About Jonas
Born in Hamburg, Germany, Jonas first starting working in the music industry at the age of sixteen with PIAS Recordings before relocating to London in 2001 to join dance label Kickin Music. After three and a half years managing Communications and Publicity, he explored his interest in radio further with Ministry of Sound, one of the most successful independent record labels in the UK and syndicators of dance music worldwide, where he was responsible for liaising with its worldwide syndication partners.
Jonas assumed the role of Head of Music at Last.fm towards the end of 2005 and leads the Music Department in dealing with record labels, artists and other music owners from all over the world. Jonas and his team are in charge of acquiring content as well as maintaining relationships with existing partners. He also manages other music related projects for the company such as festival partnerships and music sponsorship opportunities.
Since 2004, Jonas has produced ‘heute:pop:morgen’ – a breakfast radio show for local Hamburg station Tide 96.0. Every Wednesday morning, he plays a variety of tracks (which he describes as ‘electronic post-pop’) to the early risers of the second largest city in Germany. In his show he also covers issues the music industry is currently facing and makes them accessible for the broader public.
Jonas is regularly invited to speak publicly at international conferences to discuss Last.fm and the digital music business generally, including, Popkomm (Berlin), Canadian Music Week (Toronto), In The City (Manchester) and Futuresonic (Manchester).
April 28, 2008 at 5:04 pm
I just read your response to Derek Silvers (CD Baby) about “piracy”. You voice a position I hear often, and as a musician myself I’m perplexed by your response (printed below for your reference).
I am a musician, and I do primarily want my music to be listened to. But inconveniently, I also have to feed my family. If I, as one of the “rights owners”, cannot be paid for the music I produce, how am I to surivive? You state that “rights owners” will benefit eventually, but you don’t provide any details on that. Perhaps, as I often hear, I should give my recorded music away for free and tour to earn money? An interesting position, but I’m bewildered that people would have the arrogance to tell me how I “should” be living my working life, and I wonder if those people are giving away for free the fruits of their labors, and if any of them have ever been on the road.
I release my music on my own label. I am the “rights owner”. Why am I a bad guy for wanting compensation for my hard work like everyone else?
Will Martin, Seattle, USA
Jonas’ words, for reference:
“There used to be a time when artists wanted people to listened to their music and that’s why they make music.
I do not think those days are over but when you talk to ‘rights owners’ (ie labels) they seem to be keen on locking away their music and not expose it to music fans. This does not just apply to free downloading of music (what some people call piracy) but also only making snippets available to stream on websites or only sending out watermarked copies of promo CDs to the press or not allowing their music to be used in podcasts.
I find this very confusing. Music wants to be heard and ‘rights owners’ will benefit from it eventually. Seems an odd way to use your energy, prohibiting people to hear your music.”
May 22, 2008 at 11:57 am
Sorry for the very late response Will, I blame the WordPress spam filter.
First of all, at no time would I say that people who make music should not receive any compensation when that music gets listened to. In fact I believe that it is only fair that any money being generated with music is shared with the ‘owners’ of that music.
But this is not the point here. This is about trying to lock away your music and make it available fewer people under the assumption this will help fighting the free distribution of that music (some people call that piracy). I believe we have realized after all those years of p2p that we cannot prevent music being available on those networks. Music is information (as well as many other things) and information will always spread around easily and free. It’s like trying to stop rumors, it will never work.
What I am trying to say is that instead of investing so much energy and money in fighting file sharing on p2p networks it makes a lot more sense to monetize the new audience you are creating on those networks. This could be in the form of live performances or extra content or other music related products or something completely different.
And a little anecdote as well: I was on a panel yesterday with Scott Cohen (founder of the aggregator The Orchard) and he was telling us that when they started giving away music for free as a promotional tool in order to promote the additional content of that artist they discovered something: The tracks they gave away for free would always be the ones that sold the best on iTunes. So people bought a track that was available for free anyway. He did not have an explanation for this and neither have I but it shows that we are all just figuring out how music fans will spend their money on music in the digital age.