Background
Music has a central importance to practically every person on earth. Every culture has its own form, its own style and it is a fundamental part of human communication and development.
The word “music” however, while it defines this universally human creation, has a far narrower utility when applied to the Internet. The word “music” is a functional link between consumers, creators and the businesses that support them. Consumers seek out songs, creators seek out their audience and businesses seek out their customers and the word music plays a central role in this process of discovery and commerce. In addition to this music has fueled the growth of consumer products and online businesses through association and as content for the products they sell.
Every country that is connected to the Internet will have a music business with individuals able to consume music in a variety of ways including passive listening, on demand streaming, downloading (illegal and legal) and ecommerce. This process of engagement is ever evolving with new participants appearing constantly. Traditional trade and consumer groups have found it difficult to control the flow of content and there has therefore arisen a tension between owners of music intellectual property, consumers and the technology businesses that enable this flow.
Central to this is the fact that there is little organization of the data that drives publication and distribution of music content. We believe that because at present there is no specific TLD for music it is difficult for artists to be consistently recognized and their music and trademarks to be properly safeguarded. While social media such as MySpace and Facebook have primarily played this role the actual identifier that links the artist or business to their association with music and the websites that represent them is often awkward, confusing, inaccurate and for consumers not trustworthy.
The .MUSIC TLD will offer to this group of creators, businesses and organizations an important identifier that can help serve to offer a safe, trustworthy, legitimate, consistent and universally recognizable anchor point for their music related activities. From a competitive perspective this group of potential registrants has little choice beyond social media URLs such as MYSPACE.COM⁄BANDNAME or BANDNAMETHEBAND.COM or BANDNAMEMUSIC.COM. In addition, music fans whose passion extends to wanting to identify with their love of music via a website or email address will want to have the .MUSIC TLD to show their commitment to music. At present there is no compelling way on the Internet to do this.
We hope to provide .MUSIC names to artists, record labels, publishers, major brands and music fans. Considering the existing competition from simple Google search, Facebook, MySpace, Bandcamp and others we believe that we can safely achieve 50,000 registrants for the .MUSIC TLD in by year 2.
Purpose
The purpose of the .MUSIC TLD is to:
* Provide a trusted TLD for musical artists, trade and union organizations, record labels, publishing companies, music distribution and marketing companies, DSPs, consumer brands, and music fans that will bring security, convenience, trust and efficiency to their music related activities.
* Provide a trusted and convenient identifier for artists and businesses that will enhance consumers ability to discover and legitimately consume music through e-commerce and broadcast platforms.
* Provide a mechanism whereby artists intellectual property will have a higher level of protection whereby industry professionals with a long history of defending music owners rights will be managing the distribution of the .MUSIC TLD.
* Provide a more organized means for the commercial consumption and distribution of music by way of a .MUSIC identifier.
* Provide the above mentioned groups with a compelling new choice for a domain name identifier at a competitive price.
* Provide music fans with the chance to personally identify with music on the Internet.
Our Mission is:
* To promote the legitimate and efficient exchange and consumption of music by making the domain names ending in .MUSIC available to all who may want to use .MUSIC domain names for their own artistic, commercial, business or personal or other legal purposes .
* To help safeguard the legal consumption and distribution of music and to give consumers safe and legitimate means for music discovery.
* To promote the music industry in general by having information of any and all types and for any and all legal purposes available and disseminated from websites and email addresses ending in .MUSIC for the registrants and users own purposes worldwide.
* To give to artists and the businesses that support them the tools to promote their brands through an easily identifiable website name and email address ending in .MUSIC.
* To give to global and local consumer brands the tools to promote their brand’s association with music through an easily identifiable website name and email address ending in .MUSIC.
* To increase the choice that is offered to artists and businesses in how they market their music and brands and protect their intellectual property.
* To give music licensing and collection businesses additional tools to help maximize the rightful collection and distribution of royalties to artists through a more consistent mechanism for identifying artists and their performances.
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