Deezer's New Online Music Jukebox

I just stumbled across yet another Web 2.0 music site called DEEZER (actually not new, it’s Blogmusik redone) and am enjoying my free test drive.  Strangely enough, Google hasn't indexed their website yet, but the URL is www.deezer.com.

According to the website, they claim to offer a  5-in-1 service:

1-LISTEN for FREE to your favorite tracks with no Limitations
2-CREATE your own Playlists
3-DISCOVER new artists with their exclusive SmartPlaylisting
4-UPLOAD all your songs in your unlimited personal storage space and participate to their growing song data base
5-BLOG & SHARE your favorite tracks with your friends

The concept is simple:
-Give consumers a full and free access to all their favorite songs
-Pay artists and their producers through a revenue share based on our advertising revenues
-Help discovering new artists through a wide audience

**  I haven't seen much chatter about this "legal" streaming service, but Universal seems to NOT be happy about it.

I'd love to hear some of your thoughts and feedback of your experience after the weekend!

Ofcom Research Report Gives Dim View of Mobile TV

UK communications industry regulator Ofcom has released new research, Ofcom’s fourth annual Communications Market report, which looks at how new technologies affect consumers' media consumption. According to the report, 38% of mobile users now use their MP3 player less - due to their mobile being able to play music, while 51% use a portable radio, tape or disc player less.  This trend will only continue to grow and the handwriting is on the wall, so mp3 player manufacturers need to wake up and smell the coffee…..

 

But, there's bad news for the mobile operators though when it comes to mobile TV: only 10% of UK consumers are aware they can get it, and only 2% actually do so. In addition, over 50% of adults think mobile TV is "not at all valuable" when prompted.

 

NJ teen unlocks iPhone from AT&T network

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070824/ap_on_hi_te/iphone_unlocked
A 17-year-old hacker named George Hotz of Glen Rock, N.J has broken the lock that ties Apple's iPhone to AT&T's wireless network - freeing the most hyped cell phone ever for use on the networks of other carriers, including overseas ones.  I hope he doesn’t get into any trouble, but apparently there is no U.S. law against unlocking cell phones…

FLASH Grows Up & Adopts H.264 Video

Good news!  The free Adobe Flash Player was upgraded today and it includes support for the widely used industry standard H.264 codec as well as High Efficiency AAC audio support.

 

 

The True Cost of Sound Recording Piracy to the U.S. Economy

Executive Summary Text:

“Piracy” of recorded music costs the U.S. sound recording industries billions of dollars in lost revenue and profits. These losses, however, represent only a fraction of the impact of recorded music piracy on the U.S. economy as a whole. Combining the latest data on worldwide piracy of recorded music with multipliers from a well established U.S. government model, this study concludes that recorded music piracy costs American workers significant losses in jobs and earnings, and government’s substantial lost tax revenue.

 

 “There is little debate that U.S. sound recordings are “pirated” in vast numbers in the U.S. and in international markets. Piracy of these works harms the intellectual property owner, who loses the revenue that would have been gained had the legitimate recording been purchased. These “direct” losses, however, represent only part of the story. Piracy also causes significant and measurable harm to the “upstream” suppliers and “downstream” purchasers who also would have benefited from the sale of legitimate, copyright protected sound recordings. Indeed, the harms that flow from pirate activities produce a cascading effect throughout the economy as a whole. These harms include lost output, lost earnings, lost jobs and lost tax revenues.”

 

Download any MP3 from MySpace

If you’ve ever wanted to download a song from MySpace without stream ripping it, there’s now an easy solution for you called – MySpaceMP3.org.

 

According to the website “MyspaceMP3.org does not host any of the files, it just provides the link to download them.”  I haven’t tried it yet, but I’ll wager that it will become a pretty popular hack, since most MySpace users aren’t going to whip out their wallet for a paid download via SnoCap and the fact that that it will take a while to shut it down since it’s based in Spain….

Universal Music Snubs Apple - Releases DRM-free Music

There's been a lot of chatter lately about Universal's recent decision to offer DRM-Free tracks everywhere online, but I think the biggest flaw in this strategy (besides excluding iTunes) is that it's only an experiment and that it's only for some of the catalogue...The one smart move they did make was not to penalize the consumer for choosing a file that is interoperable...However, I still think the downloading business would grow much faster if mini-albums were bundled in 6 packs for a dollar...

