Amazon's AutoRip Service Provides Free Digital Music Copies
In a move designed to gain a leg up on Apple's iTunes store, Amazon.com has launched AutoRip, a new service that gives customers access to CDs and MP3 files they bought through the online company as far back as 1998. Amazon AutoRip adds 256 Kbps MP3 audio copies of music purchased from Amazon, whether on CDs or as a digital download, at no charge to a customer's Amazon Cloud Player, where it can be accessed by up to 10 devices per account. In a statement, Amazon founder/CEO Jeff Bezos said, "What would you say if you bought music CDs from a company 15 years ago, and then 15 years later that company licensed the rights from the record companies to give you the MP3 versions of those CDs...and then to top it off, did that for you automatically and for free? Well, starting today, it's available to all of our customers - past, present, and future - at no cost." Amazon says music purchased as gifts is not eligible for AutoRip, but the company has no way of knowing whether a purchased CD was given away as a present if the buyer did not check the "Is this a gift?" box during the online purchase process. And now that Amazon is providing customers with digital copies of music CDs, the company has created a disincentive to declare how a purchase will be used. [Full story: Information Week]
| Beats To Launch Daisy Streaming Service In Second Half Of 2013 Last week Beats (By Dre) announced it hired Ian Rogers, former CEO of digital music marketing firm Topspin Media, to oversee its new digital music service known (at least temporarily) as Daisy. At the same time the company also revealed it had made a "substantial strategic investment" in Topspin, although the amount wasn't disclosed and Beats will have no voting rights or a board seat. Drawing on Beats' reputation for producing superior audio quality, Daisy was designed as a music service that will offer listeners the ability to stream up to 12 million tracks with high-end audio via a paid subscription. In a joint press conference, Rogers and Beats co-founder Jimmy Iovine, also chairman of Interscope-Geffen-A&M records, said the new music service will be launched during the second half of this year. "We have an entire generation that was brought up on sound being inferior, and sound is the only conduit for emotion that we have," Iovine said. "We've had ten very bad years in the audio industry... [so] we want the best possible quality, and it will have global scale. It will be a balance of those things." [Full story: MTV The Deal Pipeline] |
| Sony Music Hires Two Digital Music EVPs In a move designed to raise the bar on its digital future, Sony Music Entertainment this week named Ole Obermann to the newly created position of Executive VP of digital partner development and sales, and hired former EMI Music exec Mark Piibe as Executive VP of global business development and digital strategy. According to a memo sent to all SME staffers, the appointments were made "in recognition of both the continued growth of our digital business, and of the expanding needs of our largest digital partners as they grow." London-based Obermann, who was previously SVP of international at SME, will lead a team focused on working with its partners to grow business on a worldwide basis. He joined Sony Music in 2006 after working with Liquid Digital Media, Walmart.com, and McKinsey and Company. Piibe, who will be based in New York, will be charged with developing new digital business partners and negotiating digital deals. He spent the last five years at EMI as EVP of global business development. [Full story: Variety] |
Say It Ain't So: Early Beatles Songs Now In Public Domain? Hard to believe, but The Beatles' "Love Me Do" and B-side recording "P.S. I Love You" have fallen into the public domain - at least in the U.K. Actually, the same is true of all recordings that are more than 50 years old, meaning they no longer are protected by existing British copyright law (although the underlying compositions do remain protected). As reported by Digital Music News (no relation to this publication), U.K. Intellectual Property Law states, "If a work is recorded then copyright in this sound recording lasts for 50 years from the end of the year in which it was made or, if published in this time, 50 years from the end of the year of publication." To prevent many such recordings from losing their copyright protection, the European Union introduced a directive in September of 2011 extending copyright protection for recordings to 70 years (it's 95 years in the U.S.). The intra-EU bureaucracy is moving towards enactment, with individual countries (including the U.K.) approving and codifying the extension. Until or unless the extension is granted, several companies that release out-of-copyright masters are taking advantage of these copyright expirations by releasing digitally remastered recordings of the originals. [Full story: Digital Music News] |
Wireless Ronin, Custom Channels Partner For Branded Music Service Digital marketing technologies company Wireless Ronin has partnered with Custom Channels, a business music service provider, to provide branded music services to a wide range of local and national companies. According to a company statement, the deal offers "customizable playlists that integrate various aspects of a company's brand, creating a unique and unified experience across multiple locations." The service is "fully optimized for the commercial environment, with streaming, high-quality digital sound delivered at a consistent volume from song to song, with custom 'between-the-songs' branding and messaging (aka commercials)." The service will be managed by Wireless Ronin's RoninCast software platform and offered as an enhancement to its existing branded music system. "Companies are discovering that playing music not only creates a unique ambiance, but provides opportunities for subtle branding messages that drive customer loyalty," said Scott Koller, Wireless Ronin's president and CEO. "Integrating Custom Channels' music service with our RoninCast platform allows companies to share either the same or demographically relevant visual and audio content across multiple locations, thereby ensuring a consistent guest experience across the concept." [Full story: Digital Signage Connection] |
Comic Books Have Much To Learn From Digital Music Industry OK, this may sound like a bit of a stretch, but the graphic novel (aka comic book) industry has just started to face the digital reality that the recorded music industry encountered when Apple introduced the iPod on November 10, 2001. Until that date the major record labels had a lock on how music was recorded and sold, primarily through the album format that packaged 10 or 12 songs on a disc and sold it that way - and only that way - to the public. Digital music players changed all that, and quickly the "album business" evolved into a "singles business." In a parallel world, the comic book industry is just beginning to discover a similar challenge, one that the publishers are acknowledging with great reluctance. Instead of being able to charge $3 or $4 for a comic book that aficionados will read and then slip into a plastic collectors' sleeve, consumers can download a digital copy of the same volume onto their iPad or Nook. "Digital destroys those (collectible) ideas," writes IGN's Benjamin Baily. "The collectible nature of comics is null and void in the digital landscape. Which means the comic industry needs to learn very quickly how to serve its readers twenty pages of digital content for less money than the print version." Sound familiar? [Full story: IGN] |
Al Bell Presents American Soul Music ... And American Soul TV
If you're into classic and contemporary Soul, R&B, Blues, Gospel, Jazz, Hip-Hop Soul, Rap Soul, and Neo-Soul, we invite you to listen to Al Bell Presents American Soul Music. Former Stax Records owner and Motown Records Group President Al Bell personally has programmed this awesome radio station online, presenting your favorites from the 1960s and '70s [and some '80s], a lot of the best new music that's being released today, and some real gems you haven't heard in a long, long time. Come to www.AlBellPresents.Com and hear it for yourself!
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