“Free” Pandora Has Hidden Limits

A funny thing happened the other day.  We were listening to Pandora online, as usual, and the music stopped.  We were not asked if we were “still listening” nor had we skipped too many songs.

Instead, we found out that the “free” Pandora that already hits you with both ads and a need to keep telling it you are still, in fact, listening, has a 40-hour-per-month listening limit.  Once you reach 40 hours in a month you have to upgrade to a premium account to keep listening.

While 40 hours of music seems like a lot, that wouldn’t cover more than one full work-week a month.  I can’t imagine this problem strikes many users but, considering all the other limitations already imposed on their “free” account, this new limitation is disheartening.

It also led to us moving on to use Slacker.com and Last.FM as an alternative.  Now that a new month is upon us we are reluctant to return to Pandora.

Not sound business, Pandora.

Billboard Drops Paywall, Adds Streaming for a Dime

Billboard.com, still considered the leading trade publication for the popular music industry, is dropping its paywall on its website, making all of their Hot 100 and related chart data available for free.

To be honest, I hadn’t known this info was behind a paywall.  I’ve never really done any deep music chart research.  Still, it strikes me as a wise move since I can’t imagine it is hard to find others listing this data for free elsewhere on the web, legally or not.

The stranger part of the Billboard announcement is how they are hoping to earn money from selling access to actual music.  Billboard, it seems, has a deep library and all the proper agreements in place with the labels so they are a natural source for finding music.  However, their plan is weird:

The site…will offer free music streaming and paid downloads, both powered by digital music site Lala. Users will be able to stream a song once for free, and then pay 10 cents to access it anytime thereafter.       LINK

It’s that last part that seems so weird.  You listen to a song once and then you pay them a dime to be able to come to the site and stream it again anytime you want?  What if you want to listen to the song on your iPod or on your laptop during a WiFi-less flight?  Even at the cost of a dime, it doesn’t seem like you are getting much for your money.

Plus, as we all saw with Amazon going onto people’s Kindles and removing books they’d already paid for, these licenses are absolutely nothing like actually buying the content.

Can Print Be the Next Vinyl?

One of the more interesting trends in the music world is the “return” of the vinyl LP.  While sales of CD’s continue to fall in the face of digital downloads, vinyl LP sales continue to rise:

Consumers purchased 1.88 million new vinyl LPs in 2008, an 89 percent increase over 2007 and the highest sales volume recorded in the 17-year history of Nielsen SoundScan. Further, in good news for some physical retailers, two out of three vinyls LPs were purchased at independent record stores.    LINK

There are a number of reasons for this, but the most obvious is that the LP is a tangible object that can’t be easily reproduced and can only be shared through a physical, real-world exchange.  For true fans, the LP is a sort of badge of fandom, proof of just how much you love the band.  Compared to a digital download or a CD, the LP is a crafted thing, complete with large-scale artwork and often other inserts.

While it isn’t likely that LP sales will eclipse digital downloads anytime soon, it is also highly unlikely that the LP market will be undercut by piracy.

Could these same factors be a forecaster for the future of printed books and newspapers?  It is hard to imagine that these items, so easily digitized, will be able to maintain their current position on top of the mountain and we are already seeing the rapid decline of the newspaper business.

In the cases of both newspapers and books, it might be that their only hope in surviving over the long-term is to invest in elements that can truly not be pirated.  As David Eggars points out in a recent Salon interview:

I think newspapers shouldn’t try to compete directly with the Web, and should do what they can do better, which may be long-form journalism and using photos and art, and making connections with large-form graphics and really enhancing the tactile experience of paper. You know, including a full-color comic section, for example, which of course was standard in newspapers years ago, when you’d have a full broadsheet Winsor McCay comic. So we’ll have a big, full-color comic section, and we’re also trying to emphasize what younger readers are looking for, what directly appeals to them.     LINK

Now, I am not saying that comics section will save newspapers, but the point is to make the object something desirable to possess in physical form.

For the moment, we are going to see traditional publishers fight futilely to maintain the status quo but the ground is quickly falling away beneath them and it is going to take some innovative thinking about the value of printed matter to keep them in the game.

The Music File-Sharing Dilemma Revisited

So, here is a simple example of why groups like RIAA and groups like, say, the general public, are butting heads in and out of court over the issue of “sharing” music.

Let’s rewind to, say, 1986.  I was a freshman in high school.  My buddy was trying to school me on some more alternative tunes and made me a mixtape of stuff including things like The Dead Kennedys and Captain Beefheart.  Cool stuff.  Really opened up my idea of popular music.

