hypebot

REWIND: Live Faces Congress, RIAA Cuts, Universal Combines, iTunes Goes Indie & More

THE MUSIC INDUSTRY'S WEEK IN REVIEW 

• Live Nation & Ticketmaster Face Congress
• RIAA Staff Cuts May Be Far Deeper Than Reported
• Could EMI Be Worth Less Than $0.00?
• Universal Music Group Combines Digital & Physical Sales Teams
• Eminen's Lawsuit Could Cost Labels Millions
• Digital Music Forum East: Understanding Fan Interaction
• iTunes & Indies: New Indie Spotlight Page and How iTunes Chooses Feature Artists
• iTunes Taps Depeche Mode For Subscription Launch
• Major Labels Sue Online Music Services: Songbeat Down But Not Out After WMG Lawsuit, EMI Sues Seeqpod & Favtape
• The Digital Native Series

• A Generation of Broken Robots
• Pirates At Bay
• Youth Culture
• Online Fandom and Community
• Conclusions

• Teens Prefer Music To Sex But Have No Intention Of Paying For It
• Pirate Bay Claims 80% Of Traffic Is Legal
• iPhone Apps Gain Steam As Music Promo And Delivery Platform
• Kyte Offers Turnkey Framework For iPhone Music Apps Creation
• Interview: Hype Machine's Anthony Volodkin
• UK Consumers Prefer Amazon to iTunes
• eMusic Connects Fans To Facebook, Launches New "Free Music" Toolbar
• DAILY D.I.Y. - Get Local & Regional Sponsors,  Take Your Promo Old School,  More Old School Promo, ,  On Being Wrong
• QUICK HITS: Taylor Swift Proves A Hit Ain't What It Used To Be,  Chris Cornell Gets Web Site Right,  Mufin Player Sorts Music By Sound,  Stringer Consolidates Hold Over Sony Corp.

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New Mufin Player Sorts Music By Sound

Now in public beta, the new Mufin player sorts music libraries by sound and recommends songs using audio fingerprinting technology originated at the Fraunhofer Institute, the inventor of the MP3. Mufin creates a fingerprint for each song based on 40 characteristics including tempo, instruments, sound density, and rhythm.

mufin player from mufin on Vimeo

Mufin’s "soundsort" leverages these audio fingerprints to organize music by sound rather than the typical  sorts by artist or title. Playlists are quickly created to match any mood. Users select a track and Mufin automatically builds a playlist with songs that match musically; often uncovering forgotten tracks in the music collection.

UMG Combines Digital & Physical Sales

UPDATED: The distribution arm of Universal Music Group has expanded its executive team and eliminated any division between physical and digital sales and marketing services. 

Promotions include Amanda Marks to EVP and GM, Laura Saez to SVP of Sales and the appointment of Mitch Rotter to VP of Marketing for Universal Music Distribution. All report to Jim Urie, President & CEO of UMD.  Both Marks and Saez come from the digital division and Rotter joins Universal from Tumbplay. Their appointments reflect the shift in importance of digital over physical formats across the music industry.

From The Press Release:

RIAA Staff Cuts May Be Far Deeper Than Reported

There is no doubt that major staff reductions and changes are underway at the RIAA. But one seemingly knowledgeable but unconfirmed source tells Hypebot that the cuts run much deeper than previously reported.

"It is about 90-100+ people across the US and global offices - anti-piracy, coordinated IFPI/BPI etc - trust me it's a bloodbath...

(Major label heads) Hands, Morris are squeezing the ____ out of these guys after the ISP failure and a major budget cut. (The) RIAA as you know it is probably history by Tuesday of next week, a formal announcement is being drafted for drop next week.

The new group is a aggregate of IFPI + remaining pieces of BPI + RIAA - (a) new leaner, coordinated group...DC offices are getting closed except for one part of one floor on Conn. Ave., just for the address."

Hypebot has asked the RIAA to comment. Readers please send info on the layoffs privately to hypebot(at)skylineonline(dot)com.

