Dave Kusek is a teacher, consultant, entrepreneur, digital music pioneer, author, speaker, mentor and Senior Partner at Digital Cowboys and New Artist Model. Dave was Vice President at Berklee College of Music in Boston for 14 years, where he created Berkleemusic.com, a hugely successful online enterprise for Berklee. Berkleemusic has since become the world’s largest music school reaching over 20,000 students in 170 countries.
Prior to that, Kusek helped develop the Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI), was co-inventor of the first electronic drums called “Synare”, and founded the first music software company in 1980, Passport Designs, which made it possible for musicians to record and produce their music at home with its award- winning software. His efforts, along with others, set the stage for the multi-billion dollar digital music market that exists today.
In 2005 he co-authored the best selling music business book “The Future of Music: Manifesto for the Digital Music Revolution” which predicted much of what has happened in digital music, including the iPhone, Apple’s SIRI, Spotify, streaming music and the decline of the recorded music industry.
Kusek was a faculty member at Berklee College of Music where he taught music business and a founding faculty member at Berklee Online where he taught The Future of Music and the Music Business.
Kusek has written for or been featured in the New York Times, Boston Globe, Billboard, Wired, Christian Science Monitor, Huffington Post, Associated Press, Boston Business Journal, MTV, CNBC, SF Chronicle, Forbes, NBC-TV, Nightly Business Report, NPR, Financial Times, and the Guardian. Kusek has been a speaker at Midem, Music Hack Day, Digital Music Forum, NAMM, AES, IEBA, MacWorld, Comdex, SXSW, ADISQ, Digital Hollywood and a featured guest on radio and television stations around the world.
If you look at how people are getting their music these days you see that the companies fighting for the people who pay for music are battling over an ever-smaller piece of the pie. NPD Market Research’s annual survey of Internet users, which is some 80 percent of the population these days, found that 10 […]
“There’s a set of data that shows that file sharing is actually good for artists. Not bad for artists. So maybe we shouldn’t be stopping it all the time.” –Douglas Merrill, EMI’s newly appointed president of digital As reported earlier this week, EMI has hired Douglas Merrill from Google to head up its overall digital […]
People should pay for their music the way they pay for gas or electricity. More people are consuming music today than ever before, yet very few of them are paying for it. The music recording industry blames file sharing for a downturn in CD sales and, with the publishing companies, has tried its best to […]
Sometimes it takes a while for ideas to spread and become perceived as good ones. The “Music Like Water” metaphor where for a low monthly fee, people would have access to all the music they want in a kind-of music utility is one such idea. In a variety of recent announcements, the once mighty major […]
Attention indie musicians and marketeers. Digital Music News reported on a recent industry panel at UCLA on the importance of using video, controversy and good content to build buzz and promote your band in the digital age. “Video is key,” said David Dorn, a senior vice president at Rhino Records, speaking to a group of […]
The state of the music business is obviously in transition, but new models are beginning to work at various levels that shine a very positive light on the future of the music industry. For example, some of the predictions made in the Future of Music Book and in other places are beginning to come to […]
Music2.0 is a hard-hitting, provocative and inspiring collection of essays and blog posts on the future of the music industry from my co-author Gerd Leonhard. The book continues and expands on the ideas and models presented in our book “The Future of Music”, which has become a must-read work within the music industry, worldwide, available […]
I heard this song again and had to post about it one more time. This is a blast from the past (2006) written and performed by MC Lars and inspired by the “Future of Music” book. It is interesting that the point of view represented in the song seems almost like a mainstream idea at […]
The full script of the speech everyone is talking about in Cannes, as made by U2 manager Paul McGuinness at Midem. McGuinness: “Good afternoon and thank you for giving me this opportunity. I don’t make many speeches and this is an important and imposing occasion for me. What I’m trying do here today is identify […]
Wired has some great articles on music in the current issue. Mike King already posted on David Byrne’s music models, ground that has been covered here and in the Future of Music book. But Byrne also did an interview with Thom Yorke from Radiohead about the In Rainbows experiment and his views on the music […]
A study by Nokia predicts that up to a quarter of the entertainment consumed by people in five years time will have been created, edited and shared within their peer circle rather than coming out of traditional media groups. This phenomenon, dubbed ‘Circular Entertainment’, has been identified by Nokia as a result of a global […]
Doug Morris on the state of the music industry. The problem, he says, is that “there’s sympathy for the consumer, and the record industry is the Shmoo.” Oh my God. Wired writer Seth Mnookin interviews and skewers Universal Music Group Chief Executive Doug Morris in the latest issue, which speaks for itself. You just got […]
