MySpace Targeted Advertising Spells Opportunity for Bands
MySpace is now planning a targeted advertising initiative that spells opportunity for bands and music companies. The initiative, called SelfServe, allows smaller advertisers to create and target their ads across the network. Bands are an obvious fit for the platform, though MySpace is also pitching the concept to politicians, small businesses, and other groups. "Targeting is for everyone — from the smallest band to the biggest brand — now MySpace provides a solution for anyone looking to advertise on the most trafficked site in the country," said Michael Barrett, chief revenue officer for Fox Interactive Media.
The new concept, slated for release early next year, was recently disclosed at the ad:tech conference in New York.
Story by news analyst Alexandra Osorio.
Source: http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/stories/110607myspace/view
donderdag 8 november 2007
dinsdag 6 november 2007
The piracy debate
The Piracy Debate
The debate over piracy is one that has no end. One one side you have Capgemeni's recent "value gap" study pegged piracy's impact on the U.K. music industry at 18% of its decline from its 2004 level. The majority of the decline, Capgemini estimated, was due to the unbundling of the album, or the substitution of a small number of digital tracks for an album.
But wait. A new Canadian study by academians Birgitte Andersen and Marion Frenz found that online piracy has no impact on CD purchases. (Download a PDF of the report here.) However, in the subset of Canadians who do use P2P services, file-sharing was found to increase CD purchasing (by 0.44 CDs per album download). The study assumes 29% of Canadians are P2P downloaders.
"In the aggregate, we are unable to discover any direct relationship between P2P filesharing and CD purchases in Canada. The analysis of the entire Canadian population does not uncover either a positive or negative relationship between the number of files downloaded from P2P networks and CDs purchased. That is, we find no direct evidence to suggest that the net effect of P2P file-sharing on CD purchasing is either positive or negative for Canada as a whole. ...
However, our analysis of the Canadian P2P file-sharing subpopulation suggests that there is a strong positive relationship between P2P file-sharing and CD purchasing. That is, among Canadians actually engaged in it, P2P file-sharing increases CD purchasing. We estimate that the effect of one additional P2P download per month is to increase music purchasing by 0.44 CDs per year."
Professor Stanley Liebowitz, who has studied the relationship between file-sharing and CD sales, commented on the Canadian study at his website (he refers to the authors as A/F):
"With these seemingly innocuous assumptions, the results of A/F imply that obtaining music illicitly should have increased record sales by 50% (since each illicit album increases sales by half a unit and there are as many illicit albums as legitimate sales). Contrary to the large increase in album sales predicted by A/F, album sales in Canada have fallen considerably since 1999. According to IFPI statistics unit sales were down 30% by 2005 whereas CRIA statistics indicate that unit sales were down by 20%. ...
To believe the results of A/F you must accept that sales have dropped by half in 6 years, due to some factor that no one can identify. Does this seem even remotely plausible? This would be such a steep decline in such a short period of time that it would seem impossible to not have a clearly identified cause. And A/F’s results rule out the possibility of other entertainment activities siphoning off record listeners."
So is online piracy a problem or isn't it? Judging from FCC Commissioner Deborah Tate's speech last week at Vanderbilt University, Washington D.C.'s perception is still that online piracy is a major problem. Commissioner Tate talked almost entirely about piracy -- online and physical -- and laid out numerous examples of piracy's negative impact on the entertainment industry and the economy as a whole. (Of course, Commissioner Tate knows what topic to focus on when in Music City.) Even though most of the figures could be questionable (e.g., sourced from trade groups like the RIAA and the IFPI), it was obvious that Commissioner Tate is dedicated to helping content owners fight online piracy.
Bonus reading: An April 2004 article at the New York Times about the well known Harvard/UNC study that found no link between file-sharing and CD sales.
Posted by glenn on November 5, 2007
Source: http://www.coolfer.com/blog/archives/2007/11/the_piracy_dile.php
The debate over piracy is one that has no end. One one side you have Capgemeni's recent "value gap" study pegged piracy's impact on the U.K. music industry at 18% of its decline from its 2004 level. The majority of the decline, Capgemini estimated, was due to the unbundling of the album, or the substitution of a small number of digital tracks for an album.
But wait. A new Canadian study by academians Birgitte Andersen and Marion Frenz found that online piracy has no impact on CD purchases. (Download a PDF of the report here.) However, in the subset of Canadians who do use P2P services, file-sharing was found to increase CD purchasing (by 0.44 CDs per album download). The study assumes 29% of Canadians are P2P downloaders.
