Ingjerds world...

Bye bye birdie....

2008-10-10T19:46:00.001+02:00

This blog will no longer be updated. Please go to http://socialbydesign.wordpress.com for my writings....

Thanks for following this blog folks :-)

Selfcast Beta application now open!

2007-06-14T13:38:00.000+02:00

If you're dreaming of creating your own TV channel or radio for FREE, there's no need to pinch yourself: A soon to be lauched user generated broadcasting tool Selfcast developed by RawFlow will make it happen.

Register to try the beta here.

Last.fm moved into video

2007-05-11T13:47:00.000+02:00

London-based recommendation service Last.fm is now layering music videos into its offering, an aggressive challenge to YouTube. The enhancement will allow users to create customized video channels, based on expressed preferences. The concept is getting started with content from UK-based indies Ninja Tune, Domino, Warp, and Mute, as well as artists from Vancouver-based Nettwerk Music Group. Last.fm also pointed to agreements with EMI and Warner Music Group, as well as a collection of roughly 20,000 independent labels. That forms the underpinning for an immense video collection, one that will offer broad exposure to new and established artists. "Last.fm aims eventually to have every music video ever made on the site, from the latest hits to underground obscurities to classics from the past," the group indicated.

According to the company, videos will be streamed sequentially, and users can rate the content in a more passive model. That lean-back approach allows users to determine their level of involvement, similar to the Launchcast radio rating system on Yahoo. From a broader level, the video rollout will appeal to dedicated music fans, though users are already accustomed to finding any video on YouTube. In a competitive stab, Last.fm is hoping to trump its well-established target on quality, though it remains unclear if fidelity issues are critical to end users. "The quality of videos on Last.fm will be significantly higher than that of YouTube, with audio encoded at 128kbps compared to YouTube's 64kbps," the company indicated. Meanwhile, bands are artists will be able to upload their own content onto the service, a move that almost guarantees gargantuan content volumes.

Permalink: http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/stories/051007last

MySpace is dead. Long live Facebook!

2007-04-16T12:42:00.000+02:00

If someone thought I was in love with MySpace, they're wrong. MySpace is a good place to be because it allows you to mess up the pages and customise them yourself, and it has proven a good way to get in touch with and discover new bands. However, there's also a lot of problems with MySpace. First of all, nothing WORKS! Secondly, it is too big to be a true community. Most of my friends on MySpace are completely unknown to me, and search feature is crap. Third, the whole site is loaded with ads. Fourth, MySpace lost cred after being bought by News Corp. What's next then?

Contrary to analyst's prediction, Facebook has continued to grow. It is now the sixth most-trafficked site in the U.S. and 1 % of all Internet time is spent on Facebook, and some estimates suggest it will bring in $100 million in revenues this year. Why? Well, it provides an easy way to keep in touch with friends and family, links between people are defined, you can start groups and there's a real-time news feed where you can see what your friends are up to (who uploaded new photos, who's going to Glastonbury etc).

AND unlike MySpace which sold out as soon as it could, Facebook has turned down $750 million -$1 billion offers, and wants to stay independent, according to a recent article in FastCompany.

However - Among the only holes in Google’s portfolio is good social networking play, and after Google’s DoubleClick buyout goes through (if it goes through), this might be the next in its sight? Let's see shall we.

Finally - EMI and Itunes to offer non-DRM sales

2007-04-03T10:45:00.000+02:00

EMI, Apple Announce DRM-Free Digital Sales Plan

EMI and Apple will now sell DRM-free catalog on the iTunes Store, according to a joint announcement issued today. The move is groundbreaking, and shatters a previously ironclad commitment to digital protections by the major labels. The decision means that well-known tracks from artists like the Rolling Stones, Norah Jones, Lily Allen, and Janet Jackson can now be downloaded in a protection-free format, an approach that eliminates usage and sharing restrictions. The company pointed to a refreshed product line that will feature "a much higher sound quality than existing downloads," and one that will be "free of digital rights management (DRM) restrictions". Specifically, the label will offer its catalog to digital music stores in a range of higher bitrates, including CD-quality fidelities. According to Steve Jobs, the DRM-free offering will be exclusively unveiled by iTunes in May. Other stores will offer the DRM-free catalog at dates thereafter.

The move represents a major shift, though several asterisks are dangling. The tracks themselves are being branded as "premium downloads," and will carry an elevated price tag above "standard," DRM-protected tracks. Instead of a standard, 99 cent, 79 pence, or 99 euro price tag, the premium tracks will be priced at $1.29, 0.99 pence, or €1.29. Both premium and standard tracks will sit alongside one another, and consumers will have the ability to upgrade their standard versions by simply paying the difference. That approach breaks an iTunes commitment to uniform pricing and format, and conflicts with earlier philosophies expressed by Jobs. But during the unveiling, Jobs noted that the offering means greater choice, and a more fine-tuned offering. "We think our customers are really going to appreciate this," Steve Jobs said. "iTunes will continue to offer its current catalog at the same price, alongside the DRM-free, higher quality versions." Jobs also disclosed that the iTunes Store has now sold more than 2.5 billion tracks.

MySpace has now added online music sales shop

2007-03-20T20:05:00.000+01:00

From digitalmusicnews.com 20/03/07

MySpace Boots Hoooka Widget, Tila Tequila Miffed

MySpace has now removed a portable music sales application from the Tila Tequila page, a development that has angered the model-turned-artist. The widget, known as the Hoooka and supplied by Los Angeles-based indie911, was positioned just days ago on the Tequila MySpace page. The application can be placed on any webpage, including social networking spots like MySpace, and revenues are distributed between indie911, the artist, and a distributing fan if present. As reported earlier, MySpace executives have been actively reviewing the status of third party music widgets, and the latest removal suggests that the company will not be playing ball with outsiders. And according to Tequila, non-MySpace providers can probably expect a greater level of exclusion moving forward. "MySpace recently asked me to take down all of the things on my page that don't involve just MySpace ... but it never used to be that way," Tequila noted in a recent blog on her website, tilahotspot.com. The
post is not available on the Tequila MySpace page, allegedly because it was removed by the social networking giant.

The move follows the removal of other third party applications from providers like Revver, part of a difficult balancing act for MySpace. On one hand, the company is interested in preserving a sense of freedom and user-generated chaos. On the other, unregulated third party applications often spell missed revenues and usability issues. For Tequila, the reaction has been decidedly sour. "I just want to express how I am feeling right now about MySpace and I am sad to say that I am pretty bummed out about all the changes," the model continued. "If MySpace decides to delete my page due to me having other cool stuff up such as my Hoooka feature, or other embedded videos that I have recorded ... then so be it. I'm just really bummed how everything has changed so much." MySpace was not available to respond, though the move comes just as the company is ramping its partnership with Snocap, a provider of digital music sales and screening software.

The solution to the music industry is simple: Fix the product!

2007-03-12T11:21:00.000+01:00

...could not have said it better myself!

Forget DRM, It’s the Music
Excerpted from CNET News Report by Charles Cooper

Pushing my vacuum cleaner around the living room last week, I suddenly did a double take. Chockablock with records, cassettes, and CDs, the wall unit across from me contained my 35-year-old history as a music consumer.

Truth be told, I did download a few digital-music files here and there during Napster’s heyday in the late 1990s. (Personal note to the RIAA: They’ve all since been deleted. I swear on my pet rock.) But I paid for most of the rest of my collection, down to the last penny. I bet you can say the same for the majority of the music-listening public.

So it was with a mix of amusement and disappointment that I read about the recent get-together for music industry executives, where the folks invited as talking heads took turns bashing Apple CEO Steve Jobs and offering pale prescriptions about how to fix what ails their business.

I don’t want to get into an argument about which generation created the best music. Personally, I’m partial to jazz and classical, though I can’t deny that I dig a lot of hip-hop. But is it possible – or even likely – that the falloff in music sales has more to do with the quality of contemporary music than with digital infringement? We obviously have an enormous appetite for schlock, but there are limits.

With all due respect to the high-quality bands working for a living, the studios have always chosen the easy out by shoving numbingly formulaic, bad music down the public’s throat. For most of the postwar era, that was the way things worked. Then came the Internet, which ushered in the revenge of the music buyer.

The studios shouldn’t be surprised at what happened. Throughout their history, they routinely targeted Top 40 titles at teenagers and early twenty-somethings. The irony is that these folks make up the demographic most likely to infringe music copyrights.

Instead of threatening to sue their own (potential) customers, why don’t they do more to monetize the growing demand for oldies and indie music? Fans clearly are willing to pay it. What’s so hard about finding a way to make that work? With a little creativity, the studios could find ways to better promote musicians who cater to these – and other – demographic categories, in which digital infringement isn’t the fashion. All the consumer wants in return is a fair value.

Instead, the industry’s best and brightest continue to look elsewhere.

For instance, they insist on clinging to DRM as if it were a lifeboat. Pardon the cliché, but that ship has sailed. The endless wrangling over Jobs’ call to get rid of DRM is so irrelevant. Same goes for their tired refrains, blaming the likes of you and me for their plight.

To wit: Ted Cohen, who directs music consulting for Tag Strategic, says the solution is “to get money flowing from consumers and get them used to paying for music again.”

Really? It’s not as if we haven’t been paying all along. With all the high-powered MBAs in their employ, it’s hard to fathom why the music industry can’t move beyond finger-pointing and develop a more creative approach. I can understand the angst expressed by Cohen and his music industry cohorts about the future, but squeezing music fans for a few more shekels isn’t the answer.

These folks are still shell-shocked from the Napsterization of their business, which has suffered a 23 percent decline in worldwide sales the last six years. Blaming P2P technology has become the convenient undertaking of our times. But it’s useful to recall that people didn’t stop buying books or maps when the Xerox machine hit.

Customers will pay for worthwhile products, even if they can get free lower-quality copies. There’s a better reason to explain what’s gone wrong. It’s the product, stupid. Then again, maybe I’m simply showing my age.

Out of office!

2007-03-05T23:07:00.000+01:00

My dear readers,

I am a bad, bad, blogger! I have not been posting much lately and i won't do either for the next couple of days!

Basically, I am out of office now until Thursday because RawFlow, the company I work for, has an exhibition stand at the IPTV World Forum in London's Kensington Olympia to promote our new product; Selfcast. This means loads of work and late hours for me, so no blogging these days I'm afraid! But if you're in the area, feel free to drop by (we're in booth 70).

Just some quick notes on news of the day:

- More royalty payments for web radio: The US Copyright Royalty Board has announced higher royalty rates for internet radio use of mastering recordings. Fair enough perhaps, but I must say that I agree with some of the webcasters who will run into trouble based on this, because costs of live streaming can be high and many of these radio stations are relatively small and not for profit. Kurt Hanson commented (editor/publisher of RAIN, the radio and internet newsletter): "The math suggests that the royalty rate decision — for the performance alone, not even including composers' royalties — is in the in the ballpark of 100 percent or more of total revenues." As Hanson noted, the master recording schedule is separate from payments related to the underlying compositions, which are collected by ASCAP, BMI, or SESAC. The latest rate announcement replaces an earlier system based on a percentage of gross revenues, a structure that is currently used for satellite radio providers XM and Sirius.

- EMI rejected initial Warner bid: EMI rejected a early bid proposal from Warner Music Group, citing reasons of price and regulatory uncertainty. In a statement, EMI pointed to a "non-binding proposal ... indicating that WMG might be prepared to make an offer, pre-conditional on regulatory clearance, of 260 pence per share in cash for EMI, subject to numerous assumptions and conditions." But that price point, which equates to about £2.1 billion ($4.1 billion), was not high enough for EMI, and a protracted regulatory review process was deemed highly disadvantageous. The development closely follows a broadened reexamination of the Sony BMG merger by the European Commission, a process that is expected to last though June.

...another bissi day in the business of music in other words!

What else is there to report? Well, I finally caved in, and have registered for Facebook, so another network to maintain! Oh dear. But it is quite good acually, and I am getting v. sick and tired of Myspace, so always good to try out something new, eh?

....And now, back to focusing on IPTV and TV over net...!

Hugz :-)

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

2007-02-26T15:31:00.000+01:00

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!

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

2007-02-19T12:06:00.000+01:00

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.

O2 Spins Music Into User-Generated Mobile Play

2007-02-16T14:26:00.000+01:00

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.

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

2007-02-14T15:15:00.000+01:00

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....

MySpace Prepares UK-Based Concert Mini Tour

2007-02-13T14:17:00.000+01:00

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!

MTV Continues Shift Towards Digital, 250 Dismissed

2007-02-13T14:16:00.000+01:00

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.

Jobs command, and EMI obey?

2007-02-12T00:11:00.000+01:00

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.

Welcome to the Machine!

2007-02-08T10:56:00.000+01:00

"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

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

2007-02-07T11:41:00.000+01:00

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.

Industry Ponders CD Sales Cliff, Post Physical World

2007-02-02T15:31:00.000+01:00

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.

EMI restructuring: Virgin and Captiol merge

2007-01-26T14:59:00.000+01:00

From paidcontent.org:

EMI Consolidation Continues: Flom In, Slater Out

Posted by Jimmy Guterman

Thu 25 Jan 2007 07:21 PM

More shoes are dropping as the EMI consolidation/restructuring/whatever continues. Capitol and Virgin are being merged into a combined Capitol Music Group, with Virgin head Jason Flom taking control of the unit. The odd man out is longtime (well, six years is longtime in the music industry) Capitol prez Andrew Slater. According to a release, the full restructuring program is “designed to deliver a £110m ($217 million) in annual savings across [EMI’s] business. For those who like to think about org chars, Flom will report to Eric Nicoli, CEO of EMI Group, and will Blue Note head Bruce Lundvall, EMI NA COO Ivan Gavin, and EMI NA CFO Colin Finkelstein. On his instant analysis blog, Bob Lefsetz praises Flom (smart), sees the overall consolidation as easing an eventual merger with Warner (astute), and comes across crankier than usual (understandable).

But if someone should be cranky, it’s EMI. If it’s 2007 and your hottest act is the Beatles, you’ve got a big problem to solve. But, with the physical CD market shrinking and the remaining major labels both fighting to keep their share of a shrinking pie and unable to figure out a coherent online strategy (the rumors coming out of Spiral Frog are as unpleasant as a Crazy Frog song, moving around executives has a deck-chairs-on-the-Titanic feel. Forget consolidation—how about delivering something people might want to listen to and even ... pay for?

...you know what? I couldn't agree more!

Norway Deems iTunes As Illegal, Based on Non-Operability With Other Devices

2007-01-25T12:54:00.000+01:00

This is the first such definitive country action against Apple and its iTunes store: Norway's powerful consumer ombudsman ruled that its iTunes was illegal because it did not allow downloaded songs to be played on rival companies’ devices, reports FT. This could lead to other European countries, already sitting on the fence on this, to review the situation.

The ombudsman has set a deadline of Oct 1 for the Apple to make its codes available to other technology companies so that it abides by Norwegian law. If it fails to do so, it will be taken to court, fined and eventually closed down.
Meanwhile Norwegian Consumer Council, who originally launched the complaint, is in negotiations with pan-European consumer groups to present a unified position on iTunes’ legality, the story says. Sweden and Finland have already backed Norway’s stance, but have yet to take action, and the campaign was joined on Wednesday by Germany and France.

OutLaw: “It doesn’t get any clearer than this. Fairplay is an illegal lock-in technology whose main purpose is to lock the consumers to the total package provided by Apple by blocking interoperability,” said Torgeir Waterhouse of the Council. “For all practical purposes this means that iTunes Music Store is trying to kill off one the most important building blocks in a well functioning digital society, interoperability, in order to boost its own profits.”

Finally - Norway ahead of the crowd! I'm so proud! Now, all that remains is to demand that Napster etc also removes it's Windows based DRM system....

UPDATE:
Not just iTunes

Many other music download services operate with similar terms and conditions. “CDON.com, prefueled.com and MSN.no are examples of other affected services. We are therefore asking the Consumer Ombudsman to investigate the terms and conditions of these download services,” says Torgeir Waterhouse.

Read more here.

Filesharing is now legal in Italy (as long as it's not for profit)

2007-01-23T12:11:00.000+01:00

Italian court says copyright infringement is not a crime- Unauthorized downloads are fine if no profit is made

ROME — In a blow to Italy's ongoing campaign against digital copyright infringement, a high level Italian court has ruled that the unauthorized downloading of copyrighted movies, music, and video games is not a crime if the downloader does not profit from the action.

In 2005, a court in Turin sentenced two men to jail time and issued them several hundred euros in fines for taking control of a computer server at the Turin Polytechnic Institute and using it to store and distribute various copies of video games, films and CDs. Last week, an Italian Supreme Court judge overturned the sentence saying the act wasn't criminal because the duo saw no commercial gain.

The ruling comes at a difficult time as Italian authorities continue to struggle against film and music infringement from groups and individuals.

The Silvio Berlusconi government in 2003 passed one of Europe's toughest copyright laws, modeled on the EU's copyright directive, passing down stiff fines for commercial infringers and individual downloaders. But, critics lament, the law is rarely enforced.

FIMI, Italy's trade group for professional musicians, on Monday downplayed last week's court decision saying the Turin judgment will have little impact on the current anti-infringement law as the two men were charged under an older, weaker law.

Still, as Italian media observers point out, last week's legal decision is one of the few to have reached the Italian Supreme Court.

Glaser: Get rid of DRM!

