Label:Life

The world’s biggest record company is not ready to give the compact disc up for dead just yet, and is giving the venerable music format a revamp.

Universal Music Group, home to artists such as U2 and Mariah Carey, is rolling out three new tiers of CD packaging in Europe, ranging from lush deluxe editions down to bare-bones cardboard sleeves that are designed to compete with albums sold online.

Despite the hype about online music stores like iTunes, the huge majority of music is still sold on CDs, usually inside the “jewel boxes” that have been around for decades.

“We thought we should reboot the consumer’s experience of buying CDs,” said Max Hole, executive vice president for marketing and A&R at Universal Music Group International. “Ninety percent of what we sell is physical goods, and the CD hasn’t had much of a revamp in the last 20 years.”

More@reuters

Once the scourge of the music industry, digital downloads are now officially “the way forward” for the “Big Four” record labels – EMI, SonyBMG, Universal and Warner Music, which together control over 70% of the world’s recorded music – now that they have numbers to justify it, anyway.

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The monetization issue is tricky not least because at the end of the day music is just one content purchase option among many, says Marcel Fenez, Asia-Pacific leader of Entertainment & Media Practices at PriceWaterhouseCoopers.

“Music is competing for consumer entertainment dollars from other sectors, and they are all growing much faster,” he says.

For example, video games will grow 13% CAGR in the next few years, driven by online and wireless sales, while pay TV content revenues will grow 10%. Sports revenues will grow 8%, and film 6%.

More@telecomasia

Record companies are hoping the mobile phone will help save the radio star after technology was unveiled yesterday that could allow listeners to buy any song playing on any station at the touch of a button. UBC Media Group, the company that developed the technology, said a trial would begin next month in the Birmingham area, with a full consumer launch expected within 12 months.

Record labels, buffeted by digital piracy in recent years, and commercial radio stations suffering an advertising drain to the internet hope the digital solution will help them to fight back. But it will pose another challenge to high street record stores, already struggling to compete with the convenience of digital downloads.

More@guardian

Music retailer Tower Records will unveil its digital music download service on Tuesday, complete with 1.2 million tracks priced at 99 cents per song. Powered by Puretracks, tracks would be provided in Windows Media Format, Reuters reports.

As with the company’s brick-and-mortar stores, Tower’s digital store will provide a range of music across many genres not commonly found in other retail chains. Additionally, the company plans to offer the files encoded at a higher bitrate to increase sound quality.

Any player that can support protected Windows Media files would be able to use the service, which means users of the iPod cannot playback Tower’s tracks on their players. Songs would be downloaded from the Tower Web site, and would be burnable to CD.

More@betanews

Cash strapped teenagers are topping up their music collections with cheap legal downloads, as online music outstrips CD sales.

A rash of copyrighted music download websites have launched in China over the past few months, offering rapid access to the latest pop hits for around one yuan (13 US cents) per song.

Of course Internet search engines can still pick up illegal free download sites, but all the talk of intellectual property rights (IPR) makes some people feel guilty about stealing music online.

Instead of breaking the law they can now visit legal sites such as top100.cn, which boasts a million-song catalogue.

Browsers might be looking for Taiwan heartthrob Wong Leehom, for example. And sure enough, he’s there, with his latest album, “Heroes of Earth.”

And here lies the new media’s real selling point the entire album can be downloaded for 10 yuan (US$1.25), opposed to about 40 yuan (US$5) to buy the CD.

More@chinadaily

oca-Cola says it will close its British online music service mycokemusic.com on July 31, after losing market share to Apple Computer’s iTunes Music Store.

Mycokemusic launched in Britain in January 2004 and quickly became the biggest online music download service there in brand recognition and sales. But it was overtaken later in the year by iTunes, which launched a dedicated UK site in June 2004.

Mycokemusic posted notice of the closure on its Web site. Mycokemusic also sent e-mails to music fans who had registered with the site.

Coca-Cola had positioned the site as a mix of brand promotion and music store.

More@smh

Warner Music Group said on Monday that it had signed a distribution deal with China Unicom Ltd., China’s second-largest mobile phone operator, to sell its music over the wireless network.

The record company, which is home to artists including Madonna, Green Day and Sean Paul, said the direct catalogue distribution agreement would offer a range of ring tones and voice greetings by Warner artists marketed over the operator’s CDMA and GSM networks to China Unicom’s 130 million customers.

Warner Music said it was the first major record company to establish a full affiliate in China in 2000.

A source close to the company said that in light of the high piracy rates in China, the company had been keen to find a partner who had a similar incentive to ensure that the music was distributed safely and legitimately.

More@reuters

The Orchard, the world’s leading distributor and marketer of independent music, and MU-YAP, the Turkish performing rights organization for phonogram producers, today announced that The Orchard has been selected to serve MU-YAP as its global and distribution partner. Through this partnership, the Orchard will distribute and market approximately 80% of Turkey’s music. The agreement marks the first major initiative by The Orchard’s recently-opened Istanbul office, which is overseen by industry veteran Metin Uzelli. (more…)

AllofMp3.com. The very name conjures up either great respect or distain. Copyright holders continue to pressure the Russian government to obliterate this music service; while consumers enjoy high quality music at a cut rate price.

AllofMp3.com has managed a extraordinary level of popularity because many feel it represents what an online music service should be. The music service contains no DRM (Digital Rights Management), allowing the consumer to copy and transfer the purchased track to whatever device he or she wishes while compensating artists.

In addition, AllofMp3.com’s selection of file formats rivals, if not exceeds, that of many P2P networks. Most tracks are available in a variety of formats, including MP3, OGG, FLAC, WMA, and AAC.

Full Story at sliyck

The AllofMP3.com Statement is after the jump. (more…)

The firm behind the defunct Qtrax online file-swapping network has inked a licensing deal with Britain-based EMI Music and aims to relaunch later this year as an ad-supported recording industry-friendly online music service.

Qtrax was among several peer-to-peer file-sharing applications that emerged following the shutdown of Napster, the pioneer service that enabled millions to illegally copy songs stored in other music fans’ computers.

Creator LTDnetwork Inc. stopped distributing Qtrax after a few months following its 2002 launch to avoid potential legal trouble.

More@mercurynews