How is it that sensible people, people no doubt educated at some of the best universities and law schools in the country, would come to think it a sane use of corporate resources to threaten the mother of a dancing 13-month-old?
12 October, 2008
Lessig in the WSJ
A piece in the Wall Street Journal summarising Lessig's latest thoughts on remix culture. Nice comment in the context of the Prince/Youtube case:
10 October, 2008
"In Rainbows" 1 year anniversary
It was the 10th of October 2007 when Radiohead launched what would have changed the configuration of the free music economy, the beginning of a new way how music can be distributed online.
A year after, what can be concluded in terms of the impact of Radiohead's move in the music distribution industry?
The "chose your own price model" has for sure revolutionized the independent distribution model. However, saying that this is how the future of music distribution will be like it might be too naive.
Radiohead is not the first band on the planet to exploit internet distribution but they probably were the first famous band to do it.
The experiment worked very well for Radiohead especially for the considerable amount of publicity they received but, at the end, it is just one of the thousands ideas bands are trying out to get their slice of attention.
I doubt that an average indie band would have received the same degree of attention.
For sure Radiohead set up an example for other bands to follow but their model can not be considered as a template solution for the struggling music business. It was more of a solution for Radiohead than for the entire music industry.
Probably the real lesson to be learned is that there are as many ways to sell music as musicians.
I also wonder if Radiohead would have planned the launch slightly differently, by providing a streaming version of the album for people to try out before downloading it, things would have evolved in a different way.
By not providing a streaming version, the only way for people to judge how much the album was worth to them was to download it.
And many people probably did it for free since they didn't know if it was worth it more than that.
A year after, what can be concluded in terms of the impact of Radiohead's move in the music distribution industry?
The "chose your own price model" has for sure revolutionized the independent distribution model. However, saying that this is how the future of music distribution will be like it might be too naive.
Radiohead is not the first band on the planet to exploit internet distribution but they probably were the first famous band to do it.
The experiment worked very well for Radiohead especially for the considerable amount of publicity they received but, at the end, it is just one of the thousands ideas bands are trying out to get their slice of attention.
I doubt that an average indie band would have received the same degree of attention.
For sure Radiohead set up an example for other bands to follow but their model can not be considered as a template solution for the struggling music business. It was more of a solution for Radiohead than for the entire music industry.
Probably the real lesson to be learned is that there are as many ways to sell music as musicians.
I also wonder if Radiohead would have planned the launch slightly differently, by providing a streaming version of the album for people to try out before downloading it, things would have evolved in a different way.
By not providing a streaming version, the only way for people to judge how much the album was worth to them was to download it.
And many people probably did it for free since they didn't know if it was worth it more than that.
25 September, 2008
MySpace Music launch tonight!!
It is finally happening.
The over discussed re-launch of Myspace Music it is happening tonight (Thursday morning in the US). However, it will be available internationally over the following months.
All the majors are in the deal (EMI joined last minute) plus The Orchard and few more indies.
According to Hypebot, new services will include:
The over discussed re-launch of Myspace Music it is happening tonight (Thursday morning in the US). However, it will be available internationally over the following months.
All the majors are in the deal (EMI joined last minute) plus The Orchard and few more indies.
According to Hypebot, new services will include:
- The new ‘MyMusic,’ personal music management toolset
- Free and unlimited ad-supported, full-length audio streaming
- Free and unlimited playlist functionality
- Free discography and content catalogues for SONY BMG, UMG and WMG artists
- DRM-free MP3 music e-commerce downloads powered by Amazon MP3
- Ringtone e-commerce powered by Jamster
Interesting point, raised by Techcrunch, is the fact that they are keeping unclear how record labels will be compensated. Do they have a special deal with majors which let them avoid pay-per-stream fees or pay a "special" fee?
Other streaming services (lastfm, iMeem) pay between $ .005 to $ .01 per song. If labels will allow Myspace to pay less, that could raise some legal concerns in terms of preferential pricing, antitrust, and price discrimination due to the fact they own stock of the company.
Read more here
17 September, 2008
31 August, 2008
Musicans Self-Financing
Quick post from Techdirt with some interesting links to self-finance models for musos.
18 August, 2008
Birthday Songs
OK. This one is totally frivolous - but it's kinda sorta about music discoverability: Go to this website and you'll find a list of the Number One song for any day going back to 1891 or something - complete with links to itunes where available. (Billboard, US charts if you really must know - does Billboard really go back that far???) I'll leave you with the fact that the number one song on my actual birthday was Herman and the Hermits singing Henry the Eighth. Now go figure it out :-)
12 August, 2008
For who didn't know....
If you would like to have access to Pandora but you are not in the USA, here there are some useful tips on how to mask your identity and other intersting stuff.. Thanks to Wired!
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