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It Goes On And On, The Movie Never Ends ... Or Does It?
January 7, 2011
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"Stupid is as stupid does."
-- Forrest GumpIt's a New Year and new years always give us the hope that some things will change for the better. That's our hope anyway.
But then you come across an article that says RIAA lobbying expenses were $1.6 million last summer and you start singing the chorus to "Still The Same."
It's bad enough the elected politicians in our nation's capitol are basically running around with lobbyists every chance they get and adjusting their schedules to ensure they don't miss a thing that's out there for the taking. But by now one would think (however foolishly) the labels would stop funneling money into the RIAA to line the pockets of lobbyists, who in turn line the pockets of the politicians, in hopes of passing legislation that might save what's left of the record business. The year-to-date lobbying total spent by the RIAA in 2010 was $4.9 million, and if anybody in the industry reading this wants to defend that expenditure as a good ROI (Return On Investment), my Inbox is awaiting your e-mail.
While RIAA head honcho Mitch Bainwol and the other RIAA execs continue to earn big salaries and spend all this money, news came during the holidays that album sales in the U.S. dropped between 13-14% last year. If Mitch and his team (and any executive at any label) believe all the money they are spending will reverse that trend, they are all (sadly) beyond delusional at this point in time.
Let's remember also that it was Mitch Bainwol and the RIAA who also said ISPs would come to the party and help stop illegal file sharing. This from an article by CNET's Greg Sandoval titled "Big Media Fails To Turn ISPs Into Copyright Cops"-- "the RIAA said it would seek help in copyright enforcement efforts from Internet service providers, the Web's gatekeepers, which are uniquely positioned to act as copyright cops. Under a proposed RIAA plan, ISPs would first issue warning letters and gradually increase pressure on customers who illegally shared songs, and even suspend or permanently terminate service for repeat offenders. RIAA execs said then that some ISPs were weeks away from announcing the adoption of what they called a 'graduated response' program. Two years later, we're still waiting. Not only have the largest ISPs declined to cut off accused file-sharing customers but one ISP, Time Warner Cable, did more than anyone to derail a litigation effort launched this year against file sharers by independent and adult-film studios. An RIAA representative declined to comment for this story." (http://tiny.cc/owxrp )
And there was also news from Bit Torrent, the company created by the designers of the file-sharing software, that it now counts over 100 million worldwide monthly users of its applications. ( http://tiny.cc/szfr2 ) 100 million monthly users adds up to over a billion annually. I don't think that number means many people are only using the software for downloading files legally, do you?
It's a new year. If the record labels want to continue pumping four to five million a year into the RIAA to be spent on lobbying efforts in light of the realities of what's really happening, they will disappear faster than anyone ever imagined possible. To keep spending millions like this is simply inexcusable and reckless. What accountability is any leader in the industry assigning to these expenditures? How can anybody in the industry look at the millions spent and say after review, "This was a good business investment."
And so it does go on and on.
But in reality this movie will end. It's been going on far too long.
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THE 'A-SIDE' - TRACK 2
MASHABLE HAS 5 PREDICTIONS FOR THE MUSIC INDUSTRY
Predition #5 - "Music Piracy Will Not Die." Of all the predictions, I'm glad to see a major online entity like Mashable echo what I (and many others) have been saying for a long, long time. Mashable writes: "Despite the looming spectre of the COICA Internet Censorship and Copyright Bill, people will continue to file share and steal music. They've been doing it for 10-plus years and they're not stopping now."
The sooner the RIAA, industry leaders, politicians, and all the lawyers realize this, the sooner those that truly want a future for the music industry, can get on with creating much needed new revenue models for the future.
