New York, NY (November 16, 2008) - Spotted on that Nah Right Lite section. This one comes from Unkut and asks the yearly question: Blogs or Magazines?
Portability - It’s kinda hard to read blogs on the can, unless you want to risk dropping your iPhone into the john.
Winner: Magazines.
Affordability - Free = the price is right. Although when you add up the cost of your laptop and internet connection, it’s a tough call.
Winner: Blogs.
Photography - Google image search stays losing.
Winner: Magazines.
Audio - A free CD tacked to the front is always nice, but it doesn’t exactly compare to being able to download the latest Blaq Poet banger.
Winner: Blogs.
I say yearly, because, as the number of magazines going under continues to climb, the validation of blogs and free media gains credibility. But does it? Personally, I’m always going to favor a magazine or newspaper’s opinion more than a bloggers. Why? Because writing is a craft that takes time to perfect and blogging merely takes time. Perhaps it’s ingrained into my head from journalism school that hard copies offer a more authoritative opinion and tangible facts than a blog; but that of, course, begs the question: What if someone like Mike Lupica started his own Sports Blog and was no longer affiliated with The New York Times… would that make him any less credible?
No, it wouldn’t, but he’s established his credibility through years of toiling in newspaper ink, mixing it up with the people on the ground and field, asking the tough questions and being an asshole. Bloggers, for the most part, are armchair reporters. For me, unless your voice is as dirty as your hands, I can’t take your pristine keyboard for what it’s telling me.
New York, NY (November 12, 2008) - Spotted this one at The Coolfer. At the Musexpo Global A&R Forum in London on Oct. 29th, some of the biggest A&R’s in the industry had a chance to discuss what they thought was causing the recent fiscal downslide. The main consensus was that they’re just not putting out quality albums. Epic Records managing director Nick Raphael summed it up really simply: “We don’t make enough good records.” Coming from a veteran of the industry, that’s a really strong statement, and it completely echoes the current climate everyone doesn’t want to admit is getting worse.
What was noteworthy about this Forum versus so many other discussions was that the A&R’s didn’t blame the current state of the industry on everyone else’s favorite scapegoat, Internet piracy. The discussion really focused upon the current lack of suitable A&R’s that are commonly thrust into high level positions without the track record that merits it, as shown in this quote over at Billboardbiz.com from EMI UK and America president of A&R Nick Gatfield: “There is a problem with the learning process within A&R departments,” he explained. “When I started, there was an element of making sure we were told about how to deliver bad news. There are a lot of younger A&R people who tripped on an act, are given a level of seniority and are expected to have a level of confidence to talk to artists.”
This is an interesting concept considering the music industry’s demise has almost solely been blamed on lost revenue from illegal downloads. Insiders feel that so much emphasis has been put on making certain albums so massive that the smaller acts sometimes fall by the wayside, as evidenced in this quote from Gatfield: “It’s not just about record sales; we need to match ambitions with artist capabilities,” he said. “We want the capability to sell 10 million Coldplay albums while also being able to support smaller bands.” That concept really is one of the hardest maneuvers to pull off, especially in the industry’s current state. How does a label make an artist profitable when they’re only selling 100,000 records versus their label mates who are selling 10 million?
The smart record label is able to structure certain aspects of record deals so every artist can maintain whatever standard or fan allegiance they’ve become accustomed to. That’s why so many majors are signing indie bands that have had a year or two to tour and have had time to build up a significant fanbase. It only makes sense to let another company invest money in establishing an artist, but the profit margins from this type of indie act is significantly less then when a major label has the ability to break a new act into the mainstream. With this of course comes a higher risk, though, where a new artist might not sell anything versus an indie band with a reliable, solidified audience.
It’s really similar to someone who invests in the stock market and has a diversified portfolio. Why would you risk all your money in some fly-by-night startup when you can toss it into a safe mutual fund that might actually balance out the shaky launch of a brand new product?
Record companies keep becoming more like stable investment firms then the gold rush maverick principles that the industry was founded on. By not breaking new artists, they’re doing themselves and the audience at large a disservice, even though it’s completely understandable in the current fiscal climate. What is surprising to hear, though, is that the most vocal criticism for the industry is coming from the industry itself.
MySpace has offered MTV Networks’ EVP Digital Music and Media Courtney Holt the top job at the newly launched MySpace Music, CNET reports. We’ve confirmed this through our own sources, and we believe Holt has all but accepted the position and is in the final stages of contract negotiation.
…In his Wired magazine cover story, “Free! Why $0.00 Is the Future of Business,” Wired editor Chris Anderson wrote: “It’s now clear that practically everything Web technology touches starts down the path to gratis, at least as far as we consumers are concerned.”
Sorry Chris, but free is out again.
Thank economy-wary investors like Sequoia Capital, which terrified its portfolio of startups with a “RIP Good Times” earlier this month. Startups “need to become cash flow positive,” Sequoia declared. They must recognize the “need for profitability.” “Cash is king.”
Nokia is set to launch one of its largest marketing campaigns to date to signal its arrival as a content services provider with Comes With Music. The handset manufacturer, which has to date predominantly focused its advertising around its wide range of handsets, is now preparing to market its unlimited music download service. The integrated campaign, Playlist People, includes the tagline ‘Unlimited tracks. Yours to keep’ and features a series of famous song titles which combine to create…
New York, NY (October 30, 2008) - Along with the numerous new methods of listening to and finding out about music, a new range of programs / websites are out there who’s only function is to recommend music and become a “virtual tastemaker”. While iTunes has had a positive response to their Genius software (it assesses your library and recommends new songs based on your listening history), the co-inventor of the MP3 has also started a website, too. Mufin, as it’s been dubbed, uses a slightly more computer-based method to tell you exactly what you should be listening to. Wired has the particulars.
Mufin works in two different ways. The first allows you to search through their database of over 4 million songs for tracks that sound similar, based on what you’re searching for. If they have a song you like, the site will recommend any and everything else that has similar components based on their algorithm. The second way asks the user to download the Magix Mufin Music Finder application for $20 to help find “sound-alike” music, already on their own computer. Mufin’s music algorithm analyzes songs based on over 40 different attributes, including percussion, style, speech, sound density, vocals, tempo, sound color, instruments, volume, dynamics and loudness. The major difference between Mufin and iTunes’ Genius software, though, is that Genius uses some abstract cultural components to assess recommendations, similar to the way Amazon innovated this concept with their “if you bought this, you’ll probably also like this” music engine that was one of the first curatorial programs on the web.
