Jeff Bezos leaked a little nugget of news during an interview on stage at the D conference this morning: Amazon is getting ready to release a pay-per-view streaming service for movies.
The music biz's digital flops - a short history
Since the record industry first noticed that some of the kids were using the internet in the mid-90s, it's flopped from one puddle to the next. Despite a desperate need to evolve - guys, the pond is drying up, do try to breathe - recording industry strategy has flopped from one muddy puddle to the next, and a muddy puddle is quite a good metaphor for the latest survival strategy: advertising supported music which 'feels like free' to the consumer.
Rock's New Economy: Making Money When CDs Don't Sell
CD sales are no longer the yardstick the band uses. While hip-hop and pop artists ranging from Jay-Z to Britney Spears have long used recordings to sell every- thing from perfume to liquor, rockers are only just starting to think of album sales as a component — rather than the sum of — the commercial equation. Spoon have been actively licensing their music for use in films, television shows and a Jaguar commercial, making money, gaining exposure and moving up from clubs to 3,000-seat venues.
DRM-Free Music: Too Little, Too Late
Much to some readers' chagrin, we don't believe that the music labels' belated embrace of DRM-free music -- tracks without digital locks, which consumers can copy as much as they want, and play on any digital music player -- will help the business out of its lengthy slide. Our central thesis:
- Most online music buyers don't have a problem with DRM, because most of them buy their music from Apple's store and play it on some combination of iTunes/iPod/iPhone (AAPL). Which means the common complaints about DRM -- that, for instance, it prevents them from playing the music they bought on other brands of music players -- never come up.
- Most online music consumers don't have a problem with DRM, because they don't buy music at all, but rip it from their CDs (or their friends' CDs) or nab it from P2P filesharing networks. So they don't deal with DRM, period.
Amazon's Music For The Price Of A Latte
Amazon.com will augment its digital music and video business, which currently sells content on a per-unit basis, with a for-pay streaming service "in a couple of weeks," Amazon Chief Executive Jeff Bezos said Wednesday. "A few different (business) models can be supported" in digital music, Bezos said. He did not provide prices for the service, but possibly indicated a range. "If people can skip a latte that day and have it for free, they will," he said. Electronic music and video, he said, is a "very serious" business for Amazon.
Blockbuster Planning In-Store Downloads, Not At Home Streaming?
This is an interesting turn to the Blockbuster media streamer rumor we heard last month. The Hollywood Reporter says Blockbuster will be going for the in-store kiosk download scheme where customers can download a movie within two minutes onto portable devices (we're thinking iPods as opposed to USB hard drives).
The plan is to have a fee of about $10 a month as well as a free device, but the pilot test in the Dallas area will only work with Archos players. Individual movie rentals will be $3.99, but if you're going to have to go down to the store AND pay about the same amount for a movie as you do already, why not just rent a DVD?
Metallica Repents, Sort Of
The band has a long, storied history of clashing with fans online, but along with its label, it hopes to make amends with a new website called Mission: Metallica, offering fans a chance to "experience the new album before it's done" that will offer its upcoming album in the unprotected MP3 format -- no digital rights management attached. When the two-years-in-the-making album is finally ready to be released, members of the site will be able to download it in the DRM-free MP3 format (320 Kbps) -- quite a big step for the band that sued the original Napster. The album will also be available in vinyl and CD formats, each of which will also come with release-day digital download versions. Fans have several options when signing up for Mission: Metallica, from free all the way up to $125.
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