Jazz Odyssey

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A blog post on the New York Times website leads to a study done by the University of Washington regarding DMCA takedown notices.  Here is an excerpt from the overview:

Although the implications of being accused of copyright infringement are significant, very little is known about the methods used by enforcement agencies to detect it, particularly in P2P networks. We have conducted the first scientific, experimental study of monitoring and copyright enforcement on P2P networks and have made several discoveries which we find surprising.

• Practically any Internet user can be framed for copyright infringement today. By profiling copyright enforcement in the popular BitTorrent file sharing system, we were able to generate hundreds of real DMCA takedown notices for computers at the University of Washington that never downloaded nor shared any content whatsoever. Further, we were able to remotely generate complaints for nonsense devices including several printers and a (non-NAT) wireless access point. Our results demonstrate several simple techniques that a malicious user could use to frame arbitrary network endpoints.
• Even without being explicitly framed, innocent users may still receive complaints. Because of the inconclusive techniques used to identify infringing BitTorrent users, users may receive DMCA complaints even if they have not been explicitly framed by a malicious user and even if they have never used P2P software!
• Software packages designed to preserve the privacy of P2P users are not completely effective. To avoid DMCA complaints today, many privacy conscious users employ IP blacklisting software designed to avoid communication with monitoring and enforcement agencies. We find that this software often fails to identify many likely monitoring agents, but we also discover that these agents exhibit characteristics that make distinguishing them straightforward.

Tracking the Trackers–Why My Printer Received a DMCA Takedown Notice

Blogged with Flock

Ian Rogers posted his advice to Guy Hands at his blog and it makes for some very interesting reading. His core premise:

“With the disappearance of advantaged label competencies such as superior production, distribution, and marketing, reconfigure your labels to be based around affinities and focused narrowly enough to serve roughly the same audiences from release to release. The labels would be very small teams responsible for fan cultivation, focused and direct marketing, and A&R. They would rely on EMI for service, support, and tools (generic marketing would happen on the EMI mothership, for example).”

Ian, as many of you may know, was head of Yahoo Music for the last couple of years before leaving to head up a new top secret music project called Topspin. Ian is also one of the smartest digital music guys out there, and his comments are insightful and worth a moment to consider. His comments deserve better commentary than this quick blog post, but two things stand out in my mind based on what Ian has said here.

First of all, Ian has had an impressive career in music and has spent a lot of time looking at the business from the perspective of artist, label and digital music expert. This alone gives him instant cred, but Ian’s true cred comes from his musical DNA–Ian has always approached things from the perspective of music fan. This is a mindset that many executives in the music business (particularly at major labels) have lost touch with and a reconnection is critical if recorded music is to survive. Secondly, and more directly to Ian’s point, the notion of serving audiences “from release to release” is troublesome to major music companies–they are not structured to handle that. An artist out of an album cycle generally does not have a project manager, budget or resources allocated to maintain the connection between artist and fan. Most of the readers of this blog are in the industry, and many have had the experience of sitting in a marketing meeting to discuss the setup of an artists’ new album and heard the question asked, “How are we going to reconnect with the artists’ fanbase?”. Ian has eloquently stated what I’ve been asking for years….”Why did we lose touch with them in the first place?”

Pew has just published a new study on consumer purchasing habit,s and the impact of the Internet as well as traditional media on their decision making. Clearly, the digital arena continues to grow in importance but it is only one part of the media mix, and carries different weight among different consumer groups.

Click here to see the questionnaire and here to read the results of the study.

If you are a last.fm fanatic, here’s a great site that will waste hours of your time as you see all the cool things that last.fm can do with the help of its user community. From social networking applications to desktop apps, there’s something here for all but the most casual last.fm user, and even the more casual users will be entertained by the various graphing, mapping and other visualizations of your listening habits compared to those of your friends.

Now…will someone please write a FLAC player for Mac with built-in scrobbling and tagging capabilities?

Build Last.fm: Extend your Last.fm experience

Ahead of the actual discussion led by Jim Griffin at SXSW Friday, Wired has posted and overview of a notion that has been whispered about in the hallowed halls of the major labels for years…a fee imposed on ISPs that provided end users with an “all you can eat” music service. Read Music Industry Proposes a Piracy Surcharge on ISPs for additional details, but the idea is pretty basic. All ISPs would put a fixed amount (for example, $5 per month per subscriber) into a pool, and that pool is then divided up between the various rights-holders (performers, songwriters, labels and publishers). An independent third party would be responsible for dividing the pie according “popularity”.

I’ve been a proponent of figuring out the details on such a model since the early days of Napster, but such a notion was blasphemous back then and is only starting to gain some interest now that its clear the toothpaste can’t easily be put back into the tube.