So the real question is, does Mufin really work as well as it’s intended, and beyond that, are virtual curators even necessary? Well, Mufin works, but just how well depends on your personal standards and taste in music. In an article on Wired.com’s music blog “The Listening Post,” they tried out Mufin and got very strange results with a lot of songs that you wouldn’t necessarily associate together. But you have to remember, that’s exactly what an algorithm does: it gives you a math answer for a non-math question. The same way your GPS uses algorithms to give you directions, a GPS doesn’t necessarily give the BEST directions - just the shortest mathematical route. That’s exactly how Mufin works. In this instance, the program is working to give you directions to the best song or genre destination based on your past “travels”.
So Mufin might actually be working as intended, it’s just that computers aren’t great music critics. On top of it, there’s no such thing as A.I. musical taste. iTunes’ Genius software works to act as a tastemaker surrogate, where actual people are sitting down to assess song relationships coupled with Apple’s algorithm software. In Mufin’s case, though, the only thing you have to rely on is a computer algorithm, with absolutely no human element to help shape the results. This is why “The Listening Post” got such odd results when they tested the beta version of Mufin. Mufin’s algorithm doesn’t consider genre, style, trends, timeliness, billboard charts, and the infinite number of other components a person might consider before buying new music. Computers don’t know you bought that southern rap album because you liked the single; they’re just going to assume you love southern rap, and keep recommending music that sounds similar.
How would you explain to a computer that you bought a song on a whim, or it was an isolated genre purchase? Only people and their friends who are well aware of these small nuances could accurately gauge exactly what you should be listening to in the future. And sometimes even the people who constantly turn us on to new music can get it wrong; sometimes music choices are so specific even we’re not sure why we buy certain things.
Mufin could be used as spoke on the wheel of tools that the Internet provides for discovering new music, but as your only venue for recommendations it would seem to fall way short. Apple has a better idea by letting actual people scan through the results of their algorithm, marrying the best aspects of both. Its going to be a long time before some cyborg DJ can run a radio station and actually understand the abstract nature of who listens to what and why, which a lot of humans are still confused about.
New York, NY (October 30, 2008) - With so many different options available to listen to music, you would think everyone had tossed their radio out the window. But according to a recent study by Paragon Media Strategies, youths aged 14 - 24 said they are listening to more radio then they did a year or two ago. Even though the results of this study seem surprising, those in the industry can understand the sharp increase from the same time a year ago. The study’s author, Larry Johnson, feels that radio is doing a better job at relating to a young audience: “Radio stations may be doing a better job at connecting with those people,” the study’s author Larry Johnson told The New York Times. “The music may also simply be more interesting. There tends to be a cycle.”
It’s possible that radio realized they had to step up their game to match the reliability and the multitude of options that comes with an iPod, and then put these new strategies into action. Larry Johnson feels that a major facet of the increased radio listening is due to the fact that the iPod has already taken all the listeners its going to take, and right now its influence is on the decline: “There doesn’t appear to be a whole lot more damage iPods can do to radio TSL [Time Spent Listening] now that iPod use and ownership has permeated our culture.” iPods have been out for so long that their steady increase of market share couldn‘t possibly be sustained. It seems that its finally come to the point where the initial glitz of iPods has waned a little bit, and teens & twenty-somethings are retreating back to the music format they grew up with.
To me, the results of this study are surprising. If it was reporting that a different demographic had increased their radio listening, like 49 & over, then the results would seem very realistic. It makes sense that someone’s grandma still listens to the radio, and probably never stopped, but the fact that her grandchildren listen to more radio now then they did a year ago seems strange in this digital, instant age.
A lot of studies come out that are funded by the very entities with vested interests in the findings, which is very possible in this situation. There isn’t necessarily any evidence on the web to support this idea, but the results are slightly fishy, especially when you consider how scared terrestrial radio has gotten lately. There are so many different options for listening to music in 2008, that terrestrial radio is pulling out all the stops to not be perceived as archaic or obsolete.
For instance… everyone loves HD radio, right? If not, you’ve probably never heard about it, or you don’t know anyone who has it. HD radio is the newest technology terrestrial radio is offering to compete with the likes of Sirius / XM and Pandora. Supposedly, your fancy new HD radio makes your FM stations sound like CD quality, and your AM stations sound like your old FM stations. Wow, you mean, I can listen to CD quality music in my car and at home? It’s crazy, there’s also these things “CDs” out, and they kind of do the same thing, without all the interesting commercials for debt consolidation. And beyond that, 90% of songs on the radio are probably on some hip-hop blog or at your local flea market bootleg kiosk. You could probably buy any songs you liked off the radio for cheaper then an entirely new HD receiver would cost, and then you would own it forever, and on top of it, you can play it whenever you want. When so many other options are out there, radio really has to make leaps and bounds before they can offer comparable options to the plethora of new music technology.
The radio does serve a purpose; you can toss it on at certain times, hear mixtape shows, pick up on some unreleased songs, but as a primary format for listeners, it’s definitely for the casual listener. People that really care about music and spend a lot of time / energy listening probably would want to own CDs or MP3s and create their own collection or archive. That’s an interactive aspect that radio severely lacks. At the same time, a lot of the young audience are casual listeners, so the results of this study might be somewhat accurate; but in general, you would assume that 14 - 24-year-olds are some of the most experimental listeners in how they find out about / listen to new music.
More then anything though, this study almost seems like wishful thinking from an industry that’s still hocking black & white TVs when everyone already has those fancy James Bond wristwatches.
[Editor's Note: Adam is not alone in his thinking here. Check out more from Inside Music Media on this topic. What you thought we made this shit up?].
New York, NY (October 27, 2008) - Lets just say the music industry is going through some “personal issues” right now. Their old friend, the compact disc, hasn’t really been coming around like he used to. It’s not that he doesn’t want to, it’s just that, well, he’s kind of being slowly replaced by his new, cooler, sleeker, and invisible cousin, the MP3. What’s a fella to do?
