Antigua Based Site Says Not Subject To US Copyright Law
$9.85 per month for unlimited music or movie downloads and $17.95 per month for both. One can already imagine the RIAA lawyers drawing straws to see who gets to spend some time on the Caribbean isle of Antigua litigating against Zookz.com..
Currently just 50,000 tracks and 1500 movies are available for downloading from their "safe database" but many more are promised. Is it legal? The site claims to be covered by a 2005 WTO Trade agreement between the US and Antigua. It's hard to imagine that will stand for long. But iif you're willing to share your credit card info then cancel you vacation plans, fire up your hard drive(s) and let the downloading begin.
From an email to Tunecore users sent late yesterday about the announcement of a new alliance with Universal:
Today, TuneCore announced a new partnership with Universal distribution and its record labels Interscope, Universal Republic, Island/DefJam, Motown, Geffen and more
So let me answer the big question right out the gate - no, we are not now owned by Universal. This was a deal I did solely to provide artists more choices and options, the details of which you can read below.
CD Baby is upping the rate it charges artists for downloads sold direct from it's site from 9% to 25% with a 27 cent minimum. CD Baby blamed the increase in credit card fees which range from "27¢ (for a single) to over 50¢ (for an album or CD sale) per transaction". Commissions on downloads sold through Amazon, iTunes and other digital retailers will remain 9%.
The move is part of a site revamp going live this weekend that includes the addition of single song downloads, artist pages as well as the standard album pages, download card printing and an upload utility that eliminates the need to mail in a CD.
(UPDATED) An upstart digital distributor that made a name for itself by criticizing the major labels has now joined hands with one. TuneCore has entered into a strategic alliance with Universal Music Distribution, the sales and marketing arm of the Universal Music Group.
TuneCore will host distribution portals for UMG's labels as well as
partner labels and artists. As an artist develops, they'll have access
to a number of artist discovery, marketing and upstreaming
opportunities within the UMGD system.
Last year Universal made a major investment in digital distributor INgrooves in part to be able to use its technology. These moves appear designed to give the major label group greater involvement
with a larger piece of the growing long tail of artists in their early
stages. Whether Universal made an investment here is unclear, but according to Tunecore neither party will be taking rights or revenues from participating artists.
UMGD will also provide TuneCore's customers with a menu of artist services, including licensing opportunities and professional audio mastering. Additionally, Guitar Center, also a TuneCore investor and strategic partner, will provide to UMGD access to its entire chain of over 200 nationwide as a non-traditional retail channel for the sale of physical product which includes select TuneCore Artist titles.
The usually fiercely independent CEO of Tunecore Jeff Price has nothing but praise for Universal.
Kazaa is planning to release a major new service will allow members the ability to upload and share their standard and HD videos direct with the Kazaa community. The addition will allow for home videos and HD quality movies to be transferred for free including via mobile devices without restriction.
After being sued by rights holders Kazza launced a subscription-based service with Brilliant Digital Entertainment (BDE) With the Kazaa service you get unlimited access to CD-quality tracks for a monthly fee of $19.98/mo and play those files on up to 3 devices. (more)
Rumors picked up by cNet and expanded on by PlayStationLifestyle.net point to Sony seriously exploring an extensive music service for its popular PlayStation gaming platform.
"Cloud" appears to be the name of the possibel service with sources suggesting a totally revamped device and Sony talking to but not yet cutting final deals with other major labels. PSL imagines a music streaming service and cNet points to a download store suggesting that Sony may still be exploring which format PlayStation users crave. Either way, recent public statements from Sony executives suggest that any moves would be part of open platform with other devices as well.
Xeinge, the parent company of WaTunes and Music Expand, has added a professional digital delivery platform to its portfolio dubbed Vidyps. The goal is to make direct digital delivery
affordable for record companies and distributors amd to help manage and
deliver those assets. iTunes, eMusic, Napster, Rhapsody, MediaNet,
and Urfilez are already compatible with the platform.
