shiny dot bulletin

Move over Starbucks, move over big box stores… music pays a visit to the old grocery store in the form of printed lyrics on clothing…

via Wired:

Music industry types have put on their thinking caps and come up with a new way to extract another few pennies out of the value of a copyright: licensing lyrics to clothing manufacturers. EMI Music Publishing is the latest to embrace the trend, having made a deal with the British grocery store Sainsbury’s “Tu Clothing” line that will involve printing lyrics from the publishing house’s 1.3 million-song catalog on designs for men, women and children.

Jonathan Channon, executive vice president for EMI, couldn’t resist a bit of wordplay: “Classic songs are part of the fabric of everybody’s lives, and we’re delighted that people will now be able to wear their favorite songs through this deal.” Get thee to a punnery, Channon.

Overall, I don’t think this is such a bad idea… it’s not going to make anyone rich, but following a microtransaction model makes sense, it’s the right direction. However, it does remind me of those awful days when me mum would buy our clothes at the local Dutch Boy. [shudder]

Technorati Tags: emi, sainsburys

via Digital Music News:

MySpace Music has delivered a quick billion streams, according to information shared midday Wednesday. The top-streamed track since the September 25th launch is “Whatever You Like” by T.I., which garnered 10.9 million plays. Other in-demand tracks include “Can’t Believe It” by T Pain (4.2 million); “So What” by Pink (4.2 million); “My Life,” The Game featuring Lil Wayne (3.9 million); and “Miss Independent” by Ne-Yo (3.5 million).

That lists skews heavily towards mainstream, major label content, perhaps an unsurprising result. The list is also urban-heavy, though other top-charting artists include Jason Mraz, Katy Perry, M.I.A., and David Archuleta.

Isn’t “mainstream, major label content” all that’s there? I’ll be interested to see if the numbers change when IODA and other indie content aggregators come online. CDbaby - any chance?

Technorati Tags: cdbaby, content aggregators, david archuleta, IODA, jason mraz, katy perry, lil wayne, m.i.a., myspace, myspace music, ne-yo, p!nk, t pain, t.i.

I have a friend who has a city street in Toronto named after his family; Cummer, which I believe is off Yonge somewhere in the north…

via Brooklyn’s Daily News:

When Lou Reed takes a walk on the wild side, he’d like the New York street he’s strolling on to bear his name.

The 66-year-old Brooklyn-born rocker revealed to New York magazine that he hopes a future mayor will recognize his contributions to the city by naming a city street after him.

“Lou Reed Way would be nice,” he tells the mag’s Oct. 6 issue.

Yes, it sure would. Curmudgeon Court has a nice ring as well…

Read the rest of the article.

Technorati Tags: brooklyn, lou reed, nyc, Velvet Underground

Chart shakeup keeps track with broadband age of music
Owen Gibson, media correspondent, The Guardian

Almost 56 years after Al Martino topped the first singles chart with Here in My Heart, the company behind the weekly rundown has unveiled a shakeup designed to maintain its relevance in the broadband age.

The Official Charts Company (OCC) hopes the addition of an official “subscription plays chart” will help future-proof it as the music industry chases new revenue models. The new chart, believed to be the first of its kind, will measure the number of times individual tracks are played on the new type of service record label chiefs hope will rescue them from digital piracy and a slump in CD sales.

The chart will measure how many times songs are played by those who subscribe to “all you can eat” offerings from companies such as Napster, the Vodafone MusicStation service operated by Omnifone, HMV and the Nokia Music Store.

For a monthly fee, they offer subscribers unlimited access to millions of tracks. The subscription model has been slow to take off while record labels have resolved rights and licensing issues, but it is now expected to explode in popularity.

Read more.

Technorati Tags: hmv, music charts, music subscription service, napster, nokia music, Official Charts Company, subscription plays chart, vodafone

MySpace appears to have soft launched their self-service advertising platform this evening. First spotted by Nick O’Neill over at SocialTimes, the platform would appear to be targeted at MySpace’s large musician community, offering them options for targeting users based on a number of demographic and interest-related characteristics.

As opposed to most ad networks where the advertisements link to external web pages, the ads on MySpace’s self-service solution link to profiles on the social network. That would make sense given the focus on musicians, especially with the launch of MySpace Music – the company’s new digital music venture with the record labels – set to happen any day. With artists soon able to monetize their pages by selling music, ringtones, concert tickets, and merchandise, it would make sense to offer them an option to reach more users through ads.

Read more at Mashable.

Technorati Tags: myspace, myspace advertising, online advertising, self-serve advertising, self-service advertising

via fyimusic.ca:

Today, with the backing of the four major music labels, SanDisk is announcing the launch of a new physical music format dubbed “SlotMusic” that’s essentially an entire album on a MicroSD compact memory card. Wal-Mart and Best Buy are among the retailers that have already signed on to start selling the cards for the upcoming holiday season.

