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REWIND: The Music Industry's Week In Review

• Amazon's Daily Deal skirmish with iTunes proves Apple's power over record labels.
• No more social media for American Idol contestants.
• Music could mean $300 million to ISP's according to a new UK study.
• Zimbalam moves into U.S. challenging Tunecore.
• With Mixtapes & Social Media, Is The Album So Far Gone? A statistical look at Drake.
• CEO Leoni-Sceti is out and this is only the start of what could be a very tough month for EMI.
• Apple's first iPad ad airs, but where's the music?
• More bad news for EMI: OK Go exits to re-release album d.i.y. and the label lost a court battle with Pink Floyd over online sales.
• Video site VEVO shows strong growth.
• A2IM leads indie fight for net neutrality.
• 40% of UK consumers can't name a single online music service.
• Gaelic Storm follows recipe for email success.

Zimbalam Moves Into U.S. Challenging Tunecore

European flat fee digital distributor Zimbalam has entered the U.S. market with a product offering aimed straight at sector leader Tunecore.

For $29.99, about $10 - $15 less than Tunecore, Zimbalam distributes an album to 25 key outlets including iTunes, Amazon, eMusic and Spotify.  Like Tunecore, artists keep 100% of the royalties.  After the intial year, there is a $19.99 charge every 12 months only if there have been enough sales to cover the  fee, essentially eliminating financial risk.  To celebrate the U.S. launch, the company is offering single album distribution for $5.99. (use code: sxsw.)

The service also offers real-time daily sales data,  email newsletters and social networking promo widgets. Artists with strong performance on Zimbalam are assigned a personal A&R manager from parent company Believe Digital to provide advice on release strategy, marketing and promotion.

Improve Your Facebook Pages With RootMusic

RootMusic enables the seemless creation of robust Facebook band pages and then allows fans to add thew artist as a tab to their own existing Facebook Page. And unlike standard Facebook pages where the music stops when the fan begins any other activity; with RootMusic, they can listen while they read news, comment,etc. Artists can also enable song downloads and integrate a Twitter feed.

A quick overview: 

How to create a custom RootMusic BandPage:

VEVO Ranks In Top 10

According to comScore Media Matrix, VEVO ranked among the Top 10 online video networks in January and in February  was the most-visited U.S. in the music category for th third straight month with 35.4 million unique visitors. Many of those visitors came via YouTube. But advertisers don't care where the traffic comes from and monetizing label video content is VEVO's core reason d'etre. VEVO also announced that it had streamed  nearly two billion total videos since its launch.

EMI Loses To Pink Floyd In Online Sales Battle

(Updated) A UK judge has ruled that a mid 1990's contract between Pink Floyd and EMI that includes maintaining the artistic integrity of each album release does not allow EMI to sell single tracks on iTunes and other online outlets. But the court stopped short of making EMI pull the tracks down.

New Music Seminar NYC Expands To 3 Days In July

Save the dates: July 19-21.  The New Music Seminar heads home to NYC for a three day run that includes keynotes and panels with industry leaders, breakout sessions with experts and more. Early bird pricing is available now.

iTunes Top 10 Singles & Albums Week Ending 3/8/10

Top 10 Singles:

1. "Break Your Heart (feat. Ludacris)," Taio Cruz

2. "Rude Boy," Rihanna

3. "Imma Be," Black Eyed Peas

4. "Hey, Soul Sister," Train

5. "Need You Now," Lady Antebellum

6. "BedRock," Young Money, Lloyd

7. "Blah Blah Blah (feat. 3OH!3)," Ke$ha

8. "In My Head," Jason Derulo

9. "Baby (feat. Ludacris)," Justin Bieber

10. "Never Let You Go," Justin Bieber

Top 10 Albums:

More Music Industry News: Nokia Coming, MediaNet, Mulligan Moving, AOL @ SXSW, Pirate Bay Trial

