Sounds good: Tim Westergren on a “win-win” music business
Recently, Popcuts heard some wise words from Pandora founder Tim Westergren. It was really cool to hear some motivational words from tim, because a few years ago, Pandora kick-started a music revival in my life. 
Tim managed to talk about some classic issues in the online music space, without resorting to the same old arguments.
Tim talked about finding a “win-win model” for the music business, and the need to “end the adversarial relationship between music rights-owners and listeners.” It’s been something Popcuts has noticed from day one: why aren’t artists and fans on the same team?
Tim went on to slam DRM for a new reason: people just “don’t get it.” The user experience of DRM is just strange and counterintuitive. Instead of inventing confusing technologies to fix complicated and shifting problems, he set a simpler goal for the music tech geek: “make simple and easy ways to be a fan.”
I think the way to bring the music business and music buyers together on the same team is to first divide the music buyers into two groups: music fans and
music purveyors (such as DJs, webcasters, producers and multimedia developers). Let the music fans buy songs at the normal 99 cent price a song and get credits from Popcuts. For the music purveyors, though, sell song licenses at $100 a download, allowing the purveyor to use the song anyway they choose, including reselling the song in a mix or theme compilation. This way, the music industry only has to sell a thousand downloads to generate $100,000 in revenue instead of a million CDs to not even break even. If I were running
the music industry, that’s how I’d do it and I bet it would be a lot more profitable for the industry and the new industries it would create.
Comment by Alex Cosper — September 3, 2008 @ 8:04 am
[...] tim, user … It’s been something popcuts has noticed from day one: why aren’t artists and …http://blog.popcuts.com/2008/07/14/sounds-good-tim-westergren-on-a-win-win-music-business/Music site gives fans a cut of sales The Globe and MailPopcuts to benefit those ahead of the curve [...]
Pingback by popcuts — September 3, 2008 @ 2:07 pm
Thanks - this is a great interview. Too Shy to Stop just interviewed Tim for Pandora’s third anniversary., and you can check out the article here.
Comment by Laryssa — October 27, 2008 @ 5:11 am