Right now, the entire music industry is on the cusp of either entirely embracing this new technology or ending up with the dinosaurs of other defunct mediums (cough, cough, Beta, or maybe even, cassettes). Never before has an entire industry literally had to reorganize its entire structure because of technological innovations. Once the compressed cousin of the .WAV appeared in his tiny, easy to manage digital frame, nothing has been the same. MP3s own the music industry right now; even the legal version commonly provided by iTunes is showing CDs up in almost every category. But the real demon of this movement is the worldwide illegal music piracy that has caused an entire industry to rethink, well, basically everything.
The newest development in this very young field of digital media is the formation of the Arts+Lab coalition, a new advocacy group that wants to agree upon an online method of distribution for digital media that fairly compensates all involved parties. A major aspect of their mission is to inform consumers of the numerous methods of obtaining media online that is safe, affordable, and legal. The formation of this coalition comes as no surprise to anyone who’s been following the non-stop RIAA litigation, but what’s odd about the whole thing is how long its taken for these mega-conglomerates to band together and enforce some sort of cultural standard on musical piracy. This quote from Arts+Lab co-chair Mike McCurry exemplifies exactly why the industry felt this coalition is necessary in the current technological climate: “We want consumers to have exponentially greater opportunities to access creative content in a variety of formats, and with confidence that they are safe from viruses, hackers, malware, illegal file trafficking and other net pollution that puts them at risk.”
It’s surprising that the industry is basing the formation of this coalition on the concept of protecting the consumer from malicious viruses and other infectious software. It’s like, wow, you mean these multi-billion dollar companies just want my Microsoft Vista to run super-fast and super-clean? And if it means I start buying music again as a by-product of this innovation, then that’s great for everyone? (insert laughter) Almost anyone learning about Arts+Lab and what they’re trying to implement their programs could easily tell you these companies are scared, that they didn’t react quick enough in the first place, that the RIAA can’t possibly handle all this by themselves, and that now, after all this time, they’re trying to clean up this huge mess, which essentially, they allowed to proliferate in the first place.
Check it out: too many consumers were sick of paying $20 for 3 singles and 15 wack songs, and that they had to buy the record just to find out that were 15 wack songs. The music industry was on its David vs. Goliath for decades, and the consumer had absolutely no method to retaliate. That is, until CD duplication became cheap and easy enough that almost everyone could afford it. The music industry used a lot of shady and unethical practices to enforce this strict monetary model, and the consumer was left with only one decision: buy the CD or buy nothing. Sure, you could dub copies of any disc onto cassettes, and bootlegging has been around forever, but the advent of digital media was the first time it existed in such an instantaneous and worldwide scale. The industry would love to go back to the carefree days of 1999 when Napster was simple and kids in dorm rooms were the only ones making mixes of their favorite songs. Now, only 9 years later, everyone has at least a little part in the pirating of digital media. Whether you’re scanning bit torrent sites for the album that doesn’t come out for 3 weeks or you’re in your friend’s car listening to a CD you just burned from MP3s that 10 of your friends want a copy of, everyone is at least slightly guilty in the dissolution of the music industry. Which is exactly why the forming of Art+Labs makes so much sense. It’s just, a.) why did it take so long, and b.) why do they have to beat around the bush and try to enforce these laws under the guise of protecting your average consumer?
If you’re somewhat educated on the most common Internet protocol, you know what to watch out for when it comes to viruses or malicious software, and the more experience you have, the easier it gets to filter out the Internet’s incessant nonsense. Obviously, the music industry has to have a PR spin on the creation of Arts+Lab or everyone would go right into Big Brother mode, and assume these corporations are going to start monitoring Internet activity to the point that illegal file sharing really becomes a legal issue for the average downloader.
The biggest indicator of the formation of Arts+Lab is that the industry is scared (I mean really, REALLY, scared). Scared enough that the federally-backed RIAA obviously isn’t enough to quell this massive quagmire. They need to “market” the idea of not stealing, if that doesn’t sound absolutely absurd. It seems that almost everyone, around the world, for whatever reason, doesn’t have a problem with stealing copyrighted property; for some reason, its not viewed as being morally wrong as the theft of a physical product.
The industry is making at least small strides in bringing structure to the gray area of exactly what is the monetary benefit of this new technology. The major record labels, music publishers, and online web casters recently reached an agreement after months of deliberation on royalty payments for interactive streaming and limited release digital downloads. The agreement settled on an industry standard of a mechanical royalty of 10.5% of revenue, with minimum payments in certain scenarios. A major aspect of the agreement was that non-interactive, audio streaming-only sites would not have to pay any royalties to the copyright holders. What this agreement did was create a legal definition for whether or not a website will have pay for the use of streaming content, which includes mp3s, radio stations, or basically any non-downloadable digital media.
The realm of streaming media is just one area the music industry is getting a hold on as far as how to integrate their old structure to fully utilize the worldwide audience digital media provides, but are they moving fast enough to keep with diligent hackers and an audience that can preview entire albums before they buy them? Additionally, are they equipped to deal with the consumer who only wants the same 3 singles because the rest is rubbish?
At the end of the day, the Arts+Lab coaltion is just another PR move from an industry that’s become a shell of its former self. They’re trying to utilize absolutely everything they can muster to put out a fire that, by now, is just a few scant glowing embers. They’re trying to reconstitute ashes into a shiny new widget someone else invented, and then on top of it, charging you to use that widget. All of this is completely understandable; as in every single legitimized fully structured industry, they have a product they produce, they sell the product, collect the profit, and then hopefully move on to new and better products with an escalating margin. It just happens that technology’s rapid expansion could not possibly be stopped, and that these advancements specifically came into contact with the music industry’s primary fiscal model, and they’ve just gotten to the point where they’re about to break the glass on the fire extinguisher…
New York, NY (October 26, 2008) - As if we needed anything to further amp up those Facebook Music rumors, adding more fuel to the fire comes news that iLike, a major contender for the rumored Facebook Music, has partnered with TuneCore in order to offer monetary compensation to independent artists.
Indie artists that submit their music through TuneCore now have the opportunity to have it played and distributed through iLike, which means exposure on major social networks like Facebook, Bebo and Hi5, and more opportunities for earning royalties. A major advantage of TuneCore is that the artists retain 100% of the money they earn through the site, which attracts both indie and major label artists alike.
