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.
There is an inherent difference between receiving information from some service like radio or television, and going out and acquiring information at a music store, video shop or filesharing network. In the first instance, information is being ‘pushed’ at you by some programming network, and in the second instance, you are ‘pulling’ information to you. […]
A investigative report from the Electronic Frontier Foundation is available that describes the progress, or lack of progress that the RIAA is having in its "Rain of Fire" campaign of suing the file sharing public. Over 15,000 individuals have been attacked to date by this trade organization in the name of copyright infringement. The results […]
I have been traveling quite a bit this past year speaking about the Future of Music at industry conferences, tradeshows and other music related events. The topic of music formats always comes up and I encourage people to think expansively and try and paint a picture of a future where digital music integrates even more […]
After nearly 5 years of full blown operation, the legitimate digital music distribution business seems to have failed to deliver the volume of sales that many in the industry have hoped for. The much trumpeted Apple effort with iTunes and the iPod have yet to deliver on the promise of digital music as a path […]
New Formats In a recent interview with Doug Dixon, David Kusek argues that the industry needs to develop new formats for music distributed in physical formats. "Dual Disc is certainly a pointer in the right direction," he says. "You need to create something that has great value in order to continue to compete." For example, […]
Let’s face it. Even though Steve Jobs and Apple almost single handedly led the major labels into the digital age of music, the numbers just don’t make sense, for anyone but Apple. With the licenses for the music that Apple sells on iTunes coming up for renewal, it is time for the music industry to […]
As reported in Digital Music News, in our Book, in this Blog and in many, many other places – one has to really question whether the RIAA should continue it’s litigation strategy against P2P file-sharing? According to a recent report by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), the answer is decidedly no. The EFF, which has […]
MySpace, the fan driven music commmunity that has grown like wildfire in the past couple of years is about to start a record label. Let’s hope that they have a broader vision for this than what was reported in Digital Music News. "The move has been anticipated for some time, and could catapult several artists […]
The Supreme Court decision in MGM v. Grokster to send the case back to the District Court was a directive to accept the concept of “inducement” and to hold the defendant responsible for copyright infringement. As a defense, companies accused of “inducement” in the future will be required to show that their product is capable […]
The first half of 2005 was characterized by a large percentage increase in paid music download purchases. Specifically, paid download levels in the US increased by 170 percent when compared to the first half of 2004. But will that be enough to sustain an industry? Analysts at Fulcrum Global Partners LLC recently raised some concerns. […]
If you work for a major record label, this kind of thinking is going to get you wacked. Read how Sony/BMG’s Andy Lack and (former Grokster chief) Wayne Russo (and others) have been meeting for a couple of years to try and get a filtered P2P service up and running. Now BMG wants Lack to […]
"As broadband internet access becomes ubiquitous – and wireless – this model suddenly becomes feasible for music. At the moment, the only way we can have the stuff we crave is to buy or steal the product. But if we could access whatever we wanted, at any time, on payment of a levy, our need […]
File-sharing companies will have to move offshore or change their models to become similar to iTunes or the new Napster to avoid facing expensive legal battles with RIAA member companies. Read more here.
“Having been in the industry for over 30 years, I recognize this book as visionary and for a young or even experienced performer, like myself, an excellent look into the future of the music business as well as the technological possibilities head. I had predicted the crumble of the castle created by the industry majors […]
The recording industry has always been driven by new formats throughout its history. From wax cylinders to vinyl records, from cassette and 8-track tape to CD and more recently MP3 files. The music industry has always moved forward by introducing successful new formats and migrating people to a better product. The CD has been around […]
Watch this week’s Nightly Business Report on NPR and Public Television to see a special series on the Music Business, featuring Dave Kusek and Gerd Leonard. "On December 6th, 1877, Thomas Edison shouted a nursery rhyme into his new talking machine. The recording industry was born. Over more than a century, the technology evolved from […]
"There is an art to this sh*t. You know that. It’s the corporate bosses that forget that fact. But it’s not just music – we have this problem plaguing every aspect of our culture. Yes content needs work, yes marketing needs work, but it is the sales teams that need to be re-educated and motivated […]
A very clever application for linking your music library to upcoming concert appearances is available from Passalong Networks. OnTour provides a way for you to find local concerts featuring your favorite artists, to purchase music by these artists, and to buy tickets to these concerts. OnTour scans the digital music files already on your computer […]
Welcome to the "mtvU Woodie Awards" — the only show honoring the music voted best by the college audience. Winners will be announced at the "mtvU Woodie Awards" live ceremony and concert event November 2nd at the Roseland Ballroom in New York City which will premiere on mtvU and mtvU.com November 10th. "College students are […]
"The RIAA took a strong step this week by issuing a rash of cease-and-desist letters to top P2P firms. Those actions were hardly unexpected following MGM v. Grokster, but the aftermath for the P2P world could produce some surprises. But what happens to overall file-sharing volume and CD sales as a result? After all, the […]
Legal music-download services won’t be able to compete fully with their free- and illegal-download counterparts until copyright law changes, a Virginia congressman said Tuesday. "The illegal services offer all of the songs, and the legal services don’t, and therein lies the crux of the problem," Rep. Rick Boucher, a Virginia Democrat, said in a speech […]
We have begun to Podcast chapters from the Future of Music. Periodically we will post a new audio chapter from the Future of Music book along with audio commentary from the authors on the latest happenings in the digital music space. The Podcast is available as an iTunes subscription and as an RSS feed. To […]
THE FUTURE OF MUSIC is available at bookstores and music stores near you including Borders, Barnes & Noble, Books-A-Million and many others. The book is also available at online retailers such as: Amazon.com Amazon.com UK Barnes & Noble Booksamillion.com Berkleemusic.com
Shortly after the CD was first introduced to the marketplace in 1983, the music industry decided that the “jewel case” in which the CD was packaged was too hard to merchandise and too easy to steal. So, they invented the ‘long box’, a cardboard sleeve that housed the jewel case and disc. Two of the […]
Grammy Award winning producer Don Was had a few choice words for the music moguls in this past issue of Billboard. Was, who produced the newest Rolling Stones studio album "A Bigger Band", Bonnie Raitt’s "Nick of Time" and Bob Dylan’s "Under the Red Sky" echos many of the views put forth in the Future […]
‘Apple’ is now girding for a showdown with at least two of the four major record companies over the price of songs on the iTunes service. Signs of conflict over pricing issues are increasingly apparent. This month, Apple started its iTunes service in Japan without songs from the two major companies – Sony BMG Music […]
A scheme that would shift the cost of digital music from users to Internet service providers is gaining international support. "William “Terry” Fisher, a Harvard law professor and director of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is a key advocate of revising the process by which copyright holders get paid. His […]
The BBC has published an interview with Brad Duea, president of Napster. A few interesting sound bites: Online music will become an ”exploding multi-billion dollar space in the next two years.” ”A lot of time people think of ownership as this ultimate thing with music. Has owning cassettes in the past really benefited people?” ”I […]
PlayLouder is an MSP, or ‘Music Service Provider’ that provides unlimited music downloading as part of its broadband Internet Service. The files contain no DRM and even MP3s can be swapped among PlayLouder subscribers without restrictions. Fabulous. "Playlouder is offering the first legal alternative with a comparable experience to the "peer to peer" file sharing […]
This just in from last weeks National Association of Recording Merchandisers connference in San Diego. More finger pointing and denial from the music industry. "We have lost a generation." Wow. No wonder they are still suing each other over the original Napster debacle. Very disappointing that they can’t seem to find their way out of […]
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