RECORDING ARTISTS / WRITERS -- WHOSE SIDE ARE YOU ON

Pirate Bay Promotion 'Promo Bay' Attracts 5000+ Artists, Sticks It To RIAA and MPAA

Ok, what does the music community want. It's quite evident that not everyone wants the same thing. While there is only a small percentage that supports piracy, there is still that element out there. While we do not support this group, we still have to acknowledge their presence. Our responsibility at AMP is for the the majority of the music creative community. We are now and have always lobbied for personal creative property rights.

It's very apparent this small community is driven by ego and greed and lack of respect for their peers. Learn who they are and let them know your stance. We all owe that to our peers. Help stamp out piracy. Come join us at AMP as we fight for the Arts!

Listen to the gobbledegook below and decide 

While movie studios and record labels would have you think that torrents are a threat to the movie and music industries, thousands of independent artists heartily disagree. That's why more than 5,000 musicians, actors, writers, filmmakers and artists have signed up to be promoted by The Pirate Bay, the world's largest torrent site, based out of Sweden.

• Earlier this year, shortly after the Internet thought it had claimed victory over censorship bills like SOPA and PIPA, theFBI began shutting down file-sharing sites, including one of the world's biggest in MegaUpload. To avoid being shut down, The Pirate Bay was forced to switch from the ".org" domain to the Swedish domain ".se," since U.S. law enforcement agencies can seize U.S.-owned domain names, but the company also wanted to combat a negative image.In turn, The Pirate Bay introduced anew promotion platform for artists called "The Promo Bay," which let independent artists reach tens of millions of people by offering favorable advertising spots on the The Pirate Bay's home page.

The response to The Pirate Bay's promotion platform has been overwhelming: the company has already received more than 5,000 applications from artists; 90 percent of all submissions have apparently come from musicians, and 95 percent of those musicians are male.

"Thus far we've done 14 regular campaigns in three countries each and eight worldwide promotions," said "Winston" from The Pirate Bay, in aninterview with TorrentFreak. "When we started the project the plan was to do a few worldwide promotions a year, but the submissions have been too good. So now we're gonna do the worldwide promos every weekend and some regulars every now and then."

So far, The Pirate Bay's promos have been very successful for the featured artists. George Barnett, who was one of the first featured artists on The Promo Bay, said the boost from The Pirate Bay helped him add 4,000 new Facebook fans and 85,000 new views on his video. Filmmaker Tomas Vergara got a healthy boost from The Promo Bay, with his short film "The Chase" earning more than 250,000 views in three days.