This was the next necessary move to further establish iLike’s lead over other music apps in the race to for inclusion on Facebook Music, should it happen. Opening up iLike’s accessibility to better-serve indie artists means that the app is now one of very few that can accommodate the needs of the indie and mainstream markets, and will have rates and contracts ready to go for nearly any possible artist situation. Plus, by partnering with an established distribution service like TuneCore, they’ve eliminated a presumed hurdle Facebook Music would have to deal with.
All in all, if the other apps still want to remain in the race for alleged music partner for the alleged Facebook Music, they are going to have to step their game up seriously.
Another huge development for artists, especially indie artists with a limited production budget, is the launch of IndabaVox, a new service that allows musicians to “call into” recording sessions using VoIP technology. People can call in using their mobile phones or landlines, enter a PIN, and begin laying down their tracks as part of an already established recording session with another artist. It’s basically instant gratification when it comes to recording over long distances, which will mean less time to wait to finish production on a song, and more opportunities for collaborations between artists that may have not gotten a chance to work together otherwise. JamNow has already established a leg-up on a service like IndabaVox with a computer-based link-up and studio, so it will be interesting to see what happens moving forward with both.
In theory, using these new services, an Indie artist can put together a brand new collaboration within a day, and have it uploaded through TuneCore/iLike by the next. Artists will be able to not only track fan demand, but respond to demand faster and more effectively, which means more money and more satisfied listeners.
New York, NY (October 24, 2008) – We conclude our series with DJ Vlad and merge two topics that he talked at length on: diversification and filmmaking. In these two segments, Vlad explains his transition into movies and documentaries, what he learned, his upcoming turn on BET’s American Gangster (Mac Dre) and future projects. You’ve never seen this side of Vlad before.
New York, NY (October 23, 2008) – Vlad continues on the mixtape discussion and mixtape DJ’s, as well as discussing the music blog’s roll in helping proliferate new music. This particular discussion was interesting because Vlad hints that a lot of mixtape DJ’s aren’t as rich as people perceive them to be. He also argues that the rapid-fire nature of the blogs is good for music. Yup.
New York, NY (October 23, 2008) - LaLa, the three-year-old music startup, has decided to relaunch itself again as a service that tries to merge the best features of iTunes and Rhapsody into a single package. They fit perfectly into the grey area between a subscription service and something that gives you ownership of your music like what iTunes has accomplished so successfully.
As a free service, LaLa will exist as a virtual jukebox for all of your mp3 files. You can log onto their website, and upload your entire collection, which you can then stream back from any computer or Wi-Fi connection. LaLa will automatically pull songs from their own database that matches your catalog, or if they don’t have the song, they’ll pull it from your collection. The subscription component comes in when you start listening to songs from their vast database. You can stream any song once for free, and then after that, its 10 cents for unlimited stream times. To actually purchase an mp3, it’s 89 cents each, and you can also apply the 10-cent streaming fee, if it’s a song you decide you want to purchase in the future.
LaLa is an interesting composite of some of the most successful digital music sites. It seems like they’re trying to include something that’ll appeal to everyone no matter where they fit into the digital music spectrum. If you don’t want the headaches that sometimes come with subscription services, then you can just use them as a virtual mp3 portal to enjoy music anywhere there’s an Internet connection. If you want to pay as little as possible, and still bulk up your music collection, then the 10-cent per stream plan would definitely fit into your budget. No matter what you’re looking for LaLa seems to have it, and on top if it, they’ve signed on all four major labels, and over 170,000 independent labels and distributors.
With interest like that from basically every record label in existence, LaLa seems like a force to be reckoned with. What’s really going to make or break this shaky startup is the ease of use of its interface coupled with an impressive song selection; if they can truly accomplish both of these goals, iTunes and Rhapsody just may have some competition.
One aspect of LaLa though that is a tad scary is their welcoming arms concerning the free upload of your entire mp3 catalogue. A major aspect of the touted service is your ability to upload your entire library to their iTunes-esque database that can then be enjoyed from absolutely any Internet connection. The issue that arises, though, is whether LaLa exists in the future as a grey area for copyright infringement, and also, will the major labels use it as an outlet to inspect and survey exactly what’s on your computer? LaLa could be used as false security, where you think they’re basically “virtually” holding your music for you, but instead, the major labels could be looking over LaLa’s shoulder inspecting each and every mp3 you own to make sure they’re legally complicit. I’m sure there’s programs out there that can derive the origin of your mp3, whether it was ripped from a retail CD, or it just floated off an anonymous server somewhere.
Whether or not LaLa is going to be used for these practices is still up in the air, but just their role as virtual mp3 portal coupled with their partnership with the majors is definitely a slightly worrisome predicament. Even though it seems convenient, is it really necessary to have a virtual copy of every song you’ve ever owned floating around in cyberspace. How many times are you somewhere with an Internet connection but without your mp3s? Most people either simultaneously have both, or like everyone else, they have an mp3 player, so they’re entire collection is already portable.
LaLa sounds great in theory, but it definitely has a Big Brother tinge that makes it at least slightly ominous.
New York, NY (October 22, 2008) - A friend sent me this one today, spotted over at CNN.com. They’re talking about Project 10^100, an innovative idea Google came up with to generate “world-changing” ideas that would benefit mankind and help ease global concerns like providing food and shelter, building communities, improving health, granting more access to education, sustaining the global ecosystem and promoting clean energy. They will whittle down the nearly 150,000 ideas to 100, open them to public voting to get a Top 20 and announce up to five winners that could potentially be up for funding. Funding is up to $10 million. Check:
…”We’re thrilled by the large array of enthusiastic responses to Project 10^100. That number has exceeded our expectations,” said Bethany Poole, a product marketing manager at Google.
“We’re also very impressed by the variety and ingenuity of the submissions across all categories, ranging from health to energy, education and the environment,” she said.
Google launched the ambitious project September 24 to help celebrate its 10th birthday. In announcing Project 10^100 (pronounced “10 to the 100th”), the Internet giant said to hoped to solicit and bankroll fresh ideas it believes will have broad and beneficial effects on people’s lives.