2007-01-22T13:08:00.000+01:00

from paidcontent.org

[By Robert Andrews] The music business will not make significant enough gains until it drops restrictive DRM, and it won’t be saved by the long tail either, according to two music industry bosses.
RealNetworks CEO Rob Glaser used the MidemNet forum in Cannes to call on companies to develop rights standards that were interoperable and more open.
He said the business was “seeing some signs the industry is open to” ... “giving consumers a way to purchase music with the flexibility that you can only get if you take the DRM off”.
“For purchases, move away from DRM,” he said, adding that the replacement of siloed digital rights management standards would be the first year that digital growth overtakes physical decline. Glaser said DRM should remain for customers who subscribe to a monthly download service and therefore don’t own the track.
Global sales of online music almost doubled to $2bn last year, according to research published by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry last week - but had still not reached enough to offset the decline in physical-format sales, what the IFPI called “the holy grail”.
Meanwhile, Universal Music Group’s eLabs president Larry Kenswil warned that the ”long tail” -the subject of Wired editor Chris Anderson’s book illustrating how the net leverages small but everlasting value in archive material -was not enough to make up the shortfall.
“It’s an interesting catchphrase. Many more products will sell to a larger audience, that’s true,” he said. “But the question is - what is the offset of the most popular products selling less?
“It’s obvious that shelf space on the internet means people have access to things there wasn’t storage for before.
“But the long tail means that most of that will be listened to [only] once. So, even if you have 300,000 songs being listened to once, it doesn’t make up for the fall-off of the number one this year from what the number one was last year. No album sold 4m last year.”

SpiralFrog CEO goes before launch

2007-01-22T12:55:00.000+01:00

The much-hyped online music service Spiral Frog, which got a lot of press a few months ago because it was going to be a fr*ee, ad-supported service, has lots its CEO even before it has launched. CEO Robin Kent was ousted, reports The Key blog on B2.0. Kent who was the former CEO of ad agency Universal McCann. Also, its launch has been delayed (was supposed to launch in December) and we had been hearing some rumbles for a while now. The service has signed deals with EMI and Universal to offer their music on the service.

Previous posts on SpiralFrog in this blog:
Future of Spiral Frog in doubt?
If I could download my trainers for free, I would buy the records!
EMI follows Universal and signs with Spiral Frog
New music distribution system

2007-01-22T09:42:00.000+01:00

MySpace preps download store

By Jim Welte - MP3.com

Social networking giant hopes its massive user base will pony up for MP3 downloads powered by original Napster creator Shawn Fanning's Snocap.

The trunk of the car, which has famously served as the do-it-yourself retail store for acts like Wu-Tang Clan and Clap Your Hands Say Yeah--is about to get a lot more shelf space.

The Format's download store on MySpace.

In a move tipped last month by Nettwerk Music Group CEO Terry McBride, MySpace is set to allow bands to sell digital downloads to its more than 106 million users, hoping to turn its social networking clout into yet another rival for Apple's vaunted iTunes Music Store.

"The goal is to be one of the biggest digital music stores out there," MySpace cofounder Chris DeWolfe told Reuters. "Everyone we've spoken to definitely wants an alternative to iTunes and the iPod. MySpace could be that alternative."

The tentatively dubbed MyStore began previewing on MySpace last month with Nettwerk rock band the Format, which has been selling MP3 downloads of its music for 79 cents per song.

Under the expanded partnership between MySpace and Snocap, indie and unsigned artists with MySpace pages will be able to use Snocap's Linx service and sell music directly to their fans. Bands themselves will have the ability to set the price for their music, with MySpace and Snocap reportedly splitting the processing fee of about 45 cents per track.

Bands already use MySpace to stream music on their pages, often allowing fans to preview unreleased music. For their MyStore, bands will upload their songs to Snocap's online music database so the company can make sure the band isn't seeking to sell music for which someone else has a copyright. Once added to their MySpace pages, friends of the band are then able to place the online music storefront on their pages.

But unlike every major digital download store except eMusic, the second most popular digital store behind iTunes, MySpace and Snocap haven't yet brokered deals with the four major labels to allow their bands to sell music on MySpace. Fans of the likes of Justin Timberlake and the Killers will have to wait until such deals are in place.

But with record labels showing signs that they are willing to try anything to find additional revenue streams and dilute the stranglehold that the iTunes/iPod combo has on the digital music business, those talks are reportedly under way. Citing a source close to negotiations, Reuters reported yesterday that EMI and MySpace are discussing a deal that would allow EMI artists, including Coldplay and the Gorillaz, to sell music straight from the artists' MySpace pages.

The majors and MySpace would need to agree on song format, however. For indie artists and unsigned bands, MyStore will sell songs in the MP3 format, without the digital rights management (DRM) technology that major labels have insisted on using in selling digital downloads. DRM applies usage restrictions to downloaded music, such as how many times a song can be transferred to an MP3 player or burned onto a CD.

In his blog, Jupiter Research analyst David Card noted that MySpace will need to get major label content on its artist pages to make MyStore a viable entity.

"No company in the entertainment business can make a lot of money off of supporting only the [long] tail, without also delivering the hits," he wrote. "And for now, no rock stars or major labels are going to be interested in unprotected MP3s, which is what MySpace will offer, except for promotional purposes."

That means MySpace and Snocap still have their work cut out for them to make MyStore fly. But Snocap isn't putting all its Linx in one basket, so to speak. The company is also hoping to power download service on other social networking sites, a stark expansion of the company's initial strategy of powering P2P services hoping to go legit. Linx hopes to make everyone a music retailer.

"In 18 months the biggest music retailer in North America and maybe the world will be the consumer," McBride said. "P2P is going to arrive in a way that nobody saw. Fans will be selling to each other and getting micropayments into their Paypal account."

Future of Spiral Frog in doubt?

2007-01-20T22:34:00.000+01:00

"Spiral Frog CEO Robin Kent has pulled out of an appearance at Midemnet, prompting speculation about the company's future", wrote MusicWeek yesterday. Interesting - very interesting. Perhaps they could not get the advertisers/brands behind it? As we know, all the major record labels have signed letters of intent with spiral frog - so I don't see lack of content as the reason. We'll see....

While big labels falter, indie bands find stardom online

2007-01-20T21:32:00.000+01:00

This article is quite old now - was posted to Boston.com on October the 15th last year by Scott Kirsner - but I just stumbled over it by chance, and found it to be incredibly relevant and well worth posting:

While big labels falter, indie bands find stardom online

When the Dresden Dolls' record label declined to finance a music video, the Boston band made its own video on the cheap, posted it to YouTube -- and attracted more than 300,000 viewers. To woo new fans, Brooklyn singer-songwriter Jonathan Coulton's digital avatar played a concert last month inside the video game Second Life.

On the website MySpace, Boston punk band The Charms have amassed nearly 9,000 "friends" with whom the band can communicate about upcoming shows and new releases. The old way of discovering new music was to hear a song on the radio, trek to a record store, and try to hum it for the clerk. The new way of discovering music is a dense swirl of websites, YouTube videos, blogs, MySpace pages, cell phone ring tones, and even video games. For emerging artists, the new technology creates opportunities to reach a wider audience -- especially when used cleverly -- as major labels and big-name artists fumble their way into the future.

"The record labels still don't know how to use the Web as adroitly and adeptly as the young people who grew up with it, who are now in these bands," says Phil Leigh, senior analyst at Inside Digital Media, a Tampa consulting firm. "I do think that the labels will continue to be the major force in the music industry, but they won't be as dominant as they were in the past."

The Dresden Dolls, a duo who describe their music as "Brechtian punk cabaret," invite their fans to send in artwork and videos inspired by their songs.

"A fan can send me a beautiful painting, and seven seconds later, it's up on our website , on the fan art page, and it's visible to thousands of other people," says singer Amanda Palmer. "I love that we can connect with people that way."

That sort of authentic connection between a band and its fans is a relatively new phenomenon. Coulton, who writes quirky, fabulist folk songs about American history, star-crossed mad scientists, and technology, recently used his blog to invite the Web audience to submit an eight-bar solo for his song "Shop Vac" on the instrument of their choice. The best one -- chosen by user voting -- was incorporated into the finished song.

"Audiences want to feel that Web authenticity thing," says Mike Denneen, a Somerville producer who has worked with Aimee Mann and the band Fountains of Wayne. "They don't want to feel they're being marketed to." That puts the deep-pocketed marketing departments of such mega-labels as Universal Music Group and Sony BMG at a distinct disadvantage.

The Dresden Dolls' homemade video "Backstabber," an homage to silent movies, came about after the band's label "decided that our album wasn't doing well enough to merit paying for a music video," Palmer says. "We didn't agree, so we did it our own way. The wonderfully democratic thing about YouTube and the Internet in general is that all you need is a good idea and a way to execute it."

The Charms, which will be playing an old-fashioned live show tomorrow night at Axis in Boston, stock their MySpace page with videos and streaming versions of their songs; the band's website includes a page devoted to phone numbers of local radio stations around the country.

"It took like 10 people a while to put that list together," says lead singer Ellie Vee, "but we were trying to make it really easy for fans to request our music."

Band members have been blogging about their current national tour on their own site, as well as on Billboard.com.

Bands can even use an online marketplace called Sonicbids, based in Boston, to get gigs. Founder Panos Panay says that 83,000 bands or musicians pay $5.95 a month to keep an "electronic press kit" on the site that festival organizers, club bookers, or even movie music supervisors can peruse. This month's Row-A-Palooza Festival, associated with the Head of the Charles Regatta, used Sonicbids to find two bands for its line up.

"When I was an agent, any act that makes under $3,000 a show really isn't a viable artist for you to handle," says Panay, who once represented jazz giants Pat Metheny and Chick Corea. "But we give those smaller artists a way to have representation and find opportunities."

Coulton, who quit his job as a database programmer last year to pursue music full time, may be the world's most Web-savvy guitar-slinger. He has given permission to podcasters to use his songs in their programs, created $1.50 downloadable ringtones based on several of his songs, and composed an ode to Flickr, the photo-sharing site, that is accompanied by a slide show of the images that inspired it.

In September, his digital doppelganger -- slightly more buff than the carbon-based singer and with a squarer jaw -- played a few songs for an online audience in the game Second Life. (Coulton is performing this week at PopTech, an annual conference in Camden, Maine, that explores the impact of new technologies on the culture.) "It sounds naive," Coulton says, "but I would like to make a living by making music and putting it on the Internet."

It remains an open question whether that's a viable path for Coulton and other still-relatively-obscure artists.

The Internet has proven to be a powerful tool for knitting together a community of passionate fans (though some question whether all those MySpace "friends" will ever pony up for a concert ticket or pay for an album download.) But the Net audience expects to get a lot of things for free, including music and videos.

"We're looking at a changing economy, in which music is free, and artists are going to have to learn to make their living through touring and merchandise sales," says Palmer.

"The barriers to getting your music and your image out there are lower than they've ever been," says Denneen, who co founded Q Division, a recording studio and record label. "But over the long-term, the big question is, how many of these people are going to be able to make a living at it?"

Scott Kirsner is a freelance writer in San Francisco who maintains a blog on entertainment and technology, cinematech.blogspot.com. He can be reached at kirsner@pobox.com.

Warner turns artists into media channels

2007-01-18T14:39:00.000+01:00

Author: By Justin Pearse | Source: NMA magazine | Published: 18.01.07

Warner Music has launched a mobile magazine as the cornerstone of the mobile strategy for the launch of Hard-Fi's follow-up to their number-one album Stars of CCTV.

The record label views the launch as a core example of its ongoing plan to transform its artists into separate media channels.

The Hard-Fi mobizine, a downloadable mobile Java application, has been developed by Refresh Mobile, which has launched a network of mobizines for brands ranging from the BBC to GQ.

The Hard-Fi mobizine will have four channels of content including news, downloads and competitions, in addition to video updates from the band as they record their second album.

"The challenge for us is how to move our artist brands towards becoming media channels," said Warner Music UK head of digital Adrian Coultas-Pitman. "This is important for our overall strategy, letting us communicate marketing messages in a different way."

The mobizine, accessed by texting 'mobi hard' to 63333, will be promoted on all the marketing material, including print and online, for Hard-Fi.

"All other media will point to the mobizine," said Coultas-Pitman. "This is all about having Hard-Fi in your pocket 24/7. The challenge for us is to constantly refresh content and think like a magazine." If successful, Coultas-Pitman said Warner will "look to assess opportunities for other artists" with Refresh's mobizines. Hard-Fi have scored a number of digital firsts. They produced the first video exclusively for mobile early last year and the first artist video podcasts. Last January they made live versions of single 'Cash Machine' available for download immediately after they were played each night on tour.

refreshmobile.com

hard-fi.com

Warner Music

Online and mobile music sales reached £1bn in 2006

2007-01-17T19:28:00.000+01:00

Author: Luan Goldie | Source: nma.co.uk | Published: 17.01.07

Record labels sold an estimated $2bn (£1.01bn) worth of music online and through mobile phones in 2006, doubling the market according to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry's Digital Music Report.

While digital sales now account for 10% of the music market, they are not yet able to compensate for declining sales of CDs.

The report also addresses the on-going issue of piracy. It found that despite legal action being taken against 10,000 P2P uploaders during 2006, the culture of piracy has continued to devalue music content. As a result the report warns the IFPI will be demanding more responsibility from the ISPs.

IFPI Chairman and CEO John Kennedy said, "With co-operation from ISPs we could make huge strides in tackling internet piracy globally. It is very unfortunate that it seems to need pressure from governments or even action in the courts to achieve this, but as an industry we are determined to see this campaign through to the end."

V2 in trouble?

2007-01-16T13:02:00.000+01:00

Digital Music News today annonced that V2 North America has now undergone a radical restructuring, one that will terminate all new release efforts. Various reports pointed to the changes at the tail end of last week, and V2 has now confirmed the realignment. The label, owned by Sheridan Square Entertainment, will not release any new material, except for some gospel content [ed: WTF????]. Instead, the label will shift its headquarters to Nashville and focus on existing catalog, a move that will involve digital distribution strategies. That effort will be headed by Chief Operating Officer Michael Olsen, though few others will remain on board. About 35 people have now exited, including president Andy Gershon.

The change could be liberating for artists like the Raconteurs, the White Stripes, and Moby, all of whom can now shop new deals - or pursue independent distribution. V2 will retain control over catalog materials, though the heavyweight acts could use the opportunity to alter their business relationships significantly. And according to Pitchfork Media, the White Stripes had already satisfied their V2 commitments anyway. Meanwhile, Sheridan also owns both Artemis and distributor Musicrama, and the V2 shift is part of a larger catalog roll-up that also involves several other labels.

PirateBay to become Pirate Island?

2007-01-16T12:59:00.000+01:00

From DigitalMusicNews 16/01/07:

Pirate Bay Ponders Island Purchase, Legal Evasion Scheme

The Pirate Bay, a notoriously massive BitTorrent tracker, is now pondering the purchase of a small island. The evasive destination, currently based in Sweden, would use the purchase to position itself as a sovereign nation. "We have made progress in Ladonia and are now working on the Micronation of Sealand," the group recently reported on a website dedicated to the cause, buysealand.com. "It should be a great place for everybody. With high-speed internet access, no copyright laws and VIP accounts to The Pirate Bay." The "island," essentially a raised platform several miles off the coast of England, reportedly carries a $2 billion price tag.

The latest development continues a slippery legacy for the Pirate Bay. The destination attracts about 1.5 million visitors daily and coordinates an immense amount of BitTorrent traffic. That drew the coordinated ire of both the Swedish government and the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), which shuttered the site in early June of last year. But the success was short-lived, and the Bay was quickly resuscitated after a short relocation in The Netherlands. The Pirate Bay has since returned to Sweden, a nation that is known for its permissive attitude towards file-swapping. Regardless, the push to become a sovereign nation reflects a desire by the group to avoid any future entanglements, and truly cement its pirate status.

The Demise of Digital Rights Management

2007-01-15T11:58:00.000+01:00

Excerpted from MediaPost Report

Despite Apple’s announcement this week that it’s sold 2 billion songs on iTunes, digital rights management (DRM) is on the decline. Consumers, in fact, are so frustrated with the restrictive software they’ve sued companies like Apple and Universal Music Group from using DRM on their music, citing anti-trust law.

Regardless of how those lawsuits turn out, the writing is on the wall. CD sales continue to drop, down 15% since 2000, but current digital sales aren’t picking up that slack. Apple, with its 2 billion songs sold, accounts for most of digital sales – 20 times more than eMusic, the industry’s No. 2 reseller. Just about everyone else in the music game, from Sony to Microsoft to Yahoo to Amazon.com, which plans to enter the business this year, want to see DRM go away.

Why? Because Apple is able to monopolize the music download business through its DRM software. It has the market-leading music player – a music player that won’t play other music companies’ files. No one else can get users to buy a player and the music to make a dent in Apple’s monopoly. Competitors want to be able to sell songs that play on the iPod and the only way to do this is to bring Apple to court. Meanwhile, many consumers have decided that it’s just easier to steal music. Please click here for the full report.

Unsigned band to make chart history

2007-01-15T11:18:00.000+01:00

A band called Koopa from Essex is set to make history as the first unsigned group to enter the charts.

"Blag, Steal and Borrow" (an interesting reference to Babyshambles' song "Beg, Steal and Borrow" perhaps?) by Koopa was at number 17 in the unofficial midweek charts, and looks set to remain in the Top 40.

Singer and bassist Joe Murphy said: "You don't need to be dictated to by the big boys, by the record labels. "You can release a song and if you've got the fanbase and people buy it, you'll get into the charts, it's great."

New singles chart rules now allow any download that is paid for to be counted towards the countdown - which is about b.... time. Now, the quality of this new essex music is another matter entirely...

More information:
www.myspace.com/koopa
Official band website

P2P company joins A2IM

2007-01-15T11:03:00.000+01:00

The P2P advocate organisation DCIA today announced that DCIA Member INTENT MediaWorks, a provider of technology for online distribution of licensed digital media, is partnering with fellow Member Nettwerk Music Group to distribute Nettwerk’s large and ever expanding catalog of artists, such as Barenaked Ladies, Sarah McLachlan, and Avril Lavigne.

