Music Industry 2.0
Franz Ferdinand, The Streets, The Killers and Dizzee Rascal are amongst the final 10 artists nominated for the prestigious 2004 Shortlist Music Prize.
The Shortlist is often compared to a stateside version of the Mercury Music Prize, aiming to champion more adventurous and alternative music than is usual at US music awards, by only honouring albums that have sold fewer than 500,000 copies (gold). [more @ www.xfm.co.uk]
Until very recently, the aural excitement of a BT album like “Emotional Technology,” a Crystal Method album such as “Legion of Boom,” or a Paul Oakenfold album like “Creamfields” could get overlooked in the GRAMMY balloting.
In fact, you can find spine-tingling electronic pop and dance music being made in all parts of the world that might easily miss out on a chance to have the kind of high-intensity spotlight that results from a GRAMMY nomination.
But this year, the National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences (NARAS), the organization that controls the GRAMMY Awards, has changed everything for electronic artists with the introduction of the “Best Electronic/Dance Album” category. [more @ www.emediawire.com]
The cost of downloading tracks could plummet after easyJet founder, Stelios Haji-Ioannou, confirmed yesterday he was to launch easyMusic, a site offering “current hits and a back catalogue” for as little as 25p.
The move comes a day after the Consumers’ Association asked the Office of Fair Trading to investigate why Apple’s iTunes internet service, one of the largest providers of online music, charges 79p in the UK to download a track but only 68p (Eu 0.99) in France and Germany. [more @ www.guardian.co.uk]
Mercora’s Atri Chatterjee is confident that P2P radio will avoid legal entanglements with the RIAA because his network will closely regulate the actions of subscribers and will ensure that all required usage fees are paid to the recording industry.
“We enable people to webcast music to each other in a P2P-style environment. Music exchanges can only be done through webcast. The file sharer becomes a mini radio station. The file receiver becomes the listener,” Chatterjee told TechNewsWorld.
He said this process is totally compliant with DMCA rules. “All copyright owners get paid by us. We make sure that the performance rights are honored to the owner of the song, the producers, the performers and the record label,” he said. [more @ www.technewsworld.com]
More than half of UK internet users have downloaded music illegally in the past 12 months, according to a survey out today.
Web surfers believe that the legal download sites do not hold a wide enough range of music, the poll for a consumer website found.
Just under half (42%) of the internet users questioned have tried out one of the newer legitimate download sites, such as iTunes or Napster.
But four in five (80%) of those who use the web say that the music stocked on the majority of legal sites does not cater for their tastes, while one third (31%) say the tracks are too expensive. [more @ www.scotsman.com]
The music industry has been fighting a very slow battle of attrition with its customers for decades, and it’s time the industry started listening to its customers and stopped biting the hand that feeds it.
At the heart of music’s internecine conflict with its customers is the issue of copyrights, but from another perspective, this is a pure customer relationship management issue, and the industry has mishandled it from the get-go. The customer is simply telling the vendor how he or she wants to transact, and the vendor is doing a good imitation of the “hear-no-evil” monkey. [more @ www.crmbuyer.com]
usic-grabbing net geeks will not be the death of the music industry, and more and more, musicians closer to the mainstream are proving they understand that they can co-exist with folks downloading music, even those doing it illegally.
The last time Angie Aparo came to Columbus, he barely needed an excuse to go into a impassioned tirade on the topic. The way to make illegal downloading obsolete, he said, is simple: “By making something so great they have to own it,” he said. “If you make (stuff) people have to own, you’d win.” [more @ www.ledger-enquirer.com]
Price will continue to be not merely “an incentive” but a driving force, and if the music industry would marry that fact with the potential offered by P2P, it would start making money, help eradicate its so-called “pirate” problem and also begin to persuade its customer bases that it once again has something to offer. [more @ www.technewsworld.com]
Thousands of people have signed up to call their congressional representatives Tuesday to protest the Induce Act, a controversial copyright bill that many fear would undermine the legal protections that allow consumers to make personal copies of music or movies they’ve bought.
The Induce Act, officially known as the Inducing Infringement of Copyrights Act (SB2560), was introduced in June by Sens. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont). It would hold technology companies liable for making products that encourage customers to infringe copyright.
[more @ www.wired.com]
Koch Entertainment Distribution, the largest independent record distributor in the country (US), laid off its entire field marketing staff late last week, eliminating 20 jobs, according to sources. [more @ www.reuters.com]