Slashdot Mirror
MySpace Teams With Record Companies To Create Music Site
The New York Times reports on a deal between MySpace and three of the four major music labels to develop a new music website. Users will be able to stream songs for free, purchase downloadable tracks, and (possibly) pay a flat monthly fee for unlimited access. From the Times:
"Exact terms of the deal and details about the new site, like prices for downloaded music tracks, were not disclosed. But MySpace did say the site would offer songs free of digital rights management software or D.R.M., which is used to prevent illicit copying but can create technical hurdles for buyers. The songs would be playable on any portable music device, including Apple's iPod. For the music industry, the deal is partly born of desperation. In the face of widespread, escalating online piracy, music sales dropped to $11.5 billion in 2006 from a peak in 1999 of nearly $15 billion."
just put an "i" in front of whatever this thing is, and it will be the coolest.
It almost sounds as if they are considering treating their customers as *gasp* customers!
There's a few things like this and I've seen several people attribute them to the iTunes 'stranglehold' on the market.
I think its sort of awesome; we're seeing more variety and more competition in the market now than ever before. Of course that's not saying much when before was more or less == 0, but hey - it's a start.
While I have long been skeptical of the record industries ability to do anything other than try to ream consumers, the fact that they seem finally willing to ditch DRM en masse is certainly giving me some hope for the future.
I'd like to see if they let independent artists who haven't signed with a label for a record deal yet sell their music on MySpace. TFA provides too little information, but this could end up as a good way for starving artists to stop starving.
The music industry is getting it's due. Musicians (what few there are left recording for the big 4) have gotten the shaft for 100 years. Sadly there isn't even anything new that an old dude like me would even steal. I support the bands I love when they come to town, you should too. That's how they get paid! Becker & Fagen (Steelydan.com) get my $$ and so do The Tubes (thetubes.com the most fun live shows.... ever!). I'm not in the target demo for the music companies, but I'd spend if I heard anything I liked.
Doesn't last.fm already offer this, save the monthly fee?
Ten years ago I predicted .04 cents per song to be the natural price for an mp3, and that's all they need to do to get me to pay.
Who wants to keep track of all this crap on your hard drive? I'll pay four cents every time I want to hear most songs.
And if, for some reason, I want to save it as an mp3, I expect to be able to do so, with no arguments.
You serve me, RIAA bitches, not the other way around. Maybe you're starting to understand this you stupid fucking bastards.
expandfairuse.org
Ya, it's piracy's fault that music sales dropped 3.5 billion in seven years.
I'm sure that the cost of gasoline doubling in that same time had nothing to do with people buying fewer CDs.
There, fixed it for you.
I expect great things in audio streaming from a company that can't get all of the pictures on even the most meager of its pages to load, and has a typical page load time of minutes for what it is able to show. I'm guessing they'll be strong proponent of glitch techno music.
I don't know about anyone else, but I don't think piracy is to blame. Its the music industry's inexplicable urge to present themselves as greedy, morally bankrupt fat cats who don't care about the artists, or anyone other than themselves really. I just can't bring myself to financially support those assholes, so I don't buy music.
Cry me a river 'industry'. If there was an objective way to measure the quality of music coming from the big labels, I'm sure it would be would be in the red as well. The only good music I'm hearing is odd little acts going it alone, and mostly by choice.
The new indie is no record. Just free tracks, and an invitation to come to a show. Sadly, even doing this is a incredible money sink. Driving an hour to shows is ridiculously spendy; my drummer lives over one hundred miles away as well! Since we don't play covers, we draw less than your AC/DC/Zepplin/80's/Classic/Rock band. A crap economy, DVDs, PS3s, and other distractions don't help either.
I say, ignore this site - why again would I make someone buy a track, or put any obstacle in the way of more people hearing my music? Since it's a label partnership, the 'names' are going to get pushed, and get preferential placement anyway.
Support your local band and buy a t-shirt! It's pretty much the only business model left.
I think this is too little, too late on the part of MySpace. Their site fell out of fad (in favor for Facebook, but Facebook will eventually be a fad too), and was and still has a terrible site design.