The staff of New Your City indie label Dovecote usually spends Wednasday's evenings hanging out at The Music Box, a usually quiet joint where the often often gives away free pizza to help bring in a crowd. On a recent Wednesday they walked in to find the place far busier than usual. When a friend told them the free pizza had arrived, Pal and Kosuke from the label went to grab a slice and....
Woman: “Who the FUCK are you? And why are you eating our pizza?”
<Long pause> Kosuke and Paul look confused.
Kosuke: "Are you joking? Is this a joke?" Woman: "No this is definitely NOT a joke. I want to know who you are and why you’re eating our pizza." Kosuke: "Well our friend came in and told us there was free pizza at the bar. We are. So. Sorry. It was a misunderstanding."
Woman: (with unbridled entitlement) "This is a company party our CEO is here and you STOLE our pizza. Are you from out of town? Because let me tell you, NOTHING is free in New York City. Nothing is free… well maybe except for the condoms in Times Square."
This time the rumor mill proved correct. Sony Music Entertainment has entered into a global partnership with IODA which includes an investment in the digital distributor. IODA will now provide digital services for Sony's RED indie label arm, as well as, offer expanded overseas opportunities. In return, IODA can now offer its labels physical distribution and the stability of a corporate partner with deep pockets.
How Will Independent Labels React?
The exact details of how the two companies will work together are still being worked out. But if as Thomas Hess, Sony Music's President of Global Digital Business, U.S. Sales and Corporate Strategy told Billboard, IODA will be "joined at the hip" with the major, it is unclear how an often firecely independent label community will react.
Lime Wire is adding CD Baby's catalog of 240,000 independent artists to its digital the LimeWire Store. The CD Baby catalog includes topsellers from Regina Spektor, Gary Jules, Joe Purdy,
Ingrid Michaelson, Melissa Ferrick, Charlotte Martin, Colin Hay and Stan
Ridgway, and this deal brings the total number of licensed tracks on Lime Wire to 3.5 million.
(UPDATED) News began to trickle out in the wee hours this morning that The Pirate Bay has been sold to Global Gaming Factory X AB for $4 US million in cash plus an equal amount in stock. GGF develops gaming software and operates internet cafes and gaming centers in Scandinavia. Details are vague, but the original team will still stay involved and promise to keep the site much the same.
Ownership of the Pirate Bay had been transferred away from the individuals being sued in 2006 according to an interview (translation via Techdirt) with co-founder Peter Sunde conducted on Twitter. Neither Sunde or his fellow pirates are the beneficiaries of the sale according to a PirateBay blog post, but rather "into a foundation that is going to help with projects about freedom of speech, freedom of information and the openness of the nets."
Once again new media trumped old with AOL's TMZ breaking the Michael Jackson story an hour before other news and gossip gatherers. But in addition to the predictable spike in online interest, Friday's death also led to an unprecedented spike in sale.
As of Monday morning, Michael Jackson held 8 of the top 10 slots on iTunes with 20+ more tracks sprinkled throughout the top 100. At Amazon wait times for most of his CD's and DVD's had jumped to 11-14 days for the usually instant-ship retailer. See real time iTunes singles sales data above and the iTunes album chart after the jump.
the riaa have sued Jammie Thomas-Rasset of minnesota for $2,000,000 for illegally downloading music.
argh. what utter nonsense. this is how the record companies want to protect themselves? suing suburban moms for listening to music? charging $80,000 per song?
punishing people for listening to music is exactly the wrong way to protect the music business.
A Nielsen study presented last week at NARM (link to full presentation after the jump) contained some particularly bad news for artists and labels releasing new albums. As steep as the overall sales decline has been, the drop for new releases has been been sharper and the chance of breaking through even more difficult.
105,575 albums released in '08
Less than 1% of all releases or just 950 albums sold more than 25,000 copies
Those 950 accounted for 82% of all new releases sold
New release album sales fell 18% to 149 million
That's half the new release sales generated in '01
50,000 digital only albums accounted for 1.8% of all new release album sales
It's possible to be critical of the figures and methodology....
HYPEBOT: The report gets points for being realisitic. Because it not go so far as to suggest the full implementation of 3 strikes and your off the net, the music industry will not be happy. But given the reality of the evolving array of cloaks and workarounds available to any serious file sharer, what would the point have been of going farther? Overall, Ditigal Britain seems a somewhat pointless excerise.