"In the aggregate, we are unable to discover any direct relationship between P2P filesharing and CD purchases in Canada. The analysis of the entire Canadian population does not uncover either a positive or negative relationship between the number of files downloaded from P2P networks and CDs purchased. That is, we find no direct evidence to suggest that the net effect of P2P file-sharing on CD purchasing is either positive or negative for Canada as a whole. ...
However, our analysis of the Canadian P2P file-sharing subpopulation suggests that there is a strong positive relationship between P2P file-sharing and CD purchasing. That is, among Canadians actually engaged in it, P2P file-sharing increases CD purchasing. We estimate that the effect of one additional P2P download per month is to increase music purchasing by 0.44 CDs per year."
Professor Stanley Liebowitz, who has studied the relationship between file-sharing and CD sales, commented on the Canadian study at his website (he refers to the authors as A/F):
"With these seemingly innocuous assumptions, the results of A/F imply that obtaining music illicitly should have increased record sales by 50% (since each illicit album increases sales by half a unit and there are as many illicit albums as legitimate sales). Contrary to the large increase in album sales predicted by A/F, album sales in Canada have fallen considerably since 1999. According to IFPI statistics unit sales were down 30% by 2005 whereas CRIA statistics indicate that unit sales were down by 20%. ...
To believe the results of A/F you must accept that sales have dropped by half in 6 years, due to some factor that no one can identify. Does this seem even remotely plausible? This would be such a steep decline in such a short period of time that it would seem impossible to not have a clearly identified cause. And A/F’s results rule out the possibility of other entertainment activities siphoning off record listeners."
So is online piracy a problem or isn't it? Judging from FCC Commissioner Deborah Tate's speech last week at Vanderbilt University, Washington D.C.'s perception is still that online piracy is a major problem. Commissioner Tate talked almost entirely about piracy -- online and physical -- and laid out numerous examples of piracy's negative impact on the entertainment industry and the economy as a whole. (Of course, Commissioner Tate knows what topic to focus on when in Music City.) Even though most of the figures could be questionable (e.g., sourced from trade groups like the RIAA and the IFPI), it was obvious that Commissioner Tate is dedicated to helping content owners fight online piracy.
Bonus reading: An April 2004 article at the New York Times about the well known Harvard/UNC study that found no link between file-sharing and CD sales.
Posted by glenn on November 5, 2007
Source: http://www.coolfer.com/blog/archives/2007/11/the_piracy_dile.php
maandag 5 november 2007
Laura Marling to release album in 'song box' format
Laura Marling to release album in 'song box' format
Package will contain CD, gig ticket and 'momentos'
4 hours ago
Rising star Laura Marling has announced that her as-yet-untitled debut album, released on February 4, 2008, will be released in a special 'song box' format.
The package will contain the CD album, entry to a gig in the form of a redeemable code, plus 'momentos' relating to each song on the album.
The package will sell for £19.99 and can be pre-ordered from Marling's official website.
The move is similar to that of Radiohead, who have made a deluxe version of their new album 'In Rainbows' available for £40, which features extra songs, artwork and vinyl and CD versions of the album.
Source:http://www.nme.com/news/laura-marling/32288
Package will contain CD, gig ticket and 'momentos'
4 hours ago
Rising star Laura Marling has announced that her as-yet-untitled debut album, released on February 4, 2008, will be released in a special 'song box' format.
The package will contain the CD album, entry to a gig in the form of a redeemable code, plus 'momentos' relating to each song on the album.
The package will sell for £19.99 and can be pre-ordered from Marling's official website.
The move is similar to that of Radiohead, who have made a deluxe version of their new album 'In Rainbows' available for £40, which features extra songs, artwork and vinyl and CD versions of the album.
Source:http://www.nme.com/news/laura-marling/32288
dinsdag 23 oktober 2007
Music Industry looks to new Models to boost Sales
By Yinka Adegoke
NEW YORK (Reuters) - The U.S. music industry is becoming more open-minded about working with online music stores from the tiniest start-up to Amazon.com, hoping to boost digital music sales and erode the dominance of Apple Inc's iTunes.
U.S. music companies, once paranoid about the wide-scale piracy enabled by Web-based companies like Napster and KaZaa, are now embracing new business models such as giving away free song downloads.
