AOL, the most boring of all ISPs, is jumping into online music, after purchasing Musicnow.com. They’ll be offering a subscription music service similar Napster, Yahoo, and others. Cost? $10 a month for unlimited subscription downloads, and $15 if you want to transfer them to a compatible DAP. Will it work? Maybe. AOL is more “mainstream” than Napster for instance.
Any owner of copyright can license anything. What changes is whether you can control anything as a copyright, or if you try to monetise the anarchy. It#039s very easy to point fingers at the record industry, but the people on the Napster side of the desk have crossed and are trying to find legitimate ways of making P2P work. The industry has to trat the Net like radio and TV
Shannon Ferguson, Yahoo Music Europe said: Both ad-supported and subscription with be the model for Yahoo Music Europe. We compete more against the free music than against other music subscription services. I think there is some price senstivity. Less people have taken the portable tier and that#039s a reflection of the fact that there#039s not enough portable devices out there.
MusicBites is live blogging from the MusicAlly debate on “Does Digital devalue Music“. The line-up: Keynote address: Adam Singer, Group CEO, MCPS-PRS Alliance Thomas Gewecke, SVP Digital, Sony BMG Panel discussion: John Benedict, Partner, Benedicts Grant Tim Clark, Partner, IE Music Wayne Rosso, CEO, Mashboxx Shannon Ferguson, Director, Yahoo Music Europe Chair: Paul Brindley, MD, MusicAlly
Thomas Gewecke, SVP Digital, Sony BMG started by saying “we#039re big”. “Piracy distorts everything and takes away from the underlying value of music.” “Digital is now an integral part of our producing music. It is a fundamentally part of the work we create.” “That activity is going to grow. It changes everything we do in terms of promting and distributing.” “Digital does not destroy the CD, it creates a wide
Digital doesn’t devalue music. Absolutely not. But to whom does it deliver the value? There are proliferating opportunities to create black boxes – hiding revenue from artists. Digital can help to deliver transparency. As artists representatives this is what we want to talk about. Digital can deliver this and there#039s no reason why it shouldn#039t. Culturally we are worse off is artists are worse off. Artists need protecting – anyone
Adam Singer MCPRS: “The music industry is first and foremost about harnessing ther technology. If copyright and tech grow up together then you also change the nature of copyright.” “Nature dislikes difference. Similarly in the music industry, copyright must adapt to new technology. “How do we react? There is a cultureof fear among music industry executives addicted to the past.” He quoted Stanley Baldwin “We should accept this is a
Click to download the video or subscribe to the video/audio podcast.
Digital Music Weblog reviews iTunes 6: It concludes it is “functionally and cosmetically the same as iTunes 5 for the most part; the big difference, of course, is the presence of videos in the iTMS catalog. Music videos form the bulk of that catalog addition, but the most significant part of the iTunes 6 package is the TV section. It does not replace DVRs or revolutionize television habits, as iTunes
So, to wrap up from the Apple announcements. A new iMac G5, with nice DVD controls. iTunes with music videos (2,000 of them) to buy, and the ability to subscribe to video podcasts – plus user recommendations and collaborative filtering which will increase the “Long Tail” of the store. The new iPod plays video. A deal with Disney to time-shift 6 leading US TV shows (not a big deal, but