Nettwerk has been responsible for the release of over 400 albums that have amassed worldwide sales in excess of 100 million copies, including multiple number one albums and singles.

“INTENT’s approach to digital distribution takes advantage of the sheer volume of the peer-to-peer (P2P) audience in a meaningful manner. It combines the promotional, marketing, and revenue tools necessary for artists to take control of their art and career.”

INTENT puts licensed music and video into general circulation via P2P networks, websites, and social networking destinations. Its technology tracks each file as it makes its way through the Internet for rights holders.

More revolutionary perhaps, is that INTENT also announced this week that they have joined the American Association of Independent Music (A2IM), representing a broad coalition of independent music labels. The organization is committed to promoting sector opportunity and enhancing market share for its membership.

“With nearly 30% of the market, indies are gaining prominence at a rapid pace. INTENT offers a way for these artists to significantly accelerate their market presence and adoption,” said Les Ottolenghi, CEO of INTENT MediaWorks.

“People have shared music for decades and online channels are a natural evolution of the practice. File sharers represent behavioral marketing at its best and should be embraced. INTENT brings much needed structure to the P2P market with a platform for profitable and consumer-friendly distribution of digital entertainment,” he added.

INTENT MediaWorks CEO Les Ottolenghi will deliver the opening keynote address at the upcoming P2P MEDIA SUMMIT NY.

EMI issues revenue warning

2007-01-14T23:30:00.000+01:00

EMI has just announced a massive restructuring, one that involves the departures of EMI Music chairman and CEO Alain Levy and vice chairman David Munns. "The Board thanks them both for their contribution to the business over the past five years," the company said in a statement issued this morning. EMI Group executive chairman Eric Nicoli will now grab the reigns as chief executive officer, where he will "take direct responsibility for the management of EMI Music". The major label also pointed to significant reductions in both overhead and employees, and a massive shift in business strategy. That includes a focus on markets that can deliver more secure and steady revenue streams.

As part of its announcement, EMI also projected a revenue drop of between 6 and 10 percent for the fiscal year ending March 31st. That caused a negative stir on the London Stock Exchange, where shares dipped in early trading. Meanwhile, Levy is expected to leave with a sizeable payout. According to a company filing, Levy will depart with a base salary of £1 million ($1.95 million), pension benefits totaling £550,000 ($1.07 million), and a bonus of £1.4 million ($2.73 million). Levy also carries stock options that could push the total parachute past £7 million ($13.64 million). Overall, EMI pointed to annual savings of £110 million, or $214.4 million, though the one-time restructuring costs could top £150 million, or $292.4 million.

A copy of the EMI announcement can be found at here

Memorable Quotes from High Fidelity

2007-01-12T12:47:00.000+01:00

Nick Hornby is one of my favorite authors. Few people write books that are this funny that you really can relate to - somehow in particular I relate to the male characters (not that I am a balding man in my 40s - but in any case...). Last night I watched the movie version of High Fidelity (for the gazillionth time...) from 2000. It's a great film, despite the fact that I normally HATE Jack Black (but in this film he's actually good as he's SUPPOSED to be a bit annoying) AND it always annoys me that they decided to film it in the US, when the book is set in in the UK (but I must admit that John Cusack puts in a pretty darn good performance here, so all forgiven).

Ok, but one thing that's great about the movie are all the jawdropping, laugh 'till you crack dialouges - and I have included some of my favorite quotes (by the way, if you haven't seen this movie or read the book - shame on you! Get it immediately on Amazon.co.uk):

--
Barry: We're no longer called Sonic Death Monkey. We're on the verge of becoming Kathleen Turner Overdrive, but just for tonight, we are Barry Jive and his Uptown Five.

--
Rob: Liking both Marvin Gaye and Art Garfunkel is like supporting both the Israelis and the Palestinians.
Laura: No, it's really not, Rob. You know why? Because Marvin Gaye and Art Garfunkel make pop records.
Rob: Made. Made. Marvin Gaye is dead. His father shot him.

--
Rob: Should I bolt every time I get that feeling in my gut when I meet someone new? Well, I've been listening to my gut since I was 14 years old, and frankly speaking, I've come to the conclusion that my guts have shit for brains.

--
Rob: What came first, the music or the misery? People worry about kids playing with guns, or watching violent videos, that some sort of culture of violence will take them over. Nobody worries about kids listening to thousands, literally thousands of songs about heartbreak, rejection, pain, misery and loss. Did I listen to pop music because I was miserable? Or was I miserable because I listened to pop music?

--
Barry: Holy shite. What the fuck is that?
Dick: It's the new Belle and Sebastian...
Rob: It's a record we've been listening to and enjoying, Barry.
Barry: Well, that's unfortunate, because it sucks ass.

--
Barry: I wanna date a musician.
Rob Gordon: I wanna live with a musician. She'd write songs at home and ask me what I thought of them, and maybe even include one of our little private jokes in the liner notes.
Barry: Maybe a little picture of me in the liner notes.
Dick: Just in the background somewhere.

--
Dick: I guess it looks as if you're reorganizing your records. What is this though? Chronological?
Rob: No...
Dick: Not alphabetical...
Rob: Nope...
Dick: What?
Rob: Autobiographical.
Dick: No fucking way.

--
Rob: She's a single. I'm a single. I'm a single man talking to an attractive single woman who may or may not have just confessed to feelings of sexual frustration. Oh my God...

--
Customer: Hi, do you have the song "I Just Called To Say I Love You?" It's for my daughter's birthday.
Barry: Yea we have it.
Customer: Great great... Well, can I have it?
Barry: No, you can't.
Customer: Why not?!
Barry: Beacause it's sentimental tacky crap that's why. Do we look like a store that sells "I Just Called to Say I Love You"? Go to the mall!
Customer: What's your problem?!
Barry: Do you even know your daughter? There's no way she likes that song! Oh oh oh wait! Is she in a coma?
--
Rob: ...I agreed that what really matters is what you like, not what you are like... Books, records, films -- these things matter. Call me shallow but it's the damn truth, and by this measure I was having one of the best dates of my life.

...and that's it for now, folks!

NOTE: Someone asked me why the book is called "High Fidelity" - and I think it's due to the fact that the characters are music-freaks or audiophiles. High fidelity reproduction as we know, or "hi-fi", is a quality standard that means the reproduction of sound or images is very faithful to the original. High fidelity aims to achieve minimal or unnoticeable amounts of noise and distortion. Some more geeky facts: The term high fidelity tends to be applied to any reasonable-quality home-music system, though some believe that a higher standard than this was intended, and in 1973, the German Deutsches Institut für Normung (DIN) standard DIN 45500 laid down minimum requirements for measurements of frequency response, distortion, noise and other defects and gained some recognition in hi-fi magazines.

Tone Karlsen (1978-2007)

2007-01-11T13:20:00.000+01:00

This year had a very bad start. On Sunday the 7th, Tone Karlsen lost her life in a car accident in South Africa. She was there on holiday with her live-in boyfriend, Christopher Dons. Dons survived the accident with mild injuries. Tone only lived to be 28 years old.

I studied with Tone at BI The Norwegian School of Management where she specialised in Organisational psychology and management. Tone was a very bright student, but even more importantly, she was a joy to be around with her warm smile and good sense of humour (bizarre to think of now, but I was a little jealous of her beautiful hair and smiling eyes...). I always thought it was a shame that we did not take any more classes together, as I'd have liked to get to know her better.

Unfortunately, you always think you'll get that chance again some time later - at an alumni gathering or just meeting up in Oslo with other friends from uni. This time there was no second chance. For me this is a reminder that we have to take care of friends and family when they're around, and not put it off because of a busy schedule.

To Tone's family and boyfriend: Please accept my most sincere condolences on this horrible loss.

Hvil i fred Tone. Vi kommer til å savne deg.

For lack of better words - here's a poem by Robert Frost that expresses what I would have liked to be able to say if I could.

Nothing Gold Can Stay

Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

Robert Frost (1875-1963)

Yep, iPhone is here...

2007-01-11T12:45:00.000+01:00

Not unexpected, Apple unveiled its new "iPhone" at MacWorld this week... In Apple's words not a single device but three revolutionary products in one: a mobile phone, a widescreen iPod with touch controls and a 'breakthrough' Internet communications device. It is also a camera and, at a push, a PDA. But in the UK you will have to wait until the end of the year to get your hands on one.

Looking like a portable display with Apple's typically elegant design, the iPhone is based around a new user interface driven entirely by the fingers, using the company's innovative Multi-touch technology. This includes gestures that allow the user, for example, to enlarge or reduce a picture by simply 'pinching' it on the screen

It provides a quad-band GSM telephone, 802,11b/g Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.0+EDR and EDGE technology for wireless data handling; in fact there is scarcely a way that it cannot communicate, given that it also has USB 2 on board.

In phone mode, the iPhone lets the user make a call by pointing at a name or number in the contact list, which is itself automatically synced with address book information on your computer or from an Internet service such as Yahoo! Users can create a favourites list for your most frequently made calls and merge calls together with a single 'click' to create conference calls.

The phone is the first to let users view a list of their voicemails and select which to listen to, in effect working like email. There are also SMS text messages with a full QWERTY virtual keyboard, which appears only as it is needed and includes predictive technology.

When you lift the phone to your ear - if you are not using the optional compact Bluetooth headset - a built-in proximity sensor immediately turns off the display to save power and prevent inadvertent touches until the iPhone is moved away. And rather than cutting out, any music that is playing fades to silence.

As an enhanced iPod nano - with 4GB or 8GB of memory - the iPhone purports to let the user 'touch' their music, by scrolling through a list of songs, or flipping album covers, with their fingers.

The display also lets you view widescreen video and photos. Turning the iPhone though 90 degrees automatically rotates the screen image, so that images cane be viewed in landscape or portrait as necessary. Pictures can be uploaded by and synced with a computer, and the iPhone includes a photo management application that Apple believes is far beyond anything else on offer on current mobile phones. And the integrated light sensor automatically adjusts the display's brightness to the appropriate level for the current ambient light, to improve image clarity and save on battery juice.

As an Internet communicator, the iPhone offers a rich HTML email client which fetches your email in the background from most POP3 or IMAP mail services and displays photos and graphics right along with the text. The iPhone is fully multi-tasking, so you can be reading a Web page while downloading your email in the background.

Yahoo! Mail, the world's largest email service with over 250 million users, is offering a new free 'push' IMAP email service - similar to the BlackBerry's - to all iPhone users, but the handset will also work with most industry-standard IMAP and POP-based email services, such as Apple's .Mac, Microsoft Exchange, AOL and Gmail.

The Safari-style Web browser displays Web pages as they were designed, letting the user zoom in to expand any section by simply tapping on iPhone's display. Users can surf the Web over Wi-Fi or EDGE and can automatically sync their bookmarks from their PC or Mac. The browser includes Google Search and Yahoo! Search as well as Google Maps to view maps, satellite images, traffic information and get directions.

'iPhone is a revolutionary and magical product that is literally five years ahead of any other mobile phone,' said Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO. 'We are all born with the ultimate pointing device - our fingers - and iPhone uses them to create the most revolutionary user interface since the mouse.'

iPhone will be available in the US in June 2007, Europe in late 2007, and Asia in 2008, in a 4GB model for $499 and an 8GB model for $599, and will work with either a PC running Windows 2000 or XP Home or Professional or Mac OS X 10.4.8 or later.

In the US it will be available exclusively through the Cingular network and the price will include a two-year contract.

What to download on eMusic this month

2007-01-10T12:18:00.000+01:00

Hi,

eMusic can be a hassle. Labels will release the albums there much later than the other online shop (money, money, money...) and some labels don't event release stuff there at all. However, the independent labels put quite a few really good records on there - if you look between the rubble. This is what I'd recommend downloading this month:

1. Beirut - The Gulag orkestar
Release Date: May 9, 2006
Genre: Alternative/Punk
Label: 4AD / Beggars Group

I discovered this record in October when I went to see the Calexico at Camden Roundhouse. Beirut was warming up for them, but he turned out to be much better! I immediately bought the album, and was amazed. Let this record bring you to Gulag land and gipsy rythms! Released in 2006, but new to emusic.

- Get it here

2. Architecture In Helsinki - We Died, They Remixed
Release Date: January 8, 2007
Genre: Alternative/Punk
Styles: Alternative
Label: Moshi Moshi / V2 Records

A great remix album from the Australian indie pop octet!

- Get it here

3. Hot Club De Paris - Drop It Till It Pops
Release Date: December 18, 2006
Genre: Alternative/Punk
Styles: Alternative
Label: Moshi Moshi / V2 Records

Released on now legendary label Moshi Moshi (Hot Chip... need I say more) and featuring ludicrous song titles like sometimesitsbetternottostickthingsinoneanotherforeachother (or something like that). This is a great album.

- Get it here

4. Cat Power - The Greatest
Genre: Alternative/Punk
Styles: Indie Rock
Label: Matador

The singer is blessed with a lovely voice! Perhaps a bit overrated, but defintely worth your while.

- Get it here

5. 120 days - 120 days
Label: Vice / Smalltown Supersound
Released: 2006

Finally a Norwegian band on my list! Norwegian teenaged friends Jonas Dahl, Arne Kvalvik, Kjetil Ovesen, and Ådne Meisfjord originally formed 120 Days under the guise of "Beautiful People" in the autumn of 2001. Now they're back with the album titled 120 days. This album was voted album of the year in Norway and we'll defintely hear more from this group in 07.

- Unfortunately 120 days is only available in eMusic US at this stage. Check back soon for updates, or get it on Amazon.uk (Import album).

6. The Hold Steady - Boys and Girls in America
Label: Hassle (Full Time Hobby) / Vital:PIAS Digital
Released: October 3, 2006

The favorite band of the nerds, bloggers and misfits return with their 3rd album, which will without a doubt bring them into the mainstream market. Buy it now before the hype...ooh, did I mention that it's a great album? A little Springsteen inspired maybe. And don't you dare calling them the OLD steady, just cause they're not 18 in any more...

- Get it here

Online Customers Are Good for the Music Business

2007-01-05T18:11:00.000+01:00

Music execs must be clicking up their heels!

At one point not so very long ago, music executives thought that digital downloading would be their death knell, and they were locked in legal battles from coast to coast to stop the practice.

But things change.

In much the same way as the movie industry learned to love VCRs (and now DVD players), the music industry is adapting to digital music downloading.

According to Nielsen SoundScan, sales of digital music online continue to climb.

And now a new report from the Digital Media Association (DiMA) asserts that online customers are actually revitalizing the music industry, the whole industry.

Not only did the DiMA survey find that 60% of US consumers report that they are listening to more music since they have gone online, the vast majority of online music service users said that enjoying music over the Internet has expanded their musical tastes, allowing them to discover new artists and explore new musical options.

Nearly seven in 10 online music consumers said they are enjoying new genres of music since listening to online music services.

According to the survey, online music listening has increased overall music discussions with friends and co-workers, with more than 35% now talking about music more often. More than 75% of online music consumers report they have recommended a particular service to a friend or co-worker.

The survey also found that listening to and purchasing music over the Internet increases concert attendance. A full 15% of online music fans said they now attend more concerts.

"These findings demonstrate that real music fans — today's music tastemakers — are online," said Jonathan Potter of the DiMA. "Consumers of innovative online music services are reviving the music economy as they enjoy more music in every way possible."

The survey found that about half of digital music fans are spending more than $200 a year on music, and nearly 30% are spending more than $300.

"Prior to the digital age, someone who purchased six CDs per year — valued at just over $100 — was considered a significant music consumer," said Mr. Potter. "Online music consumers' spending habits, combined with what they are doing to promote and expand music enjoyment, is great for the entire music industry — artists, songwriters and producers."

Online music has the whole industry humming.

For more information on digital entertainment, read eMarketer's US DVR and VOD Usage report.

Ho ho ho, Merry Christmas!

2006-12-20T09:56:00.000+01:00

This will probably be my last post before going home to Oslo for Christmas - I'll be leaving tomorrow morning from Stansted. Really early as well.

Because this is my last day at work before Christmas - I am feeling in proper Christmas spirit and started thinking of my childhood christmas memories - and with that the regular Norwegian christmas TV series for kids - Jul i skomakergata. Jul i Skomakergata is a Norwegian TV-show produced in 1979. It is a televised advent calendar, meaning it is sent from December 1st to December 24th. It has been broadcasted several times in Norway by NRK and is one of the most treasured tv-programs in Norwegian TV history. The story revolves around shoe repairer Jens Petrus Andersen, played by Henki Kolstad, and and his shop. He is visited by friends and towns people that need their shoes repaired before christmas. A part of the show consists of showing a clip from Sandmännchen (Jon Blund in Norwegian) which tells children about the United Nations' Convention on the Rights of the Child.

So with a couple of clips from YouTube from the series, I say to you all: Merry Christmas!

Blend your Ipod

2006-12-19T18:52:00.000+01:00

My Ipod (20GB model from 2004) broke last week after a long and hard service. I tried in despair to repair it - but ended up with chucking it a couple of times on the floor out of pure frustration. Now, THIS is what I really should have done:

Snail suicide part 2

2006-12-19T00:53:00.000+01:00

Yep, here's another one - and in our soup! Yuk!

Snail suicide part 1

2006-12-19T00:52:00.000+01:00

News from the music biz: eMusic up, iTunes down...

2006-12-15T15:09:00.000+01:00

Some news that I found very interesting this morning:

According to Forrester Research latest report, the first-half, monthly iTunes download levels were down 65 percent. Despite being numbers from January-June, it still shows an interesting development. Apple needn't worry though - we all know they make money out of selling Ipods...

On the other hand, the non-DRM indie label store eMusic finally crossed the one hundred million download mark, an accomplishment that took about three years to reach.... yeah! This is great news for the supporters of non-DRM music (i.e. ME!).