One of the breakout indie bands of 2008 was Sub Pop's Fleet Foxes, and the band openly credits online piracy for providing both inspiration and a promotional boost for its 200K+ selling debut album.
As much music as musicians can hear, that will only make music richer as an art form," singer Robin Pecknold told the BBC. "I think we're seeing that now with tons of new bands that are amazing, and are doing way better music now than was being made pre-Napster."
"I've downloaded hundreds and hundreds of records - why would I care if somebody downloads ours? That's such a petty thing to care about," says Pecknold. "I mean, how much money does one person need? I think it's disgusting when people complain about that, personally."
On recent rumors that the band was signing to Virgin, Pecknold wrote in a blog post:
US sales of recorded music will drop to $5.52 billion in 2013 according to the new eMarketer report Digital Entertainment Meets Social Media. This downward trajectory will extend a pattern that began in 2000, when physical sales started to decline after rising dramatically during the heyday of the CD.
When eMusic recently added major label Sony to its previously indie only music subscription service, it also increased prices per download. Still cheaper than iTunes and others, the reaction from many eMusic fans was strong and negative.
Since the initial announcement, the company has been on a bit of a campaign to clarify why the price hikes happened; and in an interview with Wired's Eliot Van Buskirk, eMusic CEO Danny Stein said that it was the independent record labels and not a deal with the big bad Sony that forced the price increases:
"Our existing labels, for the most part, have been asking us to raise prices for a long time. What I told the New York Times is that we were looking for a “catalyzing event” to do it. And really, the catalyzing event is adding catalog, adding more content. We used this as an opportunity to do it, but we didn’t do it because of Sony...
ISP Virgin Media will begin offering a monthly subscription service that gives UK broadband
customers the ability both stream and download unlimited tracks from Universal Music's catalog . A
lower priced tier will offer streaming and a more limited number of downloads.
Downloaded music is portable and will be the users
to keep on any MP3 compatible device. Virgin is also negotiating with other major and independent labels and
publishers and anticipates a more complete catalog when the service is launches later this year.
But this juicy carrot comes with a fairly ugly stick. The two companies will also be "aworking together to protect
Universal Music's intellectual property and drive a material reduction
in the unauthorized distribution of its repertoire". This will involve implementing a range of strategies
to "educate file sharers about online piracy" and "raise awareness of
legal alternatives".
WaTunes, the recently launched music distribution service, got some skeptical reactions (including from me) when it said it wouldn't charge bands to sell on iTunes. How could such a model be sustainable?
The plan for the service's future profitability apparently includes upselling those uploading to iTunes some paid VIP services including placement on Amazon, Rhapsody, Zune, Wal-Mart, Amie Street, FYE and
HMV along with iTunes trending reports and promotional services for $29.95 a year. Now VIP customers can also deliver unlimited music videos to iTunes, AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon, Sprint, and the new video streaming service VidZone. I'm still skeptical, but it's a tempting combination
Harvard law professor Charles Nesson is joining forces with MInnesota attorney Kiwi Camera to file a class action suit demanding that the RIAA pay back the "$100M+" that the RIAA "stole" with its many lawsuits against downloaders.
Their case is based on two legal issues. First, that MediaSentry who reportedly gathered most of the evidence of alleged illegal file sharing, was not a licensed investigator in many of the states that it was working. Second, that "to prove copyright infringement, the RIAA needs evidence of that
infringement, of course, but it also needs to prove it owns the
copyrights in question. If it can't establish that fact, the case also
falls apart," Camera told ars technica. "They basically committed a technicall screw-up". He claims that RIAA lawyers provided the court with copies of their copyright registrations, bu they weren't "certified copies" required under
federal rules of evidence.
Do you think that the RIAA should be forced to return the fines it's collected?
Deluxe and limited editions are one of the new tools in the artist monetization Toolkit that seems to be working. Think of it as music's version of retail up-selling ("Do you want fries with that 99 cent burger?") Nine Inch Nails was one of the first to use it effectively offering versions of a new release from for free to $5, $15, $75 and even $300. Whatever your level of income of interest; there was a product for you.