Now, RIAA would not have liked my friend’s behavior but because it happened in a physical exchange between two private citizens there isn’t much anyone could or would do about it.

Cut to today.  You just heard an amazing band and you want to tell all your friends about it.  You buy a copy of their album and immediately put up a link to your favorite song on your Facebook feed.  Bam!  You are now an illegal file-sharer under the eyes of the current law, at least as the RIAA would like it to be interpreted.

Far from trying to undercut record sales, you were just trying to help promote a band you love.

That’s where heads start to butt.  Where do we draw the line between the very human (and economically beneficial) act of sharing and the clearly illegal line of distributing content to which you do not hold the rights?

This is a battle we are going to see fought in the music world first, but the same discussions hold true for film, TV and even the mainstream press.

The internet has made the act of sharing, sometime with millions of “friends” as easy as pressing a button.  The thing is, most people still feel that when they do that it is just sharing and nothing more.

UK Music Label CEO Still Doesn’t Get It

In yet another attempt by a major music label to justify it’s continued existence, the CEO of the UK label BPI has written a rather pathetic, rehashing of the same old arguments against file-sharing masked as a look back on the ten years since Napster changed everything, forever:

Many critics have argued that the music industry could have avoided some of the problems it faces today if we had embraced Napster rather than fighting it. That’s probably true, and I, for one, regret that we weren’t faster in figuring out how to create a sustainable model for music on the internet.

Ok, I’m listening.  Tell me what how your new vision and understanding will translate into a new busines model that takes advantage of, instead of fights futilely against what the internet does best:

But this innovation, and the vital investment by labels in new music, is constantly undermined by the various P2P successors to Napster. These companies take and exploit what musicians and artists create, without being honest enough to reward them. And the publishers of books, journalism, films, TV programmes and other media are now lining up with us in the fight against illegal downloading.  Like us, they see how it will destroy their ability to create new content. So we are united in calling for ISPs to play a more positive role in steering consumers towards digital services that reward creators.

Oh, wait, you don’t want to change anything AND you aren’t even remotely listening to the issues and complaints by some of music’s biggest acts including Radiohead and NIN.

Well, maybe you’ve at least moved beyond thinking that the future of the music business will be driven by album sales:

It is true that some people use P2P for music discovery and spend more on music as a result, but in the aggregate they are heavily outweighed by the number of people whose downloading substitutes for purchases. If the reverse were true, our business would be booming and not contracting right now.

Christ, you still think you’re business is collapsing because of pirates?! How about your insane treatment of fans as criminals?  How about your insistence on raising the cost of an album even while the cost of making and distributing that album has plummeted?  How about all the artists that have been screwed by devious contracts and cheating accountants?

Once again, the music industry demonstrates why they will not be long in this new world.

Michael Jackson Dead. Britney Spears Not Dead – the Reporting Power of Social Media

One of the major arguments put forth by the big newspaper companies is that if we stop paying them huge sums of money then we will no longer get trusted, vetted and researched news – that so-called “citizen jouralists” just can’t be trusted since we aren’t paying them for their work.

It was interesting to see, last week, that the very first place I saw word of Michael Jackson’s death was on Twitter.  I immediately went over to CNN.com to see what they were saying but they were still talking about Michael Jackson being in a coma.  In fact, it was literally more than two hours after I’d seen multiple confirmations of his death on Twitter, that any of the major news organizations would report the information.  I think that TMZ.com is actually being credited as the first “official” confirmation.  Now , if that isn’t a smack in the face to the so-called professionals…

Meanwhile. this sad death, and that of Farrah Fawcette, led to a slew of fake death reports.  What I found fascinating here was that the same loose network of minds that had confirmed Michael Jackson’s death worked just as quickly to confirm that, in fact, Britney Spears, was still alive even though someone hacked her Twitter stream and annoucned “Britney Spears has died.”  Twitter users also speedily debunked the fake deaths of Harrison Ford and Jeff Goldbloom.

Now, all that is left for the pro’s is to endless rehash all of this while those of us on the bleeding edge are on to the next breaking story.

Mos Def Gets in On the Musical T-Shirt Trend

Last week, I mentioned that by good friend and awesome musician, Waz, was being featured on a new album that could be obtained only with a special t-shirt.

It looks like Mos Def thinks this could be a cool new way to bring his music to the people and still make some money while doing it:

Now Mos Def is one of the first artists to release his new album, “The Ecstatic,” in a t-shirt format. Combining digital music with t-shirt design, The Mos Def Music Tee features the cover art on the front, tracklist on the back and a unique download code on the hang tag.     LINK

At $40 each, it seems possible for both the t-shirt maker and the artist to make money on a deal like this and it provides the fan with a tangible relic of the transaction, something downloading an album alone will never replace.

