US Public Affairs - 16/01/09

10myths

"These writings originally appeared in a five-part series on the Copyright Alliance blog, blog.copyrightalliance.org, and cover topics ranging from the impact of copyright on innovation to whether content companies are embracing new business models. Proponents of these arguments will naturally find fault with my criticisms. Some will ignore my evidence that appear indisputable and instead seize on a phrase I may not have clearly articulated and present a counter-argument based on that misinterpretation. But some will make counter-arguments that are well-thought out and may be in some cases hard to rebut. I believe firmly that on the whole my themes here are sound but there could always be examples that I would have to consider at minimum exceptions to my theses. I don’t pretend to have all the answers.” [CopyrightAlliance]

The RIAA Ends Music Download War

"Yesterday the Wall Street Journal reported that the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) fired MediaSentry, the Recording company it used to help it gather evidence for mass lawsuits it filed against people it claimed were illegally uploading copyrighted music. It would seem that the RIAA is finally coming to its senses and realizing that the way forward is not to use scare tactics or sue, but perhaps to accept the new technologies and maybe even embrace them." [IPWatchdog]

Music News Bulletin - 09/01/09

Bill Nguyen on digital music January 7th, 2009
"If you can get your hand on the latest copy of Billboard (10th January it says on the cover) make sure you read the Opinion piece on page 4. In addition to giving a good pitch, Lala.com’s Bill Nguyen wrote a short and well formulated article on listening to music online and business behind it. My favourite quote:

“The web is home to more new music each year than was released in many previous decades. Critics say the music is mostly junk - but the same could have been said for the Web before Google made the knowledge there accessible.”

I couldn’t agree more." [HeutePopMorgen]

Could this be the future of online collaboration? Tuesday January 06
"Minimum Noise is a new site offering users the opportunity to make money by contributing parts to other musicians' work, or pay to have others supply the missing parts to their unfinished projects. It's an intriguing idea, and the lure of cold hard cash is always a tempting one. So is this the way we'll make music together in the future, or a creative dead end?" [ComputerMusic]

Music News Bulletin - 09/01/09

Consolidated launch independent digital storage device
"Digital services company Consolidated Independent has announced a new service designed to streamline the workload for independent record companies who distribute their digital catalogue around the world through various partnerships with different distributors, aggregators and download stores. It would also mean that if one of those distributors went under - as distributors have a habit of doing these days - a label could immediately channel their digital content through an alternative distributor." [CMUDaily]

Consolidated Independent launches new digital service to help future-proof the independent music sector
"Consolidated Independent (CI), the leading independent provider of digital supply chain services for music companies, today announces details of a new service aimed at the independent music sector worldwide in response to turbulence in the physical music market, and the growing importance of maintaining a master digital archive.

CI’s Digital Archive Service offers labels and distributors a way to store their digital assets and metadata so that it always remains under their independent control and ownership, whilst at the same time enabling them to work with multiple digital partners worldwide. Once a client has provided its catalogue and data to CI, it is stored on their behalf and can be delivered on to any third party or back to the client at any time. Hence, for example, if a label needs to switch quickly from one distributor to another, this can be managed quickly, efficiently and seamlessly." [RecordOfTheDay]

Finally, Here Comes Bulk Music
"With the news of SanDisk's slotRadio, an extension of the slotMusic memory card and player, comes a new way of selling music: in bulk. SanDisk has teamed up with Billboard to release 1,000-song memory cards that will carry a $39.99 sticker price. Even the slotRadio player, a small music player with a FM tuner, comes pre-loaded with 1,000 songs (and has a $99.99). Tracks will come from Billboard's charts and will be of a variety of genres.

Even though $39.99 is a tall price, it offers a great bargain on a per-track basis. Each song costs only four cents. The involvement of Billboard gives the consumer an identifiable brand name and, one would assume, a well curated selection of popular songs." [Coolfer]

Music News Bulletin - 05/01/09

Digital Boosts 2008 Sales To New Mark
"Overall music sales hit a new record in 2008, with over 1.5 billion units sold, according to Nielsen SoundScan. The Nielsen Company's annual year-end music industry report, released today, reveals that combined sales of albums, singles, music videos and digital tracks increased 10.5% over 2007, according to Nielsen SoundScan. The report covers purchases made during the 52 weeks between Dec. 31, 2007 to Dec. 28, 2008.

Digital tracks posted a 27% gain on their own to over a billion units sold in 2008, a new record. Digital albums grew 32% to 65.8 million units, also a new high. The 2008 numbers dragged when physical product was accounted. Combined sales of albums on CD, tape, vinyl and digital download were down 14% over the year prior, from 500.5 million units to 428.4 million. When track-equivalent albums are figured in, with ten digital tracks counting as an album, the decrease comes to 8.5%.

On a brighter note, total music purchases across all product categories went over 65 million units in the last week of 2008, making it the biggest music sales week in Nielsen SoundScan history." [Billboard]

Scramble over Woolies’ stock
"Companies including EMI and Microsoft are preparing legal action against the administrators of Woolworths to claw back millions of pounds of stock. Although the shelves in its stores are emptying fast, Woolies’ distribution arm, Entertainment UK (EUK), still has CDs, DVDs and computer games worth tens of millions of pounds in its warehouses.

Under “retention of title” rules, suppliers can claim back their own stock if it has not been paid for but, more broadly, they can can claim stock that has been paid for in lieu of debts.
That gives them the chance to resell the merchandise and prevent the administrator, Deloitte, offloading it cheaply." [RecordoftheDay]

Music sales up 10% in 2008, thanks to downloads (and vinyl)
"The music industry finished 2008 with positive sales growth numbers overall, but the grim CD death march continues apace. Overall unit purchases of music in the US increased by 10.5 percent year-over-year since 2007, according to new data released by Nielsen SoundScan, Nielsen BDS, and Nielsen RingScan, but the growth is coming completely from downloads—and from vinyl.

More than 1.5 billion songs were sold during 2008, accounting for the 10.5 percent growth since the previous year. One billion digital tracks were sold online, which indicated 27 percent growth since 2007. But the trend toward digital singles continues to hurt full CD album sales—428 million albums (including LPs, CDs, and online albums) were sold in 2008, down 14 percent from the year before." [ArsTechnica]

L’Internet ne compense pas la chute des CD
"L’industrie du disque a subi une nouvelle année difficile en 2008, le développement des techniques de téléchargement légal ne parvenant pas à compenser la chute des ventes de CD, selon l’agence spécialisée Nielsen.

