BitTorrent continues its legitimacy offensive by debuting an acceleration program for startups in such areas as music/video discovery and usage as well as live streaming. It's not an accelerator where you spend time in residence and give up a percentage of ownership for an investment. Instead, while investments may be forthcoming, it's a program that supports initiatives relying on the BitTorrent protocol in a variety of significant ways.
Over the last 10 years iTunes has become the dominant force in digital music sales and has gradually moved from being a loss leader to drive hardware sales to become a revenue center in its own right. Sunday is the 10th anniversary of the debut of iTunes and many in the overlapping worlds of tech and music are reflecting on that history.
Google Play Music, the company's music service, launched today in Austria, Australia, Belgium, Ireland, Luxembourg, New Zealand and Portugal. Users can store up to 20,000 songs on Google Play for free and stream to any Android device or PC.
Amazon announced today that it is extending it's free CD AutoRip service to vinyl. The program automatically gives customers a free mp3 copy of any physilcal product they've have bought on the site in the last 15 years.
Should company's that advertise on pirate sites be punished as supporting piracy? It's a debate that's raged in the music community in recent weeks fueled in part by Cracker's David Lowery. On his Trichordist blog, Lowery wrote that brands who advertise on pirate sites are "supporting not only music piracy, but also the mainstream piracy of films and every other kind of digitally distributed work." and called for an end to the practice.
BitTorrent continues making strong moves to support legitimate uses of their service while extending the potential of their technology. Such efforts include multiple media appearances as well as the recent launches of BitTorrent Live, a live streaming service for which they've filed a patent, and SoShare. In addition, Alex Day builds his brand with over a million downloads of his recent BitTorrent release.
Yala Music is a unique hybrid music service featuring Arabic music. Though developed for the Middle East and North Africa, Yala's listenership has grown most strongly in the U.S. Yala offers streaming options but is currently focused on ad-supported downloads with Pepsi as their first sponsor. In addition, Yala offers services to artists including management of YouTube channels and Facebook pages.
In January, Amazon was granted a patent on tech related to the resale of digital content and now Apple has filed their own version. Not only are they covering quite a bit of ground with their patents but ReDigi is in court defending its digital resale system while a recent case in Europe supports the idea. This growing momentum means that musicians have to be prepared for the possibility of another hit to music revenue streams.
(UPDATED) It's easy to be philosophical about piracy until it effects you. As much as we publish about the "power of free" and the "new paradigm", I admit to the annoyance that I feel when I learn someone has reposted an entire Hypebot article without asking, and often without attribution. Such was the case for guitarist Guy Marchais of death-metal band Suffocation last week after the band released Pinnacle of Bedlam.
A new analysis by Horace Dediu at Asymco concludes that iTunes accounted for 60% of total music industry digital revenues in 2012. "Apple regularly reports iTunes as a separate revenue item and occasionally it also reports payments data for developers and app download rates," wrote Dediu. "By interpolating the data published and combining it with some assumptions it’s possible to estimate the mix of revenues (and costs) associated with iTunes." Here's how Dediu arrived at 60%:
A long promised U.S. Copyright Alert System (CAS) finally went live earlier today. Starting with Comcast and followed by AT&T, Cablevision,Time Warner, and Verizon later this week, major ISP's will issue escalating punishments to suspected P2P infringers, reducing their connection speeds after 5 or 6 offenses.
eMusic has dropped it's paid subscription requirement to allow anyone to purchase tracks and albums ala cart at it's online store. With some discounting of older releases, most music is priced at or near the industry standard of $.99 per track, hit singles at $1.29 and full albuums for $9.99. Subscription plans that offer from 24 to 73 tracks monthly for $11.99 to $31.99 are also still available.