... and now it's Friday - so have a great weekend folks!

Ingjerd
x

Radio Revolution on your Ipod?

2006-12-15T14:50:00.000+01:00

From Market Watch:

Portable Net radio goes on sale

By Frank Barnako

By the end of next year, you might be able to listen to any of thousands of Internet radio stations on your iPod or Zune.

Of course, Apple or Microsoft would have to buy into the idea by, perhaps, embedding Net radio technology being developed by two different companies. Both will show their ideas at next month's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

Cambridge Consultants will show its design in prototype. The Iona Wi-Fi portable radio could be built and sold for as little as $60, the British-based company said. "The hardware is programmable ... capable of supporting MP3, WMA, AAC, AIFF and WAV data formats," Cambridge said in a news release.

Additionally, Torian Wireless of Melbourne said it has both an existing product and a design for adding Net radio capability to other products. The company is taking orders for the inFusion on its Web site for $229. The device includes an FM tuner, has 16 presets, and can be used as a recorder. Last August, Torian's founder, George Parthimos, said he had hoped to have distribution in stores but now says that will happen next year. Torian also has developed a design specification to embed Net radio into other products, and it, too, will be on display at CES. "The Internet Radio Module allows manufacturers to add Internet radio functionality to products including home stereo systems, amplifiers, and portable boom box units," Parthimos said.

EMI and Last.fm create music discovery tool

2006-12-15T12:26:00.000+01:00

Author: Sam Matthews | Source: nma.co.uk | Published: 14.12.06

Record giant EMI has paired with digital music service Last.fm to create an online music mapping tool to help fans discover new music.

EMI's Tuneglue-audiomap tool links consumers to recommended artists, websites and retailers, based on a comparison of the listening preferences and profiles of other music fans from Last.fm.

Recommendations will be for both EMI and non-EMI artists as well as site links, artist biographies, competitions and sign-ups for EMI acts.

Eric Winbolt, digital media manager at EMI Records, said, "Tuneglue-audiomap offers music fans easy visual cues for the discovery of new music. Most important, however, is the complete trustworthiness and relevance the service provides - being based entirely on Last.fm's powerful 'scrobbling' data, a media player plug-in which reports users' listening behaviours of daily personal track recommendations.

Opinion: "We're still a hit driven culture"

2006-12-12T13:18:00.000+01:00

Opinion piece posted to paidcontent.org

Definings Hits In Today’s Music World Means Merging Revenue Streams

Posted by Jimmy Guterman - Mon 11 Dec 2006 10:26 AM PST

Listen, kids, put aside your copy of The Long Tail and know this: The music business has always been a hit business, with the majority of buyers, most of them casual fans, interested in hearing just one song by a particular performer.

The genius of the record industry in the 1960s was sensing major performers’ artistic move to the LP and changing their business to reflect that. That one smart response got the industry through the 1970s and the reissue boom of the late 1980s and early 1990s. But that well has run dry. More than a decade ago, the major labels all but stopped promoting singles to retail (or, in many cases, even manufacturing singles), and that led to a world in which millions of fans revolted against $19 list CDs with one good song by downloading them for free as soon as the opportunity arose. Again, most fans weren’t downloading full albums—they were stealing and swapping individual songs.

Early fans of legit online music services like the iTunes store may have hoped that the buy-by-the-song environment would lead to a return to the single to its rightful place as a profitable business. That has happened, but not in the way people may have expected. Jeff Leeds leads the NYT’s latest look with a case study of how major labels are trying to squeeze more cash out of each single. You can hear the R&B singer Akon sing via a variety of online services—and, in the few weeks since his new album came out, he has sold 269,000 ringtones, a market that didn’t exist not so long ago. Leeds’s article notes that the very definition of a hit is changing, with more attention being paid to more revenue streams. The day of the first-week blockbuster are likely over—several months back, a Johnny Cash album debuted at Number One on Billboard despite having moved fewer than 90,000 units—but add the new streams to the old ones and suddenly there’s a real business there again.

Using an unnamed Warner Music artist as the example, Leeds walks through an internal cost analysis of “a successful hip-hop record released in the last 12 months”: “Sales of the CD accounted for roughly 74 percent of domestic revenue the company took in from the project, or roughly $17 million. But sales of an array of digital products added almost $6 million — about two-thirds of that came from ring tones of hit singles. The figure also included roughly $330,000 from mobile phone games related to the performer and $94,000 in sales of cellphone ‘wallpaper,’ or screen backgrounds.”

Some of these new businesses may turn out to be predatory such a record companies getting into talent management, an age-old practice that has left many performers broke. Still, it may provide a way out for an industry that needs it badly. As record-chain owner Joe Nardone puts it, “Everybody’s still hoping for the best, but the best ain’t what it used to be.”

EMI Toes DRM-Free Waters, Offers Norah Jones MP3 Single

2006-12-08T13:35:00.000+01:00

From digitalmusicnews.com

EMI is now offering a Norah Jones single in the open MP3 format, a monumental step for the label. The ultra-popular jazz pop singer is positioning the unrestricted single, "Thinking About You," on Yahoo Music, a move that bucks longtime label thinking on protection. The development also follows a lengthy campaign by Yahoo Music executive David Goldberg, who has tirelessly rallied against the use of digital rights management on music files. "Most people believe they can get enough value from what they get for free," Goldberg said during an executive forum in Los Angeles earlier this year.

Norah Jones, signed to the legendary Blue Note label, part of the EMI family, isn’t the only major label artist to experiment with MP3s. Christian rockers Relient K are also tossing a DRM-free single onto Yahoo, and Jessica Simpson started the trend in late June by offering name-customized MP3 tracks. The change of format means open access to the iPod, a critical change for consumers. Now, expect EMI - and other majors - to closely watch the numbers, and ratchet up the experimentation if early gains are realized. Meanwhile, the move largely validates the business model of eMusic, a company that has been offering an MP3-based independent artist catalog for years. eMusic has sold approximately 100 million downloads over the past three years.

..... about time! :-)

Next Generation P2P: Using P2P for distributing Music, films and TV online

2006-12-07T16:09:00.000+01:00

Last week I spoke in a panel about the Next generatoion of P2P - Here is a brief synopsis written by DCIA's CEO Mary Lafferty:

Next Generation P2P: Digital Hollywood Europe: Synopsis (Pt 2)

Marty Lafferty

07 Dec 2006

Marty Lafferty, CEO of the Distributed Computing Industry Association (DCIA) gives us a synopsis of the Next Generation P2P sessions at the recent Digital Hollywood Europe conference held in London's docklands.

Ingjerd Jevnaker (pictured right) distinguished the use of P2P for live streaming as separate from file sharing. P2P essentially means interconnecting users computer-to-computer on the same level, and this can be to share bandwidth as well as content. There should be no contradiction between P2P and protecting content. Because of legacy issues tainting P2P's image, however, some successful P2P applications don't advertise that they use P2P – and users don't care. Meanwhile, other P2P networks have increased their popularity with almost a revolutionary appeal to consumers by emphasizing P2P. The biggest emerging failures are digital services that use DRM in too draconian a manner. Flexibility is needed.

P2P companies now are either going open source and in some ways underground and non-commercial, or working to get consumers to sign onto licensed models. We need to encourage the technology sector to support and advance legitimate uses of P2P on multiple networks; and we need to encourage the entertainment sector to think about alternative business models, such as adopting RawFlow streaming and integrating ad-supported commercial content with user-generated content (UGC). In the coming future, there will be no more TVs – PCs will become the video appliance.

Les Ottolenghi explained how P2P is a superior delivery method for rich media content, with INTENT MediaWorks now delivering 370,000 licensed files per day up from 10K/day a year ago and participating in such groundbreaking efforts as the recent Coca-Cola sponsored Jay-Z P2P-exclusive promotion. INTENT uses DRM to track content, converting the open P2P universe into an ecosystem for legitimate business, which is emerging as primarily ad-supported. Licensed content is provided free, giving instant gratification to end-users, with the result that 84% of discovered files are retained. Unified file-discovery across all P2P and social networks has also emerged as an important attribute for success; hence INTENT has just launched its DelveDown service to provide that functionality.

Fostering the community nature of the channel is also very important, and P2P is uniquely configured for social networking. Post-Grokster, major entertainment companies are showing more interest in working with INTENT and, globally, copyright court cases have reduced the reluctance of majors to move forward and embrace P2P. It is critical not to let telecom firms dictate what happens regarding further innovation by eliminating net neutrality. We also need to work to make files smarter – so that content packages themselves have intelligence – plus continue to improve interoperability and attract higher quality content to be licensed for P2P.

Daniel Harris (pictured right) provided Kendra's perspective on P2P from its alliance of content owners and software makers. Daniel's vision is that any application on any device should be able to browse any catalog, and there should be universal interoperability. Record labels have had different ways of managing their catalogs, historically; now we need to show them that with P2P it is possible to aggregate databases and achieve across-the-board content monetization. P2P can bring benefits of non-centralized search and publishing to all sorts of content databases.

P2P can be used for information transfer – not just file transfer. Standardization will help make this a commercially viable consumer medium. It is increasingly futile to pursue legal strategies when open standards are proliferating. Huge advancements could be made in commercial development by simply bolting payment systems onto traditional P2Ps and letting developers earn money by working to make this happen. It is time to embrace, support, and extend P2P with open standards to build a market that has enormous potential. Let's empower developers to make this succeed with the reality of more open standards.

Trevor Albery cited Warner Bros.' recent development of new business initiatives in the P2P sphere, while also continuing a strong focus on anti-piracy activities. Examples include licensing BitTorrent and the joint venture announced earlier this year with DCIA Member arvato mobile using its GNAB platform for the In2Movies service in Germany. So far, these approaches have involved offering filmed content in traditional business models, but with a P2P delivery aspect. It is still the very early days for the P2P distribution channel, and now is the time for experimentation in what is a nascent industry in order to learn what will work best.

There should be no apologies for the Grokster case, which was about profiting from inducement to infringe copyright, not about P2P technology. Today's challenge is to build good services that will excite consumers and compete with unlicensed online content. There may well be more litigation, as the channel continues its legitimization. We need to bring all stakeholders together to make DRM work better so that P2P can safely monetize content. P2P will find its place among distribution channels, while DVDs will continue and other electronic distribution will as well.

Anthony Rose outlined Altnet's experience from 2001, when, in retrospect, its approach was ahead of its time. Altnet pioneered DRM-protected content distribution through open P2Ps, but major entertainment content rights holders initially resisted. Now that legal settlements are complete, however, Altnet is finally obtaining licenses. Its newest offering, the Global File Registry (GFR), connects people who own content with people who use content. Five years ago, there was much innovation in the P2P space, but then Web 2.0 became more innovative as P2Ps faced litigation. Now we are at a stage where the transport layer for P2P works quite well, but how people use it is still not working as a business. We need renewed innovation here – for example, with better indexing technologies – so that users will not be polarized.

Of concern is the fact that dispute settlements have bi-furcated the development community into those who want licensed distribution and those who are trying to anonymize usage. What should be obvious is that value will be generated by large-volume licensed-content distribution. Social wrapping in P2P is also an area of high potential. Consumers are more empowered than ever and, therefore, trying to dictate their behavior harshly will fail and drive them to the waiting darknets. The desire for control must be tempered; the winning play will be one based on equilibrium. The future will bring an increase in hybrid systems with a mix of centralized and distributed servers.

Reproduced with permission of the DCIA. For more information, plan to attend the day-long P2P MEDIA SUMMIT NY on February 7, 2007.

Zune Sales Slip After Thanksgiving Weekend Burst

2006-12-06T16:15:00.000+01:00

From DigitalMusicNews.com

Sales of the Zune player slipped following a solid Thanksgiving weekend,
according to a retail finding from NPD Group. The researcher ranked the Zune
at number five for the latest period, down from an encouraging number two
spot earlier. SanDisk reclaimed its previous second-place position after
cutting prices by a whopping 50 percent, part of an aggressive holiday
blitz. And ruling the roost once again is Apple, whose iPod is comfortably
floating at number one. The iPod commanded a 75 percent market share during
the first nine months of this year, according to NPD.

NPD tracks major retail outlets, though its Thanksgiving finding seemed
incongruous with Amazon rankings. After Black Friday, the high-energy
shopping day that follows Thanksgiving in the United States, iPods dominated
Amazon sales. Within the consumer electronics category, several iPod models
crowded the top ten, while Zune barely made the list. The Amazon figures may
have been a bellwether, especially if Zune buyers are not generating strong
word-of-mouth. The NPD data also excludes Apple stores, where a large
percentage of iPods are sold. Meanwhile, Microsoft is continuing to heavily
advertise, though breakouts like the refreshed iPod shuffle could be
stealing attention.

Sony BMG is first major label to sign up to Pandora in UK

2006-12-05T11:23:00.000+01:00

Sony BMG is the first UK major record label to license its artists' repertoire to internet radio service Pandora in exchange for a slice of ad revenue.

Pandora, which has taken the US by storm since its launch last year, is due to roll out to UK customers by next spring. It will offer free streaming tracks from Sony BMG acts including George Michael and Shakira.

The free radio station is based on the Music Genome Product, the largest ever analysis of popular music. Each song in Pandora is analysed by one of 50 trained musicians and assessed against some 400 musical attributes to capture the song's identity.

Users of Pandora enter the name of their favourite song or artist and the service creates a bespoke radio station matching their musical tastes.

Pandora is in talks with the other major labels, EMI, Universal Music and Warner Music.

Brands that regularly advertise on Pandora in the US include T-Mobile and Motorola. The UK Pandora team is currently signing up UK advertisers.

Jon Davis, head of new media at Sony BMG, said, "This deal will stimulate interest in our back catalogue. Pandora can offer highly targeted ads that we can take a percentage of."

pandora.com

Copying CDs onto computers to be made legal

2006-12-05T11:22:00.000+01:00

Copying CDs onto iPods will be made legal in the next few weeks according to early indications from the government's review of intellectual property rights.

The UK's current copyright laws mean copying CDs onto computers is illegal.

The review will focus on formalising the situation by bringing in a 'private right to copy'. according to music trade body British Music Rights.

The BMR also said there will be detailed commentary about how creative industries can work with technology industries to develop a more organised approach to legal content services, removing illegal content as well as how best to exploit music in the digital age.

In addition, reports from the Sunday Telegraph over the weekend suggest the copyright extension term of 50 years will remain unchanged, despite widespread industry support to extend the term to 95 years, the same as in the US.

The review, commissioned by Gordon Brown, is being led by the former Financial Times editor, Andrew Gowers.

(from NMA.co.uk)

Not looking so good for Zune...

2006-12-01T23:09:00.000+01:00

From Digital Music News:

Surveys Show Respectable First Week Zune Sales

The Zune performed respectably during its first week, according to a pair of retail research findings. NPD Group estimated that the Zune grabbed 9 percent of total portable MP3 player sales during the period, while Current Analysis reported a 7 percent share. The player was released on November 14th in the United States only, and quickly edged out the previous number two player manufacturer, SanDisk. Meanwhile, the iPod retained its dominance and delivered a 63 percent share during the week, according to the NPD report. The tallies, which involved major retailers, contradict earlier reports suggesting soft demand for the Zune.

Apple may experience a small dent in sales, though it remains to be seen if the Zune can pose a continued threat. Alternatively, Microsoft could find itself in the unenviable position of leading a crop of iPod killers, all of whom have been relegated to a collective 25-30 percent share in the United States. Meanwhile, a survey conducted over Thanksgiving weekend by Reuters pointed to a strong preference for iPods. Reuters talked to consumers at major malls, and found that 7 percent of prospective buyers would select a Zune. But the iPod was chosen 80 percent of the time, reinforcing the difficult challenge ahead for Microsoft. Elsewhere, the Zune currently ranks poorly on Amazon, while a collection of iPod models have grabbed top slots.

It also looks like Apple are going for wireless antennas in their Ipod's...thereby strongly suggesting Ipod phones... now, that will be interesting!

Apple Patent Strongly Suggests iPod Phone

An iPod phone now appears inevitable, and bets are being placed on details like pricing, release date, and form factor. Just recently, Apple filed a patent outlining a mobile device that "may correspond to the iPod," a development that largely confirms earlier speculation. The filing, recently made public, was originally filed with the US Patent and Trademark Office in August. The application describes a "tube-like" player constructed with "zirconia" and "alumina," and a device that would be "cost effective, smaller, lighter, stronger and aesthetically more pleasing" than competitive mobile music phones.

So when will the device hit the streets? Predictions vary, though some are pointing to an unveiling at the Macworld Conference & Expo in January. Others suggest a later date, though most expect a release within the first two quarters of next year. It appears that Cingular Wireless will carry the device within the United States, though the mobile company refused to comment on the possibility. Meanwhile, the player is likely to combine the iconic iPod scroll wheel with a traditional telephone keypad, and the form factor could resemble the iPod mini.

A copy of the patent application can be found here.

Ipod shuffle picks up steam

2006-11-27T14:54:00.000+01:00

(From Digital Music News, posted 27/11)

Black Friday Passes, iPod shuffle Gains Steam

Americans love shopping, and the holiday spending spree officially kicked off after Thanksgiving in the States. According to freshly-released data from the National Retail Federation, sales volumes during the Thanksgiving Day weekend increased 18.9 percent over last year, a surge that was powered in part by consumer electronics devices. A number of newly-released portable music players were prepared for Black Friday, including the Microsoft Zune and a selection of updated iPods. Now, the race is on, but will the tiny shuffle ultimately outshine the heavily-hyped Zune, and even larger siblings like the video-enabled, 80GB iPod? Early numbers suggest a strong coming-out for the updated shuffle, which masquerades as a piece of jewelry and
delivers 2GB of storage capacity. A number of big-box retailers were reportedly sold out of the player ahead of the extended weekend, though Apple stores themselves seemed prepared for the rush.

