Apple to credit song purchases towards full album sales?

Apparently, Apple is finally working out a new type of deal with the major labels to allow for the purchase of single songs on iTunes to act as “credit” towards the purchase of the full album - at least within a limited time frame of the original download. This type of deal has been rumored before in the past, but the news comes from the New York Times, citing "people involved in the negotiations.” Still not sure what kind of time period Apple has in mind or how many labels it has on board, but this makes a lot of sense to me!
[Via Ars Technica]

EMI Moves Into Online Video?

Gotuit is among scores of new sites that are being compared to YouTube - the big difference is that it serves up mainstream music videos, news and sports, and does not include any user-generated content. They also don’t allow external embedding on sites like MySpace, hi5, Friendster and blogs. Gotuit is supported by 15 second ads between clips, and no doubt EMI is getting a good cut of that revenue. They have some social features too, like sharing a link via email and creating a list of favorites, but in reality the social aspect is much less apparent than on the YouTube contenders - Metacafe, iFilm and the rest. Copyright holders probably love the fact that Gotuit is so locked down, but for the users, it’s not such a good deal.

What’s not clear is whether this rules out a deal with YouTube - could EMI partner with both video sites, or have they already made their move into online video?

Here’s the press release.

Questionable Statistics For mp3 Players & Mac Marketshare

While a bit long, both of these articles are well written and make some pretty valid points.

MARKET SHARE MYTHS:

Market Share vs Installed Base: iPod vs Zune

Market Share Myth 2007: iPod vs Zune and Mac vs PC

Sony Introduces New Online Mastering Services

Sony Music Studios recently announced a new audio mastering service that is only available online. Any audio track that you upload is quickly mastered by award winning Sony engineers and returned digitally in 2 business days for only $99 a song; physical deliverables are also available for an additional cost.. (According to the website, the service is still in beta...)

It seems to me that they're trying to tap into the exploding social networking market because their FAQ section states, "SIM is designed to be a smooth, efficient, and affordable service for any artist using online services like MySpace or PureVolume" and as a result - only allows 4 songs per project...

IFPI publishes Digital Music Report 2007

RESOURCES - IFPI publishes Digital Music Report 2007

Digital sales now account for around 10% of the music market as record companies experiment and innovate with an array of business models and digital music products, involving hundreds of licensing partners.

SUMMARY:

- Digital music sales estimated to double to around US $2 billion in 2006
- Single track downloads estimated up 89% at 795 million
- Available tracks double to four million, via 500 online services in over 40 countries worldwide
- Portable music players help drive digital music consumption
- New revenue streams and business models emerge
- Lawsuits impact illegal file-sharing, but "gatekeeper" ISPs must act to curb digital piracy

Favorite Quote of The Week

...In the digital realm, the differences between performances and distributions,downloads and streams, push and pull, they all begin to blur into one immutable fact: The digits that constitute a phonorecord have been transmitted from one point to another. Period.

What differences exist -- intentions and results-oriented, after-the-fact analyses of whether or not the content was buffered along the way, how many times, and for what reasons -- are not easily measured or monitored for purposes of public policy. The digital delivery of art is inherently anarchistic, and itis hard to argue for or against any one hand reaching into the pool for compensation...."

Jim Griffin - Pho List

52 Million wireless multimedia-capable devices to sell by 2010

52 mln wireless multimedia-capable devices to sell by 2010 by ZDNet's ZDNet Research -- Industry adoption of next-generation specifications will provide a substantial boost to the market for wireless multimedia networking, prompting growth in excess of 50 mln wireless network devices by 2010. Parks Associates predicts that annual sales and shipments of wireless multimedia-capable devices, including home networking gears, personal computers, and fixed and mobile consumer electronics, will grow [...]

More 2006 Nielsen Music Stats...

Major Record Label Market Share:

- Universal Music Group remained No. 1 with 31.6%
- Sony BMG Music Entertainment came in at 27.4%
- Warner Music Group had 18.1%
- EMI held onto 10.2%

(That's great to know, but let's also not forget to report on the Indie digital market share, with last cumulative accounting of physical and digital at approximately 28% of the global music market and growing...)

Digital albums represent 5.5% of all albums sold. Warner Music continued to build on its digital market share, rising 1.72% to 23.29% of the digital album universe. UMG is at 27.4% of all digital album sales, Sony BMG 24% and EMI 10%.

Year's data from Nielsen SoundScan revealed that customers are not going to record stores like they used to. (Uhhhh....really....Is that becasue they're all in bankruptcy!) Chain stores saw just 41% of tall sales, down from 48% two years ago. Indie music stores account for 6% of all sales, down from 7% last year and 9% in '04.

Mass merchant outlets like Wal-Mart and Target accounted for 40% of all sales, (but don't forget that Amazon sells more physical CD's than anyone!)

As has been the case for the last two years, 20% of all sales occurred during the last six weeks of the year. (When will the major labels ever learn that this strategy helps no one in the long run....?)

