Ingjerds world...

Oscar Wilde once wrote "I am not young enough to know everything". I guess I am neither old enough, nor young enough, but we twentysomethings try our best to get a grasp of this world - and with that I welcome you to MY world: You are free to crash. This is a place publish curious thoughts and recent events - some personal stuff, but mainly about music and technology.

Monday, February 26, 2007

EMI puts non-DRM talks on hold - demand large advance payments

After so much anticipation on this, the talks seem to have ended, reports Bloomberg. The story says talks aimed at removing copyright protection from songs didn’t go anywhere because they couldn’t agree on the size of an advance payment.
EMI demanded an upfront payment to compensate for its risk in releasing the music sans DRM, but the retailers countered with a lower offer, which EMI rejected, and negotiations with the likes of Microsoft, Apple, RealNetworks, Yahoo and Amazon.com are now on hold. The upfront demanded by EMI would come on top of the per-song charge that retailers pay...the new fee would make it less profitable for retailers unless they raise prices, these companies argued.

Apple wasn’t initially involved in the talks with EMI and was added after the famous Jobs letter... again goes to prove the power of blogs!

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Monday, February 19, 2007

Don't blame lost sales on P2P! They wouldn't buy it anyways...

This article pretty much proves what I have believed all along - you download for free the stuff you wouldn't have bought anyways. The albums you REALLY want, you purchase (artwork, support of band, etc), so don't blame lost sales on P2P networks - it does not tell the full story about consumer behaviour.

P2P Music CD Sales Effect Virtually Zero
Excerpted from Bit-Tech Report

Has everyone noticed that the first thing the RIAA goes for when it discusses copyright infringement is lost sales? Often, those who infringe argue that if they didn’t do it, they wouldn’t buy the music anyway. Apparently, they aren’t lying. A new study takes a look at empirical sales data over two quarters in 2002, following over 1.75 million songs through both sales and unauthorized downloads.

The findings? P2P network activity has a whopping 0.7% negative effect on sales - well less than the margin of error for the study. Even taking the most negative figures (counting the margin of error in favor of the RIAA’s claims), the study can only account for 6 million out of the 80 million units of lost sales the RIAA blames on infringement in 2002. This means 74 million units just plain didn’t sell, and that had nothing to do with infringement - even if everything that could have gone wrong with the study did.


According to the study, much of the loss of sales has to do with how the RIAA chooses to account for units in the first place. Rather than counting units sold to consumers, it counts units shipped to retailers. Therefore, since many retailers have reduced how much they order as stock to sit on shelves, the RIAA says “sales are down” and blames the numbers on rampant copyright infringement.


Before online shopping became such a big thing, stores that carried music would order a plethora of stock and let it sit - since there was nowhere else to conveniently buy it, it would eventually move. Nowadays, in order to keep prices down and competition high, most stores just don’t keep as large of an inventory at one time.


Of course, this will all likely end up as every other study on the issue does - buried ten feet deep on some desk somewhere while the execs keep spouting off about lost revenue. However, at least there is an empirical study now to back up the claim everyone has been saying for years - the people who infringe either weren’t going to buy the music anyway, or go and buy it afterwards.

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Friday, February 16, 2007

O2 Spins Music Into User-Generated Mobile Play

Mobile phones now represent another venue for the the user-generated explosion, and action is happening across all major markets. Even in the United States, often a laggard in mobile-based technologies, MySpace is now accessible to both Helio and Cingular subscribers. And in Europe, operator O2 has gained traction with a service called LookAtMe, a video-focused initiative that allows users to upload clips in a YouTube-style format. But unlike YouTube, at least in its current version, the O2 play actually pays users if others subsequently download (and purchase) the shared content. That helps to create some incentive for quality control, and mirrors some newer concepts in the user-generated realm.

Now, O2 is layering music-related aspects into LookAtMe. The expanded aspect, called Your Show, allows users to upload homemade ringtones and audio clips. The result is a richer LookAtMe offering, a natural evolution for the service. "Our customers love it," said O2 executive Russ Shaw. "Your Show is the logical next step for the home of music - it's a chance for everyone to get creative and begin selling videos and tracks and make money out of it." LookAtMe first launched in June of last year.

