hypebot

The Great LimeWire Pizza Robbery

2009-07-04T10:09:00-04:00

An Indie Label's Run In With LimeWire

The staff of New Your City indie label Dovecote usually spends Wednasday's evenings hanging out at The Music Box, a usually quiet joint where the often often gives away free pizza to help bring in a crowd. On a recent Wednesday they walked in to find the place far busier than usual. When a friend told them the free pizza had arrived, Pal and Kosuke from the label went to grab a slice and....

Woman: “Who the FUCK are you? And why are you eating our pizza?”

<Long pause> Kosuke and Paul look confused.

Kosuke: "Are you joking? Is this a joke?"

Woman: "No this is definitely NOT a joke. I want to know who you are and why you’re eating our pizza."

Kosuke: "Well our friend came in and told us there was free pizza at the bar. We are. So. Sorry. It was a misunderstanding."

Woman: (with unbridled entitlement) "This is a company party our CEO is here and you STOLE our pizza. Are you from out of town? Because let me tell you, NOTHING is free in New York City. Nothing is free… well maybe except for the condoms in Times Square."

Paul and Kosuke continue apologizing. They offer to pay for the two slices.

Woman: (didactically snobbish) "We don’t want your money. No. Enjoy the pizza, but you can’t steal other people’s things. You can’t take what’s not yours."

Again the duo continues their apologies. Kosuke tries to turn the situation around and befriend them.

Kosuke: "What company do you guys work for?"

Woman: "We work for Limewire."

<Long pause> Kosuke’s eyes go wide. Anger festers in his pupils.

Kosuke: Oh ok. Well I work at a record label so fuck you. You’ve stolen from us enough. (Bites pizza. Begins to walk away.)

Random Other Woman: (rehearsing the spiel corporate made her commit to memory in case she bumps into Lars Ulrich) "We can’t control what’s being shared by our users. If our users decide to share something illegal we can’t stop them…" (trails off)

Paul: "Well when are you going to figure out how to download pizza into my stomach."

(This is why we love Paul)

Paul and Kosuke return to the backroom utterly shocked and tell the rest of us what transpired. Paul’s anger builds. He stands up. Puts his bag on runs out the door, taking an entire pizza box with him. Matt T., a software developer at Limewire, tries to stop Paul by grabbing him and pouring beer all over his shirt, backpack, laptop, and pants.

A slice of pizza is a dollar.

So is a download from iTunes

Is a laptop a dollar?

Paul: "Goddamnit, that guy spilled beer on my laptop. Now I can’t download porn from Limewire tonight."

(Again, why we love Paul)

Dovecote isn’t anti-downloading. We’re anti-hypocritical-douchebag. Thanks for writing about our bands dickheads. Apparently you have a blog. We hope you sell more ads and shitty software that rips us off so you can buy more pizza.

from the Dovecoat Records blog

REWIND: New Music Industry Week In Review

2009-07-04T09:46:50-04:00

It was a holiday week in the US, but we kept coverage going all week long. It was a good thing too, because some interesting things happened:

Pandora is forcing $29.95 payments from indie bands. Founder Tim Westergren responded to the controversy and others are sharing their opinions in a poll.
Pirate Bay was sold to Global Gaming Factory and is launching The Video Bay
The Michael Jackson Effect: an unprecedented spike in sales, concert promoter AEG discusses the cancellation and a commentary "The Music Industry, Michael Jackson & The Zombieconomy"
Sony invested in digital distributor IODA
The Hype Machine blog outed artists for chart manipulation
Music analytics firm Band Metrics expanded its private beta
ReverbNation Survey: How is the Economic Downturn Affecting Artists?
Join Hypebot's online networking party
Can what's cool and uncool be rated?
Essay: The Bullet That Works Best Hasn't Changed. It's Just Changed Hands

Hypebot's Online Networking Party Continues

2009-07-03T17:55:00-04:00

The online networking party that we started yesterday has been a huge success so far with more than 50 very diverse Hypebot readers stopping by to introduce themselves to the community and share a bit about what there working on or just interested in from music to marketing to new music tech.

It appears that a few great connections have already been made. So, please join in, add your voice and spread the word with a tweet, digg, stumble, post or email to a friend. The more that get involved, the better.

Join the Hypebot networking party here.

Band Metrics Expands Private Beta

2009-07-03T08:45:09-04:00

Exclusive: Hypebot Has Private Beta Invites

Music data analytics leader Band Metrics took a major step forward this morning when it let several thousand artists, labels and music marketers on to test its expanding system in private beta.

I had an exclusive look under the hood just a few days ago and can report that because of the sophistication of the analytics and because they are focused exclusively on music from the artist's perspective (a handful of competitors are attempting to focus on songs or on a much broader media landscape), Band Metric's work has the potential to revolutionize the way that music is marketed.