Music lessons pay off in higher earnings TORONTO (Reuters Life!) – Those hours practicing piano scales or singing with a choral group weren’t for nothing because people with a background in music tend to have a higher education and earn more, according to a new survey. The poll by Harris Interactive, an independent research company, […]
It is one thing to talk about the impact of technology on the music business, and it is another thing to actually do something positive with it. The video clip below describes some of the work that we have been doing here at Berklee to address the opportunities brought about by technology on the business […]
Do you think Edgar Allan Poe could have made money if he sold The Raven separately from 30 other poems? This is a question posed in the U.K. Register article examining the “value gap”, or the amount that sound recording revenue has fallen since 2004. The report suggests that Apple (and others) should take the […]
The last few weeks have heralded some great news for the music industry. Radiohead’s experiment with user-based pricing, Madonna’s new deal and the formation of ArtistNation, a “360” model for music where the artist and the company partner on numerous levels including recordings, touring, merchandise, etc., and Apple’s repricing of DRM free tracks to $.99. […]
My co-author Gerd Leonhard has just published a new work entitled “The End of Control”. Here is an excerpt from the introduction. Enjoy. “This book is about the most important issue the media business is facing as it tries to move forward: control. In my work as speaker and advisor, the tough issue of control […]
Great to see a band of this stature make a bold move like this. Radiohead has released their latest album "In Rainbows" online and for free, if you want it. They will also accept whatever amount you wish to pay for the songs. Brilliant! Bertis Downs, manager of R.E.M., says "This is the sort of […]
CDs are now sliding precipitously, especially in the United States, and that has intensified media diversification efforts at major retailers. At the halfway point, year-over-year disc sales in the United States dropped 15.1 percent, according to Nielsen Soundscan. That gap has since broadened to 18.4 percent. For retailers like Trans World, Hastings, and Virgin Megastores, […]
Music2.0 and the Future of Music is yours – if you can resist the temptation of becoming just another music cartel. On June 29, 2007, while at London Calling, I was invited to speak to a small group of indie record label leaders at the annual AIM / WIN gathering in London. I took this […]
Watch a fascinating social commentary on the state of affairs in copyright and the internet.See the whole hour long movie here.
Good reporting from the NYT, as usual. Some of my favorite morsels are below, plus my comments. Link: Music Labels – EMI – New York Times. NYT: "Despite costly efforts to build buzz around new talent and thwart piracy, CD sales have plunged more than 20 percent this year, far outweighing any gains made by […]
You’re sitting at Starbucks and a friend who just swiped his credit card into the store’s music kiosk to download a brand-new mixtape onto his MP3 player tells you about a rare My Chemical Romance track he heard last night, which you proceed to download with a few clicks on your cell phone. Or maybe […]
Mark Cuban is a smart guy. He dashed off a couple of ideas here that make a lot of sense. I completely agree with him that the big copyright holders (labels and publishers) can act as "networks" and bring their music to market. It is interesting that none of them are thinking this way at […]
Here is an useful list for success in the immediate future: – Utilize MySpace and other websites to its full potential and don’t be afraid to “give your music away for free”. If one million people listen to your songs online, don’t see it as you just lost 1 million dollars in potential sales. […]
Little by little news emerges as different artists and companies try new approaches to music and the music business. Not all succeed, but some do, and they point the way towards the future of music. For example: Samsons, a Jakarta based band have sold over 2 million ringback tones in Indonesia and Malaysia.Ok Go made […]
ArtistsHouseMusic is a free, comprehensive, and interactive online community for musicians and music business enthusiasts. ArtistsHouse provides expert advice from some of the most successful music entrepreneurs and educators in the country. Songwriting basics, how to book and promote gigs, the ins and outs of copyrighting and contracts, how to audition successfully, and how to […]
The major record labels made two massive errors that will ultimately lead to their demise. The first error was releasing their entire catalog in unprotected perfect digital format, i.e. the CD. As many have said, the current debate over DRM (digital rights management) is ludicrous as they labels have already released all of their music […]
Given the global nature of the internet, how long will it be before copyright owners who have enjoyed certain territorial rights established in the industrial age, are forced to come to terms with the reality of a global marketplace? Recent events in the E.U. make it apparent that the rules that have long governed the […]
If it happens and they are able to negotiate reasonable licenses for all involved, then perhaps there may be a future for recorded music as a source of income. I am doubtful, but very interested in what happens. Limewire, the P2P program that is installed on 18.71% of all computers worldwide (according to a Digital […]
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