The Digital music industry: beyond the majors

ACEI Conference, NU, Boston 2008
The Digital Music Industry: Beyond the Majors
Panel Session on the Music Industry to be held on June 14, 2008
The popularity of online music-sharing networks has not only attracted interest from
major recording labels, artists, consumer advocacy groups, and the popular press, it
has changed the very structure of the music industry. The traditional recording company
model predicated on the control, dissemination and sale of music products is no longer
a viable option for many artists. Thus, value chains for content development, production,
delivery and use are rapidly changing along with the creation of business models to
exploit new opportunities. These developments raise new business and legal issues
related to market environments that support the creation and diffusion of new digital
content, delivery systems and user benefits. Furthermore, an artist’s ability to control
their creativity, marketing and distribution has many in the music industry predicting the
demise of the traditional record label. Our panelists will discuss the evolution of the
global online music industry and its potential for growth into the future.
Panel Moderator
Richard Strasser
Panelists
Leon Janikian
David Herlihy
Jim Anderson
Paul Lehrman
Richard Strasser, Northeastern University, Moderator
Richard Strasser is an Assistant Professor of Music Industry at Northeastern University.
Dr. Strasser is a graduate from the Australian National University with a Bachelor of
Music (distinction) and a Graduate Diploma in Music. After winning both the Queen
Elizabeth II Silver Jubilee Award and the Arts Council of Australia Scholarship, he
continued his studies at the Manhattan School of Music, where he received a Master of
Music and Doctor of Musical Arts degree. Richard Strasser also has an arts
administration degree from New York University. Dr. Strasser has served as a faculty
member of numerous universities including John Cabot University in Rome, Clarion
University of Pennsylvania, and as Coordinator of the Music Business program at the
University of Massachusetts Lowell. Dr. Strasser served on the Board of Director’s for
the Music and Entertainment Industry Educators Association, the Cultural Organization
of Lowell and the working group for the development for national music industry
education standards for the National Association of Schools of Music. He is author of
“The Savvy Studio Owner” published by Hal Leonard books and the forthcoming book,
“Music Business: The Key Concepts”, with Routledge. Richard is the recipient of the
2008 Excellence in Teaching Award at Northeastern University.
Leon Janikian, Northeastern University
Professor Leon Janikian has been an academician, professional musician, and
recording engineer for over 30 years. He began his musical education at the Longy
School of Music, followed by undergraduate studies at the New England Conservatory
of Music. At both institutions he studied clarinet with Felix Viscuglia of the Boston
Symphony Orchestra. In 1975, Janikian earned his Master of Music in Music Theory
and Composition from the University of Massachusetts/ Amherst. He was privileged to
be a student of the eminent composer and musical theorist Dr. Philip Bezanson. During
his graduate years, Professor Janikian initiated his deep involvement with the art of
musical recording and technology. His work during these years include recordings of the
former Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra, Duke Ellington, Archie Shepp, Max Roach,
and many others broadcast over National Public Radio. In 1976 he founded Sound
Techniques Recording Studios. The studio was his major project for the next 13 years.
During the Sound Techniques years Prof. Janikian was the primary engineer/ producer
for over 150 records in all musical genres, and numerous multimedia productions and
commercials. He is the recipient of a number of awards for his productions.
In 1984, while still the owner/ chief engineer at Sound Techniques, he was invited to join
the faculty of the Sound Recording Technology program at the University of
Massachusetts/ Lowell.
In 1995, Professor Janikian was appointed an Assistant Professor of Music at
Northeastern University. He continues to be very active in the recording field and is one
the most sought after musicians specializing in the traditional music of Armenia,
Greece, and the Middle East in the United States.
David Herlihy
David Herlihy received a B.A., magna cum laude, from Boston College in 1979 and a
J.D. from Boston College Law School in 1982. David lectures on copyright law and the
music industry, and he supervises Northeastern University’s record label.
David maintains a law practice which concentrates in entertainment law, intellectual
property, copyright, trademark, licensing, and new media. His clients include authors,
publishers, record companies, recording artists, songwriters, composers, performers,
producers, recording studios, visual artists, e-business innovation companies, software
and service providers, webcasters, and entrepreneurs.