Aux Etats-Unis les ventes totales d’albums sur CD, sur internet, et en vinyle ont accusé un recul de 14 %, à 428,4 millions d’unités, contre 500,5 millions en 2007. En prenant en compte la vente de chansons à l’unité sur internet, le recul atteint encore 8,5 % (535,4 millions contre 584,9 millions d’unités), selon Nielsen.

Les ventes de CD représentant encore plus de 80 % du chiffre d’affaires du secteur, la désaffection des consommateurs pour les disquaires est un véritable défi pour les éditeurs, qui doivent à la fois lutter contre le piratage et trouver une façon satisfaisante de monétiser les téléchargements." [LeSoir]

Facebook Removes Project Playlist
"Facebook today has also removed access to the Project Playlist service from the popular social networking site, citing a request from the RIAA. A Facebook statement says the company hopes to resolve the situation so that the Project Playlist service eventually can resume service on the site, but that it will block access until the proper label deals can be established.

Just days after getting banned from MySpace, Project Playlist has struck a licensing deal with Sony BMG. The deal gives Project Playlist users direct access to the Sony BMG catalog of both music tracks and videos. Financial details were not disclosed.
The major-label licensing deal is a big step forward for the playlist-sharing service, which is being sued by the other three major labels - Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group and EMI Music - as well as the RIAA for copyright infringement. Project Playlist allows users to upload music to create playlists that other users can then stream, but until the Sony BMG deal has done so without paying labels a licensing fee." [Billboard]

EU Public Affairs Monitor - 30/12/08

Choruss: legal file sharing on campus 11th December 2008
"The plan to provide US students with compulsory flat-fee music finally has a name, it emerged this week. Choruss LLC will provide participating universities with a replacement for their current subscription services such as Rhapsody, and has the backing of the the EFF and the tacit support of the RIAA. That alone indicates the magnitude of the initiative. When have those two lobbying groups ever agreed on music policy?

This, the worst kept secret in the music business, leaked out in April, when Jim Griffin confirmed he had been engaged by Warner Music to seek deals that would help end the litigation strategy against students, and replace it with a steady pool of income for the rights holders. (Griffin has spent a decade campaigning to "monetize the anarchy" of digital music - see our 2004 interview)." [TheRegister]

Has Boston University Left Its Safe Harbor and Become Liable for Students' Piracy? 12. 2.2008
"Defenders of the most egregious, blatant forms of online copyright piracy often suffer from what could be called Wile-E.-Coyote syndrome: They can become so fixated on throttling the roadrunner of copyright protection that they fail to notice that they have just run off a cliff and begun plunging downward.

For example, a federal judge has reportedly held that Boston University (BU) is such an incompetent internet-access provider that it cannot disclose the identities of allegedly infringing users of its network. In London-Sire Records, Inc. v. Does 1-4, Judge Gertner's recent order granted BU's "Motion to Quash" because "[BU] has adequately demonstrated that it is not able to identify the alleged infringers with a reasonable degree of technical certainty."

Continue reading Has Boston University Left Its Safe Harbor and Become Liable for Students' Piracy? . . ."

New Op-Ed December 30, 2008
"Rick Carnes and I co-wrote an op-ed on ISP music licensing (as exemplified by the Choruss operation) for Content Agenda that might be of interest.

http://www.contentagenda.com/article/CA6625534.html?industryid=45173t

Coolfer published a couple comments on the op-ed. Let it be known that I dig Glenn and Coolfer and I'm just clarifying a couple things he mentioned (also just speaking for myself here and not for my co-author).

One of the points we made is that an unlimited download service at below market rates undermines the investment that legitimate services have spent and committed. (I refuse to use "all you can eat" to describe these services as that phrase grates on me as comparing music to, let's say, a potato, which I won't do.) The point (which I made in more detail in a recent article for the ABA) is that users are already paying for the very Internet connection they use to buy their music from legitimate services. If you tell them that they only need to pay $5 a month more for all the music they want from what were once illegal "services"--well, I think you see where that goes. The idea seems to be that students could get rid of their Rhapsody accounts, which appears to make EFF very happy." [MusicTechPolicy]

Don't Make Kids Online Crooks December 29, 2008 Monday
"Seventy-five years ago, Prohibition ended. Just 13 years after launching an extraordinary experiment in social reform, the nation recognized that the battle against "intoxicating liquors" had failed. Organized crime had exploded. Civil rights had been weakened. And an enormous number of ordinary Americans had become "criminals" as they found ways to evade, and profit from the evasion of, this hopeless law.

We're about a decade into our own hopeless war of prohibition, this one against "peer-to-peer piracy." The copyright industry has used every legal means within its reach (and some that may not be so legal) to stop Internet "pirates" from "sharing" copyrighted content without permission. These "copyright wars"--what the late Jack Valenti, former head of the Motion Picture Association of America, called his own "terrorist war" in which apparently the "terrorists" are our kids--have consumed an ever growing amount of legal resources. The Recording Industry Association of America alone has sued tens of thousands of individuals. These suits allege millions of dollars in damages. And schools across the nation have adopted strict policies to block activity that the Supreme Court in 2005 declared presumptively illegal." [ContentAgenda]

EU Public Affairs Monitor - 24/12/08

Internet Piracy: No, Virginia, There Really Is No "Competing" Against Yourself for "Free"
"CNET and others report about a charming new steal-don't-buy browser extension that reminds Amazon.com shoppers that much of Amazon's legal content can be downloaded illegally "4 Free" from The Pirate Bay. If correct, such reports expose the truly self-destructive venality of Internet piracy. They also expose the vacuity of an argument favored by defenders of piracy--the claim that content creators (and law-abiding distributors) can or should "compete against free." Usually, persons spouting this claim cite the case of "bottled water" as a real-life example. For two reasons, this example refutes their vapid claim.

First, this claim understates the achievement of commercial creators of bottled water and content. They compete not only against "free"--but against competitors whose goods seem free because their production costs and risks are subsidized by non-market sources like taxation. Creators of works like movies, music, and books, like creators of bottled water, have long competed successfully against "free" tax-subsidized alternatives (like tap water). In other words, private companies produced bottled water because they concluded that if they incurred the costs and took the risks needed to create high-quality water, taxpayers who have already paid for the "free" water produced by the County Water Board would pay again to purchase higher quality water from a private source." [IPCentral]

The hitman, the Pirate Bay and the freetard prof 10th December 2008
“Since Duchamp's urinal, a great deal of modern art has been a "prank" against the art establishment. Maybe that's why now, state-funded "pranks" like the Pirates plug-in - designed to preach to the converted - feel so stale. Or it could be Cramer's own deeply conservative (and misanthropic) outlook. By design, the course ensures his students fulfill a narrow set of ideological obligations - all of which are de rigeur in modern media theory.

