Why baby why?

The world appears to us as a giant musical greenhouse, always organically evolving, filled with music makers and their creations, making their way toward ever-larger platforms where their voice can be heard. We believe in artists, songwriters and musicians and their infinite potential. We believe in the value of all musical expression. We believe in the surrounding infrastructure of people that support the growth and development of music and its creators throughout the world. It is these tenets that compel us to secure the .music namespace for and by the global music community.

In retrospect, it might have seemed easy to predict. Our team has devoted their lives developing, marketing, producing, publishing and nurturing musical talent. We were a small band of dedicated music lovers who shared a common desire to work with music creators, no matter their place on the planet. That ethos, as some have suggested, was built into our very DNA. As a result, we have been working behind the scenes all around the world since 2008 on a quest to create a premier Internet address — a home for anyone who has ever immersed themselves in the world of music creation.

We know our future will continue to be inspired by the mysteries of music, music making and its creative ecosystem. We believe, like you, that the best way to predict the future is to build it.

So what does this mean to you?

Well, let’s start with a few basics. We all use the Internet, and web addresses such as .com, .net and .org are nothing new. For almost 25 years the Internet addressing system has remained largely unchanged. However, the organization that controls the Internet’s naming system, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is set to allow many new alternatives to the .com Top Level Domain (TLD ) such as .app, .blog, .web, .movie and yes .music, as early as this year. This opens up a vast and exciting Internet frontier.

We saw this as a tremendous opportunity to not only give a home and a singular identity to musicians, songwriters and creators of all kinds, but to also provide essential safeguards not currently available to the music community.

From the beginning our vision was to serve the music community by creating a new namespace where every music maker — in fact anyone who is a part of creating, publishing and delivering music of all genres — would be able to find a home within the virtual community.

Here is a simple way to look at it: If the Internet is a virtual ecosystem and if .music were to be a new neighborhood, then we want the community of music makers, music educators, music advocates, and music professionals to be the homeowners. We want a neighborhood where the homeowners have a representative seat at the table and input into the policies of their neighborhood. Given our deep respect for creators’ rights and the infrastructure that supports them, along with our understanding of the economic challenges faced by the music community, we want the new .music Top-Level Domain to change the current landscape for the better. The .music TLD we envision gives everyone in the music community a new way to thrive and flourish in a safe and secure environment.

We have now seen a glimpse of the future, and it’s cool!

It won’t be much longer before you will be able to have your own identity with a .music domain. Some examples could be: florenceandthemachine.music, nas.music, berklee.music, pitbull.music, fender.music, battles.music, viperlounge.music, frankocean.music, thelumineers.music, livenation.music, taylorswift.music, guitarcenter.music, rihanna.music, fluxpavilion.music, amazon.music, daddyyankee.music, or fun.music — along with the corresponding email address of course.

The .music address will also serve as a guidepost to music lovers and fans alike on where to find official music community member sites. (Even with a search engine it is sometimes difficult to know what is the rightful address for any given music maker or music community entity.) In addition, unlike having music-related Website addresses interspersed among many Top Level Domains (is it .com, .net or is it co.uk?), having them all in one neighborhood helps to promote and optimize traffic and even make search far more efficient.

If you have managed to read this far, you now know a little more about our vision and our goals. Although we are not the only applicant for .music (there are seven others), we are the only applicant that has earned the endorsement and support of the vast majority of the global music community — represented by more than 1000 organizations in over 150 countries.

Want to be part of this?

You can! Follow us on Twitter @farfurther and keep up with us here at www.farfurther.com. Sign in or just send an email to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. and we’ll keep you current on important developments and how you can take advantage of this new opportunity to raise your digital flag as a member of the global music community. Don’t worry; we’ll keep your email address private.