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[The Infinite Dial] The Most Important Thing I've Ever Written

Thu, 18 Mar 2010 12:12:46 GMT

[Music Ally] Murdoch: ‘All media is going to go on to the iPad’

Thu, 18 Mar 2010 11:21:13 GMT

News Corp mogul Rupert Murdoch is a paid-up member of the iPad fanclub, judging by his comments in an interview with his own Fox Business Channel.

“All media is going to go on to the iPad, whether it be music or books or newspapers or movies, you’ll be able to get on your iPad… they’ll get better and better and you’ll be able to do more tricks with it.”

He also returned to his criticisms of search engines from Google and Microsoft, for the way they supposedly cannibalise News Corp’s content.

Anyone want to place a bet now on Murdoch falling out with Apple in a year or two’s time over Apple’s controls on iPad content?

[Music Ally] Study claims online piracy could cost 1.2m European jobs

Thu, 18 Mar 2010 11:17:30 GMT

Research commissioned by the International Chamber of Commerce claims that 1.2 million jobs across the EU are at risk in the next five years, due to online piracy.

It suggests that piracy could cost more than €240 billion of revenues from the music, film, TV, software and other creative industries by 2015.

The survey also indicates that the UK could be the worst hit, with a quarter of a million jobs at risk. BPI boss Geoff Taylor has backed the findings: “We’re approaching a tipping point where investment in our talent will dry up due to mass illegal downloading”.

There may be criticism of the research’s methodology if it turns out that the €240bn figure is based on the assumption that every illegal download is a lost sale, though.

[Sandbox.fm] Slacker Radio to let unsigned bands create their own stations

Thu, 18 Mar 2010 11:13:15 GMT

Online radio service Slacker has confirmed its deal with Hello Music, which will allow unsigned bands to create their own branded stations on the service.

The stations will feature their name, photo, bio and several of their songs – which must be originals rather than covers – while also playing related artists. Slacker has around two million active listeners according to CNET.

It’s one of the partners for Hello Music’s new virtual A&R service, which aims to cherry-pick talented unsigned artists and help them get onto commercial music services.

[Sandbox.fm] YouTube unveils Musicians Wanted initiative for indie artists

Thu, 18 Mar 2010 11:09:09 GMT

YouTube has taken the wrappers off its new Musicians Wanted scheme, which lets independent and unsigned artists create their own YouTube channels and share in the advertising revenues around their videos.

It means they get access to the same features as bands signed to larger labels. Artists still have to apply to take part in the initiative, via YouTube’s Partners Program, but once accepted, they can also add purchase buttons for music, tickets and merchandise to their videos. For now, it’s US-only.

You might have heard of one of the first applicants: OK Go. “YouTube has always been a great match for OK Go – creativity flourishes and we can connect directly with our fans,” says frontman Damian Kulash.

“So when we heard about Musicians Wanted, it was a no-brainer: it sounds great for us. We’re honored and excited to be the first applicants. We can’t wait to get new videos up on our channel.

In separate news, YouTube says that 24 hours of video is now uploaded to the site every minute. A reminder that simply getting your videos onto the site – with or without your own channel – is just the start of the process. Getting people to find and watch them is the real challenge.

The promo video for Musicians Wanted is embedded below:

[Sandbox.fm] Youtube Makes Deals With Independent Musicians

Thu, 18 Mar 2010 10:56:31 GMT

Unsigned musicians in the US now have the opportunity to approach Youtube directly to strike deals to monetise their videos on the site. There’s an initial approval process which artists must complete that involves uploading tracks and information for Youtube’s approval. The things they’re looking for are potential rights issues and general audio and song quality.

Once approved artists will share in revenues generated from pre and post roll ads placed within their videos, this means that they will still make money even if they’re embedded outside of Youtube. There’s also the potential for an e-commerce element by building in purchase buttons for music, tickets and merchandise.

[TorrentFreak] Bogus Piracy Report Misleads EU Legislators

Thu, 18 Mar 2010 10:55:17 GMT

The entertainment industry is known to commission reports and research that hugely benefit their lobbying practices. A new report, “Building a Digital Economy” was released yesterday. This report investigates the impact of piracy on Europe’s creative sector and was paid for by the same industry.

