| gTLD | Full Legal Name | E-mail suffix | Detail | | .MUSIC | DotMusic ⁄ CGR E-Commerce Ltd | music.us | View |
The .MUSIC string relates to the Community by:
- Completely representing the entire Community. It relates to all music-related constituents using an all-inclusive, multi-stakeholder model
- Directly communicating that the content is music- related and representing the Community in a positive and beneficial manner consistent with the .MUSIC Purpose and Use policy
- Incorporating enhanced policies and safeguards matching Community needs
- Branding music-related constituents⁄entities on the Internet through a unique music-identifying suffix
- Serving the Community by implementing supporting services that are built and recommended by Community stakeholders and brought to .MUSIC through its multi-stakeholder Advisory Committee
- Creating a source of creativity, cultural identity, recreation and employment through a music-themed TLD
The .MUSIC affiliation with the Music Community, including interconnected functional activities, relate to the same groups identified by the Cultural Ministers’ Council’s “Statistical Framework for the Music Sector” scoping study (H. Hoegh-Guldberg and R. Letts, Statistical Framework for the Music Sector, 2005 www.culturaldata.gov.au⁄sites⁄www.culturaldata.gov.au⁄files⁄A_Statistical_Framework_for_the_Music_Sector.pdf):
- Musicians including composers & songwriters
- The recording industry including record companies, producers, manufacturers, distributors of physical⁄digital products, studios and self-produced recordings
- Audiences at all public performances and venue operators
The Community is not subject to merely commercial⁄financial variables. The music Community is driven primarily by technology and the socio-cultural environment that influence music-related media cultures and consumer behavior, including the Community itself.
The socio-cultural environment drives the TLD, including the cultural diversity that provides space within the Community for many genres⁄participants, general socioeconomic and demographic factors and their impact on diverse local environments, and the support that the Community gives to new creators⁄performers. The string and Community share a particular cultural ambience: a sensitivity and preference for certain cultural expressions. The ambience is diverse and influential: music preferences of different sections of the society vary, ranging from metal to classical; Socio-economic distributions and demographic patterns, such as age.
.MUSIC will take these factors that relate to cultural-identity into consideration and add value to the Community through the Premium Channels sorted to address NAICS classifications, genre (e.g www.Reggae.music), style, mood, language and other culturally-significant music attributes to catalyze innovation, music identification and to bolster:
The cultural relationship between .MUSIC and the Community is based on the creation of a mutually beneficial ecosystem that is driven by value generation and supports value chains that make a difference that truly matters to:
• Creators, performers, bands, ensembles & orchestras
• Live performances
• Recording
• Airplay
• Distribution
• Others (e.g film, video, advertising)
.MUSIC relates to the Community by representing all constituents involved in music creation, production and distribution, including government culture agencies and arts councils and other complementor organizations involved in support activities that are aligned with the .MUSIC mission.
.MUSIC strategic activities that relate to the Community focus on:
• Creativity, skill and talent
• Wealth and job creation through the generation, protection and exploitation of intellectual property
• Creating music-related intangible inputs that add economic and social value
• Connecting music-related content in a meaningful and organized manner that will benefit both the Community and Internet users.
These strategic activities are consistent with the creative industries strategy that was defined, refined and introduced by the Blair U.K government through the Creative Industries Task Force started in 1997 (U.K Department for Culture, Media & Sport (DCMS 2001), Creative Industries Mapping Study - www.culture.gov.uk⁄global⁄publications⁄archive_2001⁄ci_mapping_doc_2001.htm).
Michael Chanan (Short History of Recording and its Effects on Music, 1995) and Peter Martland (Business History of the Gramophone Company Ltd (1887-1918), 1992) identify factors shared by the Community:
• Music offers the opportunity of enhancing Community earnings
• Music can spread the fame of members of the Community widely, as far afield as the Community’s distribution systems permit
• Fame can be further exploited using global transport systems for touring
• Music, by virtue of its permanence, can create a form of immortality for Community members, which prior to the invention of sound technology had been denied to them
The Community and the .MUSIC string share a core value system of artistic expression with diverse, niche subcultures and socio-economic interactions between music creators, their value chain, distribution channel, and ultimately engaging fans as well as other music constituents subscribing to common ideals.
The Community genre dynamics are akin to those found in other culturally-driven Communities identifying cultural identity such as those relating to nationality, language, ethnicity, sexual orientation, religion. Just like languages such as English, music theory follows an organized set of rules relating to composition and performance.
A Community music genre is a conventional category that identifies music belonging to a Community-shared tradition or set of conventions. Cultural criteria relating to genres include a combination of art type; time period; regional⁄national origins; and social function.
Fabbri defines genre as “a kind of music, as it is acknowledged by a community for any reason or purpose or criteria, i.e a set of music events whose course is governed by rules accepted by a community” and it is “characterized by cultural features.” Genres are characterized using the following types of rules, of which only the first is related strictly to music content:
• Formal & technical: Content-based practices
• Semiotic: Abstract concepts communicated
• Behavior: How composers, performers and audiences appear and behave
• Social & ideological: Genres and demographic links such as age, race, sex, political views
• Economical & juridical: Laws and economic systems supporting a genre
(F. Fabbri, Theory of Musical Genres, Popular Music Perspectives, 1981)
Genres inform musicians how they are influenced by identification with different communities and by the music industry (J. Toynbee, Making Popular Music: Musicians, Creativity & Institutions, 2000).
Music genres have “significant importance beyond simply its utility in organizing music. The Community actively identifies culturally with certain genres of music, as can easily be observed in the differences in the ways that many fans of death metal or rap dress and speak, for example. Genre is so important to listeners, in fact, that psychological research has found that the style of a piece can influence listeners’ liking for it more than the piece itself (A. North, & D. Hargreaves, Liking for Musical Styles, Music Scientae,1997).”
Genre is an “intentional concept shared by a given community, much in the same way we ascribe and interpret meanings to words in our languages” akin to a “linguistic category. Music is founded not on intrinsic properties but on extrinsic habits (F. Pachet, Representing Musical Genre: A State of the Art, Journal of New Music Research, 2003).” The Premium Channels will be organized to reflect these Community cultural nuances
.MUSIC & COMMUNITY SUPPORT
See 20f for documented support from institutions⁄organizations representing majority of the Community and description of the process⁄rationale used relating to the expression of support.