New York, NY (October 20, 2008) - There are a ton of new products and services launching of late allowing beginner-level video producers to reach the masses with their work. One of the most exciting developments comes from Qik, which should have the folks over at Kyte shaking in their virtual boots. While Kyte is a hugely popular streaming video site, the options for people to mobile stream live video content are limited to the iPhone, the iTouch, and certain Nokia camera phones. Qik, however, is well on their way to a solution for this problem with their new software, usable on phones from both Nokia and Sony Ericsson. The initial launch covers about a dozen phones, and Qik promises to offer support for more models in the very near future. The phones they are most interested in opening up the service to are considered mass-market; so for folks without a smartphone or a phone with a million and one bells and whistles, that means you could potentially stream video! For independent artists (or just your attention-seeking friends), that would allow them to easily share their thoughts or music with a huge audience in real time. Qik definitely has your best interests at heart here!
Now, if you’re more about creating huge, elaborate video projects, Vimeo has a new service that may solve a problem you’ve probably encountered: uploading and streaming your files without reducing the quality of the video. Vimeo Plus, which launched last week at a subscription cost of $59.95 per year, provides 300 times the space of regular Vimeo, enabling video producers to upload HD content online and share it with the masses the way it was meant to be seen. Users can also restrict the embedding function on Vimeo Plus, meaning their content won’t be embeddable on websites where they don’t want it to be seen. The new service also sports an unlimited groups feature, allowing users to create albums and channels within their account to better sort and categorize their work as well as their viewing audience.
But once you’ve created and uploaded your new videos, how do you go about sharing them on multiple sites and social networks all at once? The answer comes from Graspr. Where MultiSubmit left off, Graspr has launched the gCard, a new widget which not only allows you to stream video content on just about any page or social network you can imagine, but also includes a virtual business card of sorts, complete with contact information and bio of the author of the video. Future videos published using the gCard format by the same author will automatically contain the same contact information, which means you don’t have to constantly re-enter the same information over and over again to make sure the people that like your stuff have a way to contact you about it. Plus, it is a simple guarantee that no matter how someone is coming across your videos, whether it’s through MySpace, Blogger, or another website entirely, they will still all have access to the same contact information, video quality, and content.
Qik, Vimeo and Graspr have just made creating videos, streaming them, and presenting them in a universal format an easy option for just about any user. This next wave of services should put YouTube, Kyte, and the other current superstar online video sites on notice.
New York, NY (October 16, 2008) - In the latest attempt at suppressing worldwide piracy of intellectual copyrights, President Bush signed into law on Monday (October 13th) that calls for stricter penalties in fighting music and movie piracy. The Prioritizing Resources and Organization for Intellectual Property (PRO IP) Act will involve more comprehensive copyright enforcement, the appointment of a yet to be announced “Piracy Czar”, and the creation of an intellectual property policy that can be applied across all aspects of the federal government. The government is hoping that by passing this bill into law it’ll send a stern warning to anyone even considering taking even a small part in piracy. The PRO IP Act was thoroughly supported by the RIAA, the MPAA, and basically every major record label and Hollywood studio. Although all of these entities already had a through enforcement regiment in place, they feel like they can only benefit from a federally backed version of the loosely based enforcement model they were relying on.
According to the government, they want to use this alliance to go after the major criminals committing mass piracy, instead of teenagers simply downloading single songs. Along with the passing of this act comes some more severe penalties for parties found guilty of copyright infringement. Very similar to the way a drug dealer is dealt with, those found guilty can face forfeiture of property. If the government feels that your bootleg DVD kiosk paid for your new Benz, they can now simply take any property that is even slightly linked to funds accrued from your piracy assets. This quote from an article on p2p.net sums up the complicated issues that arise from these new initiatives:
…”Although some may feel that forfeiture is an appropriate response to serious large scale drug dealing, those same draconian measures can now apply to copyright infringement cases. It can cause more stress and difficulty in defending cases when defendants have to prove in a separate court action, that the materials seized were not used for the actions claimed. Wikipedia indicates that 3 years, and $10,000 is the typical cost of fighting such cases. Public Knowledge opposes these forfeiture measures, with spokesman Art Brodsky saying: “Let’s suppose that there’s one computer in the house, and one person uses it for downloads and one for homework. The whole computer goes.”
Wow. That really puts a new spin on trying to save a few dollars by downloading that new album instead of buying it. Who wants to save $10 just to spend $10,000 trying to prove they weren’t trying to save $10 in the first place? The other interesting point is that they can easily remove any electronics associated with piracy from your home. Just because a computer was used for piracy doesn’t mean it’s a piracy computer. We’re not talking about stacks of CD duplicators; probably just half-obsolete desktops that barely have a graphic interface.
The government is specifically stating that they don’t plan on going after simple downloaders, but if that were really true, why would they even pass this act in the first place? According to the Chamber of Commerce, the U.S. spends $250 billion to fight piracy, annually, and for some reason, that’s not enough, monetarily or from an enforcement point of view. It seems that money could be better spent figuring out the origins of this problem in the first place instead going after these trickle down after-thoughts. This quote from the same p2p.net article really hones in on this concept:
“The person filling this Copyright Czar role will, presumably, be in a similar position to that of the Drugs Czar, and will listen mainly to lobbyists and ’safe’ peer pressure. Just as in the case of narcotics, symptoms will be dealt with, and not causes. Targeting causes means targeting contributors, while targeting symptoms just means targeting voters, and there are millions of them.”
That’s exactly it. The MPAA and RIAA have been going after those who aren’t tech savvy enough to not get caught. You’ve heard about tons of examples like 80-year-old grandmothers downloading some song from when she was a teenager off Limewire and she didn’t even comprehend that she was “stealing”. People aren’t getting caught downloading mixtapes off of torrent sites or leaked singles from hip hop blogs; it’s always the one-off cases that usually arise from really innocent circumstances.
I think more than anything, the PRO IP Act will serve more as an ominous threat for everyone to keep in the back of his or her head; something along the lines of how you only think about getting pulled over when you see a cop or someone else getting pulled over. If you don’t have the idea that the government is monitoring your illegal downloads, then you’re probably never going to stop or have qualms about it. So it completely makes sense why this bill got easily passed, but A, is it going to be able to accomplish anything that the RIAA / MPAA haven’t been able to, and B, is just the threat alone enough to stop causal pirates?
