Quick figures on Josh Belville’s university downloading service idea

Concerning the previous post on Josh Belville’s piece for Artistshouse Music, here are some quick figures I ran on the potential revenue generated for the music industry:

It may be an optimistic assessment but this really does seem to provide an option for the music industry to tap into what is indisputably the largest market of avid music downloaders on the planet(something it has been trying to figure out how to do for the better part of a decade) – something that could possibly turn the entire industry back around in the right direction perhaps? According the US Census Bureau there are 15.9 million college students projected for enrollment this fall, collecting even as minimal a sum as $20/year from each one of these students represents almost $320million of revenue for the music industry. Now charging a fee based on a monthly subscription such as the one Josh suggested at $240/year represents over $3billion in revenue. Whatever the outcome, it is clear that this represents a serious opportunity to capitalize on something it has been fighting against for years.

A positive interpretation of SB 3794

As many are probably aware, Tennesse Governor Phil Bredesen recently signed into law a bill requiring all universities and schools in the state to take action to ensure that there networks are not being used for illegal file sharing. While this is certainly an understandable response to lobbyist pressure from the RIAA and MPAA, the terms of the legislation are hazy and it is unclear what the Governor deems necessary action to be taken by the concerned establishments. Writer and musician Josh Belville recently posted a very interesting take on the legislation for the Artistshouse blog in which he suggests that in an effort to avoid the trend of prohibitive legislation, universities should seek manners in which to positively reinforce legal music downloads by setting up accounts with online music purveyors such as eMusic who in return for revenue from a minimal increase in tuition would provide a monthly number of free downloads to every student. I think that Josh is very much on to something with this idea and took it a step further by commenting that this may even be a call for someone to develop a service exclusively tailored to universities and large organizations in terms of content provided and subscription negotiation. Whatever the outcome, I firmly believe that this is the sort of thinking that will return stability to the music industry as opposed to the futile and banally stupid ideas held by the RIAA and MPAA that they can somehow put an end to online piracy by seeking out and punishing people on an individual basis.

Josh’s article as well as my comments are available here: Artistshouse/Josh Belville

Economic Crisis Reflected in Ticket Sales

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Ticketmaster, hallowed paradigm of corporate integrity that it is, has reported that it will be reducing and/or eliminating certain service charges and fees on its ticket sales due to declining economic conditions. The company was notorious for tacking on superfluous charges to transactions much to customer dissatisfaction including ‘Parking Fees’ at venues like the Fillmore that do not even offer onsite parking. This announcement when coupled with the firm’s laying off of 300 employees (5% of its global workforce) in October and the expiration of its ticketing contract with concert promoter LiveNation (who plans to launch its own rival ticket retailer) later this year may be indicators of the end of the near monopoly Ticketmaster has held over online ticket sales for many years.

Tinymixtapes offers its take on the announcement here

Custom Aggregation Constructs from Studio Manifesto

The guys at Studio Manifesto have issued another very informative post over at their blog on filtering the internet and harnessing the exceptional potential of the web 2.0 era in terms of social networking. A very worthwhile read: http://www.studiomanifesto.ca/WP01/filtering-the-web-custom-aggregation-constructs/

Lala.com, a promising start but not up to standard

For those of you who are not yet familiar with Lala.com, it is a new ad free online music player and storefront. The concept behind Lala is promising and will likely inspire moves in the right direction for regulating online streaming and iTunes alternatives, but the reality is that the service is not ready to do what it promises.

In theory, Lala allows users to stream any song in their 6,000,000 track catalogue free of charge at least once (any listen under 30 seconds does not count) and then an unlimited number of times for $.10. Users may then elect to download mp3s of tracks for an additional $.70 or so and albums for a corresponding nominal fee. This part of the service seems to function properly and is actually useful for listening on the go and quick references.

Where Lala seemed poised to blaze trails but actually disappoints is the idea that users could have their personal music libraries matched through the site to be played from any computer free of charge while streaming from ‘the cloud’. This would essentially render hard disk space a non-issue and imbue the service with significant value. The mechanics behind the process involve downloading the Lala MusicMover which analyzes the user’s personal library matching songs that it recognized in its proprietary catalog (what it refers to as the ‘fast way’) and then uploading any tracks that it is unable to recognize to its server.

I first downloaded the Lala MusicMover almost exactly a month ago and have it running in the background almost constantly since. I am almost invariably connected to one of two high speed broadband connections and am generally able to download/upload anything with a high degree of celerity. MusicMover, however, does not seem willing to oblige as (in the month it has been running) it has only managed to match/upload about 3,000 of my 9,643 track library (only about 300 of which actually show up on the Lala site for streaming from the cloud) and cause my computer and internet browsers to malfunction and crash repeatedly.

Lala is an interesting idea in theory but the service needs serious improvement in order for it to achieve any degree of success. After my experience with the MusicMover, I have elected to terminate the upload/matching and wait for something better to come along.

The wonders of Twellow.com and Indiefeed

For all the Twitter users out there: I was recently made aware of Twellow.com, a directory of popular social media users organized by category. It was through Twellow that I was introduced to indiefeed, a very good Twitter feed providing links to tracks from a lot of really great indie artists (some recent postings from The Gay Blades and The Happy Hollows among others) each sorted by genre and including blurbs about the bands.

Q-Tip Drops ‘The Renaissance’

It’s been a long and covoluted journey but former Tribe MC Q-Tip has finally managed to secure a release. Tip released ‘The Renaissance’ early last week. Look for a review in the days to come.

TED Talks: Larry Lessig on User Generated Content, the Climate of Copyright, and the ‘Prohibitive Age’

Today I revisited a video (thanks to the guys at Studio Manifesto) from the TED Talks series that is valuable viewing for anybody interested in the efficiency of modern copyright law and the state of the music industry. Mr. Lessig makes very interesting points about developing technology, user generated technology, and what he calls the ‘Prohibitive Age’ in which we live where many aspects of people’s daily lives lie in realms outside of the law and the corrosive effect this can have on society.

Larry Lessig says the law is strangling creativity | Video on TED.com

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Non-singing Members of Zeppelin to Team Up with Frontman of Band of Non-singing Members of Creed for Tour

Strange title? Prepare for stranger news. Despite statements that Robert Plant has no plans to tour “with anyone for at least the next two years”,  Jimmy Page, John Paul Jones, and Jason Bonham have announced plans for a tour with or without their former frontman. Continuing the recent trend of bands like Journey replacing their singers for tours, the remaining members of Zeppelin are rumored to have been rehearsing with Myles Kennedy, frontman of Alter Bridge (aka Creed minus Scott Stapp). It remains to be seen (largely due to the uncertainty of audience response) whether the band will tour as Led Zeppelin or under some other moniker.