Robert Windham currently serves as counsel for SNOCAP, an online music distributor which, aside from providing direct-to-consumer music distribution for emerging and established artists, also provides the music service for MySpace.
In this clip from the 2007 American Bar Association Forum on the Entertainment and Sports Industries, moderator Terry McBride (Nettwerk Records) and attorneys Gary A. Watson, Michael Guido, Robert Windham, and Stanley H. Schneider discuss the effect of new digital music distribution technologies and enterprises on the music marketplace, and the state of the copyright laws which regulate this market. Among the topics discussed are: what the RIAA is really doing by suing its customers who illegally download music; whether unit sales are still the best way to measure success in today’s music industry – and if not, what is; the legal implications of the new 360 deals being signed by artists like Madonna; how online music services like The Orchard and SNOCAP attempt to address the new realities of music sales in the digital age; some possible ways to ensure that all parties still get their fair share in a digital distribution model; whether digital rights management works; and what the future might hold for artists, publishers, record labels, and retailers in the new digital marketplace.
In this clip from the 2007 American Bar Association Forum on the Entertainment and Sports Industries, the panelists discuss whether there is a future for schemes of controlling how and where casual users can copy the digital music they buy. They analyze consumer behavior, the paths of least resistance, compare iTunes and Amazon, and share their views on where the money will come from for the record companies of the future.
In this clip from the 2007 American Bar Association Forum on the Entertainment and Sports Industries, the panelists discuss the merits of a new scheme in which universities pay a fixed rate to the major music companies to indemnify them against lawsuits for unauthorized music downloading, and whether such a scheme could ever succeed. They also discuss the early implementations of this program in China, and compare the Chinese market to the Canadian and US markets in terms of how a model of this kind might be implemented.
In this clip from the 2007 American Bar Association Forum on the Entertainment and Sports Industries, the panelists respond to an audience question about possible ways that entertainment companies can capture revenue lost by illegal downloading and filesharing – including taxing internet service providers or requiring them to monitor the activity of users who have accounts on their system.
In this clip from the 2007 American Bar Association Forum on the Entertainment and Sports Industries, the panelists discuss an audience question about what the future holds for music lawyers and young people who want to become music lawyers. They share their thoughts on how a lawyer in 2012 will make their money, what they should know in order to best represent their artist clients, and why understanding business and finance is now – and always will be – critical.
In this clip from the 2007 American Bar Association Forum on the Entertainment and Sports Industries, the panelists discuss what Radiohead’s lawyers would have done to make the pay-what-you-want experiment safe for their artist, how they would advise Radiohead if they were the lawyer in question, and what the long-term prospects for such a model are.
In this clip from the 2007 American Bar Association Forum on the Entertainment and Sports Industries, the panelists discuss whether per-unit album sales are a good measure of success in today’s music industry, and whether the answer is the same for master owners and artists. They also discuss whether the other revenue streams – songwriting, touring, downloads, ringtones, etc. – are more or less relevant than album sales as a metric of success. They also address the issue of music fans, and whether albums sales really reflect the full range of an artists’ popularity in the marketplace.