 

Also, whatever happened to the old BMG business model, where you buy

12 physical albums for a penny and then over the course of a year you agree to buy 8 more at regular price?  I think the market is ready for this type of digital offer and Universal should incentivize their consumers to buy more legal music this way...For example, buy 10 downloads for a penny and then buy 5 more for $.99 cents.....?

 

Either approach is a win-win with more sales and satisfied customers......

Microsoft Escapes Patent Infringement

According to the WSJ, it appears that Microsoft has won the appeal for the 1.5 billion in damages in a recent court case with Lucent- Alcatel.  The case involved mp3 royalties related to Windows Media Player and would have been a huge setback to others in the industry who have been paying Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft for the right to use the encoders/decoders.  I was pretty sure sanity would prevail in this case and I’m glad to see the ridiculous decision has been reversed.

Apple iTunes Songs for Free....?

Here’s an interesting new blog all about the evolving business model that gives you free music (i.e. advertising supported).  Apparently from recent filings and public statements, Apple is at least considering jumping into this frothy space…The author, Marc Cohen, does a great job of sharing links to recent research that help fill in the blanks between all the hype…I liked it so much , I just added it to my RSS reader.

Score 2-0 For the Little Guy

This story is a significant victory for the ‘little guy’ in the David vs. Goliath saga the music industry is enduring, when earlier this week Judge Lee R. West sharply spanked Capitol Records for falsely suing Oklahoma resident Deborah Foster for alleged copyright violation via unauthorized downloading.. This case is extremely monumental in the fact that it’s the first time ever an RIAA member has been forced to pay attorney’s fees!

Net Radio "compromise" Hinged on DRM Adoption

• Here's a link to SoundExchange's press release:

...'The music industry is very worried about users recording Internet radio for the purposes of "disaggregating" music, and the message seems to be that if webcasters will scratch the industry's back, then a better deal is possible. Too bad it's a deal that could kill another potential avenue of fair use (recording radio), and limit users' ability to enjoy radio by limiting playback to clients that support DRM."

Same old story....gain an inch, lose a mile.....

Myth #1 - Airplay Leads to More Record Sales

Professor Stan Liebowitz from the University of Texas in Dallas has released a new research paper entitled “Don’t Play it Again Sam: Radio Play,

Record Sales, and Property Rights.”  The 40 page document “undertakes an econometric investigation of the impact of radio play on sales of sound

recordings using a sample of American cities. The results indicate that radio play does not have the positive impact on record sales normally attributed to it and instead appears to have an economically important negative impact, implying that overall radio listening is more of a substitute for the purchase of sound recordings than it is a complement. This finding indicates that creating a set of property rights to allow this market to function properly is different than has been suggested by prior research. New technologies affecting radio broadcasts are likely to make this topic increasingly important in the coming years. This research also exposes a fallacy of composition in applying to an entire market a generally accepted positive relationship that holds for individual units.”

 

 

Tuesday Links

• TiVo hooks up with Amazon to sell movies direct to homes
• Patrón Tequila Adds Viral Marketing With Online Social Community
• RIAA to feds: Make XM-Sirius pay more, restrict listeners' recording
• Web Rankings to Focus on Time Spent at Sites
• Video-Sharing Sites Jockey for Position In U.S.

IFPI: Recording Industry in Numbers

Favorite Koolaid quotes from IFPI’s latest Recording Industry in Numbers report released yesterday…

 

• “More owners of portable players buy music from legal sites (14 percent) than get songs via P2P or free sites (13 percent), and portable owners are more likely to buy music legally than Internet users in general.”
  
  
• “We should be in no doubt that it is in the ISPs’ hands that responsibility for tackling online piracy now lies.”

 

The Fall of the Record Business: What Next?

Here’s the synopsis of a recent Rolling Stone article.

I especially like Theory #6, which is the elephant in the room that no one really speaks of….

Theory 1: Ad-Supported Music
Theory 2: Peer-to-Peer Goes Legit
Theory 3: Endless Access Points for Music
Theory 4: Labels Change Their Stripes

Theory 5: Consumers Become Retailers

Hypothetical Theory 6: Music industry dies?

"The music industry as we know it ceases to exist due to mass piracy, which
effectively prevents the tracking of listening, as well as the collection of
royalties.  The labels in this world have no reliable way to generate
revenue, while simultaneously their ability to influence listeners is
diminished as users move toward algorithmic recommendation engines.
Instead, musicians abandon centralized labels and establish direct business
relationships with their fans through tickets, merchandise, and donations."
(David Barrett)