Om Malik Quotes

Everyone has learned how to monetize music except the music industry.

Tell me a musician who's got rich off digital sales. Apple's doing pretty good though, right?

The income streams of musicians have all been upstreamed into the pockets of computer corporations. Sound recordings are little more than free crackerjacks inside every computer or cellphone that you buy.

I imagine if Spotify becomes something that people are willing to pay for, then I'm sure iTunes will just create their own service, and they're actually fair to artists.

As for the music business itself, the key things have not changed that much. It operates like any business and money still keeps things moving.

To the extent that '60s guys own things, yes... but I don't have the publishing, just like most '60s guys, and that was an error, you know... part ownership in publishing was the kind of era that started a little bit later, when real businessmen started to manage artists.

If you can play live and support yourself, it's one of the few ways you're going to actually get paid in this business these days.

I think we have to bottom out. When the studios jump out of the ring, perhaps the artist can get back in.

For the first case I did with Octone, 360 deals were not at all being talked about. And then for the follow-up case, it was the focus. I wanted to see how things were changing and what the new challenges were.

It's a small percentile of people who see one dime out of the music business.

But anyone who knows anything about the music industry knows it's not only about the music.

The music industry is a strange combination of having real and intangible assets: pop bands are brand names in themselves, and at a given stage in their careers their name alone can practically gaurantee hit records.

The music business is one of a few places where everything you've heard about it seems entirely cliche, but it's true.

The music industry is very small.

I'm delighted about the track's success in the sports world, but the frustrating thing is, I don't think I got rich on it. The labels and publishers did very cheap deals on our songs.

Selling music doesn't make that much money.

Most artists, you know, you spend their entire lives learning how to play music and write songs, and they don't really know how the music business works.

I think overall, and this isn't specific to Spotify or any streaming service or any label... when you consider the overall value chain of the music industry and how important the songwriter is to the business - I think there needs to be another look at the value chain.

It's always boiled down to the quality of your music and the quality of your deal with whoever's distributing your music: There are artists who sold a lot of records and didn't make money because of their deal, and artists who didn't sell nearly as much who made a great living because they own their masters.

The music industry is really difficult.

The music business used to be filled with people who love music.

There's no money in music. I know that. I think the whole world should know that.

The more people are listening to music and experiencing it, the more value for both the music companies and the artist, especially when their financial model is built around that. With the music industry, everybody is starting to understand that doesn't begin with a piece of music.

A song is essentially an 'asset' after its creation and release because it can be traded, sold or rented. This makes it the backbone of earnings in the 'music ecosystem.'

It's called the music business. We've all gone into it 'cause we love the music, and a lot of people end up with nothing at the end of the day, after they've done all of this great music, 'cause they never learned any of the business side.