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SUNDAY MORNING CHRISTIAN RECORDING ARTIST TESTIMONIES

Jontez - Musician & Actor (Photo credit:  Shari Geffen) The music of multi-talented and versatile performer, Jontez, is a bold blend of pop, R&B, hop-hop and Latin rhythms.  A rising star in contemporary Christian music, he is no stranger to success.  Jontez is a former member of the multi-platinum group God’s Property, a high octane Gospel youth choir. He’s opened for artists like Amy Grant, Jaci Velasquez, Point of Grace and Erykah Badu. Voted one of the Top 10 New Artists to Watch in 2005 by ChristianityToday.com, three of his songs will be included on the new, nationally syndicated TV show, Rosarito Weekend, which will air in the fall of 2006.   His solo debut, “And So It Is” met with critical acclaim when it was released in late 2005. Jontez will launch his acting career in the upcoming feature film “Woman to Woman,” which will be written and produced by Obba Babbatunde and directed by Emmy Award winning actor and director, Bill Duke.  You can learn more about these projects and more at www.jontez.net. Three things happened in my life that have convinced me that there is a God, that He is real and that I have a personal relationship with Him.  I don’t need a preacher to convince me... I lived it out. My grandfather was my pastor for my whole childhood.  We had a very large extended family, and everybody attended church together.  There was a whole army of us! At a very young age I developed a strong and intimate relationship with Jesus Christ.  I lived in a small town about an hour south of Dallas.  When you grow up in a smaller community, youth group is your social life. I was involved in everything – I was the youth president, I organized youth camps and implemented a lot of different programs at our church.  I was the responsible one, the one everybody looked up to.  I was the one who was the good example to the other students.  But by the time I got into my late teens I was tired of it and no longer wanted anything to do with leadership.  Frankly, I was tired of being a role model.  It was a lot of pressure and I didn’t want the responsibility. In other words, I went into a mode of rebellion.  I rebelled against God and what I knew He had called me to do.  My mom said, “You can run, but you can’t hide.  If God has called you to it, then you’d just better accept it.” My mother, always the faithful prayer warrior, got down on her knees and prayed that God would do His work in me again.  And it happened, God did  work in my life - but not until he’d brought me through some trials and taught me that He is ultimately in charge. In the early 2001, my 18 year old sister found a lump on her shoulder.  I’ll never forget the day we sat in the doctor’s office and found out that my beautiful little sister had lymphoma, a particularly deadly form of cancer.  They had found a fist-sized tumor in her chest that had developed around her liver and grown all the way up to her shoulder. She’d had it for at least two years before they found it and by then it was all over her body.  Her disease was terminal – she didn’t have long to live. It was hard watching her go through chemo and squirm in her bed because the pain was so bad.  And it was hard watching her go from being a vibrant, beautiful young woman to basically nothing. Chemo treatments cause you to lose all of your white blood cells and it’s important that patients avoid being exposed to any bacteria or they could get really sick.  Now, I’m the kind of person who gets busy when tragedy hits.  So, when my sister was undergoing treatment, I went to my mom’s house and cleaned it from top to bottom, bleaching and disinfecting the whole entire house. When I got back to my apartment that night, the seriousness of the situation finally hit me.  I realized why I was doing everything that I was doing – that my sister was really dying.  I remember crying so heavily that I wasn’t even able to physically hold myself up.  I slid down the wall in my hallway until my face hit the floor. At that particular moment, I learned one of the biggest lessons of my life. At that moment, I told God, “If you decide to take my sister away from me, then so be it.  I will love you the same.  Whatever you decide to do God, I’m 100% behind you.”  My love for God wasn’t predicated by what He did or did not do for me.  It was based on my absolute love for Him.  It was the hardest thing to be able to say that, but I meant it.  Of course I prayed for my sister to be healed, but from that point on, I accepted His will – whatever it was. In September it was time for the next phase of her treatment - a bone marrow transplant.  The doctors tested me and all three of my brothers, but none of us was a match.  A donor was finally found and my sister was prepped and ready to go ahead with the procedure.  When all of the preliminary tests and examinations had been done, the doctor dropped a bombshell... My mom called me at work that day with the news. The doctors could find no trace of cancer in her body. She wasn’t in remission, it was like she’d never had cancer at all!  The disease was completely gone – the only evidence they found was some scar tissue where the tumor had been. I didn’t know how to react.  I wasn’t used to getting good news, every day she’d gone farther and farther downhill.  It had been cloudy for 9 months, and then all of a sudden the sun came out. I was amazed – I mean I had seen the x-rays and she definitely had cancer.  She’d gone through chemotherapy for God’s sakes! And then miraculously ... it was gone! I know God is real. One of my dreams had always been to visit New York City.  I was finally able to take a trip with a couple of friends of mine in September of 2001, shortly after my sister was healed.  My coworker’s boyfriend went to New York pretty frequently, so I asked him where to get the best view of the city.  He suggested I go to the north tower of the World Trade Center to a famous restaurant called Windows on the World.  I wrote his recommendation down on a sticky note and put it on my computer. The plan was to go with my friends on September 9th and 10th and then drop them off at La Guardia airport on the 11th for their 7:45 a.m. flight home.  From there, I was going to go straight to the World Trade Center and check out Windows on the World.  But at the last minute, their schedule changed and my friends decided to take a later flight. I woke up to the phone ringing that morning. It was my mom, anxious to see if I was okay.  I was irritated, “Mom, I’m asleep, why are you waking me up?”  Then she told me to turn on the television.  When I switched it on, I couldn’t believe the horrifying scene at the twin towers... right down the street from the hotel we were staying at.  If my friends had stuck to their original schedule and taken that 7:45 a.m. flight, I would have been on the top floor when American Airlines Flight 11 flew into the North Tower at 8:46 a.m. I remember walking in NYC on September 11th.  Normally, Manhattan is loud with horns honking and all this activity going on.  That particular day, however, I remember walking down the street with thousands of other people, but everybody was quiet.  It was like a quiet panic – everybody was frantically trying to get off Manhattan, but too stunned to speak. It was surreal - almost an out of body experience.  The sky was full of smoke and ashes and the sirens were wailing.  And I could literally smell flesh in the air.  I’ll never forget it as long as I live. The freakish thing was going back to my office a few days later and seeing that yellow note still on my computer “Windows on the World, World Trade Center.”  I thank God that He kept me from being harmed that horrible day and pray for those whose lives were changed forever. There was a point after all of this happened – my sister’s healing and the 911 tragedy – that I got really sick.  I was terribly weak and just sick all over, I don’t know how many times I fainted.  I went to the doctor, but he couldn’t make a diagnosis, he said I was perfectly fine. But even though he said there was nothing physically wrong with me, I knew in my spirit that I had deliberately rebelled against God.  That’s what was causing my symptoms. Have you ever heard someone say something like, “You know, Grandpa just knew he was going to die?”  Well, that’s exactly  how I felt – like I knew I was going to die.  I could feel this oppression; this horrible spiritual battle going on that I had no control over.  It was almost like God had removed himself from me and said, “You can deal with this on your own.”  I never told a single soul what was going on with me, not my pastor or anyone in my family.  I kept it all to myself. One evening I went out to dinner with my record label.  I sat next to one of the producers, and his wife sat across the table from me.  They kept asking me if I was okay, I know I looked just terrible.  They suggested that I go home and relax.  Instead, I went to church.  I was on the worship team, so I was up on stage with the pastor when he said a collective prayer for those in the congregation who were sick. When he got done praying, I grabbed him by his suit lapels, pulled him up to my face and said, “Pray for me right now.”  That’s all I said.  You know what he prayed?  “I rebuke the spirit of death that hovers over you.  I speak the life into you right now!” When he said that, I busted out in tears ... how had he known?  And then I felt it lift – I felt the darkness and the oppression lift right off of me.  I fell to my knees right there in front of everyone and thanked God for what He had done. A lot of people don’t understand the spiritual side of life and won’t accept it.  To many, it’s just too scary and unexplainable. But it is a very spiritual world we are dealing with.  And warfare is real and is going on all around us.  I grown to realize that when you have God’s calling in your life, the enemy is definitely going to attack you.  To Satan, the worst thing that could happen is that you reach your destiny, because that would mean that God has had the victory. Throughout my whole life, I’ve known that the enemy has come at me, to try and stop what God had started.  That’s the devil’s job, to mess up God’s plans.  As believers, it’s up to us to hold our heads high and walk through the battle zone.  Just because we’re Christians doesn’t mean we won’t go through anything – it’s actually just the opposite.  God allows us to go through things so that we can know just who God really is in our lives. Before all of these bad things happened to me in 2001, I never would have been able to say that I would love God no matter.  I couldn’t say that until I’d been through the test.  Now I really know what that means, and I’m able to put myself completely aside and allow God to have His way in my life. These events helped me put my life back into perspective and to really understand that it’s not all about me.  It’s about God performing His will in my life.  And when I submit myself to Him, I know I’ll be a lot happier and live a much more successful life.  I’m just a fragile man, and I know I can’t do anything without God in my life.  It might have taken three huge, life-changing experiences, but yeah, God brought me back around.  And because of that, I know He’s real.