Just a few of the new features:

track plays, fans, profile views and comments across MySpace, Last.fm, iLike, SoundCloud and YouTube
track airplay from over 3,500 terrestrial radio stations
view real-time reviews about your music on aggregator Musebin
view real-time comments on Twitter
8 different types of scores relative to your music including hotnes, fandom, and brand strength, among others

Already in development are these additional features:

daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, and yearly stats/reports
enhanced charts
advanced data porting
additional social media site monitoring
manage multiple bands from one login
view real-time comments about your band in Facebook
API
Sentiment Analysis

Be one of the first 25 to grab en exclusive Hypebot beta invitation using the invite code hypebot1 or sign up for a future round of invites here.

All Amanda Palmer All The Time

2009-07-03T05:47:00-04:00

You may be sick of hearing about Amanda Palmer, but I'm not...at least not yet. Her $19,000 in 10 hours Twitter stunt may be more about social networking than music; but let's face it, it's time that we all paid attention to both.

Hypebot has a few really interesting Palmer related tidbits up our sleeve for the coming days, but in the meantime here's a video interview with Palmer via Out.com.

What If There Were A Coolness Rating?

2009-07-03T05:19:15-04:00

Is Michael Jackson cool? Who is cooler - Dolly Parton or Ricky Martin? Is Katy Perry cool or a fool? We all know the answer when it comes to Britney; or do we?

Paul Lamere asked these tough questions and more. "Imagine if there was an objective measure for coolness – a number that could be attached to each artist that indicated how ‘cool’ the artist was," he postulated. "We’d be able to do all sorts of interesting things with such a ‘coolness index’. We could make a ‘music makeover’ playlist that would take you from Miley to Miles in 12 songs (consider it a 12-step taste recovery program) or we could create a music rehab playlist that takes you from Amy Winehouse to Kate Nash.

But of course, the concept of cool is too hard to nail down." Or is it?

Last.fm has published a list of tracks that were most frequently deleted users scrobbles (public playlists). Tn other words, these are tracks that Last.fm listeners didn’t want other people to know they had listened to.

But Lamere did not stop there in his coolness quest.

He mined Last.fm data for artists marked "guilt pleasures and came up with the top 100 which included:

Katy Perry
Ashlee Simpson
Spice Girls
Lindsay Lohan
Mandy Moore
Jessica Simpson
Backstreet Boys
Hilary Duff
Metro Station
Britney Spears
Justin Timberlake
Taylor Swift
Rihanna
The Pussycat Dolls
Kelly Clarkson

You may notice a bias for (or is it against?) woman on this list.As Lamere said, "It is hard to be cool and female".

Of course the next step is to figure out what is cool; so he can build the true "coolness index" and be able to tell how cool an artist is. "I think that is going to be a harder problem" he admitted, "but I have some ideas". You can ioin him Paul Lamere on his journey via his Music Machinery blog.

Video: Michael Jackson Comeback Promoter AEG Discusses Cancellation

2009-07-03T03:35:00-04:00

Bruce Houghton

Friday's Music Brief: Band Metrics, More Networking, UK Independents Day, Dada Free & More

2009-07-03T00:22:00-04:00

It's a holiday here in the US, but that doesn't keep the news from happening or me from writing about it. Also grinding it out today (and all last night) are Duncan Freeman and his Band Metrics crew. Congrats to them on a their new features and private beta expansion. And don't forget to stop in and say hello as our Hypebot online networking party continues. You'll find a wonderfully diverse crew there already.

HYPEBOT FEATURES:

Music analytics firm Band Metrics expands private beta
Video: All Amanda Palmer All The Time
What If There Were A Coolness Rating?
Drake Redefines D.I.Y. Success With 300K iTunes Downloads In 2 Weeks
Video: Michael Jackson Comeback Promoter AEG Discusses Cancellation
GET INVOLVED: Hypebot's Online Networking Party Continues

MORE MUSIC INDUSTRY NEWS:

July 4th marks the start of the second annual UK Independents Day indie music celebration.
More on the Sony IODA hookup: Sony Buys Part of the Long Tail (Epicenter)
Mobile Firm Dada Cuts Staff (Billboard)
How the net saved live music. (Sydney Morning Herald)
If you're in the UK or is some how lucky enough to have a Spotify account, Chris Anderson's new offering "Free: The Future of a Radical Price" is up an audiobook a week prior to release. I've been reading an advance copy and it really broadens the discussion on the power of free (goods, services, music, etc.) and how to make it work.
Andrew Dubber inspired a short but (I think) important post "Music As Lone Works Of Genius vs. Music As Culture" on the MIDEM(Net) blog.

Drake Redefines D.I.Y. Success With 300K iTunes Downloads In Just Two Weeks

2009-07-02T13:52:52-04:00

This just in from digital distributor TuneCore:

According to the iTunes Store's trending data, Hip hop artist Drake has logged the two highest selling weeks ever for a DIY artist, totaling almost 300,000 song downloads in only two weeks fueled by the single "Best I Ever Had".