This is the latest effort to boost physical media sales and weaken the stranglehold that iTunes has on digitial music sales. The format consists of a 1GB microSD card loaded with 320kbps MP3s and is clear targetting the millions of cell phones and MP3 players that already contain MicroSD slots. Users insert the card right into the slot and immediately hear the music. The card will be packaged with a USB sleeve so it can be plugged in directly to any USB-enabled computer.

The DRM-free, MP3 formatted SlotMusic cards will be sold with a USB sleeve so it can be plugged in directly to any USB-enabled computer and with legal approval from EMI Music, Sony BMG, Universal Music Group, and Warner Music Group.

Here’s my take.

Pros:
- music is DRM-free
- music is high-quality
- comes with USB sleeve
- small and portable format
- cool novelty in its cute tiny package

Cons
- no instant gratification
- no back catalogue (as of yet)
- album art?
- how many people really have the equipment to play this format
- lost opportunity for further music recommendations (if you like Elliott Smith, you’ll likely like Earlimart, etc)
- big learning curve for many consumers

How do you convince a generation who has grown up with digital music to adopt a physical format? I guess the thinking is that this is the best of both worlds.

I’m all for trying new things, but I can’t help but think the labels are missing the point again and again… While iTunes is out there launching Genius and experimenting with music discovery engines, the labels insist on physical product when that’s just not the future.

TechDigest has a good SlotMusic review, as does TechCrunch.

Technorati Tags: emi, genius, imix, itunes, music discovery, music on microSD, slotmusic, sony bmg, universal, warner

This just in via Excess Copyright.

You can read Howard’s previous low-down on the situation here:

An excerpt:

While the narrow legal issues are highly technical, the ramifications entail the potential imposition of multiple layers of payment to multiple claimants for multiple rights involving the same activity and transaction. The concept of “double payment” could become “triple” or more. The “making available” right may some into play if the case is heard.

The three dozen or so collectives in Canada and the oversight provided by the Copyright Board are supposed to simplify the legal landscape and reduce transaction costs so that creators can be paid more efficiently for their efforts and avoid market failures. Canada has more collectives and a larger full time Copyright Board with far more full time resources than any other comparable tribunal in any comparable country.

So far, the result has been excellent for a small number of lawyers and consultants but is of questionable benefit overall to most actual creators, who have seen very little if any money from most of this adversarial and litigious activity.

Technorati Tags: canadian copyright, copyright, excess copyright, howard knopf, Ringtones Tariff, SOCAN

wow… via Mashable:

Napster, the original peer-to-peer music sharing network that has since transformed itself into a legal subscription service, is being acquired by Best Buy. The electronics retailing giant will be paying $121 million to buy Napster – a more than 85% premium to where Napster’s beleaguered shares were trading as of Friday.

Although Napster was able to sign up more than 700,000 subscribers, the service was never profitable and was on track to run out of cash sometime next year. Under Best Buy’s ownership, that problem is resolved, and the combined companies are confident that they can use Best Buy’s massive reach and distribution to improve the business, in addition to leveraging Napster to sell other digital products to consumers.

In corporate speak, Best Buy says “We can foresee Napster acting as a platform for accelerating our growth in the emerging industry of digital entertainment, beyond music subscriptions. We’re very excited to add these capabilities to leverage our existing relationships with the labels, the studios, and the hardware providers. We believe Napster will be an outstanding addition to our already robust portfolio of partners and offerings in the digital music space.”

Read the rest.

Technorati Tags: best buy, digital music service, music sharing, music subscription service, napster, p2p, peer to peer

I’m a little late to the party, but this is cool!

iTunes has just launched a feature that allows you to link directly to your catalog in the iTunes Music Store using the name of the artist or the release - a huge relief for any label who has ever tried to master their link scheme! Now, simply create a link to by following this format: www.itunes.com/artist, or www.itunes.com/artist/album. Here’s an artist example: www.itunes.com/AndyMcKee, and an album example www.itunes.com/Rodriguez/ColdFact. Happy linking!

Technorati Tags: artist links, itunes

The Globe and Mail ran a story yesterday about a relatively new music site called Popcuts.

Popcuts’ claim to fame:

Berkeley, Calif.-based Popcuts, which publicly launched its website in early August, charges users 99 cents a song. Thereafter, whenever someone else buys the same song, those who have already bought it get paid in credit that can be redeemed for more Popcuts music. The earlier you buy a song, the larger your cut of future sales.

It reminds me of thesixtyone.com - which bills itself as “massively multiplayer music discovery” - except that instead of collecting points to unlock site features, users invest real money to earn more of something they love: music.

As the microtransaction business model becomes more and more viable, I expect to see more approaches like this, especially around music communities. It’s about time that fans were paid for their role in word-of-mouth marketing.

Next I’d like to see a viable model that sees artists and content producers compensated for their work in cases where no immediate sales opportunity exists… that’s an idea for another post another day.

On a side note, Popcuts is down for maintenance as I write this. I hope they can scale, I imagine there will be a ton of media attention over the next while.

Technorati Tags: microstransaction models, microtransactions, music discovery, new music models, popcuts, thesixtyone