p2pnet - rss feed: Universal, Amazon mp3 efforts
p2pnet.net news:- While EMI will, “boldly go where no major has gone before and sell its catalog as unprotected digital files, other forces are coming into play that should bolster the potential for a commercial MP3 marketplace,” says a Reuters/Billboard story.
EMI? Boldly? Must be a different company ;P
But No, it’s that EMI, one of the members of the Big 4 Organized Music cartel, the others being Warner Music, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG.
“Amazon, which is considered the best bet to challenge iTunes’ supremacy in the digital world, is shooting to launch its MP3 digital download store in May, a target date it has yet to publicly acknowledge,” says the story. (Amazon declines comment.) Meanwhile, sources familiar with the situation say Universal Music Group plans to test the sale of unprotected digital music files, including some of its classical music catalog conceivably including titles by Andrea Bocelli, at the new Amazon store and other outlets.”
Wowee!
“Meanwhile, executives within Sony BMG Music Entertainment and Warner Music Group say senior management teams at both companies are unwilling to embrace selling their catalogs in the MP3 format,”according to Reuters/Billboard.
“But whether or not the majors will be involved with Amazon or iTunes unprotected plays, they all say they are waiting to find out if the MP3 model will expand digital sales - and conversely, if it will fuel unauthorized file-sharing or cannibalization of other digital formats such as ringtones.”
At the moment, the corporate online download market is virtually non-existent, Apple’s iTunes iPod front-end loader notwithstanding, the reason being the Big 4 haven’t yet been able to figure out a way to effectively and permanently cannibalise the indie sites and services.
“One indie player says his company is close to signing a deal, but is hung up on what kind of pricing should be applied to what kind of file,” says the piece. “That company is willing to sell Amazon 128 byte-rate files at its conventional digital price points, but wants a higher price for better-quality 256 byte-rate files.”
For “conventional digital price points” read the grossly inflated wholesale rates at which the the cartel is trying, and failing, to offload ‘product,’ as it calls its offerings.
Or as Eagles’ lead singer Don Henley once summed it up, music is now a commodity and the music business is in crisis but:
Contrary to conventional wisdom, the root problem is not the artists, the fans or even new Internet technology. The problem is the music industry itself. It’s systemic.
The industry, which was once composed of hundreds of big and small record labels, is now controlled by just a handful of unregulated, multinational corporations determined to continue their mad rush toward further consolidation and merger. Sony and BMG announced their agreement to merge in November, and EMI and Time Warner may not be far behind.
The industry may soon be dominated by only three multinational corporations.
And of course, when you’re talking about the corporate music industry, you know everyone is out to screw everyone else. ASAP, and any way they can. And, while the try to figure out the best ways to do that, customer interests remain right at the bottom of the list.
No worries, though, because while the labels fuss and worry about how to wring the last cent out of consumers, giving back as little as possible in return, things are great in the real world of online music.
There, music lovers in their hundreds of millions are are trading, selling, sharing, swapping, giving away, dishing and recommending songs in their billions while the venal Big 4 look on.
Also See:
Reuters/Billboard - Universal, Amazon beef up MP3 sales space, April 16, 2007
now a commodity - Is ‘business’ killing music?, February 17, 2004
real world of online music - 1 billion songs a DAY shared online, March 8, 2007
If your Net access is blocked by government restrictions, try Psiphon from the Citizen Lab at thIs the endSurvey: How Did Copyright Infringement Become Equated with Robbery? (of the Net) nigh?zze University of Toronto’s Munk Centre for International Studies. Go here for the official download, here for the p2pnet download, and here for details. And if you’re Chinese and you’re looking for a way to access independent Internet news sources, try Freegate, the DIT program written to help Chinese citizens circumvent web site blocking outside of China. Download it here.
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August 30th, 2007 at 2:54 pm
Still don\’t get it how all this stuff about Universal, Amazon mp3 efforts can affect it…