Last week I was on twitter when someone with the handle Sweatshirt replied to something I’d tweeted about bitter people fucking the music industry up. I kinda just glanced at the twitter page and thought the name Shirt sounded familiar. I asked him if he was the kid who made a mixtape with all these rock samples and he replied that he was. The mixtape was called Unsigned In New York (DOWNLOAD). I remember the mixtape because it had to be something like 2005, and he was rapping over all these Nirvana samples and whatnot, and at the time, nobody was doing that (or at least nobody on my radar). They weren’t complete flips of the samples, more like reworkings of the songs so that he could rap over them. I thought back then that he had a good flow, solid voice and was doing something forward thinking. It was rap rock, but over classic shit.

So I sent him this beat that I’d originally made a year ago with The Knux in mind for, and I actually told Krispy Kream that I was going to send it to him when I saw him at the Knux Redbull secret show in January, but  just never got around to it. T-Shirt jumped right on it and sent it back to me the next day. He didn’t flip it into a song, more just like a two minute verse, a freestyle. I came away rather impressed by it. His voice and flow just sounds right on these types of tracks. He took it upon himself to send it to some blogs, with the following message attached

Famed writer, Hip-Hop journalist and producer Paul Cantor and I had an ill conversation last night. Turns out my man Ayes gave him my first mixtape 6 years ago in Staten Island and he went crazy. He told me it was “wayyyy ahead of it’s time”, and was “one of his favorite mixtapes in years”, you know, back when mixtapes meant something. This was so ill to me. Paul Cantor is like the real deal as far as industry guys go. He sent me over some music reminiscent of these big rock remixes I used to do. I’d rap on anything man, it’s so fucking fun to me. Anyway, the joint he sent over was from that era of music I was doing and at first I was a little taken back haha. It’s not what I do anymore ! I slept for about an hour, woke up this morning, and wrote and recorded this just to show ole Paulie what the fuck I’m still doing over here haha.

Flattering to say the least. So without further ado, here’s the Paul Cantor freestyle.

DOWNLOAD- T-Shirt “Paul Cantor Freestyle”

Since Beanie Sigel’s halfway dis record against Jay-Z, “What You Talkin Bout” debuted on Kay Slay’s show on Hot97 last night, the internets/streets are going nuts about the Broad Street Bully airing out Hov.

First, the song. People are going ape shit but in reality, this song is like, not good. The beat, a middling drum pattern with a tick-tocky clock-like melody, is a mellow backdrop so you can clearly hear what Beanie’s saying. Except he’s not really saying much. which makes this song itself a total non-event.

Secondly, the interview. In the first half it sounds like Beans is genuinely peeved about a bunch of things that went on with Roc-A-Fella, all legitimate beefs. He talks a bit about going to jail, how the Young Gunz were only getting $1200 a night on the road with Jay, himself not being paid on tours, money that he thought he was due through a sneaker deal with Pro Keds, so on and so forth. Without any intimate knowledge of the business affairs that went on at Roc-A-Fella, I’ve no doubt in my mind that the  funny money situations Beans speaks about with album advances, recording budgets and Roc-A-Fella’s various business, were really occurring. This is the record business, shit happens.

The most striking part of the interview to me though, was when Beanie says he hasn’t spoken to Jay-Z in two years. He mentions that he can’t get in touch with Jay, that it takes talking to 5 people to speak with him. To hear Beanie tell it, Shawn Carter is like the Michael Corleone of the rap game. Except he’s really not.

Beanie Sigel thinks that Roc-A-Fella was a family. It wasn’t. Beanie Sigel was signed as a recording artist to Roc-A-Fella Records, given an album budget to record songs which the label could then exploit in the marketplace. In terms of that avenue of business, not mixtape songs or whether Beanie Sigel is “nice” or he bodied so and so on a track or went to war with Jadakiss or Nas, he was not very successful. To the best of my knowledge, only one Beanie Sigel album went Gold, and that was his first LP, The Truth, which was spearheaded by a Jay-Z single, “Anything.” Keep in mind this was the year 2000, when a rapper could literally take a piss on a record and it would have sold platinum or better. That Jay-Z had the single from another artist on his label’s debut LP should tell you something- Beans was a commercial liability from day 1. As Beans alludes to in his new song, he “brought the fellas to Roc-A-Fella.” Yeah, that’s exactly what he did. He lent an element of goonery to Roc-A-Fella when all they had was Jay and Bleek (hardly what I’d call goons).

