☭ marselip0910 叶俊华™

A new study by UK licensing body PRS and internet music activity tracker Big Champagne says that the top songs listed on the traditional charts are also the most popular on the file-sharing networks. "After taking into account some geographic differences, the top of the many music charts, from licensed and unlicensed venues, are markedly similar," says the study. ""Much of the volume (sales or swaps) is concentrated amongst a small proportion of the available tracks."
The authors of the study believe that there findings disprove Chris Anderson's Long Tail which postulated that the internet would mean more exposure and sales for niche product and less for the hits. "We are yet to see a big hit or wildly popular release in the pirate market that was not also a top seller in the licensed market," said BigChampagne CEO Eric Garland. The study goes on to recommend the licensing of P2P as a way for labels to capture some revenue.

THE RIGHT QUESTION
Just because the top of the tail looks the same as traditional sales charts, does it freally follow that the rest of the tale will as well? More importantly, how many artists can be found in the middle or even near the end of the tail that would not have been left in obscurity prior to the internet?


獨立音樂商店路途坎坷
Filed Under (數位音樂) by Terry on 12-05-2009

前些日子看到ThinkIndie上線運行的新聞，就想到聊幾句獨立音樂商店的事兒，直到今天才空下來寫這。

有些沒有唱片公司簽約的獨立音樂人曾經被iTunes音樂商店拒絕發行，美國一家有 40年歷史的唱片店老闆看到這種狀況，就創立了ThinkIndie獨立音樂商店，希望能説明這些獨立音樂人解決數位發行的問題。ThinkIndie提供的是320k高品質的mp3下載，售價1.11美元每首，創立時的曲庫為30萬首。ThinkIndie當前除了有少量獨家的內容和編輯的推薦，也沒有明顯的獨到之處。

在歐美獨立音樂市場，除了最為著名的emusic外，iTunes和Amazon主流音樂商店也都有涉及，加上7digital、AmieStreet等其他的。再要以未簽約唱片公司樂隊為主的獨立音樂要形成一定市場規模幾乎是不太可能，只可能是以低成本的方式運作説明這些音樂家創建發行管道，獲得些微利。

在中文獨立音樂市場，獨立數位音樂商店以臺灣的indievox和中國大陸的挖挖哇為主，前者偏重於臺灣獨立音樂，後者更偏向於內地的獨立音樂。Indievox除了比挖挖哇更社區化一些，兩者的模式相差無幾。儘管挖挖哇得到了微軟中國的MediaPlay播放機的嵌入合作，Indievox得到了臺灣一些門戶網站和電信運營商的合作支援，但從Alexa資料看來，兩家的用戶基數應該都不高。

長尾理論這個概念從音樂而來，但呈現在我們眼前的卻都是沒有尾巴的數位音樂消費現實。由此想到幾天前出差到廣州，與傳統唱片發行業內朋友交流的一些資訊，他們曾經發行了一些國外獨立唱片，有上萬張的銷量，數位管道遠比傳統管道的覆蓋人群廣、效率高，卻並沒有獲得理想的消費結果。拋開其他的因素不說，在傳統唱片發行時發行公司做的推廣企劃和商店雇員的推薦起著相當的作用，到了線上這一切基本都歸結到了文字性的描述，這種效果顯然不如前者。那麼除了做做音樂專題、多些專輯資訊和評論外還可以有什麼更適合數位管道的推廣方式呢？

Sony Sues EMI Over Failed Deal With 新北美式首席運營長 New North Amercian COO Ron Werre
2009/5/12

VS.

UPDATED (2): Sony Music is suing EMI alleging that executive Ron Werre had used them as a "stalking horse" to obtain his promotion last week to Chef Operating Officer of EMI North America and Mexico.

According to documents obtained by Hypebot, the lawsuit filed in the Supreme Court of The State of New York charges that on February 13th, Werre, who until recently served as EMI's head of music services, had signed a 3 year deal to join Sony as the president of commercial music when his contract with EMI expired in March of 2010. Sony filed the lawsuit on May 8th, less than 24 hours after Werre's EMI promotion was announced.

In the suit, Sony claims that it had terminated another executive based on Werre's acceptance, but that Werre "never intended to fulfill his contractual obligations to Sony Music, (he) was merely using his contract with Sony Music as a stalking horse to solicit a more lucrative contract from EMI with enhanced job responsibilities". Werre is also named a a co-defendant in the lawsuit.

