Music Industry 2.0
EMI, the business behind Norah Jones and Coldplay, failed to convince the market that the music industry was on the mend yesterday, in spite of signs of improvement in America.
Shares in the group fell 12% to 217p, making the world’s third largest music business the worst performing share in the FTSE 250. [more @ www.guardian.co.uk]
Yesterday, the RIAA sued 493 more people accused of sharing music illegally using the internet. The number of people who have been sued in America by recording companies now stands at just under 3,000.
Like before, the RIAA is making sure to target regular people who happen to be sharing files, or as they have been labelled, “John Doe” defendants. [more @ www.theinquirer.net]
The threat of lawsuits has failed to deter Europeans from using the Internet to hoard free music, movies and video games, a technology firm that measures Internet traffic says.
The latest Hollywood movies, television shows and albums zipping between Internet users accounts for 70 percent to 80 percent of all Internet traffic handled daily by European Internet service providers (ISPs).
The level of peer-to-peer file-sharing traffic, according to Canadian traffic filtering company Sandvine Inc., has remained steady since the start of the year. [more @ www.reuters.co.uk]
The beleaguered global music industry says it expects to see an increase in music sales next year.
New legal download services combined with an anti-piracy campaign have given the industry cause for optimism.
Keith Jopling, head of market research at the International Federation for the Phonographic Industry, said: “We are turning a corner.” [more @ www.news.bbc.co.uk]
Hip-hop artists are urging young people to get involved with politics and head to the polls in the US presidential election in November.
The Hip-Hop Summit, which uses rap music’s influence to get young people to vote, is touring the US and signing people up to the voting register.
Rap mogul Russell Simmons, who founded the US rap record label Def Jam, said young people must make a difference. [more @ www.news.bbc.co.uk]
The European Commission will soon issue a statement of objections to plans by entertainment giants Sony and Bertelsmann to combine their music units, a spokeswoman said on Monday.
The merger of Sony Music, whose artists include Beyonce Knowles and Bruce Springsteen, and BMG, home to Britney Spears and Elvis Presley, would create one of the top firms in a $30 billion industry that has lost a fifth of its sales since 2000.
“I don’t think that I’ll be breaching any secrets by saying that there will be a statement of objections,” Commission spokeswoman Amelia Torres told a news conference in Brussels. “I expect that this will be happening very soon now.” [more @ www.reuters.com]
Digital download service Napster has scored a major victory over archrival iTunes by launching in Britain, the first of the high-flying Internet music stores to make their European debut.
In a move that surprised many in the industry, Napster said its music download and song-streaming service would go live straight away to users in Britain only. It had kept the launch date a tight secret, previously saying only that it would make its UK arrival by the end of summer. [more @ www.reuters.co.uk] [Also covers OD2 price cuts – Ed.]
Will consumers pay the equivalent of pocket change for online digital content? A number of companies, new and old, are betting the answer is yes.
So-called micropayments enable the sale of digital content, like music, archived news stories and photographs, for fees as low as a penny. The idea has been around since early in the Internet boom, but the first attempts at micropayments didn’t work out, and several companies seeking to make money by facilitating the transactions crumbled in the tech bust.
But the success of Apple Computer Inc.’s iTunes online music service, which charges 99 cents a song, and the rapid growth of digital-music downloading services suggest that the time for micropayments may have arrived. [more @ www.mlive.com]
BPI members can still take advantage of a deal with Sony Music India. Sony are offering members the chance to claim a slice of the £92m Indian recorded music market by submitting tracks for inclusion in a major retail promotion. Tracks must be submitted ASAP: for more information contact Wendy Hunt at BPI.
AOL UK has agreed a groundbreaking licence with the MCPS-PRS Alliance to cover the provision of a comprehensive online music content service. MCPS and PRS are the licensing organisations that ensure the legal provision of online music services in the UK on behalf of composers, songwriters and music publishers.
The agreement, developed under MCPS-PRS’ Joint Online Licence (JOL), grants AOL access to around 10 million musical works and clears composer and publisher rights, which are a pre-requisite for the use of music online.
[more @ www.recordoftheday.com]