Fake Steve Jobs (who, strangely, I was only turned on to by this post slating him over Technology Evangelist) has a fantastic write up about the “Universal doesn’t renew iTunes contract” story. What the man says is true.
The music industry nobs have finally worked out what we’re doing
Rather obvious when you think about it… Apple embeds your account information in its un-DRMed downloads.
The latest round of HD-DVDs have been cracked, only a week after the update. That, in itself, is not surprising. What is surprising is the way it came out. Fascinating.
Lot’s of EMI news over the last couple of days… Apple finally launches iTunes plus, the (currently EMI only) DRM free 256kbps store and they’ve finally done a deal with YouTube (remembering they were the only major to not have done a YouTube deal before the Google purchase).
It looks like their dramatic shift in policy is starting to bear fruit.
The sale discussions with Terra Firma possibly provide some insight into what’s been going on…
It’s a given that post-sale the ludicrously profitable EMI Music Publishing will be separated from the failing EMI Recorded Music but this opening up of the catalogue sends some interesting signals…
The risk of breaking new artists is likely too great for a private equity team; instead it’s more likely that the new management team will ditch artist development and look to milk the enormous back catalogue (and the list is truly awesome, from The Beatles, The Stones, and Pink Floyd right through to Radiohead, Kylie, Robbie Williams and Coldplay).
By taking a short sharp boost in sales from the DRM free deals they’ve done, by dropping or icing the bulk of the current crop and by canning new artist development it’s likely that whoever buys EMI Group now will turn Recorded Music into an attractive proposition for Warners (who, as I’ve wittered about before, have been trying to get hold of that catalogue for years and are sniffing around again) and will be left with a very profitable publishing business at the end of it all.
Seems to me a very sad end for the conglomerate of labels responsible for 5 of the top 10 albums of all time (and 9 of the top 20) and some of the finest moments in rock and roll history.
I like to think that my fondness for the label is not wholly due to the 5 years I spent working there, but also because of their genuine influence on the progress of rock music. From creating a British Elvis in 1958 in the guise of Cliff Richard, through the influence of their genre labels like Harvest, their misunderstanding of Punk, riding the New Wave of Heavy Metal (Powerslave, anyone?), Baggy, Britpop, Neo-psychedelia and ending up with out and out pop they’ve been with us all the way.
If I’m right it will be a sad day, despite the obvious failings of the current music industry model. But like pandas and smallpox, sometimes the time has just come.
The music industry just got another step crazier…
I can’t quite understand this. As any serious music fan knows often the only way to get hold of particular tracks is through the second hand market. The day that we can legitimately purchase new any or all tracks that we want from an obscure artists back catalogue is a long long way off, and seriously may never happen. By making it harder and harder to purchase second hand records they are killing the collector (or anorak, depending on your view…).
It was completists that pumped the UK single charts for years in the eighties, and it was those same completists that rebought their entire collection on CD, and then on heavy weight vinyl, and then 20th, 25th, 30th anniversary editions. Take the joy out of seeking out the rare and unusual and you knock the top off an already struggling market.
Of course, they already know this, but are just too damn scared to grasp the change they need. Like Doug said, it is only those in trouble that truly innovate. Give it a year or two and they’ll sort themselves out (one hopes).
For reasons close to my heart (sleevenotez and my old company) I’ve been watching the Radio 1 homepage for a while today. They have an SMS widget on the homepage, which shows the most commonly texted in words… When Tristan launched it back in October it was comments on the music. Now it’s MySpace, Bebo and Facebook. What does this mean? That everyone wants to be Lilly Allen or the Arctic Monkeys, that’s what. Gah!
Argh. Pandora goes quiet outside the US. Not quite yet, but since they’ve never actually been legal outside the US this statement that they are going to proactively stop access from outside the US is sad news indeed. The music industry really is a bitch to deal with. Kids, just don’t sign that record contract, regardless of the amount of coke/boys/girls/horses* they throw at you. There are better ways to get coke/boys/girls/horses* than selling your soul to satan.
* Delete as applicable
It’s a real problem. A real real problem. With the rebellion of Flickr users after the change to Yahoo! IDs the move to migrate upcoming.org to its new home at upcoming.yahoo.com and Yahoo! IDs is being a bit more sensitively handled. Still, there will no doubt be a furore and accusations of selling out.
Seriously though, what did people think was going to happen? Yahoo! just buys these things and doesn’t integrate them into its infrastructure and systems? Don’t be daft. Happy then should be happy now.
It does mean I might actually have to get a Yahoo! id after all though.
Ouch for Microsoft, at least. Dell gives the go ahead for Linux.
I wouldn’t want to be a music exec in 2007. It ain’t gonna be pretty.
