Antonis Plessas Musical Journeys

Music in the Digital Era, Digitisation of Music Archives, Promotion and Distribution of Music

The Institute for Research on Music and Acoustics – Greek Music Documentation Centre organizes on the 3rd October 2008, on the Auditorium of Ministry of Culture, a conference, focused on digitization of music, the promotion and distribution of digitized music material on the Internet and the potential interoperability of the digital music collection and archives.

Goal – Objectives
The conference aims to support the music digitization process and the exploitation of Music through the Information Technology. The objectives are:

• The methods and specifications of music material digitization
• Presentation of Music Archives that have already been digitized
• Methods and copyrights issues concerning the exploitation of music on the Internet
• Compatibility and Interoperability of digital music archives
• Digital Access and Distribution of music on the internet

Antonis Plessas presentation is scheduled in Session 6: New ways for digital music distribution

SCHEDULE

• Greetings from honorary guests
• Presentation of the Operational Programme Information Society
• Introduction to the conference

(11:00-11:50)
Session 2: Introduction to digitization specifications and methods

• Presentation of specifications and methods applied in music recordings digitization (records, tapes, etc.)
• Presentation of specifications and methods applied in the digitization of two-dimensional and multimedia music archives (scores, music texts, photographs, motion pictures)
• Presentation of methods applied in the digitization of 3D objects (musical instruments).
• Organizing the material in a database. Specifications.

(12:10-14:10)
Session 3: Presentation of Digital Music Archives

• Presentation of the Greek Music Digital Archive created by IEMA.
• Presentations of digitized music archives created by other institutions (ten minutes for each presentation)

(15:00-15:45)
Session 4: Music access and retrieval on the Internet

• Methods and software for archive projection. Preview files formats
  • Recordings
  • Scores
  • 3D and multimedia material
  • Databases
• Issues of archive copyright protection
  • Rights
  • Digital protection
  • Rights distribution to right holders
• Educational use
  • Examples
  • Rights issues in educational use

(15:45-17:00)
Session 5: Archives interoperability

• Database interoperability
  • Minimum specifications for music archives documentation
  • Subjects on the musical classification of material (ontologies)
  • Expanding documentation
  • Connection between databases
• On-line and on-site accessibility
• Sustainability of archives
• Success and failures on previous efforts
• Project Michael (Multilingual Inventory of  Cultural Heritage in Europe)
• Europeana project
• Proposals

(17:30-18:30)
Session 6: New ways for digital music distribution

• The DMET project
• Distribution through established distributors
  • Internet music distribution companies
  • Internet vs Mobile phone companies
• Private distribution
  • Private sites and Platforms for individuals
  • Social networks – P2P networks
• Contracts and copyright models for digital music distribution
• Promotion ways

(18:30-19:00)
Session 7: Conference closure – Future prospects

• Conclusions presentation, conference results end suggestions
• DMET project results and future steps