DJ Cro supporting Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings in Birmingham

One of the problems of recorded music is the issue of price. With mp3s being an essentially infinite and perfectly replicable resource, the market price is a theoretical (and quite often practical) zero. But one strategy to set a price has been to turn this on its head, and introduce scarcity through physical collectibility.

Radiohead did this, you’ll remember, by letting the market decide what the price of the mp3s should be, but setting a premium for the physical box set. This was, I remarked at the time, a pretty good understanding of the difference between the digital and the physical media.

A friend of mine demonstrated this principle pretty well recently, by working with something that was pretty much completely unavailable, but highly sought after - and making it a little bit available in a short run at a premium price and with a great bit of packaging and additional merchandise.

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I just posted the seed of an idea in Music Think Tank, and I’d be really interested to hear what you think about it. Head on over and have a read.

Essentially, the idea is that the Record Industry should offer a cash prize to the most innovative and successful new online music business startup. Moreover, tech entrepreneurs who enter to compete for that prize should be exempt from royalties for two years while they grow their business and prove their concept.

Other than that - no real rules. I think it would probably be a mistake to impose upon the technologists criteria such as ‘it should be about streaming’ or ‘retail models only’. The idea is to cast the net wide in order to generate new ideas that will grow the industry. But I’d love to hear your thoughts on it.

It’s a hypothetical, but I do like the idea. I’ve called it The Record Industry Innovation Prize. I’d love for you to jump in with your comments.

This one’s easy. No, no, no, no, no (yes, occasionally) and no.

By and large, venues, festival organisers and promoters who insist that musicians bring a certain number of ticket-buying punters to their gigs should pretty much have their licences revoked in my book.

The argument goes something like this: playing at our venue / performing as part of our festival / taking part in our Battle of the Bands competition will be good for your profile - and you may even get a record deal out of it. Or something.

Promoters know it’s shonky, which is why they often go to some lengths to make it something of a secret that this even goes on. One recent local example is the rather shambolic PR disaster that is the Surface Unsigned festival.

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My free e-book, The 20 Things You Must Know About Music Online is finally available in Chinese.

It was translated months ago. I was the bottleneck. I was quite nervous about formatting and laying it out, and so I put it off for ages. For which I apologise.

It’s a bit of an epic. 120 pages. The English version comes in at 96 pages. I had professional layout assistance with the original. I’ve had a go at the new version myself in true DIY style. My guess is that I’ve introduced some errors along the way, not reading Chinese and all…

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