snapshot 9/20/07

Market Spotlight: Online Music
Until recently, many consumers associated buying music online with companies like Apple Inc., RealNetworks Inc. and Napster Inc. But recently the digital music space is starting to get a lot more crowded, with new and upcoming offerings from Amazon.com Inc., Nokia Corp. and SpiralFrog Inc. — plus existing and changing services from wireless operators like Verizon Wireless.

It's unclear whether any of the services will dethrone Apple's iTunes, but offerings from Apple and other players in this growing field highlight two emerging trends: There is a growing availability of tunes free of DRM, or digital rights management, technology that hampers copying tunes, as well as tracks that are downloadable over the air to cell phones.

Some sites, like Apple's iTunes Store and Wal-Mart Stores Inc.'s online music store, are tinkering with DRM-free offerings, and newcomer Amazon promises to offer tracks free of copy protection technology as well.


Apple’s iPod Touch Is a Beauty of a Player Short on Battery Life
But it seems ridiculous to me to sell a powerful device with Wi-Fi and a huge screen, and to leave out things like an email program, even though you can use Web-based email programs. I assume Apple was concerned that the less costly Touch might compete too much with the iPhone if it had these features. In fact, if somebody can jam a voice-over-Internet capability into the iPod Touch, it might be more of a threat to the iPhone, which is tethered to a single cellphone carrier, AT&T.

The company claims that the Touch can play music for up to 22 hours and video for up to five hours on a single battery charge, even with Wi-Fi turned on. But in my tests, using factory settings, music playback lasted just under 17 hours and video playback lasted just over four hours. Nearly every other iPod I’ve tested, including the new Nano, handily beat Apple’s battery claims.


Popkomm Panelists: Music, Auto Industries Must Align
Vehicles will drive a viable revenue stream for record labels in the coming years, panelists said at the "Auto Mobile Music: The Dashboard Jukebox" session today, on day one of Popkomm, the international music and entertainment conference being held in Berlin. The event runs September 19 - 21.

"Personalized downloads to the car will become a viable business model," Hirsch added.
When we talk about filling the car up, we could be talking about filling it up with music," Roberts said.


Poll: Radio Listening Is Staying Stable
Sixty-three percent of American adults listen to the radio every day, says a new survey from American Media Services. And the number among 25-34 adults is even stronger: 79 percent tune in to radio at least once a day. Seventy-two percent of Americans say they're listening to the radio as much or more now than they did five years ago, and they're still tuning in in the car: 74 percent of Americans turn on the radio when they get in the car, including 72 percent of 18-24 adults and 80 percent of 25-34s.


Online music distributors: song licensing a painful and expensive process
At a breakout session for the Future of Music Policy Summit in DC this week, online music distributors complained that licensing music for digital retail is still far too complicated, and blamed this complication for the paucity of online distribution outside of the US market.

When Rhapsody and other services ask for a list of songs available for licensing instead of filing individual requests, they're told that the information is proprietary, said Quirk. The problem is only exacerbated by very poor metadata and recordkeeping among music labels, Potter added.

Between the secretive practices of music licensing agencies and the heavy penalties for any infringement, they said, it's hard enough to operate inside the US, much less across national borders, as each country comes with its own set of legal tangles. Not to mention, said Quirk, the problem of a subscription-service customer who travels to another country where the set of licensed rights can vary in ownership, scope, or even availability.


eMusic Adds Remote For Easier Track Transfer
Popular DRM-free download subscription service eMusic which specializes in indie music has launched a new application dubbed eMusic Remote which syncs traks with the three most popular media players - iTunes, Windows Media Player and Winamp.

Remote automatically moves eMusic downloads to your preferred player for easy transfer to digital music devices like your iPod. The application provides an all-in-one browsing and downloading experience for eMusic users. Smartly Remote is based on open source technology that works on Windows, Linux or Mac OS X and could also be used bu independent programmers to create additional applications and add-ons.


iPhone & iPod: contain or disengage?
But why is the iPhone locked to a single carrier, so I can't travel internationally with it? There's really only one viable reason: Apple wanted a share of the carrier's profits, which meant giving AT&T an exclusive deal. Which meant, we get screwed so Apple can make more money. It's that simple.

But since Apple is so close to the record companies, and they are already so grumpy with Apple, Apple did a deal that benefits record companies and Apple. Not artists, certainly not consumers. In order to use a 15-second snippet of some random song, I now must buy it not once, but TWICE. The amazing thing is that I must buy it THREE times if I own the song on CD -- I have to buy a DRM'ed version from the Apple Store, then buy the the ringtone, on TOP of the CD I already bought.


Hollywood Readying Burn-To-DVD Downloads But Do We Care?
A little birdy told us that last night, the DVD Copy Control Association met in a smoke-filled room and ratified the CSS Recordable (aka DVD Download) profile, meaning movie studios may soon release movies that you download, burn to disc and then use almost exactly like standard DVDs. It's not a new DRM—it's actually the same CSS that was cracked long ago. I assume the bare minimum requirement for this would be a hardcore broadband connection and a DVD burner, so who is the target customer?


Video Ezy to work with Apple on kiosk-style movie downloads?
It's not clear how much of this is optimistic name-dropping and how much is real, but Australian video retailer Video Ezy (they just bought Blockbuster Australia) has announced that it's in talks with Apple, as well as several other suppliers, on a kiosk-style movie delivery system that would allow customers to download up to 40 movies onto an iPod and then pay as they watch. The system, called eBox, would still require you to actually visit a retail location, a compromise Video Ezy says is required because broadband speeds still aren't high enough to support a pure download model. We can see why Apple would be an attractive partner -- download on your iPod, watch on your Apple TV certainly seems feasible -- but true to form, Apple Australia refused to comment.