HOW TO CREATE A STREET TEAM

       How to Create and Manage a Street Team

Result:

A team of dedicated fans that help you get your music heard in more places and win more fans worldwide.

Overview

A street team is a dedicated fan base that wants to help you succeed. They can help publicize your shows, spread news about your album, and more. All you need are a few tools to get them started.

Related Categories: Mailing Lists

Estimated Preparation time: 1 week

Estimated Result Time: 2 months

Estimated Cost: Low

What You Need to Do This:

• A mailing list
• A Yahoo Group, Google Group, Ning, or ReverbNation account

Directions

1. Choose your collaboration tool.

You will need a collaborative communication tool to organize and manage your street team. Tools such as Yahoo Group, Google Group, or Ning are free but lack tracking and measuring capabilities unique to managing Street Teams (so they may require additional work to manage). Other options are services that specialize in street team and fan management such asReverbNation.

2. Organize the team.

Reach out to your fan mailing list and ask who wants to be part of your street team. You may want to give them something in return for joining.

3. Give the team a mission.

Establish a mission and define a time frame in which to acheive it. Missions can be anything from spreading your music, enlisting new fans, promoting a show, etc. Tools like ReverbNation will help you set deadlines and define goals for your team automatically.

4. Provide the team with the tools to carry out the mission.

Give them what they need to complete the mission. If you want them to poster the neighborhood, give them posters. If you want them to sign up fans on your mailing list, send them a link to the signup page at your website. Tools such as Reverbnation provide additional widgets for online campaigns (i.e. they provide the music players for your street team to post at their sites or other social networks).

5. Give the team a reward.

Be creative with your awards. Some ideas include giving them an autographed CD, sending them merchandise, or putting their names in the liner notes of your next album.

6. Measure everyone's progress.

You will need to define a way to figure out who accomplished the mission and deserves a reward. Tools like Reverbantion, handle this by creating unique widgets that track an individual's progress.

7. Reward those that accomplished the mission.

This is only one tool you need to kick off your music career: a must. At AMP OUR GOAL IS TO GUIDE AND MENTOR YOU ALONG THE WAY.  Use this valuable tool and you will see results. Always rule # 1: Have your product and branding in place before you get started. I will be writing a blog soon on how to get started on your branding and some of the tools you will need. Please comment and let us know what you need.

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AM I READY FOR A MANAGER?

WHEN SHOULD I GET A MANAGER?

How do I find a music manager?  How do I find a booking agent?  I just need to find someone to get my music to the next level.  I’ve heard these questions and statements before many times. Usually this is the proverbial cart before the horse adage.

Let’s start at the very beginning – do you have anything to manage?

