Music Biz - dying industry - times have changed, songs are available so MANY different places; example: many old CD’s and record collections are freely copied by friends and relatives.

All things must pass - one day the music biz will be gone (soon), one day Microsoft and Apple will be gone, your Ford Mustang WILL eventually go the dump.

Be happy, play the songs, ignore this idiotic VAPOURWARE announcement/rumor by desperate Universal execs.

And, sorry, but the new zunes are frickin horrible, just like the old ones, and the iPod is still the leader. Yawn.

Its just so simple and easy to play ANYTHING on the iPod - its just a PAIN to use a zune. Thats all there is to it folks - dream on Microsfty fanbois, you are like the Hitler youth, only its the Gates/Ballmer Youth. Puke.

BTW, seeing as Apple will not be able to license Windows Media, they can fu** off. No good songs for you looooooosers with iPods this year. I do hope you all went and dumped the stock today. Again, MS wins. Go cry now.

I don’t think ms did themselves any fovors by modelling the zune form factor on my nokia phone from 1999.

that sound about right

BUT…..

This fee gets added to my cell phone bill too since it has an MP3 player that I dont use? Oh and my PSP has had it tacked on too? And there is no way to opt out since i pay upfront?

Screw that!! No way in hell would this work for me if there isn’t a way to be paid back for a service I don’t use on all my devices that “can” play MP3s.

You should have shown a chinavasion.com mp4 player with bit torrent–it’s even cheaper.

By using an ipod, you’ve instead shown that PRICE isn’t the most important metric. Convenience, usability, guarantees, etc. are all valuable, hence the massive premium price apple is able to charge for their products.

Likewise, iTunes isn’t as cheap as legally-impaired torrents. But 3 billion times, people chose convenience.

I’m no iTunes lover, mind you. In fact, I think it’s bloated and the licensing sucks. But it just like the premium price that is attached to the iPod, it just goes to show that convenience is highly valued.

Now, if the pricing and distribution, etc. on music were more flexible, and it was coupled with a more-convenient-than-iTunes interface, then we’d really have something. And it wouldn’t have to be free. It could, in fact, be Better than Free.

Imagine that.

Are you a student at refrigerator college? Because you seem to have completely missed the point of this article and the debate in the comments…

One other thing about your comment on Amie Street’s model. These are great guys and have a very cool model. It may well prove to have it’s day in the sun. The online music industry has a brief history, maybe 10 years or so. In that time there has been two broadly adopted trends ’sharing’ (Natpster, Gnutella, BitTorrent) and ‘device/platform integration’ (iTunes).

Both trends were widely adopted massively and rapidly. This, I think, is the litmus to logical distribution models. It’s my belief that if just one label bgan offering free videos files online (that included a presenter a music video followed by a hip TV ad) you would see massive adoption. People would download these units to their devices in huge numbers.

The music industry MUST take back more control the distribution system or it’s dead. Unless they imporve their product they will recreate the MTV disaster in iTunes, Amazon et al. There is room for iTunes, Amazon, AmieStreet and label produced micro entertainment. These are symbiotic services and it’s a no brainer!

I agree with you that things have changed. But there needs to be a scalable economic model here. I think the solution to the music industrys economic dilemma is to launch numerous label-approved solutions, this being just one.

My thinking is that you might be right about the ‘MP3 unit’. However video today is more pervasive ever and MTV and other networks that fueled the promotion machine behind the music industry have dwindled. This, to my thinking, is an incredible opportunity that the labels may have missed. Namely, taking back the entertainment platfrom, that MTV shrudly monopolized over the last 20 or so years. The labels can do this by producing TV content around music videos, like the ‘micro-shows’ I was creating 7 years ago.

In todays world 7 years is a lifetime. However, the industrial elements that created the online cloud over media ecosystem then, are still in place today. The broadest base of music fans don’t like to pay for content and the music industry are equally loathe to seeing the brokerage of there ecominc model fall to Apple and Amazon. The TV industry are are abandoning iTunes based on these same principles. They are now exploring this micro-econimc unit that I’m suggesting. Again, I’m not saying this is the ONLY solution, mearly a ‘additional’ and ‘healthy’ revenue driver that gives music fans more than just the audio component (MP3), which as we know, has become impossibly defensible.