Topspin is helping to refine the concept of premium music offers with a series of deluxe and limited edition packages, and Topspin's lead guru Ian Rogers has been recording the unboxing of several of them. These clips aren't going to win awards at Sundance, but they provide some insights into this effective marketing and monetization strategy.
And if you're thinking that your band is not "big enough" to start charging fans a premium, then maybe your not thinking enough out of the box about what you'd put into your deluxe box to make it worth buying.
Perhaps to quell the strongcriticism of eMusic's addition of Sony and subsequent price increases, the subscription services has created a special FAQ. Some answers offer a glimpse inside the deal and the motivations behind it.
According to the new document, Sony product will only be available to US subscribers, but they may add the UK, EU and Canada in the future. "We don’t currently have a timetable for when this will happen..." says eMusic. But despite the lack of new product, new non-US subscribers are getting a price increase and current members are not. "We’re doing this for two reasons: To help attract new labels and bring back those we all miss and keep us where we need to be as a business."
Hip Digital has launched the "Hip Digital Music Engine" for the integration of digital music sales and pin code redemption into any website. The Hip Digital Music Engine allows companies to offer a catalog of digital music through their web sites even if they are not a store and do not currently have ecommerce or promotional capabilities.
Hypebot readers added their voices to strong reaction from eMusic users after the formerly all-indie subscription service added catalog from Sony along with raising its prices and lowering monthly download limits.
"Simply put, I don't know who this serves as the most passionate eMusic subscribers are there for the indies and the people who would be most interested in this deal aren't going to subscribe to get this music. Despite how they are spinning it, the addition of the biggest of the majors will change the identity of eMusic and I don't think it's going to be for the better." - Captain Wrong
"I love
the eMusic model - it has long been my favorite way to buy music
online, and I've been there since the beginning. I really don't care
one way or another about Sony being added - it's a nice affirmation
that the eMusic model can work with the majors, but what is truly
disappointing is the scope of the download package changes." - Jordon Pastepunk
A report to be published in the International Journal of Internet Marketing and Advertising says that longer, higher quality free music samples engage more listeners and reduce the number of "free riders".
Ask any food manufacturer, free product samples give consumers the opportunity to try before they buy. This marketing model works well for products as diverse as shampoo and washing powder, instant coffee and bubble gum. But in the digital age these free offerings to often aren't provided at full quality. Music files are usually compressed or shortened to 30 seconds, for example.
Yanbin Tu in the Department of Marketing at Robert Morris University and Min Lu in the Department of Finance and Economics, have studied digital music samples.
Walmart.com's music download store went DRM free in February of 2008; and now the retail giant is telling customers that they'll no longer support the DRM laden downloads that they sold them prior to the transition.
According to an email sent to customers, on October 9th the company will shut its servers that "that supports protected songs and albums purchased from our site". Unless you back up your files by burning them to CD, you will "no longer be able to transfer your songs to other computers or access your songs after changing or reinstalling your operating system or in the event of a system crash". (Full text of the email after the jump.)
iTunes offered an paid upgrade to mp3's after it made the DRM-free transition and still supports the tracks it sold with DRM. Other download services like Napster and Rhapsody were forced to extend their transitions after complaints from consumers.
I've spent some time on the new Napster service over the last few days, and aside from a less than intuitive interface, I can't find much to dislike. At just $5 a month for unlimited streaming of a deep catalog along with 5 mp3's monthly, the service is effectively free. And if I'm in Napster previewing a track or album (and since they've already got my credit card), why not just buy it there instead of jumping over to Amazon or iTunes?
Reports are that Napster got a special deal on streaming licenses from the labels...
Microsoft announced that it will open its Zune video service to the Xbox LIVE this Fall. Microsoft also unvieled its newest portable media player, the Zune HD. Designed to compete with the popular iPod Touch, the Zune HD combines built-in an mp3 and video players, an HD radio receiver, HD video output, an OLED touch screen, Wi-Fi and an internet browser.
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