes, the [movie and television industries] don't seem to have learned anything from [the music industry]. We are the first, but certainly not the last.

As for other technology benefiting from unauthorised copying, [I also agree with Matthew] and the remarks made by Steve Jobs were instrumental in our ability to make the case that private copying levies on blank cassettes, cds, etc. should be extended to DARS... many countries in Europe have successfully applied levies to DARS for exactly Matthew's reasoning....perhaps McGuiness hasn't made this part of his crusade because it's a movement that's already underway?

Sandy: If DMCA/WPPT represented a fatal post modern reimagination of copyright as overreach, then invention and implementation of a limited set of new application specific copyright instruments could be the solution. Such copyright instruments would certainly entail compulsory licensing mechanisms, for which a long and successful chain of precedent already exists. These compulsory licenses, would probably be most disturbing for publishers, who [have not experienced the same degree of] loss of control over their assets... as [record companies and recording artists].

Absent adoption [of compulsory licensing] by the publishing sector, entropic collapse of the entire recorded music industry is a forgone conclusion. Implementation of such ideas as 'The 5 Cents Solution' is entirely dependent on crashing the pricing of individual downloadable recorded music objects (including their publishing components) to anything measurable above zero, and, making up that collapse of value on volume. Lacking implementation of nearly zero cost rates for the publishing, will preclude implementation of recorded music delivery systems sufficiently attractive, and, yet sufficiently close to free to compete with free. These proposed compulsory license mechanisms are designed to take much of the deal making latitude out of the recorded music business. Really not everything needs to be negotiated all the time. Mechanism substitutes for negotiation in the interests of friction proofing. In the illusory post DMCA/WPPT environment, absolute deal making freedom for the record companies had come to = paralyzing friction. In the real world environment, where recorded music objects have devolved to commodity instances in such oversupply as to possess no financial value, orderly "transaction states" need to be imposed in the interests of remonitizing the recorded music industry.

Implementation of defined value compulsory licensing mechanisms is an historically validated frictio-proofing mechanism. It will prove especially effective in (re)assigning value to this class of recorded music objects which has effectively lost value. The concomitant nearly zero cost transactional engineering are the absolute sine qua non for remonitization of a recorded music universe almost completely populated by music objects with no monetary value.

Copyright intervention in the form of flattened rate compulsory licensing for tens of billions of nearly zero cost downloads is the antidote to the disaster propagated by original sin of copywrong, the fantasy based copyright overreach of DMCA/ WPPT/DRM. This is proposed not for the sake of the record companies, but, rather in the interests of artists who need to be remonetized.

Catharine: ...Publishers have a long established history of bulk licensing through collectives, charging rates set by government tribunals, wherein we give up a great deal of day to day control over specific uses of specific works. And we're happy with that, and also pleased that not everything has to be negotiated all the time. Furthermore, the current portion [of download royalties] paid to publishers and songwriters in North America is less than a tenth of the retail price, [much less than than portion going to record companies]... As publishers, we can offer virtually all of the world s repertoire through our collectives (territory by territory). A similar system for masters? A way for global users to deal with just one entity, with each territory handling their own back office? Sandy seems to suggest that the labels will have no problem with nearly zero cost downloads; I find that surprising, based on my conversations with them.

Sandy: We already have multiple examples of nearly zero cost (NZC) licensing by the major labels... Qtrax, Spiralfrog and let us not forget YouTube. Whether this is inherently a good, bad or merely naive revenue model [advertising], the fact remains that with the sole exception of Warner Music Group - the majors have all elected to license at NZC... And before anyone (other than Edgar Bronfman) objects that YouTube is not a supplier of downloadables, I've got about 600 YouTube videos (using applications such as Download Helper & VLC) that prove otherwise... And this blatant example from the Sociology of Incompetence in the Record Business, is probably as good a reason as any as to why this business is not so long for this world.

