>play Music panel will discuss the current state of digital music and the emerging path as the business models change. Is free the new business model? Giving things away for free isn’t new, people have been giving away software, books, ideas, knowledge, art all for free. There is a great study on the economics of open source by Professor Eric Von Hippel of MIT. The argument applies to any creative work that previously had a price but is now given away.  In a recent article Michael Arrington of Techcrunch says, albums and singles will cease to be the source of revenue and will become marketing tools for other services (like concerts).

I will be very much interested in asking one of the panelists, RealNetworks , who have a subscription model, how the “free music movement” will transform their business model. Will Rhapsody/RealNetworks and others such services will become marketing channels rather than remain as digital music stores?

Join us at >play on October 27th to ask your questions.

Technorati Tags: >play, play conference, haas, berkeley, digital music, drm, rhapsody, realnetworks, music subscription

I caught the second half of this month’s BayCHI program and saw the presentation by John Buckman (of Magnatune and BookMooch). John led an entertaining interaction reviewing the evolution of applications he’s designed and built.

I was previously aware of the interesting approach MagnaTune takes toward selling music, but I left very excited about BookMooch, a service for trading in books you don’t want anymore, in return for credit that can be used to get books you do want. I have a ton of books stacked up that aren’t worth my time to sell. I’ve long-intended to give them away to friends, but that’s time-consuming as well. Trading them in for books I haven’t read seems even better. Has anyone else tried BookMooch?

Services like BookMooch, LaLa’s CD-trading service, and Netflix (essentially the world’s largest DVD library) take advantage of inefficiencies in other markets, impact demand for both physical goods like books and CDs and digital goods like e-books and mp3s, and provide customers alternatives to limitations on their media experience effected by DRM.

I wish I could figure out some sensible way to work John into the >play conference, as I thought his presentation style was fun and engaging (I’m guessing the audience members who kept interrupting him agree). Maybe we could talk him into scheduling a visit with us in Berkeley during the school year (please let me know if you would enjoy talking with him).

P.S. The anal-retentive side of me loves how he thinks about all sorts of little things, like using http://bookmooch.com by default instead of http://www.bookmooch.com. It’s never been clear to me why so many sites include the “www.”

Bluegrass musician (and one of my favorite virtuosos ever) Dave Grisman recently sued Warner and Universal Music--as well as their online partners (Apple, Yahoo, etc.)–for distributing Grisman’s music online without his consent. Grisman set up his own label years ago, called Dawg Music, and that entity holds the copyrights to his recorded songs. According to the lawsuit, Warner and Universal do not have the right to distribute those songs online and have been with holding royalty payments from online sales to Grisman. The online partners are guilty by association, and, according to the law suit, are also on the hook for reparations.

My favorite part to all this? The labels are being sued for piracy! Who woulda’ thunk it!

Interesting blog on Digg’s retraction of its taking down a post on how to unlock copy-protected DVDs. Perfect example of how digg needs to listen to its core audience: the techophiles that made the site what it is today. Also shows you why youtube did so well in the first place– by not pandering to copyright protection.

http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/05/02/the-day-the-digg-users-revolted/

Tim Westergren, founder of Pandora, writes this letter to all of internet-dom. This a direct response to the Copyright Royalty Board’s recent decision to triple internet music licensing fees.

To read his letter and sign (or not) his petition, click here.

So I ask all of you: Is there a way for internet radio to work? Does the fact that broadcast radio pays $0 for fees mean that there’s still hope? Could the untold numbers of internet radio stations band together in a tour-de-force and push more negotiation?

As a very big fan of internet radio (my fave being SomaFM of course), I wouldn’t mind all THAT much if the stations I listened to adopted a more broadcast-type model (ad supported)- seeing as the only other option is radio silence.

What do you think?