Hype Machine Outs Artists For Chart Manipulation

2009-07-02T08:26:47-04:00

Music blog aggregator Hype Machine (no relation) has blacklisted more than 40 artists after discovering that they or their representatives had tried to manipulate it's "Popular" song ranking page.

"We found several artists and blogs creating fake accounts on the site and favoriting their tracks to get higher visibility in the charts," Hype Machine editors wrote on their blog. "Because we’ve only recently switched to a chart based on the number of favorites, their efforts were not fruitful, however. We’ve locked the accounts we detected as fraudulent and suspended tracking blogs we’ve detected contributing to this."

Hype Machine has taken steps to make chart manipulation and named the offenders.

A full list of artists named by Hype Machine for abuse:

607
Alexander Technique / Princess Superstar
Audiofun
Big Dope P
Burns
Caroline Reese
Death to the Throne
Decimals
Destructo
Disco Ruido
Emil & Friends
Flapsandwich
fragglerock
Foulhouse
Gareth Pearson
Girl Problems
Hot Knives
John Roman
Kid Legit
Kids at the Bar
La Zebra
Master Shortie
Meech
Messkid
Mustard Pimp
Religion
Richie Jamz
Sikki Kidz
Sonic Truth
Star Guitar
Streetlab
Super Milkmen
The Constellations
The Grenade
The Knocks
The Muscle Club
The Pragmatic
The Vanish
Three Fingers
VIKING
Weekend Warriors

Introduce Yourself To The Hypebot Community

2009-07-02T05:41:51-04:00

It's the day before a long holiday weekend here in the US which means it's also a day when many of us are tied to our desks but have no desire to do any work. As a constructive solution to the workday blahs, I'm throwing a little networking party here on Hypebot.

In the comments section below, tell us a little about yourself, what you're working on and what excites you (PG-13 only). Include links that you think might be of interest to others and I suggest adding your name and email or some way that other Hypebot readers interested in collaborating can find you. Shameless plugs are allowed.

Don't be shy. Tell us about yourself...

It's Official: Sony Invests In IODA

2009-07-02T05:11:27-04:00

This time the rumor mill proved correct. Sony Music Entertainment has entered into a global partnership with IODA which includes an investment in the digital distributor. IODA will now provide digital services for Sony's RED indie label arm, as well as, offer expanded overseas opportunities. In return, IODA can now offer its labels physical distribution and the stability of a corporate partner with deep pockets.

How Will Independent Labels React?

The exact details of how the two companies will work together are still being worked out. But if as Thomas Hess, Sony Music's President of Global Digital Business, U.S. Sales and Corporate Strategy told Billboard, IODA will be "joined at the hip" with the major, it is unclear how an often firecely independent label community will react.

In addition to different styles of doing business and an overall distrust for large corporations, isome indie labels have found competitive advantage in staying clear of any involvement with the majors and avoiding the taint of RIAA consumer lawsuits and battles like the current WMG YouTube spat.

Not to worry, says Kevin Arnold, the Founder and CEO of IODA. "Sony really impressed us with their respect for, and understanding of the needs of the independent community. We remain, as we always have, fully dedicated to helping independent content owners succeed in the digital world. This alliance will greatly enhance IODA's ability to continue delivering effective solutions for Independents."

"Sony Music is committed to offering independent labels and distributors the most compelling package of distribution services in the industry," Hesse added in a statement.

When The Artist & Fan Relationship Goes Bad

2009-07-02T04:18:00-04:00

I write a lot about the importance of the artist/fan relationship on Hypebot. But sometimes that realtionship goes sour with violent and strangely amusing results. My personal favorite of Fans vs. Faith No More is above. See 9 more at Revivl via Daily Swarm.

Lime Wire Adds CD Baby's 240K Indie Artists

2009-07-02T04:17:00-04:00

Lime Wire is adding CD Baby's catalog of 240,000 independent artists to its digital the LimeWire Store. The CD Baby catalog includes topsellers from Regina Spektor, Gary Jules, Joe Purdy, Ingrid Michaelson, Melissa Ferrick, Charlotte Martin, Colin Hay and Stan Ridgway, and this deal brings the total number of licensed tracks on Lime Wire to 3.5 million.

"CD Baby has established itself as a major player in the indie community, so we are excited to be working together," said Tom Monday, Director, Partner Relations for Lime Wire. "CD Baby and LimeWire Store both champion independent artists and give them access to new customers and revenue opportunities, so it's a perfect partnership, really."

"We are very excited to add Lime Wire's rapidly growing online store as a new partner and opportunity for CD Baby artists," said Phil Bauer, Director of Digital Distribution, CD Baby.

The Bullet That Works Best Hasn't Changed. It's Just Changed Hands.

2009-07-02T03:26:00-04:00

This guest post from contemporary Christian artist Shaun Groves first appeared on his blog.

The management company that represented icons Michael W. Smith and Amy Grant for ages just folded. Chuck Finney, the guy who almost single-handedly revolutionized the way Christian radio stations operate a few years back, is “no longer with” powerhouse Salem Communications.