Gene Munster, an analyst at PiperJaffray, originally estimated current-quarter iPod sales to reach 14 or 15 million, though strong shuffle demand could render that estimate too low. A runaway shuffle would be an unexpected surprise, and could shift the long-term market towards lower-priced, diminutive devices. Meanwhile, Apple has been fanning the flames with a shuffle advertising campaign, a push that includes an
attention-getting television spot. During the holiday quarter last year, Apple sold more than 14 million iPods overall, a stellar result that has - for better or for worse - set the bar for this year's race. Elsewhere, early retail reports have been soft on the Zune, though it remains too early to make any definitive calls.

--

Watch new Apple ad by clicking video below:

Oh, be some other name? Nah, I quite like mine.

2006-11-27T00:04:00.000+01:00

I'm constantly asked about my name in terms of pronounciation, poularity and what it means, so I thought I'd explain here in my "me me me blog":

My name is Ingjerd, but sometimes in the UK, I stick to the more common version INGRID. People know how to pronounce this because of celebrities such as Ingrid Bergman). Ok, so my name is not the MOST common of names. It is a Norwegian name for women (you won't find it in the rest of Scandinavia) and stems from Old Norse. Despite a small peak in poularity around the post war years (must be pure patriotism!), there are only about 1412 Norwegians people with my name as first name (and only 961 with the name as the only first name).

The name "Ingjerd" is a variety of the name Ingegerd, which is what my grandmother on my father's side is called. I am named after her, but there was also a painter named Ingjerd who painted my mother and my uncle when they were kids, and that is why my mother likes the name I believe. Here is a picture of my grandparents by the way.

Other similar names include Inge (Male), Ingrid, Ingunn, Ingvild, Inger, Inga, Ingjer (just different spelling), Ingmar (Male), etc. Ingrid is the most popular version, but most of the Scandinavian names that start with ING pretty much has the same meaning.

What does it mean?

The name stems from the god Ing in Old Norse Mythology. Ing was the god of earth's fertility, and he rides the land each year to prepare it for spring planting. Ing is also referred to as Yngvi (which is where the male name "Yngve" comes from). In the muthology, Ing/Yngvi was the progenitor of the Yngling lineage, a legendary dynasty of Swedish kings from whom the earliest historical Norwegian kings in turn claimed to be descended. Also, he was the son of Odin (the chief of all gods). Read more here.

Ing-RID means "The beauty of Ing", whereas Ing-JERD stems from the protection of ING, as Jerd stems from the word "fence", "protection", "castle" or "fortress" (gjerde=fence in Norwegian)

Trivia:

- The popularity of Ingjerd on the internet is: 2.176 (where 0 = extremely rare, 6 = super popular)

- Famous people with the same name: Ingjerd Schou (a former minister and member of the Norwegian conservative party), Ingjerd Egeberg (Norwegian actress, see IMDB site), Ingjerd Østrem (or MOI as she calls herself, a singer, see Moimusic) and that's it really....

- Google gives you 244,000 results when you search for "Ingjerd" on Google - and I appear on the first page (but the lowest position though). The second page will give you 2 results that are related to me... hey hey! The benefits of a rare name! Excellent Google ranking! At the moment there are about 160 results. You don't believe me, or you're curious (stalker!)? Try searching for me yourself?

Ok, reading through this last bit, I think I've written the most narcissistic blog entry to date - was not meant to be, but hey, it's Sunday and I'm hung over. Off to bed now! Night, night!

Scandinavian Movies - The List!

2006-11-26T23:24:00.000+01:00

Ok, so I live in London, but in many ways I'm defintely a Scandinavian at heart! Today I've been incredibly hung over - hence, I've spent the day watching movies and eating a lot of junk. I've also made a huge shopping cart at Amazon.co.uk which now contains all the DVDs that I'm going to buy once I get paid (next week!). However, as I searched for DVDs to purchase, I noticed that it's really hard to get hold of Scandinavian films from the UK (perhaps a business idea anyone?). The beauty of DVD's is that you can add english subtitles to any film, so there's no reason why they couldn't sell the DVDs in non-Scandinavian speaking countries...

I also imagine that probably more people would take the trouble to get hold of Scandinavian films if they knew what to get. Am I right? Well, you guys can answer that better than me, but here's a list to films from Scandinavia, that I thought were pretty good:

- Så som i himmelen (As it is in heaven), Sweden 2005, directed by Kay Pollak. Starring Frida Hallgren and Michael Nyqvist. The plot is about a famous conductor who returns to a small village in his native Norrland to rehearse the local choir. The movie was nominated for Best Foreign Film in the 77th Academy Awards. Trailer here.

- Jonny Vang, Norway 2003 (see previous post for more details).

- Buddy, Norway 2003. Directed by Morten Tyldum. Kristoffer is a billboard hanger, 24 years old and carefree. When his girlfriend Elisabeth duimps him for the boss of her trend bureau, his life falls into pieces. He feels like a loser. By coincidence some of Kristoffer's video diaries end up with the producer of the popular talk show "Karsten Tonight" in TV2. A few weeks later Kristoffer's life has become TV entertaiment. People love the sequences from his commune at Tøyen: Kristoffer's half-twisted view of his surroundings, his crazy best freind Geir, not to mention the weird web designer Stig Inge, who hasn't set foot outside the Tøyen shopping centre for two years. Kristoffer's future again looks bright, everyone likes him. But revealing your life on national television comes with a price tag. As Kristoffer's future in the TV business looks brighter and brighter, his friends start suffering. Geir's big secret is revealed, and Stig Inge's personal problems are much more serious than Kristoffer first thought. It will cost him a great deal to win his friends back. Kristoffer knows what he wants, but does he have enough guts to follow his heart?

- Hawaii, Oslo, Norway 2004. Directed by Erik Poppe. As Oslo suffers through the hottest day of the year, the paths of several strangers cross. A male nurse believes he can sense the future (as long as he's asleep), while a suicidal former pop star pines for the past. "Hawaii" is a local bar where two long-lost lovers swear to meet to fulfill their childhood promise; Hawaii, the American state, is also the place where one lover's brother dreams of fleeing during his one-day furlough from jail. Meanwhile, a grief-stricken marriage couple hope to make a desperate trip to the United States for an experimental operation that might save their child's life.

- Bænken (The Bench), Denmark 2000. Directed by Per Fly. A man is given one last chance to repair a broken relationship with his daughter in this downbeat drama. Kaj (Jesper Christensen) once had both self-respect and a solid career as a chef, but these days he's an alcoholic who spends most of his days drinking with a handful of companions in a suburban park near Copenhagen.

- Italiensk for begyndere (Italian for beginners), Denmark 2000. A young minister, a widower, is temporarily assigned to a church whose suspended pastor drove parishioners away; he stays at a hotel where he meets Jørgen, who's alone approaching middle age. Jørgen's friend Finn, a temperamental restaurant manager, may be about to be fired. Finn's assistant is Giulia, a lovely young Italian who prays for a husband. Olympia, a clumsy bakery clerk, has an ornery father; Karen, a hairdresser, has a mother who is very ill. The paths of these six characters cross at church, in the restaurant, at the hotel, and at an Italian class at the local adult school. Loneliness, grief, solace, romance, and love may meet 'nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita.'

- Fucking Åmål, Sweden 1998, Directed by Lukas Moodysson. The sixteen year old Agnes Ahlberg (Rebecca Liljeberg) has been living in the small Swedish town of Åmål with her family for one year and half, but she has no friends. She secretly loves her popular school mate Elin Olsson (Alexandra Dahlström), a girl bored with the lack of perspective of Åmål. In Agnes's birthday party, Elin kisses her and changes their lives. Trailer here.

- Elling, Norway 2001: 40-year-old Elling--a sensitive, would-be poet, is sent to live in a state institution when his mother--who has sheltered him his entire life, dies. There he meets Kjell Bjarne, a gentle giant and female-obsessed virgin, also in his 40s. After two years, the men are released and provided with a state-funded apartment with the hope they will be able to live on their own. Initially, the simple act of going around the corner for groceries is a challenge, but through a friendship born of desperate dependence, the skittish Elling and the boisterous Kjell discover they cannot only survive on the outside, they can thrive. As their courage grows, the two find oddball ways to cope with society, striking up the most peculiar friendships in the most unlikely places... Trailer here.

- Himmelfall, Norway, 2002, Directed by Gunnar Vikene. Features Kristoffer Joner as the main character. Reidar is a resident at Solihøgda psychiatric institution. He is expecting the Earth to be hit by a huge meteor any time now, but until then he is busy trying to keep his fellow patient, Juni, from killing herself. And it doesn't happen often. But maybe one is allowed to hope. That when the quarks in the ball are correctly aligned with the quarks in the wall that you throw it at, there won't be a collision. But a moment of harmony when everything is balanced. And that moment could be now.

... that should be a start?

Movies that I'd like to see...

2006-11-26T21:58:00.000+01:00

Just thought I'd like to sum up some movies that I really look forward to see - and link to the trailers!

Factory Girl (2006): Film about Andy Warhol and his relationship to Edie Sedgwick (played by Sienna Miller). Directed by George Hickenlooper. For trailer, click the video below.

Control (2007): Film about Joy Division and the tragic suicide of vocailist Ian Curtis. Directed by Anton Corbijn, and based in part on a book by Ian's wife Deborah Curtis. Sam Riley will be playing Ian Curtis. Sam also starred in the film 24 Hour Party People (2002) which is about the same crowd of people from the "Madchester" years (here from the perspective of Tony Wilson).

Leonard Cohen: I'm Your Man (2005). Documentary about Leonard Cohen, directed by Lian Lunson. Features live performances from a range of artists such as Rufus Wainwright, Martha Wainwright, Jarvis, Antony and U2. Trailers here, or click video below:

...funnily enough, all of the above has something to do with music! But here's one that doesn't....!

Stranger Than Fiction (2006). Directed by Marc Forster. Featuring Emma Thompson. An IRS auditor suddenly finds himself the subject of narration only he can hear: narration that begins to affect his entire life, from his work, to his love-interest, to his death. Trailer here or click video below.

Jonny Vang

2006-11-26T17:06:00.000+01:00

Norway is a country which most people know little of (with the exception of football fans - Ole Gunnar Solksjaer aka Babyface who plays for Man U should be known to most British citizens for example). So, you'd be suprised if I tell you that the Norwegian filmindustry is pretty impressive for such a small population, and delivers several high-quality movies every year.

If I was to recommend ONE Norwegian film: Go watch Jonny Vang from 2003! It's great! Directed by Jens Lien and with Aksel Hennie in the leading role - you can't really go wrong. The fact that the soundrack is by Calexico - well, that just makes it even better! Iit's a story played out in the Norwegian country side, where Jonny messes up old friendships when he needs them most by sleeping with his best friend's girlfriend, and then it all goes downhill from there. Yet, this movie is suprisingly funny and really cool!

Read more here and watch the trailer here.

Free beer? Yeah right!

2006-11-17T17:43:00.000+01:00

There are apparently no limits to how stupid marketing sometimes can be. The beer brand Carling sent me an email today saying, at first, something brilliant. Namely:

FREE BEER!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So I was like "yeah, that sounds alright". BRILLIANT!!!! Where do I sign up? Give it to me! and then they go...

ALL you have to do is this:

"Simply buy The Sun newspaper on Saturday 18th November, cut out the coupon inside, and take along to your nearest participating store to redeem for a FREE 4-pack of Carling C2, and you and your mates can all enjoy its crisp, refreshing lager bite."

BUY the SUN!???? To get a "free" beer? Ha!
I'd demand f***ing extra PAy to even OWN a copy of the SUN. It's a shite newspaper!

(Ok ok, caaaalm down now!)

The Breakdown of Modern Web design

2006-11-17T17:22:00.000+01:00

This is totally true... we can also wonder what % of time is spent pleasing or persuading the client (therapy time) and perhaps the "making it work in explorer" % should be much, much larger....?

We Love the Beatles Mash-Up!

2006-11-16T17:52:00.001+01:00

This was completely unexpected to me! I did actually not know that there was going to be a new Beatles album coming out now (embarrased). Ok, so when it came I thought: "Another best-of.... Booooring!". But wait a minute! This is so much more than that! First of all, it's a mash up! They've taken origianal demo tapes and reworked them, so for example Strawberry Fields Forever is in a completely different version than what we're normally familiar with. "Love" is produced by the original The Betales producer: Sir George Martin, and his son Giles, and came about after a they were requested to produce music for the highly successful Cirque du Soleil show, a co-production with Apple Corps featuring the music of the Beatles, currently wowing audiences in Las Vegas.

In creating the music for the show and for the album, George and Giles have created a continuous "soundscape"--a series of well-known Beatles songs augmented by additional instrumentation and vocals taken from their vast bank of original multi-track tapes.

Additionally, the is the only fully digital The Beatles production.

Once again the Liverpool 5 proves their worth. This is a gem for new and old fans alike.

Rating: 8/10

Track list:
1. Because
2. Get Back
3. Glass Onion
4. Eleanor Rigby/Julia (Transition)
5. I Am The Walrus
6. I Want To Hold Your Hand
7. Drive My Car/The Word/What You're Doing
8. Gnik Nus
9. Something/Blue Jay Way (Transition)
10. Being For The Benefit of Mr. Kite!/I Want You (She's So Heavy)/Helter Skelter
11. Help!
12. Blackbird/Yesterday
13. Strawberry Fields Forever
14. Within You Without You/Tomorrow Never Knows
15. Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds
16. Octopus's Garden
17. Lady Madonna
18. Here Comes The Sun/The Inner Light (Transition)
19. Come Together/Dear Prudence/Cry Baby Cry (Transition)
20. Revolution

Listen to a preview here

NME to partner with Zune

2006-11-16T13:48:00.000+01:00

I know I have been quite critical when it comes to Microsoft's new Zune player (let's face it, it's just not as good as Ipod!). But now Microsoft have done a smart move (about time?) and partnered with cool content because as MusicWeek reports Zune has partnered with UK based music mag NME (New Musical Express). NME is to offer new and classic rock recommendations for Microsoft’s Zune MP3 player, which launched this week in the US. NME will be Microsoft Zune’s primary worldwide rock content provider for Zune Marketplace, the online store for Zune.

The partnership will see Zune initially take NME content in the form of recommended playlists and features on classic NME albums. Zune lead music programmer Kyle Hopkins says, “Having NME content appear in Zune Marketplace alongside ours is incredibly exciting and will help us provide our customers a very cool and interesting perspective on music.”

Zune already sponsored the launch of Club NME at the Music Marathon CMJ in New York earlier this month and both brands will continue to work closely together on events in the future. Perhaps the reason why NME had such extensive coverage of CMJ this week - some extra money from Microsoft to send their reporters over to the Big Apple?

Related stories:
- Trying out the Zune: Ipod it's not
- What's the big deal about making mp3 players social? Microsoft Zune and the Big Idea

SonyBMG Chairman: "Free content will build trust"

2006-11-16T13:42:00.000+01:00

From MusicWeek
15 November 2006 - 15:27:50

Sony BMG chairman Ged Doherty told today’s Beyond The Soundbytes Conference that labels may have to learn to give content away free if they are to make money in the digital age.

Doherty said the music industry must find ways of re-establishing trust with both artists and consumers in order to find new ways of doing business in the digital age, in which outsiders like Apple, MySpace and YouTube are radically changing old business models. Part of this process, he suggested, was to give fans some content without charging for it.

Discussing possible business models for the future, Doherty said, “It may mean giving stuff away for free in order to get through the door and establish trust. Once you get through the door you may be able to sell them something – look at the way the live industry has taken off. We need to connect first and then figure out what we can sell them and how the artist gets paid.”

Trying Out the Zune: IPod It’s Not

2006-11-16T11:28:00.000+01:00

As a follow up of my post on Social Music Players and the Microsoft's Zune (read post here), I just read the New York Times' review of Zune. And readers, it's not great news for Microsoft!

Journalist David Pouge writes:

"Microsoft is probably the greenest company in all of high tech. Not green in the environmental sense — green with envy. The Zune comes in white, black or brown and it offers a bigger screen than the iPod’s. It goes on sale on Tuesday. Microsoft is so jealous of the iPod’s success that Tuesday it will unveil a new music system — pocket player, jukebox software and online music store — that’s an unabashed copy of Apple’s. It’s called Zune."

David Pouge also makes an excellent point of the fact that Microsoft could have tapped one important market here: those who would have chosen an iPod competitor just to show their resentment for Apple’s proprietary closed system - they could have introduced a non-DRM based player. But oh no! Instead, they decide to launch ANOTHER system! It was bad enough when there were two incompatible copy-protection standards: iTunes and PlaysForSure [ed: Microsoft's previous attempt at getting at Apple...]. Now there will be three.

David Pouge goes on:
"To make matters worse, you can’t use Windows Media Player to load the Zune with music; you have to install a similar but less powerful Windows program just for the Zune. It’s a ridiculous duplication of effort by Microsoft, and a double learning curve for you. So how is the Zune? It had better be pretty incredible to justify all of this hassle."

And was it?
According to NYTimes, the Zune works well enough, but has fewer features (no scroll wheel for example), is bigger/uglier and less flexibiity (Microsoft does not offer podcasts for example - they could probably not bring themselves to write the word "POD"). In addition, the whole big Zha-Zha-Zuu with the Wi-FI antenna is ludicrous: Why build a social player that can only communicate with other Zunes, and no other devices with Wi-Fi's? Then you can't use the feature before all your friends have a Zune as well! (It's like the first phone: Who are you going to call?) - and the music you beam to people will EXPIRE after 3 days... so what's the point?