Beanie was like Jay-Z’s Tony Yayo, except less paid.

On top of all this, Beanie signed with Dame Dash Music Group back in 2004. In a wikipedia entry on Beanie, it says he made the decision to sign with Dame over Jay because he’d never spent time around Jay on and off day. That he had a more personal relationship with Dame and Biggs. Now here he is, five years later, saying they were like a family, that he wants a phone call blah blah blah. He didn’t want that phone call in 2004, when he was sitting in Jay’s office (according to the Charlemagne interview), asking to be let out of his contract. So what’s the real story?

Perhaps Jay is like Michael Corleone, and once you take sides with another family, you’re done in his eyes. Or perhaps it’s a lot less dramatic, and it’s more like, as I alluded to above, Beanie never really being much of a marquee player, more like a Rick Mahorn-style bruiser who was on the team just to rough up the other team’s best player (Jadakiss, Nas, Jaz-0, etc).

In that respect, Beanie would fall in line with a whole assortment of characters who Jay-Z has left by the wayside as he’s moved on to bigger and better things.  Take a number- R. Kelly, Foxy Brown, Jaz-O, Amil, Dame Dash, DMX, Irv Gotti, Ski Beatz, Sauce Money… this list goes on and on. My thought is, Beanie should add his name to the list of those who may never get a return call from Hov. This whole scenario is sounding like a Tweet song right about now.

Just received an email about Sean Price’s new mixtape, Kimbo Price, hitting stores October 27th. If the fucking thing is in a store, it’s not a mixtape. Can we just kill the idea of the mixtape album already, and call the thing an album? Please, this is ridiculous. You’re confusing fans. Fans want to know the shit is an album, that it is something you put your heart and soul into. Otherwise, don’t put the project out at retail. If it’s some piece of shit that you threw together haphazardly, just give it away. I know Sean Price’s level of quality is high. He doesn’t make much wack music. In fact, I’ve been a fan since he debuted. But me, as a fan of rap music, I get turned off the minute I see the word mixtape associated with an artist of P’s caliber. So I get it, Kimbo Price is the prelude to a forthcoming album. But that project isn’t dropping until 2010. Plies drops two albums a year on a major label. Sean Price can’t drop 2 within 6 months on an indie? Fuck outta here.

Call things what they are. If there are original beats, original lyrics and hooks on the project, it’s an album. It’s not a mixtape. Leave the freestyles and all that shit nobody wants to hear on the cutting room floor and make it an official project. Please. This isn’t 2004, when the mixtape/album was some sort of novelty item that artists could drop on indie labels to hold fans over between proper major label projects. That shit is dead.

Do the right thing.

spotted at Nahright

What good is it jumping from one sinking ship to another? Either way, you’re going down. That’s the thought that came to mind when I started reading the hooplah about Diddy signing with Interscope Records last week. The way the partnership is explained, Diddy signed a joint venture agreement with Interscope for his label, Bad Boy, which he will release his next LP, Last Train to Paris, through. Future projects, whether they be Diddy albums or reality television pop acts, will also go through Interscope, by way of this new business alliance. The artists that were previously signed to Warner Music Group through Bad Boy’s deal there, they will stay at Warner Music Group. Makes enough sense.

The thing is, Diddy seems geeked about the deal. He’s making videos, he’s tweeting, and basically the blogosphere/rap industry is caught up in the hype. My question is, who really gives a fuck? I’m not so sure I wanna pat Diddy on the back for his latest move. I applaud this man for a lot of what he’s done. I even worked on his Making His Band TV show a few weeks ago (episodes I worked on should be airing soon), so it’s not like I’m being biased for no reason here. When it comes to the business side of things, Diddy is that dude.

