Monday, November 5, 2007

snapshot 11/5/07

On-demand program revives out-of-print discs
Classical fans are used to frustrating searches for albums that have long gone out of print. Those days may be over. ArkivMusic.com has agreements with all four major-label groups -- Universal Classics, EMI Classics, Sony BMG Masterworks and Warner Classics -- as well as two dozen indie labels to produce discs on demand under the ArkivCD program. These titles include sets with massive booklets, such as operas with lengthy libretto texts and translations. By year's end, about 5,000 such titles will be available.


Q&A: Reznor, Williams up digital ante with $5 album
Having just fulfilled his contract with longtime label Interscope, Reznor is upping the digital ante in tandem with activist/musician Saul Williams. Williams' Reznor-produced concept album, "The Rise and Fall of Niggy Tardust," which went live October 31 via the Fader label, can be obtained in three download formats: 192 kbit/s MP3, 320 kbit/s MP3 and free Lossless audio codec (FLAC).

The lower-quality MP3 is free, while the high-quality MP3 and FLAC cost $5. In a twist on the "name your own price" scheme that Radiohead employed for its recent album, "In Rainbows," fans will not be allowed to pay more than $5 for "Niggy Tardust." Billboard spoke to Reznor and Williams about the implications of their sales model, what this might mean for future Nine Inch Nails releases and why people should be willing to pay the same amount for music as they do for a good cup of coffee.


Gresso To Release Jennifer Lopez’s Brave Album As USB Flash Drive Necklace
Gresso have announced a deal with Sony BMG Music to sell Jennifer Lopez’s “Brave” album packaged as a African Blackwood USB drive necklace. The USB flash drives has specific “Brave” branding with J. Lo’s signature engraved in the luxury wood. Gresso’s J. Lo Flash Drive Album will reportedly sell for $70 bucks. More information on Gresso.


The Nokia Music Store video review -- hint: a "doddle" is good
Unless you're living in the UK, it's hard to get your hands dirty with Nokia's new Music Store. Unless you're living under rock, you know that it's Nokia's intention to take the service global as it vies for dominance over digital downloads. Fortunately, a quickie, video review from Nokia's new N81 has been posted by NokNok.tv. They claim that "hunting out tracks is a doddle, as is downloading." A good thing, apparently, judging by the 4 / 5 stars awarded. Check the action after the break.


Why record labels matter now more than ever
The Internet may help bands get their music out, but it's a crowded arena. That's why most acts still need a label behind them.


AT&T'S MULTIFACETED MUSIC PLANS
In a few short months, AT&T has gone from having no wireless component for its digital music service to having the largest wireless download platform in the industry. Last month at CTIA Wireless I.T. & Entertainment, the carrier unveiled a new deal with its yearlong partner Napster to create a full-track download service bringing 5 million tracks to its network - 3 million more tracks than Sprint and Verizon Wireless, its competitors in the wireless music space. That builds on a similar deal AT&T signed a month before with eMusic, covering another 2.7 million songs from artists on independent labels.


Sonos leaps into leased music market
t wasn't long ago that the CD player was the number onesource of music in a multi-room audio system. That was lastmillennium. The question for custom installers in the 21st centuryis, will physical media play any role in the housewide musicsystem? http://www.sonos.com/'addition last week of the Napster music service to its list ofonline content partners--and TiVo's recent partnershipwith Rhapsody--point to a future of virtual, leased musiccollections that live beyond the PC realm.

That's a step past today's established iTunes modelof downloading music to own for playback via the iPod, Apple TV, oron any of the countless iPod digital media adapters that have comeout over the past couple of years. Whether it's music fromiTunes, Best Buy, Amazon or Urge, will consumers feel they have toown music at all when they can just rent it?


Executive Duo Hangs Shingle, Parlays Rights Expertise
A pair of digital music executives are parlaying their rights expertise into a startup consultancy. The group, called RightsFlow Entertainment Group, is headed by ex-Orchard members Patrick Sullivan and Ben Cockerham. The company, which first bubbled last week, is aiming to assist companies lost in the licensing weeds. "With the advent of a myriad of new music industry business models, there is a striking need for clarity and guidance in the matters of creating and obtaining proper licenses as well as practically implementing those licenses," said Sullivan.
The New York-based group also aims to assist companies in other developmental areas, including mobile operations, online retail and streaming, advertising and branding. The RightsFlow advisory group includes Steve D'Onofrio, president of D'Onofrio & Associates; Chris Hoerenz, former CMO of eMusic; Mathew Dunn, PhD, founder of Socratech; Cedric Deniau, CTO of eMusic; and Noreen Springstead, director of Fundraising & Marketing at WHY (World Hunger Year).


