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Warner To End Free Streaming of Its Content
eldavojohn writes "If you have a license to stream content for free from Warner, be aware: Warner has announced plans to cancel streaming licenses. Major sites such as Last.fm, Spotify, and Pandora may be affected — Warner has not yet spelled out whether streaming restrictions will apply to existing licenses, or only to future ones. Warner's CEO Edgar Bronfman said, 'Free streaming services are clearly not net positive for the industry and as far as Warner Music is concerned will not be licensed.' You might contend that Warner gets a cut of the ad-based revenue these free streaming sites take in. While true, Bronfman contended that this revenue comes nowhere near what they need in compensation for each individual's enjoyment of each work. The article quotes spokesmen for other labels who disagree with Warner's stance, however. Music's digital birthing pains continue."
>revenue comes nowhere near what they need in compensation for each individual's enjoyment of each work
Then they won't get anything.
...because I'm pretty sure this will only boost piracy...
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
Say I had a bunch of bits on my server. Say those bits were recorded from people with talent and "permanently" placed on my server. I also have the right to sell those bits to whomever wants them.
The best part here, if you want to buy my bits, I send you a duplicate copy at next to no cost to me. Now you sell those bits or make money in/directly from them, I get a cut.
Now say a site out there wants to stream my bits to non-paying customers, but, I could see _some_ revenue from advertisements your site runs. How is this a bad thing for me as the bit holder? How is this hurting me?
Sure, I could let others stream my bits and get more money from them as they might have higher profit yielding business models. But in the end, site y streaming my music with advertisements isn't really going to hurt my profit from site x that charges an up-front fee (radio is unreliable if you want to hear x and y songs).
I guess my open question, to the recording industry is, if you can stream your bits to everyone and expect _some_ compensation from each, why wouldn't you want _everyone_ to start offering your products at whatever profit they can gleam for you?
If you're worried about piracy, well, that boat sailed a long time ago.
Profit is profit. You're not making a physical object that costs you x dollars. You're allowing others access to your bits that cost you next to nothing to duplicate (although, I know it costs _something_, it will be a lot less than physical items).
Obviously, that was rhetorical as the Recording Industry will never respond to me. But my own conclusion comes out as simple control, or at least their own illusion of control.
*Paying* Pandora Member/Customer
I use Spotify a lot. But there's one huge problem: If Big Content pulls out then Spotify will wither and die. And if they do then my playlists, which contain the most valuable information for me, are also doomed. This is huge problem.
If I spend countless hours listening to music and discovering new artists without the ability to export my playlists in some open format (just the metadata, not the songs themselves), I'd get totally pissed if I can't access them any more. So as long as Big Content is threatening to pull out of these services (which apparently still pay more than radio from what I've heard) I'm not inclined to pay. I can always get the tracks themselves through some other service, but only if I know which they are.
I wish they would just friggin stop shooting themselves in the foot, and stop treating customers like the enemy. But I'm too idealistic, I guess...
.: Max Romantschuk
Worse, he claims there to know the level of individual enjoyment from Warner music; and how much it is worth.
To which I would like to say - I decide that. And from now on, Warmer music isn't worth listening to me.
One that hath name thou can not otter
Yes, it is a pity. For Warner. I could care less.
I've discovered a bunch of new artists through Pandora, and even purchased music from a select few. I neither know nor care who the artist is signed up through. I use free streaming media to discover new artists, and if I like the artist I might go out and buy an album or two from them. I couldn't name the label that my last 10 CDs came from, though I could list off the artists.
If Warner chooses to withdraw their catalog from Pandora, well, that's their decision and they are well within their rights to do so. It means that I, for one, will not hear any of their new music. But there are plenty of talented artists out there who use more enlightened labels that actually want their artists' work to be discovered. I won't lack for good music to discover, it just won't include Warner's product.
Doesn't matter to me. If they don't want to market to me any more, that's their right.
"This post contains words, known to the State of California to cause thought. Wash brain thoroughly after reading."