Their other predictions aren't revelations, and in fact most are predictable predictions. But still a good summary: Read them here: http://tiny.cc/135ad
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THE 'A-SIDE' - TRACK 3
STILL MORE TROUBLE FOR NETWORK TV
USA TODAY reports that "Cable networks have been challenging broadcasters' hold on TV viewers for years, but the big networks' lackluster fall is proof of a new parity. Nielsen figures show the Big 4 and basic cable gained 1% in 2010 as overall viewing continues to rise to a record 34 hours a week. But the fall season has been less kind: Fox is down 15% and ABC is off 5%, offsetting smaller gains by CBS and NBC. Few cable series outpace broadcast hits, but increasingly the strongest are beating many of their big-network rivals. TNT's "Rizzoli & Isles" averaged 8.8 million viewers for its 10-week summer run, and five others topped 6 million. Among viewers ages 18-49, AMC's zombie drama "The Walking Dead" and MTV's "Jersey Shore" were huge. "These are eye-popping numbers you didn't see a few years ago," says Jon Marks, senior vice president of research at Turner."
Read more here: http://tiny.cc/s1py6
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THE 'A-SIDE' - TRACK 4
VEVO LAUNCHED FREE iPAD APP
Vevo launched a free application for the iPad, marking the first time thousands of music videos will be available for streaming on the device. "This is huge," said David Kohl, Vevo's executive vice president, sales and customer operations. "This is the first time consumers will have access to videos on a tablet device. We estimate that the app will have multiple million downloads relatively quickly."
Read more here: http://tiny.cc/sl54c
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THE 'A-SIDE' - TRACK 5
TWITTER UPDATE
I have said often in the newsletter that in my opinion, Twitter is an overhyped media tool.
I've included articles from many sources that have discussed Twitter issues, and now this from the San Francisco Chronicle: "Twitter Inc. gained more than 100 million registered members this year and approached the new year with a fresh investment of $200 million. Now the San Francisco firm must prove it can live up to its newly elevated valuation of $3.7 billion. '2011 is the year where they're going to need to increase their user base pretty dramatically and prove to advertisers that Twitter advertising works,' said Debra Aho Williamson, an analyst with the online research firm eMarketer."
In 2010, Twitter pushed its role as an important source of news and information, which turns the 140-character message into a new mass-media channel. It introduced new advertising platforms called Promoted Tweets, Promoted Trends and Promoted Accounts. Only 8% of adult Internet users in the United States -- equal to about 6% of the overall adult population -- use Twitter. The question remains, however, whether Twitter can find ways to leverage that influence to make money. Read more here: http://tiny.cc/3k44r
I have never heard anybody reference Twitter with anything to do with successful business strategies. All I have heard about Twitter is what celebrity tweeted what picture or gossip to their public at large. By all means, if any of you readers have success stories to tell me about Twitter, e-mail me.
And Now For Some News ...
Technology in 2011? A Look Ahead
WALL STREET JOURNALThe Wall Street Journals' Walt Mossberg takes a look at Products, Services and Big Developments to Watch for and the Challenges Facing the Major Players in the coming year.
Read more about it by clicking here.
If You're Tired Of The Way Your MP3s Sound, Check Out This Device
SLATEA decade into the new century, comes a set of devices that matches the convenience of new-media downloads and exceeds the sonic standards of CDs.
This new technology is stirring great excitement among high-end audiophiles, but it's almost completely unknown outside that realm, even among the tech-savvy. It's a fair bet this situation will change soon.
Read more about it by clicking here.
Cheaper Concerts On The Way
ROLLING STONEFollowing a rough year for ticket sales in 2010, many concert promoters are promising more affordable concerts in the new year. This should come as a relief not only to cash-strapped fans, but also to artists and venues - many of whom struggled with empty seats and tour cancellations through the typically lucrative summer months.
Read more about it by clicking here.
Want to Know What Salary Ranges Are For U.S. Music Industry Positions? The Berklee School Of Music Has A List
BERKLEE MUSIC.COMBerklee's Career Development Center has created a comprehensive resource for the music industry: Salary Ranges for U.S. Music Positions in Performance, Writing, Business, Audio Technology, Education, and Music Therapy. The study covers a broad range of specific careers, including orchestral, Broadway, and studio musician; choir director; jingle, TV, and film score composer; arranger; conductor; instrument maker; A&R; manager; music attorney; video game audio engineer; live sound and sound recording; audiologist; label positions, music teachers, and more.