And that, we must conclude, is exactly what the modern state requires from its "radicals". Rather than being outside the tent pissing in, they're quite content to be on the inside, launching Firefox browser plug-ins outwards. Repressive regimes once persecuted dissidents - now they merely need give them cushy jobs on Media Theory courses to render them useless. They'll do the rest.” [TheRegister]

Hollywood wants in on ISP "graduated responses," too : December 24, 2008 - "Graduated response" isn't just for music
"Ars has learned that the Motion Picture Association of America has been having similar discussions with US ISPs for some time and has already been involved in trial projects. The results of this limited testing have been encouraging to the movie business, as they show that most people do in fact stop sharing files illegally after receiving a simple warning from their Internet provider.

The recording industry made waves last week by announcing a set of voluntary agreements with American ISPs to pass warnings (and eventually sanctions) to users accused of sharing files illegally over P2P networks. The scheme is similar in concept to the recent deals in the UK and France, but such graduated response mechanisms are actually under consideration all over the world." [ArsTechnica]

"Can I resell my MP3s?": the post-sale life of digital goods: Second time's a charm December 17, 2008
"The Castaway" is not a very good book. Published in 1908, Hallie Ermine Rives' novel opens with these deeply unpromising sentences:

"A cool breeze slipped ahead of the dawn. It blew dim the calm Greek stars, stirred the intricate branches of olive trees inlaid in the rose-pearl facade of sky, bowed the tall, coral-lipped oleanders lining the rivulets, and crisped the soft wash of the gulf-tide. It lifted the strong bronze curls on the brow of a sleeping man who lay on the sea-beach covered with a goatskin." [ArsTechnica]

UK talks mashups, DRM, CD ripping as it opens copyright overhaul December 17, 2008
"The UK's Intellectual Property Office has some odd ideas. In thinking about the "future agenda on copyright" in Britain, the agency recognizes the disconnect the law and common actions like CD ripping, feels the pain of mashup artists who have no real way to clear rights, knows that DRM can currently override statutory copyright exemptions, and wants to hear especially from creators and users. David Lammy, the minister in charge of higher education and intellectual property, even puts quote marks around "online music 'piracy'."

The occasion for all this attention do digital copyright issues is UK IPO's new "© the future: Keeping ahead of the game" consultation. The government has a wide-ranging scheme called Digital Britain that various ministries have been at work on for several months, and the chance to think about copyright's future is part of the UK plan to make Britain a hub for the digital and creative industries. Government statistics already show that the creative industries generated 8.2 percent of GDP in 2007 and are growing twice as fast as the overall economy." [ArsTechnica]

Music News Bulletin - 23/12/08

Amazon MP3 fuels indie gloom: Not exactly retail therapy 5th December 2008
"Do you remember when the internet was supposed to "empower" new businesses, sweep away cartels and monopolies, and give a voice to the little guy? Well, unless you view increasing concentrations of power as a good thing, this week has been a bad one for the music economy.

Amazon finally launched its MP3 download service in the UK on the Wednesday, stealing the headlines with cheap deals. Yet popular acts who chose to opt out of the major label system received a kick in the teeth, with the front page carved up between the majors. Best-selling acts such as The Arctic Monkeys and Franz Ferdinand (both signed to PIAS group label Domino) are nowhere to be found." [TheRegister]

Amazon launches music downloads: The online bookseller has branched out into digital music sales
"Online retail website Amazon has launched a UK music download service. Amazon MP3 will sell tracks from 59p and albums from £3. The new music store will offer more than 3 million songs that will work on any digital music player, including Apple's iPod. The move puts Amazon in direct competition with Apple for a stake in the growing market of online music sales, which in Britain alone was worth an estimated £163m in 2007." [BBC]

Rumor: Music labels want to create Hulu for music videos Dec 23rd 2008
"There's been a lot of buzz over the last few days about how all of Warner Music Group's music videos have gone missing from YouTube. Now Alley Insider reports that Warner, BMG, EMI, and Universal are talking about building their own site for music videos.

The idea would be to create a single destination where be able to find music videos from popular artists. There's some reason to think the site could work. After all, Hulu has become one of the top destination for online video by providing full length, ad-supported streaming episodes of TV shows and movies with the cooperation of several major networks and studios." [DownloadSquad]

EU Public Affairs Monitor - 15/12/08

UK consumers, Big Content battle over three-strikes rules December 01, 2008
"Although France's "graduated response" proceedings have attracted the most attention, the UK is in the midst of a consultation of its own on how to involve both content owners and ISPs in some sort of response to P2P file-sharing. The government is pushing a co-regulatory approach that would task industry groups with hashing out the details of such a plan, while the government would make sure that any agreement is fair, competitive, and preserves privacy. With all the responses now in, the UK music industry is clearly pleased that it won't have to pursue 6.5 million copyright infringers on its own. Digital rights groups are... less excited.

The entire consultation is helmed by BERR, the UK agency that handles Business, Enterprise, & Regulatory Reform, and it stems from the famous (in certain circles, anyway) Gowers Review of intellectual property that we covered extensively back in 2006. That report, which took a top-to-bottom look at UK copyright and IP policy, was stuffed with plenty of consumer-friendly ideas, such as no new copyright term extensions. But it also contained good news for rightsholders, such as a suggestion that the government step in if ISPs and rightsholders couldn't agree on how to handle the issue of P2P file-sharing." [ArsTechnica]

Voluntary campus-wide music licenses could stop the lawsuits December 08, 2008
"It takes a special knee-jerk churliness to jackboot the music industry in the proverbial groin every time it comes up with a new idea. Sure, some of these ideas (Hi, DRM-laden CDs!) make one want to spend an afternoon banging head against desk in existential despair over the low collective intelligence of the people in this world who make decisions. But the industry isn't staffed only with fair-use hating zombies and DRM lovers; the occasional human roams the hallways, sometimes hatching new schemes that aren't wholly stupid, ridiculous, or evil. When that happens, it's worth holding one's rhetorical fire until the idea is fully developed, offering encouragement and constructive criticism.

