February 16, 2012 What The RIAA Won’t Tell You – TuneCore’s Response to the NY Times Op-Ed by RIAA CEO Cary H. Sherman Share By Jeff Price It’s difficult for me to write a response to the CEO of the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) Mr. Sherman’s NY Times Op-Ed piece   “What Wikipedia Won’t Tell You”   that is not emotional. What should be a black and white conversation about respecting copyright is mired in the fact that the …

February 16, 2012 The Era Of Silencing Voices Is Ending: A response to the RIAA’s Cary Sherman’s Editorial in Favor of SOPA Share By George Howard (follow George on Twitter) In a   recent editorial , Cary Sherman (Chief Executive of the Recording Industry Association of America, which represents music labels) makes the argument that in order to stop SOPA, websites like Google and Wikipedia are presenting lies in order to advance an agenda: The hyperbolic mistruths, presented on the home …

  February 2, 2012   Like X, But With (Wh)Y   By George Howard (follow George on Twitter) To paraphrase the worth-reading business writer Guy Kawasaki, in order for a company to succeed they must be able to describe themselves in terms of “Like X, but with Y.”  So, for instance, you might be a maker of less-expensive noise cancelling headphones, and describe your product as, “Like those Bose headphones, but cheaper.”  Essentially, this is shorthand for …

February 2, 2012 The Rules All Digital Music Services Must Follow In order for a digital music service like AmazonMP3 and others to allow a song to be downloaded, it must get two separate licenses and make two separate payments. The licenses are: -One from the person or entity that controls the recordings (like a record label) -One from the person or entity that represents the rights of the songwriter The two songwriter rights needed by digital music stores to be able to sell your music outside of …