China, The New Frontier?

Earlier today I was reading a blog post from an Ed Peto, an American music critic living in China. He was talking about the music industry there and giving advice on how American labels can do business with caution. Most of the opportunities as he describes them, seem to be Long Tail. My label; being a small fish in a global pond, seems to have the disadvantage when approaching Long Tail opportunities for the simple fact that by the time I am able to sort out the benefits, I may not still be in business. If you listen to Gerd Leonhard, whom I greatly respect intellectually, you would learn that he believes that the notion of Copyright, which is essentially the right to sell a copy of music whether it be physical or digital is becoming or is irrelevant. Well, where does that leave me as a poorly funded independent producer of media content. Well as Gerd says is all in the clicks or the audience, once you have galvanized an audience by essentially allowing them access to your content for free; you can sell them ancillary products as well as use your content to sell other products visa vie licensing.

I know that I went on a tangeant but this is where China comes back into focus. Everyone knows that China is coming into it's own as a new super power and even though it is a communist country, their doors are open for business. The question is how does someone like me get a chance to play and how do I navigate the culture. Well, the article that I read gave some sound advice: 1) Create Chinese Metadata online for your media products, so that the folks who use Baidu, China's number 1 search engine can find you. 2) Create a Chinese version of your web presence and make it simple. 3) Align yourself with a respectable partner in China that is tapped into the local music industry. 4) If you are a label and you want to make money in China make sure you have some type of 360 or partnership deal with your artists because the money there is in touring and merchandise. Well, I'm going to pick up a some Rosetta Stone software and be about the business of learning Mandarin; Nee Hao Ma, bitches!!