PDF OF SONY VS. RON WERRE AND EMI COURT FILING

“The Death of the CD-Release Complex”實體發行已死之情結 (Part 2)
2009/5/11

Kyle Bylin, Associate Editor — (Read Part One)

At its peak, the CD-Release Complex drove sales and represented the symbiotic relationship between the fans and the specific mechanisms they relied upon to discover new music. Everyone involved benefited from the structure of the system that was in place and could be counted on to do their part. The Recording Industry financed and produced music that they in turn promoted through these particular mediums. Then, those who paid the closest attention to these mediums received crucial information relating to when the single, music video, and album would be released and were later rewarded with the music they had anticipated to receive.

Quickly, the labels learned that if their music reached enough of the masses, human nature would take care of the rest. Inherently, it appears, individuals are hardwired to be curious about what everyone else is listening to. And, although they may be independent in thought, their buying habits and behaviors are susceptible to the influences of their external world. This was great for labels, since they were the sole gatekeepers and regulators of culture into people’s lives. From the radio stations to the best shelving space, even the copyrights to the creativity they financed, their interests were completely protected.

“But the bigger and more profitable the industry became, the more
they realized that they didn’t have to make meaning to make money.”

If fans wanted to hear a song or watch the music video, they had to wait. Succumbing to the programming schedules of radio stations and MTV was an understood and accepted circumstance for those whom were the most willing to participate in the system. In the beginning, ‘the machine’ that the Recording Industry created and the specific mechanisms that it used to circulate culture, operated within the interests of fans. Mostly because, those in the field were fans themselves. But the bigger and more profitable the industry became, the more they realized that they didn’t have to make meaning to make money.

No, they could release just about anything and it would sell, as long as it was marketed the right way, but that didn’t mean it would stick. In order to make a small artist big, labels had to keep repeating the same process over and over again. Even if they were operating at a loss, one big artist could cover the costs of a dozen failed attempts. This ‘collateral damage until platinum’ approach to breaking artists was what they specialized in. With so much money risked on each investment, they almost had no choice, but push their content regardless of its merit, which resulted in an ever more convoluted and unreliable system.

Thus began the systematic breakdown of the symbiotic relationship between the fans and the record labels that they actually relied upon to discover new music. According to Umair Haque of Havas Media, what caused this to happen, is that the record labels began funding music based on business efficiencies rather than listener preferences and pushing risk onto fans. These executives were willing to spend as money as it took to turn their artists into megastars, regardless of whether or not there was an audience ready to embrace them. Due to this, the opinions of fans throughout the world became insignificant, if not invisible.

“Instead,” Professor Barry Schwartz illustrates, “the tastemakers and gatekeepers, constrained by both ideologies and economic realities, made decisions for everyone about what would be available.” These executives would decide, based on their platonic notion of what should be popular at the time, which kind of artist the masses were ready to embrace. Without question, they became the final say on what style of music should be produced. Thus, they were accountable for an artist’s success or failure. But as their companies grew, they had to be more conservative, because there was more money to lose.

“Since organic growth consisting of constant touring
was unpredictable and took more time,
it was, in many cases, abandoned.”

After awhile, they started growing the businesses faster than they could grow the artists. As executives of publically traded companies, they became pressured by investors to produce profit and measurable growth from quarter to quarter. In an attempt to synchronize their success rate, they began to focus heavily on sensation and commercial viability over talent. Since organic growth consisting of constant touring was unpredictable and took more time, it was, in many cases, abandoned. In its place, artificial growth through mass media and tabloid coverage of public drama was used, because it could be planned out.

Once this publicity strategy was combined with using radio stations and MTV as their primary promotional tools, a new breed of artificially grown artists was born. This temporary solved their problems, it drove sales, and sometimes, success happened ‘overnight.’ But these executives would continue to create strategies based on moving units rather than producing moving music. With that, their flash in the pan success rate was able to please investors quarter to quarter. However, these actions catalyzed the turning point of the relationship between fan and medium, because the songs that were played most often radio stations and MTV weren’t necessary an accurate or even a close reflection of fan requests or votes.

“It was no coincidence, then,” Steve Knopper speculates in Appetite for Self-Destruction, “that Napster, the free file-sharing service, popped up on the Internet at precisely this time.” Because, “All these companies did,” Lylor Cohen of Warner Music Group explains, “was try to find fabricated shit so they didn't go through having to let people go. Then, you go into an era of fabricated, highly advertise stuff—it’s very flimsy, it sells very quickly, and we’re also hurting our credibility with the long-term music lover.” Therefore, in a sense, for the long-term fans file-sharing became as Umair Haque further states, “as much about risk-sharing as it is about the 'theft' of value.”