If $250 billion a year can’t solve a problem that’s only existed for the last ten years, then it makes sense that they’re not focusing on the right issues. As stated in the p2p.net article, they’re only going after the end result of the problem, not the top of the hierarchy where it originated. If they would only assess the origin / reasons why mass piracy is so epidemic, then they could potentially suppress the “virus”; your doctor doesn’t give you cold medicine for a fever, or you can’t put a band aid on a broken femur. The entertainment industry loves using the Emergency Room for every paper cut that emerges.
As far as the PRO IP being an effective enough threat for the common downloader, it’ll be a matter of time before we see the results of the new “piracy brigade”. Can’t you just picture someone’s grandpa getting ushered into the street by riot cops for hooking up his phonograph to an iPod so he can Bose-dock some 78 and listen to it in his breakfast nook? A lot of people envision a futuristic military state, but not for downloading “White Christmas” onto a flash-drive necklace. It’s a scary scenario that just may become all too realistic…
New York, NY (October 15, 2008) - I don’t think there’s a single cultural force that has changed an entire industry like piracy has affected the music business. In a matter of basically ten years, the entire structure and it’s fiscal models have been forever altered due to the rapid speed of technological advancements, and everyone’s favorite new scapegoat, Internet piracy. Although piracy is heralded as the harbinger for the industry’s imminent demise, there are some industry insiders that feel this blanket statement is a little too harsh, and that these new concepts need reexamining if we’re actually going to get back on track to the old model. In an article for The Wall Street Journal entitled “In Defense of Piracy”, Lawrence Lessig examines the complex issue of piracy in the current cultural climate, and why he thinks it needs to be reinterpreted for these complicated new issues.
A major tenet of what Lessig is proposing is that the only way to solve the piracy problem is to legally reinterpret what it exactly means. Large companies use valuable resources to fight frivolous copyright cases, but these case rarely ever amount to any significant changes in the law. Lessig uses the example of Stephanie Lenz, who videotaped her 13-month-old son dancing to Prince’s “Let’s Go Crazy” and then uploaded the results to YouTube. Four months later, Universal Music Group sent a letter to YouTube asking them to remove the video, a request to which they complied. Lenz still couldn’t understand why her specific video was in question, and she took her fight all the way to the EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation). The foundation’s lawyers thought they had a reasonable case and filed a “counter-notice” to YouTube, arguing that no copyright was violated simply by using Prince’s music in the background of a homemade video. Universal’s lawyers still insist that sharing this home video is copyright infringement, and that Ms. Lenz is still potentially liable to be fined up to $150,000 for uploading the 29-second clip.
This is a perfect example of an area where the legal definition really needs to be altered to match the ever-changing cultural climate. The actual Prince song in question was playing in the background of the video, and was barely audible in the quality in was presented. The song itself was almost an afterthought; this mother wanted an easy way to share her toddler’s videos, and you can’t email large video files, so by default, YouTube was the easiest outlet. It’s understandable why Universal has to thwart any attempt at copyright infringement, but aren’t their resources better utilized by going after the origin of the piracy, instead the final place it’s tricking down too? They’re using extensive law resources so some housewife will stop posting home videos of her toddler dancing to Prince, and on top of that, the song is barely recognizable. Internet piracy has taken on so many different forms, the major labels end up having an all or none approach; they figure we have to go after any little infraction or people will get the idea that piracy is a culturally acceptable activity, which is an understandable stance, especially in this day and age. The main idea though, is that there has to be some middle ground where these companies can go after the massive proponents of Internet piracy, like single individuals leaking albums, instead of the furthest reaches of the trickle down, where the impact is practically nil.
Lessig proposes a deregulation for the amateur remix; that any parent who’s putting pics of their kids online with some song behind it can’t be held responsible for copyright infringement. He feels that if you post a slideshow or video like this on YouTube, that the musical artist should at least be partially compensated, but this would only be true if the person who posted the video is also compensating from the post, which is a fair and ethical way of approaching the problem. Maybe YouTube could arrange some sort of licensing deal with artists from fan created videos posted on their website. As with everything else, this is another wide expanse of grey area that has to have a solidified legal solution, and that’s what Lessig really hammers home in this article.
These old laws and definitions of copyrights really don’t apply to the new climate. Sure, you can broadly apply them to new, digital media, and still enforce the laws that exist, but the real question is, are these old laws capable of solving the new piracy problem, or are they just making due with what currently exists to make everyone look proactive, while in reality, piracy is expanding and growing at an unheard of rate?
That’s another question in this complicated new era of digital “martial” law, though, too: is it possible the majors know they can’t really do anything significant about piracy, so they’re just trying to do what they can as far as how the law is defined, even if that doesn’t quell the problem? For the last ten years, all you hear about are college students get mass-subpoenaed, or someone’s grandma getting sued for downloading some song she grew up with, but at the same time, piracy only keeps getting easier, bigger, and harder to control. There’s almost an inverse relationship that exists where the more the majors fight these “battles”, the more piracy seems to expand. So, are they not going after the right enemy, or are their tools simply obsolete and don’t apply to the new “war”, as Lessig puts it? You don’t show up with a knife to a gunfight, or go to Iraq with some archaic musket. The same can be said for Universal: they won’t up physical CD sales by using their lawyers to go after housewives who couldn’t even spell bit torrent if they were inside of Cisco’s catacombs. It’s not that Lessig is for or against piracy, he just realizes piracy is an unintentional result in an industry that’s still trying to pick itself up by the bootstraps before the shoe cobbler even gets the crocodile home… where are those Mauri’s at man?!?!!?
New York, NY (October 13, 2008) - A new website has emerged that’s hoping to become everyone’s middleman in the lucrative music licensing industry. The site, YouLicense, is looking to become “the Ebay of intellectual property” according to site founder Maor Ezer. YouLicense is trying to take the sometimes complicated and intricate process of licensing music for other media into a realm where a few mouse clicks can give the same opportunities to any budding musician.
The structure of the site works like this: artists and copyright holders looking to license their music can offer it on YouLicense for free, and then if someone decides to use their music, they pay a 9% commission fee when their song gets licensed. The other option musicians can use is to pay a flat fee of $30 (for individuals) or $60 (for organizations) to offer an unlimited amount of music to the site for 6 months, without paying any additional commission.
