snapshot 3/10/08

Lionsgate Adding iTunes Digital Copy on DVD and Blu-ray Discs
Lionsgate announced that they are working with Apple to provide iTunes Digital Copies on select DVD and Blu-ray releases. The process of copying the movie to iTunes involves entering a unique code into iTunes. The movie is then transferred to iTunes, allowing you to sync the movie with your iPod, iPhone or Apple TV. Each DVD (unique code) will allow digital transfer to only one iTunes library.


Record Industry Duel: Disc Duos
Plans to sell new hybrid CD/DVDs have hit legal and licensing snags that threaten to scuttle a mass rollout that the hard-hit music industry had been counting on to aid its recovery, people familiar with the matter said this week. T he labels also have spurred sales by packaging "bonus" DVDs with CDs. In February, several began test marketing the new hybrid discs -- CD on one side and DVD on the other. They see these DualDiscs as a next generation product that marries the booming market for DVDs with declining CDs.


Slacker Dead On Arrival?
After much fanfare, and then several major delays, the Slacker music player and subscription service finally debuted. Unfortunately, the company’s sales appear to be lifeless at best, and it could be just a matter of time before the company is pushing daisies. The company is only seeding reviewers who will give the player at least some love, but the reality is that the device has come up wanting in several categories that even the most biased reviewers have to acknowledge. Although the device contains a large 4″display, it is unwieldy with poorly placed controls. In addition, the player has a serious noise floor issue that is immediately noticeable, even to individuals who are not demanding about quality.


As Music 2.0 Gains Traction, How Do Artists Get Paid?
A plethora of new and re-tooled sites are offering free ad supported music via streaming and download. Spiral Frog, Qtrax, imeem, We7, iLike, YouTube and others each offer their own platforms to listen to almost any song or video on demand and sometimes to even download it. But how much of that money will find its way to the artist and how many of these new deals conform with existing label and publishing contracts or the statutory rate legally due songwriters? I don't know of a single artist contract that mentions stock options or ad revenue as acceptable compensation.


Technology turns music videos into shopping portals
View music videos and shop at the same time. That's the premise behind an innovative advertising and entertainment branding program launched by GET Interactive. By way of GET Interactive's Ad-Venture technology, viewers watching a video on the Internet or a mobile phone will be offered the option of opening a new window to browse through still images and shop for products tagged with a GET Shop Spot.

The technology goes live in March with Knockout Entertainment/DEJA34/Koch artist Ray J's "Sexy Can I" video. Winston-Salem, N.C.-based GET Interactive has signed content deals with Universal Music Group and Sega of America. The company is also in discussions with Epic Records.


MP3 vs AAC vs FLAC vs CD
Although they are universally described in the mainstream press as being of "CD quality," MP3s and their lossy-compressed ilk do not offer sufficient audio quality for serious music listening. This is not true of lossless-compressed formats such as FLAC, ALC, and WMA lossless—in fact, it was the release of iTunes 4.5, in late 2003, which allowed iPods to play lossless files, that led us to welcome the ubiquitous Apple player to the world of high-end audio. But lossy files achieve their conveniently small size by discarding too much of the music to be worth considering.

So to us at Stereophile, the question of which lossy codec is "the best" is moot. We recommend that, for serious listening, our readers use uncompressed audio file formats, such as WAV or AIF—or, if file size is an issue because of limited hard-drive space, use a lossless format such as FLAC or ALC. These will be audibly transparent to all listeners at all times with all kinds of music through all systems.


Beatles on iTunes by end of the year?
The Beatles' back catalog should finally appear in digital form by the end of the year, claims a British tabloid. The deal will reportedly see the music come to the iTunes Store, with albums including the likes of Help!, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and possibly more. The deal is said to worth as much as £200 ($402.5) million, and has allegedly been sanctioned by lead Beatle Paul McCartney as means to help pay for his divorce from Heather Mills.


Paramount making movie clips available as Facebook messages
Paramount Pictures will become the first major studio to make clips from thousands of its movies available for use on the Internet. The unit of Viacom Inc. is teaming with Los Angeles-based developer FanRocket to launch the VooZoo application Monday on Facebook. The service gives Facebook users access to footage from thousands of movies, ranging from "The Ten Commandments" to "Forrest Gump," to send to others on the popular social networking site.


Games That Launched the Band
Epic Records credits Madden 2003 as being instrumental in the breaking of Good Charlotte. Avril Lavigne was first introduced to European audiences through FIFA 2003. Fabolous was first introduced in America via NBA Live, and went on to sell over 2 million albums here. JET got their American iPod commercial based on exposure in Madden 2004. Avenged Sevenfold were an unsigned act when we featured them in Madden 2004. In the weeks following the game's release, their independent album sold tens of thousands of copies without radio airplay, and they were signed to a major label soon after. Our FIFA 2005 soundtrack featured the earliest appearances of Franz Ferdinand, Marcelo D2, and Scissor Sisters. Sony Records credits Madden 2005 as being instrumental in the breaking of Franz Ferdinand in North America. Ozomatli, a band that has existed for years with minimal sales and exposure, got an iPod commercial, a career-changing sales jump, and a Grammy nomination based on their exposure in Madden 2005. Def Jam Vendetta single-handedly created a new global market for hip-hop.

Within the past two years, we've seen major international breakthroughs from acts that include Robyn, Mando Diao, Arctic Monkeys, Klaxons, Bloc Party, LCD Soundsystem, Dúné, Tribalista, Go Team, Bullet for My Valentine, The Caesars, Kasabian, Lupe Fiasco, MIA, Wolfmother, Hawthorne Heights, and others. That's just a small sampling of what we've helped make happen. It's all real and exciting proof that video games are a critical component of the new industry paradigm.


Amazon: What are you hiding?
Amazon shipped its Kindle e-Book reader way back in November of last year. Since then, the company has tried to paint a picture of runaway success by suggesting that the incredible popularity of the device prevents the company from keeping up with orders. Is the Amazon Kindle really a secret failure?

Why is Bezos so aggressively hiding the actual numbers. Have they shipped millions? Thousands? Dozens? Has Amazon sold ten times as many Kindles as Sony has the PRS-500 Reader? Or one-tenth as many? We have no idea. None! Is Amazon really working hard to ramp up production? Or is the company artificially creating a perception of high demand by playing games with production? If not, why hasn't it been able to fix the problem in four months? And since Amazon can't keep up with demand, why does it devote the very top center of the Amazon.com home page -- the most valuable real estate on the entire site -- to the creation of MORE demand?


iLike Scores Exclusives R.E.M. Album Debut
WMG's R.E.M. and iLike announced today that "Accelerate", the band’s 14th studio album, will stream in its entirety exclusively on iLike and its syndicates beginning Monday, March 24th. The iLike "Worldwide Listening Party" will continue through March 26th prior to the album’s North American release on April 1st. R.E.M. will also record an exclusive video and discussing the album that will be available via iLike.

In addition to being available on iLike, this promotion extends to the iLike Sidebar desktop plugin for iTunes and Windows Media Player as well as via iLike’s applications on Facebook, Bebo, hi5 and the iPhone. The band already uses iLike's Artist Dashboard to post content across multiple syndication channels via iLike's "Post Once, Publish Everywhere" platform. The album will also be available for pre-order via iLike’s retail links to iTunes and Amazon.com.