But to me, Diddy signing with Interscope makes him a dinosaur. It made someone who was once a forward thinking executive, who revolutionized many aspects of the rap business, seem even more out of touch. For one, Interscope has had very little success with urban music as of late. Outside of Eminem, who is arguably not even an urban artist, there are few acts Interscope has on the urban side that have done well in recent years. Whereas urban was the foundation Interscope was built on, with Deathrow and the like, the past few years have seen the label transition into more of a pop powerhouse, with Lady Gaga and the Pussycat Dolls at the forefront. Interscope’s promotion/marketing muscle was and still is legendary, except now it leans more towards top40 than anything else. Hear any Game singles lately? 50 Cent? I thought not.

So Diddy’s making this sort of weird electro funk soul LP that has him singing and shit, and basically he’s going to attempt to cross over like he did in the old days. He’s Danity Kane without the catty singers involved.  This way, if things don’t work out he can only blame himself, not some crazy blonde chick who goes all paparrazi nazi on the music industry. Whether or not people take Diddy as an artist seriously anymore (did they ever? hint: “don’t worry if I write rhymes, I write checks”), that’s debatable, but the motive makes sense. If you’re going to cross over, get with the machine that can cross you over- Interscope.

But that’s what an artist needs. What Lady Gaga needs, what the Pussycat Dolls need, what some unestablished pop rock act needs. That’s not what Diddy needs. Diddy, like Jay-Z, is bigger than hip-hop and bigger than the record business. He’s bigger than what some corporate TI can do for him. Sure, he may not be as hot as he once was, but that’s actually a benefit. Why? Because the expectations are lower. And right now, the only thing you can look forward to in this receding record business is lowered expectations, coupled with either shrugged shoulders when you miss your mark, or celebrations when you overachieve. Because of this, Diddy could have ventured out, he could done some creative partnership between Bad Boy, a new media company, and say Live Nation, like Jay did. Considering Diddy just spent an entire reality show looking for band members, it’s clear that he’s looking to capitalize in the live space. But why link with a label to distribute dinosaur-like records when it’s clear the business is elsewhere. Getting with Interscope just seems archaic.

Take that, take that?

Over at Wired.com, writer Eliot Van Buskirk’s “Inside Big Champagne’s Music Panopticon” provides an in-depth look at Big Champagne’s new dashboard-style music data analysis service. Now anyone who’s been paying attention to digital music news over the past few years should be familiar with the company’s CEO Eric Garland. Dude is the go-to guy when writers need a quote on anything related to music and the internet, which, let’s face it, is practically every day now. There’s also a sizeable chunk of Steve Knopper’s Appetite for Self Destruction dedicated to explaining how Big Champagne came about. Pretty interesting stuff.

To summarize, Big Champagne offers a media tracking service. And through that service, which a company pays a monthly fee for, they’re provided access to data about who’s downloading what songs and videos, and where that activity is happening online. Beyond that, the data gets very specific, in terms of allowing the company to see filesharing data for specific markets.

Data like this is of huge importance because it let’s a company know which band is performing well in which area, rather than having to rely on something like radio charts, a big game of back room handslaps that hasn’t changed in 50 years. Online “buzz” is arguably a bigger indicator of where people’s attention is directed. There are acts with songs on the radio right now, but who have no online buzz, who wouldn’t be able to sell out a local coffee shop.

Big Champagne also provides video charts as well, monitoring big sites like Yahoo and Youtube, as well as smaller ones.

Point being, all this data is coming from many different sources, and it’s being tracked in real time. My question is, just how wide of a net is being cast by this service. According to the article, filesharing networks are included in what’s being tracked. Which ones? And are simple webhosting services like Zshare and Rapidshare being monitored as well. These sites are like filesharing central, the bulk of new music acquisition is taking place there. By the time these songs make it to Yahoo, AOL or any of these big media companies, a lot of the key online traction for a tune has already taken place. Still, a useful service nonetheless. And while a lot of the data their providing is accessible through each separate network (Yahoo, Youtube, etc), having it all in one place, and being able to grasp it in the context of pie charts and graphs is infinitely more valuable. I wish I had 2k a month just to check it out.