Online Music Services That Help You Find New Music

From USA Today, here's a list of 6 music recommendation/discovery services that are pretty easy to use and mostly free...To be honest, I'd never heard of Goombah, but MusicIP is my personal favorite...although Pandora is pretty compelling too...Try them out and see which one is your favorite! I guarantee they'll bring an added dimension to your listening pleasure :-)

• MusicIP Mixer: Generates instant mixes inside your iTunes collection
  
• Goombah: Matches you with folks with similar tastes after analyzing your iTunes collection. Free downloads
  
• Soundflavor DJ: Playlist generator for iTunes can point you to concerts and recommended music
  
• iLike: Lets you compare the music you are listening to with friends and get downloads from GarageBand.com
  
• Pandora: Builds customized radio stations based on songs or artists you enter
  
• Last.fm: Compiles vast reservoir of listening data from members to provide recommendations

Some Interesting Music Statistics...

"According to the Music Marketing Network, with 40% of the USA's 177 million internet users going online for music, by placing your music online, you gain a potential audience of 70 million. Globally, with 404 million total internet users, your potential audience grows to 161 million."

"...The statistics are in and Nielsen Soundscan cited a "dramatic increase" in digital download music sales for 2006. InStat reported that digital downloads generated over $2 billion in music market revenue and anticipate over $4 billion in 2007. The question is whose market share will increase the most in 2007?"

AACS is Unbreakable!

It's pretty amazing when you think about how hard Hollywood has fought to lock down video content and then a video like this shows just how easy it really is to make a personal copy or backup of DVD's that you buy...

P2P Digital Video Downloading Outpacing Legal Alternatives 5 to 1

The NPD Group posted a press release last week that confirms what everyone already knows - Adult-oriented content is the most popular genre among those who dowload video files via P2P. The research also indicates that:

• Among U.S. households with members who regularly use the Internet, 8 percent (six million households) downloaded at least one digital video file (10MB or larger) from a P2P service for free in the third quarter of 2006.
  
  
• Nearly 60 percent of video files downloaded from P2P sites were adult-film content, while 20 percent was TV show content and 5 percent was mainstream movie content.

New Radio Study Completed by FOMC

(Via press release) The Future of Music Coalition publicly released its report this week documenting the effects of radio station ownership consolidation on musicians and the public.

Data in the 116 page report shows that station ownership consolidation at the national and local levels has led to fewer choices in radio programming and harmed the listening public and those working in the music and media industries, including DJs, programmers and musicians.

Key points included in report:

* The top four radio station owners have almost half of the listeners and the top ten owners have almost two-thirds of listeners.

* The 'localness' of radio ownership – ownership by individuals living in the community -- has declined between 1975 and 2005 by almost one-third.

* Just fifteen formats make up three-quarters of all commercial programming. Moreover, radio formats with different names can overlap up to 80% in terms of the songs played on them.

* Niche musical formats like Classical, Jazz, Americana, Bluegrass, New Rock, and Folk, where they exist, are provided almost exclusively by smaller station groups.

* Across 155 markets, radio listenership has declined over the past fourteen years, a 22% drop since its peak in 1989. The consolidation allowed by the Telecom Act has failed to reverse
this trend."

New Akamai Index Measures Real-Time Global Consumption of Online Music

(from press release) The Akamai Net Usage Index for Digital Music is the world's first and only daily Web traffic benchmark that tracks where and when digital music is being consumed on a global basis. Key to the relevance of the index - is the fact that Akamai is the delivery platform for many of the leading global digital music companies - giving it a unique view into the daily Web traffic of music streaming and music download websites.

Akamia's index tracks and benchmarks global Web usage patterns of visitors to more than 40 digital music websites, including music download sites, music destination sites, and live radio broadcast services, such as XM Satellite Radio, Clear Channel, Premiere Radio, MTV, Rediff.com and Napster, among others.

According to Brad Rinklin, vice president of Marketing, "The Net Usage Index for Digital Music data will help the industry by providing empirical data on consumer behavior and online music."

Data collected from the Index over the past three months shows key geographic patterns and insight into Web traffic trends associated with downloaded and streamed digital music:

• North America, Asia, and Europe represent the bulk of visitor traffic to these sites
• Daily peak traffic worldwide is more than half a million visitors per minute
• Traffic peaks in North America and Europe tend to occur mid-week, while peaks in Asia and Australia come toward the end of the week
• Sunday is consistently the slowest day for visitors to these sites

The Index provides a global aggregate view of total visitors per minute, as well as a detailed view by continent, from a collection of digital music sites delivered by Akamai. All of the sites included in the index provide digital music streaming or downloads as their core business. Akamai's Net Usage Index offers businesses real-time information about the usage habits of visitors to their sites, and an industry benchmark to measure against. Anyone interested in data from the Index can view an aggregate, real-time view of Web traffic patterns online.

Superdistribution = ZUNE's Compensated Sharing + WEEDSHARE

With all the ZUNE-bashing lately, here's an interesting article from last Wednesday's Good Morning Silicon Valley, which talks about one of the most innovative and distinguishing business models out there called WEEDSHARE and Microsoft's recent desire to use it....no...copy it....umm...I mean share it :-) It's been updated twice since the original post (with some inquisitive patent comments at the end) and also picked up by Gizmodo.

The key point here is that the folks over at Weedshare are now sitting in the pole position to fully "exploit the intellectual property on which a core feature of a major Microsoft product is based."