pWal-Mart, a href="http://www.engadget.com/2008/10/10/walmart-has-a-change-of-heart-decides-to-maintain-drm-servers/"says a report at Engadget/a, has reversed its a href="http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080928-wal-mart-latest-to-shut-down-drm-key-servers.html"earlier decision/a to cut its DRM servers and thereby rendering useless tracks with Microsoft DRM purchased at the store. /p p"What this means to you is that our existing service continues and there is no action required on your part," Wal-Mart told customers in an email sent to music buyers. "Our customer service team will continue to assist with DRM issues for protected windows media audio (WMA) files purchased from Walmart.com."/phr/[music jobs] a href="http://coolfer.jobamatic.com/a/jbb/job-details/30366"Brand and Online Marketing Manager/a at The Ascot Club/Am Only; Brooklyn, NY.div class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/coolfer?a=Uo46m"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/coolfer?i=Uo46m" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/coolfer?a=oZrLM"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/coolfer?i=oZrLM" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/coolfer?a=cEhrM"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/coolfer?i=cEhrM" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/coolfer/~4/416883404" height="1" width="1"/

p#149; CEO/chariman Doug Morris has re-signed with Universal Music Group. (a href="http://www.billboard.biz/bbbiz/content_display/industry/e3i39aca7c440d50caafc0b1f876c50d444"Billboard.biz/a) /p p#149; An interview with Doug Morris. Read the entire thing. Here's a taste: "What I take seriously is the fact that we're people who create art. Whether you like our art or not, it's what we do. My whole point of view is this problem we're in, which is caused by technology, will be solved by technology. Some genius on the other side will figure out how to stop the piracy that seems very logical to me. So all these people who come up with these opinions that they should have done this and that, it's all ridiculous." (a href="http://www.billboard.biz/bbbiz/content_display/industry/e3i69c4daba6cf2b7e5fc12c78dbe36e39c"Billboard.biz/a)/p p#149; Sony plans to get Sony Music in sync with the rest of the company. "Sony already this month has moved to streamline the music group, merging two labels that had been run separately by Bertelsmann and Sony. Next, the Sony executive said, will be a push to better integrate Sony music with Sony Ericsson mobile phones, which had a paltry 8 percent market share in the second quarter." (a href="http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5g5fcM5YPitehtlBrWk3d7TK9iwlQD93NLRTO0"AP/a)/p p#149; Universal Music Group's Fontana International label group has partnered with UK-based Cooperative Music. Fontana will help develop Coop Music titles in the North America. (a href="http://top40-charts.com/news/Pop-Rock/Fontana-Pacts-With-Co-Op-Music-New-Releases-Announced/43417.html"Press release/a)/p p#149; Lil Jon has singed up with Universal Republic as an artist, owner of new record imprint, producer and AR consultant. (a href="http://www.eurweb.com/story/eur47684.cfm"Press release/a)/phr/[music jobs] a href="http://coolfer.jobamatic.com/a/jbb/job-details/30366"HR Manager/a at EMI NA; New York, NY.div class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/coolfer?a=PXMdm"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/coolfer?i=PXMdm" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/coolfer?a=JptVM"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/coolfer?i=JptVM" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/coolfer?a=8QNVM"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/coolfer?i=8QNVM" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/coolfer/~4/416856500" height="1" width="1"/

