MUMBAI: The current industry-wide stalemate between music content providers who continue to control Digital Rights Management (DRM) and those who are calling for an all out open file sharing universe on the other, has done little in terms of moving the industry forward for the artists and fans caught in the middle.
Music used to be about the interaction and connection between artists and fans, however, for nearly a decade both have been forced to buy tickets to an indefinitely postponed concert due to copyright issues.
Dirtbag Music, represented by Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, the Silicon Valley law firm behind Google, YouTube and Apple, has launched a first-to-market social music network that provides the music industry with a radical new platform to aide musicians and fans. Dirtbag Music provides free world wide video and voice calls for every user, a complete e-commerce engine to monetize online digital content and advance mobile applications that ensure artists and fans can stay connected.
The site’s peer-to-peer world-wide Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) functionality utilizes an advanced multimedia instant messenger system, termed “Blab Box” creating real-time social interaction between users.
“Dirtbag Music provides everyone the ability to interact in real-time,” states Dirtbag CEO John Alves. “Bands and fans can now interact in real time through video sessions, personalized lessons, chats, concerts, interviews, rehearsals, tour bus updates and other reality based campaigns.” Having the ability to directly interact with your favorite artists or by attending a backstage meet and greet, in real-time, becomes a revolutionary new way of personalizing a user’s musical experience.
When fully implemented in late Spring, the site also provides individualized e-commerce platforms, like eBay, which allow each member to choose which products or features they want to monetize. For example, a band can choose to sell music tracks, merchandise, video chats, lessons, ringtones or whatever else the bands can invent and market.
“Real-time interaction is not something that can be duplicated or shared and therefore does not fall victim to the same DRM issues associated with downloading and sharing music tracks,” explains Dirtbag senior vice president of business development Mark Evans. ”
Dirtbag Music’s new platform is not lacking in industry support either. With advisory board members as diverse as VH1 host and founding guitarist for Anthrax, Scott Ian, Hip-Hop artist DJ Skribble and Guns N’ Roses guitarist Ron Thal, Dirtbag Music is not just a social network site catering to one genre of music.
“Dirtbag Music is committed to providing an advanced form of interaction and monetization for all artists and for all genres of music,” cites COO Doug Canning.
With support from music partners DW Drums, Basson Sound, ESP guitars, Schecter guitars, Dunlop, Boogie Street Guitars and Kahler music, the new start-up has even opened its platform to music manufacturers who will be demonstrating the company’s new technology during the National Association of Music Merchants’ (NAMM) annual convention starting 17 January in Anaheim, California.
