SXSW 2012

With book sales going digital much faster than music sales did, why is the publishing industry growing, and not imploding? How threatened are publishers & labels as content creators start developing audiences directly through iTunes and Kindles? What does this mean for independent writers & musicians? And do our deranged copyright laws benefit anyone but profiteering lawyers? Rob Reid’s talk will compare the online challenges faced by publishing vs. music. Rob founded Listen.com, which created Rhapsody – the first digital music service fully licensed by every major label. Rhapsody remains one of the largest online music services, and is owned by MTV and RealNetworks. Now an author, Rob’s in the thick of another industry’s digital transformation. Rob’s book Year Zero (published by Random House this July) addresses some of these issues. In it, aliens seek to erase the ruinous fines on their vast collections of pirated American music by destroying the Earth. Parts of it are made up.