Napster, MusicNet, download deal
p2pnet.net News:- MusicNet, working as a "behind-the-scenes operator" providing DRM-ed to the gills content and technology to AOL, Virgin Digital and HMV, and the former Roxio, now struggling to survive as Napster, have signed a three-year deal on royalty rates to pay songwriters and music publishers for digital downloads in Britain.
"Under the deal, the composers, writers and music publishers will receive 8 percent of gross revenue, excluding VAT, when their music is offered by MusicNet and Napster," says Reuters.
MusicNet was once owned by EMI, Time Warner, Sony Music Entertainment and BMG, with RealNetworks on the sidelines. It was bought by Baker Capital, a New York-based private equity firm.
"The action that apparently precipitated the sale was RealNetworks’s refusal to put more capital into MusicNet, which has been losing money," said DRM Watch at the time, going on:
"This makes perfect sense, given not only that virtually all of the music that MusicNet distributes through its retail partners is in Windows Media format and DRM from arch-rival Microsoft (instead of RealNetworks’s RealAudio and Helix DRM), but also that MusicNet’s retail partners compete directly with RealNetworks’s own Rhapsody and RealPlayer Music Store services. Indeed, the only wonder is that RealNetworks – the plurality shareholder – did not previously divest itself of its share of MusicNet."
Napster, a pale and watery shadow of the original application which was the major force in introducing p2p file sharing, recently hired the UBS Investment Bank, "to help it look at strategic alternatives, which could include the sale of the company".
And the competiton facing the two could be described as fierce. Britain’s MCPS-PRS Alliance, representing composers, songwriters and music publishers, agreed to the same deal at the end of September with Apple Computer’s iTunes and mobile operators Vodafone, O2, France Telecom’s Orange and Deutsche Telekom’s T-Mobile, adds Reuters.
Also See:
Reuters – MusicNet and Napster agree digital royalties deal, October 9, 2006
DRM Watch – MusicNet Acquired by Private Equity Firm, April 13, 2005
strategic alternatives – Napster tries Japan, October 3, 2006
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October 11th, 2006 at 4:48 pm
The question no one ever wants to answer …
How do you get your songs available on Napster, or any
other such service, if you are not and don’t WANT to be
owned by a major label ?
Answer:
Just like Radio, You don’t.
Another door closed to the unsigned.
That’s really the object of this game.