I like this line..."Bronfman contended that this revenue comes nowhere near what they need in compensation for each individual's enjoyment of each work" - it's a complete summary of the way the labels are thinking. Each time you do something - anything - that resembles enjoyment, their feeling is that somebody - somewhere - should be getting money from you. If you're thinking about a song but it isn't being played, in his mind, you owe for those few seconds. Consider that this is an industry that sells you a ringtone, then says you owe extra money when your phone rings because you just broadcast music in public. Stunning.
I guess the question is, what amount of money would he say is the right amount of "compensation" for each individual's enjoyment of each work? Because very few of these streaming services are making much money at all, and while I know executives in his industry have the feeling of "If we cut off access, people will pay us 100x more to listen to it! They'll be dying to listen to our music!" (how well did that work for online newspaper sites that decided to go behind a paywall?), the reality is, most people I know that enjoy listening to Pandora or last.fm would be perfectly fine if everything of Warner just dropped off it - they'd just continue listening to whatever it serves up on the various stations they've created and enjoy. They certainly wouldn't start paying big bucks to a Warner Music Station. The labels have tried that, they lose their shirt every time.
That's bad news for people who post criticism of the music of an artist on a Warner label. Even though the fair use of a copyrighted work for criticism of that work or its author is permitted under United States law (17 USC 107), several venues for this criticism have a "remove first, ask questions later" policy that enforces a mandatory two-week downtime for any work that is the subject of a third-party copyright claim.
Didn't the laws for streaming compensation just change in the US because labels thought they weren't being paid enough? Now they want more money? Oh well, it's their loss. Streaming is the new broadcast radio. It's how people are discovering new music these days. If you don't have your music out on these sites then your artists will have less exposure. This is great news for the other artists (on other labels and independent) who will now have less competition on the streaming sites.
Cory Doctorow talking about cloud computing makes as much sense as George W Bush talking about electrical engineering.
The streaming services are doing all the work. They host the songs. They pay for the bandwidth they use. Warner is doing NOTHING except giving permission. After that, they pay nothing. They do NOTHING.
Any money they get should be plenty, considering they do NOTHING for anyone. It's literally free money.
This is pure greed.
I'm gonna vent here because this just happened and is directly to do with digital media. A certain store that deals in tunes I emailed last week. My niece had spent over $150 on those 99 cent or so tracks there, at my encouragement. I really do want to see her at least start out on a path of compensating the artists (even though the labels can suck it). So, anyway, she had a catastrophic hard drive crash - everything gone. Reinstalled Windows no problem, go back to this tunes program, no option to re-download legally purchased music. A bit of Internet searching led to people referencing a mythical "form" which when filled out would get the Internet gods to flip a switch and give you a magical one-time additional download. Bandwidth doesn't really cost that much, this is a customer service issue here: it's different from physical cd's. So filled out the form and the days go by and no response. I'm disheartened. What did we do last night? I installed Limewire on her machine and I'll be damned if she's going to throw her money away again. $150 may not be a drop to them but to my thirteen year old niece it was a fortune I talked her into spending when she could have chosen to get her music the way everyone else does from the beginning. We'll try again in a few more years and see if the industry has smartened up by then. I don't have the heart to talk her into potentially throwing her money away again before then.
Shh.
Maybe they're trying to imitate EMI's recent success.
For those who don't know, EMI, who own the likes of the Beetles records and so forth recently just announced a £1.5 billion loss over the last financial year. They currently look like they could very well be heading to bankruptcy.
At least if they do end up that way, that's what, 1 down, 3 to go?
I'll buy my favorite band's music without hearing it first, but otherwise I never purchase music I haven't heard already and know I like.
Streaming lets me hear the music and encourages me to buy it. Remove that, and the best way for me to hear music is to download it, which removes the incentive to purchase. I suppose the good thing from this is that it should encourage artists to think harder about signing on to a label until they return to sanity (which may be never).
My webcomic
Spotify denies that they're losing Warner.
To be clear WMG is not pulling out of Spotify. Media is taking things out of context. So don't worry-be happy :
http://twitter.com/spotify
How can you say you hate something thats free? If you dont like it then dont watch or listen to it! There are some people I am sure that dont mind and deal with it.
http://gizmodo.com/5469042/warner-music-doesnt-much-care-for-this-free-internet-music
Edgar Bronfman's comment on the Warner conference call was addressing free on-demand services such as Spotify that are directly licensed. Pandora operates under a different licensing structure and won't be impacted by Warner's apparent decision with respect to free, on-demand services.