Read more about it by clicking here.
Beatles Deal With iTunes Was Groundbreaking
REUTERSiTunes finally got The Beatles catalog, but the deal was one unlike any other established between the online store and a band.
From the article: "According to industry sources, iTunes is paying the Beatles' royalties from digital download sales in the United States directly to the band's company, Apple Corps, and is paying the songwriting mechanical royalties directly to Sony/ATV Music Publishing, which controls most of the Beatles' song catalog. That suggests the royalty split could be more lucrative for the Beatles than it would be under the typical provisions of a standard artist contract, which treat digital downloads as a retail sale."
Read more about it by clicking here.
Big Champagne's Social Music Chart
CNN/FORTUNEBig Champagne's Ultimate Chart, how it works, and how it is being received by others.
Read more about it by clicking here.
Despite The Downturn In The Music Business, Vinyl Sales Increase
ROLLING STONEAlbum sales plummeted another 13% in 2010, but sales of vinyl increased 14% to 2.8 million units.
Sure, the total number is dwarfed by industry totals, but once again, vinyl is showing that it is connecting with consumers in ways that digital doesn't. A niche market for sure, but one that is growing year over year with titles selling on vinyl from Arcade Fire, The Beatles, Pink Floyd, Dylan and others.
Read the rest here: http://tiny.cc/kdyiw
AND...
Vinyl Records Helping To Keep Independent Music Stores Alive
13WHAM NEWS
Yet another article on vinyl records and what they are contributing to the retail music business today.
Read more about it by clicking here.
Hit The Road ... DMB Has Been Doing It for A Long Time And Boy, Does It Pay BIG Time
SLATE.COM(Thanks to Portland's DJ Clarence Duffy for sending me this article for readers)
Between 2000 and 2009, can you guess what band sold more tickets to its shows than any other band on the planet, moving a staggering 11,230,696 tickets? (No other band sold more than 10 million tickets in the same time period)
If you guessed the Dave Matthews Band, you'd be right. During that time, DMB grossed more than $500 million from touring alone.
The record business might be struggling for survival, but the Dave Matthews Band proves that successful touring and merchandising is very profitable. They've taken a chapter from another band that did the same thing before them: The Grateful Dead.
Read more about it by clicking here.
Google's Music Streamer Leaks
GIGA OMWhile Apple is busy celebrating the arrival of the Beatles in the United States like some over-eager teenager at Shea Stadium, Google is building a cloud-based music service for this century. As a leaked (and bug-filled) player indicates, Google may be close to realizing its promise of a streaming music player for the web and Android.
GigaOm reports that the service would likely cost $25 a year. "That service would likely depend on licensing arrangements between Google and the record labels," the blog writes. "And it would compete with a number of existing third-party music streaming services, such as MP3Tunes, MOG, Rdio, Rhapsody, and Spotify (not yet available in the U.S.) just to name a few."
Read more about it by clicking here.
Holigraphic Phone Calls And Air-Powered Batteries By 2015? IBM Sez Yes
BLOOMBERG NEWSBy 2015, your mobile phone will project a 3-D image of anyone who calls and your laptop will be powered by kinetic energy. At least that's what International Business Machines Corp. sees in its crystal ball.
Read more about it by clicking here.
Tablet Sales To Double In U.S. This Year
FORRESTERU.S. sales of tablet computers -- such as Apple's iPad -- reached an estimated 10.3 million units in 2010, and are projected to more than double in 2011 to 24.1 million and eventually hit 44 million by 2015, according to a revised forecast from market research firm Forrester.
Read more about it by clicking here.
2010 CONCERT WINNERS WORLDWIDE:
Bon Jovi registered the highest-grossing tour last year with $201.1 million worldwide, $108.2 million of the total in North America, according to Pollstar stats. The rest of the worldwide top five: AC/DC ($177 million), U2 ($160.9 million), Lady Gaga ($133.6 million) and Metallica ($110.1 million). In this hemisphere, Roger Waters' remounting of The Wall was #2 with $89.5 million, followed by the Dave Matthews Band ($72.9 million), Michael Bublé ($65.7 million) and the Eagles ($64.5 million).
