hypebot

The Civil Wars On Piracy As Marketing

The Civil Wars have previously discussed marketing with free music and the importance of fans sharing the duo's music with their friends. However, I had not heard their take on piracy as a form of marketing prior to E.D. Kain's interview with The Civil Wars for Forbes. It's yet another example of the growing body of evidence that artists are finding ways to benefit from piracy when they approach it as another form of music sharing and discovery.

There's Just One Territory For Releasing Music Now: The World

Guest post by Michael Brandvold of Michael Brandvold Marketing.

I came across this on Bravewords.com this morning: Starting at roughly 8:00am EST on Thursday, February 2nd, VAN HALEN's new album A Different Kind Of Truth will reportedly be available via the Australian iTunes store (12:00 midnight on February 3rd Sydney time). Go to www.apple.com/au/itunes for more information.

Musicmetric: Co-Founder Talks Pro Edition, P2P Data Tour Planning App

Musicmetric is a web analytics platform that recently launched a Pro edition in Beta. It offers an impressive range of stats on everything from social media activity to mentions in articles on websites. One of the most noted features in recent media coverage is their tracking of file sharing activity. Access to such data also powered a midem Hack Day app called TourrentPlans that helps musicians plan tours based on the location of their filesharing fanbase.

Music Ownership: eMusic's Molly Neuman Looks At Consumer Motivations

Guest post by Molly Neuman, eMusic's VP Label Relations and MD Europe via digitalmusic.org.

For a large segment of music consumers, downloading music to own is something that's seen as music's past. But for an even larger share, owning and collecting is hugely important.

Ian Rogers: Instead of SOPA, Here's How To Combat Piracy While Encouraging An Open Internet

Guest post by Ian Rogers of Topspin Media.

Last week's Internet-wide SOPA/PIPA protests divided the Internet between content owners looking for stronger anti-piracy tools and technologists who believed the proposed legislation was an overreach. Those opposed said SOPA/PIPA opened the door to content companies taking down sites such as Tumblr and WordPress based on infringement by even one of the sites' millions of users. Though I was at AOL/Nullsoft when Gnutella was created I am not pro-piracy by any stretch - half of what our company, Topspin, sells is easily-pirated digital audio and video (it could certainly be argued Topspin stands to benefit from SOPA-style legislation) and our raison d'être is helping artists leverage their creativity to build a fan base and earn a living.

Startup Murfie Gets $1.4 Million To Rip Used CD's & Sell Them As Downloads

Murfie, an online marketplace that rips and sells the downloads of used music CD's, has closed a funding round of $1.4 million led by DaneVest Tech Fund along with angel investors including Barry Silbert, CEO of SecondMarket. The Madison, Wisconsin based startup has also been selected for the TechStars Winter 2012 Boston Program.

Jonathan Coulton On MegaUpload, SOPA & More

Guest post by musician Jonathan Coulton.

Uh oh, he's blogging. What happened? I wrote this thing on Twitter this morning about the MegaUpload shutdown, and it's gotten some crazy traction on the old internet. In addition, I've just done a couple of interviews for NPR on the subject, and I think I may have said some crazy, provocative things. There are many comments and questions out there already with more to come, and rather than have a bunch of separate discussions on a bunch of different social media platforms, I thought I would put some of my thoughts here.

Digital Music Piracy Since 2004 [INFOGRAPHIC]

The impact of unauthorized filesharing on the music industry has been debated since the dawn of Napster. Some believe it's been catastrophic and others see only minimal net impact. A new infographic from WebPageFX uses RIAA and IFPA stats to illustrate the more negative view.  Do you agree?

Is Music Piracy The Problem… Or The Solution?

Yesterday in a comment left on one of Hypebot's Best of 2011 articles, one reader expressed a viewpoint that ending piracy is the #1 route to a professional career in the music industry. They went on to say:

“You can't have jobs where there's no money. People who aspire to professional careers need to learn who is robbing them of those opportunities.”

While it’s clear by now that piracy has caused the music industry as a whole to lose a substantial amount of its revenue, it’s important to examine the root of the behavior in order to fully understand piracy and the people who choose to participate.