Of course, Internet groin kicks are easier. And think of the traffic! But they're not always helpful, not when you'd like the industry to get up and walk arm-in-arm into the sunset with users rather than lie in the street and issue subpoenas from the gutter." [ArsTechnica]

Masnick on the Music Tax Dec. 15, 2008
"I’m more sympathetic to EFF-style voluntary collective licensing than Mike Masnick is, but I have to say that the case he makes here is pretty compelling. I think this is really the key point:

What you’re doing is setting up a big, centrally planned and operated bureau of music, that officially determines the business model of the recording industry, figures out who gets paid, collects the money and pays some money out. The same record industry that has fought so hard against any innovation remains in charge and will have tremendous sway in setting the “rules.” The plan leaves no room for creativity. It leaves no room for innovation. It’s basically picking the only business model and encoding it in stone. [TechLiberation]

Taxing music at the ISP level: Good idea or bad? Dec 5^th
"Warner Music Group has a proposition for U.S. universities, according to Techdirt: buy a blanket license to music downloads through file-sharing services, or be sued.Techdirt thinks that this is a bad idea, and I disagree. Techdirt's criticisms are clear." [CNet]

Lessig’s call for a “simple blanket license” in Remix 01/12/08
"Lessig Remix coverI’m finishing up Stanford Law School professor Lawrence Lessig’s latest book, Remix: Making Art and Commerce Thrive in the Hybrid Economy and wanted to make a brief comment about his call for a “simple blanket license” to solve online music piracy.

Overall, I thought Prof. Lessig made a good case regarding the benefits of “remix culture” and why copyright law should leave breathing room for the various derivative works of amateur creators. On the other hand, Lessig still too often blurs remix culture with “ripoff culture” (i.e., those who aren’t out to create anything new but instead just take something without paying a penny for it).

To solve that latter problem, Lessig again endorses a proposal that William Fisher, Electronic Frontier Foundation, and others have made for collective licensing of all online music, but he fails to drill down into the devilish details. He says, for example, that “by authorizing a simple blanket licensing procedure, whereby users could, for a low fee, buy the right to freely file-share” we could “decriminalize file sharing.” " [TechLiberation]

Techdirt's Mike Masnick On Why a Music Tax Is a Mistake December 11, 2008
"Techdirt founder Mike Masnick has followed the twists and turns of the digital music debate for more than a decade, offering some of the most prescient and lucid information and arguments on the topic anywhere. Today he tackles growing calls for a voluntary music-licensing scheme, pushed most recently by Warner Music Group to universities, that would basically allow file sharing by having ISPs impose a surcharge on all users to be paid out to copyright holders. (A version of this has been done before with blank media like tape cassettes in some markets, including Canada, but this would be a massive expansion of the idea.)

Mike's take is not the final word on the matter, but it should be required reading for anyone interested in understanding where music is today and where it is headed. It is reproduced with permission below in its entirety. As he ably argues, the future of music is often confused with the future of the music business — but they are not the same thing at all. In fact, the interests of the music business, defined primarily as the major recording labels, is arguably one of the biggest impediments to moving music itself forward." [Wired]

Music News Bulletin - 13/12/08

For the fans, by the fans...are fan driven private concerts the next big movement? December 8, 2008
"There are many entrepreneurs who are working on the next frontier of filtering great music to the world through technology. The industry is currently awaiting the release of the 'silver bullet' technology that can dissect good from great music and the relativity of that music by user group and then geographic preference. While this is bound to be on the horizon there has to be a means that every world class musician can develop a sustainable business making great music by bonding with their true fans.

Why Private Concerts? Private concerts started when music was first on the scene back in the days the Kings and Queens utilized their free time bringing in the top musicians from their town to perform private concerts for them and their friends. The best musicians back in the 1700's would be summoned to the castles to play for a group of elite socialites that the only reason to come to the castle, other then to fufil the request from the King, was to listen to the best music in that given region. After these private concerts, these musicians where considered royalty by the guests (fans) and continued to be considered, and paid, as the top entertainment of those times." [MusicThinkTank]

Live music as accessible as water...next hyper growth market?
"In the multi-billion dollar paid entertainment marketplace, live music currently makes up only 2% of total spending. In today's world of economic challenge, the entertainment pie is not going to get any bigger and it will most likely shrink. For one segment to grow, it has to take dollars away from other segments of the entertainment pie. Movies are the top magnet for entertainment dollars, for every $1 spent on live music, $7.60 is spent on trips to movie theatres. Artists should consider fan-driven-private-concerts to grow their slice of the entertainment pie."
[MusicThinkTank]

The 3 dimensions of the music Long Tail December 13, 2008
"So we're all familiar with The Long Tail, right? The idea that the internet facilitates a massive number of low selling, low impact products/services/entities to exist because of the very low cost of having a presence, which when combined make up a very significant chunk of the market.

In music it's been the shift from hundreds of artists selling millions of records to millions of artists selling hundreds of records. Or downloads. Normally, everything in the long tail is grouped together as the low-sales stuff, whether that's things that once sold a shed-load of copies but now have very little commercial traction (back catalogue material) or artists that are producing current, vital work but selling in smaller numbers." [MusicThinkTank]

Music News Bulletin - 05/12/08

AIM Advises Labels On Pinnacle
"U.K. independent labels trade body AIM has called an emergency meeting after independent distribution company Pinnacle Entertainment went into administration. Although calls at the company's HQ in Sidcup, Kent were not answered, accountancy firm BDO Stoy Hayward confirmed it had been appointed as the administrator today (Dec. 3). The move is roughly equivalent to Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the U.S. Following an initial review of the company, 94 staff have been made redundant.

Pinnacle claimed to distribute releases from more than 400 record labels, as well as DVDs and software. It handled releases by Dramatico, including Katie Melua, as well as Bella Union and One Little Indian. "The Katie Melua Collection" is one of the biggest current releases affected." [Billboard]

Pinnacle Collapse A 'Nightmare' For Indies
"U.K. independent labels' representatives have consulted a lawyer through trade body AIM after independent distribution company Pinnacle went into administration on Dec. 3, roughly equivalent to Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the U.S. Around 60 labels were represented at the meeting today (Dec. 4) at AIM's HQ in Chiswick, west London, along with authors' collecting society MCPS, iTunes and Pinnacle's digital management partner Consolidated Independent.

The mood was described as "very serious" by one attendee, although Cooking Vinyl founder and managing director Martin Goldschmidt tells Billboard.biz, "It's a horrible time but the meeting was very productive."
At least 300 physical release labels are affected and even more digital labels; U.S. acts affected include Sub Pop's Fleet Foxes, licensed to Bella Union in the U.K.

Label bosses consulted with barrister Philip Flower, a specialist in corporate insolvency. It has emerged that many labels are unhappy with the terms offered by the administrators BDO Stoy Hayward regarding the return of stock." [Billboard]

Pinnacle goes into administration
"Distributor Pinnacle has gone into administration, with the loss of 94 jobs. The company, which distributes labels such as Dramatico and One Little Indian, reportedly told staff the news this morning. Senior executives are believed to be in meetings this afternoon in an attempt to resolve the situation.