If you’re new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

In fact this time around it sounds like an all out war. A month ago I posted about NBC Universal breaking ties with Apple, which I got a lot of heat for. Howeve…

People don’t want advertising on their music, especially if they can pay a little more to get indie music, that is just as good (if not better), and support their artists directly.

My model was simple and incredibly effective as a business model and it’s not that different to what the TV networks are currently experimenting on with their online strategys today - the basic idea is ‘tagging ads to freely distributed content’. Back then I was tagging five second audio ads to the top and tail of hundreds of thousands of mp3s, and freely distributed them on P2P networks like Napster and Guntella etc. The model didn’t just stop with ads. I had also begun experimenting with music videos (as I was a music video producer at the time). I was tagging .mov’s with a personality (usually a actor/VJ), an ‘video advertisement’ and then the ‘video’ itself. These were essentially downloadable ‘micro-TV shows’. This was a breakthrough in video distribution. These clips had the necessary components of the TV revenue model but used them in a micro freely distributed format. They were getting popular back then before online video took off, imagine how popular they would be with label support today!!

I set up a bunch of host nodes on high bandwidth DSL/Cable lines. I hosted tens of thousands of MP3s. My ad tagged MP3s created massive reach. As songs were released weekly (as they have done in Europe for decades)- I would simply tag these tracks with the latest ads. The reach was partially measurable by searching for these specially coded tracks over these networks.

My experiments then generated a lot of VC interest and I had VC lined up. My funding hinged on the Napster court trial with the RIAA. Had the RIAA lost against Napster the Labels (Majors) could have easily and successfully moved forward with this model, that I was creating. Instead Napster lost and my experiment became one of the many targets in the RIAA’s cross hairs. My ideas became the negatively viewed and my efforts to help the music industry, essentially turned me into a criminal.

If Napster had one that landmark trial, recording artists and labels would probably now be earning critical revenues from advertising proportionate to distribution and an mp3’s popularity. My model worked and its a pity the Labels were too slow to realize what was good for them. The current BitTorrent model is stripping the ‘business’ from the music business isn’t healthy in the long term and it’s time they figured out how to put it back in with something we want to pay for. Maybe my early advertising experiments are right for this time? Anyone have any thoughts on this?

1) The cost of purchasing a track is only part of the cost-equation for consumers. The TOTAL TOTAL cost of a track = TRACT RETAIL COST + TIME TO FIND TRACK COST. The reason people are “afraid” of subscription services is that they have a nagging fear that they will never recover the TIME TO FIND portion of the cost of acquiring their music library upon terminating a subscription arrangement.

2) I have trouble believing subscription services - even at 50% penetration will be able to financially support the community that makes music - given the cost of living in the US, Canada and the UK.

Here’s my latest advice “Elephant Piss Saves Labels”
http://www.unsprungartists.com.....abels.html
I thought I would have some fun with this…

#34 - my favorite comment on this post. It is about the music!

Question: if the countdown begins when you purchase and register the player, what happens to music you buy the day before your time expires? Good for only a day?

Observation: presumably- as is currently the case with subscription plans now, not all artists would be available through the plan. You’d probably then still find your self paying out if pocket for some music. But I guess you’d be able to keep that music after the 18th month?

IMHO, Amiestreet coupled with their “Fantasy Record Label” application on Facebook, will become the iTunes replacement. This is why I like it:
- DRM free
- Songs start at free and increase to $0.98 as they become more popular / downloaded
- 70% share of proceeds to artists
- “social network” features that reward you for good reviews with free music
- Fantasy Record Label is ADDICTING (think stock portfolio but with music)

As more artists move to this platform, the balance of power will shift away from iTunes.

The point on music companies getting more about promotion and branding artist is bang on. So welcome madison avenue the new record giants. The add industry is a good model as to what to expect.

On another topic, why does everyone assume college kids are poor. It has surprisingly similar demographics as, well, our nation.

that is all.