From the Seattle Times
The traditional music industry may be whining about how tough times are as revenues continues to sink, but don’t tell that to Jeff Price, CEO of TuneCore.
“Unit sales are up, not down,” Price said. “That means people are buying more music, not less.”
TuneCore makes money by charging fees to distribute music to online merchants such as Apple’s iTunes, MP3 store and Microsoft’s Zune.
After a group of programmers created the ‘LimeWire Pirate Edition’ and placed it onto places like the Pirate Bay, LimeWire itself is demanding its takedown.
That is, on grounds of misuse of trademark and intellectual property, as well as the illegal downloading of copyright works. ”We have very recently become aware of applications on the internet purporting to use the LimeWire name, such as the LimeWire Pirate Edition. We demand that all persons using the LimeWire software, name, or trademark in order to upload or download copyrighted works in any manner cease and desist from doing so. We further remind you that the unauthorized uploading and downloading of copyrighted works is illegal.”
Hmm. And what is it you do, LimeWire? something about sharing files that don’t belong to you?
And who is under a court order to stop distributing their file sharing software?
Retailers have been reducing their CD floorspace for years. Now, according to Digital Music News, Barnes & Noble is eliminating its music selection entirely in several locations.
The space will be re-purposed for a higher-growth category called “Educational Toys”. Clerks will still custom-order CDs on customer request.
B&N will start with five stores in the New York City area, mostly in upscale areas where Boomer parents and grandparents reside with higher disposable incomes and are ready to buy European, science-related, and otherwise learning-focused toys.
No word on whether educational game software will be the next pirated casualty.
News around Google’s music service continues to evolve, with Google now pitching record labels on a service that would include:
The music magazine Billboard reports the Google Music Store will operate much like rivals including iTunes and Amazon MP3, offering customers their choice between individual tracks and complete digital albums.
What is different is the locker option, at $25/year, allowing users to automatically transfer purchased content to a cloud-based account for streaming or downloads to authorized devices. Social media features like playlist sharing would also be included.
Google is planning to launch both a web-based music player and a mobile application. As well, Google is asking the music labels to give users the flexibility to check out a free full-length stream of any song on first listen, then a 30-second thereafter. The concept is similar to that of Lala.com, acquired by Apple late last year.
Sources indicate Google is negotiating an initial three-year licensing agreement across those territories where Google Music will launch. The proposal includes a 50/50 subscription revenue split with master rights holders, with music publishers receiving a 10.5 percent share – still to clarified is whether the publisher share comes off the top before sharing the remaining revenue.
Google is talking with music labels on their plans for a download store and a digital song locker that would allow its Android-based mobile users to play songs wherever they are.
The music industry hopes to benefit from the competition for control of the mobile phone and computer desktop between Apple and Google. Both technology leaders are going head-to-head in a wide range of media and consumer technologies including online TV and movies, mobile phones, software and even advertising.
1) Year over year americans have increased their time on social networking sites by 43 percent, with use of email declining by 28 percent according to Nielsen. Some 40 percent of American’s on-line time is spent on:
These categories increased from 37% a year earlier.
2) Internet users over 65 are adopting Facebook at a rate faster than any other age group – 6.5 million joined in May, three times higher than same period last year.
3) There will be an estimated ten million e-readers out there by the end of the year (up from four million a year ago).
4) Streaming music subscription services continue to be rolled out even though no one service has caught fire (the labels insist on doing subscriptions their way, not a consumer-friendly way)
5) Android is now the number two smart phone behind iPhone, with Blackberry slipping to third place.
Google is showcasing a new technology that would merge Internet delivery with traditional television. Viewers could watch TV shows and movies uncoupled from the broadcast networks or cable channels on which they air.
There’s speculation that Apple and/or Google will enter the music subscription service marketplace i.e. you “rent” access to a library of music file that you can download/stream so long as you keep up your monthly subscription. If Apple and Google do enter this market, they’ll join an already crowded field of competitors ranging from ten-year veterans Rhapsody and Napster, Spotify an other newcomers like MOG and Rdio.
In spite of the enormous investment by the various industry players, the global user base is estimated at under 2 million current subscribers.
If ultimately everything is “up in the cloud” and accessible anywhere, anytime on any device, then convenience and size of on-line library trumps a local hard drive. Until that time, people will continue to buy (or steal) media files that untethered to any subscription service.
Little has changed in the negotiations between Apple and The Beatles to bring the the Fab Four’s music to the iTunes Store. John Lennon’s widow Yoko Ono indicated that there are still roadblocks and that fans should not expect a solution anytime soon.
“(Apple CEO) Steve Jobs has his own idea and he’s a brilliant guy,” Ono, the 77-year-old widow of John Lennon, told Reuters. “There’s just an element that we’re not very happy about, as people. We are holding out.”
Ono didn’t offer details on the hold-ups in the negotiations, but hinted that her concerns were not necessarily shared by Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, and Olivia Harrison, George Harrison’s widow.
McCartney’s comments earlier this year seemed to finger record label EMI as the one holding up a deal, but Ono suggests that there may be a more fundamental disagreement, at least between herself and Apple.
Apple and The Beatles have had a rocky relationship over the years, starting with a dispute over Apple’s name, which came into conflict with The Beatles’ holding company Apple Corps in multiple trademark disputes dating back to the late 1970s.
While earlier agreements had resulted in Apple agreeing not to enter the music industry, the iPod and iTunes clearly crossed the line in the eyes of Apple Corps, leading to a lawsuit and eventually a revised trademark agreement that saw Apple acquiring all of the disputed “Apple” trademarks and licensing a portion of them back to Apple Corps for future usage.
Negotiations between Vevo and MTV have collapsed, resulting in no music videos from Universal Music Group appearing on MTV. The websites affected include MTV.com, VH1.com and CMT.com.
MTV would not reveal the reason for the breakdown, other than commenting that Vevo was demanding something “outside industry standards.”
One possibility – Money from advertising! Vevo wanted control not only of the overlay ads that appear in video windows when MTV’s websites embed Vevo videos, but also over banner ads and other types of advertising on the page.
Vevo, now the number three most popular video site on the internet behind YouTube and Yahoo, is a Universal Music- and Sony-led initiative to concentrate all major label music videos under one roof, so that websites including YouTube must embed those videos from Vevo if they want to display them, rather than forging deals directly with the labels themselves.
Rolling Stone recently analyzed a developing trend in summer tours, currently undergoing a meltdown and concluded that high-priced tickets are a prime culprit. Nosebleed ticket prices for superstars – and festivals, for that matter – are killing attendance at shows.
“If they continue to rip everybody off, it’s going to be the kiss of death,” Harvey Goldsmith told an audience at Musexpo in Los Angeles in late April.
Overpriced shows, overpriced contacts, and lots of cancelled dates are pointing to a music business sector in serious trouble.
Pali Research analyst Richard Greenfield questioned whether the music industry was “screwing up the last good part of its business,” while shifting the blame for nosebleed tickets onto artists, agents and managers. Â This is a group that “keep[s] pushing for higher and higher guarantees from touring companies such as Live Nation and AEG… in order to compensate for recorded music sales declines,” according to Greenfield, who recommended softer demands to make the fan experience more affordable.
There is a rumor of Google getting ready to get into music download business. Reports from CNET suggest that the Google will soon launch a music service to compete with iTunes.
Apple and Google both want to dominate the mobile-phone market. ITunes has been a major part of Apple’s success in first iPods and then phones. The music industry has never been comfortable with Apple’s dominant hold on digital-music sales.
Google would be free to offer better terms to music companies, one of several ways it has available to it of making mischief for Apple, should it decide to join it in the business of digital tunes.
The Canadian government will unveil new copyright legislation Wednesday that is expected to favour entertainment giants and electronics manufacturers over consumers.
The bill will modernize Canada’s copyright laws through a series of reforms that will affect everything from what Canadians can play on their iPods to how artists pay their bills.
While CD owners can finally make copies of their music for their iPods, expect that future CDs and DVDs will come with digital locks to restrict mulitple copying.
So get ready for the next round of independent code crackers to trump corporate progammers
Google is leading a group effort including Sony and others to deliver a TV/Internet package by this christmas. The TV search box looks through live programs, DVR recordings and the Web, delivering a relatively compact list of results that can be accessed with a push of the button. Plus, you can you your Android phone as a remote.
Lady Gaga is signing on with Rock Band, a somewhat atypical pairing given the lack of a traditional rock band set up in GG’s music. Rock Band designers MTV Games and Harmonix will have to stretch the instrumentation a bit. Gaga herself is just the thin edge of the wedge – the Gaga song menu also includes a cover of ‘Poker Face’ by South Park’s Eric Cartman.
The songs will be available for download next week across Xbox, PS3, and Wii systems. “Lady Gaga Pack 01″ will include “Bad Romance,” “Just Dance,” “Monster,” and “Poker Face,” from the multi-platinum album, The Fame.
Also, MTV and Harmonix are expanding the Rock Band content channels – recently launched is the Rock Band Network Music Store, open to any aspiring band.
