Reaction is coming in on the Myspace decision to sell non-DRM MP3s from unsigned bands registered on the site. The Register: “We reckon it’s the record companies that should be more woried about MySpace than Apple at the moment, though. If so-called “MySpace phenomena” such as the Arctic Monkeys and Lily Allen continue to emerge through self-promotion and are given unprecedented direct selling access to their MySpace-addicted audience, where do
MySpace is to sell songs from nearly 3 million unsigned bands, reports Reuters. Thats’non-DRM’d MP3s, by the way. The bands will be able to set the price for each track, with MySpace and tech partner Snocap taking a cut of the sale, reports Wired. However, the move probably won’t affect Apple, as CNN and MySpace itself seems to think. As tbites points out – guess what – MP3s can be
Spiral Frog will make us watch adverts before downloading the music track to one PC and two portable devices, while remembering to log in at least once a month, in order to retain access to the music we've already watched adverts in exchange for. MusicBites thinks this sounds a bit like all those dumb businesses during the late 90s which tried to play 15 second to 30 second adverts at
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The mbites.com podcast this week looked at how digital music is impacting both on music fans and the artists themselves. The guests (pictured) were Laura Lee Davies, former editor of Time Out magazine in London and a music journalist of 20 years experience, and Ben Drury, founder and managing director of 7digital.com, which provides digital downloading services to many leading brands and artists’ web sites. Download the MP3 file here
Coldplay#039s X&Y album has problems with DRM. In that is has a LOT of DRM. Mac User has the story.
MusicBites put together a panel of experts for its end of year review of the digital music business, the recording of which can be downloaded here (Note: 49MB file). It took place at one of London’s best private members clubs, Adam Street, which is rapidly becoming the hub of entrepreneurs and media/digital businesses in the UK’s capital city. The panel discussed some of the big moves made this year by
Some interesting new research from Jupiter: Jupiter thinks the European music industry is facing “a demographic time bomb”. In its report “European Music Consumer Survey, 2005” it says that European consumers who download music from illegal file sharing networks currently outnumber those downloading from legal services such as Apple’s iTunes Music Store by a factor of three to one. Some 15% file share while just 5% pay to download. Uh
Public Enemy’s New Wireless Order: Public Enemy (which pioneered using MP3s) is getting into wireless. On Nov. 28 the group will make the music from its new album, New Whirl Odor, available through wireless phone networks using distribution technology from privately held m-Qube. “It’s like the Internet in ’98, but with a business plan,” says Walter Leaphart, who manages Public Enemy leader Chuck D.
Today Lefsetz rants about…how music labels had the media on their side “but, by not coming up with a reasonable alternative to P2P, or authorizing it, and SUING traders, they’ve lost all their good will.” The next email was effectively spam, forwarded from a firm touting for people to call video shows requesting songs. Talk about outsourced pluggers. Next email today (three so far, and counting) was about how he