Staff are not answering phones at the company’s Sidcup headquarters and there is no indication on its website www.pinnacle-entertainment.co.uk. However, adminstrators Matthew Tait and David Gilbert at BDO Stoy Hayward confirmed the news this afternoon." [MusicWeek]

Amazon MP3 launches in the UK
"Amazon has soft launched its long-awaited MP3 store in the UK, offering MP3 downloads from all four of the majors and several independent labels at bargain prices. Amazon launched its MP3 store in the US late in 2007 and promised at Midem 2008 that it would roll this out globally by the end of the year.

The launch has been long rumoured, with early reports suggesting that it would launch in September. The site, which operates off the main Amazon.co.uk site, is competing on price, with albums such as Take That’s The Circus available for just £3. Hits such as Girls Alouds’ Promises are available at 59p. Tracks on the site are encoded using variable bit rates for maximum audio quality and smaller file sizes, aiming at an average of 256kbps." [MusicWeek]

Online seen claiming 41 pct share of U.S. music market
"Digital music sales account for 18 percent of the U.S. music market and that figure will grow to 41 percent in five years, Forrester Research said in a report released on Monday. The report titled "U.S. Music Forecast, 2008 to 2013" also forecast that 55 percent of U.S. online consumers will pay to download digital music in 2013.

JupiterResearch, a division of Massachusetts-based independent company Forrester Research, said in the report that growth in digital music sales will not compensate for declining CD sales, with the overall U.S. music market shrinking over the next five years from its current level of $10.2 billion to $9.8 billion.

The report also noted crossover between CD and digital music purchases. In a survey, researchers found that 64 percent of subscribers to digital music services and 57 percent of consumers who download music have bought a CD in a store in the past year.

The Forrester Research report comes as digital music sales have emerged as the main growth sector for the U.S. music industry. While online piracy has long accounted for the bulk of digital music downloads, the Forrester Research report noted that paying for music downloads is increasingly popular. The researchers also credited companies such as Amazon.com Inc with helping propel digital music sales by allowing consumers to buy digital music that can be transferred between different devices without restrictions." [Reuters]

Worst Industry Statement of 2008
"Seymour Stein, VP at Warner Music Group and founder of Sire Records, as quoted by the Globe and Mail: We blew it. The first major music labels were all phonograph manufacturers, but by the time the Beatles came along, most companies were no longer involved in the hardware. Had we remained in control of the hardware, we wouldn't be hurting as much as we are now. And the iPod would be ours.

This is a joke, right? I get his attempt at logic, but the argument is not only quite a stretch, it is a sad combination of wishful thinking and Monday morning quarterbacking. More realistic would be something like, "We should have got into management, ticketing, e-commerce and merchandise when we had the chance." Either way, such exercises are moot. No point talking about what could have been. Just worry about what is possible." [Coolfer]

Music News Bulletin - 03/12/08

Digital Growth Won’t Stop Overall Music Sales From Shrinking, According To Forecast 02 Dec 2008
"US digital music sales will grow by 17 percent per year on average over the next five years, to make up 41 percent of sales by 2013, Forrester’s latest Jupiterresearch forecast says. But that won’t stop overall sales shrinking by 0.8 percent per year on average from $10.2 billion to $9.8 billion. Citing sticking points in the digital world and an acceleration in CDs’ decline, Forrester revised its forecast from a 7.1 percent annual drop to 8.7 percent following poor 2007 CD sales." [PaidContent]

Surveying the landscape of a changed industry 03/12/08
"While two B.C. festivals celebrate film and music, players behind the scenes thrash out how their businesses can survive

Seymour Stein is a legend. The 65-year-old New Yorker is attending Transmission as a keynote speaker. Now a vice-president at Warner Bros., he founded Sire Records in 1966. The many bands he has signed over the years include the Ramones, Talking Heads, the Pretenders and the Smiths. In the 1980s, stuck in hospital with an infection, he still managed to sign Madonna - feeling less than presentable, the story goes, he called his barber to come in and spruce him up, before she visited him and agreed to the deal.

Stein says the rot set in the music industry 60 years ago. "We blew it," he says on the phone from his office in New York. "The first major music labels were all phonograph manufacturers, but by the time the Beatles came along, most companies were no longer involved in the hardware." [GlobeAndMail]

US Public Affairs - 30/11/08

In Peer-to-Peer File-Sharing Case, "Distribution" Does Not Mean "Making Available"

"At trial, the plaintiffs sought to prove that the defendant, a single mother in Duluth, had willfully infringed 24 of the plaintiffs' recordings by downloading and distributing them via the peer-to-peer program Kazaa. Finding that the defendant had infringed, the jury awarded the plaintiffs statutory damages of $9,250 per song, for a total of $222,000. The defendant filed a motion for a new trial or, in the alternative, for remittitur, calling for a reduction of excessive damages; the plaintiffs filed an unopposed motion to amend judgment, seeking an injunction. Instead, the court elected sua sponte to address the possibility of granting a new trial because of an incorrect jury instruction." [CyberLaw]

Music Sampling Does Not Infringe on Copyright, But…

"The German Supreme Court (BGH) clarified last week that sampling does not infringe on copyright in the work from which samples were taken for the purpose of creating a new work. There is a catch hiding in the details, though. According to the official press release (in German), the highest judicial authority in Germany ruled that a certain statutory exception principally covered instances of sampling. The relevant exception is anchored in section 24 to the German copyright act, known as “free use” (freie Benutzung). Free use is not fair use, but you can think about it as an extreme version of the transformativeness element familiar from the U.S. fair use analysis. Accordingly, the new work must transform the work of which elements it uses into something independent and wholly different. While using the copyrighted elements taken from the prior work, such use should be so transformative that the first work becomes hardly recognizable as the source." [CyberLaw]

Digital Copyright Issues and the Ubiquitous iPod

"The advent of new technologies has resulted in Copyright law having to adapt to new situations and infringements. These technologies, including music formats that contain compression, as well as the reduction in cost and size of hard drives has created significant new challenges and markets for digital content. Even in the short life of the iPod, it has gone from a music device, to a multimedia device. This article examines some of the issues and case law that is relevant to the content revolution created by the iPod." [SSRN]

The Dangers of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act: Much Ado about Nothing?

