Music News Bulletin - 23/01/09

Sharkey talks though at MIDEM
"More MIDEM, and the boss of cross-industry trade body UK Music, Feargal Sharkey, often the consolatory voice in the room when the music industry feels it is being abused by government or the internet industry, delivered some fighting talk in his speech.

First the UK government. Despite Culture Secretary Andy Burnham putting pressure on the ISPs to take a more proactive role in combating online piracy, and more recently saying that the government were no longer completely against the idea of extending the sound recording copyright, Sharkey said British ministers should do more to help the music business.

Welcoming the French approach to online piracy (putting obligations on the ISPs to act - and to cut off file sharers - into law), and noting that the UK industry often relied on European legislation to protect label and artists' interests, he said: "Whether it's ensuring that a private copying exception is met with some sort of compensation mechanism, or term extension for sound recordings or simply protection of a creator's moral rights, why is it that UK creators are constantly having to seek support from Brussels and not on our own doorstep?." [CMUDaily]

Industry may start pushing for legislation on net-piracy policing as ISP negotiations falter
Whether it's led by UK Music or the BPI or another trade body, someone may need to step up their lobbying activity regarding making internet service providers take more responsibility for tackling online piracy.

As much previously reported, record label trade body the BPI and six ISPs last year signed a memorandum of understanding which saw the net firms commit send out warning letters to suspected file sharers as a way of preparing the ground for more detailed discussions on how the record companies and net firms could work together to combat piracy and collaborate on new digital music services that could be bundled into ISP's monthly subscriptions." [CMUDaily]

Illegal downloads don’t equate to lost sales, says U.S. judge
"A sort of interesting ruling in the US courts now which may have an impact on how content owners calculate their losses in online piracy cases.
The ruling comes from a criminal copyright action against Daniel Dove, who ran the Elite Torrents message board in 2004 and 2005, providing access to illegal sources of both music and movies. He's already been jailed for 18 months for his involvement in the infringing torrent group, and was ordered to pay a $20,000 fine.

However, two parties, the Recording Industry Association Of America and movie makers Lionsgate Entertainment, have also made claims for 'restitution'; basically they want to be compensated for the losses they claim they suffered as a result of Dove's torrent service (legally speaking, restitution is subtly different to compensation, but that's in essence what they want)." [CMUDaily]

Rough Trade distribution has MBO
"More indie distribution news for you, and Netherlands-based Rough Trade Distribution, linked back in the day to the London based record shop and label but long since a separate entity, has been bought out by its management." [CMUDaily]

Survey Finds ISPs Number One Choice Of Music Provider
"An international survey of more than 1300 music fans has found that the music industry is offering them the wrong kind of new music services. In the research conducted by The Leading Question and Music Ally in the UK, US and France, music fans overwhelmingly backed Internet Service Providers as their favoured music supplier when asked to choose amongst a variety of possible providers.

46% of the survey chose ISPs as their number one music service provider, compared to 10% preferring cable/satellite TV providers, 5% opting for mobile operators while a meagre 3% considered handset manufacturers best placed to deliver music to them. ISPs were also rated top choice provider for ‘unlimited’ music services, this despite mobile operators and handset manufacturers currently offering more of these services." [MusicAlly]

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 - 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 - 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]

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]

EU Public Affairs Monitor - 27/10/08

Cox To Internet Users: Three Strikes and You're Out October 1, 2008
Over the course of the last year, we've seen an intense, international lobbying effort on the part of the entertainment industry to craft policies that would boot alleged filesharers off of the Internet. The folks over at TechDirt have been keeping a close watch on this front and point to legislation and negotiations in the UK, France, Australia and Canada that would institute a "three strikes" rule. As proposed, this three strikes policy would require ISPs to filter their networks for copyrighted content and send out notices of infringement to users suspected of engaging in filesharing--effectively turning ISPs into "copyright cops". As implied by the three strikes moniker, users would receive two written warnings before having their contract with the ISP terminated outright, upon receipt of the third." [PublicKnowledge]

Music Like Water - Not October 27, 2007
"I originally wrote this post as a comment on Andrew Dubber's blog. Out of courtesy for Andrew, I am going to turn comments off on this post. Please go to Andrew's site to continue the discussion.

Andrew, you create the best scenarios on the Internet for discussion…

If the water analogy were as simple as turning on a faucet, and out comes music that everyone pays a flat fee for, then I would agree with you. However, sticking with the water analogy, there are thousands of brands of bottled water, fizzy water, flavored water, tap water, fountain water, toilet water, brown water, fruit water, mineral water, etc, etc, etc. Only a dolt would let their brand become commoditized, municipal tap water… The water utility thing will never happen anyways; innovation will outrun legislation." [UnsprungMedia]