CCM Magazine is only a website now, with a shadow of their 1990’s audience and zero pull with today’s publicists. The Gospel Music Association is letting people go. Their Gospel Music Week was a ghost town this April, with major artists no longer taking a break from touring to participate in it.

Speaking of tours - they’re losing money - big money - which means production companies are going down too.

Some say technology will save the day. Lots of artists are going on-line to blogs, twitter, facebook, etc because of this optimism. But this new technology is not the magic bullet some claim it to be. The bullet that works best hasn’t changed - it’s just changed hands.

The music business is about relationships. And now it’s the artist’s turn to have one.

Success in the music business once hinged on only a handful of relationships: a publicist and a magazine, a salesman and a bookstore, a radio promoter and a radio station, a booking guy and a promoter, an artist and a manager, a writer and a publisher. If all these relationships were working, if all parties’ interests were respected and pursued, if no personalities collided to the point of impeding progress, then the project or artist they were tied to would succeed (from a business standpoint.)

Relationship is still king.

Starting a blog, hopping on Twitter, launching a Facebook fan page - these are not cure-alls because they aren’t a relationship any more than buying a basketball is spending quality time with my son.

These technologies can foster relationships. But not without a lot of personal investment and intentionality from an artist.

This is a big shift in thinking for artists, especially at the top levels of this industry. Artists aren’t accustomed to being so accessible, accountable and out of control. Artists are accustomed to being in front of audiences that care about what they do, audiences they know are fans and they keep in the seats for a couple hours by charging a ticket price. But on-line, where spending time with an artist is free, anybody can wander into the crowd, boo, change the subject, or walk out. And they will.

Also, artists are used to hiring people to handle their relationships for them. That’s at least 90% of what a manager does. Labels congratulate and critique through a manager, for instance, who adds his own diplomatic spin to every word so the artist’s feelings aren’t hurt and the relationship is preserved. Not so on-line. Someone can be hired to hit the “publish” button on a blog post that gets e-mailed over, invite people to a Facebook event and even write to people for an artist and signed their name (it happens), but no one can convincingly be the artist every day in post after post or interact with commenters regularly. Artists can’t hire anyone to be them 24/7 and the internet demands those kind of hours.

Lastly, labels are used to creating and maintaining the image of an artist: focusing and filtering, controlling who can and can’t have access, and how much, when and where. There’s one official bio and one fact sheet carefully crafted in a record company office and then parroted by every media outlet. That’s not possible on-line. And that’s distressing, fatal even, if an artist has nothing to say or, worse, has lots to say about things that don’t matter to anyone but them. Hair products, high priced jeans and guitar pedals aren’t all that interesting to folks with real jobs. The public is now discovering through an artist’s blog what publicists have known for quite some time and expertly covered up: This guy’s just a singer. And that’s no basis for a relationship.

If the music industry dies it won’t be because everything changed. It will be because artists didn’t. Artists today have to - no, we get to - do what the rest of the industry and human race has been doing for eons: We get to be real human beings spending time with other real human beings. There’s no shortcut for that.

The Man was afraid to tell us artists this before: It was never about our music. And it’s not about new technology now. It’s always been about people. All that matters is.

Thursday's Music Brief: Hype Machine Fraud, Hypebot Networking, Usenet Looses, PRS & More

2009-07-02T00:10:00-04:00

Tomorrow is a holiday in the US, but Hypebot will be watching music industry developments worldwide and publishing on Friday and throughout the weekend. Be sure to get involved in networking with other Hypebot readers here and encourage others to do the same, For those of us on this side of the pond, have a great long weekend!

HYPEBOT FEATURES:

Hype Machine Outs Artists For Chart Manipulation
It's Official: Sony Invests In IODA
Lime Wire Adds CD Baby's 240K Indie Artists
When The Artist & Fan Relationship Goes Bad
The Bullet That Works Best Hasn't Changed. It's Just Changed Hands
Join the discussion: Pandora 's Westergren Responds To Submission Controversy
WHO ARE YOU? Introduce Yourself To The Hypebot Community

MORE MUSIC INDUSTRY NEWS:

A federal judge threw the book at Usenet.com in an RIAA lawsuit. The court found newsgroup provider Usenet liable for copyright infringement. "Advertising to file-sharers, putting "warez" in your site's meta tags, and tampering with evidence don't amuse federal judges." (ars)
An in depth and critical look at the PRS performance rights collection organization. (RouteNote)
More Amanda Palmer: "Lessons Learned From Twitter Windfalls". (Billboard)
Facebook Will Give Users More Control Over Who Sees What. (NY Times)
Suspicions of Insider Trading Surround Pirate Bay Buyers (TorrentFreak)
Michael Jackson First Artist to Sell Over 1 Million Downloads in a Single Week (Epicenter)

Pandora 's Westergren Responds To Artist Airplay Submission Controversy

2009-07-01T17:33:00-04:00

Yesterday's story that Pandora was requiring that all music considered for airplay must also be available for sale as a physical CD on Amazon drew some strong comments from Hypebot readers. An online poll showed that for 40%, the practice tainted their view of Pandora and another 14% claimed they would never use the service again.