As expected, the reports paint a disastrous picture. In just 5 years from now the total number of lost jobs in Europe could grow to 1.2 million and the lost revenue for the industry may skyrocket to €240 billion in the same time frame. The report was quickly praised by anti-piracy outfits including the BPI and IFPI who will use it in their political lobbying efforts.

Of course, those who took the time to take a good look at the report will have seen that there are many assumptions and statistical tricks that led to these outrageous claims. We will discuss a few of them below and show that depending on what sources are used, one could come to entirely different conclusions.

- The report suggests that there’s a direct correlation between Internet traffic growth and lost jobs. That is, the more traffic that is generated on the Internet, the more money will be lost. This correlation is 1 according to the report, which assumes that all growth in Internet traffic will increase piracy at the same rate.

- The report makes another bogus assumption by stating that more traffic will mean more piracy and thus more lost revenue. It does not account for the fact that people might consume higher quality files which are greater in file-size. All projections are based on bandwidth and not the number of pirated goods.

- The report cites some academic literature which suggests that piracy leads to a decrease in sales. Studies that reported the opposite or a null-effect were carefully left out. This bias defines the entire outcome of the report. If they used studies that found a positive effect they would have found that piracy would create hundreds of thousands of jobs in the years to come.

- The report uses fixed substitution rates. They assume that 10 downloaded albums results in one lost sale and this figure is not adjusted for the projected increase in piracy. One would think that the public’s budget for entertainment is limited and that the substitution rate would go down as piracy goes up.

- Related to the previous point, if the industry did indeed lose over €240 billion in revenue by 2015, consumers would have a lot of extra cash to spend. Depending on where this money was spent it might create more jobs than the entertainment industry claims it is losing. As a report commissioned by the Dutch Government showed last year, the overall effect of piracy on the economy might actually be positive.

- It gets even more ridiculous when we take a closer look at the claims. In the UK consumers spent €6.3 on audiovisual products. If the projected trends continued, the ‘lost’ revenue because of piracy would exceed the actual revenue, meaning that the music and movie industries would end up having to pay people for pirating their products.

- Lastly, the researchers seem to have trouble putting a decent report together as they messed up the legend of one of the critical figures. In this figure the bars for “file-sharing” and “global Internet traffic” are switched around. This makes us skeptical about the other statistics that are published in the report.

We can go on for a while listing the many implausibilities and research failures but we have to draw a line somewhere. Unfortunately, most news outlets won’t take the time to read through the report, meaning that these figures will be re-posted without questioning the source.

Both the UK Pirate Party and the Open Rights Group have responded to the report criticizing its one-sidedness and propagandistic nature.

“I am fed up of hearing corporate propaganda being deployed in order to justify intrusions on our rights to freedom of speech, privacy and to a fair trial,” Jim Killock, Executive Director of the Open Rights Group said in a comment on the report.

“The claimed losses of £1200 per household in the UK are clearly ludicrous. I certainly don’t know anyone who has an extra £1200 in their pockets thanks to piracy,” Pirate Party UK leader Andrew Robinson added.

The entertainment industry lobby, however, has already managed to get support from various politicians in the EU Parliament and will continue to use the report to justify their call for tougher measures against online piracy. We can only hope that the majority of them will see through the misleading setup and bogus numbers.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

[Sandbox.fm] Plastikman launches innovative iPhone app for live gigs

Thu, 18 Mar 2010 10:53:38 GMT

This makes a change from the barrage of news/tweets/videos artist apps. Techno artist Plastikman has launched SYNK, a free iPhone app that’s a companion to his 2010 world tour.

It’s described as “an experiment in audience-performer interaction, blurring the lines of perception and participation”, which piqued our interest.

Fans attending a Plastikman gig are asked to fire up the app before the performance starts and connect to the dedicated Wi-Fi network at the show.

Features include the ability to interact with the live samples being used; a video stream giving “an internal perspective of the performance”; and synchronising the stage LED wall with the iPhone screen.