Songbeat Down But Not Out After WMG Lawsuit

Major Label Assault On Music Tech Continues

German based music discovery application Songbeat has gone offline after local courts ruled in favor of Warner Music Group in a suit filed against the company claiming copyright infringement.

Songbeat essentially offered aggregated mp3 search bringing together results from Seeqpod, Project Playlist, SpoolFM, iASK and others. You could stream unlimited tracks and download up to 25 of them. An upgrade for 19.99 Euros offered unlimited downloads.

The Songbeat team has been in NYC at Digital Music Forum East where they defiantly promised a quick appeal and even a move to another country if needed to reboot the service.

More:EMI Sues Seeqpod & Favtape Opening New Fronts In Battle With Music Tech

Choruss' Griffin: "...this business won't survive."

"We’ve spent over a decade
with the lawyers nitpicking
over what we call the
transfer of money for music
and I’m tired of it.

What we're trying to do
is to make sure we don't have
another decade of nitpicking
because this business
won't survive."

- Jim Griffin of Choruss
after a keynote at Digital Music Forum East

UPDATE: FULL TRANSCRIPT OF GRIFFIN'S KEYNOTE

Stringer Consolidates Hold Over Sony Corp.

Is Knighthood Next?

These have been tough times for Sony - major losses, a down global economy, less than stellar new product launches and an expensive purchase of the BMG half of the former Sony BMG.

But rather than bring in new blood to revamp the ailing electronic and entertainment giant, the Sony Board Of Directors has consolidated a few divisions and added President to the list of titles that CEO and Chairman Howard Stringer already holds.

Just why this makes sense and how it might impact Sony's family of record labels is unclear.  Read a pdf of the official statement and maybe you can figure out if this all really means... if anything

How iTunes Chooses Feature Artists

With the announcement that iTunes has added an Indie Spotlight landing page for independent music, Hypebot readers wanted to know how Apple chose which artists to feature. To got the inside scoop, I talked to the former digital chief of an established indie who describes a process refreshingly different from the "pay for placement" that dominates brick and mortar retail.

"The process is nearly entirely editorial and curated by country by true music lovers," said the former indie executive who prefers to remain anonymous.

"As a 'major indie' I was given an indie-specific contacts for the USA, Canada, Europe, Asia and Oceana. I then promoted my releases to them, often times highlighting special content and exclusives. Generally this “tit” produced a “tat” where my releases were considered for genre page, SOTW, or spotlight treatment. Sometimes their picks of my content were my priorities, sometimes they were just good music," he continued.

Daily D.I.Y. - On Being Wrong

Being wrong has a standard protocol to follow and a path to go down. Better to be wrong than right because at least the answer is clear. "What do I do?" you ask Bow your head and walk away.

Maybe, you were wrong about your band, music, and passion.  If you are wrong, which I doubt you are, failure has no particular direction. Just walk, I'm sure the rest will be easy.

If you are right, "Only you know what to do." is what they'll tell you.  Instructions aren't what you need, because there's only one bridge to build and it's up to you to find the right people to help.

After all, it takes a hardworking and smart group of people to build a bridge, but it usually only takes one idiot to burn it down. However, the only way that you'll live what you learn is through the bridges that you've burned. - Kyle Bylin, Associate Editor

Friday's Music Brief: RIAA Cuts, WMG vs. MTV, Pirate Bay's Nazi, Ustream At SXSW & More

HYPEBOT FEATURES:

• RIAA Staff Cuts May Be Far Deeper Than Reported
• Songbeat Down But Not Out After WMG Lawsuit
• How iTunes Chooses Feature Artists
• Stringer Consolidates Hold Over Sony Corp.
• Choruss' Griffin: "...this business won't survive."
• Lessons From Digital Music Forum East - Understanding Fan Interaction
• Daily D.I.Y - On Being Wrong

MORE NEWS:

• MTV is supposedly boycotting Warner Music artists in its Rock Band game. (Techdirt)
• The Pirate Bay's neo-Nazi sugar daddy. (Register)
• Live online video enabler Ustream will broadcast from SXSW from the special Ustream Studio “Live from The Belmont” offering performances, panels and online interaction.
• A look inside the Tenenbaum file sharing lawsuit and the unorthodox Harvard Law team that is helping to fight it.(ars)
• "Hey, Warner, Leave those Kids Alone" (EFF.org)
• The iPhone is apparently not selling well in Japan so one carrier will begin giving it away. (CrunchGear)
• How To Kill The Music Industry. (Torrent Freak)
• KIOSK Information Systems and Mix & Burn release new MP3 music download service for kiosks.
• BridgeCo raised $6M in new financing for networked entertainment technologies.
• Getting Back On Track: Some Tips For The Music Business. (paidContent)

Lessons From Digital Music Forum East - Understanding Fan Interaction

Guest Post By Eric Hebert of Evolvor.com

A number of wonderful discussions are taking place at the DMF, especially during Wednesday's "State of the Digital Union" panel. Much of the conversation dealt with how to combat failing CD sales in a world where file sharing exists and digital continues to gain momentum. The answer? Learn how to tap into the fan base and present creative and new products (i.e. develop new business modes outside of the CD) for them to consume.

Jeremy Welt, SVP of new media at Warner Bros, discussed how his large number of unique artists now provides a large number of opportunities in the digital age. One example he provided was understanding

Major Layoffs At The RIAA

STORY UPDATE HERE.

Several sources confirm major layoffs at record industry trade group the RIAA.  Late last year EMI said it would drastically scale back its contribution to the RIAA and other labels are certain to have considered following suit as industry declines shrink overall budgets. Rumors have the at around 30 let go. 

Hypebot readers please send an info or specifics to hypebot(at)skylineonline(dot)com.

iTunes Adds Indie Spotlight

 

iTunes has added an Indie Spotlight page that provides a home for bands and fans who prefer music created outside of the major label machine.  The unofficial soft launch includes an indie podcast, playlists and label samplers alongside featured artists, though more features may be in the pipeline.

Indie trade group A2IM applauded the move. "With independent music making major strides in the digital market place, on the charts, and winning over 50% of this year's Grammy Awards it's great to see iTunes recognizing the opportunities that independent music offers," says A2IM VP Jim Mahoney.

More: How iTunes Chooses Feature Artists

EMI Sues Seeqpod & Favtape Opening New Fronts In Battle With Music Tech

    v. 

MUSIC TECH UNDER ATTACK

As part of an increasingly aggressive stance against music technology companies, EMI has joined Warner Music in suing playable search provider Seeqpod and added a lawsuit against Favtape to the mix. The suit seeks billions of dollars in damages for copyright infringement from the two mp3 search engines and EMI upped the anty by adding Seeqpod's officers and investors directly to the lawsuit.

EMI also opened a new front in its attack on music tech with a lawsuit against Favtape.  The site, which is now offline, was a mash-up using the publicly available API's of Seeqpod, Last.fm and Pandora. Favtape acted like a music search engine, but relied on Seeqpod to perform the function.. Favtape didn't track what music was played or downloaded - all that happened on Seeqpod.

"If API users can be held liable
it threatens how the internet works."
- Michael Robertson

Serial music tech entrepreneur Michael Robertson (MP3.com, MP3Tunes) points out that "many technology companies encourage others to connect (via API's) to their service and use them in innovative ways. Google is one of the largest examples of this with many connecting to Google's search, video, advertising and ecommerce services for their own business."  Almost 50 digital music companies openly offer API's.

The Digital Native Series

Kyle Bylin, Associate Editor

Are the Digital Natives a myth?  Should we be concerned?  In no other time in history has it been more possible that a section of a generation could rewrite the rules and restructure our beliefs about the world.  Their lifetime access to the Internet changes everything.  One website or program could radically force the music industry to rethink what we thought wasn't possible.

