March 2009
10 posts
Music is Free in China
99% of music downloads in China are pirated. China’s biggest search engines surface up MP3’s to download on music searches. With no copyright laws to protect them, the 4 major music labels have embraced free music in China, allowing Google to make MP3’s available for download in China in return for a rev-share on advertising.
Read more:
Tech Crunch: Google China Signs Big Music...
The Rake’s Song - The Decemberists, The...
The Sorry State of Music Startups →
A good summary on why Music Startups struggle. This is a topic I care about greatly and one of the major reasons I haven’t created a pure music startup yet…. however I do have a music idea that involves The Electric Sheep Company (and mitigates streaming fee risks). Stay tuned to see if it ever sees the light of day.
Decemberists Digital Only Album #14 This Week →
“EMI’s Capitol Records opted to sell “The Hazards of Love” as a near-exclusive via Apple Inc.’s iTunes Store for a week. Illustrating the growing viability of the digital marketplace, the experiment resulted in iTunes shoppers’ downloading about 18,000 copies during the week ended March 22, according to Nielsen SoundScan. The iTunes sales and an additional...
How will The Cloud change the way we think about... →
Worth reading this if you are interested in the way technology can change the music business. No real substance here but food for thought none the less.
Jimmy Chamberlin Quits Smashing Pumpkins →
Billy will keep on playing under the name The Smashing Pumpkins. Glad I had a chance to see the two of them play together a few months back.
Big Music Will Surrender, But Not Until At Least... →
“The labels fully understand that recorded music, streamed or downloaded, is going to be free in the future (we’ve argued this relentlessly). CD sales continue to decline by 20% per year, and the only thing that’ll stop that trend is when those sales reach zero. Nothing will replace those revenues.”
Interesting read even if the source is not named.
Counting Crows Go Label-Free →
The latest major act to drop their label.
Loudcrowd Marries Gaming And Music In A Virtual... →
Talk about the convergence of music, games and technology. This project is right in the sweet spot of my interests and I’m rooting for Loud Crowd to be a break out success.
Trent Reznor: thoughts on ticket re-sellers /... →
As we approach on-sale dates for the upcoming tour, I’ve noticed lots of you are curious / concerned / outraged at the plethora of tickets that somehow appear on all these reseller sites at inflated prices - even before the pre-sale dates. I’ll do my best to explain the situation as I see it, as well as clarify my organization’s stance in the matter.
NIN decides to tour this...