"In 1998, Congress passed the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), a landmark piece of legislation aimed at protecting copyright holders from those who might manufacture or traffic technology capable of allowing users to evade piracy protections on the underlying work. At its core, the DMCA flatly prohibits the circumvention of technological protection measures in order to gain access to copyrighted works, with no safety valve for any traditionally protected uses. While hailed as a victory by the software and entertainment industries, the academic and scientific communities have been far less enthusiastic. The DMCA's goal of combating piracy is a noble one, but lurking is the danger that it comes at the expense of public access to protected works and future innovation. Despite America's long history of fair use protections in copyright law, many commentators have warned that consumers now find themselves unable to do many of the same things with copyrighted works that they previously could - anyone who might sell them the technology to access a protected work and enable fair use would find themselves in violation of the DMCA. Worse, early litigation dramatically expanded the definition of what constitutes a technological protection measure deserving of the law's respect. As the definition broadened, scholars feared that even modest innovations - ones that would never qualify for patent protection under existing law - could wind up receiving perpetual patent-like protection through the backdoor of the DMCA. Despite the experts' dire predictions, however, subsequent common law interpretation of the DMCA has reigned in many of its potential dangers - the judiciary's focus is rightly on the need to balance innovators' interests with the equally important goals of public access and enhancing overall social welfare. Nonetheless, coherent and uniform protection of fair use under the DMCA is likely best achieved through Congressional action." [SSRN]

Why Emerging Business Models and Not Copyright Law are the Key to Monetising Content Online

"The multimedia Internet is here to stay. Rich media - including videos, music, podcasts, and flash animation - is already a key feature of the Internet experience, and will only grow in diversity and importance. As Internet users increasingly crave - and technology increasingly enables - multimedia content delivered on demand over broadband connections, the number of songs, videos, and other media online will increase exponentially to feed the demand. As online media consumption increases, so will expectations for its capacity to generate revenue for content owners and creators. Analysts boldly predict a bright future for the entertainment industries, especially in Asia, with broadband Internet cited as a key growth driver. Yet, to date, the vast majority of music and video acquired or consumed online is free and uncompensated. Despite the rising expectations for monetizing content on the Web, no clear sustainable, scalable model for monetizing content has emerged that compares to the level of revenues copyright owners have enjoyed in the "physical" (as opposed to online) market." [SSRN]

Music News Bulletin - 25/11/08

Anderson downgrades Long Tail to Chocolate Teapot status: Metaphor swallows Man 21st November 2008
""The end came quickly," as authors of morbid weepies like to say. On Monday WiReD magazine editor Chris Anderson effectively admitted game over for his "Long Tail", the idea he's been dragging so lucratively around the conference circuit for the past four years. In as many words, he downgraded it from "the future of business" to something that's, er, not very helpful for your business at all.

"I'll end by conceding a point: It's hard to make money in the Tail," Anderson wrote. "The revenues are disproportionately in the Head. Perhaps that will never change."

As befits a quasi-religious cult, the straw that broke the Long Tail's back wasn't empirical evidence, but the Word of God. The Google God, to be precise - Eric Schmidt. Will Page's exhaustive analysis of tens of millions of music transactions from a giant digital music store had already prompted a last ditch stand. But it was remarks by Schmidt, however, interviewed by McKinsey, that prompted the downgrade. Schmidt said they make most of the money in the top 10 per cent of advertising inventory." [TheRegister]

Artist Royalty Program (Slight Return) November 7th, 2008
"This is a blog post I wrote for the Last.fm blog, head over there if you want to join the discussion:

With the Artist Royalty Program we wanted to solve a crucial problem. Since we started in 2002 we had licensed music from various ‘content owners’ (major and indie labels as well as digital music distribution companies), and we also paid money to collections societies all over the world. But there were certain artists and labels losing out: those who do not have access to all the above, or chose not to be part of this traditional music industry network." [HeutePopMorgen]

The Long Fail: the cost of digital distribution November 25th, 2008
This is a my recent contribution to the Music Think Tank where you can join the discussion:

Digital distribution as well as promotion has undoubtedly been the best thing that could have happened to music fans as well as musicians. Even bigger content owners are finally seeing the opportunities (instead of the threats) that come with the technical change of delivering ‘media’ over the last ten years. It is now easier than ever for artists to connect to their fans and delivering the music to them, gatekeepers have been eliminated and (in theory) artists can reach out to millions of music fans out there through the internet. So far, so good.

Everyone who works in music knows that there are various new challenges that have developed through new digital delivery methods and those challenges can make it difficult to monetize digital music. I won’t be going into the issue of file sharing (there are enough people out there who have something to say about that) but I want to explore a common misunderstanding about digital media: “digital distribution is free” (or at least very cheap). It is not at the moment." [HeutePopMorgen]

EU Public Affairs Monitor - 20/11/08

How to destroy the music business 20th November 2008
"Put yourself in these hypothetical shoes for a moment. My goal is to make as much money as possible by doing as little work as possible. I have no creative talent except for generating and recycling marketing buzzwords. I have no technical knowledge or ability - but I can get my head around a Twitter feed. It doesn't sound promising, but you'll want in, I promise.

Now let's imagine a business that can achieve our goals. The natural place to start this business is on the internet - where one can harness the labour of millions of people and pay them sod all for their work. Under the smokescreen of "collective intelligence" or harnessing "the wisdom of the crowd", we can keep our supply costs at zero. And if we can keep reminding these rubes that "power lies at the edge of the network" or "in the Long Tail", they'll produce lots of stuff for us for nothing, without complaining." [TheRegister]

TechDirt's Backfiring Defense of the Thomas Decision--and the "Effective Freedom" of Totalitarian Terror (Part II) 11.21.2008
"Having dealt with Mr. Masnick's self-immolating attack on my analysis of Thomas, I must now even more emphatically reject Mr. Masnick's absurd claim that he "proved" that my paper on Free Culture mischaracterized the views that Professor Lawrence Lessig expressed in Code, a deplorable book advocating government control of the Internet and lawsuits against programmers. Frankly, mischaracterizing Lessig is pointless: quoting him suffices. Nevertheless, Mr. Masnick claimed, "The worst was when a variety of others pointed out Sydnor's out of context comments [sic] and put them back into context--and Sydnor still stood by the paper, refusing to admit he took a single comment out of content."

Nonsense: I stand by my paper because Mr. Masnick and "others" failed to quibble successfully even about details wholly tangential to its main argument. As Mr. Masnick's post indicates, his quibbles claimed that I had unfairly portrayed Lessig as a "communist sympathizer."" [IPCentral]

Asinine lawsuit from French music interests targets Sourceforge Nov 15th 2008
"Torrent Freak reported yesterday that the SPFF -- think of it as the French RIAA -- filed lawsuits against the developers of P2P clients Vuze, Limewire, and Morpheus. There is also a fourth target, and I'll get to that particular bit of insanity later.

