Ad-supported Music

Here's a blog worth a glance at for another perspective.

After South Korea UK could be the next country to have a licensed P2P service

By the end of the year UK might have a new legal file sharing service licensed at broadband ISP level.

The news was published by the UK-based Register last thursday, which delcared that:

" The move would represent the most radical supply-side reform ever considered by the music business in the modern era".

There are still several things to be finalized but it looks like licensed P2P is finally happening.

Artist finances new album with blank media levy

Torrentfreak has this interesting article.

Summary: Mr.Suitcase’s latest album “Frauds” is something in between a remix and a mash-up, built out of other people’s music, and fully funded by the pirate tax refund he received for his first album.

Right, I'm off to download this album 'cos it sounds interesting.

Update: I've now had time to listen to a bit of this. Nice sound, excellent production. Give it a listen for yourself.

Xihilisk

UK artist Xihilisk has released everything he's done via BitTorrent for free. As this TorrentFreak article states, he's not the only one to ever have done this (hell, I've been giving my stuff away online since the late 90s). It's an interesting article that deals with some of his reasons for giving away the music:

I knew that quite a few people were already doing this, but its still the most exciting and effective way for me to get my music to people who never would have found it otherwise.

Walmart cuts out the middleman..

From today's NYTimes. For all he discussion about disintermediation, it seems to work in any number of ways. Now, Walmart is bypassing the record labels and going straight to artists - something that itunes (for example) is already in the habit of doing...

BPI teams up with Virgin

This story has been all over the news sites lately. Virgin have agreed to monitor their subscribers' file-sharing habits on behalf of the BPI. You can read the exact details for yourself, but what I'm interested in is exactly how they are going to do this - keyword filters, digital fingerprinting? Is there a risk that users might get a strike for legitimate uses of file-sharing technologies? As we see more and more Music 2.0 we're likely to see more and more bands distributing their works via BitTorrent, are users downloading a new Nine Inch Nails album at risk of being targetted? Will we see a repeat of the recent blunders of (RIAA lapdogs) MediaDefender and seeing legitimate 'traders' suffer denial of service attacks, disconnection or the indignity of having a black mark against their name?

Quite frankly I'm disgusted that Virgin have bought into this.

Ten Bucks a song for itunes distribution

Check out Tunecore's distribution deal. (via TUAW)