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Dominic Pandiscia Named EVP EMI Music Services

EMI Music has appointed Dominic Pandiscia to head its Sales and Commercial Development team in North America in the newly-expanded role of Executive Vice President, EMI Music Services.  Darren Stupak, who had been overseeing EMI Music’s sales team, is leaving the company.

Apple Closing Lala 5/31. Is iTunes In The Cloud Next?

Lala is shutting down

The Lala service will be shut down on May 31st, 2010.

Unfortunately, we are no longer accepting new users.

That was the simple message posted on the lala.com home page last night. Does this mean iTune's in the cloud is nearing launch? And what does it mean for Google music search results that point to lala? Apple, as usual isn't talking.  But, stay tuned...

MusikPitch Launches Online Marketplace For Songs

MusikPitch has launched as an online marketplace for custom songwriting. The site offers music supervisors, corporate brands and others access to a largely untapped pool of songwriting talent and revenue opportunites for the songwriter. Clients post their needs along with a budget. Next songwriters submit tracks and clients provide feedback. At the end of the contest, the client picks their favorite song and pays the winning songwriter. 

MusikPitch is free to songwriters, charging the buyers a small fee plus 10% of the prize. They also help streamline the licensing process with free contracts. Potential MusicPitch custom song clients include film, TV, video games, corporate jingles, as well as, personal songs for reunions, parties, weddings, etc.

Watch a video overview:

E1 Buys IndieBlu Labels Artemis, V2, Light & More

Consolidation within the India sector appears to be heating up. Last week Concord acquired the massive Rounder Records catalog and this week E1 Entertainment (formerly Koch) has acquired the rights to more than 25,000 master recordings and a related publishing company from IndieBlu Music Holdings.

IndieBlu was formed in April of 2009 when it bought the assets of Sheridan Square Entertainment at a foreclosure auction. IndieBlu’s roster includes Artemis, V2, Light, Compendia, Vanguard Classic, IndieBlu Records, Spitfire, Tone Cool, Triloka and Ropeadope. Eight IndieBlu staffers will join E1's Nashville office including IndieBlu president Michael Olsen.

Video: Inside Guvera's Ad Supported Music Service

Watch Contoversial M.I.A "Born Free" Video

The controversial M.I.A. video "Born Free" depicts the military rounding up red headed children and executing them. Some media outlets reported that YouTube had removed the violent video, but instead they put it in an age restricted section. The net result is that it's almost impossible the find the video unless you know the YouTube internal URL. 

Perhaps parental discretion is warranted. Perhaps not. The video is disturbing and contains violence and nudity, but it also deserves to be seen.

More Music Industry News: Flash Ban, Vivendi Reports, HMV Falls, Taco Machines & More

• What Apple’s Flash Ban Means For Music. (Billboard.biz)
• Universal Music Group  (UMG) parent company Vivendi said its performance in the first quarter of 2010 was in line with expectations and predicted a modest increase in profits for the full year. The company also announced the appointment of Lucian Grainge, Co-CEO of UMG, as a member of the Vivendi Management Board. He will take up the position of CEO of UMG on January 1, 2011, succeeding Doug Morris, who will remain as Chairman. (FMQB)
• BPI and The Pirate Bay clash at London music industry debate. (Music Ally)
• eMusic has extends its digital music club rewards initiative to the UK. Dubbed the eMusic A+R Access + Rewards program, UK eMusic members will get offers and discounts from select music partners. 
• UK music retailer HMV's sales fall 10%. Group pins hopes on boost from release of Avatar on DVD and new Amy Winehouse album following 'difficult' start to the year (Guardian)
• Yahoo looses another exec: Bryan Lamkin, senior vice president for the consumer products group, is leaving the company after little more than a year on the job.(CNet)
• Michael Robertson on music in the cloud: A Billion Taco Vending Machines = Bigger Taco Industry

UK Band Gets $300,000 To Change Their Name

(UPDATED) Exit Through The Gift Shop Door was  the name of a band started by 41 year old Simon Duncan in London just 18 months ago. "It was a kind of midlife crisis, but we are still going, with a different line-up, and it has become a bit more serious," according to Duncan.

The band's path to success took a twist, however, when famous UK graffiti artist Banksy randomly chose the band's name as the title of his first ever movie project. Exit Through The Gift Shop Door, the film - also dubbed "The world's first Street Art disaster movie" - debuted at Sundance and will be screened in select U.S. Cinemas this week and next.