You can now watch the 82-minute Pirate Bay documentary "TPB AFK" (The Pirate Bay Away From Keyboard) online now. The film offers a look by the people behind the Pirate Bay and their failed attempt to avoid Swedish authorities who accused them of copyright infringement charges. Appropriately, the movie, directed by Simon Klose, was released under a Creative Commons license. WATCH NOW:
Apple today announced that it has sold 25 billion songs since launching the iTunes Store in April of 2003. The 25 billionth track, “Monkey Drums” (Goksel Vancin Remix) by Chase Buch, was purchased by Phillip Lüpke from Germany. As the downloader of the 25 billionth song, Phillip will receive a €10,000 ($15,500 US) iTunes Gift Card.
Despite expectations to the contrary, Kim Dotcom's Mega has taken self-policing of pirated content quite seriously. While responding quickly to the emergence of Mega indexing and search sites that promoted illegal content by blocking their ability to search, they've also been pulling all files indexed by such search engines and have been complying with a wide variety of takedown requests within minutes. Yet links to apparently pirated material are still appearing on at least one such indexing site.
In startling news for those of us not keeping up with World Trade Organization (WTO) rulings on gambling and copyright-related issues, Antigua and Barbuda announced that today they will seek "final authorisation" to launch a site offering U.S. content, possibly including music, movies and software, without compensation to rights holders. This option was initially offered by the WTO in 2007 due to the U.S. blocking internet gambling via Antigua and Barbuda.
So far Kim Dotcom and the launch of Mega has been the big tech story of 2013, unless you buy into the Facebook Graph Search propaganda, just as Kim Dotcom and Megaupload was one of the biggest tech stories of 2012. Over the weekend Mega launched with few surprises and tech writers shared their take on the ultimately rather simple experience of Mega in its current form. Yet all this is but prelude as the sound of Maori dancing and chanting fades into the distance and the all-seeing eye of American justice blinks but does not tear.
Given that Kim Dotcom has teased a number of details about Mega, an encrypted file storage and transfer service that Dotcom says will introduce innovative new ideas to the Web, we probably know more about the service than the event that will launch it. The launch event will take place at Dotcom's mansion in New Zealand and it is quite likely to be an over the top affair that I'm guessing will not only introduce the service but address Dotcom's take on the U.S. action with references to Aaron Swartz in the context of musical entertainment, refreshments and busty women.
Amazon MP3, the second most popular digital music store, is now accessible via Apple's top ranked portable music devices, the iPod Touch and iPhone, for the first time. "Since the launch of the Amazon Cloud Player app for iPhone and iPod
touch, a top request from customers has been the ability to buy music
from Amazon right from their devices," according to Steve Boom, VP of Amazon Music.
Software engineer and musician Chase Farmer joins the conversation to discuss how music festivals are "ripe for hacking" in ways that can utilize technology to make for a better experience. Also, the gang chats about Beats' new music streaming service, Daisy, and possible implications for the streaming market and the overall music landscape. All this plus news on iHeartRadio, CNET, and more!
Kim Dotcom and the takedown of Megaupload was one of the major music industry stories of 2012. Now Dotcom is saying that he's going to have a Mega 2013 and he's off to an aggressive start. Later this month Mega, the descendent of Megaupload, will hold its launch party and a new chapter will begin for Kim Dotcom.
Last week interactive audio company Soniqplay announced the release of the KISS Remixer for iOS and Blackberry. The UK-based KISS radio stations will promote the free app which will allow listeners to download and remix both free and paid tracks that can then be shared. Unfortunately it's not available in the States but it's an interesting example of using tech to create additional reasons for purchasing music.
[UPDATED] Yesterday Apple expanded the iTunes Music Store into 56 new countries including Russia, Turkey, India and South Africa increasing their reach to 119 countries. GeoRiot, a company which provides location specific iTunes affiliate links, quickly followed and are already serving links for the new stores. [Full list of countries after the jump.]
Looking to
alienate themselves from the stigma of being a detriment to the content industry,
The Pirate Bay has just launched an entirely new website dedicated to promoting
the work of independent musicians, filmmakers and other content creators. Called
“The Promo Bay”, this website was built in response to the more than 10,000
artists who signed up for its initial conceptual roll out back in early 2012, but
has now expanded to both promote and provide artists with details on where
their content is being downloaded most in the world.