Amoeba Records releases two-disc Flying Burrito Brothers set
Still, she is exactly the type of customer that the excitable co-founder of Amoeba Music, who already runs three successful record stores in California, is hoping to reach with a new music label and soon-to-arrive digital download site that he fully expects to topple Apple's iTunes store. ("They know how to sell machines," Prinz sniffs, "not music.")


Bearishness Continues on Warner Music, Downward Pressure Ahead
Warner Music Group continues to suffer on Wall Street, and recovery prospects remain dim. On Friday, investors left WMG shares at $9.08, another sub-$10 finish for the label group.

Late last week, noted analyst Richard Greenfield of Pali Research issued an incredibly bearish opinion on Warner. The analyst changed his recommendation back to sell, and targeted a $7.50 share price. "No matter how many people the RIAA sues, no matter how many times music executives point to the growth of digital music, we believe an increasing majority of worldwide consumers simply view recorded music as 'free'," Greenfield noted.


Google to enter mobile phone market with software
Google Inc on Monday spelled out long-rumored plans to enter the mobile phone market in 2008 by building software that could help the industry make the Internet run more easily on phones. German mobile network powerhouse T-Mobile, Deutsche Telekom's mobile unit, plans next year to start selling Google-software-based phones, while China Mobile Ltd, the world's largest mobile carrier, and top carriers in Japan said they would offer Google-based handsets.


The Era of Bottom-Up Brands (requires subscription)
If you've ever entered a given term and "wikipedia" in Google to bring the Wikipedia page to the top of your search results, you've summarized bottom-up branding rather succinctly. Odds are you became aware of these sites not because of some big marketing campaign, but by repeatedly encountering bits and pieces of them through search engines -- until you began to think of them as entities in their own right.


NPR Launches Its Ambitious Music Site
NPR has launched its rather ambitious music site, after a long time in development: NPR Music is being launched along with 12 member stations, and will have on-air and online content gathered from NPR and the participating stations as well as original content, including interviews, reviews, blogs and live performances. The site covers all the music genres that are found on public radio, including Rock, Folk, Jazz, World and Classical, reports FMQB. Additional stations and producers will join in the coming months.

Also launching is a new NPR media player, which allows users to create a playlist for video and audio (dating from May 2005 to present) on the site and makes recommendations for related content depending on a user’s selections. Lots more details here and in FAQs here.


EMI Selling WAVs of Radiohead's Back Catalog for a Mere $167
Now EMI, their old label, is looking to hop on that bandwagon of goodwill by offering a set of all of the band's past studio albums and one live album in a number of formats, including uncompressed WAV files on a custom Radiohead Bear USB drive.

The first way to buy it is in a set with all seven discs in digipacks with original artwork. That'll set you back £40, or about $83, which isn't much of a discount (thanks mostly to the insane exchange rate). The next option is to buy all seven albums as digital downloads, all encoded as 320kbps MP3s, along with digital artwork. The price for this is an unforgiving £35, or $73. The last option is probably the most appealing to Radiohead die-hards, as it comes with a limited-edition USB drive. The 4GB drive will come loaded with the seven albums encoded as uncompressed WAV files as well as digital artwork. The price for this "strictly limited edition" piece of hardware? £80, or $167. Yes, $167 for a thumb drive loaded up with WAV files.


The Impact of Music Downloads and P2P File-Sharing on the Purchase of Music: A Study for Industry Canada
However, our analysis of the Canadian P2P file-sharing subpopulation suggests that there is a strong positive relationship between P2P file-sharing and CD purchasing. That is, among Canadians actually engaged in it, P2P file-sharing increases CD purchasing. We estimate that the effect of one additional P2P download per month is to increase music purchasing by 0.44 CDs per year (based on estimates obtained from the negative binomial model in Table 4.3). Furthermore, we find indirect evidence of the 'market creation' effect of P2P file-sharing in the positive coefficient on the variable 'Not available elsewhere' (Table 4.3).

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