Regarding assorted 'Western Hypocrisy' and 'Relativity of Copyright' remarks, whatever we really think of the relevant (and not so recent) copyright instantiations we all seem to love to hate (International WPPT, 1996 and US DMCA, 1998) - Most countries in the world other than Canada (but including China!!!) that assume they can benefit from an enforceable International IP regime have elected to ratify and accede to the relevant national and international instruments. And these instruments posit an absolute and non relative status for copyright. Whether this represents mere hypocrisy (i.e. China chooses to aggressively non enforce the TRIPS agreement), mere naivete or mere national self-interest doesn't much matter. They've signed because there's something extremely valuable in it for them. Now they're stuck needing to adhere to and/or enforce their obligations - which can prove extremely painful on the local national political scale. In the case of China, enormous and unprecedented unidirectional benefits (like the greatest transfer of wealth in the history of the world) have accrued from their accession to the suite of WTO/WIPO/TRIPS. But enforcement...? When we speak of hypocrisy and naivete, we need to accurately asses just who is the hypocrite and who is naive.

Illustration by Dushan Milic, a Canadian illustrator (frequent contributor to the Globe & Mail) currently making his home in Amsterdam. www.dushanmilic.com.

It is not without significant excitement & anticipation that we present you with the newly minted TRANSMIT website.In fact, there are quite a few new elements within the TRANSMIT family to announce. First of all we have new dates, new location and a new format for transmission which takes place in Victoria, BC between the 22nd to the 26th of September, 2009. We are excited to also announce a continued focus on key emerging markets with plans for the third edition of transmitCHINA to roll out in Shanghai, late spring of 2010. We take special pleasure in announcing our new online magazine/forum: a pivotal step forward in our mission to create more effective ways for people to share ideas and express viewpoints within the music space.

As you are about find out, this site is now divided into three distinct yet interconnected sections: transmitNOW, transmitLIVE and transmitTALKS. From here on in, we are offering three different ways to connect to the artists and professionals that are actively engaged in re-defining the music business and other creative industries affected by the massive changes taking place around us.

transmitTALKS is a place to find out about past and future presentations, meetings, trade initiatives and roundtables that have taken place over the past three years. It is here that you can review archived results of past events while also finding out important programme details on upcoming initiatives such as transmission this September.

transmitLIVE is a newly dedicated area to everything we do in relation to artist showcasing, past, present and future. In the unveiling of this new area, we present you a very powerful showcase line-up for Victoria this September. We are also very proud a roll out a new showcasing format and our new alliance with the Rifflandia Music Festival also taking place in Victoria. The combined programming of these two events offers an amazing line-up to professionals and fans. And while there will certainly be a lot more activity and buzz than prior events we promise to transmission loyalists that we will remain focused on building amazing venues, executing high-quality production, staggered scheduling and guaranteed delegate access to official transmission showcases.

Last but not least, please welcome transmitNOW, our new online magazine/forum offering powerful editorial insights and debates on everything currently at play in the music space. Why do we think the world needs another music forum? Well, over the years we have been approached by many participants inspired by their experience at transmission but frustrated that the dialogue stops when the roundtables end. In addition to this we have struggled to keep invitees up to speed on our key themes for the upcoming event without having to prematurely launch the program. This is especially hard when ideas and issues are changing so rapidly.

Our response to this quandary was to launch an online platform that presented ideas and perspectives of past, present and future participants well before scheduled events so that key themes at transmitTALKS would be distilled out of this online dialogue. Furthermore, participants and other contributors are now able to continue these important conversations long after the lights go down on the stage. The result? A relevant, multi-disciplinary dialogue that people can participate in year round.

At this BETA launch, transmitNOW features an insightful introduction to Steve Masur’s new book coming out in the spring of 2010. Mr. Masur is Managing Director of MasurLaw based in New York and has been and active participant at transmission events over the years.

Another feature to this month is the introduction to Bruce Mans’ podcast, The New Balearic. I wanted to profile this website as it has been one of my main tools for discovering amazing new artists from around the globe. This site has has a profound impact on me as a programmer and as a music fan. I have found myself buying more music in the past six months as a result of Bruce’s approach to sharing his tastes. Equally important is the fact that we have selected several artists to showcase at transmitLIVE as a result of this site: i.e. a podcast curated out of South Korea helping us discover Canadian artists to play at transmission. Go figure.