Last.Fm will be a tough competitor to face off against, especially if the same "brilliant" minds behind the MySpace site layout try to crack Last.Fm's bread & butter.
A group of outmoded companies struggling to keep their business going teams up with the company who can't get their main site running in anything approaching a professional manner. Two great tastes that taste great together this is not.
The statement in the article seeks sympathy for an industry that needs none. Read enough books about the business aspects of record deals and it's clear Major Labels are scumbags.
When the industry thinks of the billions lost do they even take into account the amount of independent artists that are booming right now? Their website says "RIAA members create, manufacture and/or distribute approximately 90% of all legitimate sound recordings produced and sold in the United States" which is pure malarkey. Independents have a bigger slice of the pie and this also doesn't take into account many international artists. These self-produced, sometimes even self distributed, artists gain respect all around because they know some jerk with a ponytail didn't tamper with the creative talent that makes good bands, amazing. This is the age where you can spend a couple thousands of dollars or less, in recording equipment, to produce a semi-professional album. Kids don't need to beg Record companies to back them financially for studio recording sessions, they do it themselves, drop $900 to manufacture 1000 professional CDs, and sell em for $8-$10.
Maybe the fact that MP3's are cheaper than CD's period? iTunes has destroyed the album, people only spend $3 for 3 songs instead of $13 for the album. Maybe they'd buy the whole album if many mainstreams bands sucked at creating strong albums. No one wants to pay $17 for a brand new CD anymore because the scam has gone on far too long, everyone knows better, produce a bad album iTunes enforces it and makes you pay.
I'm sure there's a lot of discrepancy in those numbers because of the declining Used CD market as well.
More money is thrown around nowadays but the music market is complicated compared to yesterday. RIAA is just getting hammered because people are spending their money elsewhere and many artists can survive without standing under the RIAA umbrella.
INTERESTING FACTS:
If you are not an artist that pays royalties to the RIAA your money from records sold is not counted in this figure AND if you do not join the RIAA you are incapable of obtaining a Gold or Platinum record, true story.
-AKA
...deserves his MBA revoked. Cut the middlemen. Cut DRM. Team up with a bunch of garage bands, make them famous. They have the popularity to do that, which is precisely what all those unseen talents need...
3 of the 4 major music labels? Make your own!
And give us some GOOD music, ferchrissake!
"In the face of widespread, escalating online piracy, music sales dropped to $11.5 billion in 2006 from a peak in 1999 of nearly $15 billion."
Misleading at best. Why are we supposed to automatically assume that piracy is the sole cause of the flatlining record industry profits? Digital distribution methods have increased exponentially, and they offer music at a far greater convenience and far cheaper price than physical media. Perhaps the mass exodus to cheaper digital downloads -- rather than ponying up 20 and 30 dollars for CDs -- has something to do with it? Maybe?
"It's the first service that offers a full catalog of music to be streamed for free, with full community features, to be shared with all of your friends."
No offense but the Music industry has been so far behind the eight ball this is a load of bs.
www.soundclick.com already did it.
What concerns me the most is this:
""They have a huge community that wants to talk, share and learn about music."
They want to tap into all the other artists on myspace music. Effectively tapping the same market as soundclick and others do. But what the hell will the end user license look like for a musician submitting their music on this website. "All your rights to your music you have just signed away by uploading your song to our distribution website".. effectively.. this will stop their website from being of any use other than serving up all the old hits we love and all the new stuff we hate.
Maybe the RIAA should sue Exxon...I bet they're stealing money from the people who would otherwise be buying music!
"It almost sounds as if they are considering treating their customers as *gasp* customers!"
Quote from the Slashdot story: "In the face of widespread, escalating online piracy, music sales dropped..."
To me, that sounds like the music industry saying, "If something bad happens, it must be someone else's fault."
I think the falling sales are the industry's fault. I was supposed to by a Britney Spears CD to hear her singing something about abusing men? If the music industry wants strong sales, it can be kind to the customer and produce something valuable.