Even if people buy the shirt and then share the tracks they download, it is still a better result for the artist than just giving away the music.  In fact, this is the best of both worlds.

Of course, this only works if the artist can sell enough t-shirts but that basic equation is true for any business.

You can get a Mos Def shirt here.

Benny Goodman Shows How It’s Done – 50 Songs in One Day

I was listening to 89.9 FM in NYC last night and they were playing a tribute to jazz great Benny Goodman.

In introducing the next set of songs, the DJ said something pretty amazing.  He said that the next four songs would be from “one of the most productive recording sessions in jazz history,” during which Benny Goodman and a small band including Gene Krupa on drums recorded fifty separate songs!

Now, I have not been able to confirm this online, and it was late and I wasn’t completely paying attention at first.  If you want to do some digging, I believe the DJ said the date was June 6, but I can’t remember the year, and that the session took place in New York.

Anyhow, I am going to assume it was true if only to make the point that this is how artists succeed.  There is so much discussion today about how the business of music or writing is breaking down and making it so hard for people to make a living pursuing these careers.  The truth is that it has always been hard and the ones who truly make it do so regardless of the conditions of the economy or the state of the industry in which they work.

In Benny Goodman’s time, the real money was selling recordings to both make money and build audiences for live tours.  So, what did Benny Goodman do to suceed beyond being very talented?  He recorded FIFTY SONGS IN ONE DAY! How many aspiring garage bands do you know who are willing to make that sort of investment in time and energy?

Just as another example for this weekend post, take a look at Charles Dickens, a writer I don’t much enjoy but whose success is hard to question.  Where did he get his first big audiences? Not from publishing a best seller but from what was really not much different from an earlier version of fictional blogging. He published his stories in increments, making sure to include lots of cliffhangers to keep ‘em coming back for more.  While today we might think of Dicken’s work in terms of novels read in high school, during Dicken’s time he was likely very popular bathroom reading.

And there is nothing wrong with that.  That was the best way for him, at that time, to reach his audience. He didn’t whine about the fact that people were reading his work in drips and dribbles or that they were being published in a magazine instead of a leather-bound volume (ok, maybe he did but it didn’t stop him), he wrote for his audience and he was rewarded.

As we move ever deeper into the digital age, a few things will always remain true:

1) If you are really talented and really driven you have a much better chance at reaching your goals.

2) If you think you “deserve” to be paid you will likely be disappointed in the results.

3) If you are able to give the audience what they want in a way that can be easily and affordably consumed you will probably have a hit on your hands.

Lots more will remain the same, too.

People will continue to tell stories and share them with others.  People will continue to write and record music for others to hear.  The detailed dynamics of how one is able to do this while being fed and clothed will constantly shift, but that’s just opportunity for those who are paying attention.

Pandora Offers Premium Ad-Free Plan

As if they had been reading my mind (holy crap, that’s what their app really does!!) Pandora has announced a premium subscription service providing ad-free music streaming.

I had proposed that this would be a huge profit-maker for Pandora at $5/year.  Pandora is going to make it a bit more expensive with a price of $36/year.  Here is some of what that gets you in addition to no ads:

* High Quality Streaming: When listening on the web, experience 192K bits per second audio. That’s the highest quality streaming experience on the Internet.

* Skip All Day Long: With the standard ad supported version of Pandora you’re limited to 12 total skips per day. With Pandora One you’ll be able to skip as many times per day as you’d like (note you will still be limited, thanks to licensing constraints, to six skips per hour per station).

There’s some other little bits too but that’s the gist of it.

So, is it worth $36/year?  Would they have gotten enough more paid subscribers with a significantly lower price?

Dangermouse “Releases” New Album on Blank CD

DJ Dangermouse made a lot of noise (and a great album) when he released The Grey Album, an amazing mashup of Jay-Z’s Black Album and The Beatles White Album.

Of course, the big record lables, in this case EMI, considered Dangermouse’s work to be theft and tried to sue him and anyone trying to sell or otherwise distribute the album.  EMI failed in their battle but it left it’s mark on Dangermouse.

He has announced that, to avoid legal problems from EMI, he will not be releasing an album, but instead:

a limited edition, hand numbered 100+ page book which will now come with a blank, recordable CD-R. All copies will be clearly labeled: ‘For Legal Reasons, enclosed CD-R contains no music. Use it as you will.’

He goes on to wish everyone well in “finding” his music somewhere out there in the webosphere at which time they can burn that music onto the CD-R.

Awesome.

LINK