And this is just the beginning. Stay tuned for some amazing new monthly contributions coming soon to the site. We are particularity eager to release PoliTalk 48. PoliTalk 48 is a new forum in which four experts participate in an online conversation facilitated by Paul Hoffert. The conversation takes place within two successive 24 hour periods providing the means for enlivened global debates on key issues. Panelists for our first round included Mathew Daniel (R2G, China), Simon Wheeler (Beggars, UK), Catharine Saxberg (CMPA, Canada) and Samuel Perlman (Producer, USA), and the results of this dialogue are currently being prepared as the next addition to transmitNOW.

So enough said.

Welcome, welcome.

Come on in and look around.

We hope our new offering agrees with you.

Contact me any time if you have any questions or ideas you would like to share.

Sincerely,

Tyl van Toorn
tyl@transmitnow.com

Everyone says the music, and greater media distribution businesses are in trouble, but what are the problems and how can they be solved? Many people think the biggest problem is that you can download copyrighted material from the internet for free. Once the problem is so defined, it is natural to look for a general panacea, or “fix all” solution. In the search for this solution, more and more people are gravitating to the concept of collective licensing at the ISP level. But, are downloads from the internet really the problem? Is ISP licensing the answer? If so, how would it work? 

Let's discuss.

// what is ISP licensing?

The concept of ISP licensing is premised on the idea that the best place to capture revenue for distribution of content on the internet is at the source, just like at the door of a club. But the club is the internet, and the door is your internet connection, or relationship with your internet service provider (ISP). So the idea is to collect an across-the-board fee for file downloading which appears as a line item on your ISP, or mobile bill, right there with all the rest of the service charges, and state and government taxes. The proceeds would be distributed to artists and rights holders to compensate them for use of their material on, or from the internet.

Once you get past fears that this solution is not market-based, that the ISPs themselves might object, or that it's not fair to the many internet users who have never downloaded anything, and who were never big internet consumers of music or other entertainment media in the first place, there are two basic opinions about how to proceed. First a government mandated public right to collect money at the ISP level to be distributed to rights holders to compensate for free internet media consumption. And Second, an opt-in agreement in which users give rights holders the right to collect licensing fees directly in exchange for the freedom not to be sued, or to be more exact, the protection of a covenant signed by rights holders not to sue for copyright infringement based on internet uses. 

OK, so presuming further that either of these approaches is acceptable, how exactly would they work?

Let's first discuss how things work now.

// how did we get here?

The problems of the current music business and all other businesses based on the distribution of intellectual property stem from how these businesses developed, and how the law developed around them. The models of consumption and thus the business and law in each media industry – books, newspapers and magazines, music, and film – developed completely differently. In a physical distribution world, the law and business of selling intellectual property developed around the media on which the intellectual property was imprinted, rather than the intellectual property itself. Physically distributed media is sold in separate and distinct geographical distribution territories, with different rules, pricing and relationships in each territory. Despite all the work to harmonize laws, they are still different even within Europe, not to mention between EMEA, APAC and the Americas, and within each of these regions. The pricing and channel conflicts created by the worldwide, near instantaneous distribution the internet allows are often ignored or glossed over, but become very real the minute you try to sell a piece of media in more than one territory. Even assuming a standardized, liberalized and harmonized rule of digital media distribution law and business practice were accepted in all territories, how would the proceeds collected from users be distributed among the copyright holders? What about conflicting rights, and claims to the same shares? These are just a few of the large problems that would need to be addressed.

// what's happening now?

What's happening now is chaos. In a chaos situation, governments become fearful and lock things down. Copyright holders and governments are trying to lock up copyrights with ever increasing strict limitations, while uncompensated distribution of copyrighted material continues to become exponentially more widespread.

