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The Road(S) Not Taken Go Nowhere
June 16, 2006
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"Look, Dave, I can see you're really upset about this."
-- The HAL 9000 computer in Kubrick's '2001: A Space Odyssey'.Four years ago I wrote in the newsletter (which was then going to less than one hundred people) the following:
' So now what? Is it over for the industry? Yes ... and no. As it exists today, the music industry is a monolith that grew in size because of mergers and by gobbling up smaller labels that showed great signs of success. (Many of who just did what the big labels used to do ... they focused on ARTISTS and ARTIST DEVELOPMENT)
The current and old monolith sales/distribution model is in its final stages as new media spreads like wildfires across the globe wherever people can plug-in and get connected. So yes, the old business model is over.
Downloading music on line will in fact become the primary distribution source for getting music to the consumer. (I guess you could say that with an estimated 60-100 million people downloading globally every day, you could say it already is the primary source. In countries with little or no retail or mass distribution, it already is) As you can see, things are moving F-A-S-T. '
Of course since writing that, we have seen the sales of online music explode. Last year, according to RIAA, income from digital sales of singles in the U.S. alone was $366 million, a 163% increase from the year before, and sales of digital albums were $135 million, an increase of 198%.
The iPod and iTunes have radically altered consumers listening and buying habits and many people have said that nothing rings a death knell louder for the industry than these technological developments. In fact, every iPod sold means another consumer is actively spending hard earned cash to LISTEN TO THE MUSIC THEY WANT TO HEAR. Research also verifies that iPod owners BUY music online and off in good quantities.
Of course, the issue of illegal downloading constantly resurfaces when we talk about online music, but the fact is simply that nothing has done more to convert people into BUYING and not stealing music online, than the iPod and iTunes. (No, this is not a paid Apple editorial)
With over one billion songs sold and still counting on iTunes, and iPods multiplying like rabbits (okay, plastic rabbits) among the population, there's a whole lot of positives that can be drawn from the fact that consumers are spending time listening to music more now than ever before. That's a fact, and one that all people in the industry should keep as a constant in their heads when making decisions that affect long-term strategies inside the corridors at all labels, management companies, etc.
There are no reasons why new creative strategies cannot revitalize the industry and in fact, give birth to an industry renaissance of sorts. All it takes is the willingness to explore the opportunities already available via technological developments. New weapons for increasing sales and engaging consumers even more are out there right now. But if not used, or even explored as to how they can be beneficial, then the task of securing a strong future for the industry is in jeopardy.
"If your environment is changing, you must change with it. If you don't, you perish." - Curtis E. Sahakian
Apple changed the minute they saw what was coming down the highway. The industry just needs to head on down some new roads and catch up with what's going on out here with consumers. The rewards can be plentiful and beyond expectations.
N0TE TO ALL READERS: THIS IS A MUST READ FOR ALL!
Commentary: Keep The Internet Neutral, Fair and Free.
(CNN) -- Most Americans believe that if you play fair and work hard, you'll get ahead. But this notion is threatened by legislation passed Thursday night by the U.S. House of Representatives that would allow Internet service providers to play favorites among different Web sites.
Here's a real world example that shows how this would work. Let's say you call Joe's Pizza and the first thing you hear is a message saying you'll be connected in a minute or two, but if you want, you can be connected to Pizza Hut right away. That's not fair, right? You called Joe's and want some Joe's pizza. Well, that's how some telecommunications executives want the Internet to operate, with some Web sites easier to access than others. For them, this would be a money-making regime.
Next stop is the Senate. If this becomes law, your Yahoo Inc. e-mail account could operate more slowly, unless Yahoo ponies up big bucks to the major telecommunication companies that bring the Internet into your home. By the same token, your craigslist classifieds (I'm the Craig from craigslist) could grind to a halt, unless my company pays up. This is not fair.
You, the consumer, should be able to choose which sites you want to visit without the telecommunications companies interfering. What it really comes down to is this: The telecommunications executives say we should trust them to provide a level playing field of service, but can they be trusted to play fair?
Read more about it by clicking here.
EchoStar, DirecTV To Offer Satellite Broadband
Satellite television providers EchoStar Communications and DirecTV Group signed deals with WildBlue Communications to offer satellite-delivered high-speed Internet service, WildBlue said Friday.
The service will be rolled out over the coming months and will be 30 times faster than dial-up Internet connections.
EchoStar said its service will be called DISH High-Speed Internet powered by WildBlue and will be targeted toward EchoStar's customers in rural markets.
Read more about it by clicking here.
Wi-Fi Music Player Cuts Out The PC
There are numerous music subscription services on the market, such as those from Virgin, Yahoo and MTV, that let you download all the music you want to your home computer, then transfer it to your portable player. But what if you can't wait that long?