pIn recent weeks I have noticed Girl Talk's emFeed the Animals/em at a number of download stores. His albums may or may not violate copyright law, depending on who you ask, and availability has been an issue. I don't recall seeing such good sales from an album with such dubious legal standing. Normally albums in dispute are either low-grade recordings or too far out of the public eye to merit attention. Are retailers loosening up?/p pIt was an issue of distribution, the label told me today, and not an issue with retail. iTunes has been the one online retailer that has refused to carry Girl Talk releases. Now, a href="http://illegalart.net"Illegal Art/a is working with different distributors and has better availability on online retail. (According to the album pages at eMusic, Illegal Art is using TuneCore for Girl Talk's last two releases.) Physical distribution is a different matter. His CD lost distribution in July, the same time, a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/07/arts/music/07girl.html"according to the NY Times/a, iTunes stopped carrying his album emNight Rippers/em. /p pemFeed the Animals/em, an album of questionable legality due to its uncleared samples, is being sold at a href="http://www.amazon.com/Feed-the-Animals-Explicit/dp/B001ELBVLG/ref=sr_f3_2?ie=UTF8s=dmusicqid=1223523746sr=103-2"Amazon.com MP3/a (currently ranked #58 ), a href="http://www.emusic.com/album/Girl-Talk-Feed-the-Animals-MP3-Download/11277897.html"eMusic/a (the #15 album this week), a href="http://home.napster.com/#cgi-bin/searchXML?type_id=albumtracksresult_type=trackselect_by=albumselect_value=12918716format=jsoncount=10index=0"Napster/a and a href="http://www.lala.com/#album/2306124484406504999/"Lala.com/a (currently ranked #89, though that is a measure of total plays, not just purchases). a href="http://mp3.rhapsody.com/girltalk"Rhapsody carried three Girl Talk releases/a but not emFeed the Animals/em./p pThe album debuted at the Illegal Art website as a pay-what-you-want download. It a href="http://74.124.198.47/illegal-art.net/__girl__talk___feed__the__anima.ls___/"is still available/a -- for free if you desire to pay nothing -- at the label's site while it sells well elsewhere. /p pWhy the gray area? Sampling another song without clearance is normally grounds for a lawsuit (if the song makes it through a label's safety net). In the case of emFeed the Animals/em, the number of potential plaintiffs is huge. But each sample is brief. Few run over 30 seconds, and many last just a second or two. (To see which samples are used in the songs, follow along at a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feed_The_Animals"the album's Wikipedia page/a.) Label and artist insist the album is protected by the fair use doctrine. Many experts have said it would fail in court. While it may be technically illegal, any label or publisher that takes the label to court risks an unfavorable outcome and, thus, a game-changing precedent. In addition, Illegal Art and Girl Talk are not exactly asset-rich legal targets./p pThe label admits to keeping a low profile in spite of the considerable press attention. "We're not even pushing it as hard as we might," Illegal Art founder Philo T. Farnsworth a href="http://www.pittsburghcitypaper.ws/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A51602"told the Pittsburgh City Paper/a. /phr/[music jobs] a href="http://coolfer.jobamatic.com/a/jbb/job-details/30366"Brand and Online Marketing Manager/a at The Ascot Club/Am Only; Brooklyn, NY.div class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/coolfer?a=qC9Lm"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/coolfer?i=qC9Lm" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/coolfer?a=JAqBM"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/coolfer?i=JAqBM" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/coolfer?a=lG1XM"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/coolfer?i=lG1XM" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/coolfer/~4/416180293" height="1" width="1"/

pAtlantic rapper a href="http://www.myspace.com/trapmuzik"T.I./a has passed two million MySpace friends, his MySpace page has over 82.6 million views and his hit single "Whatever You Like" has over 27 million streams at MySpace. Right now all of the songs at his MySpace page are collectively getting well over one million streams per day and to date have streamed over 138 million times./p pHow does all that translate into cash?/p pFirst-week sales of the album emPaper Trail/em were 568,000. The album will have a big second-week drop but should top one million units within a few weeks. First week sales of the song "Whatever You Like" totaled almost 335,000 units. That's 0.13 song purchases per MySpace stream, or $0.09 of download revenue per song stream. (I'm comparing U.S. sales to global MySpace statistics. Comparing numbers across territories like that isn't the best way to compare artist statistics, but it's the only way I can do it.)/p pHaving a #1 song will influence traffic at an artist's MySpace page. At a penny per stream, T.I.'s MySpace page can bring in $15,000 per day if visitors listen to 1.5 million streams (which T.I. will easily exceed today). Those streams would generate even more revenue if the songs had an Amazon.com buy button (which they do not yet have). That's $105,000 in ad revenue for one week. Album sales, assuming a 15/85 digital/physical split, brought in (roughly) $5.42 million. First-week sales of "Whatever You Like" brought in $235,000 (I don't know a la carte sales from other tracks on the album, so I am ignoring them as well as ringtones). The total of the three is $5.76 million. That's $3.75 per MySpace friend (again, not including ringtones)./p pa href="http://www.myspace.com/robinthicke"Robin Thicke/a released an album last week as well. emSomething Else/em sold 137,000 units. His MySpace page has 8.52 million visits to date and he has 279,000 friends. Even though Thicke's MySpace page has streamed 17 million songs, he doesn't currently have a #1 single as does T.I. Thicke's MySpace page has streamed his latest single only 130,000 times. The page is getting about 30,000 streams per day. That's only $300 per day at a penny per stream and $2,100 per week. Just to get in revenue from a single, let's say Thicke sold 50,000 units last week. That's $35,000 in revenue. With a 15/85 split on the album, that's revenue of $1.31 million. The total for the three is about $1.35 million. That's $4.82 per MySpace friend./p pLet's compare to another debut last week, emThe Glass Passenger/em by emo band a href="http://www.myspace.com/jacksmannequin"Jack's Mannequin/a. The album debuted with sales of 49,000 units. Relative to the band's number of MySpace friends, that's the same as T.I. but worse than Thicke. If friends of Jack's Mannequin had purchased the album at the same rate Robin Thicke friends bought his record, they would have sold about 104,000 units. The band's MySpace page had streamed over 14 million songs to date and is currently doing less than 100,000 streams per day. That's $1,000 per day at a penny per stream. With a 20/80 split on the album (a bit higher because it's rock) that's first-week revenue of about $467,600 without taking into account a la carte track purchases and ringtones. That's only $2.21 per MySpace friend. /p p#149; T.I.: 0.263 albums per MySpace friend, 0.026 MySpace friends/profile viewsbr / #149; Thicke: 0.491 albums per MySpace friend, 0.0327 MySpace friends/profile viewsbr / #149; Jack's Mannequin: 0.23 albums per MySpace friend/phr/[music jobs] a href="http://coolfer.jobamatic.com/a/jbb/job-details/30366"Brand and Online Marketing Manager/a at The Ascot Club/Am Only; Brooklyn, NY.div class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/coolfer?a=RRD3m"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/coolfer?i=RRD3m" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/coolfer?a=S1IpM"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/coolfer?i=S1IpM" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/coolfer?a=ZxE8M"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/coolfer?i=ZxE8M" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/coolfer/~4/415943739" height="1" width="1"/