Were you Born Digital?

1. A Generation of Broken Robots
2. Pirates At Bay
3. Youth Culture
4. Online Fandom and Community
5. Conclusions
   

Taylor Swift Proves A Hit Ain't What It Used To Be

Last week, country music's Taylor Swift topped the Billboard 200 with just 62,000 in sales according to Nielson Soundscan - a 32% drop over the previous week. Charlie Wilson sold  58,000 in his second week and The Fray was third at 53,000. All the rest of the Top 10 sold less than 50,000 units.

The number of copies that an album needs to move to hit #1 varies according to competition each week and there are still weeks where sales must be in the 200,000 range. But gone it's clear, a hit ain't what it used to be.

Daily D.I.Y. - Borrow Someone Else's Fans

When first starting out, growing a fan base is one of the most difficult tasks any artist faces. At some point, the buzz grows and the momentum kicks in with fans telling their friends and talking about you online. But after your friends and family, where do find those first fans?

Borrow someone else's fans.

The most obvious form of fan borrowing is getting a opening act slot with a band whose fans might like you.  Trading gigs with a similar artist in another city works much the same way, but there are other ways to borrow someone else's fans"

• Flyer outside a another band's show
• Park a van with a banner on it outside a major concert
• Buy a local Facebook ad campaign using the names of several similar artists as key words

Thursday's Music Brief: Music Tech Under Attack, Pirate Bay Day 8, Performance Rights, Isle Of Man & More

HYPEBOT FEATURES:

• iTunes Adds Indie Spotlight
• Music Tech Under Attack: EMI Sues Seeqpod & Favtape Opening New Fronts In Battle With Music Tech
• Kyle Bylin's Digital Native Series
• Taylor Swift Proves A Hit Ain't What It Used To Be
• Daily D.I.Y. - Borrow Someone Else's Fans
• Join The Discussion: Eminem Lawsuit Could Cost Labels Millions And Mean Higher Artist Royalties

MORE INDUSTRY NEWS:

• Pirate Bay Trial Day #8 - John Kennedy, Chairman and CEO of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) took the stand. (ZeroPaid, TorrentFreak) As expected, he said Pirate Bay was was killing the music industry and then was forced to admit he didn't really understand how Pirate Bay or torrents worked. Just sad. 
• Artists and musicFIRST are pushing for The Performance Rights Act which would force briadcast radio stations to pay performance royalties. More key lawmakers are signing on in support. (FMQB)
  
• Inside the Isle of Man's £1/month unlimited music plan. (ars) The Isle is going to try "an audacious plan that would charge its citizens a small, flat fee for each connection in return for granting them legitimate access to music files, wherever they may be found. The plan would also see ISPs become the gateway to value-added music services".  They had to re-write copywirght law to do it. Should be fun to watch.
• Buzz artist Frankmusik is travelling around the UK on an interactive tour using GPS to track his position on a Google Map with daily video updates on MySpace. Or as UMG describes it to Music Ally, it’s “part Logans Run, part reality TV, part human geocaching and part digital hall of mirrors”.
  
• Nokia will launch in Australia next month.
• Warner/Chappell Music has named Tracy Gershon SVP and Head of A&R, Nashville.
• Two thirds of music consumers are still CD only. (AppScout)
• Tunecore  will give out 26 sales awards to artists who have topped 100,00 to 500,000 tracks sold. The digital distributor says it has paid out over $22 million in two years. Here's a list of the almost 30 artists receiving the sales award.
• PaidContent: MySpace Tries To Move In On Twitter, Facebook With New Mood Settings

UK Consumers Prefer Amazon to iTunes

Despite only recently entering the market, Amazon UK has established a lead in user preference for digital media delivery. Strategy Analytics'  “Digital Media Survey: United Kingdom Country Profile,” asked broadband users in the UK from which sites they would prefer to buy downloaded music, video and games. Amazon beat the competition across all three categories.  

