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Highlights From The Digital Music Forum West – Chuck D’s Insights On The Music Biz And More

Digital Media Wire’s 9th Annual Digital Music Forum West (DMFW12) brought together 300+ of the most influential music and digital media leaders to the Roosevelt Hotel in Hollywood, Calif. October 3rd-4th. In attendance were senior leaders from Universal Music, Interscope, Live Nation, Clear Channel, NBC Universal, Google, Sony, Pandora, tumblr, Atom Factory, Slacker and many more discussing some of the hottest topics in digital music including monetization, distribution, EDM, and more.

During the conference, leaders shared their insights on and paved the way for the future of digital music industry. A highlight of the conference included popular speaker, Chuck D, being nominated for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame..

MEMORABLE QUOTES (more conversation around DMFW can be found on Twitter #DMFW12):

Chuck D. Founder, Public Enemy and Spit Digital was nominated for the Hall of Fame yesterday. Here are some hot quotes from Digital Music Forum West’s Fireside chat:
“What’s my top 10? That’s an analog question. What do you mean? I got 10k songs on my iPod!”
“Music is life itself…as nutritious as the water and the air we breathe”
“Songs are like oil wells… Keep writing them because you never know when one is going to spout!”
“If you can’t sell a $0.99 song to your family, then you need to revisit your revenue model…or your family.”

On the Future of the Music Business

“Creating service value is the future of the music industry, rather than exploitation.” Jeff Price, Founder of TuneCore and President/GM/Co-Founder of spinART Records
“Fans will be at the forefront – more influential than ever.” Nic Adler, Owner of the Roxy

On Funding:

The 3 key factors to startup success is the team, market / technology differentiation, and timing.” Doug Barry, Managing Director of Selby Ventures

On EDM:

“EDM has grown directly proportional to the Internet and social media.” Richard Bishop, Head of EDM at Red Light Management
“EDM is the new Rock ‘n Roll, it’s the biggest new music movement to come along in a long time.” John Boyle, Chief Growth Officer and Interim CFO, Insomniac

On Licensing:

“The most difficult thing is the Dewey Decimal System for music and tracking ownership.” Alexandra Patsavas, Owner / Music Supervisor, Chop Shop (The Twilight Saga, The O.C., Grey’s Anatomy and Gossip Girl)

On Monetization:

“Artists need to think like businesses. Give away free content to build fanbase, think lifetime value of customer.”
“We need to view live music experience as class of seats on airplane: reg cabin & those willing to pay 1st class.”
Scot Richardson, Founder/CEO, TicketMob

On Digital Distribution Models:

“People who upload their music to Google’s cloud spend 50% more. Also, 85% buy via mobile, 15% via Web.”
“For Google, being able to offer users a free locker service is more important than having a paid scan+match”
Zahava Levine, Director of Content Partnerships for Android, Google

For more info on the happenings at DMFW, go here.

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