“At the end of the century, by contrast,” Robert Putnam writes in Bowling Alone, “the gradual merger of the massive telecommunications and entertainment industry had become the very foundation for a new economic era.” From this platform, artist’s careers were catapulted from obscurity to the next guests on TRL and the posing for the cover of Rolling Stone. In turn, due to this mass-marketed music, “We,” as Lawrence Lessig puts it in his book Remix, “live in a world infused with commercial culture,” it is all around us, “yet,” he continues, “we rarely see how it touches us, and how we process it as it touches us.”

“this commercialization of culture may have brought
music to the masses, but it does not seem to coincide
with the participatory nature of the Internet”

We largely forget that the environment the labels created is what has established many of the cultural norms they adhere to. That, “The twentieth century,” as Lessig explains, “was the first time in the history of human culture when popular culture had become professionalized, and when people were taught to defer to the professional.” And, while this commercialization of culture may have brought music to the masses, but it does not seem to coincide with the participatory nature of the Internet, because, as Henry Jenkins says most eloquently in Convergence Culture, “Convergence does not depend on any specific delivery mechanism.”

“Rather,” he elucidates, “convergence represents a paradigm shift—a move from medium specific content toward content that flows across multiple media channels, toward the increased interdependence of communications systems, toward multiple ways of assessing media content, and toward ever more complex relations between top-down corporate media and bottom-up participatory culture.” In other words, “The Death of the CD-Release Complex” cannot be attributed to or solely blamed on file-sharing simply because those involved in the Recording Industry failed to account for the subtle, yet sophisticated changes in the world around them. It was the Internet, by its mere presence, that allowed music fans to create spaces online that would otherwise be enveloped by darkness. Forever shifting symbiotic relationship between the fans and the mechanisms they rely upon to discover new music, because the mechanisms that the fans control, would go onto greatly outnumber those that the Recording Industry could ever hope to influence.

Read Part One — (Screencap taken from the Day of the Longtail video)

WMG 呈現虧損擴大至 Quarterly Losses Widen To $68M
2009/5/7

Warner Music Group (WMG) losses widened to $68 million or 45 cents per share for the fiscal quarter ending March 31; up from $37 million a year earlier. The loss included major write-downs of investments in 2 lala and imeem totalling 22 cents oer share Revenue fell 17% to $668 million. A poll of seven analysts by Thomson Reuters had predicted a loss of 25 cents a share on revenue of $739 million. Blaming its own release cycle, WMG reported that operating income from continuing operations declined 46% to $15 million compared to $28 million in the prior-year quarter. Overall operating income before depreciation and amortization fell 17% to $80 million from $96 million in the prior-year quarter.

Even digital sales, which should have been a bright spot for WMG, showed signs of slowing. Digital revenue of $173 million now represent 26% of total revenue. That's up just 1% from the first quarter of fiscal '09 and up only 6% from the prior-year quarter. On a constant-currency basis, digital revenue grew 11% from the prior-year quarter and 3% sequentially.


eBay, Live Nation & Fairmont Start Selling Digital Downloads
2009/5/6



Perhaps if labels make it easier for fans to purchase, they will buy more music; or so the theory goes. MySpace Music, imeem and Spotify are just a few of the sites adding buy buttons. Now some new players who each already have millions of website visitors are entering the online music retailing game.

In an experiment that has already launched in Australia, eBay is selling downloads next to used CD's. with Universal the first major label to sign on. The DRM-free MP3's are priced about 10¢ cheaper than major competitors including iTunes at $1.59 AU with albums $1 AU cheaper at $15.99 AU. eBay Australia spokeswoman Sian Gipslis said the online auction house chose to add new digital music sales to the website after banning digital download re-sales last year.

Live Nation has experimented with downloads for some time as has its probable future partner...

Ticketmaster. Grabbing the new release when buying concert tickets seems a logical point of purchase and Live Nation has recently been expanding its offering. Buying opportunities for hit product with fulfillment by one of two Live Nation subsidies Music Today and Fanfire are spread throughout the site, as well as, aggregated as part of a Live Nation Superstore.

EMI has also just expanded its relationship with Fairmont Hotels to include a branded download store. As part of a music initiative, Fairmont is also extending discounts and additional benefits to members of its guest loyalty program including priority access and ticketing concerts featuring EMI artists.

The jury is out on the volume of sales that these kind initiatives generate. In fact, MySpace Music is already under pressure from labels to increase ita sales. But eBay, Live Nation and Fairmont Hotels each already have two advantages that increase their chances of success: 1) significant existing traffic and 2) on-file credit cards of potential downloaders.