I asked Pandora for a response and founder Tim Westergren replied:

We appreciate the scrutiny everyone's bringing to this – it’s a very important issue, and one for which we feel a great sense of responsibility.

Here are some general thoughts from Pandora on this.

There are a number of reasons for us to add this requirement. It’s something we’ve been contemplating for a long time. Just to be clear, it's not about making money from Amazon. We don't get any portion of the $29.95, and even though we're thrilled at the amount of music we sell through them, the commissions we get are a small part of the overall business (it's all about advertising). So these requirements have nothing at all to do with revenue.

There are really three principal reasons – user experience, improving the meta data, and managing submissions.

We believe it's very important from a user-experience standpoint to have functioning 'buy' links. We get loads of complaints about broken links when listeners try to buy an album that is not available on Amazon – when that happens it feels like Pandora is malfunctioning, and it’s a real drag for a listeners – disappointing, and a waste of time. Requiring enrollment will of course mitigate this issue. It’s clearly the right choice from the product/user experience perspective.

Clean meta-data is a constant struggle for us (and all online services for that matter). Our entire system is based on a concept of UPC and track information (perhaps someday that will change, but it’s one of our most basic building blocks dating back almost 10 years)- it's how we identify the music internally and talk to all sorts of external partners, vendors, distributors, etc. We also need album art; and we get all of this from Amazon. Requiring registration at Amazon is a very effective solution for us.

Finally, it serves as a way to manage our flow of submissions. Pandora remains intensely focused on providing a level playing field. Our aim is to find the best music we can - indie, major or otherwise – and to add as much of that as we can. Given our sole focus on quality, we're looking for folks who have a demonstrated seriousness about their craft. Just as investing the time and money to create a professional sounding CD is a strong predictor of quality, having invested or being willing to invest in an online distribution mechanism is another signal.

We are huge believers in not discriminating against aspiring/emerging artists – 70% of the 75,000 artists in our collection are not on a major label. All we’re asking of artists is to make great music, and have it available for easy purchase for Pandora’s audience.

I hope this makes sense.

One additional clarification.

mreasy: Pandora pays tens of millions of dollars per year in royalties to artists and terrestrial radio pays nothing. Although it’s not pertinent to this particular conversation, Pandora pays a substantial percentage of its gross revenue to artists.

Thanks Tim (Founder, Pandora)

More:

Reports: Sony & RED Tapping IODA's Technology

2009-07-01T08:03:54-04:00

Sony Music Entetrainment and its RED indie ARM are about to announce an alliance with digital distributor IODA, according to one report. There have been rumors and speculation swirling for several days about the tie-up, but I had been waiting for an official announcement to get the details right and comment.

If all that I'm hearing is true, the deal allows Sony and RED to tap into IODA's Rightsholder Dashboard which the major label views as a superior delivery and tracking system to its own. Hundreds of distributed labels and even managers are demanding up to the minute digital sales data that IODA already delivers.

Will IODA Remain Indie?

The deal mimics the Universal hookup with INgrooves for its digital music technology. But what's not clear is whether or not the relationship goes further.

Is IODA just acting as a services provider or licensing it's technology to Sony and RED? Or is Sony Entertainment buying a big stake in IODA as Universal did with INgrooves? If the later is true, it would leave The Orchard the last of the big three digital distributors not tied to a major label group.

What's probable is that the deal allows IODA to tap into the RED distribution system for physical releases. In an ironic twist, combingbrick and mortar distribution with digital distribution in a single deal has proven an attractive bargaining tool for the Orchard via its TVT arm and INgrooves thru Fontana/Universal.

Gerd Leonhard: Music 2.0 In 60 Seconds

2009-07-01T05:14:00-04:00

Self-described media futurist Gerd Leonhard shares his overview of Music 2.0 in a world record 60 seconds. Just in case, like me, you can't read that fast there's a 3 minute version after the jump.

Track Music Stocks Here

2009-07-01T01:12:00-04:00

Forbes.com: Stock Watchlistgreat free widgetsWidgetbox

Just a reminder that you can track music and music related stocks right here on Hyepbot. The widget above can always be found in a sidebar to the right. It resets to 0.00% every morning before the markets open and then tracks them with a couple of minute delay throughout the day. You can click almost anywhere for more info.

Can you help me improve it? What other music and music related stocks should I add to the widget. Does anyone know a better widget? One that tracks overseas stocks too, for example?

Wednesday's Music Brief: Pandora's Response, Sony + IODA, Lawsuits, MJ, Vibe Shutters & More

2009-07-01T00:05:00-04:00

First, a big thanks to Tim Westergen of Pandora for writing a thoughtful response to the mini-firestorm caused by yesterday's "Pandora Forces $29.95 Payments From Indie Bands" post and poll. And I made my reservations yesterday to participate in the resurection of the grandaddy of all music conferences The New Music Seminar on July 21st in NYC. I hope to see some of you there. $99 discount registration ends July 5th.