• The demise of the music industry is visible everywhere but in the facts. - If music executives sold bottled water, they'd be calling for a ban on tapwater downloads. But their industry is proving resilient. (Guardian)
• Nokia Is Coming to America - Still (Bits)
• MediaNet added to its roster of customers utilizing its b2b music and media delivery platforms. New clients include Boomerang Networks, eCard Industries, Finale.fm, IndieOn65, M3X, MixZing, Music Mogul, Music Republic, Punch Entertainment and UnHappenit.
• The recently unveiled secret agreement that Apple makes iPhone developers sign supports what many have suspected all along: Apple is trying to control the universe. (Epicenter)
• Industry analyst Mark Mulligan's insightful blog has migrated to Forrester.
• How did DIY artist Noush Skaugen get 1.2m Twitter followers? (Music Ally)
• Former RealNetwork’s CEO Rob Glaser Says For Now Apple Has Won. (paidContent)
• Classical Music Composers Debating The Value Of Free Too (Techdirt)
• AOL’s Big SXSW Bet On Seed and “Bionic Journalism” (TechCrunch)
• Pirate Bay Court Appeal Set For Just After Sweden's General Election - The four individuals convicted in The Pirate Bay trial have a preliminary date for their appeals. Fredrik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm, Peter Sunde and Carl Lundstrom will head to the Court of Appeal on 28 September. This date is already being claimed as politically motivated, falling as it does just after Sweden’s parliamentary elections. (TorrentFreak)

Gaelic Storm Follows Recipe For Email Success

Gaelic Storm has grown from playing pubs to selling out theaters with no label and almost no airplay. Their success has come in large part because the band and Matt Maher's ROAR management team have consistently used modern marketing to stay connected with the many fans earned at their fun live shows.

This isn't rocket science.  But in a single email, the band includes a free mp3 teasing their new album,  a contest for a trip sponsored by Southwest Airlines,  their tour dates, an invite to an after-party where they asks fans to wear Gaelic Storm t-shirts for a group photo, a couple of trips fans can go on and a call to buy merchandise. The fan gets rewarded with a free mp3 at the top of the email and then is offered a variety of ways to stay engaged with the band through the email and on their active website.

Very basic stuff, but when executed all together and done repeatedly it’s incredibly effective. View the full email here.

ScatterTunes V-Album Takes On Apple's iTunes LP

Can the album format be saved?  Does adding bonus content encourage fans to open their wallets? ITunes LP hoped so, but so far few have embraced the format. Entering the fray is ScatterTunes with a bonus product package called the V-album.

The format requires download proprietary player software, but then a $9.99 purchase of Jimi Hendix Valley Of The Neptunes comes complete with high quality mp3's lyrics, a 24 page booklet, 4 videos and a photo gallery. Here's an overview:

More Music Industry News: imeem's Caldwell Is Back, EMI, Rock Band 3, Mexico, Redeye & More

• imeem founder Dalton Caldwell has raised $370,000 of a proposed $600,000 for his stealth startup Mixed Media Labs (Venture Beat)
• Same old song at EMI? Charles Allen seems a surprising replacement for Elio Leoni-Sceti but at least he wants to be there. (Guardian, Hypebot)
• This music is sponsored by ... With the music industry in free fall, musicians turn to corporate advertising and product placement to promote their work. (LA Times)
• Rock Band 3 will be released in time for the holidays and EA will distribute. (MTV)
• Facebook Will Allow Users to Share Location. (Bits)
• Emily White:  Why I love email lists. (MidemNet Blog)
• A New Frontier for Indie Rock, Down in Mexico. (NY Times)
• Redeye Distribution has added Los Angeles based Autumn Tone Records to its roster. Created in 2006 as a companion to the popular music blog, Aquarium Drunkard, Autumn Tone artists include The Henry Clay People, Happy Hollows and Roadside Graves, whose last album appeared on many of 2009's "best of" lists. Their new album will be released March 23rd.
• Uplaya enters the "get your song rated" sector and is offering feedback for two songs free for a limited time.