There are unquestionably a multitude of issues that would need to be worked out…would this require Federal regulation of ISPs in the U.S.? What is are the global impacts and requirements? What technology would be agreed upon to determine the exact content of the traded bits & bytes? What privacy issues would arise from the implementation of such technology? What about the technology itself? What are the development and deployment costs? What about advertising and marketing plans/committments in a world where “street date” ends up being whichever day the music leaks? And what about the enormous hurdle of getting all of those stake-holders to agree on the raw dollars, the allocations, the methodologies and a manageable audit pathway?

These questions are just a handful that represent the tip of the iceberg. And while plenty of folks at the labels that I’ve discussed this with have balked, myself and plenty of others believe that resources put into figuring this out will prove to be well allocated, and with the right solution will more than outweigh the current resources being put into anti-piracy (both technology due diligence and legal fees). In fact, should this become a reality it only makes it easier for many new music business models to gain traction. But make no mistake about it…the notion sounds interesting but the necessary legwork and underlying platform are enormous tasks to undertake, and likely years before they could be reasonably implemented.

Feasible? Folly? What do YOU think?

This article from Fortune/CNNMoney.com about who is using digital marketing more effectively for campaigning should be discussed at every major label marketing meeting.  The entire article is worthwhile, but this particular Q&A exchange between Fortune and Publicis CIO Rishad Tobaccowala hits the bullseye.  The major labels have historically taken a more Clinton-esque approach despite public and press outcry to approach the web in a more Obama-like fashion.  That said, in both the election and the fate of the majors its unclear if an “Obama digital strategy” will secure a win…but I believe it will.

Why else is it better to be the digital candidate in ‘08?

Well, think about it for a minute. Unlike Obama, she’s used traditional media almost entirely, like her town meeting on the Hallmark Channel. She got maybe 250,000 viewers. But the Black Eyed Peas made this great music video about Obama. It gets almost a million views a day online. The Obama campaign quickly realized how powerful it was and ran it on their home page.So part of their ability is to figure out from the blogosphere or via crowdsourcing, whatever you want to call it, what works and begin using it. A lot of the Obama campaign messages are not their own but they point to and highlight stuff created by others. It’s created by the crowds.In fact with over a million donors contributing, they position the entire campaign as one owned by the people. That’s what makes it so authentic. While both teams spin stuff, Clinton’s team tends to be rather unsubtle in their use of spin and attack and this really does not work as well these days.

Why not?

It’s so much harder to control the message with the Internet so widely used now. The spin comes back to bite you. I think the Clinton staff haven’t really understood. Every time they try to spin stuff, they look like jokers.For instance, after every state they lose they say it does not matter. Online there are jokes and parodies about this including calling it “Mark Penn’s Insult 40 states strategy.” Think of it this way. Traditional media is based on command and control. But the digital world is all about grassroots. Traditional media is about authority. Digital is about authenticity. You can see it in the language they use. Obama uses the language of “we and you,” which is inclusive and nods to the wisdom of the crowds. She uses “I and me.” His stuff is about “yes, you can.” Which is about the buyer. She talks about “experience from day one.” That’s about the seller. That doesn’t resonate anymore.One key thing you recognize from everything from MySpace to the blogosphere is that people want to have a voice. We keep talking in my business about how the buyer is in control. Her campaign believes the seller is in control. That’s why it’s better to be digital. That doesn’t mean you knock out analog. Obama still relies very heavily on traditional media, too.

Obama’s Web marketing triumph - Mar. 3, 2008

From Mashable: “The Web-based social music service of great renown has assembled a nifty thing dubbed the SXSW Group page, where site members can nab themselves their very own “Band Aid.” What’s a Band Aid? Simple. A list of bands whose SXSW shows you might be interested to catch while down in Texas. The names are all culled from that algorithmic montage that is your music preference data set.”

Last.fm Helps SXSW Music Fans Find The Sounds They Crave

The ever astute Paul Resnikoff offers his viewpoint on the brewing battle between publishers and digital music provider MusicNet. This is a perspective worthy of consideration. Back in the early 90s when I was in the wholesale end of the music business, it seemed like the CD price wars at retail and the razor-thin margins we were all working on were only making one business wealthy–the trucking companies. Fast forward to the present, and one can’t help but wonder if the only people we’re making rich are the lawyers…

Resnikoff’s Parting Shot: Fighting For Scraps — Digital Music News: “Now, publishers and online music stores are bickering over royalties, and how many pennies should be paid for the usage of on-demand digital songs. They’re throwing lawsuits, crying foul, and lobbying copyright judges for favorable percentages.