p#149; UK retailer Carphone Warehouse will put together a bundle of products that should help spur interest in Nokia's Comes With Music service. "Carphone is putting its backing behind Nokia’s debut Comes With Music handset, the 5310, bundling a free laptop and 3’s mobile broadband with it." (a href="http://www.mobiletoday.co.uk/blog.aspx?id=42306LangType=1033ekfxmen_noscript=1ekfxmensel=e0fa05763_38_200"Mobile Today/a)/p p#149; Does Los Angeles have too many venues? "By the end of the year, Los Angeles will have seven venues booking acts that draw between 800 and 2,300 and two halls." (a href="http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117993677.html?categoryId=16cs=1"Variety/a)/p p#149; George Jones and other country stars will have celebrity-themed venues at the a href="http://www.countrycrossingalabama.com/"Country Crossings/a entertainment resort being built in Dothan, Alabama. The complex will include a 15,000-seat amphitheater, several major hotels and an RV park. (a href="http://www.musicrow.com/section/AS001/1/ARN010162"Music Row/a)/p p#149; Play.com now offers MP3s from all four majors. (a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/connected/main.jhtml?xml=/connected/2008/10/09/dldrm109.xml"Telegraph/a)/p p#149; In yesterday's post about EMI's "digital sandbox" I erred in writing about MusicNet as a direct-to-consumer business. EMI was one of the founders of MusicNet, but the direct-to-consumer service with major label ownership was PressPlay. Dumb mistake on my part. MusicNet and PressPlay were very different. Rather than strike out the incorrect sentences in the post I just deleted them and opted for a correction in this space./phr/[music jobs] a href="http://coolfer.jobamatic.com/a/jbb/job-details/30366"HR Manager/a at EMI NA; New York, NY.div class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/coolfer?a=8REIm"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/coolfer?i=8REIm" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/coolfer?a=8ogBM"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/coolfer?i=8ogBM" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/coolfer?a=gOfoM"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/coolfer?i=gOfoM" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/coolfer/~4/415806593" height="1" width="1"/

