Monday, September 10, 2007

Blog Stop!

The Blogging debate continues.... It came to my attention via Little White Earbuds, that Ewan Pearson recently spoke out against bloggers, it's not like I don't think about the issues involved, I certainly do, there are arguments for and against the whole thing. I've engaged the DJ History board on the matter, to get further input on the debate. I'm certainly not about to give up the blog, not if I can help it. If you're interested in what's being said go here and leave your comment on my blog if u have something to say about it....

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Keep on doing what you're doing!!!

chris keys said...

u betcha!! - thanks for the support

Anonymous said...

Chris,
Thanks for bringing this to my attention (via Horse Latitudes).
NOTE: This comment has been slightly modified from ones posted on DJ History and Little White Earbuds.
Back in Feb. I got into an interesting discussion with some heads over at BeyondJazz. Basically it was about posting mp3s versus streaming and whether blogs were the same as p2p networks and the value of mp3 blogs to artists. It was a healthy discussion that unfortunately stopped after my last (lengthy) post.
The end result for CubikMusik was two-fold.
-We introduced a policy of emailing artists and/or labels at the time of posting to notify them we had an mp3 posted on the site. The reaction so far has been predominantly positive with a few artists and/or labels requesting files be removed or a lower to be bitrate posted.
It can be time consuming but I am glad that I started it as I think it helps artists and labels see that not all blogs are about posting albums and taking the hits. It is also good to build relationships with them. One such relationship is resulting in an upcoming remix competition that we are holding in conjunction with a band.
-We also started a poll of readers which asked:
"When you hear/ download a track from CubikMusik does that encourage you to go and buy music by that artist?
With the following results:
No: 7%
Yes, most of the time: 41%
Some of the time: 38%
Always: 14%
Other: 10%
Although the number of readers answering the poll question is a tiny portion of my readership I find the results interesting and somewhat indicative of the readers of a more niche blog (which I would consider myself to be).

Cheers,
Cubik

Anonymous said...

dont let that happen,keep up the good work Chriz!

soulbrotha said...

My head explodes at the hypocrisy of the major labels. First off, if this were the 60's I would feel more inclined to take pause at posting an mp3. Thats because back then, a record label DEVELOPED the artist. They invested money and time and the result was music that stands the test of time. Today, an artist has to come to the label with a complete package! The label doesn't want to spend a dime on the artist if they don't have to. Yet their greedy asses will surely affix their names to the cd and and take a large chunk of the profits for doing little more than some weak p.r and distribution. Profits are not seen by the artist for a while because they have to pay the label BACK for expenses said label incurred(read the fine print!).
So when these bastards complain that posting an mp3 is harming/cutting into the profits of their artists, I just laugh! There are thousands of wonderful artists whose projects are shelved indefinitely and they can do nothing about it because they are bound to the terms of the contract. Some can't even record for another label. How else will these artists be heard? the only reason that there is an uproar is because the majors are not making money from the blogs. And you best believe that they had their hand in the whole Net Neutrality debacle.
Blogs help the artist directly by cutting out the middleman, i.e., the record company/label. Once artists really get the point that they do not need record labels anymore, the labels will die and so will this debate.