Today, news reports surfaced about a tablet-based iPod that will work with a rumored new album format that both Apple and the major labels are trying to create. Mathew Garrahan of the Financial Times writes,

Apple is working with the four largest record labels to stimulate digital sales of albums by bundling a new interactive booklet, sleeve notes and other interactive features with music downloads, in a move it hopes will change buying trends on its online iTunes store. Apple wants to make bigger purchases more compelling by creating a new type of interactive album material, including photos, lyric sheets and liner notes that allow users to click through to items that they find most interesting. Consumers would be able to play songs directly from the interactive book without clicking back into Apple’s iTunes software, executives said. “It’s not just a bunch of PDFs,” said one executive. “There’s real engagement with the ancillary stuff.”

While theoretically this new album format sounds exciting, I think to a large extent Apple may be late on this whole idea. The thought of having a wiki-based album format- embeddable links and interactive content bundled in a file- just seems archaic in light of users trending towards accessing music through streaming services. Plus there’s the new iPod itself,

The new touch-sensitive device Apple is working on will have a screen that may be up to 10 inches diagonally. It will connect to the internet like the iPod Touch – probably without phone capability but with access to Apple’s online stores .

It sounds like people who already have albums in digital format will have to repurchase them, and also purchase a new device to access the content on them. It’s pretty difficult getting people to part with money right now, particularly for frivolous things like music devices and for music itself, which they can access for free via the aforelinked streaming services. These services are available as apps for phones, and people aren’t ditching those any time soon.

Think about it, Apple executives want people to engage with content, but the reality is, the content is available already. It’s on Myspace pages, Youtube, blogs, twitter, and so on. It’s in the cloud. Apple’s trying to sell a file-based service when it’s becoming more clear by the day that people don’t want to own anything. Hard drives break, they get full, devices get old, and from a dollar to dollar standpoint, they just don’t make much sense.

From the music industry’s standpoint, there’s more money to be made when people purchase an album for $10 than a single for $1, which is why it was never crazy about iTunes in the first place. The music industry phased out the single in the mid to late 90s because by not giving people an alternative to get the song they wanted, they had to buy an entire album. They raked in the dough as a result. People having the choice to spend $1 over $15 for a CD has been driving a stake through the industry’s heart for five years now.

So of course they’d love to entice people to get back into the album format. I just don’t think it’s going to happen. It’s an antiquated format that doesn’t work within the context of the way people consume media in modern times. It’s not going to work in the future either. It’s the same reason why we read articles in RSS readers and via Twitter now. We just want the aggregation, we want to create our own playlists. Give us the record we like, and save the album for someone who really cares.

Which is another point altogether. Some people really do care. Just not everyone. A select few, die hard fans. And maybe this new iPod will work for them, that rare bunch that wants to enjoy an entire hour of music from the same artist, and then also wants to jump into all sorts of exclusive goodies from them.

But remember, the music industry tried to sell the bloated CD before as well. In the late 90s they packaged CDs with extra content, and then even as recently as a few years ago, you were seeing deluxe CD/DVD packages hitting the shelves, filled with all sorts of extra stuff- pictures, wallpapers, ringtones… etc. Fact of the matter is, only the die hards bought this stuff. The rest of the people passed.

Seems like there’s a lot of Wu-Tang material dropping these days, huh? Can’t say I’m surprised. Every couple of years the Clan resurfaces and all the members start dropping projects around the same time. It’s a synergy that worked for them back in the late 90s, and it wouldn’t be farfetched to think it’ll work for them again. The Redman/Method Man album, Blackout 2, just dropped. U-God’s album, Dopium, drops next week on Frank Radio/Babygrande. A new Ghostface single “Forever” leaked two weeks ago. And then there are what seem to be the two biggest projects on deck, the Wu-Tang Chamber Music LP on June 30th, and Raekwon’s Only Built for Cuban Links 2 in August.

Is it a Wu renaissance? Maybe.

I’m probably most excited about the Chamber Music album. In a press release sent out by E1 Music (formerly Koch Records), Rza said:

“This album has a very live element of today’s musicians playing the vibe of Wu-Tang, know what I mean? The vibe we would normally sample, the vibe of things that we would accumulate through old soul songs, jazz songs, kung fu movies whatever, now you’ve got musicians that can play this vibe with Wu-Tang MC’s rapping over it. The goal of this album is definitely paying homage to our early sound. In the old days, we had to sample and find snares and things like that or chord changes just to make a beat. Now, this is being done it with a band. A lot of times, you hear rappers over a live band and that loses the hip-hop because a lot of those bands from the old days wasn’t from the hip-hop generation. On this album, we make it sound like it was in the 36 Chambers era. To me, what also adds to this album, you’ve got the Wu-Tang MCs but you also got your other favorite MCs from that era like Havoc, Cormega and others. This album can be played with a live band and it will sound BIG.”