pIpsos’ TEMPO Digital Music Brandscape study shows improvements in brands have been made by iTunes, Rhapsody and Amazon.com while Napster, MySpace, Wal-Mart and Yahoo have experienced brand erosion over the last year (a href="http://www.ipsos-na.com/news/pressrelease.cfm?id=4089"press release/a). /p pA survey of 1,148 Internet users in the summer of 2008 revealed 58% of people believe iTunes is the top fee-based digital music service or download store. That is an increase from 51% last year. Rhapsody improved to 7% from 4% while Amazon.com got 9% of votes (it did not sell MP3s in the summer of 2007). (a href="http://www.ipsos-na.com/news/client/act_dsp_pdf.cfm?name=mr081008-1tb1.pdfid=4089"Here's the PDF with the numbers/a.)/p pNapster got 8% (down from 10%), MySpace got 4% (down from 5%), Wal-Mart got 4% (down from 6%) and Yahoo got 2% (down from 4%). Other stores/services got 9% (down from 20%). /p pIn terms of brand awareness (a href="http://www.ipsos-na.com/news/client/act_dsp_pdf.cfm?name=mr081008-1tb2.pdfid=4089"here's that PDF/a), iTunes 39% unaided awareness was far ahead from the next best service, Napster with 13% unaided awareness. Awareness figures came from a sample of 1,249 U.S. downloaders./p pThe statistics offer evidence of some services' success and show the difficulties faced by the less well known brands. eMusic is a good case in point. While eMusic is one of the more successful download services, it is not well known outside a core group of users. Few people surveyed think it is the best service and is ranks low in unaided (2%) and aided (20%) awareness. Similarly, a new service like last.fm is hailed as an innovative trailblazer but faces incredibly low unaided (0%) and aided (6%) awareness. The company, purchased by CBS for $280 million, must be mainstream to be considered a success. It has a long way to go. /p pOne thing that stands out is the amount of services/stores that were considered to be the best. This year the "others" category was 9%, a big drop from 20% last year. The implication? The competitive music service/store market is increasingly marked by clear winners and losers. Mainstream users may not have room for more than a handful of services and the competition for the top few spots on the ladder should increase in the coming years. At the same time, the competition will act as a weeding out process. I can't imagine some of today's services being around in three years. /phr/[music jobs] a href="http://coolfer.jobamatic.com/a/jbb/job-details/30366"HR Manager/a at EMI NA; New York, NY.div class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/coolfer?a=368gm"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/coolfer?i=368gm" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/coolfer?a=hdjFM"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/coolfer?i=hdjFM" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/coolfer?a=ohcZM"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/coolfer?i=ohcZM" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/coolfer/~4/415156871" height="1" width="1"/

p#149; After the city council voted 7-2 in favor of zoning changes that will allow Live Nation to move ahead with its plans for a new Fillmore venue in Silver Spring, MD. It's a sweet deal for Live Nation. The the council and the Maryland legislature will spend $8 million to build the venue and Live Nation will rent the venue from the county. (a href="http://voices.washingtonpost.com/washbizblog/2008/10/early_briefing_va_power_line_a.html"WashBiz Blog/a)/p p#149; a href="http://www.mufin.com"Mufin/a is yet another music recommendation engine. (a href="http://venturebeat.com/2008/10/08/mufin-music-recommendations-half-baked-or-just-right/"VentureBeat/a)/p p#149; Believe Digital has acquired digital distributor mTunes. (a href="http://www.billboard.biz/bbbiz/content_display/industry/e3i305959daf22af07acb9a9d621c50ed02"Billboard.biz/a)/p p#149; Sony BMG has made the new Oasis album the first advertiser for AOL's new a href="http://www.platform-a.com/"Platform-A/a network. (a href="http://www.nma.co.uk/Articles/39891/Sony+BMG+first+to+experiment+with+Platform-A+to+promote+Oasis+album.html"New Media Age/a)/p p#149; An interview with a href="http://www.lp33.tv/"LP33.tv'/as content director, Vlad Lodzinski. LP33.tv, a music discovery/video portal that features independent acts, launched today. (a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/pda/2008/oct/08/netmusic"The Guardian/a)/phr/[music jobs] a href="http://coolfer.jobamatic.com/a/jbb/job-details/30366"Brand and Online Marketing Manager/a at The Ascot Club/Am Only; Brooklyn, NY.div class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/coolfer?a=HbWem"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/coolfer?i=HbWem" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/coolfer?a=dNDaM"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/coolfer?i=dNDaM" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/coolfer?a=u75RM"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/coolfer?i=u75RM" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/coolfer/~4/414948704" height="1" width="1"/