Wednesday, February 14, 2007

David finally beats Goliath? Reign of majors as we know it is over...

The recent malaise at EMI could soon be followed by layoff rounds at other majors, according to sources. Sources claim possible reductions are ahead at Sony BMG, particularly "on the Sony side." A restructuring would touch the Columbia and Epic labels, according to the information, though action may be "a ways off". Warner Music Group was another label tossed around, though one executive warned that layoff predictions are still in a "chatter stage".

In particular, sinking CD sales have plunged labels into a struggle for survival, despite rapidly increasing digital sales.

Meanwhile, the employment picture remains a bit rocky outside of the labels as well. Intense disruption and consumer change are magical ingredients for entrepreneurs, though the space has serving plenty of highs and lows. That has smaller companies entering, exiting, buying and being sold, while larger companies struggle to concoct meaningful digital strategies.

Against heavy pressure from heavyweights like MySpace, MTV Networks recently shed 250 employees, part of a shift towards new media initiatives.

This means: Highly qualified employees availble and a market ready for disruptive innovation. And exciting times ahead. And quite frankly, I don't think the quality of music will suffer for it - au contraire mon ami....

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Tuesday, February 13, 2007

MySpace Prepares UK-Based Concert Mini Tour

MySpace is about to rock British crowds once again, this time with a four-city, ten band assault. The live concert trek, called the Bleep Bleep Tour, will feature bands Hadouken, Pull Tiger Tail, Ali Love and I Say Marvin. Tickets are already on sale, and the tour officially starts March 11th in Leeds. The tenth gig, and ending date, happens March 21st in Glasgow. The tour follows last year's MyFestival, an ambitious five-city tour that featured fifty bands. The tour will translate a great deal of online energy into offline pastures, and broaden the importance of MySpace in the process. MySpace will also gain credibility as a tastemaker and music source, an overarching goal of the company.

The promotional impact of MySpace can be incredibly strong, though the social networking giant is now playing defense against the majors. Late last year, Universal Music Group issued a lawsuit against both MySpace and its corporate parent, News Corp., alleging broad copyright infringement. The reason is that users frequently toss around streams of well-known tracks, and embed them into their profiles. Labels are not compensated for the favor, though it could be argued that the sharing - which almost always applies to streamed audio and video content - offers immense promotional benefit. Meanwhile, MySpace recently announced a video filtering partnership with Audible Magic, a deal that follows an audio-specific filtering pact with Gracenote. Both will help to cleanse the site, though it remains unclear how users will react to the increased limitations.

...interesting!

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MTV Continues Shift Towards Digital, 250 Dismissed

The ongoing digital disruption has a dark side, one that is dampening moods at MTV Networks this week. As expected, the Viacom-owned group will lay off 250 staffers, part of a larger shift towards digital opportunities. MTV Networks chairman and chief executive Judy McGrath issued the somber news, and outlined changes across a number of areas. That includes both domestic, US-based departments and overseas divisions. The changes started several months ago with the departure of Viacom chief executive Tom Freston, a near-legend at MTV who was pushed by chairman Sumner Redstone. That was followed by the departure of chief financial officer Michael Dolan, and a number of other high-level MTV Networks executives.

In an email to employees issued Monday morning, McGrath pointed to a shift of resources towards "interactive properties and some of our new networks," and a reduction in others. That is part of a broader restructuring happening across traditional media companies, especially as digital upstarts-turned-giants like YouTube, MySpace, and Facebook gain ground. Meanwhile, the mood remains equally grim at EMI, a company that is now in the throes of a difficult staff reduction. The latest casualties are reportedly coming from the Capitol Records sales department, and other departments have also experienced heavy cuts. Like MTV, the reductions at EMI started with high-level executives, and eventually trickled to the larger staff.

Story by news analyst Alexandra Osorio.

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Monday, February 12, 2007

Jobs command, and EMI obey?

From TimesOnline:

EMI may end digital copy protection

EMI is considering whether to abandon copy protection for digital music, in a move that would set the British company dramatically apart from three principal rivals.

The British group behind Norah Jones and Robbie Williams has sounded out online music retailers about switching to the MP3 format, abandoning the proprietary digital rights management technology developed by Apple.