CEO Leoni-Sceti Out At EMI

(UPDATED)

Charles Allen To Step In As Executive Chairman

Elio Leoni-Sceti, EMI Music’s Chief Executive will be leaving the company on March 31st. Leoni-Sceti came to the company with background in consumer retail and another non-music executive Charles Allen will now be taking the helm at EMI as Executive Chairman. Allen has been non-executive Chairman of EMI Music since January 2009, chairing its Board.

The shift in leadership comes at a difficult time for EMI. The first rulings in a case against investor CitiGroup should be forthcoming. EMI must also make a payment to Citi of $160 million by March 31st on its $4.5 billion loan as well as pass a solvency test.

Leoni-Sceti has only been with EMI for less than two years, but the company is trying to paint the best picture  possible of his departure.  In a statement the label group lauds Leoni-Sceti  for having "successfully led EMI Music through the first phase of its operational turnaround ...EMI Music has become a stronger and growing company, with a talented senior team, significant creative success and a more rigorous approach to marketing and operations. This has resulted in increased sales, improved market share and industry-leading EBITDA margins."

Background On Charles Allen:

Amazon's Daily Deal Skirmish Offers Reminder Of Apple's Power Over The Major Labels

According to recent reports, Apple has been aggressively discouraging labels from participating in Amazon MP3's Daily Deal.  Feature a new release there, the labels have been told, and your release will get no promotion at all on iTunes.

Being an aggressive competitor is nothing new for Apple. It's also common for labels for show a preference for their largest retailer.  But this particular skirmish reveals both Apple's hypocrisy as well as just how much the major labels fear Steve Jobs.

Anatomy Of The Daily Deal

The Daily Deal is, for all practical purposes, a free promotion subsidized by Amazon. If accepted into the  program, artists and labels are asked for a one day exclusive. During that 24 hours Amazon aggressively discounts the title to between $1.99 and $3.99. In part, to keep each sale eligible to be counted on the major charts, Amazon actually reimburses the labels at the normal wholesale price. In effect, subsidizing about $3 of each purchase.  Amazon MP3 also features the title on its web pages and to the 1.4 million that follow the Daily Deal on Twitter.

Unlike the old price and positioning charges at brick and mortar retail, Amazon and most other online retailers do not charge labels for these promotions.  In the case of the Daily Deal, artists and labels are only asked to promote the release via their web sites, email lists and social networks.

Some label executives worried that deep discounts cannibalized early sales that would have happened at full price. But one major label group recently told its labels that its own studies had shown that as much as 95% of all Daily Deal sales were incremental and would never have happened without the discount.

Apple Fights Back 

OK Go Exits EMI To Re-Release Album D.I.Y.

After a public dust up with EMI over the label's refusal to allow viral embedding of their recent video, OK Go has exited EMI and will re-release their latest album "Of The Color of Blue Sky" on their own newly formed label Paracadute Recordings.

The usual polite reciprocal statements followed: “We’d like to thank the people at EMI Music who have worked so hard on our behalf,” said the band’s Damian Kulash. “We’ve really enjoyed our relationship with OK Go. They’ve always pushed creative boundaries and have broken new ground, particularly with their videos. We wish them the greatest success for the future," replied EMI

OK Go may be particularly well suited to go the d.i.y. root.  Their greatest successes have been fueled by new media and and social networks, and their viral videos including the treadmill hit “Here It Goes Again” helped sell 200,000+ of a 2006 release. But the bottom has fallen out of music sales since; and their latest is stuck at 20,000.  The band is betting that with the help of their fans, they can push this release further. 

Sonicbids Offers $4000 In SXSW Tour Support

Sonicbids is offering one band $4000 to support their trip to SXSW and 4 city tour. You've got to be one of the hundreds of Sonicbids bands playing SXSW to qualify. Then take a short video of your road trip to SXSW, including how great Somcibids is and why you deserve the $$K and a 4-city US tour. More details here.

PS: Expect to be seeing a lot of Sonicbids at SXSW and don't miss their party.