pThe emFinancial Times/em a href="http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/096eef34-94cd-11dd-953e-000077b07658.html"reported today/a that EMI is working on its own portal through which it can sell music and video content directly to consumers. Some aspects of the site will be free. The launch is expected before Christmas. /p pMany people are probably joining me in wondering what EMI knows that nobody else knows. Consumers prefer to shop at digital stores with broad catalogs. This is the age of the Wal-Mart superstore, not the corner grocery store. "I am not quite sure what EMI will get for the money they have spent on it," one executive told the emFinancial Times/em./p pEMI played the role of direct-to-consumer service provider when it was part of the MusicNet joint venture. It was not a success, and since then the majors have wisely stayed away from playing retailer. This upcoming portal is evidence that EMI is reverting back to direct engagement of the consumer. /p pThis is all just speculation at this point, but the site could go a few different ways. It could be a place to launch new artists. It could have exclusive content that would give consumers a reason to visit. Or it could be positioned as an alternative to existing stores. The latter model assumes consumers are indifferent about where they stream and purchase music -- they're not -- and would put EMI in a role record labels have historically not played very well./phr/[music jobs] a href="http://coolfer.jobamatic.com/a/jbb/job-details/30366"HR Manager/a at EMI NA; New York, NY.div class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/coolfer?a=RnU8m"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/coolfer?i=RnU8m" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/coolfer?a=QM3IM"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/coolfer?i=QM3IM" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/coolfer?a=nd7AM"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/coolfer?i=nd7AM" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/coolfer/~4/414926070" height="1" width="1"/

pa href="http://www.spotify.com"Spotify/a, a new music streaming service currently in invitation-only beta, announced today its launch and the involvement of all four major music groups as well as Merlin and The Orchard (a href="http://www.prnewswire.co.uk/cgi/news/release?id=238993"press release/a). The service is launching first in the UK, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Finland, Norway and Sweden. Spotify has offices in the UK and Sweden./p pAdvertisers on board for the launch are Ford, T-Mobile and Xbox./p pSince US users are not allowed, all I have seen is a href="http://www.spotify.com/wp-content/uploads/spotify_desktop_client.png"this screen shot/a, a href="http://blogs.sun.com/plamere/resource/_spotify-help.png"this explanatory screen shot/a, a href="http://blogs.sun.com/plamere/resource/_spotify-whatsnew.1.png"this screen shot/a and a href="http://www.spotify.com/en/about/press/concept-video/"this concept video/a./p pSpotify is positioning itself as a replacement for downloads and ownership of music files. That is, I believe, a long-term view that ignores today's technical limitations of streaming any music any time, anywhere. And it ignores the risk the user puts in assuming a company will always be a going concern -- MP3 files still play after the seller goes out of business. Spotify does not even allow for download purchases as do MySpace Music, Pandora and last.fm. In the short term, a service such as Spotify can definitely act as a compliment to downloading and, at the very least, target the growing market for online streaming services./p pThe company was wise enough to recognize the different segments within the streaming market. Its business model has three levels: free, ad-supported; a day pass; and a paid, ad-free premium service (which will cost £10 per month or £100 per year in the UK). The service allows for sharing and playlist creation, and it creates radio stations based on artist similarities. /p pOn its website, Spotify woos ISPs seeking a legal alternative for their customers. "Offer Spotify Premium to your customers," it says, "to create differentiation and value-adding services, with increased ARPU and reduced churn as a result." The company also singles out hardware manufacturers ("mobile phones, connected TVs, set-top boxes, ADSL modems etc") as potential partners. /phr/[music jobs] a href="http://coolfer.jobamatic.com/a/jbb/job-details/30366"Brand and Online Marketing Manager/a at The Ascot Club/Am Only; Brooklyn, NY.div class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/coolfer?a=Nprqm"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/coolfer?i=Nprqm" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/coolfer?a=6vBtM"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/coolfer?i=6vBtM" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/coolfer?a=vTJPM"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/coolfer?i=vTJPM" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/coolfer/~4/413978280" height="1" width="1"/