However, industry insiders believed that EMI was getting cold feet, because the plan could lead to a precipitate drop in its already flagging revenues. The decision would leave its entire catalogue without any protection in the digital era.

This week, Steve Jobs, the chief executive of Apple, to the music industry, in which he suggested that the majors drop their demand for copy protection, to ensure that songs sold from iTunes can be copied on to any digital music player.

However, EMI’s thinking is at odds with its competitors, who believe that Apple should instead try to license its copy protection software to permit interoperability with other digital music players — a stance that Mr Jobs rejects, arguing that the security technology may leak.

Edgar Bronfman, Warner Music’s chief executive, hit out at Jobs on Thursday, saying that abandoning copy protection was “without logic or merit” in words that found private support at market leader Universal. They hope to maintain the pressure on Apple, at a time when the hardware company is coming under increasing pressure from European governments.

All the music majors have tried to release some MP3 downloads, with EMI releasing songs from Lily Allen and Norah Jones, which it said “went down well with fans”. However, it is not clear that many people opted to pay for the songs, and other music groups question whether there is a viable business at this stage.

It is not certain that Apple will be able to open up its Fair-play digital rights management technology, as there is speculation that the company does not have all the patent rights to the software. In 2004, Microsoft paid InterTrust, a digital rights management software company, $440 million (£255 million) to license its technology. It is possible that if Apple made clear what technology it was using, a similar issue would arise.

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Thursday, February 08, 2007

Welcome to the Machine!

"Welcome my son, welcome to the machine", is the introduction to a great Pink Floyd song. The thing about Web 2.0 is that increasingly, we ARE the machine. Web 2.0 means we have to rethink everything: how we interact, how we share, how we meet people, how we work - and how we create new things.

This video probably the most inspirational video you'll see today and posted by Michael Wesch, Assistant Professor of Cultural Anthropology at Kansas State University.

Web 2.0 ... The Machine is Us/ing Us

Wednesday, February 07, 2007

Jobs's New Tune Raises Pressure On Music Firms to let DRM Die

A movement to pressure the music industry to drop its primary weapon against online piracy has gained a high-profile convert: Steve Jobs, the man who helped build the market for selling music via the Internet.

In an 1,800-word online essay, Apple Inc.'s chief executive said the world's major music companies should consider allowing Apple and others to sell songs unfettered by anticopying software that prevents them from being shared or played however a consumer chooses.

Mr. Jobs contends that the recording industry isn't solving piracy with the technology, and could spur the market further if music lovers could buy music DRM free.

Here is the full text essay (published on apple.com):

Thoughts on Music

Steve Jobs
February 6, 2007


With the stunning global success of Apple’s iPod music player and iTunes online music store, some have called for Apple to “open” the digital rights management (DRM) system that Apple uses to protect its music against theft, so that music purchased from iTunes can be played on digital devices purchased from other companies, and protected music purchased from other online music stores can play on iPods. Let’s examine the current situation and how we got here, then look at three possible alternatives for the future.

To begin, it is useful to remember that all iPods play music that is free of any DRM and encoded in “open” licensable formats such as MP3 and AAC. iPod users can and do acquire their music from many sources, including CDs they own. Music on CDs can be easily imported into the freely-downloadable iTunes jukebox software which runs on both Macs and Windows PCs, and is automatically encoded into the open AAC or MP3 formats without any DRM. This music can be played on iPods or any other music players that play these open formats.

The rub comes from the music Apple sells on its online iTunes Store. Since Apple does not own or control any music itself, it must license the rights to distribute music from others, primarily the “big four” music companies: Universal, Sony BMG, Warner and EMI. These four companies control the distribution of over 70% of the world’s music. When Apple approached these companies to license their music to distribute legally over the Internet, they were extremely cautious and required Apple to protect their music from being illegally copied. The solution was to create a DRM system, which envelopes each song purchased from the iTunes store in special and secret software so that it cannot be played on unauthorized devices.