What if you need to grab some new tunes between classes or on the way to a meeting? For you impatient and forward-looking types, there's the MusicGremlin, which uses a direct wireless link to a music store to cut out the middleman--your PC--from the music-gathering equation.
Read more about it by clicking here.
EMI Courts YouTube To Help Fight Pirates
Record label EMI Music Publishing is talking to YouTube, Revver and other video upload sites about alliances that would help it monitor and curtail misuse of its copyrights--and loss of advertising or download sales--from unauthorized music videos that are posted to their sites.
"We're actively trying to strike relationships (with user-generated video sites) for the showing of our music videos," Thomas Ryan, EMI Music's senior vice president of digital and mobile strategy, said Wednesday here at the Piper Jaffray Global Internet Summit, a three-day confab of investors and Internet executives.
"It's our hope that those commercial relationships will help us remove infringing material that someone uploaded and we're not being compensated for," Ryan said during a panel discussion about online entertainment.
Read more about it by clicking here.
Service Lets People Rip Videos From YouTube & Other Sites
Two services run by two people in Australia are giving people new ways to access and use video content from sites like YouTube and Google Video, and copyright holders may well find themselves up in arms about it.
Known as Peekvid and Keepvid, the sister services are designed, respectively, to aggregate and index copyrighted YouTube content, and allow users to rip content from YouTube, Google Video and other services to their hard drives.
Thus, though YouTube prohibits anyone except legitimate rights holders--such as NBC Universal, EMI Records and many others--from uploading copyrighted content to its site, such content does get posted illegally, and these sister services make it possible to easily view, and download, a wide variety of such content. A recent survey turned up clips including World Cup highlights, Beatles and 2Pac Shakur music videos, episodes of "Seinfeld," an episode of "Lost" and dozens of other TV shows and music videos.
Read more about it by clicking here.
U.S. Joins Industry in Piracy War
The U.S. government has joined forces with the entertainment industry to stop the freewheeling global bazaar in pirated movies and music, pressuring foreign governments to crack down or risk incurring trade barriers.
Last year, for instance, the movie industry lobby suggested that Sweden change its laws to make it a crime to swap copyrighted movies and music for free over the Internet. Shortly after, the Swedish government complied. Last month, Swedish authorities briefly shut down an illegal file-sharing Web site after receiving a briefing on the site's activities from U.S. officials in April in Washington. The raid incited political and popular backlash in the Scandinavian nation ...
As more residents of more nations get high-speed Internet access -- making the downloading of movies and music fast and easy -- the stakes are higher than ever. The intellectual property industry and law enforcement officials estimate U.S. companies lose as much as $250 billion per year to Internet pirates, who swap digital copies of "The DaVinci Code," Chamillionaire's new album and the latest Grand Theft Auto video game for free.
Read more about it by clicking here.
iRiver Maker, Microsoft Team To Challenge iPod
South Korea's digital audio player maker Reigncom is teaming up with Microsoft and MTV to challenge Apple Computer's iPod.
"No hardware company can survive alone," Frank Lim, Reigncom's director in charge of marketing and planning for its iRiver players, said in an interview on Thursday. "We have shifted our strategy focus from music players to entertainment devices."
Reigncom's newest player, Clix, which won kudos from CNET experts, is a flash-based MP3 player with a 2.2-inch LCD screen that allows users to view movies and photos. It integrates Microsoft's Windows Media Player 11 along with Urge, a subscription-based music service from MTV Networks.
Lim said he expected shipments of Clix to U.S. retailers Best Buy and Wal-Mart Stores to start in July, in time for the back-to-school and crucial holiday seasons.
Read more about it by clicking here.
Nielsen To Track TV Beyond The Tube
Television audience tracker Nielsen Media Research on Wednesday unveiled wide ranging plans to expand its coverage to the Internet, mobile phones and other gadgets as it adapts to rapidly changing ways people view TV programs.
The move by Nielsen and sister company Netratings, upon whose research TV networks, Web sites and advertisers rely for setting advertising rates, could bring major changes to the TV industry as people increasingly watch shows outside the home or on computers, mobile devices and cell phones.
The new testing, which also looks at viewership in restaurants and expands the use of electronic metering to smaller TV markets, could also dramatically change the way viewership figures are tallied and might result in major shifts in the way advertising dollars are spent and received.
Read more about it by clicking here.
Hit ABC Shows Generating Plenty Of Hits--On ABC.com
ABC'S POTENTIALLY GAME-CHANGING MOVE LAST month to begin streaming episodes of hit shows at ABC.com appears to have contributed to a significant traffic increase on the site in May.