People or companies looking to license the music can search the site’s database by genre or type of song, then they’ll make an offer describing to the artist how the song’s going to be used and how much they’ll be paid. The musician then gets an email alert with the enclosed offer, which they can then accept, decline, or decide to negotiate further. Once an agreement is met, the licensing fee is transferred via PayPal, and YouLicense immediately generates an agreement with the specific details. Within a matter of minutes, the licensee has a download link, and the transaction is complete. Another important aspect is that all license deals are non-exclusive, so the artist doesn’t have to worry about retaining their rights just because their song, beat, or instrumental was licensed.
YouLicense initially thought their service would be a big hit with production companies looking for cheap alternatives for their film and television products, but they were really surprised when a huge new market emerged for their site. Instead of big name production studios, the little guys ended up being the exact customer they didn’t know they were looking for, as Ezer explains in this quote: “When I sit with a big company and they tell me, ‘we don’t need you to get us film studios and ads, we’ve got them,” explained Ezer. “But they have no wedding videos, and no websites, or Flash intros.”
A huge portion of their new business ended up being small production companies or just individuals looking for licensing opportunities on a very small scale. Everything from wedding videos, photographer’s online portfolios, and even teachers making presentations have become the new licensees for very homegrown projects. A schoolteacher even paid $85 to license music for a school presentation in front of 400 students. He wanted to make sure everything was legally sound and that the school didn’t have any issues.
What YouLicense is attempting is an interesting take on a facet of the industry that beforehand was basically only corporate oriented. The only companies seeking licenses were major studios or corporations looking for placement in commercials. YouLicense might have potentially tapped into an entirely undiscovered market, where owners of small companies or small production firms can now utilize the very same methods that Hollywood studios have used for years. For as little as $20 or $30, a photographer can add an original composition to their online portfolio for an entire year. Not only does this benefit the photographer, but it creates a variety of venues for unsigned musicians to potentially make a lot of money. You could be unsigned for years, but with the success of even some very small licensing deals, you might be able to subside on it long enough to tide you over until the majors come calling.
YouLicense is just another addition to the Internet’s unprecedented recent run of cultural innovations. Technology is allowing new business opportunities to exist that years before were absolutely unconceivable. What a site like YouLicense and tons of others are doing, which coincidentally is the scariest thing for the big corporations, is they’re leveling the playing field. YouLicense is cutting out the old middleman, and in turn, has become to new middleman. What they’re doing would have been impossible even three or four years ago. Now, in the matter of a few mouse clicks, some kid making beats in his bedroom could become the new soundtrack for your sister’s wedding video, and that equation is both stupefying and very, very strange.
New York, NY (October 3, 2008) - Something you may not know about MySpace Music’s highly publicized move to offer free streams from a huge catalog of artists spanning a bunch of genres and including material from all the major labels: Imeem did it first. And while they obviously lack the promotional budget of the media giants, they are coming out with some new features to protect the loyal fan base they have developed - which, according to Imeem, consists of almost 28 million people monthly - and hopefully steal a little bit of MySpace’s thunder along the way.
Imeem is banking on the fact that users won’t just want to find music they know - they want to discover new songs, learn about new artists, and check out what everybody else is listening to as well. Such was the thinking behind the newest features of Imeem - Discover, which lists song suggestions based on characteristics like popularity and similarity in style to tracks that have been recently listened to; Browse, which lets the user filter search results in new ways; and Spotlight, which is a blog-like feature that discusses new features and different artist promotions they have available on the site, and includes celebrity playlists. The artist pages will also have small changes, like album playlists being made available for the first time. A major feature Imeem already has over MySpace that they’ll be hyping up as well? You can embed their music players anywhere, not just within the social network.
And where MySpace is losing focus of its Indie music fanbase, other sites are popping up to pick up the slack, including new jack Babulous, which is probably a familiar name to fans of Facebook application “Profile Song”. Still in its beta stages, Babulous aims to connect Indie artists with each other, with labels, and most importantly, with their fans, using social networking as the basis for their interactions. Their narrower focus means they won’t expand as rapidly as MySpace, but means they are more open to user suggestions and feedback. In fact, Babulous is encouraging feedback at the moment, in anticipation of their official launch in November, so if you’ve already registered on their site, drop them a line and let them know what you think should be worked on before the launch.
For more on the changes at Imeem, get over to Mashable. Read more about Babulous over at PR Newswire here.
New York, NY (October 2, 2008) - As new technologies are developed, the one thing you can count on are a whole new set of legal issues that must deal with the experimental nature of the rapidly changing industry. Before iTunes, there wasn’t a huge, all-encompassing venue for the new world of digital media, but now, 5 billion downloads later, iTunes has become a major force in an industry that isn’t too comfortable with change. Apple’s ITunes store and subsequent sale of iPods have given the company enough clout that they can almost pull the rug from under the major labels that, coincidentally, are the main reason for their runaway success.
The latest issue in Apple’s strong-arm maneuvers is the announcement on Thursday by the Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) whether or not to increase royalty rates that were established back in 1997, before digital sales comprised such a large portion of the entire market. The point of contention is the proposed increase from 9 cents to 15 cents, which Apple says will destroy their profit margin enough that they would have to close the iTunes store because the new model would render their business profitless.
It is interesting to think that only 6 cents per download could really affect a profit margin that much, but if you analyze the breakdown of Apple’s current payment plan, you can understand just how slim their revenue actually is. Of the 99 cents per download Apple charges, 70 cents goes to the record company, and then those companies turn over 9 of those cents to the music publishers who own the copyrights. The CRB are the ones who will make the final decision on Thursday, which will set the royalty rates for the next five years, but the actual request for the royalty hike comes from the National Music Publishers Association (NMPA); they are the major group that’s been putting pressure on Steve Jobs for the last five years to raise the 99 cent per download standard.
For the average consumer, 9 cents per download only adds up if you’re a compulsive music fanatic, but from Apple’s perspective, that’s a 66% increase, which really is substantial when you consider how lucrative the iTunes store is for Apple. iTunes currently maintains a 75% share of the digital music market, with that number expected to jump to 85% by next year. With the type of numbers Apple is doing (5 billion total downloads since iTunes launched) and their controlling market share, even the slightest change in their price structure would mean an immediate difference in their overall fiscal model. The major labels main contention is that Apple just wants to sell songs cheaply to sell iPods, where the profit margin is definitely higher than that of MP3s. If they keep prices of MP3s low, Apple gets to sell more gadgets, which then lets people buy more music, and the cycle would seem to substantiate itself, right?
