Missing Notes at iTunes-10
Posted on September 1, 2010
In the movie Amadeus, Mozart eagerly asks the Austrian Emperor for his opinion of the composer’s new opera, The Marriage of Figaro. At first the Emperor is evasive but upon Mozart’s insistence he responds that “there are too many notes.” An offended Wolfgang sarcastically asks “which ones should I exclude?”
Download audio narration to iPod, iPad, and iPhone here.
Evidently somebody in authority decided the tenth version of iTunes that Apple released today would also benefit from a mystifying exclusion. It’s “Ping” social networking is probably the most significant innovation to promote artists and record labels in the last decade. New release popularity was suffering because digital music forced a decline in radio, the chief recorded music promotional vehicle of the past sixty years. As radio’s successor, Ping permits 160 million iTunes users to spontaneously join affinity groups enabling them to discover new music and artists from one another. They can share recommendations within invitation-only groups, or among people with similar tastes from anywhere in open groups. Read more…
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Revenue Impact of P2P File Sharing
Posted on May 24, 2010
Jim Burger
Today’s audio podcast is an interview with Jim Burger who is an intellectual property attorney with Dow, Lohnes. As such, he is as vigorously opposed to copyright infringement as anyone. Nonetheless, Jim questions the validity of claims by music executives that Peer-to-Peer file sharing has been a major cause the industry’s revenue decline.
Download audio to iPad, iPod, or iPhone here
He readily admits a correlation between P2P activity and declining CD sales, but emphasizes that mere correlation does not constitute causation. For example, CD sales topped-out during the 1999-2000 period, but those were the same years when Napster was most active. Not only was Napster the first popular P2P network, it was also probably the most widely used. Album sales did not decline until 2001 which was the same year that Napster was shut-down by a judge’s order. Read more…
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Music’s Next Evolution
Posted on May 20, 2010
David Pakman
Today’s audio podcast is an interview with David Pakman who has been a venture capital Partner with Venrock since 2008. Earlier he was the CEO of eMusic where he led the online retailer to sell more music download tracks than any competitor except Apple’s iTunes. Before joining eMusic he Co-Founded MyPlay which pioneered online music lockers. MyPlay was sold to Bertelsmann shortly after the turn-of-the-century. Earlier David was a digital music innovator with N2K and Apple.
To play audio podcast to iPod, iPad, or iPhone click here.
David believes that the recorded music business has reached yet another mutation point. Over the past decade worldwide revenues dropped from $40 billion to about $17 billion. Furthermore, unless the industry begins to proceed along a new evolutionary path he predicts the declines will continue for another five years before bottoming-out at perhaps $7 billion. Read more…
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Advertising on Internet TV Shows and Movies
Posted on May 26, 2009
Steve Robinson, CEO, Panache
If you would like to learn the latest from an expert about video ads for premium Internet streams such as popular TV shows and movies, this interview is for you.
Our guest today is Steve Robinson who is the CEO of Panache. His company provides an ad-insertion platform that offers media and entertainment companies the infrastructure to generate advertising revenues from their video streams. Representative clients include MTV, VH1, Country Music Channel, and Nickelodeon, among others. Read more…
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The Record Label Business
Posted on May 19, 2009
Steve Knopper, Author, Appetitte for Self-Destruction
If you would like to know how the Internet transformed the record label business, this interview is for you.
Our guest today is Steve Knopper who is the author of Appetite for Self-Destruction. Steve’s book is a chronicle and analysis of the spectacular crash of the record industry in the Digital Age. He is a Rolling Stone contributing editor who has covered the business since 2002. Read more…
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Future of Recorded Music Business
Posted on September 29, 2008
If you would like to learn how the recorded music business will be generating revenue growth in the future, this interview is for you.
Our guest today is Greg Scholl who is the CEO of The Orchard which is a publicly-owned distributor of music for independent record labels, including one that it owns named TVT. The company also distributes over 3,000 hours of video and TV shows for clients who are the rights holders. Most of the files are distributed digitally to stores like iTunes, Amazon.com, and eMusic. Read more…
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Implications of DRM-Free Distribution by Major Labels
Posted on February 2, 2008
Summary: If you would like to get an industry executive’s perspective about the decision by all four major record labels to abandon DRMs, this interview is for you.
Our guest today is David Pakman who is the CEO of eMusic. His company is the largest seller of online music in the DRM-free MP3 format. However, the eMusic catalogue historically was limited to independent record labels. Now that the majors have decided to sell DRM-free tracks it looks like a good time to catch-up with David to see what the implications are for eMusic and the industry at large. Read more…
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Two Years Ahead of the Record Labels
Posted on January 4, 2008
About two years ago we published a research report entitled Digital Music Goes Mainstream concluding that it was in the best interests of the record label industry to abandon digital rights management (DRMs). You can get a copy of the February 15, 2006 report by clicking on the preceding link.
Over a year later EMI decided to sell DRM-free tracks, followed by Universal in the autumn, and Warner Music just last month. Finally Business Week reports that Sony-BMG will be the last of the four major labels to throw in the towel sometime during the first quarter of this year.
In our analysis DRM abandonment will benefit the industry for two reasons. Read more…
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