Music sales administered by the litigious middlemen and self proclaimed gatekeepers of music dropped to $11.5 billion.
If you include sales from independent entities distributing by themselves for themselves (i.e. ignore the vacuous wailing of sidestepped middlemen) overall music sales where actually up 14%
I'd love to know how much of the drop in sales is due to "escalating on-line piracy", and how much is due to the fact that people no longer have to accept a bunch of crap being shoved down their throats so they can get the one or two songs on a CD that are worth listening to. If I like even three songs, it's a pretty safe bet that I'll be forking out the cash. One or two songs? Not so much.
Wouldn't it be interesting to have every song on a particular CD available on a site like this, then track how much money each had made after a year, or how many times it had been downloaded. There'd certainly be some tunes that caught on slowly and eventually overtook the initial hit tune. "Ball and a Biscuit" off the same White Stripes CD as "Seven Nation Army" would be an example in my particular case. But those are the exception. Finally, we'd finally get a chance to see objective proof of just how much filler there is on your basic $20 CD.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
RIAASpace
Here's the local band.
So now you have imeem as this monster service where you can essentially listen to any tune ever recorded, and it's all paid for by advertising.
Similarly, myspace has been in litigation with the record labels and has taken a page from the imeem playbook, copying the deal making, the business model and everything else. Only this isn't some tiny startup, this is Fox Interactive with it's massive pockets.
I really hope myspace loses this time.
.04 dollars or .04 cents?
"In the face of widespread, escalating online piracy, music sales dropped to $11.5 billion in 2006 from a peak in 1999 of nearly $15 billion."
This has got less to do with piracy and more to do with Amy Winehouse's crack bill.
than mypsace. That place is an abortion of epic proportions. The only times I even go there is to check out some band that has sample tunes up on the site. Even that's hit and miss with their crappy and inconsistent streaming and useless player.
... I'm fairly certain MySpace's targeted age group (teenagers and adolescents) already know about Lemonwire and are learning fairly quickly about toUrrent.
(Note: Names of certain programs have been changed in order to protect their identities.)
On a latter note, will downloading music require age verification, or will it just bee censored like the CDs at Walmart are?
Maybe we don't want to be consumers. Maybe we want to upload our own tracks and not deal with Myspaces "music" site. Maybe Myspace should just let users sell their own tracks and stop kissing the music cartels asses.
I'm sure the femanazis are pleased.
I think it's a good idea.
But they should ALSO make CD's and DVD's on the shelves lower priced.
Remember the Bush administration and the economy thieves have made the dollar worth 70 cents. It's probably less after we figure out what is going on with the corrupt federal reserve and how much they have been printing. Sort of an invisible divide by two on your retirement accounts.
They should also build more venues. If outdoors then lot's of shade. The last warped tour was too fucking hot, to the point of heatstroke--not fun like it could have been. I could be wrong but it seems like the sun is brighter and hotter now and with the ozone there's less protection from it. And if they build indoors clubs make them all ages venues! Come on what the fuck?!
As gas and everything starts going up, people are not going to want to drive 100 miles to see a show. And if people stop going to shows the bands are not going to make money, and if they don't make money there will be no music. If there's more venues there would be less distance. And lets face it, the crap this administration has done to our country makes us want to "get away" if anything just to relax.
Lot's of parks could do event's right now and already have shade trees, if the RIAA want's to lobby something they should lobby the stupid red tape it takes to hold public events. The dual side of this is they could also be used to hold political events, social causes and bypass the fascist media--who let's face it is driving up the cost of advertising and ruining the 4th estate.
I don't look forward to HDTV. Thousands of dollars for a bunch of new black boxes I don't need. I am fine with SD, and widescreen. Even the video cameras cost too much. It all COSTS too much! Look at Blueray, why do the disks cost so damn much. It's plastic just like DVD's, I just got all the stuff I need for DVD's now you want to change it to some new crap that costs too much.
Okay the quality of HD -- granted. But that's fuckin luxury man. Like buying a Jaguar or a McMansion (large fucking house.)
