snapshot 1/17/08

Praise the Lord online: Major hymn book goes digital
Churches across the world are able to sing the Lord's praises online after the launch of the first major digital hymn book on Thursday. Mission Praise -- which has sold more than two million copies as one of most popular hymn books in Britain and around the world -- is now available at www.missionpraise.com.

Visitors to the site will be able to search through more than 1800 songs and -- for an annual subscription of 40 pounds ($79) per book -- download words, sheet music, accompanying audio backing tracks. They can also create playlists for their own orders of service which can be saved and shared with others online.


Rolling Stones sign Universal album deal
Veteran British rock band the Rolling Stones has signed an exclusive worldwide recording agreement to release its next album through Universal Music Group, prompting speculation that it could leave EMI.


The Strong Will Survive at EMI
It remains to be seen whether EMI's reorganization of its music division, announced Tuesday, will matter to consumers. But if we can take EMI and its parent, Terra Firma Capital Partners, at their word, the changes could improve the way talented rock and pop musicians and their music will be discovered, nurtured, recorded and marketed by the struggling giant.

As for the rest of its new strategy, a major corporation should be able to, as EMI puts it, "monetize" the value of the artists' work by finding additional sources of revenue. And given that EMI is home to such brands as Astralwerks, Blue Note, Capitol and Capitol Nashville, Virgin and various EMI-named brands, it must have some redundancy in sales and marketing. The silo mentality encourages the segregation of consumers, and I'd contend that there are jazz artists on Blue Note who would appeal to Virgin's rock base and that Astralwerks has several electronica artists who might find an audience among modern jazz fans.


ITunes Movie Rentals and Netflix Online: Different Markets
After chatting with Reed Hastings for a few minutes, I realized that the services are very different. Netflix gives subscribers to its DVD-by-mail service the option of streaming movies on their computers as well. On Monday, the company said it would eliminate the time limits it had imposed on this service, which varied by price plan. Now anyone with the $8.99-a-month plan or higher can watch as many of its 6,000 movies as they have time for.

To reach this price point, Netflix is simply not offering the sort of recent releases that are the stock in trade of video stores, cable pay-per-view systems and most likely iTunes. Rather, Mr. Hastings said, it has mostly older titles, for which the studios want less money.

Netflix, moreover, is limited to letting people watch movies on their computers while they are connected to the Internet. No portable players. No easy way to watch on a big-screen television. No way to download a movie to a laptop to watch on an airplane. Later this year, the service will be on a set-top box sold by LG. But unless LG has something amazing up its sleeve, it’s hard to imagine that it will be able to get significant penetration with a standalone box.


Music firms' DRM-free strategy yet to have an impact on digital sales - S&P
Standard & Poor's Rating Services said music labels are looking for alternative ways to boost digital sales to offset physical format sales declines, but it is uncertain whether the proliferation of music without digital rights management (DRM) will help to boost overall digital sales. S&P quoted Nielsen Soundscan as saying US CD album sales fell 19 pct in 2007 comparted with a 7.6 pct decline in 2006, while 2007 US digital track sales growth slowed to 45 pct from 65 pct a year earlier and digital album sales increased 53 pct in 2007 compared with 101 pct a year earlier. Until a viable competitor for Apple's iPod emerges, it is unlikely DRM-free download offerings will increase digital sales beyond the growth generated by penetration gains by the iPod, S&P said.


Will iTunes rentals play on a 5G iPod? Nope.
The long-rumored iTunes rental service is finally up and running. For many users, the most attractive part of the service (and certainly the only part that really sets it apart from any of the other online rental options) is the ability to transfer your rental to an iPod, iPhone/iPod Touch, or third-generation Nano for playback on the go. Actually, let me rephrase that: your iPod Classic, iPhone/iPod Touch or third-generation Nano. That's right boys and girls -- if you are one of the millions who have 5 and 5.5G iPods with video, no iTunes rentals for you. I suppose that's one way to get people to upgrade.


Borders May Add MP3 Downloads. Amazon Answers
Amazon's answer to all of this competition? We hear they are in talks with a myriad of partners who want to use Amazon to sell music. The online retailer already has a hugely successful affiliate program that it has extended to include downloads.


Cell carriers cutting big music deals
Some of the biggest-selling recording artists are signing deals that make a single wireless provider the exclusive carrier for some or all of their music -- be they ringtones, ringback tones or whole-song or video downloads. Artists and labels see the deals as a way to maximize download profits and to heighten exposure as they solicit bids from rival carriers, according to industry experts. And wireless carriers, eager to convince music fans that they have access to the best content, are more than willing to write big checks.


Where Is Apple’s Rental Service for Music?
One quick last word on Macworld and what Steve Jobs didn’t do. The technology that enables movie rentals also could enable music rentals — or, in other words, a music subscription service like Rhapsody. The technology behind this is that iPods need to have a tamper-proof clock in them so that content can be vaporized after its expiration date. The first models didn’t have this feature; the new ones do.


Report: music phones spur adoption of mobile music consumption; we say “hogwash”
According to a new study by M:Metrics, 83 percent of the mobile music consumed in France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the U.K., and the U.S. is “sideloaded”, meaning it comes from another source and is transfered to the phone via a computer. With this is mind, the answer for buying music directly from the carriers or certain handset makers is, for now, “no.”


Classic albums get another go-round with deluxe reissues
n the music business, the search for new revenue streams hasn't shut the tap on the same old songs. Reissues represent a robust and self-replenishing enterprise in an industry beset by piracy and unpredictable consumer tastes.

Most noteworthy in this year's crop is the 25th anniversary reissue of Michael Jackson's Thriller, out Feb. 12 with such extras as the previously unreleased For All Time and bonus remixes of Wanna Be Startin' Somethin' (with Akon) and Billie Jean (with Kanye West). Arriving Jan. 29 is the reissue of Beck's 1996 Odelay, expanded to two CDs with previously unreleased tracks. Not to be confused with the controversial deluxe edition (those pricier embellished CDs rushed into stores mere months after the bare-bones original), reissues arrive years or even decades after the initial release and tend to be a cause for celebration, particularly if superior sound, significant catalog discoveries or a format upgrade brightens the package.