Filed under: Internet, Analysis

The age-old battle of copyright and artist freedom keeps clanging away in the distance, and are we any better off than we were when DAT machines were castrated in the 80's? I read a report this morning about a UK band called "Show of Hands" who claims they are dependent upon so-called pirates who download their music and share it with friends. This isn't much different than Trent Reznor making his music freely available online (and my wife reports the show here in town didn't look any smaller than the ones in the 90's -- possibly even bigger since Reznor has a new legion of fans younger than us). But the music industry sticks by the mantra "a download is a lost sale, and that is theft." Or, as TorrentFreak puts it, "there is no such animal as 'piracy as promotion.'"

Oh really? This sad, antiquated logic continues to do one thing and one thing only: bolster sales of the top-paid performers while creating a chilling effect on artists who would love innovative promotion but fear free samples will incur the wrath of the mighty RIAA, or worse. It's one thing to send the FBI after some poor schlub who leaks some Guns N' Roses tracks, or sue the bejeebes out of hundreds of college kids, but it's quite another to threaten fair trade when artists (who own their own content, thank you) decide to market in ways they see fit.

The only ray of sunshine could be recent rulings regarding Creative Commons which might allow savvy artists to provide music in the manner they see fit, without the RIAA calling fans of the artists a bunch of pirates. Arrr, matey. At the end of the day there has to be some middle ground, but it's a pity the RIAA and other enforcement agencies see the world in black and white and tend to pull their concepts of ownership from the days when TV's were also monochromatic.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Activision Publishing Inc.'s Guitar Hero World Tour is cranking it to 11 by featuring several of the most influential instrument and equipment brands in the music industry. Gamers can score in-game sponsorships and gear from Ampeg, Audio-Technica, EMG Pickups, Ernie Ball, Evans Drumheads, Guitar Center, Krank Amplification, Mackie, Marshall, Orange County Drum & Percussion, Pork Pie Percussion, Regal Tip, Sabian cymbals, Vox and Zildjian drumsticks. In addition to featuring products, the game lets virtual bands play on the same stage as many of their favorite musicians with digital re-creations of Amoeba Music, Live Nation's House of Blues Sunset Strip and San Francisco's AT&T Park. In addition to featuring products, the game lets virtual bands play on the same stage as many of their favorite musicians with digital re-creations of Amoeba Music, Live Nation's House of Blues Sunset Strip and San Francisco's AT&T Park.

The Wall Street Journal's Ethan Smith and Nick Wingfield have a very good article about some artists' and labels' unhappiness with the weak economic realities of a la carte downloads. In the past, labels would stop shipping CD singles and EPs with a popular song so those sales would not cannibalize album sales. These days, artists from Kid Rock to AC/DC are choosing to offer only an album. For some it's about money (and making more of it). For others, like Radiohead, the songs were meant to be heard as a complete album.

All of this shows not even iTunes, considered by many to be the savior of the music industry, is above consternation. We are in the midst of digital growing pains that will trouble the industry for years to come. In an effort to give consumers more choice, some find the option is not always an equitable one.

If there is any comforting aspect to these pains, it is that they are most often felt by successful, established artists who represent a select group of wealthy musicians. The concern should be more on the side of their labels and managers. And there will be examples of single-driven hits by new pop or R&B artists that don't convert into album sales, and that has been the case for decades. In those cases, deciding whether or not to remove the a la carte option will have artist development implications.

In a sense, labels are showing a bit of pragmatism by selling a title as only an album and not giving consumers the ability to cherry pick tracks. A critic would argue that consumers will be driven to P2P to acquire the songs they want. Such a strategy, however, shows labels are thinking more about profits and less about the murky morality issues that surround digital piracy. That isn't always the case.

The worst quote of the article came from Aram Sinnreich of Radar Research. "This is a last gasp for the album format," he said, adding that most albums are merely a few good songs plus "filler material." Sinnreich may be right about filler content, but I believe he's horribly wrong in his prognostication. In a year of strong sales by Lil Wayne, Coldplay and Hannah Montana -- and a huge increase in LP sales -- one shouldn't dismiss outright the album format. If nothing else, one can look at the numbers provided by Soundscan: At the mid-point of 2008, the rate of growth for digital albums exceeded that of track downloads 34.4% to 27.7%. That's right. Digital albums were faring better digital tracks through the end of June. That's hardly the growth rate of a format suffering through its last gasps.

