They say print journalism is a dying business but has it come to fan videos on the front page?

All the hot entertainment acts get to play The White House. It’s the equivalent of a Royal Command Performance.

Telegraph.co.uk video of Mumford and Sons at The White House

So when British Prime Minister Cameron showed up for a tent show on March 14th, President Obama invited the hottest British act – Mumford and Sons.

Cool, hip and with-it, Mumford and Sons are the epitome of the best in the music scene. In the always interesting cultural exchange, they are a British working class group who play American folk music based on traditional Anglo-Saxon music.

Traditional newspapers can’t keep up with fans

Only the big media boys didn’t get a gold printed invitation. The British Telegraph press were in the back row taking fan videos like the rest of us plebeians. Just like us, they posted the video on YouTube. Telegraph.co.uk

We don’t even get the whole song posted, just a snippet. The video quality is poor and the sound terrible. Within a week, there will be decent fan video of the event posted on YouTube or DailyMotion.

A fan would have been in the “mosh pit” or front row seats and gotten sharp, close video with great sound like the fan videos of Mumford and Sons at the Ryman Auditorium last week.

The new-media-challenged big press don’t know how to get a good video posted on YouTube. They need fans to help.

Here’s a fan video of “Roll Away The Stone” from the Secret Policeman’s Ball this week. Decent sound and it looks like the fan had a few crane shots!

Roll Away The Stone

Take downs and piracy policy

Soon, the piracy police will take the video down. And like dandelions, it will be posted in more places than it was previously.

When Mumford and Sons appeared on the 2011 Grammy Awards, the video of their performance with Bob Dylan and The Avett Brothers was posted within hours. The next day some official person had it removed or taken down. Then it was posted again. They took it down again. This circle of futile effort is still going on 13 months later.

Bob Dylan hired someone ominously named “Web Sheriff” to carry out his take downs. Web Sheriff removed tens of thousands of videos but there are more posted every day. It’s a losing battle.

New media model of business – the fan as a market and marketing agent

Old timers, record labels, movie studios and politicians don’t get it. People under 40 like to see their music and videos on the internet. They like to film their favorite artists and post them online.

Posting fan videos is good for artists. It revives interest in acts who couldn’t get radio or TV coverage. When the 1970s show Monty Python’s Flying Circus posted every show online, their sales of videos went up. The business model has changed.

No one is going to stop this. Proposed new laws like SOPA or the new Canadian Copyright Act are not going to make a hill of beans difference. A few people will get charged with some crime but the majority of digital media will still be used and shared.

Personally, I think that artists should get paid for their music, videos, books and movies. I still purchase books, CDs, DVDs and have a house full of “hard” copies of creative works. That’s not how the majority of people consume entertainment.

Instant digital creativity

It’s a new era of digital creativity which doesn’t fit the old model of big media, big record labels, big publishers. The world is more creative and diverse and no one is going to change it back to the business model of the 20th Century.

Fans get these videos and post them without compensation. Somebody at the Telegraph was paid to cover The White House.

The relevance of internet journalism to the audience compared with the big-media boys is telling. Who buys a newspaper 6-days a week anymore? Who watches the evening news.

Last night CBC News had the video of the bird landing on the bluegrass player while he was singing. That video went viral in January 2012 but just hit the big-media in March. That’s amazingly current news reporting. As my journalist dad said, old news is no news.

It’s no wonder even mainstream media outlets are reporting journalism as a disappearing career. CNBC

Actually, there are more people working in journalism now. They are not working for CBC, CNN or the Washington Post. They are part of the online world.

Mumford and Sons on the Internet

Mumford and Sons – Official site

Wikipedia

Related
Mumford and Sons sing new song at Nashville gigs
Mumford and Sons win on Grammys
Bob Dylan and Mumford and Sons at Grammys
Mumford and Sons in new film at SXSW
Mumford and Sons Headline at SXSW Festival

Where to buy Mumford and Sons music

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