p#149; Universal Music Group has hooked up with Dada Entertainment to offer its catalog as MP3 full-track downloads and ringtones. Dada Entertainment is a joint venture between Dada Music and Sony Music. (a href="http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/universal-music-group-umg-partners/story.aspx?guid={04FD1E0F-BF5F-4E21-8215-D25AEEEB41D4}dist=hppr"Press release/a)/p p#149; AEG and Goldenvoice will exclusively book the shows for the Conga Room when it opens at the new a href="http://www.lalive.com/"LA Live/a entertainment complex. Makes sense. LA Live is an AEG development. (a href="http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117993544.html?categoryid=16cs=1"Variety/a)/p p#149; An interview with Last.fm's COO Spencer Hyman. "The aim of this game is to get as much money overall as possible. It's not to get hung up on a per-stream rate or a minimum share of revenue." (a href="http://www.forbes.com/business/2008/10/06/lastfm-music-internet-biz-media-cx_jea_1006lastfm.html"Forbes.com/a)/p p#149; Discograph, Forte Music Distribution, Harmonia Mundi Distribution, Cobayn and the Music Information Center Austria have chosen IODA's D3 platform to power digital distribution for their labels. (a href="http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/ioda-expands-european-catalog-through/story.aspx?guid={E3A4DB8B-0800-446C-9EF4-285754AE47F4}dist=hppr"Press release/a)/p p#149; The lyrics of songs in the EMI Music Publishing catalog will be featured on an in-house brand of clothing by UK retailer Sainsbury. (a href="http://www.licensing.biz/news/1989/CCL-strikes-EMISainsburys-deal"Licensing.biz/a)/p p#149; BMI's statement on the CRB's mechanical royalty decision. (a href="http://mi2n.com/press.php3?press_nb=113971"Press release/a)/p p#149; EMI and Yoko Ono have withdrawn the claims filed against a documentary movie maker that used a 15-second clip of John Lennon's "Imagine." (a href="http://www.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/?ndmViewId=news_viewnewsId=20081007005441newsLang=en"Press release/a)/p p#149; iPhone users account for much of Pandora's growth in installation base but only about 10% of streams. (a href="http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/10/are-half-of-pandora-s-listeners-on-the-iphone-no"Alley Insider/a)/p p#149; The former site of Tower Records on Sunset in Los Angeles is now Live! On Sunset, "a clothing boutique that calls itself an interactive melding of Fred Segal, QVC and the "Today" show." (a href="http://www.latimes.com/news/local/valley/la-ig-list5-2008oct05,0,1025662.story"LA Times/a)/phr/[music jobs] a href="http://coolfer.jobamatic.com/a/jbb/job-details/30366"HR Manager/a at EMI NA; New York, NY.div class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/coolfer?a=kD3Qm"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/coolfer?i=kD3Qm" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/coolfer?a=lp4YM"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/coolfer?i=lp4YM" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/coolfer?a=bbUuM"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/coolfer?i=bbUuM" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/coolfer/~4/413856651" height="1" width="1"/

Even though the music player takes much longer to load than did the previous version (thus ruining the one bright spot of any band's page) and the entire product is still half-baked and clumsy, at least MySpace Music is trying. The main page has a fresh rotation of highlighted artists, videos and playlists -- a stale front page would be a problem. The Transmissions page is a nice way to offer music and video or interviews and live performances. And I really liked the McDonald's-sponsored free MP3 today. After watching a brief ad, the MP3 can be saved or opened without clicking to another screen.

Out-of-the-mainstream artists are benefiting from the main page. Deerhoof got main page placement for the exclusive on the band's upcoming album. Deerhoof's page had 10,900 streams through 10pm CT one day last week. That was 1.5% of the band's total MySpace streams to date. Not bad. Jolie Holland got similar results from her main page placement: 11,732 streams. That's 2.1% of her total streams to date in one day.

Main page placement is no guarantee. It's nice to see a variety of artists, but not all visitors are taking advantage of the music discovery offered to them. Impressions will vary according to popularity. A recognized and more mainstream artist will get even more out of the main page. Christina Milan, for example, has over 44,000 streams today. Indie rappers Yo! Majesty has only 2,000 streams today.

[music jobs] Brand and Online Marketing Manager at The Ascot Club/Am Only; Brooklyn, NY.

A few weeks ago I was introduced to a Nashville-based company that has a different approach to a familiar technology. Bandbox, a start-up founded by a handful of music industry folks, takes the widget and adds a twist: It returns 100% of the sales to the content owner. In return for taking none of the proceeds, Bandbox generates revenue from the small advertisements located at the bottom of the widgets. Artists and labels can choose to use Bandbox to sell physical product as well. For those transactions, Bandbox takes a small fee.

Bandbox enters a digital music market that is searching for new ways to reach consumers. Selling directly to consumers is the goal of many, but artists, labels and managers have few options. "The whole purpose," said Bandbox's Brian Peterson, the company's director of marketing, "is to provide the best platform for them to distribute their content."

