2 Music Week 28.11.14 NEWS EDITORIAL


Could bitesize strategy suit the album’s future?


ONE OF THE ENTERTAINMENT INDUSTRY stories of the decade is happening at an independent video games company from San Rafael, California. Telltale Games has become the most credible big-league interactive entertainment developer in the world. And if music companies properly examine its success, it might change everything this business thinks about the ‘album’. Seven years ago, Telltale began experimenting with the release


pattern of its titles. CSI: 3 Dimensions of Murder was the first to arrive in five separate fragments. The reasoning behind breaking down a narrative video game - traditionally a 20 hour-plus pursuit - into bitesize chunks was straightforward: TV ‘marathons’ last four hours. Video game ‘marathons’ last four days. It is rude, even arrogant, to expect Millennials to give you a full day’s worth of their time. They are inevitably intimidated when you try to do so. Ever since, Telltale’s USP has become the delivery of bi-weekly snapshots of fun. These chapters gradually add up to a full rewarding story - each part teased by a cliffhanger from its predecessor. Slowly but surely, Telltale’s ambitions have raised, its financing has grown, its operation has become more serious. By the time it picked up The Walking Dead licence in 2012,


Telltale had mastered the rhythm of episodic storytelling. It was ready to blow the competition away.


“Telltale Games is drip-feeding excitement to its consumers over a matter of months, rather than taking one big release day marketing punt”


The Walking Dead and its 2013 second ‘series’ have


won pretty much every ‘Game Of The Year’ gong going. In the process, Telltale has revived a long unfancied genre (‘point’n’click’ - with its demands of patience and intellectual stamina), using ingredients TV productions have long exploited. Most pointedly, Telltale’s release strategy has enabled it to


drip-feed excitement to the consumer over a matter of months, rather than taking one massive release day punt. The happy ending: more than 30 million £3.99 episodes of The Walking Dead have now been sold. In addition to repackaged ‘full series’ sales, the title has grossed more than $150 million. As Telltale Games has perfected this piecemeal model, the


biggest video games companies have continued to plough hundreds of millions into one-off blockbuster titles, and one-off blockbuster marketing campaigns. There have been casualties: in late 2012, the fourth biggest rights-holder in the world, THQ, fell off the New York Stock Exchange and went bankrupt. The monster games that turn heavy profits today are very limited in number: Call Of Duty, FIFA, Grand Theft Auto, Batman. Meanwhile, Telltale continues to thrive. The team behind the


biggest TV show of recent years, Game Of Thrones, has just granted Telltale - rather than ‘major label’ rivals, Activision or Electronic Arts - the licence for its hugely anticipated video game. The lesson for music? Perhaps the future of the album is


about not loftily expecting consumers to have the time for your masterpiece in one mouthful. Perhaps it’s bitesize. Regularity of release is an artform. But get it right, consistently


and cleverly earn your audience’s attention in short bursts, and perhaps small really can be beautiful.


Tim Ingham, Editor Do you have views on this column? Feel free to comment by emailing tingham@nbmedia.com


Price reveals Audiam ambitions ARTISTS LOSING OUT ON ‘$250M IN UNPAID ROYALTIES’


DIGITAL ■ BY RHIAN JONES


J


eff Price is on a mission to help publishers and artists stop losing out on royalties


due to “inadequate” infrastructure used by technology companies. Digital services such as


Spotify, YouTube and Rdio aren’t paying artists for the use of their music because of “bad data” that means payments are not being attributed to rights-holders, says Price. It’s a problem he’s aiming to fix through his newly launched International Association of Music Publishers (IAMP). “Right now, technology


companies are using music to create multi-billion dollar exits for themselves through IPOs or the sale of hardware and software or gaining market share. But they have not built the infrastructure possible to pay the rights holders and that just really pisses me off,” he explains. Price estimates that there’s


“a quarter of a billion dollars” in worldwide revenue that’s either being “misappropriated or unpaid”. Via IAMP and his company Audiam, Price is offering a solution. Audiam uses publisher’s metadata to find out who controls the songs and in which territories, International Standard Recording Codes (ISRC) and sound recordings of compositions “that [publishers] don’t even know exist” to piece together the correct data. Using URLs of songs on streaming services’ databases, Price then presents the companies with lists


www.musicweek.com


“Technology companies are using music to create multi-billion dollar exits for themselves through IPOs, the sale of hardware and software or gaining market share. But they have not built the infrastructure possible to pay the rights-holders” JEFF PRICE, AUDIAM


of songs that should be earning cash. “By scrubbing their data and getting it into the database properly, that unleashes the money you’ve earned,” he adds. Price claims that he has


recovered $55,000 in interactive streaming mechanical royalties dating back to 2007 for 25 of its publisher clients, from five streaming services. Companies signed up to IAMP include Creeping Death (Metallica), Goo Eyed Music Publishing (Jason Mraz) Wild Gator Music (Mike Campbell, co-writer Tom Petty) and Four Seasons Partnership (Franki Valli & The Four Seasons). “I’m a technology solution to a horrible problem.


Be it publisher, a publishing administrator, PRS, MCPS, SACEM or STIM – whoever hires me will make more money than they’re making now.” “I want Audiam to be a simple


turnkey solution. If you want to be paid for the digital use of your music, you can come press a button and there’s a pipeline that uses technology and efficiency to get it done and gets artists paid more quickly with more accuracy and transparency.” Launched mid-2013,


Audiam has secured $2 million in investment. Prior to that, Price helped launch Tunecore alongside business partner Peter Wells. The duo left the company in 2012.


Essential signs with Hartnoll and indie labels The first single and album


Essential Music & Marketing has signed a deal with Orbital’s Paul Hartnoll for his new project, 8:58, alongside new partnerships with UK independent labels Full Time Hobby and Peacefrog Records. The Hartnoll deal, which


covers the world excluding North America, sees Essential working directly with Hartnoll’s management company to coordinate the campaign, providing sales, distribution and retail marketing across all represented territories. 8:58 will be released in early 2015.


teaser features an introduction by Peaky Blinders star Cillian Murphy. Other collaborations on the album include Robert Smith of The Cure, singer- songwriter Ed Harcourt, folk singer Lisa Knapp, and Northumbrian folk clan The Unthanks on a cover of The Cure’s A Forest. The Full Time Hobby deal


covers the UK and Ireland, with Essential providing physical and digital distribution and marketing services to Full Time Hobby and sister label Hassle Records.


The Peacefrog Records deal encompasses UK and Ireland digital/physical distribution, as well as digital marketing and direct-to-consumer support. Mike Chadwick, MD of


Essential Music & Marketing said: “To say we’re thrilled is an understatement. We feel very privileged to be working with an artist such as Paul Hartnoll, and Full Time Hobby and Peacefrog – both incredibly well respected independent labels with exciting rosters. We’re looking forward to starting next year with some great releases as a result.”


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