"The most important medium is the Internet", says Nicolas Asselin Desbiens

Nicolas Asselin Desbiens is a Canadian Producer.

In this interview, he talks about the labels and gives us his point of view in relation to illegal downloading.

Espace-Citizen: What is special about labels?

Nicolas Asselin Desbiens: Labels are trying to defend a niche for programming artists. For now, the labels are the only way to succeed in a career, regionally, nationally or internationally.

E-C: How the labels  argues artists?

NAD: The labels are responsible for the artist to offer an interesting promotional framework. For this, the labels use flyers and internet. For promotion on the internet, the label allows artists to make video clips that can be visible on the net.

At the moment, they work a lot on the booking, looking for gigs. They also try to export a maximum of artists under the label and booking agency in and outside.

EC: How did you adapted to the new technologies of information and communication (ICT)?

NAD: Today, the most important medium is the Internet. Using our graphic designer, we have constituted websites. On these sites you can view videos of artists and listen to samples of their songs. We also find information on artists like bios and links to their personal websites.

In addition, our sites are a continuity with the Myspace community network. On the one hand, Myspace allows musicians to come into contact with each other. On the other hand, it allows labels to communicate with some artists. From listening, if we like the song, it sends an email to the artist. By this means, we have achieved some collaborations with artists of our label "A song A place."

EC: Illegal downloading you there prejudice?

NAD: Currently, due to the relatively small size of some labels and booking agency, illegal downloading does not really pose problems. It’s more for the big labels that’s a major problem. Indeed, the only way for the labels and the artists make money is to benefit from copyright. The artist pockets the majority of authors for its music rights. The labels receive a small percentage of copyright on each song of each artist rights. In this way, the labels is paid for the work he provides to the artist.

EC: Is it a choice not to offer paid or free download on your website?

NAD: Yes, it is a deliberate prevent downloading of titles available on the site choice. It is a way to invite people to come and buy the cd in stores or at concerts. If the download was allowed on our sites, the public would not go on iTunes or in stores to buy the albums. In fact, people would have albums in them and therefore, they would put them directly onto their iPod, Mp3, ...

In the future, we would like to create a platform for paid downloads like iTunes to sell music artists.