Forget seeing the Beatles on iTunes this week, but what you will see next month is EMI artists (not including the Walrus, et. al.) offering their music DRM-free. In addition to the usual $0.99 offering, songs will now be available at a new price point, $1.29, which will give you a higher quality version that is also DRM-free.  Check out the announcement on Apple’s site, and the webcast on EMI’s site. Wow, maybe we should have seen this coming, but I guess I’m surprised that it happened so quickly. Stay tuned for more discussion on the ramifications of this announcement.

The record labels have stooped to a new low. I know—hard to believe, but true, and it’s happening in our own backyard. And what’s more disturbing than the actions of the labels is the compliance of the UC school system—UC Berkeley in particular. Before I get too far ahead of myself, let me set the stage.

CD sales are down for the seventh consecutive year, inciting panic among industry giants. While still profitable, their once-healthy margins are eroding rapidly, as they haven’t taken the time to innovate around a new business model that would capitalize on digital music. Instead, they are clinging to a faulty DRM system amid recent counterstrikes such as Steve Jobs’ appeal to eliminate the faulty system, and fellow industry giant EMI’s alleged move to offer its collection DRM-free.

So what is their solution? “Let’s sue college kids, because once they realize the penalties of sharing our music illegally, they’ll be sure to buy CD’s again or pay $0.99 per song, right?” Now even though I wrote it, I’ll not dignify this rhetorical gem with a response.

Here’s where the real sordid details come in. How do the labels know how to find the students? Surely their identity is somehow masked behind the guarded cloak of their university. Alas, it seems your esteemed university, the bastion of ideals and convictions, has been caught in bed with the unsavory fat (albeit much slimmer now) cats of the music industry (unless you’re affiliated with the honorable University of Wisconsin, which has maintained its principles in rejecting the overtures of the labels).

Now I’m not advocating the illegal sharing of music, or the circumventing of DRM, or anything else against the law. I was just trying to put my finger on the real problem in the music industry (before I was sidetracked by the shameful matter of privacy and your university). If the recording industry wants to make money from digital music, they are going to have to figure out how to give it value. They need to stop trying to lock up the music and develop a way to give it value again. I challenge you all to think about how this can happen. Is it additional content from the artists that is tied in with a new type of player? Is it the ability to deconstruct a song the way Nine Inch Nails has allowed through GarageBand? Is it song quality (probably not)? Is it tied into video games?

Whatever it is, I’m confident that music fans are not going to flock back to CD stores and fork over cash for tracks just because a few of their friends are getting sued. In fact, they’re likely to rebel even harder in the future. There’s no question the generation of listeners out there today is many times over more innovative than the morons that pass for executives in an industry deteriorating before our very eyes.

Slashdot is reporting that the RIAA is going after a 10 year old girl in Oregon.  Okay, we get it, pirating music is illegal.  But a 10 year old girl?  Whose mom is disabled and living off social security?  Gimme a break.

I wonder if the RIAA recognizes how evil they seem.

I was at the Video on the Net conference today in San Jose, and by far the best comment of the day was made from the audience. It was during a panel on monetizing video, but in reaction to a previous panel that focused on the partnership between Silicon Valley and Hollywood.

The Hollywood/Silicon Valley panel went over and over again about digital rights and content clearance: the same talk we’ve heard from Hollywood for years. While the panelists were clearly in favor of greater distribution for digital video, and recognized the huge growth potential, they couldn’t get away from the typical Hollywood “this is a threat” culture they have been steeped in. It’s all about protect and defend, not nurture and grow.

The comment from the audience (paraphrased): It sounds like Hollywood is so wrapped up in rights and clearance, they are suffering from “creative constipation.”

Apple has ordered the owner of Lift, a bar in Des Moines, Iowa, to stop using its iPod name in his weekly Monday night iPod DJing events. People bring their iPods and can create playlists for the amusement of bar patrons, their friends, et. al.

I was in New York over holiday break, and I was in a number of bars where this was going on… my question is, if it’s giving Apple free publicity, why is it such a big deal? Why doesn’t Apple sponsor events like these? They could even regulate the use of iPods, solely permitting iPods, and not Zunes or any other MP3 players… isn’t this like hosting a public Oscar pool?