Dick Huey

Discussion with George Howard about the digital landscape for artists in 2017.

Lightning Round / 5 minute presentation on subscriber share streaming at Digital Music Week, NYC

Music is becoming a utility - available everywhere you want it, as much as you want. But is the distribution of streaming revenues aligned with the value of an individual subscriber?

Per-user vs. pro-rata income distribution from streaming services was the key theme at this year’s MIDEM presentation by Toolshed’s Dick Huey, who already was a WeSpin Recipes guest in 2014.

In this podcast episode, Dick discussed the new distribution model in the context of providing a living wage to… Show more

Music is becoming a utility - available everywhere you want it, as much as you want. But is the distribution of streaming revenues aligned with the value of an individual subscriber?

Per-user vs. pro-rata income distribution from streaming services was the key theme at this year’s MIDEM presentation by Toolshed’s Dick Huey, who already was a WeSpin Recipes guest in 2014.

In this podcast episode, Dick discussed the new distribution model in the context of providing a living wage to indie artists, and covered other topics from his MIDEM session. After an overview of what the music industry has been going through in the past decade, he also looked into market growth through hi-definition audio sales, explained how music is priced, and evaluated new business ideas that show revenue promise for the future.

Some of the topics covered in the episode:

• The state of the music industry today.
• The two must-read books Dick refers to in his research.
• The gap between early adopters and the mass market.
• Why the “long tail” doesn’t really work in music.
• Understanding the reasons artists have a hard time making a living.
• Why music is priced the way it’s priced.
• Per-user streaming income distribution model. Show less

Larry Miller's bi-monthly podcast on music business issues de-constructs the history of Apple in music, and their newly announced AppleMusic. Dick Huey's contribution to the podcast around 15:00 mark.

City Slang, PIAS, Everlasting, and AMAEI discuss artists who are bigger outside their home territory.

Music is becoming a utility - available everywhere you want it, as much as you want, for a monthly subscription or paid for by advertising. But is the distribution of streaming revenues aligned with the value of an individual subscriber? Per-user vs. pro-rata income distribution from on-demand streaming services will be evaluated against the available literature and discussed in the context of providing a living wage to mid-level career artists as music streaming services attempt to scale.

Streaming is quickly becoming the dominant gatekeeper to access music, much to the delight of consumers and often to the ire of the musicians and content creators. Does streaming hold the promise fair pay for fair play when it comes to scale via ubiquitous distribution? Or does streaming pose a great threat to the livelihood of content creators with unfilled revenue projections to be shared by the music community? We will dig in explore just how clear or murky this platform is for our future.

Andrew Apanov from Dotted Music interview - covers:
How Dick started at Beggars Group, and how he founded Toolshed.
Serving MP3 downloads for cheap back in early 2000s.
A shift in the music industry (and an open question to streaming services).
Why tech companies have to give back to the music ecosystem.
“Artists who put their own personalities in what they do are successful. Those that don’t are much less likely to be successful.”
When an artist is not into talking on social… Show more

Andrew Apanov from Dotted Music interview - covers:
How Dick started at Beggars Group, and how he founded Toolshed.
Serving MP3 downloads for cheap back in early 2000s.
A shift in the music industry (and an open question to streaming services).
Why tech companies have to give back to the music ecosystem.
“Artists who put their own personalities in what they do are successful. Those that don’t are much less likely to be successful.”
When an artist is not into talking on social media.
Picking the right platform for each musician.
MNDR marketing case study.
Importance of being focused, determined and disciplined. Show less

Having 30,000 Twitter followers or Facebook fans is great. But what does that mean for your bottom line? Top players in this space dig into the thorny question of turning social media followers into customers.

moderator - Jonathan McHugh, Song Stew Entertainment, (Los Angeles, CA)
Dick Huey, toolshed.biz (Warwick, NY)
Alex White, Next Big Sound (New York, NY)
David Hazan, CMO, Mobile Backstage (New York, NY)

Part 1 - Dick Huey / Toolshed describe the process of launching a new artist digitally, to an audience of independent labels and artists from Brazil

Part 2 - Dick Huey / Toolshed describe the process of launching a new artist digitally, to an audience of independent labels and artists from Brazil

Toolshed founder Dick Huey discusses the growth of the "new" record business, and details his own experience with change at Toolshed. Valuable insight into the process of building, and keeping, an entrepreneurial business running.

Soundexchange blog profile

Featured speaker at Midem Academy, in partnership with IMPALA.