Megaupload Video Back On YouTube, After UMG Offers 'We Yanked It Because We Could' Defense

Megaupload's controversial music video is back on YouTube after Universal Music Group lawyers failed to offer a federal court judge  justification for its removal. Publicly, Universal had argued that Megaopload had no legal right to include musical endorsements from P Diddy, Will.i.am, Alicia Keys, Kanye West, Snoop Dogg, Chris Brown and other A-list performers, some of whom have contracts with UMG. But in court filings late yesterday, Universal offered a different defense.

Judge Demands Universal Music Explain MagaUpload Takedown Campaign Today

Late last week, after cloud file storage site MegaUpload debuted a promo video featuring P Diddy, Will.i.am, Alicia Keys, Kanye West, Snoop Dogg, Chris Brown, The Game, Mary J Blige , Kim Kardashian and others, Universal Music Group began an aggresive takedown order spree that ranged from YouTube to an online show Tech News Today.

Pretty Lights & BitTorrent Release Free Media Bundle

(UPDATED) Rising electronic dance music star, Pretty Lights, has partnered with BitTorrent to release a specially designed media bundle to distribute to the platform’s worldwide user-base of millions. Pretty Lights, real name Derek Vincent Smith, has already released a total of three albums and three EPs - all of which have been made free of charge to fans, and this latest media bundle with BitTorrent is no exception.

Compare Google Music, iTunes & Amazon [CHART]

Google Music left beta yesterday with a 320kps download store, free cloud storage and streaming, unique music sharing options, mobile payments and a direct to fan sales hub for indie artists. But how does the new Google Music compare to more established music offerings from Apple's iTunes and Amazon?  This chart from Huffington Post lays out the differences and similarities well:

Court Rules Against Universal Music In Lawsuit That Could Pay Artists Millions. Chuck D Joins Fight.

Welcome to every major label's worst nightmare. Universal Music Group (UMG) is now facing the real possibility of mulitple class action lawsuits alleging they short-changed artists of royalties owed for digital downloads and ringtones. This week, the combined force of Rob Zombie and the estate of Rick James cleared a legal hurdle for their class action suit filed in April, and Chuck D introduced a fresh lawsuit making similar claims. UMG hopes to have both suits treated as breach-of-contract disputes since, if allowed to move forward as class actions, they can conceivably include all UMG artists.

BitTorrent Debuts Live P2P Streaming Platform With Weekly DJ Sets

BitTorrent, the popular P2P site, has been slowly establishing credibility in the business world as a legitimate service. They've been working on a live P2P streaming platform for a number of years, and this month began public testing of the platform with live dj sets on Fridays. It's yet another great example of a tech company using music to spearhead the launch of a new service.

Google Leaks Music Store On Android Marketplace

(UPDATE 2) Rumors that the Google Music download store is launching in the next week are two are everywhere. Yesterday, the tech bloggers at News On Droid noticed a change on the mobile page of music.google.com. It had a new design and two buttons which are referring to a Google music service. (click in image to enlarge)

One of buttons was  labeled "Shop Android Market" and included this description:

Google Music May Launch Without 2 Major Labels

Google wants to launch its music download service as soon as possible, a source tells Hypebot. Team Google reportedly believes that a unique music sharing feature combined with its own social network Google+ will set it apart from competitors. In fact, the pressure to launch is so strong that it may move forward without all of the major labels aboard.

Baseware: Beatport Adds Digital Distribution

Since their 2004 launch, Beatport has become the top global online retailer of electronic and dance music selling more than 77 million downloads. Sales are often more than 99 cents per track, and the company has distributed more than $100 million to independent labels and artists. Beatport's charts are so influential that some artists and labels make their product available there exclusively to drive chart position. Now Beatport is expanding their reach with the addition of Baseware, a digital distribution company aimed at electronic artists and labels.

Digital Music Sales To Triple In 4 Years To $20.1 Billion [REPORT]

The digital music industry is set to double from $7.4 billion to $20.1 billion in 2015, according to a new study. That's a compound annual growth rate of 22.1% over the period. Subscriptions will be the fastest growing segment, growing at a compound annual rate of 60.8% to 2015.

Believe Digital & Absolute Marketing Announce Strategic Partnership

Indie digital distributor Believe Digital has announced a strategic partnership with label services firm Absolute Marketing. This new agreement will give Absolute Marketing & Distribution access to Believe Digital‘s worldwide digital distribution network and will provide Believe with a diverse range of new and catalog content.