Preferred UK Websites For Buying Downloaded Media
% of respondents	Video	Music	Games
Amazon	16%	26%	16%
Apple iTunes	11%	23%	5%

Eminem Lawsuit Could Cost Labels Millions And Mean Higher Artist Royalties

Eminem's publishing company, FBT Productions, is suing Universal Music Group for $1.6 million in unpaid royalties from digital sales. At stake are tens of millions of dollars and the very definition of royalties.

Like all music sales, the royalty rate paid is determined by a contract between labels and artists. But in the majority of recording contracts - particularly those first executed before the debut of iTunes - digital royalty rates are not stated explicitly stated.

Live Nation & Ticketmaster Face Congress

Ticketmaster's Irving Azoff and Live Nation's Michael Rapino sat as witnessed before Senate judiciary committee hearing yesterday defending the merger of the two live music titans as neccessary to stay competitive.  Countering the calim were two veteran indie promoters from Baltimore and Chicago whose competitiveness seemed to move lawmakers skeptical of the deal.

With US House hearing scheduled for Thursday and Justice Department and other probes promised, the  Live Nation Ticketmaster merger process is just getting started.

Viewpoints from around the net:

• The Wall St Journal's Deal Maker live blogged
• Ticketmaster, Live Nation defend deal (Boston Globe)
• Senators grill Ticketmaster’s chief (Detroit Free Press)
• Live Nation and Ticketmaster face skeptical lawmakers (Reuters)

eMusic Connects Fans To Facebook, Launches New "Free Music" Toolbar

eMusic has launched a new marketing campaign rebranding itself as the "internet's corner music store" where music discovery is enhanced by community and word of mouth. Integration with Facebook Connect and a  free download widget help power the intiative.

With links added to its site, eMusic subscribers using Facebook Connect can publish their eMusic activities onto the popular social networker.  With a single click users can post album ratings, reviews, and artist links to their Facebook profile and friends' Facebook news feeds.

Free has always been a key component of eMusic's marketing campaigns: 25 free downloads for just trying the service, 50 for joining now and 75 free treacks to lure back those that have left are all ongoing  promotions. A free eMusic music discovery tool bar powered by Google takes the campaign further offering a free mp3 daily to those that install it. In addition to the free daily download, users can access online radio with tracks linked to purchase on eMusic as well as other features direct from the toolbar.

In an era where free dominates, eMusic's "give it away" strategy and Facebook initiatives may be music to the ears of its cadre of independent labels struggling to bring attention to their releases amidst a fractured media landscape.

The Digital Natives: Conclusions (Part Five)

Kyle Bylin, Associate Editor

What's The Difference?

In The Personalized Music Experience, the iPod was described as, “A personalized, maximized, and fully controlled experience that could be taken with you wherever you go and be plugged into docking stations that created a home like listening venue where you choose to set up.”  The subtle difference revealed between previous generations and Digital Natives is that for the natives, more and more, it wouldn't have occurred to them that music should be experienced any other way.  Through further examination of my own digital youth...

Chris Cornell Gets Web Site Right

GUEST POST: This article by Scott Perry of Sperry Media was first published in the newsletter of his New Music Tipsheet.

I really like the Chris Cornell website. Not only is it clean and easy to navigate, but I think it's a strong reflection of the work that goes into fleshing out an artist's image these days. Of course you have an audio player, embedded videos, pix, discography, tour dates, news, and wallpapers, but then you also have the blog plus the links to Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and MySpace.

And all this is just for his own site, before any marketing efforts are done outside of his own sphere - you multiply the options for touch points at every partner's website (MTV, Verizon, the tour promoters, press, blogs, and other media outlets), and you start to realize just how much more complex it is be (or manage) an artist these days.

Used to be, radio was the napalm that got you a village of listeners/fans in one fell swoop. These days, you gotta send the hounds into rabbit holes to find your fans. And even when you do find your fans, you have to keep them happy and maintain that relationship over a long period of time.