Coming Soon: National Record Store Day

LEARN MORE 

More Music Industry News: MySpace Overhaul, Jelli, ITunes LP, Pink Floyd Sues EMI & More

• MySpace Readies Site Overhaul To Rekindle Growth (Reuters, paidContent)
• Jelli and Triton Media Launch Crowdsourced Radio Into National Syndication (press release)
• Is the iTunes LP a failure? (Billboard)
• Pink Floyd sues EMI over iTunes payments. (CNet)
• Music Group Gets Court Injunction Against Usenet Provider UseNeXT - Performing rights group GEMA has won an injunction against newsgroup outfit, UseNeXT. A court has forbidden the Usenet company from offering around 100 musical works from the GEMA repertoire and says that in the future, Usenet operators will have to take a greater responsibility for the environments and services they offer. (TorrentFreak)
• Charlotte Church takes £2m investment from Power Amp Music. (Music Ally)

40% Can't Name A Single Online Music Service

From 7 Digital to Spotify, there are 20 major music services in the UK.  But a new survey says that 40% of consumers have never heard of any of them. Of the 60% who are familiar with digital music, 85% have only heard of two - iTunes and Amazon.

"The music industry is shooting itself in the foot by not promoting legal online music services," says  Jill Johnstone, of Consumer Focus. "If file sharing is causing the damage the music industry claims, why aren’t they putting more effort in to promoting the legal alternatives? Before we go down the enforcement road it is only fair to ask the music industry to do more to make people aware of the legal options.”

March Could Be A Make Or Break Month For EMI

A U.S. judge has promised to rule by the end of March on whether or not to grant a request by Citigroup to move a lawsuit by Terra Firma to London. The investment firm headed by Guy Hands claims that Citi helped unfairly inflated the price paid to acquire EMI.

 "I think the parties deserve to have a quick resolution, but on the other hand this is not an obvious slam dunk decision," U.S. District Court Judge Jed Rakoff reports Reuters. "I guarantee a decision by the end of this month and the full opinion at a later point."

EMI must also make a $160 million payment to Citigroup on its $4.5 billion loan by March 31st as well as pass a solvency test. EMI executives are said to be frantically working on a reorganization plan to pass the test and attract an influx of much needed new cash.  If the music group falls short, Citigorup could take control of the struggling company.

Apple's First iPad Ad Airs, But Where's The Music?

Pre-sales for the iPad begin next week and the first orders will start shipping in weeks. So it grabbed my intention when Apple aired its first ads for the iPad during the Academy Awards and the only sign of music was a millisecond long flash of an old Doors album cover.

A2IM Leads Indie Charge For Net Neutrality

The FCC is formulating a new U.S. policies on net neutrality and American Association of Independent Music (A2IM) president Rich Benglof has been leading a campaign on behalf of the indie music community encouraging the commissioners to gurauntee a level playing field on a transparent and open internet.

Bengloff recently penned an op-ed piece for the Huffington Post and filed a brief with the FCC along with an open letter to the administration and media.   Key points include:

• Independents produce over 90% of all music released by labels in the U.S. and are catalysts for artistic excellence and diversity.
• the internet represents a crucial marketplace, and when able to compete on fair terms, independent music thrives.
• The adoption of net neutrality rules would help ensure continued fair access to the marketplace
• A2IM is "pleased that the draft rules apply only to lawful content, applications and services, and supports maintaining this clear distinction in the final policy."

Full text of the filing:

A Torrent Of 1000 Songs From SXSW Bands

The volume of music coming out of Austin in about a week is overwhelming from any perspective.  So just in case your ability to clone yourself so you can be at 127 venues simultaneously has not yet fully developed or  concept of occasionally sleeping has some appeal, there's always the Unofficial SXSW Torrent.

These torrents include all the MP3 files publicly available on the SXSW website as of March 6, 2010. There are 1038 files totaling 5.43GB.

• SXSW_2010_Showcasing_Artists_Part1.torrent - 646 files, 3.35GB
• SXSW_2010_Showcasing_Artists_Part2.torrent - 392 files, 2.08GB
• Torrents from 2005-2009 are available as well.
  