IDOL BAND CHANGE:
Among the changes for the upcoming tenth season of "American Idol" is a new music director to fill the seat Rickey Minor vacated when he left to lead "The Tonight Show" band at the end of Season 9. Ray Chew, a veteran of television music shows, has been handed the title and is already hard at work coming up with arrangements for the new crop of contestants. Chew has served as bandleader and musical director for such programs as NBC's "It's Showtime at the Apollo" and "The Singing Bee."
iTUNES STILL RULES:
Amazon's share of the paid digital-download market gained more than two percentage points to 13.3% in the third quarter, up from 11% the year earlier -- but iTunes outgained its wannabe rival, picking up three percentage points to 66.2%, from 63.2%. These estimates from the NPD Group.
ELTON A DAD NOW:
Elton John and his civil partner David Furnish have announced they are proud parents to a healthy baby boy. Zachary Jackson Levon Furnish-John weighed 7lb 15oz and was 22 inches long at birth. He was born via a surrogate mother in California on Christmas Day.
KINDLE IS HOT:
The third-generation Kindle has officially beaten out the book "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" to become the best-selling product in Amazon history.
BEATLES STILL BRING IN THE BUCKS:
'Rain: A Tribute to the Beatles' on Broadway has recouped its initial $2 million investment in just seven weeks at the Neil Simon Theater. The show, which presents the history of the Beatles as a concert revue, has clearly connected with an audience hungry for reverent live performances of the band's classic hits despite being dismissed by some critics as glorified karaoke.
PINK FLOYD & EMI COOL AGAIN:
EMI and Pink Floyd have settled their disputes. The company has inked a new, five-year global partnership with the band for its catalog, MusicWeek reported. The deal, which covers 14 studio and three live albums, would appear to resolve the various disputes between the Floyd and EMI, thus putting an end to recent legal skirmishes over royalty payments and online sales.
LADY GAGA #1 WORLDWIDE:
The United World Music Chart has ranked the best-selling albums globally for 2010 and Lady GaGa's 'The Fame Monster' came in at #1 with 5.9 million copies sold. Eminem followed at #2 with 5.8 million, and Justin Bieber at #3 with 5.6 million. See the whole chart here: http://tiny.cc/44p82
AND NEW GAGA COMING:
In more news, Lady Gaga announced the release dates for her forthcoming single and album to her fans on Twitter on New Year's Eve. In the pop singer's first tweet of 2011, she declared that the single "Born This Way" will drop on February 13th, and the album of the same name will be in stores on May 23rd.
CRICKET MUSIC:
Cricket Communications has introduced what it calls the first music service from a carrier to be offered as part of a new wireless rate plan. Rolling out in January, the Muve Music service will feature a catalog of music from the four major record labels: Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment and EMI Music.
PIRATE NUMBERS:
"Avatar" was the "most-pirated" movie of 2010 on Internet file-sharing networks, racking up 16.6 million downloads on BitTorrent alone, according to a list compiled by TorrentFreak.
ROCK BAND CHANGES HANDS:
Viacom has sold Harmonix Music Systems, the developer behind the Rock Band franchise, to the investment firm Columbus Nova and gained an estimated $200 million in the deal, ending a failed foray into the video game business. Analysts have long questioned the value of Rock Band for a company known more for cable networks MTV and Nickelodeon and film studio Paramount Pictures.
BOX OFFICE DOWN IN 2010:
Box office revenues rose above $10 billion for the only the second time last year, but only 1.35 billion tickets were sold. That's the lowest amount of tickets sold since 1.33 were sold in 1996. Attendance dropped 5.4% last year compared with 2009 and the largest drop since attendance fell 8.1% in 2005.
RINGO'S ORIGINAL CRIB SAVED FOR TIME BEING:
Grant Shapps, the British housing minister, has intervened in plans to demolish the house in which Ringo Starr was born, inspired in part by a campaign led by a group of devoted Beatles fans.
