Record labels and publishers for decades served as the music industry’s “bank.” They provided the advances artists lived on while making new music, and also…
The Internet has been a catalyst for the democratization of creativity in art. The low-cost, high-reach communication tools it affords its users have allowed creators…
The Internet age has drastically altered the dynamics of the interaction between corporations and their customers. Talking down at consumers, for instance, is less preferable…
The famous economist Joseph Schumpeter once coined the term “Creative Destruction” to describe the process whereby we constantly destroy old business models by innovating and…
Musicians, artists, and music business entrepreneurs need cash to start a project and nurture it to fruition. They are hardly unique in this respect,…
Over the last fifteen years, since the advent of the worldwide web, there has been a revolution in the world of finance. More money is…
The largest providers of capital in the music business, the major record labels, have been devastated over the last decade by the disruption of their…
As the music industry’s traditional structures continue to fall away, new models are building upon unsteady foundations. Some of the new companies that stepped onto…
In 1997, the British band Marillon was able to raise $60,000 to finance their US tour through an Internet campaign. Since then, funding music projects…
Crowdfunding is quickly becoming a useful alternative for musicians looking to pay for the production and distribution of their albums and concert tours. As will…
Amanda Palmer, a punk cabaret singer and one of the most productive users of social media today, has set a new record for the highest…
Kickstarter, a for-profit company that started in April 2009, broke into the “crowdfunding” market with a new take on financing projects in music, film, art,…