Location: Washington DC
When: Tuesday, October 5, 2010
Time: 3:45-5:00
Where: Lohrfink Auditorium, Georgetown University Campus

Much of the recent chatter in the music/tech industry is the inevitability of consumers’ music collections being accessed and stored “in the cloud”. What would a cloud based service look like? Will there remote music lockers? Will it be streaming subscription services available on multiple devices? What are the licensing hurdles to getting there, and the compensation issues for content owners? Even more important, once all the recorded music is accessible, how do we extract value on the cloud? How do we get consumers to pay for it? And what are the implications for musicians? A panel of rightsholders, technologists and artist representatives will discuss the “cloudy” future of music access.

Panelists

Patrick Sullivan President and CEO, RightsFlow
Brendan Benzing Chief Product Officer, Rhapsody
Peter Jenner Manager, Sincere Management
Vickie Nauman VP North America, 7digital

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Most folks can’t just record someone else’s song and then start selling their version of it.

But how do independent artists clear the rights necessary to record a cover song and then release it for sale? This is a real problem, as thousands of independent artists across the country seek to record songs written by others — and make some money in the process. Songs are protected by copyright, however, so permission must be secured and financial terms settled before a cover song can be sold to the public.

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A glimpse into a rockin’ office

Scott Sellwood is the only member of Drunken Barn Dance who lives in New York City — the rest of his band resides in Ann Arbor, Mich. This presents a unique challenge, as Sellwood is the main songwriter.  But they’ve found a way to make it work. Sellwood writes and records demos in his office at his day job with RightsFlow, a music licensing company, and sends them out to the band.

Sellwood invited us into his office to take a look at some of the things that inspire his creative process.

National park maps

“This is a book of maps of national parks that my mother-in-law gave to me.

Drunken Barn Dance is a lot about geography. … And so we have maps around us a lot. Maps inspire us, me in particular.

1962 Gibson LG-1 guitar

“I did something that most people would find blasphemous…. I drilled a hole in it and put a pickup in it. These are small guitars that were made for children in the ’60s. A kids’ practice guitar. It’s really light and it’s very easy to play and it allows me to jump around a bunch. A friend introduced me to them and I’ve been hooked on it. This has been my road guitar for the last couple of years.”

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