SHANIA HITCHED AGAIN:
Shania Twain, 45, wed Frederic Thiebaud, 40, on New Year's Day in Puerto Rico. Thiebaud is the ex-husband of the woman who Shania's ex-husband is now with. A reality show in the making?
G&R RECORD?
A tweet on the Guns N' Roses official Twitter account seems to suggest that the band may soon "lay some tracks" on their Facebook page at some point in 2011. (Of course, it might be 2012 or beyond before anybody hears a whole new G&R album)
COURTROOM COURTNEY:
Courtney Love is heading to trial in Los Angeles later this month as the defendant in the first high-profile Twitter defamation lawsuit. Love is being sued by Dawn Simorangkir, a fashion designer she attacked in a series of tweets - as well as posts on her MySpace and Etsy accounts - in March 2009.
LIVE LEPPARD:
Def Leppard are in the process of putting together their first-ever full-length live album of their three-decade career.
PASSING:
Gerry Rafferty, best known for his solo hit "Baker Street" and "Stuck In The Middle," which he recorded as a member of Stealers Wheel, died January 4th after a long battle with liver disease. He was 63.
The Music Industry Past, Present & Future, And The Internet I answer questions on EconTalk
I did an interview about the industry and the Internet at EconTalk with host Russ Roberts. Russ is also a professor of economics at George Mason University, blogs at Cafe Hayek, and has written three novels that teach economics. He's also the co-creator of the Keynes-Hayek rap video. (And if your understanding of the economic meltdown that occurred needs to be enlightened, this video will do it)
In the interview we talk about the evolution of the music industry, the impact of the digital revolution, and I give my reasons for believing in the virtues and potential of the Internet in enhancing the music industry. I point out, as I have many times here in the newsletter, that the internet allows numerous artists to make money from their music and it can enhance revenues from live performances by expanding an artist's base. We also discuss the challenges facing record companies and I suggest that the full potential of the Internet as a distribution channel has yet to be fully exploited. There's a lot of ground covered, but based on the comments already posted of those who have tuned in, they've enjoyed it.
Read more about it by clicking here.
Quotes of the week
"The first record for which I ever slapped down my own pocket money was a vinyl EP. It was 'Twist and Shout' by The Beatles. For more than 45 years, record shops have been my reference library, my college and occasionally something like a church. I've happily left a small fortune in the collection plate. We should defend and celebrate those still open for business with our last breath."
-- Elvis Costello, talking about his release of the four-track EP, National Ransack, composed of outtakes from November's T Bone Burnett-produced 'National Ransom'"It was an amazing evening. The preparations for it were fraught and intense, but the last rehearsal was really, really good, for all that it represented and all that we were trying to capture. But I've gone so far somewhere else that I almost can't relate to it ... It's a bit of a pain in the pisser to be honest. Who cares? I know people care, but think about it from my angle -- soon, I'm going to need help crossing the street."
-- Robert Plant talking about the Led Zeppelin reunion and why it didn't go further.
The B-Side - 'Blips'
THE ONION (www.theonion.com) STORY OF THE WEEK:
Fully Validated Kanye West Retires To Quiet Farm In Iowa 'I Got All The Approval I Needed,' Content Former Pop Star Says
SPILLVILLE, IA-Following the widespread acclaim and media adulation over his latest album, "My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy," multimillion-selling recording artist Kanye West announced Wednesday that he had finally received the exact amount of approval he needed to attain and had therefore retired from the entertainment industry to live on a small farm in Iowa.
Read the rest here and laugh: Click Here.
Website
Check out attorney Ray Beckerman's website at: http://recordingindustryvspeople.blogspot.com where he prints news about the RIAA's ongoing activities
Smart Marketing Consulting Services
Smart Marketing Consulting Services has been in business sixteen years, and consults clients in the music, entertainment, attraction, media, and technology industry on branding, marketing, online exploitation, maximizing new media, and more.
"And the beat goes on, the beat goes on ... drums keep poundin' rhythm to the brain."
"Work is life, you know, and without it, there's nothing but fear and insecurity." -- John Lennon
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