Heaven knows how much this is costing, but it’s a really interesting project nonetheless. In between shows, the app still has a use, acting as an “atmospheric location shifter: Using the iPhone’s built in microphone and accelerometer, users will be immersed in a Plastikman environment”.

Which sounds a bit like RjDj’s apps for Little Boots and Air, although this app appears to be the work of Plastikman – aka Richie Hawtin – and a couple of developers.

[The Register - Music and Media] Sex.com auction delayed

Thu, 18 Mar 2010 10:04:40 GMT

[The Register - Music and Media] 'Google TV' plants Chrome on Android set-top

Thu, 18 Mar 2010 09:36:02 GMT

[The latest on digital from MusicWeek.com] Slacker Radio opens up to unsigned bands

Thu, 18 Mar 2010 08:25:00 GMT

[Inside Music Media] The Price of Stealing Music (When Caught) Is Coming Down

Thu, 18 Mar 2010 07:02:00 GMT

[P2P News!] Living in an App Driven World

Thu, 18 Mar 2010 06:33:13 GMT

According to market studies conducted by the Yankee Group, there is currently an insatiable interest in both paid and free applications among many different categories of costumers. The company’s updated prognosis now approximates total US application revenue in 2010 to revolve around the staggering figure of $1.6 billion, compared to initial projections of $537 million.

The research firm believes the application frenzy will gradually lead to bigger sales over the next few years, until the $11 billion margin is reached, by 2014. These revised forecasts were produced after observing the consumers’ tendency to spend more money on higher quality phone applications, which already accounts for an increase in paid downloads of almost 30% this year.

Although not cheap, iPhone applications are in high demand, each consumer downloading an average of 60 a year, well over three times more than the average smartphone user. Consumption of free applications has also increased significantly. Along with paid applications, the total projected figure for such downloads is 6 billion by 2014.

Market studies reveal that games, search and social networking applications are consumers’ favorites, suggesting people mainly download these as a form of entertainment, with less emphasis being placed on overall practicality.

Despite the favorable prognosis enjoyed on short-term, with the peak set around the year 2014, the popularity and demand for both categories of paid and free applications is expected to plummet once the market saturates and developers focus on designing more versatile Web-based solutions. Until then, however, Yankee Group believes that many more companies will emerge into the market, leaving no other option for existing popular brands but adopt better strategies of promoting their offer, in order to maintain their dominance and maximize their profits.

In an interview for eMarketer, Jeremy Lockhorn, director of emerging media and video innovation at Razorfish, stated that application developers would soon need to consider substantiating promotional budgets to increase the exposure of their products if they are to stand a chance against the continuously growing competition. Without proper advertising, their offer will only sink into the sea of other brands once introduced into the market, thus failing to attract the eye of the targeted consumers.

(via mediapost)

[P2P News!] China’s Great Firewall Blocks IsoHunt

Thu, 18 Mar 2010 06:20:13 GMT

China adheres to its policy of restricting access to file-sharing sites, having recently added the Canada-based BitTorrent site IsoHunt to the country’s infamous Great Firewall. Since the order has entered in effect, the number of IsoHunt Chinese visitors has spiraled down dramatically, with site reports indicating a 99% drop in traffic.

According to experts, the statistically registered decrease in traffic is so pronounced that any technical difficulties have to be excluded from the overall picture. By the end of last week, IsoHunt had only received 1,349 visitors from China compared to 131,362 a few days before.

Curiously, the Chinese authorities have made no public statements regarding the ban of IsoHunt, although there is speculation that this decision to block access to the site may be linked to the P2P site mass closedown program undergoing in China.

Gary Fung, the man behind IsoHunt, announced on the TorrentFreak blog that he advises Chinese users who want to access the site further should connect using a foreign proxy. Despite admitting that China never produced a substantial amount of traffic to the site, Fung strongly opposes the authorities’ decision to deprive Chinese users of the site’s services, and considers that the ban will have a major impact upon the controversial net censorship plan instituted by the local government.