More & The Film's Trailer:

Try Stoking Your Fans

This guest post comes from Ben Coe who is an artist coach and co-founder of music management and marketing firm The Artist Farm.  His work there is designed to help artists of all types and levels succeed in clarifying and achieving their goals.

 The most effective marketing comes from word of mouth: and as you may also know, it is easier to retain a customer than it is to get a new customer.  Put those two ideas together and you see that it is more cost effective and efficient to keep your current customers happy so that their word of mouth will help you to gain new customers.  On top of this, mix in the benefits of the internet where word of mouth is archived and global and you can see how it is a powerful tool for marketing.

What I’d like to propose is a new form of marketing that I call “Stoking.”  Stoking puts all three of these elements together and combines the idea of “gifting” as well.  (Gifting is the practice of giving away something of value when you expect nothing in return.  The act of the gift and the pleasure it creates is the value).

How does ’stoking’ work?

MP3Tunes Bumps Free Cloud Storage 5X to 10G

Online music storage locker MP3Tunes has increased the capacity of its free cloud based service from 2G to 10G.  That should be enough capacity to store 2000 songs for play on almost any connected device.

"The goal is to store every internet user's music collection in the cloud and make it available everywhere they want to listen," according to the company's blog. "This will require a massive expansion of our system but we're ready to make the jump from hundreds of thousands of users to tens of millions." Invites are available here. 50G Premium accounts are also available for $39.95 per year.

TuneCore & MySpace Music Partner For Discounted Distribution Services

Flat fee digital distributor TuneCore has partnered with MySpace Music to offer discounted music distribution services to all the major download outlets. 

In addition, MySpace Music will provide participating artists a MyAds credit to market and promote on MySpace along with the additional marketing, sales data and other services of TuneCore. In the coming months, MySpace artists will also be able to log into TuneCore using their MySpace ID to provide a more seamless experience. 

More Music Industry News: HP Buys Palm, Blogs Under Attack, Facebook Buttons Spread, Ted Cohen & More

• HP buys smartphone developer Palm for $1.2 billion. (MediaMemo)
• Irish music blogs under attack over royalties. (Guardian)
• Apple releases iTunes 9.1.1 to fix a few bugs. (MacWorld)
• Rovi to power metadata for RollingStone.com. (press release)
• Have Trent Reznor And His Wife Started A New Band? (FMQB)
• Facebook’s New Social Plugins Come to 50,000+ Websites in One Week, (Mashable)
• Did you know that you could message your YouTube subscribers with bulletins? (YouTube)
• Ted Cohen: Servicing The Music Fans' Quest for Tunes (MidemNet)

Record Store Day Declared Big Sales Success

It was a great day for recorded music as sales surged during America’s third annual Record Store Day on April 17th.  Compared to the prior week, overall U.S. album sales in the independent sector increased 12%  including a whopping 119% vinyl sales jump for the weekend and 529% growth in vinyl single sales, according to Nielsen SoundScan. 

This Ad Captures The Perils Of Indie Music Snobbery

Seldom do ad agencies accurately check out the ups and downs of the indie rock lifestyle. But check out this French spot with English sub-titles for music magazine Trax and be sure to make it to the surprise ending. 

Watch the video:

We7 Claims A Profitable Month. Is This A Breakthrough For Ad Supported Music?

What Income Is Being Paid To Artists & Labels?

UK music streaming service we7 has it's first month where on demand music was paid for in full by advertising. That may make we7 the first company to demonstrate that a music on-demand ad-funded model can be profitable and still return measurable payments to rights holders.

1 million plays on we7 generates payments to the music industry of between £2,000 to £4,000 ($3100 - $6200 US), according to the company. Without mentioning Spotify by name, we7 claimed that their payouts "dwarf previously reported competitive models, especially revenue share models which shift the risk to the artists and songwriters".

The list of failed companies in the ad supported space is long and likely still growing. iMeem, SpiralFrog, iLike, Lala and Ruckus are a partial list of the companies that have tried to make ad supported music profitable and either gone out of business or been sold, often at fire sale prices.

The difference may be in we7's model of controlled growth, but record labels giving reasonable terms and time to experiment have also helped to make it work. 