As far as piracy goes, there's lot's of reasons for it. It doesn't mean that one reason is true.
It doesn't mean it's funding terrorism. The heroin is doing that..eh liars! The only terrorism I seen lately is the Bush administration terrorizing the constitution, the economy and the right to seek happiness.
I am glad the Big Labels and MySpace teamed up. It's all the way around, for the small band that is a rising star, the big labels have the muscle to put the quality, props, and production crew into their videos and mixing. For the small guy really the only place to go was apple last fm or magnatune. Most small bands only website IS MySpace anyway! The one thing that MySpace should do that would greatly enhance the experience is get rid of all those stupid ass sections and blocks and fields and have one giant block you paste plain fucking html or xhtml code into. that way you don't need to buy a freaking book to understand how the fuck they use CSS. Frame the site and ban those that delete the frame. Pretty simple. That's not going to change though. It's crazy what some myspace accounts have to do to get a half ass good looking site. look at centurymedia for an example of a well thought out way to deal with dogcrap to begin with.
People that buy music don't want to see dogcrap. They want flash, they want video, they want free mp3's. You got to give to get.
But all of this will never end piracy for those that don't have money to begin with and want something they can't get. They will steal the CD if they have to. (Look at all my missing cd's!!! Fucking little thieves.)
The web site that will probably be the downfall of western civilization meets the number one reason western civilization has it coming.
Chocolate and peanut butter it isn't.
This is hardly progress. This is just another attempt to keep alive one of the most archaic and outdated marketing models still in widespread use. They say "before anyone did anything, Elvis Presley did everything" but in reality his unprecidented success screwed everything. Music marketeers have been blindly flogging the same horse ever since, despite the endless painfully obvious indicators that a paradigm shift is imperative to their survival.
The fundamental flaw in the Elvis marketing model is that the product is not the music, it's the idols. To the labels, the artists aren't considered the purveyors of the music, they're just the packaging. They create idolization of the artist among consumers and then cash in on it. Music is only barely relevant to the process. Look at Paris Hilton... what does she do again?
That's why there are so few major labels. It's not a matter of signing the right talent, it's an incredibly cut-throat competition to manufacture the most influential icons. Making cars is far more expensive and complicated, yet there are 10 international auto makers for every major music label.
But now consumers can access anyone's music just as freely as the radio spewing out any big label's next wannabe hit. So traditional mass media is losing its dominance over the preferences of consumers to the internet, which by definition cannot be bought or controled. As a result, idols have less influence these days, and are becoming increasingly expensive to create.
So what's the next step? If I knew I sure wouldn't post it to a public forum! But what I will say is that the next successful music marketing model will not generate its profits from selling "music units", be they albums, songs, subscriptions, etc.
As a touring musician, live/studio engineer, and producer, I can assure you that there is a powerful motivational force between musical performers and their audiences that has never been engaged for profit to even a fraction of its potential. A bar owner paying a band 10% of sales to pack his bar and sell $12k in booze in one night makes much more sense than a label spending $5M on promotions hoping it holds a candle to the other label's $5M promotions.
But as long as labels treat their talent like packaging, they will continue to falter with repeated "innovations" on the same old game. Consumers have free access to all the content they could ever desire. Fancy packaging simply isn't enough to sell ice to eskimos.
War as we knew it was obsolete
Nothing could beat complete denial
- Emily Haines
With the site design prowess of MySpace and the customer care and business ethics of the RIAA, how can they fail?
I disagree that indies are not selling albums. Stage-side sales are at least 30% of our touring revenue. The farther you get from home, the more likely folks are to buy your CD, not knowing when you'll be back.
And free tracks doesn't make much sense either. It's pretty easy to make your music available for net stream and make it tricky to keep the MP3 (note I didn't say make it impossible).
What we have done is record shows with just a pair of mics and pass CD's around letting everyone know it's ok to copy and give to others. We act like our own "tapers" (and I happen to be very good at it). It's a good promotional tool and people still buy the studio CD of the same songs.