Fung encourages P2P site users to take stance and publicly express their discontentment regarding the ban of IsoHunt. Pointing out that Chinese authorities are known to have oscillated between enforcing and canceling site ban orders over the last few years, he believes that by exerting pressure against the decision through public opinion could be effective, giving the Wikipedia case as an example.

At least for now, other popular foreign BitTorrent sites such as The Pirate Bay and BTjunkie remain untouched by the grasp of the Great Firewall and can still be accessed by Chinese users, although these online resources are permanently held in check by the local authorities’ censorship movement.

[Indie Music Tech] Urban Music Licensing with Affix Music

Thu, 18 Mar 2010 03:59:00 GMT

Music licensing continues to be a hot topic at conferences like MIDEM and SXSW because it's a growing opportunity for artists and labels - from games to widgets, and revenue from licensing will increase over the coming years (about €1.2 billion in Europe alone by 2014 according to Forrester Research). However, this has created a flood of licensing companies attempting to capitalize on the opportunity - another one launched just yesterday. Given the crowded space, and the competitive nature of licensing, it seems that carving out a niche will be important for providing deep expertise to a particular audience about a specific type of music. Affix Music is one such company taking this approach with a focus on urban music, and according to these stats included in their video below, it's a big enough opportunity by itself:

as of 3/10/2010, 8 of the top 10 music videos on MTV are urban artists
as of 3/10/2010, 16 of the top 20 music videos on YouTube are urban artists
as of 3/13/2010, 8 of the top 10 artists on Billboard's Hot 100 are urban artists
as of 3/13/2010, 9 of the top 10 ringtones are from urban artists

[Fast Company] The Secret to Funny or Die's Success: Celebrities, Product Placement, and Above All Else, Funny

Thu, 18 Mar 2010 02:07:34 GMT

[Fast Company] Today in Most Innovative Companies

Thu, 18 Mar 2010 00:34:24 GMT

[sampled + sorted] Wow, this is a real screen — er, screens — with the...

Wed, 17 Mar 2010 23:35:00 GMT

[Digital Media Wire - Music] iPad Subscribers to Figure in Total Magazine Circulations

Wed, 17 Mar 2010 23:22:01 GMT

[Billboard.biz - News] @SXSW: Winning Strategies For Direct-To-Fan Sales and Marketing

Wed, 17 Mar 2010 21:50:09 GMT

[Techdirt] Yet Another DRM Failure Leaves Customers High And Dry

Wed, 17 Mar 2010 21:48:00 GMT

[L.A. Times Tech Blog] Federal judge approves Facebook 'Beacon' class-action settlement

Wed, 17 Mar 2010 21:12:57 GMT

After reviewing objections, a San Jose federal judge has approved a $9.5-million settlement of a class-action lawsuit over social networking site Facebook’s program Beacon that published what users were buying.

Facebook denied any wrongdoing but agreed to end the Beacon program last November.

As part of the settlement, Facebook will fund a “digital trust fund” that will issue more than $6 million in grants to organizations that study online privacy. Over the objections of privacy advocates, Facebook will have a seat on the fund’s three-member board. The board consists of Chris Jay Hoofnagle, who heads the Berkeley Center for Law & Technology; Tim Sparapani, Facebook’s public policy director; and writer Larry Magid.

"We're pleased that Judge Seeborg has approved the settlement after carefully considering all opinions,” Facebook spokesman Barry Schnitt said. “The independent foundation will fund worthy projects helping protect and improve Internet users’ privacy, safety and security. We look forward to providing additional details on the foundation in the weeks and months ahead.”

One privacy advocate said he’s exploring whether he can appeal the decision. “This sweetheart deal for Facebook is outrageous, and another indication they don't really want to ensure privacy online,” said Jeffrey Chester, executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy.

-- Jessica Guynn

[L.A. Times Tech Blog] Umair Haque responds to SXSW criticism of his interview with Twitter CEO

Wed, 17 Mar 2010 20:51:56 GMT

"So, how was your week?" asked Umair Haque in his first blog post since his widely panned interview of Twitter CEO Evan Williams at SXSW. "Mine was interesting."