NYtimes concludes:
"Competition is good and all. But what, exactly, is the point of the Zune? It seems like an awful lot of duplication — in a bigger, heavier form with fewer features — just to indulge Microsoft’s “we want some o’ that” envy. Wireless sharing is the one big new idea — and if the public seems to respond, Apple could always add that to the iPod.

Then again, this is all standard Microsoft procedure. Version 1.0 of Microsoft Anything is stripped-down and derivative, but it’s followed by several years of slow but relentless refinement and marketing. Already, Microsoft says that new Zune features, models and accessories are in the pipeline.

For now, though, this game is for watching, not playing. It may be quite a while before brown is the new white."

And I can't agree more!

Read the whole article in the New York Times here.

My first pasty!

2006-11-16T10:43:00.000+01:00

Yesterday I worked late, and as I approached London Bridge; hunger kicked in! It was a good 25 mins wait for my train to Balham, and I decided to use the extra time sensibly and get something to eat.

Hmm, looked around, and the sight is depressing: Burger King, Boots, Marks&Spencers, Costa Coffee, a place that sells muffins and things (can't remember the name), Upper Crust (baguette place) and a pub... not much to catch my fancy. Then I notice a Cornish Pasty place, and I'm suddenly realizing that I've lived in the UK for nearly a year and I HAVEN'T HAD A TRADITIONAL PASTY yet. A pasty is like a pie with steak and leeks in it.

So, I go up to the counter casually and order: "One medium Tradi-Pasty, please". This item of food I bring on the train.... I carefully remove the wrap paper, and can feel my tastebuds getting ready for this gastronomic experience en masse. I take a bite.... and then another one... and it tastes... absolutely NOTHING! MY God, am suddenly reminded why British cousine is not counted among the top European kitchens along with France, Italy, Spain and... even... Germany! This is horrible, and I strongly advise people against this experience. I chucked it in the bin, and longed for fresh Norwegian salmon or Ricotta cheese.... or houmus... and Chateau Briand.... Well, as my father says: "It doesn't matter what it tastes like, we all have to feed".....

Samsung unveils new 3 Way Gadget

2006-11-10T14:07:00.000+01:00

Samsung Electronics on Tuesday showed off a three-way gadget that's a phone, personal computer and music player tailored for an emerging wireless broadband technology.

The Mobile Intelligent Terminal was unveiled at a Samsung-sponsored industry conference on Mobile WiMax (read more about WiMax here, which is just coming into use and promises fast broadband connections over long distances. The device weighs about a pound and contains a fold-out keyboard, 5-inch screen and 30 gigabyte hard drive. It runs the full version of Microsoft Corp.'s Windows XP operating system and also supports the CDMA mobile phone communications standard, which is used in South Korea and other countries including the United States. It also can access the Internet, make video phone calls and display television as well as other video.

Samsung said it plans to launch the device in South Korea during the first half of 2007.

So, convergence moves on, and this is just one step on the way.... I'd like to be tipped off on other new devices coming out which tackles convergence head on, so feel free to leave comments?

Social networking for scientists

2006-11-08T10:41:00.000+01:00

Social networking is not just about promotoing rock bands to the kids on MySpace. Now, the science journal Nature has set up an online social networking community for scientists called Nature Network Boston. It is a meeting place for Boston
scientists to gather, talk and find out about the latest local scientific news and events.

Why focus on just one city? Nature writes:

"We believe that science benefits from local interactions and
collaborations, especially in Boston where so much good research goes
on just down the street or across the river. But do you really know
what that lab down the street is actually doing? Nature Network Boston
will help you find that out. We aim to foster new ways for you to meet
and get to know your neighbors."

I think this is a brilliant idea! Scientists need to interact more, it
is via communication and sharing of knowledge that innovation takes
place!

To find out more, please visit Nature Network Boston

16-24 year olds biggest spenders on online audio/video content

2006-11-07T18:15:00.000+01:00

Britons spend an average of £3 a month downloading audio and video content online, according to findings from Nielsen//Net Ratings.

Predictably, the 16-24-year-old group are the biggest spenders, averaging £5.34 a month. Men were also found to spend more than the average, up to £43 a year, a total 40% higher than women.

Over half of the amount spent on online content was on audio, with music being named the most popular followed by comedy, books/literature and news.

Nielsen//NetRatings European internet analyst Alex Burmaster credits the popularity of downloading music content opening the doors to other audio content, particularly comedy.

"Music has been the real catalyst in getting people used to consuming and obtaining content online and now other areas are taking advantage of this. Whether it's TV show sketches or podcasts from comedians such as Ricky Gervais, comedy by its very nature, like music, lends itself very much to the online form - short in length but hugely popular in the viral stakes."

Digital music is here to stay, but is Itunes an old-school business model?

2006-11-07T13:00:00.000+01:00

From the Radio and Internet Newsletter (RAIN), dated Nov. 6, 2007

"CMJ Conference recap: Digital is the future, the future is here"
BY DANIEL MCSWAIN

A college radio conference might seem like a strange place to take the pulse of digital media, but a look at the list of high-caliber names and companies present at last week's College Music Journal conference at Lincoln Center in New York City CMJ 06should convince you otherwise.

Even the panels themselves, with battle-ready names like "Invasion of New Media", "Digital Domination", and "Playlist Wars", reinforced a serious theme: the revolution is here, and today's college radio PD could have a whole lot to say about tomorrow's digital music direction.

Competition for new-tech throne
At the aptly-titled "Digital Domination" session, the first major new media report of the conference, big-name experts from Rhapsody, Napster, SnoCap, MP3.com, eMusic and Wired Magazine tried to patch together a cohesive look at what consumers Lincoln Centercan expect their digital music to look and sound like in the next five years.

Most panelists were vocal in their opposition to several of the status quo approaches to digital music throughout industries. Rhapsody GM of Programming Tim Quirk argued that the iTunes Music Store is "yesterday disguised as tomorrow", noting that "one of the reasons the music industry likes iTunes is that it fits exactly into their models."

Quirk also lamented what he sees as a misconception among many artists and labels that the promotion of music via free streams and download giveaways hurts artists' physical and digital sales. He argued instead that the discovery encouraged by services such as Rhapsody, where only 22-24% of sales are Rhapsody generated by the top 100 artists, does far more for exposing new artists than a major retail outlet like Best Buy where almost 50% of sales come from the same top group.

The panelists had a hard time agreeing on almost any topic, except for where music competition would come from in the near future. All of the panelists agreed that illegal P2P networks remain one of the biggest obstacles that legitimate alternatives like digital downloads and subscription services continue to face, but no one on seemed concerned about broadcast radio's efforts to compete in the digital space via HD Radio.

"Radio" or not?
The "Invasion of New Media" panel addressed the digital competition in a direct and blunt framework: panelists from Internet, satellite and terrestrial CMJradio outlets debated the nature of their products and made cases for which is better suited to a changing playing field.

The panel, moderated by Hot 97 PD John Dimick, opened with a question that has become more familiar at similar panels over the last few months: "Do you consider yourselves 'radio'?" The answers from the panel varied but nearly all distanced themselves from the tag, choosing to adopt titles like "interactive audio" instead of "radio", which, according to Tobi (pictured middle), PD of XM Satellite Radio's college and "indie" channel XMU, "has become something of a bad word."

The only "New Media" panelist who seemed to fully embrace the "radio" title was Adam Neiman (pictured below right), Format Lab PD for Clear Channel and one of the lead programmers for a number of Clear Channels HD Radio side channels. (Read previous RAIN coverage here) Neiman CMJ conferencesaid that the Format Lab initiative, which aims to deliver a certain amount of unpredictability and diversity to their HD Radio programming, is an attempt to take back some of the audience Clear Channel has lost to competing technologies. "We just need to experiment," Neiman said.

Ted Leibowitz, founder and operator of the Bagel Radio webcast (pictured far left above), noted that while he believes that Internet broadcasting does provide an excellent outlet for passionate Webcasters and audiences, the basic Net radio business model (which he described as increasing bandwidth costs as audience bagel radio increases) makes it difficult to pursue Webcasting as a revenue generating opportunity. All the experts agreed that this issue would change as bandwidth costs continue to drop and mobile delivery of Net radio content gives Webcasters new opportunities to reach audiences.

When asked about their companies' increasing streaming efforts, both Dimick and Neiman stressed the importance that Emmis and Clear Channel are continuing to place on webcasting. Neiman also said that Clear Channel would be unveiling a dramatically Clear Channelincreased streaming initiative in Q1 of 2007, but failed to elaborate the point with additional details.

Industry adoption of digital
The conference's sessions also showed a surprising rift within the digital music world as experts debated how they themselves XMUdiscovered and utilized the myriad digital avenues at their disposal. On a panel titled "Playlist Wars", DJ's from Internet, satellite and terrestrial radio, as well as a handful of reps from indie promotion companies, found little common ground when it came to how they handled the huge influx of music they digest on a weekly basis.

XMU PD Billy Zero said that he doesn't pay much attention to MySpace and similar online music sources, opting instead for physical delivery that lets him get more of a feel for the artists and their overall style. KCRW's Jason Bentley and CBC Radio 3's Grant Lawrence were the two most vocal supporters of online music discovery and recommendations, saying that they often found themselves more excited and engaged by MP3 files passed on to them by colleagues and surfing bands' MySpace pages than by the traditional packages they receive in abundance every week.

New opportunities
Pandora founder Tim Westergren was just one voice on the "Membership Privileges: Artist Exposure Through Web Communities" panel encouraging artists and labels to creatively take advantage of the digital music boom in its nascent stages. Westergren emphasized the opportunities artists have to promote Pandorathemselves through much more diverse avenues than before, and opportunities to monetize their efforts more effectively through online promotion.

Another panelist, Fuzz.com founder Jeff Yasuda said that the Net provides musicians and labels five major ways to increase revenues while maximizing Fuzzvisibility: creating and distributing podcasts, blogging, creating video blogs (or vlogs), "brute-force marketing", and RSS user-integration. Yasuda was also a very vocal champion of giving away music and content for free to increase exposure. "Selling music can make you money," Yasuda said. "Selling around the music can make you more."

If I could download my trainers for free, I would buy the records!

2006-11-03T11:19:00.000+01:00

Intellect runs regular sessions on new technology leading to industrial convergence. The sessions are called the Convergence Conversations (inspiring name!) and chaired by Ved Sen of Think Plank.

The session this week was about "What Price Music" - and with a wide mix of industry professionals ranging from DRM (Digital Rights Management)lawyers (What is DRM? Read about that here) to record labels/musicians, licencing authorities (such as PPL) to IT/new media people (who were trying to be devil's advocates - including myself, as I work for a p2p company, RawFlow!) - there was bound to be many opposing views! The one thing everybody in the room clearly had in common though, was the love of music.

At the heart of the problem was the challenge of "competing with free" - how do you compete against the free giveaway? What can actually help increase the value perception and hence the price of the product? This is the big question the industry must answer.

One participant raised the very relevant issue of price and value: There WAS value in the vinyl records, and partly also in CDs - thus, the record labels could charge a high price for the records! Heck, many times the actual music was not nessecarily that great - I remember that I used to buy records sometimes because the cover looked cool! Now, you can listen first and buy after, and it's really easy to do that on MySpace or in any of the online shops. But the issue of value and price has become an issue, as now, seperated from the physical product (artwork etc) - how do you reintroduce value? What is the value of an mp3 file? Why would you pay for it, when you can get the same product for free? Records labels try to argue that kids should stop downloading on p2p networks because it is a "crime", but I don't think kids really see that it is. Why should they pay to sustain a multiconglomerate company, when there are clearly other things they can spend their money on. As somebody pointed out with this quote from a kid outside HMV: "We have to spend money on shoes, phones, music... if I could download my trainers for free, I'd pay for the music!"

A part of the problem lies perhaps in marketing - how to raise awareness of the value of music? Or, perhaps, how can music be bundled with other products that clearly has a value as a physical item - or - as we're in the middle of the experience-based economy - an experience. One conversationalist said, and rightly so, that the one thing that has NOT dropped in price, is the value/price of live music events. Actually, that price has increased dramatically over the years - which is quite suprising, since there are more festivals and live music events now than ever before!

Gigs have previously been seen as a way to break acts or increase CD sales. However, this is changing: Whereas the price of records have plummeted, the value of live gigs has surged with ticket prices going up to as much as $700 for Barbra Streisand’s farewell tour in the US – and that’s before the “ticket touts” add their cut. Surprisingly, gigs and festivals still sell out. “Live touring dollars are starting to surpass record sales as the real money maker in the music industry. Recorded music is essentially free, but the magic of the live show is priceless!

There are other pricing models out there in existence - including those of Yahoo! Music, Napster, eMusic and others - largely focusing on subscription revenues against which you can download or play tracks as you go. eMusic has already become a great success in the States with their non-DRM music which you can play across all devices - like a normal CD! The problem is that only independent labels have signed up for it as of yet, allthough most of the conversationalists did not seem to think there was much point to DRM - as both Apple's and Microsoft's DRM have both been hacked.

Spiralfrog - a service where you can download music for free after watching an ad - is also set to launch, and Universal, Warner, EMI and Sony BMG have already signed up for using SpiralFrog to monetize their back catalouges.

One of the interesting thought-experiments you can conduct goes as follows: if you had access to ALL the music in the world, ever created, how would you decide what to listen to? Clearly, one lifetime would be far too little to even sample every piece of music! Therefore you would need somebody (or some tool) to evaluate and make recommendations to you. Again, the issue of aggregators then come into place (see previous post on aggregators. As Ved Sen comments in his ThinkTank blog: These could be based on your past preferences, defined parameters or by market opinion. Which ever it is, you might be willing to pay for this service, even if the music itself is free. This may well be one of the value sources for the music industry. And it's not just a thought experiment: With services such as Pandora and LastFM - users can already play unlimited music AND get more of the same recommended to them - and it's FREE!

One thing at least is clear: Internet technologies can enhance or undermine the profitability of industries. In the case of the recording industry, the effect has been severe. The impact of consumer use of internet technologies has lead to the complete redefinition of the foundations of this sector’s functioning. But rather than making technology work to its benefit, the record industry chose to sue its own customers (most famously, in September 2003, the Recording Industry Association of America, RIAA, settled a copyright infringement lawsuit against a 12-year-old New York girl for $2,000) thereby causing fatal damages to industry reputation. In fact, the record industry’s dealings with their own failing business models is a textbook example on how not to deal with disruptive technologies, and the unwillingness to change left space wide open for new industry entrants such as Itunes which allow for cherry picking tracks rather than buying the whole album which naturally reduces profit margins. A track is sold for less than $1 and still the public question whether that’s too expensive. Separated from the physical world, music has become commoditized. Whereas few would question whether the manufacturing of perfume makes it morally correct to charge $50 a bottle, the record industry face having to explain what kind of value they add to the production of a song when you take away the cost of physical manufacturing and distribution. It really is no wonder then that labels and bands are looking at new ways to increase or protect their profit margins.

The bottom line is that simply selling the songs will have a limited and potentially shrinking market in the long term. Prices will go down on tracks - but volume will also go up. Yet, the margin per track might be quite limited, and even then, piracy will not go away completely.

So what is the right price of music? I think the question is wrong - I'd say: How can music be bundled so that it becomes a proper value proposition to the consumer?

Aggregators cometh!

2006-11-01T14:43:00.000+01:00

Hi there,

So I read today that the Web-Based IM Firm eBuddy received $6.3 Million Funding. The Amsterdam-based online IM startup, has received about $6.3 million in a first round of capital from Lowland Capital Partners. EBuddy allows users of ALL major IM services to log in online and chat without installing the software. The company says it has over 35 million users worldwide including 4 million mobile users and adds over 1.5 million new users to its network each month.

The VC round got me thinking:

Many of the new dot.coms are all aggregators now! They are solving the problem of search cost and cross-platform problems.

Aggregation is also part of the larger picture of disruptive innovation that is threateneing and dismantling patterns of media production, distribution and consumption, amongst other things, from Skype, MySpace to YouTube, from Zopa to Digg. Another new venture coming up is something called Tape it of the internet - which is all about indexing online TV content. There are so many web services and web based applications coming up now, that consumers need aggregators and facilitators to FILTER and MANAGE their interaction with the online world. I've heard people say jokingly that Google is the remote control of the internet, but really, it IS just that. Surfing? That's old world internet. Welcome to WEB 2.0!

But if the issues for aggregators are many, what are the issues, opportunities and markers emerging around disruptive business models? And is the internet now, as home to the upsetters, finally reshaping business and markets more generally?

What are your thoughts readers?

New software saves radio streams to mp3 files

2006-10-31T12:22:00.000+01:00

NEW SOFTWARE, DEVICE CAPTURE SONGS OFF RADIO

(from the Radio Tech Check Newsletter 31.10.06)

A new (and free) software product call “Snaptune One” gives radio listeners the ability to capture individual songs off of their favorite radio station (traditional or Internet), turn them into MP3 files, and create personalized playlists for playback on iPods and other audio playback devices. Technology developer ADS Technologies (Cerritos, CA) has bundled this software with a new USB analog FM tuner, called “Instant FM Music” (see picture) which is now selling for approximately $40.

Snaptune, Inc. (Bellevue, WA), developer of the Snaptune One software, says that Snaptune One doesn’t just record the radio program material, it isolates and identifies complete songs, talk shows and other segments of interest automatically. It works with FM tuners designed for use with PCs (like Instant FM Music), as well as with a simple “line-in” cable connected to an existing radio or FM receiver. Snaptune also works with Internet-based radio stations.

Listeners pick the station they want to record, then after a while Snaptune One displays a list of the songs playing on the radio as it finds and records them to the listener’s hard disk. Listeners can then sort these songs, play them, write them, burn them, or transfer them to an iPod or other media player. According to Snaptune, this software uses “advanced pattern matching techniques” to find songs allowing it to work on almost any radio station anywhere in the world.