Listen to a few of the tracks that have leaked and then tell me if they match what he’s describing. I think they do.

Raekwon, MOP, Kool G Rap “Ill Figures”
Ghostface, AZ, Inspectah Deck “Harbormasters”

The thing about this project that is disappointing to me is the way it’s being marketed and sold. E1 is pushing this project calling it a compilation pairing Wu-Tang emcees with 90s rap veterans. But if you look at the tracklisting, there really aren’t that many rap “veterans” on the album.

Tracklisting:
1. Redemption
2. Kill Too Hard Ft. RZA, Inspectah Deck, U-God, Masta Killa
3. The Abbot Ft. RZA
4. Harbor Masters Ft. RZA, Ghostface Killah, Az, Inspectah Deck
5. Sheep State Ft. Rza
6. Radiant Jewels Ft. RZA, Raekwon, Cormega, Sean Price
7. Supreme Architecture Ft. RZA
8. Evil Deeds Ft. RZA, Ghostface Killah, Havoc
9. Wise Men Ft. RZA
10. I Wish You Were Here Ft. RZA, Ghostface Killah, Tre Williams
11. Fatal Hesitation
12. Ill Figures Ft. RZA, Raekwon, Kool G Rap
13. Free Like ODB Ft. RZA
14. Sound The Horns
15. Enlightened Statues Ft. RZA
16. NYC Crack Ft. RZA
17. One Last Question Ft. RZA

Kool G Rap, Havoc, Cormega, AZ, Sean Price, MOP… those are 6 rap “veterans,” so to speak, but they’re also like the Koch all stars. These guys are all part of that label family, they all collab with one another and ya’know, I just have higher hopes for something billed as a collaboration project with 90s rap veterans. There’s 17 tracks. I mean, let’s keep it funky, this is a Wu-Tang album with a few features.

Then you’ve got the Raekwon LP, which is a whole different animal altogether. My issue with this project seems to be the press Raekwon is doing for it, which centers around the same couple of questions, namely, “What happened with Dr. Dre and Aftermath? What took so long? Why sign with EMI?” I guess that’s what happens when it takes you five years to release an album, and every year you’ve sat there and talked to people about it, done press and so on, never to have the project drop. There’s an interview over at XXLMag.com today, where Rae talks a little about Rza and Dre being in the studio together, and reading it, I said to myself, wow finally something interesting about this LP!!!

Not that I’m not excited about the album. But just put the fucking thing out already dude. I know you’re going on the Rock the Bells tour throughout the summer, and you’ll hype the project. Thing is, you might actually sell more records if the album was out by the time you hit the road. The days of the big first week are over, and even at that, you might only sell 30k copies. I just don’t see a Raekwon album moving many units in this industry climate, and that’s having nothing to do whatsoever with the quality of music on the LP.

So is the Wu back? I don’t know. Blackout 2 didn’t sell many records, even though Red and Meth have been everywhere promoting it. U-God doesn’t have much of a buzz (even though I am digging the records I’ve heard so far), and the Ghostface track hasn’t caught on yet. Rae’s album hasn’t dropped yet, and the Chamber Music LP is being billed as a compilation project, even though it’s not. And furthermore, it came out of nowhere! Granted, hype is hard to come by, but you still gotta make an effort.

I like the Wu music that is dropping right now. Whether anyone cares, that’s the question.

The way music is made nowadays just flat out sucks. Not saying the music itself sucks. But the way it’s created. We’ve hit a point where music, specifically rap, is like karaoke. And I was just thinking about all of this, when I came across this post about The Clipse working with flavor of the moment singer/songwriter Keri Hilson. According to The Rap-Up.com,

“It’s an amazing record,” Pusha T [says]. “Uptempo. Party. Girls. Shake every ounce of your ass.” The “Knock You Down” singer’s busy schedule prevented her from being in the studio when they recorded the track, so she phoned it in. “She wasn’t in-studio with us when she did that, but I was listening over the phone,” Pusha discloses. “The way of the music industry these days.”