"In short, the Twitterati in the audience thought our hourlong chat was about as interesting as watching a pair of grandmothers play Canasta. I'll be the first to admit to being a bit green as an interviewer, and entirely new to SXSW. Maybe, in hindsight, I should have monitored Twitter on my laptop from the stage so I could have adjusted our conversation ... especially in front of a raucous audience not known for leniency. In any case, I apologize to the SXSW community that our conversation didn't live up to the significant pre-event hype."

The post, which goes on to delve into what Williams had to say during the interview, is getting a lot of re-tweets.

-- Jessica Guynn

[L.A. Times Tech Blog] Where are Twitter users going?

Wed, 17 Mar 2010 20:32:47 GMT

As most Twitter users know, a significant portion of the social network's value comes from all the interesting links that send users from one part of the Web to another.

Market-research firm Hitwise recently decided to see where all those Twitter users go when they leave Twitter.com. The firm found that most folks go to entertainment sites and other social networks.

According to Hitwise, about 60% of Twitter users go to entertainment sites or social networks after leaving Twitter.com. Out of that group, the majority of folks visit photo- or video-sharing sites.

That won't surprise hard-core Twitter users. The social network is inundated with links directing users to a person's images on photo-sharing services such as TwitPic, Tweetphoto and YFrog. YouTube is also a popular video destination link on Twitter.

After social networks, Hitwise found that about 7% of Twitter users surf to search engines, while 5% go to lifestyle sites. Just under 5% of users head to news sites.

All told, Hitwise found that destination sites are seeing a 138% uptick in visitors from Twitter.com compared with the same period last year.

In other words, Twitter isn't the only site benefiting from its immense growth.

-- Don Reisinger

twitter.com/donreisinger

Image: A graph showing where Twitter users are going. Credit: Hitwise

[Billboard.biz - News] Ad Spending Fell 12% In 2009

Wed, 17 Mar 2010 20:28:07 GMT

[FutureBlog] The Cloud vs. the Paradise of Infinite Storage

Wed, 17 Mar 2010 20:20:54 GMT

[TorrentFreak] Danish Pirate Bay ISP Block Gets Supreme Court Date

Wed, 17 Mar 2010 20:11:59 GMT

Following a court case initiated by the IFPI, in February 2008 a Danish judge ruled that ISP Tele2 had to block its customers from accessing The Pirate Bay. The music group had successfully argued that that Tele2 was assisting in mass copyright infringement by providing its subscribers access to the tracker.

Sebastian Gjerding, spokesperson for Piratgruppen, a pro-piracy lobby whose goals include the reformation of copyright law, was outraged by the news.

“The verdict is absurd. It will block access for Danish users to the world’s largest distributor of culture and knowledge – copyrighted or not,” he told TorrentFreak. “It’s true that you can access copyrighted material through The Pirate Bay, as you can with Google or Rapidshare. Should they be blocked as well?”

Very quickly controversy hit the ruling when it was revealed that Kristian Løkkegaard, the only expert witness in the case, was previously employed by the Johan Schlüter Law Firm who worked with the IFPI on anti-piracy cases.

Nevertheless, later in 2008 the Eastern High Court upheld the ruling. Tele2 said they would fight on and in April 2009 a Danish appeals body accepted a petition from Telenor to take the case to the Supreme Court.

“We are pleased that we now have the opportunity to find out whether it is Internet Service Providers’ responsibility to ensure the closure of a website,” said Telenor’s regulatory chief Nicholai Kramer Pfeiffer.

The same question has just been clarified to the north of Denmark in Norway, where the courts gave two clear decisions that there is no legal basis under Norwegian law for ISPs to block The Pirate Bay.

The answer to the Danish question is not far away now, as a date has just been tabled for the Supreme Court hearing. Three hours have been set aside to hear the case on 20 May 2010 starting at 9:00am.

Unusually for this type of hearing both sides will be present in person and the public will be allowed to view proceedings although seating is limited.