Not according to the major labels. They feel that Apple has bullied them since the inception of iTunes, and they’re finally getting a government agency to create a new legal definition that will become the standard for the digital media market. Not only does Apple not want to increase royalty rates, but they also feel that a more suitable rate would be 4.8 cents per song, or 6% of total revenue, versus a payment per song plan.
So the real question is this: Can a compromise emerge that will make both sides happy, and if the royalty rates really do go up, is Apple’s threat of closing down shop a realistic outcome? The major labels seem to be in such a state of flux lately that they’re merely trying to get footing in a fiscal area that they have no experience with; if you think about, Apple doesn’t really have much experience with it, either. They were just the first, and eventually, they became the best and the easiest. At least partially, they owe their success to being “the right product at the right time;” like whomever of Ben Franklin’s 30 grandchildren that founded GE.
Apple is comfortable that this profit margin has worked for them so far, but who’s really to say they can’t still exist in the future with the slightly increased royalty rate? They have stated that the iTunes total downloads have hit 5 billion (or supposedly 6 billion), but they’ve yet to release a comprehensive audited statement where the average consumer can get a realistic idea of their profit breakdown; that leads into “he said, she said” territory, which isn’t surprising in the experimental, largely-undeveloped field of digital media.
Which leads the discussion to a dangerous place: Apple has stated that their only option is to close the iTunes store because of the new proposed royalty hike. This may be partially true, but who’s to really believe that they’re going to entirely close down the very cultural force that gave Apple it’s resurgence in an industry where the PC was only standard? Its true that a lot of Apple’s business has shifted to the personal computer, and their making huge strides in their market share, but iPods and iTunes are what reestablished them as the “it”" brand and allowed them to reenter the brand consciousness across a huge range of demographics. By completely shutting down the iTunes store, not only will people lose a major outlet for legal media downloads, but what are all those people going to put on their 160 million iPods?
Which brings us to the idea that maybe the music industry should just accept what iTunes has accomplished so far and be lucky that such a mainstream venue for purchasing their products is so popular. Instead of competing with iPods for literally fractions of cents on the dollar, they should take those numbers and figure out how much they would have lost if iTunes never existed in the first place. The major labels seem to hate change like some old woman who goes to the same diner every Thursday and likes her toast points cut on 45 degree angles; the tiniest interference with their outdated structure is immediately considered a threat to an industry that has been relying on the same fiscal principles since Elvis was in some shack using motor oil as hair gel. They need to understand, as Apple also does, that there is no standard for the new model; that’s why it’s NEW. There isn’t a correct number that will satiate both sides of the argument because all of the issues at hand have never been dealt with before. This is new legal terrain that will establish the next five years of how digital media is fiscally interpreted, which, right now, leaves a lot of room for everyone to get very, very confused.
New York, NY (September 30, 2008) - In this stage of the Internet’s development a lot of grey area still exists. Websites come and go, offering a new take on how we use digital media, but very often, they’re ahead of corporations in their experimental methods of distribution and interaction. Muxtape.com is one recent casualty of the blurry “legal” lines that define the age of rapid technological developments that outpace laws that define the digital realm.
Muxtape started innocently enough. Founder Justin Oullette was a former college DJ looking for a very simple way for people to share their love of music with friends. On an investment of $95,000 from his former boss, Justin started the site in March of 2008 and within 2 months it had nearly 100,000 users. Muxtape’s popularity was essentially based on a very simple concept: Any user could upload mp3s to make a digital mixtape that existed as streaming links, and then they could embed the playlist anywhere they wanted, to share it with as many friends as possible. Seems pretty simple and harmless, right? Not according to the RIAA and the major labels. Six months later, Muxtape was taken offline amid discussions with the RIAA over legal issues and licensing problems.
Talks with the RIAA and the majors have since dissolved, and Muxtape is now being relaunched as a portal where musical artists can upload their own mp3s, and create a profile to promote any aspect of their musical output, which includes a calendar, photos, comments, or downloads and sales of their mp3s. The average person would chalk up this situation as the major labels overreacting and the RIAA stepping into maintain a sense of damage control, but this is really just another case of an industry that’s stuck in a perpetual state of technological limbo. In actuality, they’re probably just as confused as everyone else, which leads to their all-or-none perspective. If they let Muxtape.com continue on its path of “legitimizing” piracy, tons of other websites would use them as a model for what was acceptable in an online environment.
What Muxtape was intended for is a tricky legal issue as far as digital media is currently defined. They weren’t acting as a source for pirated material in the same way as a bit torrent site, but they were complicit in “alleged” piracy by allowing users to upload their own mp3s, where some could have been legally obtained. That’s the sticking point, though: it’s the assumption of the RIAA that illegal mp3s were consistently uploaded. It’s understandable that major labels can’t possibly encourage any form of piracy, so even a small tinge of it on the site would be cause for alarm; what is interesting, though, is that Muxtape was in the process of obtaining licensing and dispensing proper royalties through talks with the RIAA and the major labels. These discussions subsequently dissolved, however, and the RIAA had Muxtape’s Amazon account shut down and their password changed.
For a little while it seemed like the major labels saw promise in the simplicity of the technology Muxtape had created, but they obviously considered it more of a threat instead of understanding its potential as a promotional tool. This concept is what’s repeatedly been surging through the music industry for, essentially, the last 10 years. Does a middle ground exist for these major labels where they can benefit from new technologies while still maintaining control of their most valuable asset, their intellectual property copyrights? Right now, the Internet is in a perpetual state of flux and no one completely knows what the future of the digital realm is. What is important, though, is that these technological advances aren’t stymied by a nervous industry the second their profit margins are called into question. As it is, we’re seeing a lot of reluctance on the side of the industry towards embracing the massive potential that these new technologies offer. Having been so successful with an ancient model for so long, the industry is scared to embrace anything that might possibly “reinvent the wheel”.
Right now is a very important time because everyone is watching the tiniest development for what may become the answer to everyone’s question: Where is the compromise that meets the needs of the average consumer and the corporate behemoth? In truth, every major label wants to get their product out to the largest possible consumer sector; that’s the bottom-li
