Behind Kerchoonz, The Beat of an Indie Artist
An interview with Kerchoonz co-founder and Scotland-based, singer-songwriter Indiana Gregg (part 1 of 2)
Imagine working for years developing your melody career. You've released indefinite albums, signed with an indie label, inked licensing deals, and received love from the press and radio, all while you've toured the country. An indie artist's dream! That is until you find out that your virgin proceeds has been illegally downloaded over 250,000 times off of major pirate sites like The Pirate Bay.
This is the nightmare Glasgow, Scotland-based, singer-songwriter Indiana Gregg faced approximately 18 months ago when she released her tome "Woman at Work." The level of piracy was actually threatening the financial viability of her independent honour Gr8Pop. So Gregg decided to booty matters in her own hands and broil back. She contacted the UK-based Mechanical Copyright Safeguard Native land (MCPS) and British Phonographic Industry (BPI), as well as contacting the differing websites linking to the lawless copies of her album. While almost all the sites complied with the link emigration request, file-sharing website The Pirate Bay responded with a "cyber-bullying" campaign, publicly releasing Indiana's email that resulted in a evil deluge from the site's supporters.
Instead of getting mad, Indiana - with her manager and husband Ian Morrow - decided to get still on behalf of all artists. To accomplish this, she has establish out to constitute a site that would salary artists for every stream of their music; and yet recompense when the artist would longing to offer their bop for for love download. Slated for beta open later this month, Kerchoonz.com has already attracted the attention of media outlets approximative the BBC and Digital Media Wire, as well pirate forums such as TorrentFreak and suprbay.org.
MusicDish e-Journal sat down with Indiana to find absent deeper about Kerchoonz and how it might just tilt the tune production balance in favor of musicians.
[Eric de Fontenay] Where did the idea behind Kerchoonz originate?
[Indiana Gregg] I've always believed that art and air should be free and accessible to the cats who can maybe not afford it. However, it shouldn't be at the expense of the people who create jazz and film. Since the overdue 90's, billions of copyrighted files admit been downloaded illegally. Free art is a great concept, on the contrary musician's can't aware on "thin air" and it's dense to cook up modern without some investment. Music, film and art costs money, time and dedication to produce. We conjecture that whether this continues, nobody testament want to invest in latest creativity, and we can't let that happen. Brainstorming took place, and Kerchoonz is what we certain to offer as a solution.
I spoke with my partner/producer Ian Morrow, and we started to place this idea into motion. We began developing the site in slow 2006 and in Apr 2008, we founded a fresh Scottish-based company, Kerchoonz Ltd. We've been working on the site environing the clock with developers from all over the world (and every duration zone!). You might communicate we're workaholics, but it's actually been terribly creative, fun and bracing in spite of the far-off hours we've situate in. So, Kerchoonz is a purpose where artistic creators can give their music absent for paper and still get paid!
[de Fontenay] Obviously, piracy was a driving impact behind Kerchoonz' guide to compensate artists. In what other ways has piracy influenced the site?
[Gregg] To be honest, piracy is only a tiny part of what has influenced the augmentation of Kerchoonz. In the early days, even before social sites like MySpace and YouTube came into the mainstream, we were discussing paying artists for streams and how social networks were using music to attract traffic to their sites. Having millions of persons visit my own social networking pages, I cognition it would be nippy provided we were able to pay artists for their streams.
You know, there is a acceptable line between a band getting "free promotion" on the internet and crossing over to that point where sites are truly more or less "freely exploiting" a band's work. Many sites are manufacture millions in advertising each year from delivering the "goods" (music, film, software, games), however, the creative people whose endeavor is being exploited earn actually nothing from these sites.
If a label or musician doesn't want to consign their music away as a free download, they can still be paid for their streams and even cater a link to iTunes or wherever their bebop is available for sale.
The backside line is we essential to protect the future of art and we hope that people will compose the choice to support artists simply by listening or downloading for free.
I surmise that on-demand streaming of music will be one of the main ways humans access hymn in the future. Kerchoonz is a site where general public can access melody and create playlists on-demand at any time they hankering via the Internet or moving phones.
So, really, I'd have to announce that we've developed Kerchoonz primarily to cater to this huge shift in how people are choosing to access music. Was it due to piracy or the birth of social networking? Possibly a bit of both. People are changing the course of action they access music at the moment and, to be honest, that's been the strongest clout upon the creation of Kerchoonz.
[de Fontenay] Kerchoonz' website mentions that Kerchoonz does not use DRM or embedded ads in download files. How does Kerchoonz generate the revenue to compensate artists? Do you sense that DRM and embedded ads will yet be around in five years?
[Gregg] Advertisers want to grasp particular numbers of people within a specific demographic. We want Kerchoonz to be good and informative, and advertising is a way of finding away about new products and services. It's also the way we plan to facilitate compensate artists. But, we won't be using pop-up ads or ads attached to the downloadable files.
Kerchoonz advertising is done in a way that's extra attractive and all the more entertaining for the user. We use a development where video adverts are played during downloads on the other hand they are not "attached" to them. There are no annoying force-fed ads. However, advertisers get their message, products and services across to their target demographic on the site, and that's what's essential for this charitable of ad-funded model.
Whether or not DRM or embedded ads will be bottom line five years from now (or if they are even cold now) depends upon the future of downloading. I have a feeling we are moving towards an period of 'on-demand' where people won't requirement or need to actually "own" the files. So, it's hard to say.
[de Fontenay] Close you aura that the industry's approach to tackling piracy has been effective? What would you wish to see proposed that would assist you in developing a revenue channel for artists?
[Gregg] The air industry has suffered a tsunami of pocket money over the past decade. It's becoming aggrandized and more difficult for bands to compete by selling music alongside the vast popularity of "free."
Has the industry been direct in tackling piracy? I don't know. I think this is a laborious one to assess. I can matchless say that from my personal experiences, some of the pirate sites keep been rather antagonistic in their approach towards musicians. They speak that the industry is trying to force their full of years model on people. However, those same sites are the ones who are trying to force musicians into accepting "nothing" as an option.
As a result, the file-sharers have been targeted by the Record Industry Convention of America (RIAA). I don't be acquainted how effective that has been. However, recently expanded ISPs are getting involved and perhaps they will help decrease the problem.
http://www.kerchoonz.com
**********
Consequent week, in allotment 2 of MusicDish e-Journal's interview with Indiana Gregg, we attain more about Kerchoonz, the site's multiple features and it's Choonz origins.
By source: http://a1articles.com/article_648536_48.html
Author: MusicDish
Author: MusicDish
Last relative articles:
Keywords:
kerchoonz,
kerchoonz beat,
artist kerchoonz,
files kerchoonz,
kerchoonz informative,
kerchoonz primarily,
kerchoonz social,
kerchoonz advertising,
kerchoonz multiple,
kerchoonz use