Apple was able to negotiate landmark usage rights at the time, which include allowing users to play their DRM protected music on up to 5 computers and on an unlimited number of iPods. Obtaining such rights from the music companies was unprecedented at the time, and even today is unmatched by most other digital music services. However, a key provision of our agreements with the music companies is that if our DRM system is compromised and their music becomes playable on unauthorized devices, we have only a small number of weeks to fix the problem or they can withdraw their entire music catalog from our iTunes store.

To prevent illegal copies, DRM systems must allow only authorized devices to play the protected music. If a copy of a DRM protected song is posted on the Internet, it should not be able to play on a downloader’s computer or portable music device. To achieve this, a DRM system employs secrets. There is no theory of protecting content other than keeping secrets. In other words, even if one uses the most sophisticated cryptographic locks to protect the actual music, one must still “hide” the keys which unlock the music on the user’s computer or portable music player. No one has ever implemented a DRM system that does not depend on such secrets for its operation.

The problem, of course, is that there are many smart people in the world, some with a lot of time on their hands, who love to discover such secrets and publish a way for everyone to get free (and stolen) music. They are often successful in doing just that, so any company trying to protect content using a DRM must frequently update it with new and harder to discover secrets. It is a cat-and-mouse game. Apple’s DRM system is called FairPlay. While we have had a few breaches in FairPlay, we have been able to successfully repair them through updating the iTunes store software, the iTunes jukebox software and software in the iPods themselves. So far we have met our commitments to the music companies to protect their music, and we have given users the most liberal usage rights available in the industry for legally downloaded music.

With this background, let’s now explore three different alternatives for the future.

The first alternative is to continue on the current course, with each manufacturer competing freely with their own “top to bottom” proprietary systems for selling, playing and protecting music. It is a very competitive market, with major global companies making large investments to develop new music players and online music stores. Apple, Microsoft and Sony all compete with proprietary systems. Music purchased from Microsoft’s Zune store will only play on Zune players; music purchased from Sony’s Connect store will only play on Sony’s players; and music purchased from Apple’s iTunes store will only play on iPods. This is the current state of affairs in the industry, and customers are being well served with a continuing stream of innovative products and a wide variety of choices.

Some have argued that once a consumer purchases a body of music from one of the proprietary music stores, they are forever locked into only using music players from that one company. Or, if they buy a specific player, they are locked into buying music only from that company’s music store. Is this true? Let’s look at the data for iPods and the iTunes store – they are the industry’s most popular products and we have accurate data for them. Through the end of 2006, customers purchased a total of 90 million iPods and 2 billion songs from the iTunes store. On average, that’s 22 songs purchased from the iTunes store for each iPod ever sold.

Today’s most popular iPod holds 1000 songs, and research tells us that the average iPod is nearly full. This means that only 22 out of 1000 songs, or under 3% of the music on the average iPod, is purchased from the iTunes store and protected with a DRM. The remaining 97% of the music is unprotected and playable on any player that can play the open formats. Its hard to believe that just 3% of the music on the average iPod is enough to lock users into buying only iPods in the future. And since 97% of the music on the average iPod was not purchased from the iTunes store, iPod users are clearly not locked into the iTunes store to acquire their music.

The second alternative is for Apple to license its FairPlay DRM technology to current and future competitors with the goal of achieving interoperability between different company’s players and music stores. On the surface, this seems like a good idea since it might offer customers increased choice now and in the future. And Apple might benefit by charging a small licensing fee for its FairPlay DRM. However, when we look a bit deeper, problems begin to emerge. The most serious problem is that licensing a DRM involves disclosing some of its secrets to many people in many companies, and history tells us that inevitably these secrets will leak. The Internet has made such leaks far more damaging, since a single leak can be spread worldwide in less than a minute. Such leaks can rapidly result in software programs available as free downloads on the Internet which will disable the DRM protection so that formerly protected songs can be played on unauthorized players.

An equally serious problem is how to quickly repair the damage caused by such a leak. A successful repair will likely involve enhancing the music store software, the music jukebox software, and the software in the players with new secrets, then transferring this updated software into the tens (or hundreds) of millions of Macs, Windows PCs and players already in use. This must all be done quickly and in a very coordinated way. Such an undertaking is very difficult when just one company controls all of the pieces. It is near impossible if multiple companies control separate pieces of the puzzle, and all of them must quickly act in concert to repair the damage from a leak.

