Universal backs free music offerVivendi Universal, the world's biggest music group, has signed a deal to make its music catalogue available on a free legal downloads service.Under the agreement, Spiralfrog will offer Universal's songs online in the US and Canada.New York-based Spiralfrog will launch its service in December and make its money by carrying adverts on the site.Spiralfrog aims to take on market leader Apple's iTunes service, which charges 99 cents per song in the US."Offering young consumers an easy-to-use alternative to pirated music sites will be compelling," Spiralfrog Chief Executive Robin Kent said.Mr Kent, the former head of the Universal McCann advertising agency, added that his research suggested that in return for free music, young people would be willing to endure adverts - as long as the brands and products were relevant to them.'Shrewd move'US-based music industry legal specialist Josh Lawler said news of the new service was "inevitable"."It's a very shrewd move by Universal," he told BBC News."The music industry is going to a point where all delivery will probably be some form of downloading or streaming."Figures from the International Federation of Phonographic Industries (IFPI) estimate that for each legal download, 40 are done illegally.Mr Lawler added that the success of Myspace had underlined the power of the internet to make or break artists - as well as proving that advertising-based formats can work.Funding questionBut while Spiralfrog is discussing possible deals with other big record firms, questions still remain over how the artists featured on Spiralfrog will be paid."The internet is very much a viable media, but the trick is going to be getting it off the ground in the first place," Mr Lawler added."Spiralfrog will have to find a way to pay artists from the advertising dollars they are generating."But they're not necessarily going to know how many advertising dollars there are and so some artists are going to be hesitant about it," he said.Rapid growthThe music downloads industry is a burgeoning market. According to the IFPI, 60 million MP3 players were sold in 2005, while 420 million single tracks were downloaded during the year - up 20 times on two years earlier.Many of the models sold are also expected to be incompatible with Apple's online record store - such as Sony's Walkman.At the same time, numerous companies are jumping on the downloads bandwagon.Entertainment retailers HMV and Virgin already offer music downloads, while music television channel MTV has opened its own online shop, Urge.Microsoft is preparing to launch a music store to go with its Zune player, made by Toshiba, which is popularly viewed in the industry as an "iPod killer".
Wow.Where's my "Schitt Cooketh" graemlin when I need it
Jonny_Paycheck
17,825 Posts
Comments
naw johhnie give me that blue grass!
Its amazing to actually see a record company take a Progressive stance towards an issue for once. Gives me a bit of hope for the music industry.
Check out http://creativecommons.org too.
add 10 second ads to the tracks... "Mulatu Of Ethiopia was brought to you by The new Flame Grilled Whopper"
and as for the name SPIRALFROG ? what kind of wholefood hackysack bulshit is that?
wow. man this is straight crazy. How are people going to get paid off of music now? Will it result in certain retail stores just going belly-up?
peace
patrick
Word. I mean, we can talk about old models of making money off media being outdated all day, but how does giving it away and making no money make for a better alternative?
i dont know about retail stores, but the idea is that the click through ad revenue is split between the content host, and the content provider, it may work differently if its coming from a first party site like universal, but its hard to say.
people make money when songs play on the radio too, Universal wouldnt be into it if it werent making them money, its a new world out there though. Time to adjust.
I'm sure everything thats been going on with the RIAA has made labels think about things.
Suing everyone and there mother is just not the answer. Shit, they were serious gonna start suing dead people. it was just a matter of time before the RIAA lost a groundbreaking legal decision and shit would go down the drain. They were already starting to drop cases against people.
Well I'm not talking about the 9 artistes that get their track on the radio. I'm talking about the Amoeba's or small mon-and-pop stores of the wrld. Distributors as well. I'll answer it myself "THEY'RE FUCKED!"
I don't think this really affects smaller/indie labels.
ummm.. newsflash, mom and pop record stores have BEEN fucked for a few years now. Ameoba is like the only one holding out.
yes, they shot themselves in the foot at the dawn of the CD age. Pennies to produce, but for some reason they thought they could break it off in the consumer and swindle folks and charge more for this cheaper but "newer" format. They were extremely short sighted and just saw $$$. Now that their precious ones and zeros are taking money from them instead of making it, they are fucked. Maybe some lawyers and other useless to the music industry types will lose their jobs and labels will get back to having music lovers and other useful people on their payroll instead of scumbags. I know that thought is a pipedream, but we can all hope.
Although if this new ad supported method works, depending on their system it could make it even harder for artists to break through... ie... if the masses only gravitate towards certain tracks and thus only certain ads are clicked/watched/delivered, I can see that other less popular content being dropped from a service like this... It all depends on their system though.
"The tracks cannot be burned to a CD, but users will be able to transfer music to portable media players equipped with Microsoft Windows digital rights management software."
"The service will not work with Apple Computer Inc.'s Macintosh computers ot its market-leading iPod music players."
"SpiralFrog will require users to return to the site to renew registration at least once a month or the tracks will cease to play."
ummm... no thanks.
And I think it's a safe bet that these will be low quality mp3s too.
http://www.applematters.com/index.php/section/comments/itunes-inspires-changes-in-music-industry/