Snaptune reports that after using this software for a week, hundreds of songs are typically available, and the list keeps growing from there. With the software’s “Tivo-like” capabilities, listeners can pause or rewind live radio, go back an entire week or longer to listen to any song again, learn more about it, or go online to purchase a download or CD containing the song. The software also features indexing technology that enables listeners to view a playlist with individual songs, interviews, live sessions, news stories or talk segments. Listeners who hear a song while driving and want to know more about it can (once back at their PC) pull up the playlist, click on the time they were driving and quickly find the song.

Snaptune One works with online music stores to provide a direct link to purchase albums related to any song it finds. Album covers and reviews are shown in the Snaptune One user interface (see screen capture) so listeners can browse while listening to complete songs. A single click on any album cover takes a user online to purchase the CD. Snaptune plans to add links for individual song downloads, ring tones and concert tickets in the future.

Measuring only 3.25 inches, the Instant FM Music radio includes a number of features including RDS technology, allowing for display of RDS/RBDS data such as station call letters, radio text and more on their PC monitor. The system requirements and specifications of the Instant FM Music radio are shown in the table. In a recent ADS Tech press release, Mike McCoy, ADS Tech President, says that “Satellite radio equipment costs can range from $49 to hundreds of dollars and then there are monthly fees of $10-$13; but with Instant FM Music, consumers have more features, more benefits and no fees.”

Welcome to my page!!! I kiss you!!!! The story of the Real Borat

2006-10-29T19:49:00.000+01:00

Borat Sagdiyev born July 30, 1979 in Kuzcek, Kazakhstan) is a fictional Kazakhstani journalist invented and portrayed by the British comedian provocateur Sacha Baron Cohen. What many people do not know though, is that the character Borat is in part based on one of the first real internet celebs, Mahir Cagrı.

Mahir, a resident of Izmir, Turkey, became an Internet celebrity in 1999. His picture-laden personal homepage, which exclaimed in broken English his love of the accordion and travel, was visited by millions and spawned numerous fansites and parodies, one featured on Fox's MadTV (season 4, episode 20). Mahir was ranked #2 in CNET's Top 10 Web fads (July 15, 2005).

The site was also included in PC Magazine's "The 25 Worst Web Sites" list (September 15, 2006). Mahir claimed in various interviews that his personal webpage was hacked, with additions such as "I like sex" embedded into his webpage. The site was originally hosted on the now defunct XOOM website which offered customers 10mb of space for free, a large amount for the time. XOOM advertised Mahir on their front page during the mania.

Mahir Çağrı's website was quickly spread through word of mouth on the internet. The website came at a time when "Internet phenomenon" was a new concept for Internet users, media, and the curious public. Novelty pages such as Dancing baby and The Hamster Dance created a precedent of mass viewing for Mahir's page.

I particularly enjoyed reading about Mahir's passion for photograhy "I like to take foto-camera (amimals , towns , nice nude models and peoples)....." and ping pong. But more than anything else, you gotta love the invitation to single girls on the bottom of the page:

Who is want to come TURKEY I can invitate .....

She can stay my home ........

I speake turkish , english , rusian , I want to learn other language!

See it for yourself?

Mahir's homepage

A gift for the person who has it all...

2006-10-29T19:26:00.000+01:00

Well you thought that they'd alreadly thought of everything! This is for people who are too lazy to rewind their DVDs before taking them back to the shop!

Too many DVDs, and CDs and not enough time to rewind? Are your DVDs running a bit too slow? The DVD rewinder is the perfect solution! This novelty rewinder comes with the exclusive Centriptal Velocity Spindle providing the world’s fastest DVD rewind!

DVDrewinder website

More live flash?

2006-10-26T11:42:00.000+02:00

'Tis the season the season for aquisitions, Google's aquisition of You Tube marking
the highlight of the past few weeks.

Adobe creates more magic by acquiring Serious Magic, an outfit that started initially with a low-cost, high-quality greenscreen product but had branched into many different areas of production and had begun dabbling with webcasting and video blogging.

When Adobe acquired Macromedia last year, its stated intent was a marriage of Flash and Acrobat; that goal is being realized realized both with the introduction of the new Flash-based ebook reader that Adobe showcased at this week’s MAX user conference as well as with the increasing popularity of Flash Video. One Adobe spokesperson tied the increase in popularity of FlashVideo, which is Macromedia and Adobe’s name for the On2 VP6 codec, directly to the decision to acquire Serious Magic.
The question then on everyone's li[Adobe likely to move into the streaming tools segment?

Signs, such as the advent of Flash Live, seem to indicate that it is maintaining Macromedia’s momentum towards live video content. Yet neither company had the kind of tools, such as live graphics and keying or background replacement, that Apple had showcased as part of its new iChat video instant messaging program at the recent Apple Worldwide Developers Conference. The Serious Magic acquisition, with technologies already geared toward one-take video recording, could easily be leveraged into the live webcasting space.

Read more about Adobe's Serious Magic Aquisition here

Apple into free music streaming? Judge for yourself...

2006-10-25T11:44:00.000+02:00

The UK based, well respected music magazine MusicWeek reported the following some weeks back:

"Apple to offer acts free streaming
Computer giant Apple has teamed up with online sales company See
Tickets and marketing firm Creative Tank to offer free web streaming
for bands"

Apple later commented that there is no such partner ship:

Apple has denied a recent Music Week story that claimed the company has entered a partnership to facilitate live-event streaming over the Internet to bands, reports Macworld UK.

Music Week (a subscriber only site) reported that Apple had teamed-up with See Tickets and a UK marketing firm called Creative Tank to offer the service. The story said acts would be able to make live shows available to their fans on a pay-per-view basis.

However, an Apple rep told Macworld UK that "there is no partnership."

What do you think? Judge for yourself....

The Chemical Brothers vs. Jacob Epstein

2006-10-24T14:16:00.000+02:00

Tate Modern invited The Chemical Brothers to walk around the gallery and find a work of art that would inspire them to write a track.

It was Jacob Epstein's Torso in Metal from 'The Rock Drill' that grabbed their attention. It's a menacing sculpture made out of bronze. The Chemical Brothers said that they wanted to 'capture the latent feeling of force that the figure has'. The result is their latest track, The Rock Drill.

Listen to the track here and read more about the artwork.

More tracks to come include The Long Blondes and Klaxons.

tatetracks.org.uk

Parlophone launches online demo system

2006-10-24T13:16:00.000+02:00

See, even giant labels can be innovative if they want to...

++
EMI label Parlophone has introduced an online demo system allowing aspiring musicians to upload their MP3s and publicity pictures instead of sending in a demo tape to the record label.

The submission system, A&R Tools, has the added benefit of digitally recording everything the A&R team has reviewed and allows them to rate individual tracks and artists.

The system was developed by ex-musician turned City IT consultant and software engineer Nigel Rees.

Parlophone has been using the system in a three-month trial and will now integrate it into the day-to-day working of the label.

Nigel Coxon, head of A&R at Parlophone, said, "One of our top priorities in A&R is to keep our talent spotting process as efficient and up to date as possible. The new system will allow us to do just that, while at the same time helping us stay committed to giving anyone the opportunity to be heard."

Author: Sam Matthews | Source: nma.co.uk | Published: 23.10.06

Switch to Emusic!

2006-10-23T17:47:00.000+02:00

Today I started using a service called emusic. EMusic sells music without DRM (Digital Rights Music Management). That does not mean that they do anything illegal. They just sell plain mp3 files that anybody can download and use on any device - meaning that they introduce users to the same level of usability and cross platform flexibility as CDs (but without the fuss of ripping cds).

So now, I use emusic for all downloads. For less £10 a month, I can download 40+ tracks (they also have many free tracks). Much cheaper than Itunes.

It's great!

The only thing I'm missing here, is a rating system - not just for albums but on track basis, so that for each album I can see what the top rated songs from that album are.

So, labels out there: add your music to emusic! It's my number 1 shop right now! and with 10,000 tracks on my computer, I guess I'm a pretty good client (and no, I actually bought most of it - so hardly any illegal p2p). and then I use Itunes to organise and play my music.

So please visit eMusic today!

Virtual worlds

2006-10-23T16:29:00.000+02:00

What are the significance of virtual words?

A growing number of universities including Harvard, Stanford, USC, Columbia and many others are exploring the use of virtual worlds such as Second Life as a means for delivering educational programs.

I am a bit facinated by Second Life actually. It is also increasingly used for live streaming of gigs - BBC Radio 1 in the UK rented a "virtual island" in second life where they set up a night club with a massive screen in it where they broadcasted a real live event to all the avatars in the nightclub. There were also "celebrity avatars" and avatars of the radio dj's
in the virtual crowd. Read more here

Reuters has announced they're opening a news bureau in the simulation game Second Life this week, joining a race by corporate name brands to take part in the hottest virtual world on the Internet.
Read story here

This again raises the philosophical question of Man + Machine: Where are the boundaries now? How much of our time do we spend connected to a device? How long will it take before devices become attached to our
bodies to unable 100% connectedness. Will business deals happen more and more online?

What about arts? The other day I read about the worlds first internet only band. They have never met but jam together online. Here's the You Tube link to their videos. The band have never met and do not know eachother's names....

Another funny spin on the world of the future here (after loading, click to play).

Ingjerd

(Thanks to Paul McManus for input into the discussion!)

Migraine day

2006-10-23T15:59:00.001+02:00

oh dear, not the best day. At home with a migraine today. The weekend was great though! Went to Norway for the annual alumni reunion for the Norwegian Entrepreneurship school! Great to see the old Boston 2004 crowd again - and also to make new friendships with newer members!

What's The Big Deal About Making Music Players Social? Microsoft Zune and the Big Idea

2006-10-19T18:12:00.000+02:00

by Erica Sadun
10/17/2006

If you were to ask me straight out to name the most social gadget available today, I'd immediately say the cell phone. Nothing brings people together more, no matter where they are or what they're doing. Least social? Music players. Those earbuds cut you off from other people, sending you into a separate experience with its own soundtrack.

Figure 1

Figure 1: Zunes scan for other units they can send pictures and music to. (Image captured from YouTube).

Consider teenagers. Teens happily spend countless hours chatting with their friends and text messaging each other until they physically damage their thumbs. Attach an iPod to their ears, on the other hand, and they become dazed automatons, cut off from parental communication and other human interaction--unless they happen to be text messaging while listening to their music.

So why does Microsoft insist that a social music player, its upcoming Zune, is the wave of the future? Can the Zune really be a "decidedly social experience"? Has Microsoft seen something new? Will the Zune bring the listening-to-music-while-text-messaging sweet spot to the market? Unfortunately, the answer seems to be a resounding "no"--at least for the first upcoming Zune release.

Zune social networking manifests itself through its Wi-Fi-based music sharing and its PC-based (and presumably MySpace-inspired) Zune Marketplace. Microsoft gambles that these two spheres are sufficient to define a new and unique Zune space.

Note: The information in this article is based on press releases from Microsoft and early reviews from the Internet.
Zune in a Nutshell

* The 30GB Zune Media Player hits the shelves on November 14, with a suggested retail price of $249.
* It offers a 3-inch 320x240 screen that supports both landscape and portrait modes. The Zune displays still and video images in addition to playing back music.
* Built-in Wi-Fi offers device-to-device sharing using 3-day/3-play digital rights management.
* The $14.95 monthly Zune Pass provides unlimited access to the Zune Marketplace music. Individual songs cost just under a dollar a track.
* A built-in FM tuner allows users to listen to local FM radio stations. The Zune tracks Radio Broadcast Data Standards (RDBS) signals and can display the title and artist of the song being played on the radio.
* The Zune can import unprotected tracks from iTunes and Windows Media Player.
* The Zune is available in black, brown, and white models.

Zune Wi-Fi Sharing

Not everyone is wildly enthusiastic about the Zune's Wi-Fi connectivity. Google crippled Zune Wi-Fi, and you'll discover thousands of unhappy people discussing the limitations of the player's connectivity. You can't use it to sync to your computer. You can't use it to buy or rent tunes from the Zune Marketplace. You can't use it to send video. You can't use it to text message.

Zune's Wi-Fi does precisely two things: it lets you share pictures and it lets you share music, for certain DRM-enabled values of the word "share." Shared music lasts three days and can be played three times max. After that, it auto-destructs. It doesn't matter where the music originated or who owns the rights. Once the time or playback limits are reached, the audio becomes unplayable.

Note: There's a debate raging in the Creative Commons community about this very issue.

So how will the Zune accomplish its goal of turning people into the "street teams" it envisions, popularizing music and virally spreading the word of great new artists? When you hear a song you really like, Microsoft wants you to stop what you're doing and take a few minutes to evangelize that music to others.

Figure 2: A progress wheel keeps track of the status of the connection and the receipt of transferred files. (Image captured from YouTube.)

It works like this. To share any song from your Zune library, select the song and choose the Send option. The Zune scans the area around you and shows a list of all the nearby units that have enabled Zune's Wi-Fi and whether they're available or busy. Select a Zune from this buddy list--unique buddy names are registered to each Zune--and the Zune requests a connection.

The targeted Zune displays a prompt, asking the recipient whether he is willing to receive the file, i.e., "'Joe's Zune' wants to send music. Accept?" If the target Zune says yes, the transfer begins. Both the sending and receiving units display progress wheels during this process. The Wi-Fi whirs soundlessly and the music transfers from one player to the other, arriving with the 3-day/3-play DRM automagically added. The whole process takes maybe 30 seconds--from pressing Send to selecting a buddy to waiting for the transfer to complete.

So does this kind of sharing allow the building of street cred? Can it act as a viral force to promote music? Here's the problem. Because of the 3-day/3-play/no-share limitation, that music is absolutely going no further than the first shared Zune--unless the sharing encourages the recipient to buy the track. Only then can the music reach its next link of viral customer. Think about that. It's as if YouTube said you had to fork over a dollar (or the equivalent in Microsoft's fake "points" system) before sharing a video with friends. It will stop the viral effect dead in its tracks.

Note: When you find a received song that you really like, your Zune allows you to "flag" it. This makes it easier to find that song later and buy it from the Marketplace.
Social Wi-Fi

If viral sharing isn't the big win for a social player, then maybe the interaction itself should be. But consider how the social interactions might take place. Social dynamics for sharing-by-gadget are tenuous, to say the least.

For a short time, when the iPod was fairly new, people experimented with a kind of iPod socialization. They'd unplug their headphones and offer their jacks to complete strangers in a bizarre look-how-postmodernist-I-am way. It was mostly a failure because it made people on the receiving end really, really uncomfortable. They didn't know what to do when the naked jacks were shoved in their faces, or whether they should counteroffer with their own iPods, usually playing some humiliating mix of Barry Manilow, show tunes, or easy listening.

Or consider that short-lived phase when people discovered they could beam business cards to one another's PDAs. Remember that? It took forever to set up the PDAs just right and to get the IR ports to send the information correctly. Frankly, it embarrassed everyone who had to watch and wait during business meetings, where it would have taken all of two seconds just to hand over a paper card and shake someone's hand.

These experiences inform the way you should think about Zuning. How should you Zune? Do you try to make face-to-face contact first? Or do you Zune anonymously, facelessly putting your music out into the wild? Setting aside the question of whether there are even any other Zune users within Wi-Fi radius, is it OK to interrupt other people's listening and offer them music? And where exactly is it OK to share? Restaurants? Work? Public transit? The school cafeteria? What happens if a kid from the uncool table offers his music to kids at the cool table? It would take an army of Emily Posts to sort through all the awkwardness.

Newsweek: Microsoft has announced its new iPod competitor, Zune. It says that this device is all about building communities. Are you worried?

Steve Jobs: In a word, no. I've seen the demonstrations on the Internet about how you can find another person using a Zune and give them a song they can play three times. It takes forever. By the time you've gone through all that, the girl's got up and left! You're much better off to take one of your earbuds out and put it in her ear. Then you're connected with about two feet of headphone cable.

The Social Marketplace

Creating a social marketplace where people can share their musical experiences and opinions is a wonderful thing. It is not, however, even remotely unique or innovative. Amazon pioneered many social elements including star ratings, peer reviews, and recommendation lists. Many of these were picked up by the iTunes store and expanded upon with items like Celebrity Playlists. LiveJournal, too, has had social "now playing" and "mood" tags for years.
Figure 3

Figure 3: The Zune journal in the Marketplace software allows you to track music swaps and your want list.

Is the Zune Marketplace MySpace-like "journal" enough to bring the game up a viral notch? I suspect not. The journal tracks your music swaps, allows you to manage your want list, and may allow you to talk about your life, although that is still unclear at this time. It doesn't seem to add any features for which you'd run out and buy a player, which is what it should do to promote the Zune.

The Zune Marketplace brings one feature to the table that iTunes, Amazon, and LiveJournal do not. It's the $15 per month all-you-can-eat Zune Pass unlimited-music subscription. At first glance, it merely looks like a warmed-over version of Napster. That's until you remember the sharing model offered with the player. Anyone who owns a Zune and subscribes to the service can act as a middleman between this enormous music library and anyone who wants to listen to that music--or at least, to listen to that music three times over three days.

Of course, with iTunes streaming, you can accomplish something similar as long as you don't want to listen to that music on your iPod. And, for the $180 per year that you'd have to pay Microsoft, you can buy a lot of albums at the iTunes store or your local Tower Records (if it stays in business) that will remain yours even after that year is over and you stop paying your subscription fees.
Final Thoughts

In their current incarnations, the Zune player and Zune Marketplace store don't seem to be living up to their goal of promoting a new kind of social music player, if such a beast could even be said to exist. The technology seems to lack the ability to create a viral layer to music listening, let alone the willingness to allow the viral message to spread without forcing its carriers to pay fees. Microsoft needs to think more about that rapidly text-messaging teenager listening to her iPod when developing the next model of its Zune player if it wants to stay in the social realm instead of becoming another iPod-clone-also-ran. To stay in this market, the all-you-can-eat music model needs to be priced affordably and the sharing model needs to be completely rethought.

