snapshot 1/10/08

Digital Music Overshadowed by CD Slump
Online music will dominate the digital music market by 2012, according to Yankee, with mobile accounting for only 20% of the market. The research company predicted that although the addressable market for music phones will have grown to more than 266 million, only 9% of mobile users would be actively using them as portable music players.

By 2011, US spending on online music will reach $3 billion, up from $1.1 billion in 2006. Similarly, mobile music spending will increase to $2.8 billion in 2011, from $800 million in 2006. These increments, coupled with the ongoing decline in physical sales, will push up the percentage that the digital formats—online and mobile—will represent relative to the overall recorded music total. In 2011, digital will make up 62.6% of recorded music spending in the US, up from 16.5% in 2006.


INTRODUCING DROPDRIVES
Committed to finding creative physical solutions to the distribution of digital media, Dropcards, the leader in digital download cards is proud to introduce our new line of custom branded and pre-loaded high speed USB drives.Dropdrives can be imprinted with any artist or company logo and pre-loaded with music, video, anything! We are rolling out our new line with twelve different shapes, 64mb up to 2GB of storage space and cool options such as auto-run and data lock with many more features to come.


Preview Of Guy Hands’ EMI Strategy; Rescue Plan Gives Artists Better Digital Deal: Report
Guy Hands’ new strategy to turn EMI around will stress “tackling digital challenges,” “understanding the needs of the consumer,” and the “importance of keeping artists at the heart of what we do,” according to an internal email obtained by The Times. Hands—owner since EMI’s takeover by the Terra Firma private equity house last year—is expected to present the strategy Tuesday. From The Times: “Mr Hands is keen to provide greater incentives for artists than those traditionally offered by the music majors, because the rise of digital downloading has changed the needs of the consumer, making artists less dependent on remaining with a large record label.”

If Hands can tick that box, he might be less likely to lose artists like Radiohead, which last week complained it got ”absolutely zero” from EMI for digital and iTunes sales. EMI will clearly need to provide more flexibility and more money in a revised digital license to its roster of artists. The label also plans to ”digitize more of its back catalogue, to move its marketing strategy towards digital sales and to make better use of social networking sites to find new talent”. Note, Sony (NYSE: SNE) BMG last March switched its A&R, artist discovery channel from demo tapes to requesting digital tracks via blogs provided by Six Apart. EMI doesn’t need to do anything so specific with just one provider - MySpace and the web in general are awash with more emerging bands than one can shake a stick at.


Awdio Brings Cool Live Music Wherever You Are. Special TechCrunch Invitations
While online music startups and most labels are trying to figure new rules for their business models, a small UK based startup has found a smart way to answer that question. Nearly all music services are based on providing access to a catalogue of recorded music whether it is on demand (eg: iTunes or Deezer) or on discovery mode (Pandora/Last.fm). But a big chunk of the quality music is not recorded and is played live is in clubs, fashion hotels, restaurants, shops, DJ festivals and other cool places (i leave aside radio music). This music usually ends up in CD collections because of its quality and uniqueness (think of the Buddha Bar collection, the Cafe del Mar and many more). And this is the music Awdio wants to provide you in real time wherever you are, 24/7, as long as you have an internet connection.


Sony BMG to sell MP3s on Amazon.com
Sony BMG Music Entertainment, the last major music label holding out against selling music online without copy protection, relented Thursday and announced Amazon.com Inc.'s digital music store will carry songs by its artists. Sony BMG artists will begin showing up on Amazon's MP3 store later in January. The label's artists include Jennifer Lopez, Britney Spears and Bob Dylan.


The Music Industry’s Last Stand Will Be A Music Tax
t is becoming more and more difficult for the music industry to ignore the basic economics of the their industry: unenforceable property rights (you can’t sue everyone) and zero marginal production costs (file sharing is ridiculously easy). All the big labels have now given up on DRM. They haven’t yet given up on trying to charge for their music, but it’s becoming more and more clear that as long as there is a free alternative (file sharing), the price of music will have to fall towards free.