Music Industry 2.0
Universal Music Digital Services has struck a deal with legendary roots reggae label Blood and Fire. The deal will involve digitizing the entire Blood and Fire catalogue and making it available across its entire partnership network including, Napster, iTunes, HMV and Virgin digital. (more…)
Melodeo, Inc., the innovator and first provider of mobile podcasting, today released Mobilcast™ software for Motorola’s newest line of phones, the Motorola ROKR and RAZR. Mobilcast provides users with fast, easy access to thousands of podcasts from entertainment and comedy, to news and sports commentary.
Melodeo’s Mobilcast technology, unveiled in August, allows users to search and download podcasts directly from their phones, over the cell phone network without a PC connection. The free software is available for download for select Nokia phones… Mobilcast for the Motorola ROKR and RAZR is currently in limited beta, and will be released more broadly in mid-October.
“The podcasting phenomenon is exploding worldwide and Melodeo is at the forefront with its Mobilcast technology,” said Jim Billmaier, CEO at Melodeo. “The ability to access podcasts from one’s mobile phone is not only a major industry milestone, but a surefire way to bring even more lift to this exciting trend.”
Never ones to sit on their laurels, pioneering elctronic music label Mute Records have launched Mute Station, an irregular sequence of transmissions from their London HQ.
Podcasting is the latest buzzword in internet broadcasting, where essentially a radio show is converted to mp3 and made available for download. Due to the fabulous success of Apples iPod (see the latest iPOD nano), the phrase Podcasting has stuck – much to Apple’s pleasure no doubt.
Warner Music’s chief expects digital and mobile music services to revitalize his industry.
The company’s chairman and CEO, Edgar Bronfman Jr., has been in the news recently, as he appears Apple’s most vociferous critic, at least in terms of price.
He delivered a keynote speech to mobile and entertainment industry executives at the CTIA Wireless IT and Entertainment Conference yesterday. He said: “I believe that the immeasurable value of music – as entertainment, as inspiration, as a means of personal connection and social interaction, and as an emotionally and spiritually nurturing force – music deliverable anytime, anywhere – will transform, in ways none of us can foresee, not only our business and your business, but the way life is lived.”
His glittering image for the future of music shows the importance with which he regards the content-owners maintaining control over price.
Brit bands Coldplay and Gorillaz are highly tipped for gongs at this year’s MTV Europe Music Awards, with five nominations each.
Coldplay are in the running for Best Group, Best Rock, Best Song for Speed Of Sound, Best Album for X&Y, and Best UK and Ireland Act.
MUSICAL training may improve a person’s health because the body becomes more sensitised to the relaxing rhythms in a piece of music, research suggests.
Doctors studied 24 young men and women who were asked to listen to short excerpts of music. Half were trained musicians, who had been playing instruments for at least seven years; the rest had no musical training.
Each volunteer listened to short tracks of different types of music, including Indian classical music, Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, a song from the rock band Red Hot Chili Peppers, Vivaldi, techno, and slow “dodecaphonic” music by Webern.
Faster music, and more complex rhythms, were found to speed up breathing and circulation, irrespective of style. Fast classical music and techno had the same impact.
China must shut down pirate music factories and jail the perpetrators if it is going to keep its promise to address the $250 billion-a-year problem, according to a top music industry trade group.
The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, which represents Sony Corp’s Sony BMG, Warner Music Group and EMI Group Plc. among others, reckons only 10 percent of music bought in China meets copyright rules, and only a small fraction of China’s 86 registered optical disc factories are producing legitimately.
“We cannot be satisfied with 90 percent piracy … no matter the good intentions,” the federations chief executive, John Kennedy, told Reuters in an interview.
The company behind the popular peer-to-peer network eDonkey has announced that the site is to shut down.
In a testimony to the US Senate Committee on the Judiciary, Sam Yagan, president of MetaMachine, said that he had informed the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) that he would cease to support the network.
The news follows last week’s closure of the WinMX file sharing service.
[The good/bad thing about eDonkey is that it does not need support from anyone to continue working as it always has.. ED]
Blood and Fire the Manchester based puveyor of fine Dub and Reggae, whose philosophy is to “bring the standard of reggae reissues up to the level of the best in jazz, blues, R&B”, has just done a deal with Universal Music Digital to encode its entire catalogue and redistribute it to online retailers.
Mobile specialists YR Media have today announced their intention to re-brand as Indie Mobile to highlight their focus on promoting and distributing music from the independent labels.
YR Media originally started as YourRelease Ltd in 2000, providing online and mobile marketing services for record labels. The company launched award winning agency brand YR Media in 2002, making a strategic decision to focus exclusively on mobile. Since this launch YR has become one of the leading mobile music aggregators in the UK representing over 75 labels and 60,000 tracks.
The company is being re-branded as Indie Mobile following a management buyout by Marketing Director Seth Jackson and a team of private equity investors. (more…)