The company scored a coup when country star Big Machine Records used a Bandbox widget for the limited edition pre-sale of Taylor Swift's upcoming album, Fearless. (It is currently for sale at Swift's artist page.) Bandbox has worked with Jewel's latest record as well as a charity single by Amy Grant. The company has fewer than 100 acts right now.

The music-selling widget has had its problems in its early days. Snocap struck a deal with MySpace but had little success in getting MySpace visitors to purchase downloads. Other companies in the space -- Nimbit, Hooka, Speakerheart -- have made improvements but are niche players. What could set Bandbox apart? For one, the ad-supported model will make it hard for competitors to match Bandbox's payouts. Second, the ability to sell physical product and digital/physical bundles is a positive.

Thus far, Bandbox has been smart to work with labels and artists to sell exclusive content. Because the content is not for sale elsewhere, the exclusivity requires consumers to set up a Bandbox account and log actual experiences with its technology. Getting people to simply use the widget is an important first step in establishing it as a viable product. Before the direct-to-consumer market can take off, consumers need to adjust to purchasing music away from traditional e-commerce storefronts like iTunes and Amazon.com. "We want to own the direct-to-consumer market," Peterson insists.

Bandbox has been in private beta since February and, according to Peterson, may launch before the end of the year.

[music jobs] HR Manager at EMI NA; New York, NY.

• A new group, the Featured Artists' Coalition, has been formed by UK artists to give more bargaining power to musicians in their dealings with record labels. (AP)

• MySpace Music said it streamed its billionth song just a few days after its launch. Of course, MySpace would have been counting song streams even in the absence of the launch of MySpace Music. If there are 120 million users worldwide, and many pages (definitely a band's page, often an individual's page) stream a song when they load or refresh, a billion songs (or partial streams) doesn't impress me. MySpace Music (as in the ability to purchase songs, make playlists) is available only to U.S. users, but you can stream music from anywhere in the world. (TechCrunch)

• Qtrax is still alive and twitching. The music service's parent, Brilliant Technologies Corporation, has appointed Jay Berman and Larry Gan as Co-Chairmen of its Advisory Board. (Press release)

• The Hollywood Palladium, now under contract with Live Nation, is set to return this month after over a year of improvements. (Hollywood Reporter and LA Times)

• Getty Images, which already licenses music via Getty Images Pump Audio, has launched Premium Playlist. The new service offers music to filmmakers, advertisers and others on a non-exclusive basis and has songs from the likes of Warner/Chappell Music, Koch Records, Cherry Lane and Kobalt Music Group. (Billboard.biz)

[music jobs] HR Manager at EMI NA; New York, NY.

Music Row has some country music numbers today. Country album sales were down 16.7% through the end of the third quarter (last week of September). Overall, album sales were down only 12%. A sizable drop was likely for one reason: The Eagles' Long Road Out of Eden, a huge seller last year, was categorized as country. It was released in early November 2007 and sold very well through the end of December.

At this time last year, country album sales were down 26.1% versus the first nine months of 2006. In 2006, crossover hits from Rascal Flatts and Carrie Underwood carried the genre and set a sales standard that had no chance of being maintained.

Country digital albums were up 22% through September. I don't have digital album sales through September, but I do know that they were up about 30% at the mid-year point. That means country is most likely lagging behind the total market by at least a few percentage points..

Why is country's digital album sales growth so low? Country has lagged behind many other genres in terms of ratio of digital-to-physical sales. If country were following a growth trajectory similar to rock, pop or metal, it's digital growth rate should be higher than the market's average. Early stage growth is high as a percentage but low in terms of units sold. As growth in early adopter genres slows, it falls behind the growth rate for the genres that are slower to convert to digital. But that's not happening. Country is not catching up.

What does this mean? Country fans (a) are still slow to adopt digital music and (b) appear more content than fans of some other genres to purchase albums on CD. Country labels' efforts to induce digital participation are not bearing much fruit. Ironically, labels benefit from their fans' continued preference to the CD. If they start substituting an album purchase for free streaming or a la carte downloads more often, country labels' revenues are going to take a hit.

But country labels are playing both sides of the digital fight. Even though they are embracing digital more than ever, they are not hesitant to set up exclusives with brick-and-mortar retailers. Those exclusives -- e.g., Tim McGraw and Taylor Swift at Target, Carrie Underwood at Wal-Mart -- keep physical sales high.

