David Bryne’s recent piece in Wired Magazine had some great quotes and points that highlight the themes and reasons for V11.

The music business today: “At some point it became a business of selling CDs in plastic cases, and that business will soon be over. But that’s not bad for music, and its certainly not bad news for musicians. Indeed, with all the ways to reach an audience, there have never been more opportunities for artists.”

The 6 Business Models: “There is no one single way of doing business these days. There are, in fact, six viable models by my count. That variety is good for artists; it gives them more ways to get paid and make a living. And it’s good for audiences, too, who will have more and more interesting music to listen to.”

His six models range from (1) selling overall equity, (2) standard label distribution deal where musician gives up copyrights, (3) licensing, (4) profit-sharing, (5) out-sourcing manufacturing and distribution and (6) self-distribution.Self-distribution is where savvy digital age artists come into play. This model assumes the artists can self-write, self-produce, self-distribute,and self-market. On a large scale, this is what Radiohead recently did. This part of the model assumes artists can write, produce (ProTools) and distribute (web) their own music. Self-marketing can then be aided by many of the services and possibilities highlighted and discussed on this website, and from the services that will continue to be created.

According to Bryne, by using the 6th Model, “Artists doing it for themselves can actually make more money than the massive pop star, even though the sales numbers may seem minuscule by comparison.”