A final decision is expected to be handed down around a week later.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

[Digital Media Wire - Music] Report: Mobile Apps to Outsell CDs by 2012

Wed, 17 Mar 2010 20:04:23 GMT

[EFF.org Updates] Hooking Up The Big Brother Machine... And Fighting It

Wed, 17 Mar 2010 20:03:43 GMT

[L.A. Times Tech Blog] Outgoing FTC commissioner dings Google, Internet companies on privacy

Wed, 17 Mar 2010 19:26:45 GMT

Actor Marlon Brando once said: “Privacy is not something that I'm merely entitled to, it's an absolute prerequisite.”

He probably would not have appreciated how the Internet is peeling away the last vestiges of privacy.

And neither apparently does outgoing Federal Trade Commissioner Pamela Jones Harbour, who said Wednesday that Google, Facebook and other major U.S. Internet companies need to better protect the privacy of their users or face stiff penalties.

The views she expressed were her own, and not those of the FTC, she said.

"I am especially concerned that technology companies are learning harmful lessons from each other's attempts to push the privacy envelope," Harbour said during an FTC privacy workshop, according to PC World and other accounts. "Even the most respected and popular online companies, the ones who claim to respect privacy, continue to launch products where the guiding privacy policy seems to be, 'Throw it up against the wall and see if it sticks.'"

Harbour, who is leaving the FTC next month, says she advocates “intolerance” toward companies that push the privacy envelope only to backtrack when consumers protest that their data has been publicly exposed.

Exhibit A: Google’s February launch of social networking tool Buzz inside of millions of Gmail accounts, which prompted a flurry of privacy complaints. Harbour accused Google of “irresponsible conduct” and questioned why the technology leader had not learned from past product launches that sparked controversy.

She also cited a comment from Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt during an interview with CNBC: “If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place.”

"Google consistently tells the public to 'just trust us,'" she said. "But based on my observations, I do not believe consumer privacy played any significant role in the release of Buzz."

“Unlike a lot of tech products, consumer privacy cannot be run in beta,” she said.

Google spokesman Brian Richardson said in a statement to the Wall Street Journal that the company made changes to Buzz's privacy settings within 48 hours. "When we realized that we had unintentionally made users unhappy, we worked quickly to make immediate changes,” he said.

-- Jessica Guynn

Photo: Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt. Credit: Matthew Staver / Bloomberg News

[Business: Music industry | guardian.co.uk] Net piracy puts 1.2m EU jobs in peril, study shows

Wed, 17 Mar 2010 19:20:15 GMT

[L.A. Times Tech Blog] VirnetX is awarded $106 million in patent infringement suit against Microsoft

Wed, 17 Mar 2010 18:51:12 GMT

A Texas jury awarded nearly $106 million to a California communications company after deciding that computer technology giant Microsoft Corp. had violated two of its patents.

VirnetX Holding Corp., based in Scotts Valley, originally asked for $242 million in damages. But the jury, in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, recommended on Tuesday that Microsoft pay $105.7 million.

The trial lasted for a week in Tyler, Texas, and dealt with Microsoft products including Windows Vista and XP. The award involves $71.7 million for one patent and $34 million for another, the company said.

The jury also found that the Redmond, Wash.-based software behemoth willfully infringed on the patents. The patents deal with methods of creating virtual private networks, or VPNs, between computers and for establishing VPNs using secure domain names.

VirnetX spokesman Greg Wood said company executives were “obviously just overjoyed.”

“Yesterday, the foundation of the tech world shifted,” he said. “We are sitting on a goldmine. We probably have the most important patent portfolio in history in regards to security, and yesterday was instrumental in validating that.”

The company’s stock jumped nearly 14%, up 77 cents to $6.36, Wednesday afternoon. The stock was not publicly traded on Tuesday.

Microsoft said it was disappointed by the verdict and planned to appeal.

“We respect others’ intellectual property, and we believe the evidence demonstrated that we do not infringe and the patents are invalid," said spokesman Kevin Kutz in a statement. “We believe the award of damages is legally and factually unsupported.”

-- Tiffany Hsu

[L.A. Times Tech Blog] Facebook's search updates focus on speed

Wed, 17 Mar 2010 18:20:38 GMT

Facebook has started rolling out a new search feature designed to help users get to their desired destination much quicker than they have in the past.