The way Pusha describes this collabo, I’m not expecting much. Not that I don’t think something great can come from the combined talents of The Clipse and Keri. I do. In fact, I like both acts quite a bit. But I just feel like the way Pusha describes the song, it doesn’t sound very organic, or furthermore, very interesting. Like, isn’t every song these days about partying, girls and shaking every ounce of your ass?

The more troubling thing is how Pusha says the song was recorded. He even uses the phrase “phoned it in.” Phoning it in is often used to describe a process whereby someone was supposed to do something, and they did a half ass job at it. But in the music business, phoning it in is what collaborating recording artists do when they can’t be in the studio at the same time.

In actuality, that’s painting a rosy picture about the situation. It’s quite possibly that Keri Hilson referenced some Neptunes records for her own album, then didn’t use them, had a hook portion of the record that sounded good, so the Clipse “took” the record for themselves, then paid her for the feature and cleared it with the label and so on. I’m just speculating here, but that’s very conceivable.

This post isn’t really about The Clipse though. It’s more about the way technology helps and hurts the artistic process. On one side of the coin it allows for a piece of artistic work to be created without a barrier of physical space getting in the way. Hey, they might have even been on iChat during the process of recording.On the other side, you get this instrumental in your email with Keri Hilson’s vocals on it, you basically just add your raps and it’s done. It’s almost the equivalent of getting an excel spreadsheet at your lame ass 9 to 5 job, making an edit, then sending it off to a senior level manager for approval. It all seems kind of… I dunno… assembly line-ish.

There’s nothing you can do about it. It’s just the way the business exists right now, and it’s depressing. I still think there’s something to be said for being in the same physical space with another person and making art collaboratively. What would “Brooklyn’s Finest” be had Biggie recorded his verse a thousand miles away, in some studio down South. It might have sucked. It might not be the classic that it is today. How many classic collabos have been “phoned in.” That just sounds like you’re getting it done, just to get it done. Not because there’s anything more to it. That could have been Keri Hilson, or if this was four years ago, it might have been Ciara. Fans aren’t stupid. They know all this. Give them something authentic, that is of quality, and they will support. Otherwise you might as well be at that 9 to 5. Might even make more money.

I was clearly kidding about Pharrell being a genius.

Actually, I find comments like the ones he’s making to be rather questionable. And he knows it, because if you listen to the sound bite, he makes mention of it being easy to question his motives for saying some of these things. He essentially calls record label prehistoric, and comments on Susan Boyle, saying,

They were tryng to change her look, she should have stayed the way she was, cause it’s no longer intersting. Leave her alone; that’s what engaged everybody. She’s talented. Someone should be signing her right now. It would work. The world would want to hear that. The last 12 to 15 years, this whole aesthetic thing has ruined everything. It’s not about how good your hair grows, or like how strong your cheekbones are, or like how much colagen is in your lips, or if you’ve gotten a boob job. What music was, and what it’s going back to, is how talented is this person?

My thing is, you think someone should sign her. Ok, so sign her! You have a label. You have relationships. You have money. Make it happen.

Ok, so maybe it’s not that easy. But still, it kills me when people who are in a position of influence don’t use that influence for the greater good. Maybe Pharrell doesn’t fall into that category completely, because I do think the guy is a proponent of cultural and musical change. The Neptunes definitely shifted the landscape for urban-driven pop music. And a lot of the skater aesthetics, the European and Japanese fashion, and so on, Pharrell was heavily complicit in that movement. That movement is by and large what youth pop culture is right now, at least in the urban space. So I give Pharrell a lot of credit for doing things differently for arguably most of his career.

Musically though, it’s been a few years since The Neptunes have really gotten behind any talent. Which is what he’s talking about. He’s saying, the aesthetic is over. It’s about how well you can hit this or that note. I agree. It is about talent right now. Because the filters and the companies that owned them, have either totally crumbled to the ground, or been leveraged by other forms of media, replaced by other filters, and just people in general. Those social networks that Pharrell talks about, he’s right, they have found ways to get eyeballs on new forms of music. That said, they’ve also gotten eyes on people like Tila Tequila too. So the aesthetic is not completely gone from people’s consciousness. The “show” part of show business still factors in. Just maybe not as much.