Rovi's AMG + Muze = Music Mega Meta Data

Rovi Corporation (the corporation formerly know as Macrovision)  has added a new music data offering that combines music metadata from its AMG and Muze services, creating a superset of data from both acquisitions. The combined database includes more than 1.8 million pop and classical music albums and 16 million tracks,

The new database, Rovi Music, provides a single data source that provides multiple forms of data to support variety of devices and services across a broad array of platforms including websites, social networks, mobile, PC and embedded applications.  In addition to editorial data, Rovi Music provides short-form content elements, like headlines and product descriptions, optimized for CE, portable and mobile device types and applications. 

Can you say music mega meta data three times quickly without stumbling? 

Music industry News: Rhino Ups Dorn, Rightsflow + Beatport, France Can't Slow Piracy & More

Sorry this was late today. Computer issues...

• Warner's Rhino Expands Global Digital Efforts; New Role For David Dorn. (paidContent)
• RightsFlow, a  provider of bulk mechanical licensing and royalty services, has announced a deal to provide global society reporting services for Beatport, the international dance music digital retailer.
• MTV Networks International has promoted Philip Bourchier O’Ferral to SVP Digital Media.
• UK study says most consumers not even aware of legal music services. (Consumer Focus)
• National Record Store Day is coming April 17th.  Learn more.
• Piracy Rises In France Despite Three Strikes Law - In the first few months following the adoption of the three-strikes anti-piracy legislation in France, online piracy has increased significantly. Instead of stopping, file-sharers are seeking alternatives to bypass the new law. Perhaps even more striking is that new research reveals that disconnecting file-sharers will actually hurt the revenues of the music industry. (TorrentFreak)

Music Could Mean $300 Million To ISP's Says Study

A new study titled “Is There A Commercial Argument For ISP Music Services” commissioned by the BPI and carried out by industry analyst Ovum, concludes that if the if the top ISPs in the UK embraced music subscriptions, they could generate new revenues of £103 million ($106M US) by 2013.

The study used a medium adoption scenario, equivalent to 41% of the total retail value of the UK digital music market in 2009. Ovum also calculates that an accelerated service-adoption scenario could push the bundled digital music services market to as much as £203 million($307M US) in 2013. Increased efforts to stop piracy could push the profits even higher according to the report.

Music Reduces Customer Churn

Additionally, Ovum found that bundled music services would help reduce the cost of ISP subscriber churn.  A big ISP with around 3.5m customers would generate indirect value of more than £20m per year if its bundled music service cuts churn by just 10%.

Guest Post: With Mixtapes & Social Media, Is The Album So Far Gone?

Alex Mann is the director of Trendrr, a business intelligence platform for social and digital media. You can read more by Alex on his blog here and follow him on Twitter here.

At first glance, Drake's success as an artist appears similar to his hip-hop peers. The actor turned Grammy-nominated rapper performed at the 2010 Grammy Awards and starred in a recent Sprite commercial during the NBA All-Star game.

Here is what's new: Drake has yet to release a full-length retail album. So Far Gone was the 6th best selling rap release of 2009, despite being just a seven song mixtape. His radio airplay was demanded organically, lacking the traditional push from a major label. Although a supposed album is in the pipeline, current social patterns tell us he's built a sustainable career from a few singles and a wildly popular mixtape, a distribution formula unique to the digital era.

Drake By The Numbers

    click on image to enlarge

First, let's look at the conversation volume around Drake on Twitter. Beginning to buzz in the middle of 2009, Drake has remained at the center of the hip-hop conversation, hovering around 5,000 Tweets per day for the second half of 2009. He has edged out hip-hop heavyweight and current label mate Lil' Wayne with buzz and recently benefited from a post-Grammy bump of over 60,000 Tweets in one day.

A Closer Look At The Data -

Telling The Rock Sugar Story

Selling is about telling a story; and in this age of too much information, the more quickly the story can be told, the better. Telling that story can get difficult when working with artists who understandably don't want to be easily categorized.

