Stumbling around…

Det lagliga alternativet blir gratis

DN: 2008-07-21

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Om man inte heter Britney Spears eller The Eagles har det helt enkelt blivit svårt om inte omöjligt att tjäna pengar på att sälja musik. I stället fungerar musiken mycket som ett reklamblad för artistens konserter och merchendise.

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- Någon envis jävel kommer säkert att ladda upp en fil med all musik på Pirate Bay. Därför är det bra om strömningstjänsterna slår igenom innan dess. Folk kommer inte att betala för musiken, men kanske för vägledning. Det behövs kunniga människor som kan navigera bland all musik och som kan fylla samma funktion som personalen i skivbutikerna

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Peter Gabriel har startat en musiknättjänst som är en konkurrent till last.fm och fungerar som ett filter för att hitta vad som är användbart eller intressant.

- Vi gynnas av impulsfaktorn hos konsumenterna. Till exempel om du är ute och kör och blir sugen på att lyssna på en skiva i bilen, säger Pernilla Engman.

The process of obtaining content, an important part of the experience, also differs. ITunes provides a unified interface that seamlessly integrates the location, purchase, and consumption of content. Users of p2p networks, on the other hand, must navigate a complex environment and endure varying levels of congestion that hinder the quality of the process. ITunes certainly has the upper hand in this area.

Elberse sees great potential in studying these phenomena in other industries, such as music and books. Given the more private nature of music consumption, she expects the shift toward the tail may well be more pronounced in that industry.

“There’s a value in my having seen the same movie as you because they are often the topic of conversation,” she explains. “It’s frustrating if we’re trying to have a chat about movies and neither of us has seen the same film. But that may be less of a problem in music.”

http://www.hearmusic.com/

Starbucks

One of the strongest rivals to Apple Inc.’s iTunes Store got stronger Thursday when Warner Music Group said it would sell digital songs without anti-piracy protection through Amazon.com Inc.

Apple Inc. has surpassed Wal-Mart to become America’s No. 1 music store, the first time that a seller of digital downloads has ever beaten the big CD retailers.

Apple sold more albums in January and February than any other U.S. retailer, market research firm NPD Group said Thursday, underscoring how the music industry is on the front edge of a digital media shift that is upending businesses as diverse as bookstores and video game makers.

U.S. consumers still buy more CDs than digital downloads, but the gulf is narrowing rapidly. Only five years after launching its iTunes digital store, Apple has dominated the fast-growing download market so completely that it jumped ahead of individual CD sellers such as Wal-Mart, Best Buy and Target.

Record company executives point to Japan, where mobile phone users spent $128 million on music-related downloads during the last six months, according to the federation. Representatives of the four major music companies have all said they expect mobile downloads of songs and videos to increase in the U.S. and Europe.“Music is becoming more and more important worldwide,” said Larry Haverty, who oversees a media portfolio at Gabelli Asset Management Inc. “Sales of physical formats are still falling, but within the next two to three years I think you’ll see downloads push the market to new heights.”

Could digital music sales be the recording industry’s salvation? Not yet, not by a longshot. But legal downloads are way up, according to domestic and international numbers released Monday.

Many expect the album’s first-week total to be north of 725,000, which probably would make it next week’s No. 1. If so, that would be the first time since 2005 that albums with sales of more than 700,000 topped the chart in consecutive weeks. To understand how welcome those numbers would be, consider that last year, in one week in January, the “Dreamgirls” soundtrack managed to claim the No. 1 spot on the charts by selling a mere 60,000 copies.

The band Coldplay on Tuesday released its fourth album, “Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends.” It was the most pre-ordered album in the history of iTunes, and that powered its first-day sales to 423,000 copies.

Mr Bandier points to the phenomenal recent sales of the debut album from 50 Cent, a rapper at rival Universal Music, as evidence that people are still willing to pay for music.”He sold 1.7m albums in just two weeks and to the demographic that is doing the most downloads.

He believes a recent initiative by PC maker Gateway, which has released a computer with 5,000 songs pre-installed on the hard disk which users can pay to download, is a model for the future. “It will be like having a retail store in every home.”

AAPL

The Recording Industry Association of America, which represents all four major labels, also weighed in on Jobs’ remarks. Rather than respond to the demand that the major labels drop usage restrictions, RIAA Chairman and Chief Executive Mitch Bainwol argued instead that Apple (nasdaq: AAPL - news - people ) ought to license its iPod technology so that iTunes downloads could be compatible with other digital music players.

“We think that’s a great solution,'’ Bainwol said in a statement.

But despite this public stance, executives at major labels have been privately mulling whether to drop DRM restrictions on downloads, particularly through non-Apple vendors.

Such a move would have an obvious benefit for non-Apple music vendors, because it would allow them to sell music that consumers could play on Apple’s iPods, which they currently can not do. And because Apple’s online music competitors are primarily focused on selling music via subscription service instead of downloads, it wouldn’t diminish the appeal of their core business–which would continue to use DRM itself.

During a single week in May, Canadian pop rocker Avril Lavigne’s new song “Don’t Tell Me” aired no fewer than 109 times on Nashville radio station WQZQ-FM.

The heaviest rotation came between midnight and 6 a.m., an on-air no man’s land visited largely by insomniacs, truckers and graveyard shift workers.

One Sunday morning, the 3-minute, 24-second song aired 18 times, sometimes as little as 11 minutes apart.Those plays, or “spins,” helped “Don’t Tell Me” vault into the elite top 10 on Billboard magazine’s national pop radio chart, which radio program directors across the country use to spot hot new tunes.

-  2005

ALICIA KEYS completes a hat trick with her new “Unplugged,” her third straight album to debut at No. 1 on the national sales chart.It sold 196,000 copies in its first week in stores, according to Nielsen SoundScan.

Dixie Chicks, registered more than a 700% increase in sales of their CD “Taking the Long Way,” which totaled 103,000 copies sold.

The Chicks CD, the album-of-the-year Grammy winner, jumped to No. 8 , up from No. 72 the previous week.

The trio won five Grammys, including record and song of the year.

The Chicks’ album was one of nine last week to post six-digit sales.

That’s a stark contrast to last month, when sales of 60,000 was enough to claim the No. 1 spot on the sleepy chart.

The No. 1 album this week belonged again to Norah Jones, who did not appear on the Grammys but did make a series of high-profile television appearances, including “60 Minutes.”

Her album “Not Too Late” sold 211,000 copies in its third week of release, suggesting that it was a popular Valentine’s Day gift.