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This has become the equivalent of first snowfall stories that local TV news stations do every year: this gripe against Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) iTunes has been trotted out every year for the last five years or so, and now WSJ spends tons of words to rehash it again, though with some new twists. This time, like before, the argument is that labels would like to sell the albums as a unit instead of singles, and the new part is that some of them are beginning to bypass the iTunes behemoth distribution machine. Apple insists that labels can't sell the whole album as a unit, and has also stuck, for the most part, to its 99 cent-per-song philosophy, which labels have fought against. Another gripe: Apple often asks for exclusive sales rights for songs in exchange for prominent placement on its home page.

Now, a new example has emerged that runs counter to the Apple monopoly: Kid Rock's Rock 'n Roll Jesus album was kept off iTunes, but managed to sell 1.6 million copies in the U.S. since its release last year, a sizable number in these times for the record industry. Seeing that example, his label Atlantic Records (owned by Warner Music) last week yanked an album by R&B singer Estelle from the iTunes Store, four months after it went on sale there. Warner's rationale? It called the removal part of a broad range of digital-release strategies "uniquely tailored to each artist and their fan base in an effort to optimize revenues and promote long-term artist development," the WSJ story quotes.

But this is risky—first, by dissing Apple, and secondly by keeping songs off the biggest music service, users may go off looking for illegal downloads instead. Then there's the little matter of consumer preference: the majority have shown preference for buying singles than albums.

In any case, trying to develop alternatives to monopoly distribution is always admirable, and indeed, desirable in the long run, but the more pertinent question is: if not iTunes, then what? Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT) is not feasible for every artist or label, and retail sales is on a declining curve. Amazon+Rhapsody+Napster can maybe have the reach, someday, but not the awareness or promotional value. On the mobile side, operators and Nokia (NYSE: NOK) can put up their hands, but the reality is it is not happening on any scale in U.S., yet. The only other alternative left is working through scaled social networks like MySpace. Maybe MySpace Music, when it launches next month, will be able to become that other big alternative the music industry wants...

These and other more nuanced topics will be discussed at our EconMusic conference in London on Sept 23.

Social Media Deals Report: This 199-page report, filled with charts and data, examines the categories, number and size of VC and M&A deal in social media from 2007 through 2008. Visit the ContentNext Reports page

MTV has announced another set of performers for the upcoming Video Music Awards. The 2008 edition will feature Lil Wayne, Kid Rock and the Jonas Brothers. Already confirmed by the music television channel, include Rihanna, T.I., Pink and Paramore. The word Is that while Britney Spears is not on the confirmed list of performances for this round, she is reportedly in negotiations with MTV. The 2008 VMAs go off on September 7th in Los Angeles. Rock and roll has made a big time comeback… and music industry people are linking it to video games. Yes, you heard correctly. The popularity of recent games including ‘Guitar Hero’ and ‘Rock Band’ is linked to increased album sales and digital downloads for rock artists that are licensed to the games. According to NPD Group Market Research, these video games took in more than 935-million in profit last year and they’ve helped out other markets as well. Guitar Hero faceoffs in school auditoriums are turning teens into rock music fans, and Rock Band competitions at bars are helping bring-up revenue. Industry analysts say that the rock video games have even increased interest in guitars. Rock on. According to industry standards, it’s no surprise that music video games are bringing in the big-bucks. The Entertainment Software Association said that in 2007, the gaming industry for only PC and console software brought-in 9.5-billion-dollars. Plus, a report completed by IBISWorld puts game revenue totals at about 40-billion for 0-8.

Auteur : getthedaily
Tags : breaking news chris brown guitar hero 3 jonas brothers lil wayne mtv music video awards
Envoyé : 27 août 2008
Note :0.0
Votes :0

According to Hits Daily Double (the companion web site of music industry tip sheet HITS), SLIPKNOT's new album, "All Hope Is Gone" is poised to sell between 230,000 and 250,000 copies in the United States during its first week of release.