In terms of government regulation, more countries are adopting France's “three strikes and you’re out” approach, in which people who are caught downloading media content three times will lose the right to access the internet in their homes. On the opposite end of the spectrum, in regions where there is no culture of copyright ownership and minimal enforcement of the rules that exist, free file sharing and duplication is happening on an exponentially increasing scale. Even Baidu, the Chinese equivalent to Google, was caught “deep linking” or hosting free music download sites and collecting money by advertising on these sites to the tune of an estimated US$1bn. Only a small fraction of this money was paid to rights holders. In the United States, SDMI was an early example of the many high end technology solutions put forward to “solve the problem,” all of which have failed. Now everyone is waiting to see what happens with Choruss. The Isle of Man has put itself forward as the test case for adopting an ISP levy, but the test is being conducted on a sampling of only 80,000 relatively homogenous people, and primarily as a means to attract business to the Isle of Man.

In short, a lot of smart, high profile people are working on “the problem” in the loudest of ways, but no one has figured it out. The reason is that downloading content on the internet is not really a problem, but an opportunity.

// what kind of thinking gets us to a good outcome?

Looking at the glass half empty, waiting for an internet distribution business to develop that pays copyright holders fairly has not worked. Instead, it has lead to chaos. But looking at the glass half full, we might simply be in a time of necessary chaos that happens just before things start lining up and moving in the right direction.

The internet is an extremely efficient way to deliver media to individuals. As a result, even if they don't already, eventually, all people will get all of their non-live experience media from the internet. If you don't view the internet narrowly as a problem for the media and entertainment business, but instead see it as a format change to the new way that media will be distributed to people, then you see it merely as a developing set of markets, and a whole new world of “solutions” opens up. Once you see this instantaneous means of distribution as rife with opportunity, the act of searching for a single solution to fix everyone's problems looks like promoting old-fashioned communism. Instead of searching for a single solution that gets rights holders paid only one way, what feels more promising is looking for ways to establish whole markets of new opportunity for selling music and other media.

While it will take time for a more solid ecosystem of digital media production and distribution businesses to develop, now is the time to start thinking about how to help these new businesses along. Not loudly, all in one shot, but quietly, incrementally, methodically and organically, the way real industries grow. Helping these companies grow to a size where they create enough revenue to throw off a licensing stream significant enough to move the needle for rights holders should be our main focus. And in getting to this point, we should consider the possibility that the way we have things set up cannot be easily adapted to the digital internet world economy, and think about how we might be able to make it easier for these companies to pay rights holders.

So what are some of the problems specific to the media and entertainment business that make it difficult for companies who distribute media using the internet to grow and to pay rights holders?

// the internet economy requires a regulatory scheme that enables commerce

One problem is the payment structures that developed in the physical distribution world, and the law that developed around these structures. As previously discussed, the business and law of media and entertainment distribution developed around physical distribution into specific territories and countries. But the internet is a worldwide interconnected computer network based on standard open protocols. Given the internet's open nature, it will always be possible to get copyrighted material from some source, and history has shown that the internet forces gravitation toward the fewest restrictions to commerce. So any local restriction that inhibits commerce will ultimately fail to produce results, no matter how harsh the penalties. Furthermore, the internet's architecture and economics transcends country borders, so ultimately rights collection cannot continue to be effective in the long term on a country-by-country basis and will inevitably gravitate to a neutral treaty-based, or NGO solution. Therefore, any regulatory scheme we expect to be effective must take into account open networks and global politics. As a result, the regulatory scheme most likely to withstand the test of time is the one that enables commerce and makes it most efficient.

// conclusion

So we began with a single problem in search of a solution, but we are concluding with more questions than answers. Of the two approaches to collective licensing on the ISP level mentioned above, which approach is best? How do we implement collection with a public right to collect money at the ISP level, versus privately, with a covenant not to sue? How would monies collected by the ISPs be distributed to rights holders, versus how rights holders would collect from individuals and companies who had agreed to a license in exchange for a private covenant not to sue? What is the role for existing rights societies, like CMRRA, GEMA, Sound Exchange or PRS for Music? Is there a role for the establishment of a new digital rights collection society to collect and distribute rights proceeds? 

Perhaps collective rights licensing at the ISP level is a good idea, but should not be seen as the final solution to everyone's problems. Perhaps it will evolve to be an underlying foundational platform above which a wide variety of media distribution and entertainment businesses grow.