Erica Sadun has written, co-written, and contributed to almost two dozen books about technology, particularly in the areas of programming, digital video, and digital photography.

Monetize music via online communites

2006-10-19T15:07:00.000+02:00

Interesting comment from Mark Clark, UK MD of Music company GD Worldwide in today's New Media Age (www.nma.co.uk) which examplifies the underling music and merchandise purchasing power behind online communities and built-in shop widgets into exisiting communities:

"Through a well-managed online community, artists have the opportunity not only to communicate one-on-one with their fan base, but also to gain valuable insights and understanding from their fans about what they value and what they want to get out of the relationship.

Simply by understanding that not all fans are created equal, the artist can begin to unlock the value that lies within. For example, why shouldn't an artist sell demo tapes, video clips, memorabilia, recordings of exclusive gigs or solo projects directly to their fans via these new low-cost digital distribution platforms?

Out of Lily Allen's 78,000 friends the majority are happy just to brag that they have Lily as a friend. But there will be a significant proportion who will pay to see her on her current UK tour and have probably already bought her debut album. Within that group there will be a number of fans who also want to hear her demo tapes, to see set lists, to read overnight gig reviews and hear recordings of the gigs themselves. However, while some of these can be given away as they build the relationship between artist and fan, others will be highly valued and can be offered at a premium price. Understanding the micro-economy, value and assets around an artist is to realise the true potential value."

Emi follows Universal and signs with Spiral Frog

2006-09-11T15:58:00.000+02:00

EMI to put music catalogue on SpiralFrog
Source: nma.co.uk | Published: 07.09.06

Email article | Printer Friendlymore News
EMI has signed a deal to make its music catalogue available on the new ad-funded download service SpiralFrog.

It follows the download store's deal with Vivendi's Universal Music announced last week. When the service launches it will allow consumers to download music for free for the first time.

However, SpiralFrog customers will have to watch 90 seconds of ads per track they download. Tracks can only be stored for six months, after which they will need to watch an ad again to keep the track.

SpiralFrog's aim is to sign as many record labels and publishing houses as it can before launch. With EMI and Universal's catalogue it is estimated that half of all music will be available to customers.

SpiralFrog launches in the US in December and in the UK early next year.

MySpace to Enable Users to Sell Songs

2006-09-04T08:24:00.000+02:00

This is massive guys!
--

Excerpted from LA Times Report by Dawn Chmielewski & Charles Duhigg

MySpace.com plans to let its 77 million users sell music downloads, another move by corporate parent News Corp. to make the social networking site as profitable as it is popular.

Shawn Fanning, whose Napster software upended the music industry in 1999, will provide technology that enables musicians on MySpace to sell songs directly to fans — and even for fans to sell to one another.

When the tentatively dubbed MyStore launches this year, bands will be able to price and sell songs in the MP3 format, which works on Apple Computer’s popular iPod players as well as rival devices powered by Microsoft software.

Although the service is aimed at independent acts, MySpace is in talks with all four major music labels to possibly offer the works of big-name artists. As with many new forms of online distribution, the big labels are waiting to see how well the technology works before striking deals.

“This is a huge step,” said Terry McBride, chief executive of DCIA Member Nettwerk Music Group, one of Canada’s largest independent record labels. “Now, fans will be able to genuinely recommend music to their friends that people can buy.”

One of McBride’s acts, the Format, is among the first to offer 79-cent downloads on MySpace. The Arizona-based band lost its Warner Music Group deal last year after releasing a 2003 album, “Interventions and Lullabies,” but it has established a fan base on MySpace, where it posts tour dates and music videos.

Fanning’s company, Snocap, spent four years creating the technology that enables artists to register their music and collect payment no matter where on the Internet a person downloaded a song. It will also enable fans to sell their favorite bands’ tracks on their own MySpace pages, with a portion of the proceeds going to the artists.

San Francisco guitarist Shelley Doty, for instance, already uses Snocap’s technology on her website. The singer of “Don’t Miss This Ride” can set her own price and sell her music to fans.

“She can add tracks at will,” Snocap Chief Executive Rusty Rueff said. “She can change the price at will. The coolest thing is the instantaneous side, the immediacy of bringing together creation, and distribution like it’s never been done before.”

MySpace allows people to create personal web pages and then link to circles of “friends.” In addition to teenagers posting their photos or poetry, bands and movie producers create MySpace pages to promote their wares — frequently attracting tens of thousands of friends.

About 3 million acts — including U2 and teenage garage bands — have MySpace pages.

It was that massive audience that News Corp. sought to capture when it bought MySpace’s Los Angeles-based parent company last summer for $580 million. At the time, analysts questioned how News Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch would capitalize on MySpace’s traffic without alienating its mostly young users.

Since then, the News Corp. division overseeing MySpace, Fox Interactive Media, has bolstered the sometimes shaky technological foundations of the service. And it has gradually introduced money-making features that cater to the tastes of MySpace users. Last month, for instance, the company announced plans to sell downloadable copies of 20th Century Fox movies and TV shows on MySpace.

“The take on big corporate FOX coming in and heavy-handedly mistreating MySpace and ruining the community — obviously, that was anything but the truth,” said Michael Barrett, Executive Vice President and Chief Revenue Officer for Fox Interactive.

“We’re just beginning to see the start of a strategy that really tries to take full advantage of the community. The power of it.”

Some analysts doubted that News Corp. would make much money from MyStore initially. The company will split the processing fee of about 45 cents per track with Snocap. Even Apple’s iTunes Music Store is considered a modestly profitable software complement to the high-margin iPod.

“It’s really great for the bands and the fans on MySpace, but I’m very skeptical that anybody’s going to make a lot of money off this,” said Jupiter Research analyst David Card, who noted that no media companies make money exclusively by selling esoteric content to niche audiences. “I believe in a ‘long tail,’ but I have yet to find a media company make a living delivering only the long tail without delivering any of the hits.”

Longer term, though, some analysts said, MySpace could broaden the appeal of legitimate online music sales.

“This creates competition for iTunes,” said Ted Cohen, a former EMI executive who is managing partner of digital media consulting firm TAG Strategic. This, combined with the impending launch of Microsoft’s Zune media player, “could make the digital music marketplace more of a horse race.”

The most powerful man in the world?

2006-09-01T11:52:00.000+02:00

ha ha, now anyone can manipulate Bush. You can click and drag him around in a room of bubbles!

http://www.planetdan.net/pics/misc/georgie.htm

New music distribution system

2006-09-01T10:58:00.000+02:00

This is something I've been waiting for - music download service for free, revenue from advertising!

FROM New Media Age Magazine, 01.09.06

Music start-up to offer ad-funded downloads service

Author: Sam Matthews | Source: nma.co.uk | Published: 29.08.06

Music start-up SpiralFrog is launching an ad-funded music download service in December.

The group has received backing from Universal Music, with artists including U2 and Gwen Stefani, and is currently in negotiations with the other major labels to have their roster of artists included on the site.

SpiralFrog's business model is based on sharing income from advertising with Universal and other content partners.

"Offering young consumers an easy-to-use alternative to pirated music sites will be compelling," said Robin Kent, CEO of SpiralFrog.

The group's research revealed that consumers are willing to pay for content by watching "non-intrusive, contextually relevant, targeted advertising".

Billy Boyd: An actors view on the movie industry

2006-01-30T23:05:00.000+01:00

The students as the Norwegian School of Management BI in Oslo got a pleasant suprise when Billy Boyd (known mainly for the role as Pippin in the Lord of the Rings triology directed by Peter Jackson) turned up as guest lecturer in the course Cultural Management (Film) lectured by Norwegian producer Terje Gaustad.

Billy was there to give his view on the film industry from an actors point of view. He started out by explaining his background: "I was just a simple boy from Glascow's east side - a working class area, and guys like me don't normally become actors". He also commented that it was great "working with a great director like Pete Jackson" because he was sure of his decisons and not afraid to make decisons, yet he did not have a great ego, and would listen to alternative views and ideas". He also said that Pete "never arrived without an idea".

When I asked him of whether he felt like it could be difficult being an actor post Lord of the Rings in the sense that people would expect certain things from him, he replied: "Yes, it can be difficult, and there are so many people that will tell you what to do and what you should not do, like you have to make strategic decisions about films and listen to what managers and agents tell you".

The students in the class where very interested in hearing about his favorite film directors and views on big vs. small film productions. Billy said he would have liked to work with for example Woody Allen, and he also said that while bigger film productions leave you with more time and money to do things, it is independent films that drive the film industry forwards. "Or you could do like Pete Jackson and make the film in New Zealand where the big Hollywood studios can't get to you". Billy Boyd is starring in the forthcoming film "Save Angel Hope" (directed by Lukas Erni) produced by Terje Gaustad.

Oasis in Oslo, January 25th

2006-01-27T10:43:00.000+01:00

Oasis played at Oslo Spektrum on January 25th. It was a great show, allthough it was sad that the warm-up Stereophonics had to cancel due to ilness in the family. The absolute highlight was when Oasis played "Masterplan". Unfortunately, Spektrum is a horrible venue, and the stage is too low. and the beer is expensive too.

Free Belle&Sebastian

2006-01-26T13:21:00.000+01:00

For those of us unable to get tickets for Belle&Sebastian's tour... atleast we can comfort ourselves with a a free song by Belle&Sebastian...

Belle & Sebastian: Another Sunny day

London Underground

2006-01-26T13:15:00.000+01:00

Since I am moving to London in February - I know I will spend some time on the Underground and other services from London Transport.... And well, just listen to this song!!

The London Underground song

Festival summer 2006

2006-01-26T12:27:00.000+01:00

If you are asking yourself which UK festival you are going to this summer, look no further.... For your convenience, I have looked into which ones I'm thinking will be the best this year, and here are the candidates (ordered by date):

- The O2 Music Wireless festival 2006 (London)
(end of June)

This festival was arranged for the first time in 2005, and wow, it was a blast! It is not a "true" festival in the sense that it does not include tents etc, but it is in the middle of Hyde Park, spread over 4 days. Last year it included bands such as Keane, Kasabian, Supergrass, Rufus Wainwright, The Editors, Hard-Fi, Moby, Basement Jaxx, Babyshambles and Martha Wainwright. All in all, a great event. There are no "real" rumours or announcements regarding the 2006 festival, but I think it will be worth going!

- T in the Park (Scotland) (7-9th July)

This is predicted to be "THE Festival" in 2006, especially since Glastonbury is cancelled for 2006.

- Carling Weekend (Reading/Leeds) (25-27th August)

The Reading Festival has traditionally been the second largest event after Glastonbury. Rumours has it that the following bands are coming:
Muse
Humanzi
Wolfmother
iForward Russia!
Boy Kill Boy
Dirty Pretty Things
Franz Ferdinand
Kaiser Chiefs
Arctic Monkeys
The Strokes
Alice Cooper
Flaming Lips
Secret Machines
Clap Your Hands Say Yeah

- The V festival (Chelmsford)
(19-20th August)

This is the 10th anniversary for the V festival, and I think that Sir Richard Branson
might invest a little extra in it this year? Rumours has it that the following bands are coming...
Radiohead
James Blunt
The Who
Keane
Kasabian
Razorlight

Ingjerd

My latest novel...

2006-01-17T13:18:00.000+01:00

Ingjerd & Charlotte on the road again!

On February the 6th, Charlotte and I will move to London (yippee!). Therefore, we invite you all to come and join us at this great concert on February the 3rd, to celebrate our new and fabulous career move and all the great concerts with great UK bands we'll be at when in London.

Just a little good time to say goodbye for now, until you guys come visiting us there or we come home for like 17th of May etc.

Hope to see as many of you there as possible. We will meet upstairs in Garage at 20.00 and then we all go downstairs when the gig starts!

Here is some information on the event:

MY LATEST NOVEL (UK)
Garage OSLO kr 80,-
Fredag 3. februar 2006
Fredag 3 februar kan vi by på en aldri så liten godbit for alle musikkinteresserte! My Latest Novel kommer nemlig på besøk. Noter dette med feit sprittusj bak øret og lad opp batteriene!

My Latest Novel er popkvintetten fra Glasgow som med sin briliante debutsingel "Sister Sneaker Sister Soul" viser at de forvalter arven fra sine landsmenn i Belle & Sebastian og Arab Strap. De baker in sin gemyttlige pop med fioliner, xylophoner og bølgende slagverk, og resultatet blir magisk musikk. Bandet ble startet i 2003 og de har brukt tiden til å spille over hele Storbrittania. My Latest Novel har mildt sag fått en positiv mottakelse av både pressen og publikum, blant annet har de varmet opp for Pixies, Smog, Joanna Newsom og Sufjan Stevens.

Debutplaten "Wolves" slippes den 18. mars. Gå ikke glipp av denne enestående sjansen til å se bandet på deres første besøk i Norge.

www.mylatestnovel.com

Monday, just another manic monday?

2006-01-16T09:12:00.000+01:00

SO, new week, a new beginning?

I started this week by smelling an awful burnt smell from the heating thermstat... great start of the week. My flat is freezing cold now and the guy from the electrics company cannot come before later this week... super!

Am at work now. My colleague Charlotte and I are going for a cup of coffee soon. Can't wait. She is also moving to London by the way.

Does anybody have tips on where to look for apartments and jobs on the net for London jobs and apartments?

Why does pretty women date ugly men?

2006-01-15T22:07:00.000+01:00

This may sound like a horribly superficial topic to start off the year 2006 with. But seriously: I have seen it a LOT lately! And I find it so strange! But I have this theory now. It might be that pretty women find it hard to find the perfect man that has both great looks and great sense of humour / brains etc... and so they reject all men that come close (but not close enough) to this definition of "the perfect man". Then in the end they get so (sexually?) frustrated that they take the first guy they see even though he is butt ugly (he might be fun though) thinking that he is ok, since they have no risk whatsoever of really actually falling in love.

But then they do, somehow!

Strange....

sorry...

2006-01-15T21:30:00.000+01:00

I am sorry that I have not written in my post for such a very long time... maybe because I keep two other paper journal (yeah you heard it, "PAPER". Ha! You did not think that anyone still used it, did you!) and it is hard to find time to update both... maybe I will make a change and start doing this for real?? Will definetely think of that yes. OK, from tomorrow, I will give it a shot, ok?

Moving, just keep moving?

2006-01-15T21:23:00.000+01:00

Hey guys!

It is official. am moving to London! Yipeee!!! february the 6th is the date!!! aj aja aj!

Ingjerd

Business as unusual

2005-10-10T10:40:00.000+02:00

Anita Roddick visited the Norwegian School of Management in Oslo:

“Governments and businesses cannot change the world by themselves, but consumers can change it” says Anita Roddick founder of the successful store chain the Body Shop with strong visions for social responsibility in a CSR seminar at the Norwegian School of Management. According to Roddick, entering business was a bit embarrassing, but she has realised that she can help stimulating the grassroots movement through doing “business as unusual”. However, her own entry into business was a rather difficult one. She experienced prejudice from banks and investors alike who did not quite “get” what she was trying to do with the Body Shop.

The Body shop is one of the strongest brands in the world and a popular place to buy all sorts of beauty products. They are also well known for their sometimes quite radical and provoking campaigns on ban of animal testing, human rights and modern beauty ideals. For their strong stand against animal testing they are excluded as a retailer from one of the most promising markets in the world: China. But Roddick still does not want to conform to what she feels is immoral. And where does this strong morality come from? "My morality comes from literature”, Roddick says, and she often refers to poets and great thinkers like Marcel Proust.

“The Body shop is all about communication and we do not spend money on marketing at all, we use guerrilla marketing” says Roddick, and then you have to be able to shock people and do what your competition is either unwilling or unable to do. So, what has this to do with CSR?
“We try to challenge everything by doing the right thing to do” Roddick says with passion. “We for example use our trucks as moving billboards”. Indeed the billboards have been used for anything from missing children campaigns to support of Amnesty International. The body shop has also been more directly involved in helping change the world by building up child development centres and schools in third world countries. But it is not all about charity; it is also about changing the way we do business. For example, the Body shop founder tends to travel around in the world looking for knowledge and ingredients that she can use in the Body Shop products (“Travel for me as like a university without walls”). She then helps the locals building up production of this ingredient and thus improving the living standard by providing a product to export, establishing living wages and giving education to the women involved in production, and their children.

Anita Roddick also believes strongly in having employees as ambassadors for the values that the Body shop stands for, and all employees have to take part in community service. With more than 2000 franchise stores in 50 different countries, then perhaps the Body shop can change business?

Itunes = great?

2005-08-31T03:38:00.000+02:00

When Itunes opened up in Norway, I thought "great"! Finally! But... there is a but. The same music is not offered through all the country stores, and so if I want to buy UK or German music, I can only access that through the country specific stores... but I cannot purchase it, since I do not have a German or a UK credit card. This sucks. I mean, why cannot we download the music from whichever store and still do the transaction within our own country? In the virtual, boundaryless world, there are still in fact boundaries. At least I tunes have tried as hard as they can to make it difficult to get aquainted with other cultures now.

Best bands of the YEAR

2005-07-18T22:23:00.000+02:00

The bands I listen most to now:

1. Keane
2. Travis
3. Kasabian
4. Razorlight
5. The Baby Shambles
6. Morrisey
7. Oasis
8. New order
9. Kaizers Chiefs
10.Coldplay

Best solo:

1. Rufus Wainwright
2. James Blunt
3. Martha Wainwright
4. Ben Folds (Band/solo - as i still listen to the ben folds five stuff)

Potential newcomer: The Delays?

Best Norwegian act:
Jim Stärk