Guitar Hero World Tour is cranking it to 11 by featuring several of the most influential instrument and equipment brands in the music industry.

Asbjørn Slettemark of the Norwegian music industry magazine Faro Journalen reports that METALLICA's record label, Universal Music Norway, has confirmed that it has received several complaints over the sound quality of the new METALLICA single "The Day That Never Comes", which was released via the iTunes store late last week.

Have you turned up your nose at YouTube for being born from low quality, financially unsustainable, pirated content? If you've made that argument in conversation before (and we now many people do) - new claims from YouTube itself now indicate that you'd be wrong.

The official Google Blog made a post this morning following up on a New York Times story last week where the company claimed that 90% of the owners of copyrighted content are now advertising against pirated video they own when they find it using YouTube's new content ID technology. The news upends many long held beliefs about the site.

Argument: Content ID is Next to Impossible

Many have argued that YouTube wasn't capable of finding all the pirated content uploaded to its site - that it's been an arms race pitting human monitors and shoddy ID technology against a sea of users uploading content. Video maverick Mark Cuban has argued that YouTube's claim it can't identify content was refuted by the fact that it manages to keep porn off the site and thus that the company couldn't plead ignorance about copyright either.

Right: We don't know if there's some direct financial overlap between Katy Perry's publishers and the ringtone site advertising on this video of hers, but at 600K views we're pretty sure the video's rights holders have seen it and chosen to let it remain on the site. Is that "what good girls do?"

Now it appears that YouTube's newest content ID technology is doing quite a good job of finding copyrighted content. That alone is a game changer.

Arguement: Media Companies Don't Want Low Quality Versions of Their Content on 3rd Party Sites

It's also been argued that many media companies are unwilling to have their content appear online in any form other than high quality files on their own webistes. That way they can maximize ad revenue and protect their brands. YouTube's claim that 90% of content owners who find their work on YouTube are running ads on the site instead of demanding it be removed indicates a sea change in big copyright holder attitudes.

Scarcity is no longer a tenable strategy in a world of digital content and file quality is clearly not as important to consumers as many content producers believed it would be. Imagine what the web would be like if music producers took a similar strategy with mp3 files on other sites. Those same parties are undoubtedly among the participants in YouTube's new program, using the ID technology to find songs being used along with user created video. Unfortunately, the music industry may be too greedy to support this same kind of model throughout a whole ecosystem of websites. Witness the plight of Pandora, a wildly popular service that's trying to play by the rules.

Arguement: YouTube Wouldn't Be What it Is Without Pirated Content

One of the most commonly made critiques of YouTube is that it was only able to ramp up fast because it caught copyright holders by surprise; that it was born of illigitimate uploads of pirated TV shows and movie clips.

The latest turn of events leads us to wonder whether this question was turned around the wrong way. Couldn't we just as well assert that YouTube was lucky to survive before a time when copyright holders understood that they had options with content that they owned rights to on the site? Had copyright holders come down hard and fast in the earliest days, as they did in later months surrounding the Google acquisition, then YouTube wouldn't still be pushing the envelope and opening new doors for distribution and monetization today.

There's a world of possibilities beyond even what's being done today by the most open minded copyright owners. The Times article mentions Electronic Arts, for example, who encourages users to upload Spore related content and then uses YouTube's ID technology to find it and highlight the best stuff. Any number of other campaigns have tried to get people to use a common tag in their metadata or upload through a dedicated portal powered by the YouTube API. YouTube is a chaotic place, though - companies may get the greatest connection with their fans by letting those fans upload how they like and using YouTube's ID tech to find them afterword.

This is Big

This isn't just about copyright and advertising, this is about a new paradigm that big copyright holders may be catching up with. From video to user data, it's not about scarcity and silos anymore. It's about keeping your users and fans through better service and compelling value-ads. Let's hope this YouTube experience is more than just a flash in the pan and that the industry is genuinely moving in this direction.

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It’s no great news that the music industry is in turmoil. CD and record sales are at an all time low, labels are crumbling...