HYPEBOT FEATURES:

Pandora 's Westergren Responds To Artist Airplay Submission Controversy
Join the Pandora discussion and vote in our apoll here.
Reports: Sony & RED Taping IODA's Technology
Gerd Leonhard: Music 2.0 In 60 Seconds
Track Music Stocks Here
Join others and share your story of how the economic downturn is effecting your music career alongside a ReverbNation survey: How is the Economic Downturn Affecting Artists?

MORE MUSIC INDSUTRY NEWS:

Microsoft, Yahoo And Real sued for failing to get all the necessary licenses. (Techdirt) TD's Mike Masnick is right again on his analysis. The real story here is how stupidly complex it is to license music.
Michael Jackson airplay & album sales skyrocket. (FMQB) I have not seen the full charts yet but @coolfer tweeted from Billboard that "Michael Jackson wreaked havoc on top albums last week. No top 100 new release gained over the previous week. Total album sales down 8%" and "Michael Jackson catalog albums outsold the Black Eyed Peas' new album. 241,000 (58%) of MJ's album sales last week were digital". Amazing. And how down would the sales have been without MJ?
EMI is refusing to stream music at the new PRS rates. (P2Pnet)
Sony struggling as Walkman hits 30th anniversary (AP)
Vibe Magazine is closing down leaving The Source the only major hip hop magazine standing. (NY Times) Some rumors have Quincy Jones buying back and relaunching.
Here Comes the Video Shakeout: Joost Scales Down, CEO Mike Volpi Steps Out (Media Memo)
Dell to make iPod Touch-like gadget. (PC World)

ReverbNation Survey: How is the Economic Downturn Affecting Artists?

2009-06-30T10:40:11-04:00

ReverbNation conducted a survey of artists in an attempt to learn how the downturn was affecting their everyday lives across a variety of factors.

There was a general perception among respondents that the economic downturn was affecting them in a negative way, overall. Specifically, artists cited that they were touring less, receiving less money for gigs that have become harder to get, taking fewer lessons and turning to more DIY ways of recording their music:

much more after the jump...

Pirate Bay Sold To Global Gaming Factory

2009-06-30T07:46:33-04:00

(UPDATED) News began to trickle out in the wee hours this morning that The Pirate Bay has been sold to Global Gaming Factory X AB for $4 US million in cash plus an equal amount in stock. GGF develops gaming software and operates internet cafes and gaming centers in Scandinavia. Details are vague, but the original team will still stay involved and promise to keep the site much the same.

Ownership of the Pirate Bay had been transferred away from the individuals being sued in 2006 according to an interview (translation via Techdirt) with co-founder Peter Sunde conducted on Twitter. Neither Sunde or his fellow pirates are the beneficiaries of the sale according to a PirateBay blog post, but rather "into a foundation that is going to help with projects about freedom of speech, freedom of information and the openness of the nets."

Also: Pirate Bay Readies Launch Of The Video Bay

Pandora Forces $29.95 Payments From Indie Bands

2009-06-30T06:30:56-04:00

(UPDATED) Until recently, Pandora accepted music from indie artists at no cost in almost any form including home burned CD-R's. But now, in part because of a deal to display album cover art via Amazon's servers, submissions must be available as a physical CD for sale on Amazon and include cover art and a UPC code to even be considered for airplay.

Compliance with the new rules will cost artists in several ways. According to its FAQ page, to get play on Pandora you now need:

a CD of your music
a unique UPC code for that CD
your CD to be available through Amazon (must be a physical CD, not just MP3s for download)
the legal rights to your music
MP3 files for two of the songs from your CD
free Pandora account, based on a valid email address, which can be associated with your music

In addition to art and packaging costs, Pandora explains that to comply with the new "available through Amazon" rule, indie artists should join the Amazon Advantage Program. Membership costs $29.95 each year plus Amazon takes 55% of the list price of every CD sold.

Established artists and labels already comply with Pandora's new rules. But for an indie artist trying to win new fans with a little help from Pandora and to keep his hard earned cash by selling direct, the new threshold may shut off an important avenue for exposure.

More:

Pandora 's Founder Tim Westergren Responds
POLL: What Do You Think Of The New Pandora Requirements For Indie Bands?
Read one Hypebot reader's open letter to Pandora in the Comments section below.

VOTE: What Do You Think Of The New Pandora Requirements For Indie Bands?

2009-06-30T03:20:00-04:00

Online Surveys & Market Research

More: Pandora Forces $29.95 Payments From Indie Bands

Band Shoots Free Video With Surveillance Cameras

2009-06-30T01:30:00-04:00

Unsigned Manchester UK band The Get Out Clause performed in front of a number of surveillance cameras on buses and streets and other public places around the country. They then used The Data Protection Act (the UK's version of US' Freedom Of Information Act) to get copies of the tapes and edited them into a video that's become a viral hit.