Their goal is: to increase digital revenue as CD sales drop more sharply than anticipated; and to create alternatives to iTunes to boost their negotiating power against Apple when licensing contracts are renewed.
"Any viable music discovery option is one we want to see out there," said a major music company executive who asked not to be identified.
"If done the right way, this leads to new revenues as some of them have pretty good built-in mechanisms to lead to direct purchases," he said, reflecting the view of other industry executives contacted by Reuters.
Many Web start-ups have proposed business models to take on iTunes, which has a 70 percent market share of digital music sales. Many have also failed as they get caught up in negotiations with the music companies.
One of the most difficult parts of getting a digital service started is obtaining the licenses to the music itself. In most cases, top music labels will not provide licenses unless the start-ups pay a hefty advance fee.
Amazon is expected to launch its iTunes rival this week, after signing deals with Universal Music Group and EMI.
Two smaller start-ups, Qtrax and Spiralfrog, are promising to offer music downloads for free to consumers supported by advertising sales that will be shared with music companies.
Whether these ad-supported models succeed remains to be seen, but Qtrax Chief Executive Allan Klepfisz said it will be an important way to compete with the free music still illegally available at peer-to-peer networks like Limewire.
"The idea is to make a better version of free," he said in an interview.
Klepfisz said Qtrax is due to launch in December after four years of building the business, during which it has managed to sign all the majors record companies except the biggest Universal Music, owned by French media giant Vivendi.
Spiralfrog said on Monday it launched its service, 13 months after the company signed rights to Universal's catalog. According to an exploratory public offering filing by the company last month, Spiralfrog will pay $4.4 million in nonrefundable fees to Universal by November 15.
"We have controlled content in an advertiser-friendly environment," said Spiralfrog founder and Chairman Joe Mohen, who appointed a new management team earlier this year after losing two senior executives, who are now consultants to Qtrax. "People were discovering music in one place and then downloading it somewhere else. Spiralfrog will change that."
Spiralfrog and Qtrax are not the first to support free and legal downloads with advertising. Ruckus Network Inc of Herndon, Virginia has been offering a similar service for three years and is now officially at 170 U.S. colleges and claims 700,000 members.
A big problem for these free download services is that they are incompatible with the most popular digital music player, Apple's iPod.
This is where Palo Alto, California start-up Lala.com comes in. It has been pushing a business model that allows fans to buy digital songs and upload them directly on to their iPods. Songs on an iPod can not be transferred elsewhere.
Yet, as a measure of how difficult it is to gain traction in this market, Lala only has one deal with a major label, Warner Music Group. Lala also offers to send fans free CDs of digital albums they buy from its site, and also plans to give them a chance to "return" downloads they do not like.
"There's a significant amount of trust involved," said Lala founder Bill Nguyen. "But it's unsustainable if we don't do it right," he said.
© Copyright 2007 Reuters.
Source: http://www.i4u.com/article11570.html
NEW YORK (Reuters) - The U.S. music industry is becoming more open-minded about working with online music stores from the tiniest start-up to Amazon.com, hoping to boost digital music sales and erode the dominance of Apple Inc's iTunes.
U.S. music companies, once paranoid about the wide-scale piracy enabled by Web-based companies like Napster and KaZaa, are now embracing new business models such as giving away free song downloads.
Their goal is: to increase digital revenue as CD sales drop more sharply than anticipated; and to create alternatives to iTunes to boost their negotiating power against Apple when licensing contracts are renewed.
"Any viable music discovery option is one we want to see out there," said a major music company executive who asked not to be identified.
"If done the right way, this leads to new revenues as some of them have pretty good built-in mechanisms to lead to direct purchases," he said, reflecting the view of other industry executives contacted by Reuters.
Many Web start-ups have proposed business models to take on iTunes, which has a 70 percent market share of digital music sales. Many have also failed as they get caught up in negotiations with the music companies.
One of the most difficult parts of getting a digital service started is obtaining the licenses to the music itself. In most cases, top music labels will not provide licenses unless the start-ups pay a hefty advance fee.
Amazon is expected to launch its iTunes rival this week, after signing deals with Universal Music Group and EMI.
Two smaller start-ups, Qtrax and Spiralfrog, are promising to offer music downloads for free to consumers supported by advertising sales that will be shared with music companies.
Whether these ad-supported models succeed remains to be seen, but Qtrax Chief Executive Allan Klepfisz said it will be an important way to compete with the free music still illegally available at peer-to-peer networks like Limewire.
"The idea is to make a better version of free," he said in an interview.
Klepfisz said Qtrax is due to launch in December after four years of building the business, during which it has managed to sign all the majors record companies except the biggest Universal Music, owned by French media giant Vivendi.
Spiralfrog said on Monday it launched its service, 13 months after the company signed rights to Universal's catalog. According to an exploratory public offering filing by the company last month, Spiralfrog will pay $4.4 million in nonrefundable fees to Universal by November 15.
"We have controlled content in an advertiser-friendly environment," said Spiralfrog founder and Chairman Joe Mohen, who appointed a new management team earlier this year after losing two senior executives, who are now consultants to Qtrax. "People were discovering music in one place and then downloading it somewhere else. Spiralfrog will change that."
Spiralfrog and Qtrax are not the first to support free and legal downloads with advertising. Ruckus Network Inc of Herndon, Virginia has been offering a similar service for three years and is now officially at 170 U.S. colleges and claims 700,000 members.
A big problem for these free download services is that they are incompatible with the most popular digital music player, Apple's iPod.
This is where Palo Alto, California start-up Lala.com comes in. It has been pushing a business model that allows fans to buy digital songs and upload them directly on to their iPods. Songs on an iPod can not be transferred elsewhere.
Yet, as a measure of how difficult it is to gain traction in this market, Lala only has one deal with a major label, Warner Music Group. Lala also offers to send fans free CDs of digital albums they buy from its site, and also plans to give them a chance to "return" downloads they do not like.
"There's a significant amount of trust involved," said Lala founder Bill Nguyen. "But it's unsustainable if we don't do it right," he said.
© Copyright 2007 Reuters.
Source: http://www.i4u.com/article11570.html
zaterdag 13 oktober 2007
Music business hits jackpot at casinos
(2007-10-13)
By Mitchell Peters
NEW YORK (Billboard) - The music industry is striking it rich at casinos.
As casino venues target concertgoers from all walks of life through creative artist bookings, the effort hasn't gone unnoticed by those in the business.
"If you're an agent, you love casinos," says Greg Oswald, a William Morris agent for such acts as Big & Rich, Hank Williams Jr. and Lynyrd Skynyrd. As new casinos boomed in the past 15 years, "it's found money," he adds.
Most casinos are proactive in booking top-selling rock and pop acts, with the specific intent of drawing younger gamblers. But, as Oswald says, casinos appeal to a broad base of fans, therefore allowing booking opportunities for multiple genres.
For some country acts in particular, casino venues have proved to be a beneficial asset when routing a tour. "Frankly, for a lot of artists in the country business and other genres, it has saved their bacon," Oswald says, adding that many casinos still draw older crowds. In 2007, Kenny Rogers, whom Oswald books, will play 30 casino dates nationwide.
Tom Cantone, VP of sports and entertainment at the Mohegan Sun casino in Uncasville, Conn., says live music is a major component in modern-day casinos.
"You really have to get into the event business to drive traffic and revenue on a consistent basis," he says.
This summer alone, Mohegan Sun hosted 164 events across its three venues -- the 10,000-seat Mohegan Sun Arena, the 400-seat Wolf Den club and the 330-seat Cabaret Theatre. In 2006, 51 shows at the arena grossed $15 million and drew more than 387,000 fans, according to Billboard Boxscore.
Mohegan Sun recently broke ground on a $740 million project set to include a House of Blues, Jimmy Buffett's Margaritaville restaurant and store, and a 1,000-room hotel. Full completion is scheduled for 2010.
Steve Gietka, VP of entertainment for Trump Entertainment Resorts in Atlantic City, N.J., oversees booking at venues in Trump Taj Mahal, Trump Plaza and Trump Marina. He says that while live entertainment certainly helps sell hotel rooms and fill restaurants and nightclubs, there's a price to be paid.
"Because we're casinos, and agents, artists and managers believe that their artists help us drive gaming revenues, we typically pay premiums when compared to regular promoters," Gietka says.
Indeed, William Morris' Oswald says that casinos are in a good position to buy plenty of talent. "They have ancillary income in the form of bar, food and obviously, casinos," Oswald says. "So it's easier than the guy who is only going to make money from the box office."
But there are also challenges with casino venues, No. 1 being overbooking, according to Oswald. In some markets, casinos are bringing in act after act, which can sometimes exhaust the local fan base.
"They've made it real hard to sell tickets," Oswald says. "The fans are spoiled because they can go down to the casino on any Friday night and there will be a big act." As a result, promoters are forced to lower ticket prices to attract concertgoers, he adds.
But hosting too many concerts has never been a problem for Mohegan Sun, which is owned by the Mohegan Tribe. Arena concerts scheduled through October include such diverse acts as Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony, Big & Rich featuring Cowboy Troy, Van Halen, Mana, Maroon 5, Phil Lesh and Kelly Clarkson.
And with the 25-and-older demographic expanding, Cantone remains confident that casino bookings will reflect their tastes. "It used to be where an older market went to have their entertainment fix. But now the twentysomethings are going. If you're young, want to go out and play poker or blackjack, then catch a cool concert, where else can you go?"
http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/kuer/news.newsmain?action=article&ARTICLE_ID=1165130
By Mitchell Peters
NEW YORK (Billboard) - The music industry is striking it rich at casinos.
As casino venues target concertgoers from all walks of life through creative artist bookings, the effort hasn't gone unnoticed by those in the business.
"If you're an agent, you love casinos," says Greg Oswald, a William Morris agent for such acts as Big & Rich, Hank Williams Jr. and Lynyrd Skynyrd. As new casinos boomed in the past 15 years, "it's found money," he adds.
Most casinos are proactive in booking top-selling rock and pop acts, with the specific intent of drawing younger gamblers. But, as Oswald says, casinos appeal to a broad base of fans, therefore allowing booking opportunities for multiple genres.
For some country acts in particular, casino venues have proved to be a beneficial asset when routing a tour. "Frankly, for a lot of artists in the country business and other genres, it has saved their bacon," Oswald says, adding that many casinos still draw older crowds. In 2007, Kenny Rogers, whom Oswald books, will play 30 casino dates nationwide.
Tom Cantone, VP of sports and entertainment at the Mohegan Sun casino in Uncasville, Conn., says live music is a major component in modern-day casinos.
"You really have to get into the event business to drive traffic and revenue on a consistent basis," he says.
This summer alone, Mohegan Sun hosted 164 events across its three venues -- the 10,000-seat Mohegan Sun Arena, the 400-seat Wolf Den club and the 330-seat Cabaret Theatre. In 2006, 51 shows at the arena grossed $15 million and drew more than 387,000 fans, according to Billboard Boxscore.
Mohegan Sun recently broke ground on a $740 million project set to include a House of Blues, Jimmy Buffett's Margaritaville restaurant and store, and a 1,000-room hotel. Full completion is scheduled for 2010.
Steve Gietka, VP of entertainment for Trump Entertainment Resorts in Atlantic City, N.J., oversees booking at venues in Trump Taj Mahal, Trump Plaza and Trump Marina. He says that while live entertainment certainly helps sell hotel rooms and fill restaurants and nightclubs, there's a price to be paid.
"Because we're casinos, and agents, artists and managers believe that their artists help us drive gaming revenues, we typically pay premiums when compared to regular promoters," Gietka says.
Indeed, William Morris' Oswald says that casinos are in a good position to buy plenty of talent. "They have ancillary income in the form of bar, food and obviously, casinos," Oswald says. "So it's easier than the guy who is only going to make money from the box office."
But there are also challenges with casino venues, No. 1 being overbooking, according to Oswald. In some markets, casinos are bringing in act after act, which can sometimes exhaust the local fan base.
"They've made it real hard to sell tickets," Oswald says. "The fans are spoiled because they can go down to the casino on any Friday night and there will be a big act." As a result, promoters are forced to lower ticket prices to attract concertgoers, he adds.
But hosting too many concerts has never been a problem for Mohegan Sun, which is owned by the Mohegan Tribe. Arena concerts scheduled through October include such diverse acts as Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony, Big & Rich featuring Cowboy Troy, Van Halen, Mana, Maroon 5, Phil Lesh and Kelly Clarkson.
And with the 25-and-older demographic expanding, Cantone remains confident that casino bookings will reflect their tastes. "It used to be where an older market went to have their entertainment fix. But now the twentysomethings are going. If you're young, want to go out and play poker or blackjack, then catch a cool concert, where else can you go?"
http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/kuer/news.newsmain?action=article&ARTICLE_ID=1165130
Universal Music puts its faith in memory cure for sliding sales
October 13, 2007
Dan Sabbagh, Media Editor
Universal Music, the world’s biggest music company, is to release singles on USB memory sticks this month, in an attempt to arrest the decline in music sales.
The Vivendi-owned company plans to charge about £4.99 for USB singles starting on October 29 with releases from piano rock band Keane and Nicole, the lead singer of the Pussycat Dolls. That compares with £2.99 for a typical CD single.
However, the hope is that fans will be willing to pay extra because the extra storage capacity on a USB allows the addition of videos and other multimedia.
Brian Rose, the commercial director for Universal UK, said: “This is aimed at the younger, 12 to 24 year olds, who no longer believe that the CD is as cool as it used to be”.
Related Links
Music industry reaction to In Rainbows
Indies accuse Universal of gaining monopoly
Hurt hard by music piracy and legal downloads, sales of CDs are down by 19 per cent in the US and 10 per cent in the UK in the first half of the year.
But with physical music more profitable than downloads, the music business is eager to find formats that will keep consumers coming back to record stores.
Universal’s move is being gradually followed by the other three majors, although by contrast their efforts only amount to dipping their toe in the water, with EMI planning to release Pink Floyd’s studio albums on the format, while Warner Music is aiming squarely at the younger market with a November release of a part-album from electro-punk band Hadouken!
An agreement between the music companies and the Offical Charts Company, which runs the Top 40, means that USB sticks are eligible for inclusion in the chart. That now justifies making them available at the same time as a normal release.
Eric Daugan, vice-president, of digital business in Europe for Warner Music, said: “The CD is an old technology that has not evolved. Fortunately people still want to own a physical product, so with the extra storage, the idea is to offer a better consumer experience”.
Warner Music is hoping that Hadouken!’s USB will retail at £7.99. Promoted as being “halfway between a single and album” by the record company it includes six new songs and five old ones, with links to multimedia content on the internet, and an interface whose job it is to replace the look and feel of the paper album cover.
For Universal, the UK is the test market for the USB format worldwide, partly because it believes the UK is the last important market for singles.
The company hopes to release USB albums before the end of the year from acts such as Kanye West and Amy Winehouse – although rivals privately query its emphasis on the technology when there are alternatives such as MVI, a DVD-based format that combines music and video.
Mr Rose said: “We’re hoping that people will see USB singles as a piece of merchandise. There’s obviously a demand for collectable physical music the kind of format people want to stick up on their wall”.
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/media/article2648613.ece
Dan Sabbagh, Media Editor
Universal Music, the world’s biggest music company, is to release singles on USB memory sticks this month, in an attempt to arrest the decline in music sales.
The Vivendi-owned company plans to charge about £4.99 for USB singles starting on October 29 with releases from piano rock band Keane and Nicole, the lead singer of the Pussycat Dolls. That compares with £2.99 for a typical CD single.
However, the hope is that fans will be willing to pay extra because the extra storage capacity on a USB allows the addition of videos and other multimedia.
Brian Rose, the commercial director for Universal UK, said: “This is aimed at the younger, 12 to 24 year olds, who no longer believe that the CD is as cool as it used to be”.
Related Links
Music industry reaction to In Rainbows
Indies accuse Universal of gaining monopoly
Hurt hard by music piracy and legal downloads, sales of CDs are down by 19 per cent in the US and 10 per cent in the UK in the first half of the year.
But with physical music more profitable than downloads, the music business is eager to find formats that will keep consumers coming back to record stores.
Universal’s move is being gradually followed by the other three majors, although by contrast their efforts only amount to dipping their toe in the water, with EMI planning to release Pink Floyd’s studio albums on the format, while Warner Music is aiming squarely at the younger market with a November release of a part-album from electro-punk band Hadouken!
An agreement between the music companies and the Offical Charts Company, which runs the Top 40, means that USB sticks are eligible for inclusion in the chart. That now justifies making them available at the same time as a normal release.
Eric Daugan, vice-president, of digital business in Europe for Warner Music, said: “The CD is an old technology that has not evolved. Fortunately people still want to own a physical product, so with the extra storage, the idea is to offer a better consumer experience”.
Warner Music is hoping that Hadouken!’s USB will retail at £7.99. Promoted as being “halfway between a single and album” by the record company it includes six new songs and five old ones, with links to multimedia content on the internet, and an interface whose job it is to replace the look and feel of the paper album cover.
For Universal, the UK is the test market for the USB format worldwide, partly because it believes the UK is the last important market for singles.
The company hopes to release USB albums before the end of the year from acts such as Kanye West and Amy Winehouse – although rivals privately query its emphasis on the technology when there are alternatives such as MVI, a DVD-based format that combines music and video.
Mr Rose said: “We’re hoping that people will see USB singles as a piece of merchandise. There’s obviously a demand for collectable physical music the kind of format people want to stick up on their wall”.
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/media/article2648613.ece
What Does the RIAA File-Sharing Verdict Imply for DRM?
October 11, 2007
By Bill Rosenblatt
RIAA's victory last week in court against Jammie Thomas, a Minnesota woman accused of uploading files to the Kazaa file-sharing network, has given rise to much speculation about the verdict's effect on DRM. The October 4 verdict of US $222,000, or $9250 per incident, was almost two orders of magnitude higher than the typical out-of-court settlements that the RIAA has been proffering to alleged online infringers -- yet far below the maximum statutory damages of $720,000 that the jury could have assigned.
One theory we have heard says that the major record companies are less likely to rely on DRM now that they have an actual verdict in hand to strengthen their legal anti-piracy strategy. We disagree with this theory, because it assumes that the majors run their anti-piracy efforts as if they were investment portfoilios. This has not really been the case. Instead, they tend to operate on the principle of "fight the battle on all fronts." We don't expect this verdict to cause the majors' attitudes about DRM to change. Revenue and file-sharing data from the DRM-free download experiments of EMI and UMG are much more likely to determine the future course of DRM in music.
Yet one aspect of the trial's outcome already has very interesting implications for the future of digital rights technologies for music. In his jury instructions, the trial judge told the jury to consider uploading to a P2P network to be infringement without any evidence that other people actually downloaded the tracks; this is known as the "making-available theory."
Different countries have taken different positions on whether uploading, downloading, or both are illegal. The making-available theory has legal precedent but is not considered settled law in the US. Therefore, Thomas is appealing the verdict in hopes of getting a higher court to disallow the theory, perhaps sending the case back to the original district court for a retrial.
If Thomas's appeal is successful, then the onus would be on the RIAA to provide evidence that someone actually downloaded the exact files that Thomas put up -- not some other copies of the same material. Without technologies for tracking sources of online content, such as certain types of digital watermarking, this would be much more difficult, thus doing serious damage to the RIAA's litigation strategy. Therefore, if the music industry is to think rationally about legal and technological ways to curb piracy, it ought to be thinking (even) more seriously about watermarking.
http://www.drmwatch.com/article.php/3704706
By Bill Rosenblatt
RIAA's victory last week in court against Jammie Thomas, a Minnesota woman accused of uploading files to the Kazaa file-sharing network, has given rise to much speculation about the verdict's effect on DRM. The October 4 verdict of US $222,000, or $9250 per incident, was almost two orders of magnitude higher than the typical out-of-court settlements that the RIAA has been proffering to alleged online infringers -- yet far below the maximum statutory damages of $720,000 that the jury could have assigned.
One theory we have heard says that the major record companies are less likely to rely on DRM now that they have an actual verdict in hand to strengthen their legal anti-piracy strategy. We disagree with this theory, because it assumes that the majors run their anti-piracy efforts as if they were investment portfoilios. This has not really been the case. Instead, they tend to operate on the principle of "fight the battle on all fronts." We don't expect this verdict to cause the majors' attitudes about DRM to change. Revenue and file-sharing data from the DRM-free download experiments of EMI and UMG are much more likely to determine the future course of DRM in music.
Yet one aspect of the trial's outcome already has very interesting implications for the future of digital rights technologies for music. In his jury instructions, the trial judge told the jury to consider uploading to a P2P network to be infringement without any evidence that other people actually downloaded the tracks; this is known as the "making-available theory."
Different countries have taken different positions on whether uploading, downloading, or both are illegal. The making-available theory has legal precedent but is not considered settled law in the US. Therefore, Thomas is appealing the verdict in hopes of getting a higher court to disallow the theory, perhaps sending the case back to the original district court for a retrial.
If Thomas's appeal is successful, then the onus would be on the RIAA to provide evidence that someone actually downloaded the exact files that Thomas put up -- not some other copies of the same material. Without technologies for tracking sources of online content, such as certain types of digital watermarking, this would be much more difficult, thus doing serious damage to the RIAA's litigation strategy. Therefore, if the music industry is to think rationally about legal and technological ways to curb piracy, it ought to be thinking (even) more seriously about watermarking.
http://www.drmwatch.com/article.php/3704706
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