Songkick and thesixtyone both seem to be fine. It's not music startups per se that are dangerous, just music startups that touch label music in some way.

It seems like most of the beef that people have with my talk revolves around the semantics of what a "music startup" is. Semantic arguments can end up being fairly tedious...

It is a complex issue because even if you don't deal with label music, there are still copyright issues. I personally would draw the line at "recorded music". If a startup does not deal with recorded music (ie streaming, downloads, mashups) they are mostly OK.

One caveat, there are also publishing rights issues around things like lyrics, tablature, etc.

Songkick does not deal with any of these issues, and I don't get the feeling that thesixtyone does either.

Also, if people get the idea that I don't understand the opportunity for independent musicians etc. please research SNOCAP, a company that I partnered with for years, ended up acquiring, and also ran. That company, despite having the star power of Sean Fanning & Ron Conway, was _VERY_ difficult. SNOCAP was promoted by MySpace, which was the #1 website at the time, as well as the #1 place for indie bands. MySpace promoted SNOCAP heavily etc.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SNOCAP

The music industry is rife with opportunity, in particular doing everything you can to kill the traditional label system. New ticketing methods, new distribution methods, new marketing methods, new ways to discover music. Dealing with label controlled music is the nasty bit (unless you are Pandora).

This is exactly correct. We shouldn't pigeonhole music startups in general, it's the ones that require direct contact with the dinosaurs of the industry or are right in the crosshairs of litigation that could be in trouble. Investments in SoundCloud and The Echo Nest are a signal that there's a lot of room for innovation yet to come.

I agree with what you are saying about pigeonholing, but please realize that just because something raises money, it does not mean that it will work.

VCs view investments as "bets", not sure things, and the vast majority of those bets fail... that's how the game is played.

(Also, for the record, SoundCloud and Echo Nest are awesome. We did a deal with EchoNest at imeem, and the SoundCloud team is worldclass.)

Of course, I agree with you on the fact that if something gets funded (even by great VCs), that doesn't mean it'll succeed. I also agree with you on the point that ANY music startup can have a tough time. You made the argument that musicians don't have a lot of money to spend so it would be difficult to monetize. While this is true, I think that argument would need to be discussed more as opposed to putting most of the emphasis on startups that deal with labels (if you want to discuss music startups in general).