The site drew 8.03 million unique users in May--a 69 percent increase over the same month last year, according to Nielsen//NetRatings. (ABC says the shows, which include "Lost" and "Desperate Housewives," were viewed over 11 million times on the site in May.)
Read more about it by clicking here.
NEW DYLAN ON WAY
Bob Dylan's new album, "Modern Times," to be released August 29, features 10 original songs recorded by the singer-songwriter and his touring band. Song titles include "Thunder on the Mountain," "Spirit on the Water," "Workingman's Blues" and "When the Deal Goes Down." Dylan plays keyboard, guitar and harmonica on the album, and sings the vocals.
ENDLESS SUMMER
The surviving members of the Beach Boys reuniting for the first time in 10 years Tuesday to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Pet Sounds and the double platinum certification of Sounds of Summer: The Very Best of the Beach Boys.
BACHELOR IDOL
People magazine naming American Idol 2006 winner Taylor Hicks 2006's Hottest Bachelor.
KUDOS
The Songwriters Hall of Fame honoring Peter, Paul & Mary with the Sammy Cahn Lifetime Achievement Award on Thursday in recognition of the folk trio's musical impact.
THE STONES STILL NOT ROLLING YET, BUT THIS TIME IT'S NOT KEITH'S FAULT
The Rolling Stones still planning to kick off their tour in Italy next month, according to the band's spokeswoman, despite reports that Ron Wood had been admitted to alcohol rehab.
HITTING THE ROAD
Sheryl Crow touring with John Mayer. The duo announcing a coheadlining U.S. tour, kicking off Aug. 24 in Pittsburgh.
COMING SOON!
- Nelly Furtado, Loose (6/20)
- Keane, Under the Iron Sea (6/20)
- Dashboard Confessional, Dusk and Summer (6/27)
- Thom Yorke, The Eraser (7/11)
- Muse, Black Holes & Revelations (7/11)
2006 Industry Conferences
Date Name Location P2P Media Summit June 22-23 McLean, VA CMJ October 31 - November 4 New York
Quotes of the week
"How did you guys run so slowly in that opening Baywatch scene ... you know, where you're running down the beach?"
-- Jessica Simpson in the Enquirer, upon meeting Pamela Anderson in a Santa Monica boutique. Pam reportedly responded..."Are you for real? It was shot in slow-motion."
-- Pammela Anderson - Once again, proof that real life Jessica Simpson lines are funnier than all those old blond jokes."I went to a church that was supposed to do miracles, and I put my hands in holy water and said, 'Please God, give me breasts.'"
-- Salma Hayek in 'In Touch,' recalling her childhood in Mexico. Obviously her prayers were answered."I'm not thrilled about it, but I felt it was important to sustain my commitment."
-- Daryl Hannah, speaking to People magazine from a Los Angeles jail cell after she was arrested Tuesday after being pulled from a tree at an urban farm. Commitment to what?"I'm an emotional wreck right now."
-- Britney Spears on NBC's DATELINE. Let's see ... the baby driving on your lap photos, the photographer suing you and your mom for running over his feet, your non-working husband parties in Vegas with his buddies without you ... Gee Britney, we would've never guessed it.
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'
OF COURSE THE REALTOR WHO HAD TO RETURN THE SALES COMMISSION WAS REALLY UPSET: DOYLESTOWN, Pa. -- A would-be homebuyer with less than a buck in the bank is going to jail for using bad checks to get a $328,000 home mortgage. Prosecutors said the 45-year-old Pennsylvania woman had 97 cents in her account when she carried checks worth $63,000 to a settlement table and left with the keys to the new house. Authorities in Bucks County, Pa., said the checks turned out to be counterfeit and a bank letter to back them was forged. The woman told the judge she "got nervous" because the house she was renting was sold and she had just 15 days to find a new place to live. Despite an in-court apology, she's been sentenced to two years in jail.
AND I'M SURE WE'LL SEE THEM SOON ON THE JERRY SPRINGER SHOW: CHANDLER, Ariz. -- Police in Chandler charge Toni and Aaron Carlson rewarded their sons with marijuana for good behavior. A police spokesman says they got a tip that the boys' mother, 31-year-old Toni Lynn Carlson and their stepfather, 23-year-old Aaron Carlson, were supplying the boys with marijuana. Police that allege the also couple smoked pot with the boys.
Officers report they were investigating tips from a neighbor about the possible use and sale of drugs at the home. But investigators said they didn't know about the family pot smoking until the parents and their kids were interviewed.
Detectives are trying to determine if drugs were supplied to other children as well. Both Carlsons were booked on multiple drug charges and an endangerment charge.
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