An interview with Kerchoonz co-founder and Scotland-based, singer-
songwriter Indiana Gregg (part 1 of 2)
Imagine working for years developing your music career. You've
released several albums, signed with an indie label, inked licensing
deals, and received love from the press and radio, all while you've
toured the country. An indie artist's dream! That is until you find
out that your latest release has been illegally downloaded over
250,000 times off of major pirate sites like The Pirate Bay.
This is the nightmare Glasgow, Scotland-based, singer-songwriter
Indiana Gregg faced about 18 months ago when she released her album
"Woman at Work." The level of piracy was actually threatening the
financial viability of her independent label Gr8Pop. So Gregg decided
to take matters in her own hands and fight back. She contacted the UK-
based Mechanical Copyright Protection Society (MCPS) and British
Phonographic Industry (BPI), as well as contacting the various
websites linking to the illegal copies of her album. While nearly all
the sites complied with the link removal request, file-sharing website
The Pirate Bay responded with a "cyber-bullying" campaign, publicly
releasing Indiana's email that resulted in a malicious deluge from the
site's sup****ters.
Instead of getting mad, Indiana - with her manager and husband Ian
Morrow - decided to get even on behalf of all artists. To accomplish
this, she has set out to create a site that would pay artists for
every stream of their music; and even pay when the artist would want
to offer their music for free download. Slated for beta launch later
this month, Kerchoonz.com has already attracted the attention of media
outlets like the BBC and Digital Media Wire, as well pirate forums
such as TorrentFreak and suprbay.org.
MusicDish e-Journal sat down with Indiana to find out more about
Kerchoonz and how it might just tilt the music industry balance in
favor of musicians.
[Eric de Fontenay] Where did the idea behind Kerchoonz originate?
[Indiana Gregg] I've always believed that art and music should be free
and accessible to the people who can perhaps not afford it. However,
it shouldn't be at the expense of the people who create music and
film. Since the late 90's, billions of copyrighted files have been
downloaded illegally. Free art is a great concept, but musician's
can't live on "thin air" and it's hard to make music without some
investment. Music, film and art costs money, time and dedication to
produce. We believe that if this continues, nobody will want to invest
in new creativity, and we can't let that happen. Brainstorming took
place, and Kerchoonz is what we decided to offer as a solution.
I spoke with my partner/producer Ian Morrow, and we started to put
this idea into motion. We began developing the site in late 2006 and
in April 2008, we founded a new Scottish-based company, Kerchoonz Ltd.
We've been working on the site around the clock with developers from
all over the world (and every time zone!). You might say we're
workaholics, but it's actually been terribly creative, fun and
exciting despite the long hours we've put in. So, Kerchoonz is a site
where artistic creators can give their music away for free and still
get paid!
[de Fontenay] Obviously, piracy was a driving force behind Kerchoonz'
drive to compensate artists. In what other ways has piracy influenced
the site?
[Gregg] To be honest, piracy is only a tiny part of what has
influenced the development of Kerchoonz. In the early days, even
before social sites like MySpace and YouTube came into the mainstream,
we were discussing paying artists for streams and how social networks
were using music to draw traffic to their sites. Having millions of
people visit my own social networking pages, I thought it would be
cool if we were able to pay artists for their streams.
You know, there is a fine line between a band getting "free promotion"
on the internet and crossing over to that point where sites are really
more or less "freely exploiting" a band's work. Many sites are making
millions in advertising each year from delivering the "goods" (music,
film, software, games), however, the creative people whose work is
being exploited earn absolutely nothing from these sites.
If a label or musician doesn't want to give their music away as a free
download, they can still be paid for their streams and even provide a
link to iTunes or wherever their music is available for sale.
The bottom line is we need to protect the future of art and we hope
that people will make the choice to sup****t artists simply by
listening or downloading for free.
I believe that on-demand streaming of music will be one of the main
ways people access music in the future. Kerchoonz is a site where
people can access music and create playlists on-demand at any time
they want via the Internet or mobile phones.
So, really, I'd have to say that we've developed Kerchoonz primarily
to cater to this huge ****ft in how people are choosing to access
music. Was it due to piracy or the birth of social networking? Maybe a
bit of both. People are changing the way they access music now and, to
be honest, that's been the strongest influence upon the creation of
Kerchoonz.
[de Fontenay] Kerchoonz' website mentions that Kerchoonz does not use
DRM or embedded ads in download files. How does Kerchoonz generate the
revenue to compensate artists? Do you feel that DRM and embedded ads
will still be around in five years?
[Gregg] Advertisers want to reach specific numbers of people within a
specific demographic. We want Kerchoonz to be fun and informative, and
advertising is a way of finding out about new products and services.
It's also the way we plan to help compensate artists. But, we won't be
using pop-up ads or ads attached to the downloadable files.
Kerchoonz advertising is done in a way that's more attractive and even
entertaining for the user. We use a system where video adverts are
played during downloads but they are not "attached" to them. There are
no annoying force-fed ads. However, advertisers get their message,
products and services across to their target demographic on the site,
and that's what's im****tant for this kind of ad-funded model.
Whether or not DRM or embedded ads will be necessary five years from
now (or if they are even necessary now) depends upon the future of
downloading. I have a feeling we are moving towards an era of 'on-
demand' where people won't want or need to actually "own" the files.
So, it's hard to say.
[de Fontenay] Do you feel that the industry's approach to tackling
piracy has been effective? What would you want to see proposed that
would help you in developing a revenue channel for artists?
[Gregg] The music industry has suffered a tsunami of change over the
past decade. It's becoming more and more difficult for bands to
compete by selling music alongside the huge popularity of "free."
Has the industry been effective in tackling piracy? I don't know. I
think this is a difficult one to *****s. I can only say that from my
personal experiences, some of the pirate sites have been rather
antagonistic in their approach towards musicians. They say that the
industry is trying to force their old model on people. However, those
same sites are the ones who are trying to force musicians into
accepting "nothing" as an option.
As a result, the file-sharers have been targeted by the Recording
Industry Association of America (RIAA). I don't know how effective
that has been. However, recently more ISPs are getting involved and
perhaps they will help reduce the problem.
http://www.kerchoonz.com
**********
Next week, in part 2 of MusicDish e-Journal's interview with Indiana
Gregg, we learn more about Kerchoonz, the site's multiple features and
it's Choonz origins.
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