What’s so crazy to me is, I think if Susan Boyle was a hot broad with big tits, blonde hair, and a coke bottle shape, and she sang the same exact song the same exact way, she might not have gotten nearly as much attention. It would just fly under the radar as some other hot chick with a dope voice.

So the aesthetic factor, or lack thereof, works both ways.

Over at the Wall Street Journal today, there’s an article about how the newspaper business is looking to create some sort of intermediary (“To Beat Antitrust Rap, Papers Take Cues From Songwriters” by Russell Adams and Shira Ovide), much like ASCAP or BMI for songwriters, that would monitor a paper’s content, and demand license fees from sites that post, repurpose, and otherwise aggregate said content.

The article mentions that one of the biggest obstacles facing the establishment of a third party entity is actually anti-trust law, which prohibits companies from joining forces to price fix and keep competition at bay. Which to me is sort of a loaded issue, because while there’s certainly a case to be made for big media trying to keep the little guy down, the reality is that the bulk of real news is still coming from big media. It just gets filtered down on so many levels, from blogs, to twitter, and so on.

It’s almost impossible to quantify all the sources that are pulling from this one piece of content– some monetizing it via ad supported business models on websites and the like, some not monetizing it all– all while the originator of the content, and the company that underwrites the creation of that content (via paying that writer a salary, or paying a freelancer, and a photographer and so on) not seeing any real hardline benefit from it at all.

Now some may argue that the content just being out there on the web is free marketing and so on, and I could see a case being made for that. But it’s hard to tell the Wall Street Journal or the New York Times that some small time blogger is helping their brand sell papers in the big scheme of things, particularly when the links get posted on so many blogs that it’s hard to tell where it originally came from. Fact is, crediting on aggregation models is not very effective, nor standardized.

And that’s one of the biggest problems facing music publishers. Sure, some sites pay for blanket licenses. The big ones do. Your Imeems and Myspaces and so on. These are big business, and the agreements are often times a lot more complex than people can even realize. It’s not as cut and dry as a simple blanket license. There’s revenue sharing built into the ad component of the site as well. So it’s really not as easy as just paying a license fee and/or royalty for every time the music is played. The newspaper business will have to take that into account as well. Because those licensing fees may pale in comparison to the site’s overall revenue. And then what’s going to happen? The newspapers are going to come back crying for more money. Just like the labels have done with Google/Youtube, saying they’re not getting enough money out of their licensing arrangements.

The bigger issue, I think, is quantifying the type of “legs” that newspaper content has online. How much news really lives online after a couple of days, and furthermore, if the news does live, will anyone pay to see it?

The New York Times used to make the archives of articles available only via purchase. I was one of the unlucky few who had to pay for content at one point in time, whether it was for a college-related assignment or something else. But how many people would do that on a regular basis? Probably very few. Needing to go into the archives is a very selective thing. It’s not every day that a large body of web users need to look at articles from 1958. Which is probably one of the reasons why they eventually abandoned that model and opted to make everything available for free, monetized instead via advertising. Now that advertising hasn’t yielded the desired results, they’re ready to bail.

Point I’m making is, to create a third party to monitor content would be a great idea, and I think it’s needed. Had I included a quote or something from the WSJ article, I’m technically using WSJ content and monetizing it via google ad sense (I don’t make much from that, but just using it as an example), and WSJ sees nothing from that. I’m using their content to create content, and they get nothing back from it (although I am including a link that is sending people directly to their site).

Practicality is the issue, I just don’t know how practical something like this would be, considering just how much content comes from big media on a daily basis, and how much doesn’t get used for anything. I mean, if I had a news aggregation site, would I pay like a yearly fee for a license to everything from WSJ.com, when I may only use 2-3 relevant pieces from them a week? And would they get royalties or something from me? Like, how does this work?

Overall, it just seems like a mess to me. Definitely needed, but the model has to be worked out.

Thoughts?