As it turned out, country had a poor nine months even without higher physical-for-digital substitution. That's a problem.

[music jobs] Brand and Online Marketing Manager at The Ascot Club/Am Only; Brooklyn, NY.

With all that's been written and said about the fact that Kid Rock is one of the few remaining digital holdouts, it's almost a shame that Rhapsody has got an exclusive on his digital catalog. RealNetworks announced today it launched Kid Rock's full collection at both the Rhapsody client and the Rhapsody MP3 store. Rhapsody will have an exclusive for four months and will incorporate Kid Rock and his new single "Roll On" in a marketing campaign that will include partners Verizon Wireless and MTV.

"The real issue here is flexibility in terms of artists being able to do what they want," Ken Levitan, Kid Rock's manager, told the NY Times. Until now, Kid Rock has chosen the selling of CDs over offering to consumers a la carte downloads. Kid Rock's Atlantic Records catalog is available only as full album downloads, and all have a $9.99 price. It is his desire to sell only albums, not individual tracks, that has kept Kid Rock away from download stores. (His debut album released on Jive, Grits Sandwiches for Breakfast, has previously been available as single track downloads at many stores.)

The timing seems appropriate. His latest album, Rock N Roll Jesus, had a great summer thanks to the hit single "All Summer Long." Partnering with Rhapsody for this exclusive offers the kind of visibility that may maintain the album's momentum through the next single. If that goes well, Christmas is just around the corner.

[music jobs] Brand and Online Marketing Manager at The Ascot Club/Am Only; Brooklyn, NY.

• Handleman shareholders have approved the company's liquidation and dissolution. Due to the downturn of physical music sales, the company decided earlier this year to get out of the music distribution business. It sold its Canadian operation to Anderson Merchandisers, its Artist to Market Distribution to Eurpac and its European operation to grocery giant Tesco. (Press release)

• Provident Music Group announced the launch of a publishing division, Essential Music. (Press release)

• Classical music, it is said, is secretly thriving. "The heralding of the demise of classical music is based on flimsy evidence. The number of concert venues, summer festivals, performing ensembles and overall performances in classical music and opera has increased exponentially over the last four decades." (Wall Street Journal)

• Worst headline in a while: "Apple defeats music rate hike." Yeah, I know article authors do not write the headline, but it's still attached to an otherwise decent piece on the CRB's decision yesterday. Another funny part is this sentence: "PricewaterhouseCoopers estimates that Apple (AAPLE) only makes about 10 cents a song in profit." Only? So Apple sells one billion songs and it makes only $100 million in profit? It's a further shame the author doesn't consider the profits of the hardware that is linked to and influenced by the iTunes store. (Fortune)

[music jobs] HR Manager at EMI NA; New York, NY.

Billboard.biz has reported that the Copyright Royalty Board has decided to leave unchanged the mechanical royalty for physical and digital songs and albums. In addition, the CRB set the mechanical rate at $0.24 for mastertones.

The compulsory mechanical rate for songs under five minutes is $0.091. For songs over five minutes, the rate is $.0175 per minute.

[music jobs] HR Manager at EMI NA; New York, NY.

EMI, the last holdout of the four major music groups, is now on board Nokia's Comes With Music service (press release). The news comes on the same day the new Nokia Tube touchscreen phone was unveiled and more details about Comes With Music have surfaced.

More on Comes With Music and Nokia's approach to music and media can be found on the virtual page for today's Nokia Remix event in London.

[music jobs] Brand and Online Marketing Manager at The Ascot Club/Am Only; Brooklyn, NY.

Reviews of Nokia's Tube touchscreen mobile phone are hitting the web, and some include some details of the integrated Comes With Music service. Aside from the product reviews, the key news of the day is the XpressMusic 5310 with the bundled Comes With Music service will cost £130.

The Times Online: "The 5800 Tube provides one-touch access to browse and purchase tracks from the store. There are strong music features to go with Comes with Music - a graphic equaliser and support for all the main digital formats. But there is only 8GB of memory in the form of a microSD card (enough for 6,000 tracks) and many music fans will be disappointed. Many other phones (including the iPhone) already offer 16GB. Nokia says a 16GB card will be available in 2009."

Stuff.tv gets hands on with the Tube: "The music and camera sections use the touchscreen