8th Vienna Music Business Research Days: “Unchaining the Digital Music Business”
For those without patience: VMBRDays (12–14 of September 2017)
The VMBRDays took place last week and the project “Organized Creativity” (our project!) was an active part of it!
While the headline theme blockchain occupied the central position of this year’s VMBRDays, a very lively discussion around several topics significant for today’s music business developed.
On September 12th the closed workshop for young scholars took place. Interesting papers from around the world (South Africa, Barbados, Canada, Germany!) showed insights on music festivals, on blockchain technology, on carribean collecting societies and also on virtual worlds (www.fawm.org) of music collaboration (Organized Creativity’s doctoral researcher Benjamin Schiemer).
Similarly, the first conference day, traditionally open for recent research contributions, gathered a variety of perspectives towards the music business. Sessions focused on e.g. music entrepreneurship, artist management, music festivals or music preferences. Regularly these talks aimed for a critical view on business practices and for strategies musicians might apply in order to strengthen their position, particularly without a major label background.
Organized Creativity’s contribution “Transforming Regulatory Uncertainty in Musical Creativity? Legal Professionals’ Practices in the Music Business“ by Prof. Sigrid Quack and Konstantin Hondros seeks for a more differentiated picture of music attorneys’ practices, positioning them as multiple insiders between law, creativity and business.
Day two was reserved for invited talks concerned with new gatekeeping processes, mental health in music business, and of course the blockchain technology. Generally the talks showed a great interest in understanding the artists’ issues and concerns — music business research on micro-level, one could say. Not neglecting the developments in the big music industry, they tried to figure out how streaming already and blockchain eventually will affect the business. However, probably more often than usually “making a living with music” and alternative models to do so were addressed.
The Young Scholars Award eventually went to Benjamin Schiemer and Prof. Elke Schüssler for their paper “ Virtual Songwriting: Fostering Creative Processes through “Challenge” and “Collaboration” — Congratualitions!! The paper very interestingly unfolds the creative processes on a music plattform between incompleteness and closure.
All in all informative and skeptical days in Vienna looking at issues at the edge of the plate, with great food, perfect hosts, and lots of interesting discussions.