Garagespin suggests that it's the patriotic thing for US artists to follow suit this 4th of July and have the federal government help produce their next video.

The Music Industry, Michael Jackson & The Zombieconomy

2009-06-30T01:26:37-04:00

Consultant and big thinker Umair Haque took a look at some of the dollar figures being thrown around in the wake of Michael Jackson's death including reports that sales of his recordings have "generated more than $300 million in royalties...since the early 1980's". Haque did little math and asked:

"If the world's biggest pop star only made $12 million a year from his recordings, why would anyone make serious music? Where did the rest of the money go? Why, straight into record labels' pockets. Did they make better music with it? Nope — they made Britney and Lady GaGa. And that's how they killed themselves: by underinvesting in quality, to rake in the take....

The world's top hedge fund "managers" regularly pull in hundreds of millions. That's an order of magnitude difference...

That's the big problem behind the zombieconomy. We don't reward people for creating, growing, nurturing, or even remixing assets. We just reward them for allocating the same old assets. That 's not an economy: it's just a game of musical chairs."

Video: How To Fight Zombies -

Haque believes that the antidote to the attack of the Zombieconomy is to be authentic and create real value. As he explains in this video, while he's speaking about the overall economy, the implications for the music industry couldn't be clearer.

SORRY! YOU CAN ALSO WATCH THE VIDEO HERE .

Penny For Your Thoughts - Umair Haque from Sander Duivestein on Vimeo.

Pirate Bay Readies Launch Of The Video Bay

2009-06-30T00:30:00-04:00

Those tiring of the growing restrictions put by rightsholders on video on You Tube and elsewhere may eventually find a home at The Video Bay. Currently in "beta extreme", the site is the latest brainchild of the folks behind the Pirate Bay; and if their mounting problems in Swedish courts weren't already enough, this is sure to add to their legal bills.

"Both Live And Drunk Coding"

"Don't expect anything to work at all". reads the simple front page, and a test drive shows that almost nothing does. But the plans are ambitious.

"To stay in the spirit on which TPB was founded and using the Latest Technology™, TVB aims to use the new HTML5 features, more specificly the <video> and <audio> tags with the ogg/theora video and audio formats. This site will be an experimental playground and as such subjected to both live and drunk (en)coding, so please don't bug us too much if the site ain't working properly."

One audio and one video demo are up on the site, but to view any audio or video clips on the site you need a browser that can handle the HTML5 <video> and/or <audio> tag including:

Firefox 3.5 beta 4
Opera 9.52 preview
Google Chrome 3
Safari 3.4 & Safari 4

Tuesday's Music Brief: Pirate Bay Sold, Pandora Problems, Spotify's Future, Limewire Exec & More

2009-06-30T00:05:00-04:00

Lot's of great stuff today and a few things already on deck for tomorrow. So much for a holiday/summer slowdown. And be sure to vote in the Pandora indie poll.

HYPEBOT FEATURES:

Pirate Bay Sold To Global Gaming Factory
Pandora Forces $29.95 Payments From Indie Bands
VOTE: What Do You Think Of The New Pandora Requirements?
ReverbNation Survey: How is the Economic Downturn Affecting Artists?
Band Shoots Free Video With Surveillance Cameras
The Music Industry, Michael Jackson & The Zombieconomy
Pirate Bay Readies Launch Of The Video Bay

MORE MUSIC INDUSTRY NEWS:

Spotify founder hints at video, P2P sharing, world domination. (Register)
Big music label foe LimeWire’s newest executive is Jason Hersowitz, a big label veteran. (MediaMemo)
Licensing Issues Shut Down Pandora Outside US. (Slashdot)
The Bandwidth Music | Technology Conference 2009 to be held August 27-28 in San Francisco has added Cory Ondrejka, EVP of Digital Marketing at EMI Music for a keynote conversation. (press release)
See how the Michael Jackson phenomena continues to dominate the sales charts with this up to these up to the minute iTunes single and album charts.
Study: Radio Is Still Top Teen Source For Music (FMQB)
imeem and eMusic: If You're Taking Away Features From Users, Don't Tell Them It's For Their Own Benefit (Techdirt)
ubroadcast Details Cooperation Agreement With PurePlayMusic.com(press release)

Overloaded With Data? Trendrr Launches Pro

2009-06-29T07:33:37-04:00

A First Look & How It Compares

Information and trends spread across the global net with lightening speed. Bloggers and fans love a show, hate a single, publish a photo, share an impression. Each of these "events", whether they are on the rise or decline and where they are coming from all come together to create buzz.

Digital marketing agency Wiredset, who works with Last.FM, Capital, Sony BMG and Universal, as well as, tv networks, book publishers and brands, created a tool to track this activity and shared a piece of it with a free public service dubbed Trendrr that I've written about previously.

Today the company launched Trendrr Pro, a more sophisticated paid version which tracks and graphs consumption trends and activity across the digital spectrum, including social networks, blogs, torrents, Amazon, Craigslist, Twitter, Google, MySpace, and leading video sites.