John Mayer Drops 3.2M Twitter Followers For Tumblr

"140 characters...

a mathematical equation without an established value."

(UPDATED) Singer/songwriter John Mayer has amassed 3.2 million twitter followers, but at the recent ASCAP Expo, he told the crowd, “I think it’s pretty much done… Twitter as a form of communication, I think it’s over to be honest with you.”  Now on his blog Mayer clarified his dislike for Twitter:

"...the days of "Twitter: The Breakthrough" have passed; The Twitter-bred syntax isn't really doing it for me anymore."

"Finding out in 140 characters what a stranger has to say about you is like a mathematical equation without an established value of 'x'. Who are you, stranger? What do you stand for?..."

"Tumbler... the future of social networking"

"This is where Tumblr comes in. It's the future of social networking if your image of the future features intelligent discourse. I love reading other Tumblr users replies, because they're thoughtful by virtue of the fact that if they're not, they'll bring the intellectual property value of their own blog down, and that's a commodity on Tumblr."

Time To Add Android App Creation To The To-Do List

click on image to enlarge (via TechCrunch)

iPhone music apps are hotter than hot. Not just because of the big numbers they can deliver, but also because iPhone users are early adopters that help spread the word. But a new Ad Mob survey should remind music marketers not to forget Google Android users when planning their development schedule.

According to the study, U.S. Android traffic increased to 46% of overall smartphone OS web traffic compared to 39% for the iPhone operating system. Worldwide, iPhone held the top spot with 46% vs. 25% for Android. AdMob measures mobile ad impressions, which they use as a measure of overall traffic.

Twitter Complies With DMCA Takedown Requests

Twitter has begun acting on label and rights holder requests based on the Digital Millennium Copyright Act to take down allegedly offending material. It's not the first report like this, but last week blogger JP got this notice from Twitter after posting about a recent leak of The Nationals new album complete with links and tweeted about it:

jp917, Apr 22 03:10 pm (PDT):
Hello,
The following material has been removed from your account in response to a DMCA take-down notice:
Tweet: http://twitter.com/jp917/statuses/12499491144 – New Post: Leaked: The National – High Violet http://jpsblog.net/2010/04/20/leaked-the-national-high-violet/  

Asked to respond, Twitter said in statement:

More Music Industry News: Pirate Bay, MySpace PR Exec Leaves, AOL Down, Indaba Debuts & More

• The Pirate Bay’s Sale Drifts On (paidContent)
• MySpace PR Exec Dani Dudeck Resigns, Moves To Zynga As GM Corporate Communications. (TechCrunch)
• AOL’s Turnaround Isn’t Here Yet: Revenues Down 23 Percent. (MediaMemo)
• Indaba Music has debuted Mantis, its new web-based Digital Audio Workstation (DAW). Mantis enables anyone, from anywhere in the world, to record, edit and mix high-quality audio — for free. (press release) I'll be doing a full story later this week on Hypebot.
• Digital distributor IODA announced that Ely Guerra has joined their growing Latin music catalog, which represents 4.5 % of the U.S. Latin digital market. The announcement was made at the Billboard Latin Conference in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
• WIN and Qtel launch mobile music service in Qatar. (press release)
• Sonicbids and Berklee Partner to Give One Band a $20K Scholarship to Berklee’s Five-Week Summer Performance Program (press release)

Trade Your Fans On Headliner.fm For New Ones

The concept of trading gigs with another band - say in another city - is nothing new.  But what about trading fans? Headliner.fm encourages artists to promote their peers on Facebook, MySpace and Twitter in exchange for return promo to their fan networks. Headliner.fm's platform is designed to keep the trades targeted and even; so the artist is assured of getting as good as their giving. 

There are certainly other successful examples of "if you like X, you'll probably like Y" music marketing. Look at what Fall Out Boy has done with it's Ning powered Friends Or Enemies site and community.   Of course, like a band that blasts out too much unwanted info, overuse of Headliner.fm has the potential to cause fan burnout. But used wisely, it seems like another worthy tool in the artist marketing toolbox.