I know – sounds like a stupid question, but is it?  I’m not asking you if you have lots of work that you could use help with, nor am I making light of the pure volume of work that is the creation of both recorded and live music.  What I am asking you is do you have something ready to bring to market that needs managing or are you still building out your product?

There is no shame (I’ll repeat it again) NO SHAME in being in the developmental phases of your career.  We live in an instant gratification kind of world, which is why when I write articles like this I know statistically that a majority of people won’t have made it this far because they were looking for a “get famous now” button.  Take your time and develop your product – this will help you rise above the MILLIONS of other people who went out to Pro Audio Atlanta, purchased their first instrument and recording gear, and had the first song they ever wrote up on MySpace the next day hoping for some kind of miracle which will never come.

Back to management – let’s talk about what you should have together before even considering approaching someone to invest in your career.  *** Notice I said invest because whether or not they spend a dime on you, management is an enormous expenditure of someone’s time***

Before approaching anyone to manage you - have most of these together:

1. No apology recordings of your music
2. Professional looking photos of you or your group
3. A basic – findable website (custom URL) you can update yourself
4. A Mailing list and a place where people can sign up on said list
5. A social network presence (twitter, facebook, myspace, youtube)
6. Live performance footage (preferably in front of a crowd)
7. A well written bio highlighting your accomplishments

These are the building blocks and the marketing materials you will use over and over and over again.  There are no words, no email sales pitch and probably not even naked photos of an executive in compromising positions that will get you taken more seriously than having the items above in place.  Many of these items can get pricey so do your homework and shop around, if you feel that any of these items are best done by work for hire.  Having these materials will get you more gigs, will get you taken more seriously by your peers and potential fans and ultimately (if you have a product people want) will help you build a business in music.

No matter what you do in this world you must know your craft and the business. If you want to rise to the top, you must work harder, and be prepared with a degree of passion that excites and ignites everyone around you. You must be connected to the community of like minded professionals. We all need help, a good consultant is invaluable. We offer that to you at AMP. If not AMP, FIND THE RIGHT PEOPLE AND HOLD ON TO THEM DEARLY!

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Major record labels versus Independent

Record Label Share

Old Man, take a look at my life.

Let's digress for a moment.  Looking back at 2004, the global value of the record industry was 16.5 billion dollars.  Today it is 6.4 billion.   Were the labels on airplane mode, was their thinking on mute?  How did this happen?  I bet they know now what they wish they had seen then.  It's got to hurt.  The amazing thing is they still believe their own junk; or do they?  It's hard to tell.  They seem to continue to ride their dinosaurs. Oh well!

We at AMP believe their loss is our gain.  Who is "our"?  All of us independents! We are going to Rally together and become a major label, the likes of which no one has ever seen.  As we pool our network of information together, and unite to bring our music to the world, the dinosaur will become nothing more than a fossil and a distant memory.  Come join us at AMP, as we create this new business model.

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Comparison of Record Label Share within the Market between 2006 and 2008
	2006	2008
Universal	31.5	37.1
Sony	21.2	20.1
EMI	17.9	13.7
Warner	11.9	11.4
Ministry of Sound	2.2	3.6
Demon	1.2	1.7
Domino	1	0.4

Record Label Comparison

Posted January 9, 2010
Filed under: Record Labels |  Leave a Comment

Worldwide there are two different types of record labels majors and independents. There are only four majors: Universal, Sony, EMI and Warner Music, the majors operate worldwide in all/most territories. Independents operate in all different ways depending on their size, money (investible) and repertoire. Below is a detailed S.W.O.T analysis to show the difference between the to types of labels.

	Strength	Weakness	Opportunities	Threats
Major	Own distribution and publishing companies. Access to international distribution. Can influence radio play lists and provide a diverse range of genres. Unaccountable amount of money to back and offer artists. Access high level contacts business and musical. Able to add value to products	Unable to adapt as quickly as an interdependent. Declining sales result in low confidence and belief in business models. Communication issues throughout company sections. Stuck in old business models not looking to develop new ones.	Have the ability to take control of the online distribution industry. Can develop partnerships with big companies. If they can perfect the 360 deals offered in a very good position to create previous and lucrative revenue streams.	Changes in the way music is delivered and consumed. Business models not currently working to full satisfaction. Only happy to use tried and test formulas.
Independent	Can adapt to changes in the industry quickly developing new business models to work well in the present industry. Flexible in decision making.	Limited power to sign acts. Lack of resources. Need added value to make radio play lists. Less money to invest in acts and marketing. Distributed by the majors. Most indies cater for a certain genre or market.	Bands more inclined to sign to Indies as they allow artists to develop. Increase demand for music on behalf of the consumer.	A major often buys independents that dominate a market. The economic down turn and the state of the music industry is having an effect upon the birth of new and existing labels.