Apple has concluded that if it licenses FairPlay to others, it can no longer guarantee to protect the music it licenses from the big four music companies. Perhaps this same conclusion contributed to Microsoft’s recent decision to switch their emphasis from an “open” model of licensing their DRM to others to a “closed” model of offering a proprietary music store, proprietary jukebox software and proprietary players.

The third alternative is to abolish DRMs entirely. Imagine a world where every online store sells DRM-free music encoded in open licensable formats. In such a world, any player can play music purchased from any store, and any store can sell music which is playable on all players. This is clearly the best alternative for consumers, and Apple would embrace it in a heartbeat. If the big four music companies would license Apple their music without the requirement that it be protected with a DRM, we would switch to selling only DRM-free music on our iTunes store. Every iPod ever made will play this DRM-free music.

Why would the big four music companies agree to let Apple and others distribute their music without using DRM systems to protect it? The simplest answer is because DRMs haven’t worked, and may never work, to halt music piracy. Though the big four music companies require that all their music sold online be protected with DRMs, these same music companies continue to sell billions of CDs a year which contain completely unprotected music. That’s right! No DRM system was ever developed for the CD, so all the music distributed on CDs can be easily uploaded to the Internet, then (illegally) downloaded and played on any computer or player.

In 2006, under 2 billion DRM-protected songs were sold worldwide by online stores, while over 20 billion songs were sold completely DRM-free and unprotected on CDs by the music companies themselves. The music companies sell the vast majority of their music DRM-free, and show no signs of changing this behavior, since the overwhelming majority of their revenues depend on selling CDs which must play in CD players that support no DRM system.

So if the music companies are selling over 90 percent of their music DRM-free, what benefits do they get from selling the remaining small percentage of their music encumbered with a DRM system? There appear to be none. If anything, the technical expertise and overhead required to create, operate and update a DRM system has limited the number of participants selling DRM protected music. If such requirements were removed, the music industry might experience an influx of new companies willing to invest in innovative new stores and players. This can only be seen as a positive by the music companies.

Much of the concern over DRM systems has arisen in European countries. Perhaps those unhappy with the current situation should redirect their energies towards persuading the music companies to sell their music DRM-free. For Europeans, two and a half of the big four music companies are located right in their backyard. The largest, Universal, is 100% owned by Vivendi, a French company. EMI is a British company, and Sony BMG is 50% owned by Bertelsmann, a German company. Convincing them to license their music to Apple and others DRM-free will create a truly interoperable music marketplace. Apple will embrace this wholeheartedly.

Friday, February 02, 2007

Industry Ponders CD Sales Cliff, Post Physical World

From DigtalMusicNews.com

Are CD sales headed for a cliff this year? Sales tallies from the first few weeks of this year have certainly supported that notion, particularly in the United States. During a keynote presentation in West Hollywood on Thursday, Yahoo Music chief David Goldberg pointed to a 20 percent drop in 2007, a prediction that is being driven by several forces. On the consumer side, demand is sliding away from a commodity that combines predefined bundles and higher price points. But Goldberg asserted that retailers themselves will also accelerate the decline. Big-box retailers like Wal-Mart and Best Buy have traditionally positioned CDs as loss leaders, a strategy that helps to generate extra foot traffic. But softened consumer demand could decrease the emphasis on that approach. "Once CDs stop drawing people in, there’s less reason for stores to keep large collections on their floor," Goldberg noted. The result will be less opportunities for consumers to make impulsive CD purchases.

But the shiny disc still has staying power, despite the gloomy forecasts. Sales have been decreasing year after year, though the numbers so far suggest a slowly-leaking balloon - not a pop. On Wednesday, a focus group of teenagers and twenty-somethings hadn't entirely abandoned CDs, though they did reserve purchases for favorite artists. "I've purchased every one of Shawn Carter's albums," one participant said while pointing to lures like album art, organized track listings and better sound quality. But the specter of a flattened physical is now looming, and Goldberg pointed to markets like Taiwan and Korea, both of whom have experienced physical drops of about 70 percent over a 3-4 year period. For the most recent week, album sales were 14 percent below year-ago tallies, part of a multi-week trend.