Monthly Archives: April 2007
Gracenote / Yahoo partner for lyrics
Came across this article which describes a Yahoo/Gracenote partnership to offer an online lyrics service. The article is pretty flimsy on details, but I’m still excited.
Showing his wry sense of humour, Ian Rogers, General Manager of Yahoo said:
“Finally, a free, legal and definitive way to settle a bet with the guy sitting next to you at the bar who is certain the Ramones’ most famous anthem declares, ‘I wanna piece of bacon’”
I just hope there’s an open API of course, so we can generate awesome thematic playlists. Just imagine some of the neat queries you could add to playlist generating tools like MusicIP or Pandora - “Give me 10 songs about lost love regained”. Or if it’s a cold night out, you could generate a playlist based on the concept of “fire” (and related terms like warmth). It’s a gold mine waiting to be tapped!
This might be old news to some people, but now the rest of us can play ;)
Record labels as VC firms
Interesting story in Fortune magazine that describes how labels could act more like VC firms, taking a cut of artists touring, and merchandise - rather then just a portion of their record sales. This is the model Nettwerk Records has been using successfully for years. Label as VC firm - Artists as brand.
Instead of running a business that revolves around contracting with an artist to distribute recorded music in its various forms — CDs, digital files, whatever it may be — what if labels behaved as though they were venture capital firms, in which entrepreneurs, or artists, in this case, tap in to their patron’s deep pockets and expertise to exploit all areas of the business? That’s the idea behind merging record companies with artist management firms — and it looks like the theory will be soon put into practice on a very large scale.
The most interesting ramifications about this tweak to the business model is the alignment of common goals between artist and label. Tour revenue is up over 16 percent last year (to a record $3.6 billion), and I think this is a result of our unprecedented access to inexpensive (or free) music. If labels were to get a piece of touring revenue, they would surely complain less about file sharing, and we might start seeing more innovative music services take hold.
iTunes and EMI to drop DRM
The speculations were rampant, and today Apple and EMI announced that they will begin selling DRM free tracks. This is great news for pretty much everyone. Other rumors swirling about the joint EMI/Apple press conference involved the Beatles music finally being made available for download, and that rumor turned out to be false. Likewise, speculation about a yellow (submarine) iPod filled with the collective works of the Beatles also failed to materialize. (That one was more April Fools then the rest)
Interesting is the ‘premium’ price iTunes has attached to the DRM free tracks - $1.29 as opposed to $.99. I’m not sure I like the positioning of ‘DRM-free’ as something consumers will need to pay more for. Rather, I think a forward looking online music store should use the ‘DRM-free’ moniker as mechanism to differentiate itself from their many online competitors. eMusic, for example, has always offered DRM free music, and I would still choose to purchase music through them, rather then a DRM-free (but premium priced) iTunes store.
I’m sure the reason for the premium price is to lure other major labels into offering DRM free music as well, and so it’s really a small price to pay to watch the walls of DRM crumble and come crashing down.