Is that worth a protracted royalty fight, one that drains resources into legal fees, endless proceedings, and business protection strategies? Especially at the expense of expansion initiatives, alternative licensing concepts, and the creation of broader, progressive publishing licenses for digital formats? “

And by the way…if you’re not subscribing to Digital Music News, you’re missing out.

R.E.M. Releases New Videos Under Open Source License : “R.E.M. today released 11 videos for the first song from their forthcoming album, all in MP4 format in HD and under an open source license. ‘Supernatural Serious,’ is the first single from the band’s next album, ‘Accelerate,’ due to be released April 1st.“

(Via ReadWriteWeb .)

While similar to countless similar rants of years past (clueless record industry should provide better digital offerings and value to consumers), I have to give this one a lot of credit for pointing out the value of “convenience services and marketing”. Sure…there are always folks for whom “free” will be the prime motivator, but there are also plenty for whom speed, convenience, and a friction-free experience has a value worth paying for. High quality audio, properly tagged content….sometimes its just paying attention to the details and understanding the wide variety of ways in which consumers want to acquire and enjoy that content that can make the difference in where a consumer thinks to go for their download. In the meantime, take a moment to read this:

Wanna Beat Piracy? You Have to Do Better Than Them!: “One important thing here that the entertainment industry doesn’t understand, is how piracy works. Piracy works very, very well. The albums and videos and movies come quickly; they’re thoroughly checked by the community, they’re well organized, they have standards of quality, and they’re free. To beat that, you need to offer content that’s just as fast, just as good, just as organized, and then give something extra to compensate for the ‘free’ part: higher quality bitrates, extra digital content, extra physical content (shirts, concert tickets, coupons). You can’t miss out any of these elements because your content will ultimately be worse than the stuff on Mininova or The Pirate Bay.”

Web 3.0: Is It About Personalization?: “On the UK’s Guardian newspaper site today, writer Jemina Kiss suggested that Web 3.0 will be about recommendation. ‘If web 2.0 could be summarized as interaction, web 3.0 must be about recommendation and personalization,’ she wrote. Using Last.fm and Facebook’s Beacon as an example, Kiss painted a picture of a web where personalized recommendation services can feed us information on new music, new products, and where to eat. It’s a marketers dream…“

Social Sites Don’t Deliver Big Ad Gains - WSJ.com: “As Microsoft Corp. makes a $44.6 billion bet on Internet advertising with its unsolicited offer for Yahoo Inc., there are signs that some of the biggest new places where consumers are flocking on the Web — social networking and video-sharing sites — are yielding advertising revenue slower than some Internet companies had hoped.“

Duncan Watts questions The Tipping Point: “‘If society is ready to embrace a trend, almost anyone can start one–and if it isn’t, then almost no one can…’“

This is a great read for anyone interested in marketing.

(Via Hypebot.)

“with sites like Digg, it’s the wisdom of the crowds or the tyranny of the mob. You never know what you’re going to get.“

Slashdot’s founder questions the wisdom of crowds in this article:
Bits - Technology - New York Times Blog

Real Time - WSJ.com: “…the key point isn’t the idea of releasing a steady stream of music instead of an album a year at most — that’s an interesting discussion, but not a new one. Rather, it’s asking what music fans will most readily pay for. Debates about serializing music tend to revolve around the artist’s creative process, and devolve into arguments between song guys and album guys about the artistic merits of those forms. (Reader caveat: I’m very much a song guy.) But this debate may soon be beside the point: The ideal creative process isn’t so ideal if it doesn’t get you paid. If consumers won’t pay for albums, it behooves artists to find another form.“

hypebot: UPDATE: Qtrax Launch Delayed As All 4 Majors Deny Deals

hypebot: WMG, Universal Deny Qtrax Deals plus Commentary: “Qtrax’s announcement on Sunday that it was launching its ad supported download service at midnight with music from all four major labels may have been premature or at the very least misleading.  Both Warners and Universal are denying deals with Qtrax.”

“Qtrax launches today making available 20-30 million tracks floating around on P2P’s available for free and legal download via its new ad supported service.  All four major labels have signed on.

Users download and launch a player that runs ads while they search for and download tracks.  DRM prevents the tracks from being burned and counts the number of times a song is played to pay the rights holders.  But the tracks can be stored onto the computer hard drive or transfered to portable players.“

(Via Hypebot.)

The Album is Dead… - Blog Maverick: “So the question arises, why don’t artists serialize the release of songs ? Why not create a ’season’ of release of songs, much like the fall TV season and promise fans that Flo Rida is going to release a new single every week or 2 weeks for the next 10 weeks ?“

Bloomberg.com:
Opinion: “The only future for recorded music — as bands such as Radiohead have already discovered — is to give it away free on the Internet. But whether a private-equity firm like Terra Firma can be that bold is open to question.“