And you complain about driving one hour to a show? Got three words for you: TRY TOURING CANADA! Last tour we drove 8500mi and played 26 shows in 25 days, that's an average of 340mi per day crammed into a minivan for almost a month. We also made decent money, renewed interest from the venues in those 26 towns, added a few hundred to the facebook group, and each tour we get better media support.
It's completely worth it, but not without an album to sell. No album = no media = nobody knows you're coming. With media support, you can draw and get paid better than cover bands.
I agree, support your local bands, but support the touring ones too! Gas is our biggest expense, and it's not looking to get any cheaper anytime soon...
War as we knew it was obsolete
Nothing could beat complete denial
- Emily Haines
The future of music is SellaBand (http://sellaband.com/) and others like them. DRM free music and for $10 I get a CD plus a piece of the action!
Are you saying you have pirated copies of Britney Spears? Golly, you have terrible taste in music! When I pirate music, I choose some of the vast amounts of excellent music also put out by the record industry. You should look into it, there's a ton of it.
Of course, the fact that the average price per song dropped from ~3$ (1999, CD) to ~1$ (2008, online) has nothing to do with it.
That's right. Someone who doesn't know the first thing about tall structures and engineering failures thinks it was a controlled demolition. Great.
lemonade was a popular drink and it still is
The title should actually read:
"News Corp Teams With Record Companies To Create Music Site"
After all, MySpace is a corporate sellout owned by media mogul Rupert Murdoch. No surprise that the labels want to make a deal with him.
Former Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura was a Navy Seal, trained in demolition. If you listen to the interview, you will hear his reasons.
Good point.
"Are you saying you have pirated copies of Britney Spears?"
Yuck. Certainly not. And I'm not a pirate. I was saying that I didn't hear much that I felt was worth buying. The industry is experiencing a slump of creativity.
I'm sure if we look back historically there was a similar dip in revenue around the time Rick James first became popular.
I think the invisible hand of the market has its middle finger extended
--A wise old fart named SC0RN
sounds exactly like imeem.com
Trying to install linux on my microwave, but keep getting a kernel panic...
"the deal is partly born of desperation."
The music business has always been a desperate business; if a music artist can't make it to the top for some time, need that 9 to 5 no matter what. As for the big 5, the days of recorded media sales are over. Even though these companies' marketing structures have been revamped by removing the old goats with younger-- open-minded staff, the same caketard execs and board are still at the helm-- ensuing them (young marketing staff) the task of creating any "desperate" form of selling crap.
"music sales dropped to $11.5 billion in 2006 from a peak in 1999 of nearly $15 billion."
Again, the music industry (at the commercial level), is a desperate industry. With the above quote, one can easily gather the level of rationale these jokers portray. If they were kicking that shit to me, I'd smack them on the back of the head and show them a gas station price sign, a picture of Britney Spears just for shits and giggles, and make them watch 5 minutes of CNBC (so the word recession can sink in).
"In the face of widespread, escalating online piracy,..."
Why is the same hokum being gussied up and trotted out yet again to cover up the fact that the major labels all, each and every swingin' dick one of them, missed the boat on the internet business model and now are scrambling to save their wrinkled white asses from a just deserved demise?
Some days it's just not worth
chewing through my restraints.
Hey, that's accurate!
Goatse is the best thing on myspace!
No tyrant thrives when every subject says no.
>>>Quote from the Slashdot story: "In the face of widespread, escalating online piracy, music sales dropped..."
Funny, but let's examine this seriously. Have music sales dropped? Yes. And no.
- CD sales have dropped. That's true.
- But Single sales have soared to the highest level EVER experienced by record companies. Single sales on Itunes and other online stores have sold more units than any time in history. (Funny how the record companies conveniently forgot to mention that fact. What's that old saying? "Lying with statistics"?)
The government is not your daddy. Its purpose is not to raid middle-class neighbors' wallets and give it to you.
You know, this may sound like I'm giving in, but I'd gladly buy into an unlimited download service if by signing up for a year would make all (or at least the music from those labels who are participating) of my current music collection legal.
