Abstract
This article explores the role of synchronisation agents, and the current music
business environment in Australasia more generally, in order to examine the
various methods for music and image synchronisation and the extent to which the
process of synchronisation can assist artist managers in building and maximizing
their clients’ musical careers. ‘Sync agents’ are similar to song publishers.
However, while song publishers work to maximise revenue from the exploitation of
the performance and mechanical copyright of songs and having the songs in their
catalogue synchronised with visual imagery, sync(hronisation) agents just work
with the latter. Chris Anderson’s ‘Long Tail’ theory (2006) provides the model for
arguing that the exchange value of musical copyrights has decentralised and
therefore, as aggregators, sync agents are in the best position to generate revenue
from synchronising more songs with a lot more images. This contrasts with artists
or artist managers who are poorly positioned to generate revenue via this means.
The article reports on a research project involving the International Music
Managers Forum that seeks to create new standards in relation to artist
management practices in the contemporary dispersed media context.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 104-117 |
Number of pages | 14 |
Journal | Screen sound |
Volume | 2 |
Publication status | Published - 2011 |
Keywords
- Screen songs
- synchronisation
- artist manager
- sync agent
- ‘long tail’ theory