I got an advance look under the hood of last week and saw the improvements:

real time spreadsheet reporting exportable to excel
real time alerts of new blog posts, tweets itter message, etc
use a key word or phrase to track data across multiple sites
a twitter feed index that illustrates what people are saying about a band or phrase
options to mash multiple data sets

The results are almost overwhelming to the untrained eye as so much data streams in from so many sources. But as Wiredset's founder Mark Ghuneim recently told AdAge, that may be the point. "Trendrr Pro is really about, 'How do I measure the edges?' Because the conversation has moved off the center. Whether it's about politics or bands or brands, that's universal."

HOW DOES TRENDRR PRO COMPARE?

Trendrr continues to offer a free product that pulls some info from up to 10 sources. But the new more robust packages cost $49 - $999 per month. clearly aimed at higher end users.

Competitors abound with Echo Nest and Band Metrics being the two others that appear closest to really solving the media data analytics puzzle. Until recently The Echo Nest had been mostly focused on music search and recommendation; so while backed by a strong team, exactly how they will package and deliver their solution is still unknown.

As a sometimes advisor to Band Metrics, I've also been under their private beta hood and seen real differences with the Trendr Pro offering. Most obvious is that Band Metrics is focused entirely on music and and including blog reviews and airplay tracking in their data.

The competition between these and few other companies is in its early stages; and there is room for more than one winner. Exactly how the data is gathered, presented and priced by each provider will, for example, appeal to different users. But its clear that today Trendrr entered the race.

Will The Browser & Mobile Apps Replace The iPod?

2009-06-29T05:55:00-04:00

Could the growing popularity and sophistication of streaming services from Spotify to Last.fm and mobile apps from Pandora to Sirius unseat the dominance of the iPod? Gerd Leonard thinks so, and he's got some data to back it up.

Most importantly Leonard warns the music industry to get ready for the shift: sell access not (just) copies, learn to bundle and package. As Kevin Kelly wrote, "When copies are free you need to sell things that can't be copied". More on the MidemNet blog.

Derek Sivers: "Make Your Own Success First"

2009-06-29T04:44:00-04:00

"You have to make your own success first, before you ask the industry for help.

You have to show that you're going to be successful with-or-without their help. Show that you have momentum, and if they want to accelerate it or amplify it they can, but it will cost them to ride your coat-tails."

"If you don't do this, then even in the best-case scenario, where someone at the company really believes in you, you'll have no negotiating leverage, and will get the worst deal possible.

If you're just starting out, don't ask the industry for help yet. Make something happen by yourself first, so you have a success story to tell and momentum to show. "

- CD Baby founder and patron saint of indie music Derek Sivers
on Music Think Tank

The Michael Jackson Effect: An Unprecedented Spike In Sales

2009-06-29T04:25:18-04:00

Get this widget!

Once again new media trumped old with AOL's TMZ breaking the Michael Jackson story an hour before other news and gossip gatherers. But in addition to the predictable spike in online interest, Friday's death also led to an unprecedented spike in sale.

As of Monday morning, Michael Jackson held 8 of the top 10 slots on iTunes with 20+ more tracks sprinkled throughout the top 100. At Amazon wait times for most of his CD's and DVD's had jumped to 11-14 days for the usually instant-ship retailer. See real time iTunes singles sales data above and the iTunes album chart after the jump.

Get this widget!

Video: A Quick Look At New Zune HD

2009-06-29T02:27:00-04:00

via Engadget

Monday's Music Brief: Trendrr Pro, MJ Fever, Apple Sued, Tunecore, Canada & More

2009-06-29T00:10:00-04:00

Friday is a holiday in the US, but I'll be covering the news as it breaks all week and adding the usual commentary. And on Thursday we'll continue a Hypebot holiday tradition that gives readers a chance to introduce themselves and network. So stay tuned and inward to a great week! Musexpo begins inthe UK...- Bruce Houghton

HYPEBOT FEATURES:

MORE MUSIC INDUSTRY NEWS:

Apple sued over iTunes gift cards (cNet)
Google mistakes Michael Jackson’s death for an “automated attack”. (Media Memo)
Napster 10 Years Of Turmoil: "1999 saw the debut of Napster...it started a storm of change in the music industry and here Geoff Taylor, chief executive of the BPI, reflects on what has happened in the last 10 years." (BBC)
Tunecore has added Limewire to the list of online retailers it supplies. (Tunecore)
Live Nation has extended its No Service Fee Wednesdays again by dropping the service fee on all 4-Packs and 6-Packs this Wednesday, July 1 0nly at LiveNation.com. (press release)
Canadian Liberal Party wants to ‘combat’ piracy and ratify the WIPO. (ZeroPaid)
Pirate parties parade through Prague, Paris (ars)
VIZIO Unveils Rhapsody Digital Music Service for VIZIO Internet Apps

Video: Michael Jackson, James Brown and Prince on stage together: