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Now What
August 11, 2006
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"When it comes to the future, there are three kinds of people: those who let it happen, those who make it happen, and those who wonder what happened."
-- John M. Richardson, Jr.For several years now, the RIAA (other than attacking piracy, still a pretty lame excuse for an industry association in my opinion, but as always, if you disagree please e-mail me with your opposing thoughts) and labels have waged war against a number of high-profile P2P websites and filed lawsuits against several thousand individuals for downloading copyrighted music content.
Of course Napster was the first target in the crosshairs and it was eventually shutdown and turned into an online music store. Other sites simply went away because they couldn't afford to settle with the labels, and some came back and tried to (or are still trying to) make it by selling downloads.
But with all the time, money, resources, ad campaigns about how downloading hurts the industry and artists, and stealing music is illegal, the fact is that CD sales are still declining globally at a pretty good pace. There's simply no solid evidence to prove that all the efforts of the RIAA and the labels have had any impact on all on stopping people from downloading and/or swapping music online.
In fact, there are many who believe that illegal downloading is more rampant than ever on "darknets" ( which shield the identities of those sharing information ) which fly beneath the radar screens of the RIAA, and on small Intranets shared by small user groups. (From this newsletter a year ago on 8/5/05: "Darknets are going to be with us," said J.D. Lasica, author of "Darknet: Hollywood's War Against the Digital Generation" --John Wiley & Sons, 2005. "Serious file traders have been gravitating toward them. There is just this culture of freedom that people feel they're entitled to, and they don't want anyone looking over their shoulders." )
In January of 2004, Sen. John Sununu (R-N.H.) and seven other senators criticized the RIAA's practice of suing alleged file-sharers. Calling the legal moves of the RIAA heavy-handed and against the intent of both copyright laws and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Sununu said: "The fundamental problem with the approach of the RIAA is that it was based on legislation that created special property rights. Suddenly, you had a private entity that's able to issue subpoenas, which is unprecedented. That's not what the DMCA was intended to do. We can't be writing legislation that gives holders of certain types of intellectual property special rights...We can't carve out special legislation to give special powers to certain types of content."
We're over halfway into this decade and it's quite apparent that: a) there's no way to legislate technology already developed (i.e., there ain't no turning back the hands of time that gave us the Internet, the home PC, and all the rest); b) no matter what efforts are taken, it is virtually impossible to eradicate P2P file-sharing; c) CD sales will continue to slide as online digital sales increase.
Of course many make the argument that iTunes (and other online stores) make music disposable. Really? How about the fact that the great bulk of music being released today is disposable and people are fed up paying $12-$15 for a CD that contains only 1 or 2 good songs. If any label executive thinks iTunes and iPods cannibalize CD sales, then they should stop putting out the 'NOW THAT'S WHAT I CALL MUSIC - VOLUMES.' Don't the huge sales success of those compilations cannibalize CD sales by individual artists as well? Doesn't the success of these compilations prove the industry has a much bigger problem at large (i.e., artist development...artists that make great albums that are worth the money) more than iTunes and iPods?
As for the artists, we need only ask Bono and U2, Wilco, the dozens of other artists who believe in selling music online (and have had great success doing so), whether they've found the iTunes model beneficial.
More important, there is a whole bunch of research that shows that having music online for sale (and in some cases even on illegal P2P sites) is actually stimulating the consumer who's looking to buy something worth the money. (If you want references to specific articles about that, just e-mail me)
So, now what? I don't pretend to have the answers or remedies to these problems at hand. But I do know that sooner, rather than later (when it's too late), the industry needs to create new strategies for a secure future. I've been saying that now for almost four years. As of yet, I see no evidence of a major shift in attacking these problems at hand or a major effort on the part of the RIAA to participate in bringing possible technology partners to the table to create strong alliances that can be symbiotic to both the music companies and tech companies.
Why aren't new paths being explored? Why are so many in the industry doing little or nothing as they worry if they'll still have jobs next year?
A NOTE ALL LABEL EXECS WHO STILL DON'T THINK THE CD/DVD FORMAT IS A CROWD PLEASER:
An expanded edition of Bruce Springsteen's latest album, "We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions," will arrive in stores October 3, a month later than originally planned. The "American Land Edition" of the Columbia Records set takes its name from a Springsteen original that debuted at the tail end of a recent North American tour. The album will also contain an extended version of the behind-the-scenes documentary on the album's creation, videos for "American Land" and "Pay Me My Money Down" directed by Thom Zimny, and live footage from June shows in Los Angeles and Concord, Calif.
Again, Springsteen or not, this is an album with insignificant airplay, no video play, and certainly NOT a mass-appeal commercial outing. Kudos to Columbia for believing that the CD/DVD format is not only viable in the marketplace, it can generate sales beyond expectations.
Google: We Won't Sell Music
The company appears to be putting the brakes on expectations for a retail play in music and other areas of digital entertainment. Don't look for Google to get into digital music sales anytime soon.
The Internet search giant used a keynote slot at the annual NARM (National Association of Recording Merchandisers) conference to quash rumors of a so-called "Gtunes" store--much to the delight of retailers attending the confab.
"We are not going to be selling music," Chris Sacca head of business development for Google, said in a Thursday address to music merchants and distributors during the August 2-5 event in Kissimmee, Fla.
Read more about it by clicking here.
Dell Reflects On 25 Years Of PCs
The man who founded the world's largest PC company thinks the best is still to come after a quarter-century of the IBM PC.
Twenty-five years have passed since IBM launched its version of the personal computer. Apple Computer may have captured the attention of early computer hobbyists with its first products, but IBM's PC made the business world sit up and realize that personal computers could be much more than toys.
Michael Dell started off using PCs to create homework shortcuts, the way many young people at the time discovered the new devices. Few people, including Dell's parents, realized exactly how large the potential was for the personal computer. More than 20 years after he founded PC's Limited, he admits his parents never quite embraced his decision to leave the University of Texas at Austin to start the company that would eventually bear his name and record $56 billion in revenue during its last fiscal year.
Read more about it by clicking here.
Sony Readying Wi-Fi IM/Music Device
Sony said it is set to introduce its first wireless broadband communications and entertainment device, aimed at heavy users of instant messaging.
Sony's new "mylo" personal communicator is a hybrid electronic device that competes with a range of gadgets already on the market, including the Sidekick, created by Danger, and Nokia's 770 wireless Internet mini-tablet.
The name mylo stands for "my life online" and provides users access to online instant messaging services, HTML Web pages, e-mails, and to play music or view photos. Mylo will be available in September retail for about $350, Sony said.
Read more about it by clicking here.
MTV, Still Clueless After All These Years
Opinion By Stanley CrouchLast week, MTV celebrated its 25th anniversary, marking a quarter of a century after having conceived of the first actually new thing in popular television entertainment since "American Bandstand" and "Soul Train."
The music video became a big deal through MTV and not only updated the old "soundies" once shown in movie theaters to feature singers and instrumentalists. It also revolutionized the making of films by acclimating its audience to the extremely fast crosscutting that had been pioneered in television commercials, where the faster the message arrived, the better. In the process, the MTV audience learned to see much more quickly and recognize what sometimes quite surreal montages were saying or what they were alluding to - no small accomplishment.
Of course, that is not the whole story of MTV, which also came to project the most dehumanizing images of black people since the dawn of minstrelsy in the 19th century. Pimps, whores, potheads, dope dealers, gangbangers, the crudest materialism and anarchic gang violence were broadcast around the world as "real" black culture.
Read more about it by clicking here.
Dylan Teams With iTunes
Bob Dylan has teamed with Apple Computer's iTunes Music Store to offer fans who preorder his new album through the retailer first crack at tickets for shows on his fall tour. "Modern Times," Dylan's first release in almost five years, is due Aug. 29 via Columbia. Preorder participants will receive a ticket presale code the following day, giving them a week-plus jump on the Sept. 9 general public on sale. Tour dates have yet to be announced. The iTunes version of "Modern Times" will feature five bonus Dylan videos: "Cold Irons Bound" (shot during the filming of the feature "Masked & Anonymous"), "Blood in My Eyes," "Things Have Changed," "Love Sick" (from the 1998 Grammys) and "Jokerman."
Read more about it by clicking here.
Nokia To Buy Music Distributor Loudeye
Nokia said on Tuesday it had agreed to buy U.S.-based digital music distributor Loudeye for $60 million as the world's largest handset maker aims for a bigger slice of a potentially lucrative market.
Nokia said it had offered $4.50 per share in cash to Loudeye shareholders, 2.5 times Loudeye's closing price of $1.77 on Monday.
"We see the acquisition price as reasonable," Nokia's spokesman Kari Tuutti told Reuters. "Loudeye has extensive know-how in the music industry."
Read more about it by clicking here.
Actors Seek New Scale For New Media
As advertisers shift their television focus to include more Internet and mobile forms of video advertising, what's an actor worth?
That's exactly what actors and advertisers are trying to determine.
The American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA) and the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) have been negotiating with the advertising industry's ANA/AAAA Joint Policy Committee on Broadcast Talent Union Relations (JPC) to extend its Commercials Contracts collective bargaining agreement--the rules that govern compensation for artists appearing in TV and radio commercials--to the Internet.
Read more about it by clicking here.
Find An MP3 Player
You're probably wondering IF portable music players will go the way of the audio cassette, thanks to increasingly music-capable cell phones. Not quite. Dedicated audio players are far from obsolete.
MP3 players fall into two main categories: hard drive and flash memory. Hard drive players range from 3GB to 100GB, though most fall in the 8GB to 30GB range. Some newer flash players-one example is the SanDisk Sansa e270, which takes a swipe at the iPod with SanDisk's iSheep campaign -- currently top out at 6GB. But most players fall in the 512MB to 4GB range.
Read more about it by clicking here.
EMI Offers Music Catalog To Qtrax Network
The EMI Group record label has licensed its music catalog of more than 1,000 artists to Qtrax, a legal peer-to-peer network owned by Brilliant Technologies. Qtrax, which has yet to be released, also has licensing agreements with several other music corporations, such as BMI and the Association of Independent Music.
Read more about it by clicking here.
Studios To OK Copying Movie Downloads To Disc
Accused often of being anti-consumer when it comes to digital media, the movie industry has plans to relax controls over how films are copied to DVDs.
In the past, watching a movie downloaded off the Web meant viewing it on a PC. Soon, people will be able to copy a digital movie onto a specially made DVD under rule changes expected to be adopted by the DVD Copy Control Association, the group that produces the technology designed to prevent DVDs from being copied.
Digital movies, which are offered by such companies as CinemaNow and Movielink, have so far failed to catch on with the public. One of the big complaints from consumers has been that downloaded movies are prevented from being copied to disc and, thus, watched on TV sets. The reason for this is that Hollywood studios feared downloads would be easily pirated. Despite the precautions, unauthorized films continue to be distributed on the Web.
The latest move by the association fits with Hollywood's overall strategy to combat piracy by offering consumers a legal, inexpensive and convenient way to obtain digital movies so they won't bother to steal them.
Read more about it by clicking here.
Windows Vista and the Future of Hardware
Whether you ever plan on upgrading to the upcoming Windows Vista or not, one thing is clear: Its impact on the world of PC hardware will be huge. This time they are not talking about building a Vista system today, but rather, about what new types of hardware Windows Vista will spawn. This new generation of hardware will affect your future buying decisions.
Windows Vista will alter design aspects of just about every subsystem on the PC-CPU, memory, storage, and graphics. Given Microsoft's dominance in the industry, the company is able to influence the hardware industry in a number of ways.
This article takes a look at the key areas today and then analyze how Vista could affect the entire PC ecosystem, including non-Windows based systems. There's also a slideshow that you can click on and see some of what Windows Vista will offer.
Read more about it by clicking here.
MTV Networks Buys Gaming, Video Sites
IN ANOTHER MOVE TO EXTEND its online presence, Viacom's MTV Networks Wednesday said it agreed to purchase Atom Entertainment for $200 million.
With the acquisition, MTV Networks will gain Atom Entertainment's four major units: gaming sites Shockwave.com and AddictingGames.com, and short-form video sites AtomFilms.com and AddictingClips.com. Combined, the sites drew about 9.3 million unique visitors last month, according to comScore Networks.
Read more about it by clicking here.
THIS WEEK'S 'WHO CARES' NEWS ITEMS
ITEM#1: Jennifer Lopez pulled out of the upcoming 'Dallas' movie. Actually, considering all the movies made from old TV shows that have flopped at the box office (including Michael Mann's current $130 million big screen version of 'Miami Vice'), probably one of J-Lo's better career decisions.
ITEM#2: Rome's Catholic, Jewish and Muslim leaders came together in a rare display of unity to condemn Madonna's plan to stage her mock-crucifixion scene on the Rome stop of her Confessions tour last week. All you guys did was just sell more tickets for the Material Girl.
ITEM#3: Rock star Travis Barker (who is he you might ask?...the drummer for Blink 182...now see if you can name their hits) and his Playboy Playmate wife Shanna Moakler, the stars of MTV reality show "Meet the Barkers," are calling it quits after less than two years of marriage. Another MTV show couple goes down in flames. Only problem is, after Nick and Jessica, Dave Navarro and Carmen Electra, this will be the couple that everyone asks "Who?"
ITEM#4: Pamela Anderson and Kid Rock tying the knot again, this time in Detroit. Well, she must really love him. Why else would anyone want to get married in Detroit?
ITEM#5: Even though they already announced they were divorcing, Carmen Electra officially filing for divorce from Dave Navarro Thursday, a day after rumors surfaced that he was dating porn-queen Jenna Jameson. Obviously Dave is wasting no time in getting back into the singles scene.
ITEM#6: The New York Post reporting that Vanity Fair magazine has scored the first shots of Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes' mystery baby and will run them sometime this fall. According to reports, baby Suri looks just like a million other babies.
PRINCE DOES THE SUPERBOWL
Prince signing on to perform at the 2007 Super Bowl halftime show, the New York Post reports. Obviously the NFL isn't worried about his having a "wardrobe malfunction." But then again, knowing Prince...
HICKS BIO NETS NICE GREEN
The New York Post reports American idol winner Taylor Hicks has signed a $750,000 deal with Random House's Crown imprint to write his memoirs, to be called 'Heart Full of Soul.'
PASSING
Arthur Lee, the lead singer of Love, an L.A. fixture band formed in the 60's, succumbing to leukemia Thursday at a Memphis hospital. He was 61.
IDOL NEWS
American Idol allowing both amateur and professional songwriters to compete for the chance to pen songs for the contestants next season, a spokesman for creator Simon Fuller said this past Monday. For one show? For all? Just how these songs will go over with the viewing audience, which is used to seeing Idol contestants sing established hit songs, is a big question.
NIX FOR THE CHICKS IN THE STIX
The Dixie Chicks canceling 14 concerts on the band's current tour due in part to poor ticket sales, but replacing the shows with additional North American dates, including some in Canada.
OBVIOUSLY YOU DON'T HAVE TO WIN TO GET YOUR DREAM HOUSE
American Idol finalist Chris Daughtry and his wife dropping $690,000 on a four bedroom house in the town of Oak Ridge, North Carolina. Gee, the record's not even out yet Chris. Let's hope it sells.
MORE ENTHUSIASM PLEASE
Larry David and HBO reaching a deal to produce a sixth season of 'Curb Your Enthusiasm.'
MEL'S NOT ALONE NOW
Robin Williams checking himself into rehab after finding himself drinking again after 20 years of sobriety. Maybe Mel Gibson's meltdown was all he needed to get straight.
THEN WHY DID THEY BOOK THEM?
Malaysian authorities fining the organizers of a Pussycat Dolls concert in Kuala Lumpur for allowing the singers to wear skimpy costumes and perform "sexually suggestive routines" onstage.
PEACH STATE RECOGNITION
Gregg Allman, R.E.M., Jermaine Dupri, Felice Bryant and Dallas Austin selected as the 2006 inductees to the Georgia Music Hall of Fame.
SOLO GLOW
Fergie of the Black Eyed Peas releasing her debut solo album, The Dutchess, on Sept. 19. "London Bridge," while the first single off the new album, is already topping the Billboard Hot 100.
THE ESSENCE OF A NEW RELEASE
Evanescence kicking off a fall tour in support of the band's upcoming album, The Open Door, on Oct. 5.
2006 Industry Conferences
Date Name Location CMJ October 31 - November 4 New York
Quotes of the week
"It's quite ironic: We got rid of our analog equipment, replaced it with digital, then spent the next couple of decades trying to get the digital to sound like the analog we got rid of."
-- David Williams"She's way too good for him."
-- Tommy Lee in Us Weekly, on his ex's union new union to Kid Rock. Don't worry Tommy, like your marriage to Pam, it won't last."People think I sleep with everyone, but I'm not like that. I like kissing, but that's all I do. I'm not having sex for a year, I've decided."
-- Paris Hilton to British GQ. Uh-huh, right...is Paris considering a comedy career?"I just start acting really surly and cranky until they leave me. I don't think anything's over the line when you want out."
-- Luke Wilson in 'Star', on his relationship bailout technique. No offense Luke, but that ain't original...it's the way a whole lot of guys have been doing it for a long time."Ruben Studdard is teaming up with Kevin Federline for a duet. So in other words it will be an American Idol with an idle American. I believe they're called 'Ebony and Hillbilly.'"
-- Jay Leno"My security guard is going to take me to a gun range when I get back to L.A., and I'm going to start taking shooting lessons."
-- Lindsay Lohan in an excerpt from an interview with September's Elle magazine. Based on Lindsay's reported behavioral problems, this is not a smart move."On the subject of drug testing someone else tested positive for too much testosterone. Rosie O'Donnell taking a test for 'The View'"
-- Jay Leno
NARIP Information
NARIP (The National Association of Record Industry Professionals) promotes career advancement, education and good will among record executives. To find out more about this great organization, how you can join or attend their events, just go to: www.narip.com.
The B-Side - 'Blips'
ONLY IN VEGAS, BUT THEN AGAIN, HE GUARANTEES HIS CLIENTS A MISTRIAL: LAS VEGAS -- A Las Vegas judge has declared a mistrial in a kidnapping case after finding the defense lawyer too drunk to argue on behalf of his client.
The judge took the action after ordering the lawyer to take a blood-alcohol test when he arrived late and was slurring his words. His blood-alcohol level was just below the legal driving limit for Nevada. The lawyer acknowledged in court that he'd been drinking the previous night but maintained he was not drunk.
The judge became suspicious after the lawyer said he'd suffered a head injury in a car crash while driving to court. And then a woman he identified to the judge as an ex-girlfriend confessed the pair had just met 20 minutes earlier at a bar.
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