Watch a Headliner.fm intro video:

Report: UK Recorded Music Biz A Mix Bag In 2009

The statistical highlights courtesy of BPI:

• Total UK recorded music trade income rises 1.4% overall to £928.8m
• Trade revenues from physical formats down 6.1% to £739.9m
• Digital income now a fifth of total recorded music revenues - up 47.8% to £188.9m

What does this mix report mean for the future?  According to Forrester analyst Mark Mulligan, the glass half empty perspective is appropriate. "The UK recorded music market has lost close to 40% of its value since 2003. Though this isn’t necessarily a dead cat bounce, it is going to take a lot more than 1.4% annual growth to turn things around".

Spotify Gets A Major Upgrade Unifying Cloud & iTunes Playlists In A Single Player

Details & A Video Introduction

(UPDATED) After six months of development, Spotify has released a major upgrade that allows users to import tracks from their download library into the Spotify player along with a new Spotify Social feature that encourages music discovery. Users can friend each other to share tracks and there is full Facebook integration, all within the Spotify player. The result is a more unified music experience which for Spotify means additional opportunities to deliver ads.

A recently introduced iPhone app allows playlist downloads for offline listening. Now paid Spotify users can enjoy cloud-based music streaming, digital downloads, playlists, wireless sync and offline listening - all in a single player that looks and feels a lot like iTunes.

The gain for labels, says Spotify, is that greater engagement leads to more music sales. But that has yet to be proven, which U.S. users even more frustrated; as the record labels blocking their way wait for proof that Spotify can someday deliver significant payouts.

Video Of The New Spotify:

Free SoundExchange Artist Webinar Today & 10 Reasons Artists Don't Register

Digital royalties collection group SoundExchange is offering a free webinar open to the first the 1,000 musicians to register today at 2:00pm EST.  Participants will learn about SoundExchange, maximizing digital performance royalties , the process of getting their money, and activities in Congress that will affect their career.  Daryl P. Friedman, VP, Advocacy & Government Relations, The Recording Academy, will join to discuss  others issues facing musicians.

SoundExchange is also continuing its efforts to distribute money collected from digital and satellite music providers to artists. They'd been criticized for not delivering money to artists who could have been  easily found with a Google search. But, at least since this campaign, the roadblock  has often proven to be the artists themselves rather than SoundExchange. Unaware or perhaps suspicious of who SoundExchange is, some artists have still failed to take the simple steps needed to receive money due them.

The latest chapter in Sound Exchange's ongoing effort to educate artists is this list of The Top Ten Reasons Artists Don’t Register with SoundExchange (And 10 Reasons They Should):

More Music Industry News: EMI's Future, SoundHound, Seeqpod, Another Blog-Label, PlayMPE Hacked & More

(UPDATED)

• New EMI Music chairman Charles Allen is believed to have pulled back from suggesting sales of parts of the group in the strategic plan he has just submitted to financier Guy Hands, who runs parent company Terra Firma. (ThisIsMoney)
• SoundHound, has launched a limited free version of its popular music search mobile app for iPhone, iPod touch and iPad. The app can identify recorded music as well as songs users sing or hum. (press release)
• Bloson.com, a portal that converts everyday social activities into financial aid for charitable causes, has purchased the remaining assets of SeeqPod. (press release)
• Popular music blog MyOldKentuckyBlog has gotten a major face lift and started a record label. (MetroMix)
• Digital distributor IODA is delivering a first-ever Amazon MP3 global exclusive with Kris Kristofferson's new album made up of early publishing demos. (press release)
• Music distribution system PlayMPE, used by many record labels was hacked last week. (AbsolutePunk)
• HYPEBOT ADS - You may have noticed that the Google provided ads that ran under the first post  are gone as part of our ongoing redesign. We're also about to increase our ad rates including a number of new ad positions. To lock in at the current rates or if you are interested in some of our new advertising and sponsorship opportunities, contact us now.

Even For Majors Labels, It's A Direct To Fan Future

 UMG & Mozes Expand Latin Fan Outreach

Direct to fan marketing and sales has been the indie d.i.y. mantra for months, and now even the major labels are getting into the game.  With an increasingly fractured media landscape and a decreasing retail marketplace, what choice do they have?

Recent surveys have shown that mobile interactivity trumps the internet for many Hispanic consumers and Universal Music Group upped its d-to-f game for Spanish speakers today with a deal to utilize the Mozes Connect mobile engagement platform. By leveraging the Mozes Connect platform, UMG is opening additional channels of discovery and delivery to Spanish-speaking and bilingual fans.