So this pitch form the handlers of Rock Sugar caught my intention. To be sure, this band is not delivering high art. Most of their songs are mashups of a metal and a pop song like "Shook Me Like A Prayer" (AC/DC meets Madonna). But in just a few words, this description tells who the band is in a way that lets the imagination fill in the blanks and encourages further exploration.

"In 1989, Hollywood heavy metal band Rock Sugar was stranded on a desert island. For the last twenty years, the only music they had to listen to was the 80's pop CD collection of a 13 year old girl. And now, Rock Sugar has come home."

Watch the Rock Sugar video:

No More Social Media For American Idol Contestants

At about 6PM ET on March 3rd, according to the Wall Street Journal, all Twitter, Facebook and MySpace followers of individual American Idol contestants were sent the same message:

“Thanks so much for following me/joining my Fan Page! All my updates from now on will be on our Official American Idol 9 Contestant Page, please become a fan there to read all my updates throughout the season!”

The Wall Street Journal speculates that in this year's thin contestant field, only a few were getting much attention and thus telegraphing their greater popularity. I'm betting they also want to impress sponsors with one big and impressive combined traffic number.

Whatever the reason, they also denied each contestant the ability to grow their own brand and establish more direct to fan connections. Then again Idol was never about building any brand but its own and the singers are mere pawns in that game.

You Can Still Learn Who Fans Are Voting For (If You Care...)

Watch RIP: A Remix Manifesto Free Online

Snag Films is an innovative site that offers 1000+ documentaries available for free streaming and RIP: A Remix Manifesto has just been added to an extensive collection of music related films.

In RIP, filmmaker Brett Gaylor explores issues of copyright in the information age, mashing up the media landscape of the 20th century and shattering the wall between users and producers.

The film’s central protagonist is Girl Talk, a mash-up musician topping the charts with his sample-based songs. But is Girl Talk a paragon of people power or the Pied Piper of piracy? Creative Commons founder, Lawrence Lessig, Brazil’s Minister of Culture Gilberto Gil and pop culture critic Cory Doctorow are also along for the ride.

Watch RIP and let us know, which side of the ideas war are you on?

Watch the video now:

More Music Industry News: EMI + Tunewiki, MOG vs. Spotify, WMG + DailyMotion

(Updated)

• EMI Publishing tells Hypebot that they've just extended their deal with Tunewiki "to allow them to sub-license to third parties".
• MOG vs. Spotify. The battle begins in the UK. (Guardian)
• Napster Japan to close. (Billboard)
• WMG has joined EMI in licensing to video site DailyMotion.
• Home streaming is 'killing music'. So why are big labels so keen on it? (Register)
• An Interview with Jonathan Segel of Camper Van Beethoven. (Digital Audio Insider) Plus Hypebot's Camper controversy coverage ... that just rolls off the toung doesn't it?
• Music Power Network is offering a Hypebot discount code for 10% off. Type in 8675309 when you check out.
• Correction: I'm told by an alert Hypebot reader that at the Music & Money gathering last week VEVO's Rio Cardaff actually said: "People can drink from wherever they want, but we want it coming from our well".

REWIND: The Music Industry's Week In Review

• Music's Top 10 Money Makers
• Is eMusic buying Amie Street and Donny Ienner's IMO?
• eMusic payments to artists rise.
• Apple finally notices Amazon MP3 and declares war.
• The Source and Slacker are partnering for an online Hip Hop channel.
• Talks with film execs point to iTunes in the cloud.
• Universal Music revenues slide 6.2%, digital up 8.4%.
• Kyle Bylin interviews Yan of Jedi Mind Tricks and Enemy Soil
• New stats show music tops You Tube views.
• Mom and baby make Universal Music cry uncle.
• OK Go goes viral again with help from State Farm Insurance.
•  Music Power Network ramps up online music business learning and toolkit.
• OurStage and MTV partner for artist discovery.
• The Echo Nest gets a $500,000 grant from National Science Foundation.
• The RIAA tells fans to stop nibbling.
• Should John Lennon be pitching cars?
• Why one indie artist is leaving SellaBand for good.
• An apology to Camper Van Beethovan and 2 questions for Hypebot readers.

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