According to Facebook, the site's search tool will now provide results in a drop-down box below the search box as users input a query. But unlike the previous version, which only displayed friends as users typed, the drop-down box will now include "people, events, groups, and Pages."

Facebook said that the results will be limited to items that users are "connected" with, connections with friends and "globally relevant results."

The new feature is aimed at helping Facebook users find content they want sooner. It's also designed to help users discover new content that would have otherwise been difficult to find.

Facebook plans to roll out the new search tool to users over the coming days. It should be interesting to see if the new feature will add value to the site's search or become an annoyance that makes it even more difficult for users to find their what they are looking for.

-- Don Reisinger

twitter.com/donreisinger

Image: Facebook's search update in action. Credit: Facebook

[Billboard.biz - News] Business Matters: Topspin, YouTube, AOL and more

Wed, 17 Mar 2010 18:13:28 GMT

[Lifehacker] Move Your iTunes Library to Another Computer with iTunes 9 Home Sharing [ITunes]

Wed, 17 Mar 2010 18:00:00 GMT

[Crenk] MOG Launches its Mobile Music Streaming App and Pricing at SXSW

Wed, 17 Mar 2010 17:54:12 GMT

MOG the US streaming music service that is on the rise has just launched its mobile app for iPhone and Android at SXSW.

MOG’s current web service costs $5 a month, but users wanting access via mobile too will pay $10. The app includes local cacheing to listen to music when a user loses their connection. The apps will launch in the second quarter of this year, and CEO David Hyman has revealed that in the UK, the service will cost £5 and £10 without or with mobile access.

The pricing may have implications for Spotify’s upcoming US launch – in Europe it charges £9.99 / €9.99 a month for its premium service, including mobile access. Spotify boss Daniel Ek gives his SXSW keynote tonight…

[News com] Heineken scores a Web hit

Wed, 17 Mar 2010 17:43:07 GMT

[RAIN: Radio And Internet Newsletter - articles] RAIN 3/17: Radio legal experts offer free guide to music licensing issues

Wed, 17 Mar 2010 17:37:02 GMT

[Reuters] Internet piracy taking big toll on jobs

Wed, 17 Mar 2010 17:02:16 GMT

[GigaOm] “All You Can Eat” Music Services Still Don’t Have Everything You Want to Hear

Wed, 17 Mar 2010 17:01:57 GMT

Music subscription services promise unlimited access to enormous libraries of songs, typically on the order of 6-10 million tracks. And while a few superstar artists are famously absent from streaming services as well as Apple’s iTunes -– the Beatles and Garth Brooks among them -– my experience testing out several services has left me frustrated in other ways.

Indeed, there are plenty of empty trays at the all-you-can-eat music buffet, though some will leave you hungrier than others. Use one for awhile, and the gaps in its catalog soon become apparent. Try two or more, and the inconsistencies among them become downright baffling.

Most of the services claim to provide access to the full digital catalogs of all four major labels and a slew of independently distributed recordings, most delivered via aggregators such as IODA and the Orchard. But why is MOG missing the first two Tom Petty albums, while Thumbplay has them all? Why does Spotify – at least the preview version I’m testing here in the U.S. – have only two or three Bob Dylan albums, when its competitors have dozens? Why is Rhapsody the only one that has Grizzly Bear’s “Veckatimest,” an acclaimed independent-label album that entered the Billboard chart at No. 8 last June?

As I’ve learned from conversations with subscription providers, obtaining a complete and stable catalog of music is hardly as simple as working out a contract with a label or distributor. Songs and albums are constantly blinking in and out of view as ownership rights change hands, reissues are prepared, and songwriters and performers change their minds as to where they want their songs to be heard. Some labels handle their own distribution rather than going through aggregators, meaning that individual deals have to be struck in order to make their catalogs available. Geography can be a factor, as licenses vary from country to country. What’s more, a glitch in something as simple and unsexy as the file metadata that identifies a song –- a missing capital letter here, a misspelling there –- can render a track invisible to the consumer, even if it’s properly licensed by the subscription service.