These are the questions to which we will need to develop answers as we build revenue to a new distribution technology. Music led us into the fray, but the answers to these questions must be developed for every media business and industry.

So let's get to work, starting with music.

Steven Masur is the Managing Director of MasurLaw, a venture, technology and entertainment law firm with a global practice. Steve is as passionate about new businesses as he is about artists. He has helped clients create and define a wide array of game-changing new business models and licensing schemes in music, film, video games, mobile content, licensing, advertising, media delivery, software and hardware. Steve helps clients organize, write contracts, work out complicated legal and business problems and pursue strategic opportunities. Name just about any new idea and Steve can tell you what happened in similar earlier businesses.

Hello there friends. It’s good to have you here for a thrilling 90 minutes of the best new music in the world. This episode of The New Balearic is a folky affair. Electro-folk. Freak-folk. Indie-folk. Folk punk. Folk pop. Ambient folk. It’s all here, only venturing ever so slightly outside the genre to introduce the episode with some pure pop from Phoenix, and dabbling in some instrumental ambient electronica here and there, courtesy of Helios and Australia’s young Pogo.

Yep. The folk fun is led by perhaps the best Grizzly Bear song ever, and continues with some freak-ish folk from Brooklyn’s Julianna Barwick. After that, we head north to Canada to hear a new track from Edmonton’s up-and-coming Provincial Archives, and some experimental goodness from the consistent Tim Hecker. Later on, we’ll be introduced to The (fantastic) Rural Alberta Advantage and Our Book and the Authors, followed by another solid effort from Calgary’s Jordan Klassen.

Meanwhile, a new track from the Bowerbirds, a song from the side project of Sigur Ros’ Jón Pór Birgisson (Riceboy Sleeps), and an epic 10 minute long electro-folk, slow-brewer from England’s Kyte will ensure that this episode does not disappoint. I hope I’m right.

// tracklisting

• Phoenix - ‘1901 (TNB Extended Intro)’ ()
• White Rabbits - ‘Percussion Gun’ (TBD Records)
• Grizzly Bear - ‘While You Wait for the Others’ (Warp Records)
• Julianna Barwick - ‘Bode’ (eMusic Selects)
• Riceboy Sleeps - ‘Boy 1904’ (Moss Stories)
• Sea Wolf - ‘Leaves in the River’ (Dangerbird)
• The Provincial Archives - ‘Acquaintances and Lovers’ (Bedrooms & Basements)
• Patrick Watson - ‘Tracy’s Waters’ (Arts & Crafts)
• Tim Hecker - ‘Borderlands’ (Kranky)
• Hannu - ‘Harhailua’ (Kesh)
• Paperfilm - ‘One Two Three and Zero’ (Unreleased)
• The Electones - ‘Right Foot From Left’ (Beatservice)
• Kyte - ‘Lights Outside Here’ (Rallye)
• Our Book and The Authors - ‘In All The Wrong Ways’ (Domino)
• Fink - ‘Sort of Revolution’ (LL Recordings)
• Pogo - ‘Get Out and Love Someone’ (self released)
• Helios - ‘Cross the Ocean’ (self released)
• Last Days - ‘The Fields Remember My Father’ (n5md)
• Jordan Klassen - ‘Hot Ashes’ (self released)
• Bowerbirds - ‘House of Diamonds’ (Dead Oceans)
• Jeremy Enigk - ‘Make Believe’ (Lewis Hollow)
• Passion Pit - ‘Moth’s Wings’ (Frenchkiss)
• The Rural Alberta Advantage - ‘The Ballad of the RAA’ (Saddle Creek)

DOWNLOAD as M4a
DOWNLOAD as MP3

Bruce Mans is the curator of the blog/podcast The New Balearic. Inspired by the late John Peel and his renowned eclectic taste, Bruce set out with the primary goal of creating a quality online space with which to expose an equally eclectic range of bands on a global level. Having accomplished that, Bruce says he's happy simply knowing bands are benefiting from his work, and that people enjoy his mixes. www.thenewbalearic.com | www.brucemans.com