Dear IDPF Members,

Several distinguished members of the IDPF are seeking to serve on the IDPF board, and while I cannot hope to match the book industry experience and outstanding qualifications of these nominees, I ask that the membership consider my bid to bring an outside perspective—one derived from over 10-years of direct experience in digital music distribution—from which the membership might harvest some insights of history (including the good, the bad, and the ugly).

I was the founder of eMusic, which began selling music MP3 downloads in July, 1998. Until we were later acquired by Vivendi/Universal, we signed the rights to digitally distribute the sound recordings of over 1,000 independent record labels and the songs of over 30,000 music publishers.

We learned the perspectives, on a variety of business model and legal issues, of all factions of the music industry—including the major record companies, the independent labels, the music publishers, and the other music services that emerged over the ensuing years. We learned the views of their representatives, such as ASCAP, BMI, SESAC, the Harry Fox Agency, SoundExchange, the National Music Publishers Association, the RIAA, and DiMA. And we watched how those positions evolved over that time.

We also dealt with a variety of technical issues, struggling with whether to use DRM and with the emergence of Napster (the illegal one) and its progeny, including how to stop them, legally and technically. We also learned to clear of thousands of rights at a time through a combination of legal and technical means, and we struggled with unsettled meta-data issues that, to some extent, plague the music industry to this day.

I could write a book on it. And did. Sort of. I am the co-author of “Kohn On Music Licensing,” a 1,600 page treatise on music contracts and music copyright in the digital era. Prior to eMusic, I served as senior vice president of business development for Pretty Good Privacy, Inc. (PGP), the leading encryption software at the time. Prior to that, I was general counsel of Borland Software (NASDAQ:BORL), makers of leading programming language software (e.g., Borland C++, Turbo Pascal) and productivity applications (e.g., Quattro Pro, Paradox, Sidekick, etc.). In the early, 1980’s, I was corporate counsel for Ashton-Tate, makers of the dBASE line of database software, and prior to that I was an associate attorney for Milton A. “Mickey” Rudin, who represented Frank Sinatra, Liza Minelli, Cher, Fox Films, Warner Bros. Music, and many other entertainment industry clients.

Today, I am the Chairman & CEO of RoyaltyShare, which I founded with the help of some of my eMusic colleagues. RoyaltyShare is a back-office, IT service provider that is addressing the scalability needs of an industry faced for the first time with ingestion of billions of download, on-demand streaming and limited download transactions from permanent download, subscription and advertising-based music services. We provide revenue processing and royalty reporting services through a state-of-the-art, web-based platform we built from the ground up—derived from our prior experience on what data processing services content owners would require as their works find their way to consumers through digital delivery.

As an attorney, I know my way around a book publishing contract, though it has been a long time since I’ve represented clients in that capacity. To the extent book distribution, both physical and digital, is similar to record (and software) distribution, then my experience in these areas should be relevant, even if only by contrast.

Through RoyaltyShare, I am a member of the Book Industry Study Group (BISG), and have attended recent meetings and studied several of its papers. I have also met with several major publishers and have become familiar with emerging standards such as EPUB. Nevertheless, I cannot profess any deep knowledge of ISBN, ISTC, DOI, ISNI, or GLN. I suspect, however, that if they are as critical to the future of books as UPC, ISRC, ISWC, CPI, ACC, and DDEX are to that of music, then my experience in dealing with these standards should prove helpful.

What is important is that I have working experience in how these standards are applied in day-to-day data processing applications upon which online retailers and rights owners rely.

Other than my own interest in learning how RoyaltyShare might apply its technology to the book publishing industry, I do not have any particular constituency within the IDPF. Nor do I have a particular vision for the organization outside of its charter to “foster and promote the development of electronic publishing applications and products that will benefit creators of content, makers of reading systems and consumers.”  

My contribution is more likely to be in the negative: how to avoid the mistakes made by the music industry, mistakes that often resulted in a failure to foster the development of digital in a way that benefited creators, publishers, and consumers.

I thus submit my nomination in the hope that we can learn something from each other.

Should I earn your election, I am prepared to devote the time necessary to be a productive and active member of the Board. I am based in New York City and I look forward to meeting you at future meetings of the IDPF.

Sincerely,
Bob Kohn
Chairman & CEO
ROYALTYSHARE, INC.