David was the lead singer and principal songwriter for O POSITIVE (a Boston-based
musical group with full length albums on Epic Records and several independent record
labels) for which he won three Boston Music Awards for "Outstanding Male Vocalist" as
well as twice topping the Boston Phoenix/WFNX Best Music Poll as "Best Local Male
Vocalist." He is still active in the recording studio and occasionally performs live with the
band Toyboat.
Jim Anderson
After high school, Mr. Anderson toured for a year as an original member of
Liberty/United Artists’ recording group “the Jackals”, and began working as a studio
guitarist in the NYC area. In 1974, he graduated with a B.M. in Applied Music from
Berklee College of Music, where he taught guitar and theory for five years. As one of
the founders of Sound Techniques Recording Studios in Boston, for the last 19 years he
has performed on, produced and/or engineered dozens of projects with artists as
diverse as Yo Yo Ma, Guns ‘N Roses, Livingston Taylor, and Clark Terry . He has been
composing for over twenty years, and has worked extensively for The Discovery
Channel, The Learning Channel, and Animal Planet. He has won numerous awards
including a Platinum Album Award for “The Spaghetti Incident” by Guns “N Roses, an
ITVA Gold award for “Ninety Years” for Monterrey, Mexico, and an ITVA Gold Award for
the score for “Bass Shoe of Wilton, Maine”. Mr. Anderson also composed the score for
Fablevision’s award-winning animated film “Living Forever”, composed music for the
highly acclaimed documentary, “Mai’s America”, and composed the score for recently
released “Pilgrimage into the Past”. His most recent television project was the theme
for the “Ask This Old House” series on PBS. His most recent project was composing
original music for Boston University’s newly opened Welcome Center.
His most recent album production credits are “Noisy Old Men”, a CD featuring John
Abercrombie, Mick Goodrick, Steve Swallow, and Gary Chaffee, and “Playing Time” by
The Larry Baione Trio.
Paul Lehrman
Paul Lehrman is a composer, writer, educator, filmmaker, and music technologist. His
concert works have been commissioned by the Boston Computer Society, the Audio
Engineering Society, the Association for Small Computers in the Arts, and NEWCOMP.
He has performed-often with computers-at Carnegie Hall, Boston Symphony Hall, San
Francisco's Davies Hall, London Festival Hall, and many dingy bars and clubs. He has
scored over two dozen television and theatrical documentaries which have appeared on
PBS, A&E, History Channel, Discovery, Israel TV, France 3, and at New York's Lincoln
Center. Bad Boy Made Good, a film he wrote and produced about avant-garde
composer George Antheil and his infamous Ballet mécanique, has won prizes at several
festivals and been shown on PBS. In a 30-year career he has written some 500
articles for publications ranging from The Boston Globe Sunday Magazine to
Technology Illustrated, to Wired, and has served as a columnist for Recording
Engineer/Producer and Piano & Keyboard magazines. He is currently "Insider Audio"
columnist for Mix magazine, the leading journal of professional audio and music
production. He has written or co-written five books on music technology, one of which,
MIDI For The Professional (Music Sales Corp.), is after 14 years still the standard
college text on the Musical Instrument Digital Interface. His most recent book is The
Insider Audio Bathroom Reader (Thomson Course PTR).
He was the creator of the first sampling/re-synthesis program for a personal computer,
and co-developer of the first graphics-oriented MIDI sequencer for the Apple Macintosh.
He was also creator of the first all-MIDI album, The Celtic Macintosh. He has served as
a consultant to many music and audio hardware and software companies, including
Apple, Digidesign, Roland, Yamaha, AKG, JBL, and Kurzweil.
He is a Lecturer in Music and Multimedia at Tufts University, where he is also
Coordinator of Music Technology and co-director of the program in Musical Instrument
Engineering. Previously he taught in the University of Massachusetts Lowell's Sound
Recording Technology program, where he developed the curriculum in Computer
Applications in Music. He has been a guest lecturer at the Berklee College of Music, the
Manhattan School of Music, Stanford University, UC-Berkeley, Webster University, and
the Hartt School.
source:http://www.culturaleconomics.org/conference/ACEIMusicPanelInfo.pdf