Monitor bandwidth usage on IIS6 in real-time: http://www.waetech.com/services/iisbm/
MyTunes vs. iTunes - who will emerge victorious? Just as long as my downloads stay cheap and it plays nice with my music player of choice, i don't really care.
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.
"We only hurt the ones we love."
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.
"...an independent joint venture in partnership with..."?
Just how does that work?
98% of America's teens drink alcohol, smoke, and have sex. Put this in your sig if you like bagels.
I'm not sure whether you should be modded funny or insightful. (I don't have any points to spare in any case, so we'll leave that to fellow slashdotters.)
But seriously, it's always annoyed me that while MySpace is never *totally* down, one out of every five pages I load gives me a "unexpected error" page, which somehow still manages to load an advertisement. I can never even tell if my MySpace messages are being sent or not. Somebody should start counting uptime in terms of successfully, fully delivered page and not just "does the page load at all?"
98% of America's teens drink alcohol, smoke, and have sex. Put this in your sig if you like bagels.
Well, it seems suing our customers isn't working. Anyone have any ideas? Hey, lets use Myspace and let them actually purchase music that way. They should have come up with this idea a LONG time ago. After seeing the way they ruin their own customer's lives and wrongfully targetted students (AND even had a bill in Congress pass based on bogus data) they can just go get f'd. They are starting to see that their tactics in court are becoming less profitable and are trying to save their asses. In fact, just listen to free music like garageband.com has on it. Most of those can be downloaded in MP3 format for free or streamed right from your web browser.
I agree. I also think there is another major reason for the change: People consume media in general and music specifically in a much different way these days. In the "olde days", if you wanted to listen to music you either schlepped a tape-player (and all your tapes) or your CD player (and all your CDs) which was a pain. So generally you'd maybe pop a tape or CD in your walkman and just take that. So, in essence you had a hand-full of your favorite songs with you and then you got bored. So you'd listen to the radio and get introduced to new bands and albums.
Now, I can take thousands of my favorite songs from my collection with me and have my own virtual radio station. I don't feel the need to tune in to Clear Channel. I hear about new talent from my friends and content online. I can be at a mall or movie theater, hear a song I like, and download it to my iPhone on the spot. My daughter twitters me with a link to some cool new sound she heard from a band that played at her coffee house. My brother emails me a link to the latest indie artist he's recorded and mixed on iTMS. Frankly, if I tune into the radio at all any more, it's to listen to the news or 'All things considered". The RIAA no longer controls my listening habits. Frankly, I couldn't tell you who the latest hot bands (of any genre) are.
I've also ripped my entire CD collection and purchased any gems I'd missed out on and have them in my pocket at all times. I'm getting older and, frankly the new pop-rap-crap I do hear is not for me. My music buying has flattened out. I rarely buy entire albums any more. That last song I bought was a tune that caught my attention while watching previews in a movie theater (and I bought it right then). I'm more likely to buy an Audible book than new music. And if I buy new music it's almost guaranteed to be from an indie band.
The consumption model has changed. The distribution model has changed. There are no longer a controlling few dictating taste to the controlled masses. Just like the internet changed the face of news, it's changing the face of music and video. The music cartel's days have ended. They've lost their tight grip on the masses. They just don't want to admit it. That, more than rampant piracy, is the cause of the decline in "their" music being sold. Indie bands and musicians aren't factored into any of their sales figures (how would they know?) so, music in general is diversifying and growing, it's just the cartel's music sales that're drying up.
"terrorism" and "pedophilia" are the root passwords to the Constitution
Imeem was there first. /oldnews'd
Myspace = tired
DO NOT WANT!!!
I understand the pancaking. What bothers me is that there was no evidence of the very strong inner metal columns. Everything fell to dust. Only a controlled demolition causes that kind of destruction.
now there is no reason for personal americans to fight for copyright reform in the court system. we have lost our one common goal to defeat disney and revive the public domain. ive always prayed that drm was the final straw on the camels back, but it looks like the mafiaa camel will continue to ride on unfair and unbalanced copyright laws.
Go easy on the poor fellow. His CAPS LOCK finally wore out.