The SPFF's beef is with the fact that these programs don't provide a system to block copyright protected materials from being shared. Because the programs don't prevent files from being shared, the SPFF argues that the programs are complicit in the act itself." [DownloadSquad]

Music News Bulletin - 19/11/08

Distributor EUK Winds Down, 700 Jobs Cut
“Entertainment wholesale distributor EUK has failed to attract a buyer and the business will now be wound down by the administrators.

EUK, which was part of Woolworths Group, will continue to operate with a reduced workforce of 375 employees. Seven hundred employees were made redundant today (Dec. 12) and efforts to sell the business as a going concern will be scaled down.

EUK was placed in administration - roughly equivalent to Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the U.S. - on Nov. 27 along with Woolworths' retail business. The 800-plus stores launched a closing down sale yesterday (Dec. 12).” [BillBoard]

GEMA to join ICE
“GEMA, the German music copyright society, today confirmed that it is actively exploring opportunities to join ICE - the shared back-office service centre for collective rights organisations.

Currently ICE is a joint venture between the MCPS-PRS Alliance and the Swedish society STIM, but GEMA has been carrying out due diligence on the organisation over the past six months and this will continue with a view to GEMA potentially becoming a third partner in the venture.
GEMA’s CEO Harald Heker says a strong back-office has always provided the basis for GEMA's operations. “We believe that a potential participation in ICE, alongside the Alliance and STIM, could provide an important strategic alliance to enable a leap forward in business quality, efficiency and effectiveness."

The Alliance’s CEO Steve Porter adds, the strategic, operational and business logic behind ICE is compelling and gets stronger as new partners and customers join.” [MusicWeek]

GEMA considering joining ICE partnership
“German publishing collecting society GEMA has said it is looking into joining MCPS-PRS and Swedish collecting society STIM's ICE alliance. ICE is a shared admin centre utilised by both the UK and Swedish royalty bodies. GEMA say they have been monitoring how ICE works and the benefits it delivers to MCPS-PRS and STIM for the last six months, and its CEO, Harald Heker, has told Music Week: "We believe that a potential participation in ICE, alongside the Alliance and STIM, could provide an important strategic alliance to enable a leap forward in business quality, efficiency and effectiveness".” [CMUDaily]

EMI.COM launches
“EMI today beta launch their new website EMI.com, which is part of the major record company's attempts to forge closer connections directly with consumers. The site aims to be much more content rich than your average record label website, providing access to full track previews, videos, photos, biographies and whatnot from artists from across the EMI empire. There's also a music recommendation service which recommends artists based on your music preferences - and will make recommendations based on liking artists not signed to EMI as well as those on the label.

Although in some ways just an enhanced version of the kind of group-wide major label sites operated by Sony and Universal (and EMI, for that matter, whose now defunct The Raft website was always more content rich than most label sites), for EMI the EMI.com project is much bigger than that. Signing up and engaging consumers on a regular basis is much more part of the mix, presumably with a view to building relationships with music fans so they can sell recordings and other music-based products directly to them, circumventing, to a point, other retailers and download stores. Better direct customer relations will also strengthen EMI's offer to new artists, because they have a ready made network of profiled music fans they can promote new singings to.” [CMUDaily]

EU Public Affairs Monitor - 17/11/08

France votes for 'three strikes' filesharing law 04/11/08
"The French senate has voted overwhelmingly in favour of Nicolas Sarkozy's anti-piracy legislation that offers illegal filesharers two warnings before cutting off their internet access

This week, as ever, it's one step forward and two steps back for the recording industry's anti-piracy legislation. Even as France seems poised to pass a new "three strikes" law against filesharers, lobbyists in Denmark have given up on the chance of passing similar legislation." [Guardian]

Dance Music Classics Get Aboard The Pirate Ship 12/11/08
"Recently, the techno-oriented site Resident Advisor ran a detailed, well-reported piece by UK writer Richard Brophy on the state of the bootleg 12-inch in dance music. To be clear, since "bootleg" has a few different musical connotations, Brophy isn't talking about mash-up pop Frankensteins or unauthorized recordings of live shows, but about pirated versions of actual releases—small-edition replicas of classic, long-out-of-print house and techno 12-inches. These are, he suggests, far more legion in the dance world than we might think, an open secret that few retailers try to do anything about even if they know what they're selling is technically illegal." [Idolator]

Prof Enters RIAA Lawsuit Controversy Nov 17, 2008
"A Harvard Law School professor representing a Boston University student accused of copyright infringement is attacking the constitutionality of lawsuits launched by the RIAA against individuals.

Professor Charles Nesson claims the Digital Theft Deterrence and Copyright Damages Improvement Act of 1999 is unconstitutional because it lets a private group, in this case the Recording Industry Association of America, carry out civil enforcement of a criminal law." [PollStar]

Pay-For Content Set To Grow Faster Than Free, With Music Leading The Way, Forecast Says 11 Nov 2008
"Maybe there are legs after all to that hypothesis on the return of pay-for content - the one Economist publisher Paul Rossi suggested at our Future Of Business Media conference last month. Just 12 percent of European web users paid for online content last year, but that’s due to rise to 19 percent by 2013, a new Jupiterresearch report says: “While free content will continue to dominate, as overall online audiences for all content categories continue to grow, so the number of European users willing to pay for content online will grow at an even greater rate.”" [PaidContent]

Music News Bulletin - 07/11/08

MySpace, MTV Test Piracy-Profit Plan
"A new technology that essentially allows content owners to profit from piracy will get a high-profile test this month from MySpace and MTV Networks.
Instead of triggering the usual take-down notices, copyright-infringing footage of select MTV Networks programing uploaded by MySpace subscribers would be automatically redistributed with advertisements that would generate revenue for the companies. MTV Networks is the parent company of such channels as MTV, BET, Comedy Central, Spike and Nickelodeon." [Billboard]

EMI, Warner Sign Up To Unlimited MP3 Package
"EMI Music and Warner Music have signed up to an all-you-can-eat download service run by Datz.com, which will provide access to unlimited music in MP3 format for £99.99 ($164.45) a year. The service will allow fans to keep the music when the year is up.
Beggars Group and The Orchard have also signed up to the Datz Music Lounge and more are set to join in the coming weeks. " [Billboard]

Can The Major Labels Handle Their Debt?
"The expanding crisis engulfing the international financial system has music industry executives worried that rising credit costs could eventually affect term loans, interest payments and revolving credit facilities at record labels.

"There is a lack of confidence out there so that regardless of credit worthiness, investors are shunning risk," says Thomas Carroll, senior VP/managing director of SunTrust's Sports and Entertainment Specialty Group."" [Billboard]

Free vs. Fee Content in a Recession
"An article at eMarketer (see http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?id=1006660 ) brings up a topic that is worth discussing in the music business: Will free lose out to paid content in an economic downturn? The article debates whether or not creators will increasingly scoff at giving away their content and turn to sites that pay for their content." [Coolfer]

EMI, one of the world's largest record companies, is considering turning over its distribution, sales and marketing operations in the United States to a rival in an attempt to cut its extensive losses, music industry sources said Friday.
"Three industry sources told Fortune that the storied British company - whose catalog includes the Beatles, the Beach Boys and Coldplay - is talking to Warner Music, SonyBMG and Universal Music Group about assuming these functions in the U.S. Those companies declined to comment." [CNNMoney]

Music News Bulletin - 03/11/08

Sony BMG posts loss
"Sony BMG lost $57m (£34.5m) in the three months to September 30, with sales down 11% year on year, parent company Sony Corp has announced. Sales and operating revenue at the major were $762m (£461.3m) for the quarter, down from $851m (£515.1m) in the same quarter in 2007. Sony said that the loss reflects the impact of lower revenue and re-structuring costs of $4m (£2.4m)" [Coolfer]


IMEEM DO DEAL WITH BEGGARS
"Music based social networking whatnot Imeem yesterday announced it had entered into a worldwide licensing and marketing partnership with the Beggars Group and Matador Records, which will see the addition of music and video from those labels and all their many imprints onto the Imeem service." [CMUDaily]

EMI MAKES DEAL WITH INMOTION
"EMI Music have cut a deal with InMotion Entertainment, a major US airport based entertainment retailer, to put their content into the company's PlayPoint Media Hotspot kiosks, a touch screen facility used by travellers to download MP3s ahead of boarding their flights. InMotion have a total of forty five of the machines at twenty of the largest US airports. Users need a credit card and their own portable player, of course, to use the download platform, which will retail albums at a cost of $11.99." [CMUDaily]

Music News Bulletin - 25/10/08

Why Nokia's Comes with Music package comes with a price September 25 2008
"When Nokia announced their Comes With Music programme last year it was touted as a scheme that would give subscribers a year of unlimited downloads from a huge catalogue of tunes. What's more, they would be able to keep those downloads even after the subscription ends.

It sounded like an amazing deal for the consumer, but it surprised a lot of artists – and probably most record labels too. How would artists and labels possibly earn any money from the content that Nokia planned to give away? Well, I suspect that Nokia jumped the gun before realising they'd have to pay both the record labels and songwriters." [Guardian]

Invisible Listening September 23, 2008
"I came across an interesting study from Coleman Insights that was presented at the National Association of Broadcasters Radio Show last week.The study makes the distinction between intentional radio listening and incidental, or invisible, radio listening. From the study press release:
Coleman Insights defines Intentional listening as when people are aware of a station and intend to listen to it. Incidental listening is to stations that people are aware of and have some sense of, but that is driven by other forces that are generally out of their control (such as someone being exposed to a station played in an office environment). Invisible listening is completely unexplained listening that the PPM captures, but that the listeners have no recollection of. The findings demonstrate that there is very little a radio station can do to impact the amount of Incidental and Invisible listening it generates in PPM." [AdSupportedMusic]

Now there are four: EMI joins MySpace Music on eve of its launch* September 24, 2008
"On the eve of the launch of its new music site, MySpace said today that EMI Group, which counts the British band Coldplay (pictured above) among its jewels, is now part of the joint venture that already includes the other three top recording companies.

EMI was the missing link for the venture, which came out of a negotiation between MySpace and the recording industry over copyright infringement on the News Corp. social network. The music service, which will be available tonight at www.myspace.com/music, will include full songs streamed for free and personalized music management services. Through the service, which is powered by Amazon.com, MySpace users will be able to buy music downloads and ringtones as well." [LATimes]

For MySpace, a lot rides on music service launch September 17, 2008
"MySpace, the social networking site owned by News Corp., is hoping to reclaim its mantle as king of the digital music sites when it relaunches its music site sometime this month.

The launch is being closely watched by the music industry as well as by Internet companies, such as iMeem, iLike and Lastfm.com, that have built their businesses on letting people create playlists, share musical interests and connect with other fans. What will MySpace, with its audience of 61 million or so, do differently in this crowded space?" [LATimes]

SD: the new CD? 21/09/08
"With CD sales dropping despite a demonstrable increase in music consumption, you might think that music fans just aren't as interested as they used to be in paying for tunes. Or you could believe in the spirit of hope springing eternal, and that the problem is with the CD itself. If you're in the latter camp, then you should be cheered by the announcement this morning that the four major record companies plan to experiment with a new physical format for albums: microSD cards. See my colleague Michelle Quinn's piece about the deal here.

Now, if you're convinced that the CD is dying because there are a plethora of free sources of music online, you're probably scoffing at the prospects for albums sold on a microchip -- or any other shrink-wrapped container, for that matter. But Daniel Schreiber, a senior vice president at SanDisk (the company behind microSD cards and the prime mover behind the "slotMusic" initiative) has a question for the skeptics: how do you think people are going to load tunes onto their shiny new music phones?" [LATimes]

Music News Bulletin - 24/10/08

MySpace Music Struggles to Hit the Right Pitch With Indie Labels 10/24/08
"When it first launched, MySpace Music had support from major record labels as well as The Orchard, a strong independent distributor. Largely left out were smaller independent labels not associated with The Orchard. A month later, MySpace is attempting to grow its stake in the indie field by cutting a deal with another large distributor for independent music, IODA.

A month after irking part of the independent recording community by launching its online music service mostly with major labels, MySpace Music Latest News about MySpace has made a deal to almost double the amount of indie tunes available through the service." [HeutePopMorgen]

Digital music and ‘the recession’ October 3rd, 2008
"So what’s going on? A recession? A real one or just one that gets newspapers excited? I’m too cynical to get get concerned about these issues until they really effect me or I can see other people affected.

Then I looked at my schedule for the upcoming Popkomm conference in Berlin and noticed it is still strangely open. Either I am becoming less popular or the companies I normally catch up with at this conference are not attending this year. The latter seems to be the case: lots of emails from people saying that they will not make it this time. Those are often Americans and it looks like they want to safe a few dollars by not making it over to Berlin. Will be interesting to see if the American companies that brought over 30+ people and took out huge stands the last few years will do the same next week." [HeutePopMorgen]