Filling holes in the catalog is time-consuming and labor-intensive. (As MOG’s director of content licensing, Buzzy Cohen, told me, “Finding the holes is harder than filling them in.”) Companies with deeper financial resources and more personnel will have the upper hand when it come to chasing down rights holders one at a time in an effort to maintain a more complete catalog, so it makes sense that the older companies are more successful at it than the new ones — and explains why Rhapsody’s service, which has been around for more than eight years, satisfies my searches more consistently than any of its upstart rivals.

Though the causes are manifold and the companies’ efforts to fill the gaps are admirable, it’s frustrating to music fans when our searches aren’t satisfied, and even more irritating when songs in a playlist disappear without warning. And as consumers choose from among several services — or choose not to subscribe at all — holes in the catalog can ultimately be a dealbreaker.

Post and thumbnail photos courtesy of Flickr user samsmith

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[The Infinite Dial] The Most Important Thing I've Ever Written

[Music Ally] Murdoch: ‘All media is going to go on to the iPad’

[Music Ally] Study claims online piracy could cost 1.2m European jobs

[Sandbox.fm] Slacker Radio to let unsigned bands create their own stations

[Sandbox.fm] YouTube unveils Musicians Wanted initiative for indie artists

[Sandbox.fm] Youtube Makes Deals With Independent Musicians

[TorrentFreak] Bogus Piracy Report Misleads EU Legislators

[Sandbox.fm] Plastikman launches innovative iPhone app for live gigs

[The Register - Music and Media] Sex.com auction delayed

[The Register - Music and Media] 'Google TV' plants Chrome on Android set-top

[The latest on digital from MusicWeek.com] Slacker Radio opens up to unsigned bands

[Inside Music Media] The Price of Stealing Music (When Caught) Is Coming Down

[P2P News!] Living in an App Driven World

[P2P News!] China’s Great Firewall Blocks IsoHunt

[Indie Music Tech] Urban Music Licensing with Affix Music

[Fast Company] The Secret to Funny or Die's Success: Celebrities, Product Placement, and Above All Else, Funny

[Fast Company] Today in Most Innovative Companies

[sampled + sorted] Wow, this is a real screen — er, screens — with the...

[Digital Media Wire - Music] iPad Subscribers to Figure in Total Magazine Circulations

[Billboard.biz - News] @SXSW: Winning Strategies For Direct-To-Fan Sales and Marketing

[Techdirt] Yet Another DRM Failure Leaves Customers High And Dry

[L.A. Times Tech Blog] Federal judge approves Facebook 'Beacon' class-action settlement

[L.A. Times Tech Blog] Umair Haque responds to SXSW criticism of his interview with Twitter CEO

[L.A. Times Tech Blog] Where are Twitter users going?

[Billboard.biz - News] Ad Spending Fell 12% In 2009

[FutureBlog] The Cloud vs. the Paradise of Infinite Storage

[TorrentFreak] Danish Pirate Bay ISP Block Gets Supreme Court Date

[Digital Media Wire - Music] Report: Mobile Apps to Outsell CDs by 2012

[EFF.org Updates] Hooking Up The Big Brother Machine... And Fighting It

[L.A. Times Tech Blog] Outgoing FTC commissioner dings Google, Internet companies on privacy

[Business: Music industry | guardian.co.uk] Net piracy puts 1.2m EU jobs in peril, study shows

[L.A. Times Tech Blog] VirnetX is awarded $106 million in patent infringement suit against Microsoft

[L.A. Times Tech Blog] Facebook's search updates focus on speed

[Billboard.biz - News] Business Matters: Topspin, YouTube, AOL and more

[Lifehacker] Move Your iTunes Library to Another Computer with iTunes 9 Home Sharing [ITunes]

[Crenk] MOG Launches its Mobile Music Streaming App and Pricing at SXSW

[News com] Heineken scores a Web hit

[RAIN: Radio And Internet Newsletter - articles] RAIN 3/17: Radio legal experts offer free guide to music licensing issues

[Reuters] Internet piracy taking big toll on jobs

[GigaOm] “All You Can Eat” Music Services Still Don’t Have Everything You Want to Hear

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