And before that we tried ad-based radio and television, and see how it worked out! There's no way the music industry can grow if anyone can listen to music broadcast on the radio bands without paying. How will the artists live?
This is nothing new. These industries fought the grammophone, because nobody would buy sheet music anymore. As it turned-out, they were right but the loss of sales from sheet music was more than made-up by sales of cylinders and discs.
Then they fought the invention of FM radio, because they feared people would no longer listen to music on the AM stations. Again they were correct, but AM survived as the source for news and dialogue.
Now they are fighting digital streaming because they fear it will hurt FM radio and sales of discs. And again they're probably right, but they can still make a *lot* of money from internet ads and direct sales.
They need to stop being afraid of the future. Technology changes but they will still have a place to sell their warez.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
That's not true.
When I listen to FM radio, I have no control over what gets played -- except by changing stations. On Pandora (not sure about last.fm, I don't use it) I have input into the song selection. I've fine-tuned my favorite stations so that I can enjoy the music I like without ever needing to buy it. I don't have to worry about songs I like dropping off the playlists of my favorite stations (so I don't need to buy the songs if I still want to listen to them).
This is markedly different from FM radio, where the marketing arms of the labels, along with Clearchannel, decide what gets exposure.
Because the labels have less input into what I listen to on Pandora (than on FM radio), their marketing efforts are less effective. Aggregated across millions of users, what streaming services represent is a loss of control of the industry (and the marketplace!) by the labels. They want to avoid this at all costs, since technology is making their role almost exclusively marketing.
Long story short, streaming services where the listener has control over what content gets played spell the end of the big label era. The big labels fighting tooth and claw for their survival.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
I forget where I read this, but it was pointed out that the reason WB may be doing this is that they (WB) fear that sites like Pandora, etc. devalue each track. When a consumer can listen to it for free (0 cost to the consumer) they are less likely to see the value in purchasing the track themselves. (99 cents from the consumer)
Buttons aren't toys.
But as others have said, it's *always* really been your responsibility to protect the goods you purchase. If she had invested even $79 or so for an external USB hard drive (a lot less money than she spent on the music itself!), and did regular backups of her data to it, she wouldn't have had this issue in the first place.
I wouldn't get the ability for a "one time free replacement" of my collection of physical CDs and cassette tapes if they were all destroyed in a fire tomorrow, or they were stolen, or ??
On the other hand, I *might* have insurance that would pay for their replacement ... and I suspect that's another thing we could start seeing more of, as things go digital. Perhaps companies will start pushing insurance policies covering your expenses for intangible works, like software titles downloaded onto your Playstation 3's hard drive, or iTunes music purchases.
...can make sense, if you make it competitive to other options available to consumers.
If you're charging $5-$10 a month to download 100s of DRM free mp3s per month that can be easily synced with mobile devices you may have a model on your hands. Want 1000s a month? Want 1000s a month and FLAC? $20 and $30 a month respectively.
The labels could make this work because:
1. People like novelty. Publish a great song this month? People stay subscribed.
2. People like feeling like they aren't being taken advantage of. Being able to stop at any time and keep the tens of thousands of tracks you've downloaded removes the fear of joining in the first place.
3. People like having their friends know what they like. Syncing up "official" subscriber downloads with social networking sites helps show who the "true" fans are.
Of course anything Warner does will suck, have horrible design, have tons of DRM and only work on Windows.
Because the labels have less input into what I listen to on Pandora (than on FM radio), their marketing efforts are less effective.
I disagree. I pay a lot more attention to the music I listen to on Pandora because more of it is interesting to me. I also have the artist's bio at my fingertips, and I'm far more likely to make an impulse purchase.
Pandora is a near-perfect combination of radio and on-demand from a music marketing perspective. I don't get to pick individual songs, but music gets limited to stuff that I'm likely to want to listen to and therefore buy.
Clearchannel may have absolute control over the radio, and they may be able to market that music to a larger audience, but it's scattershot advertising. They have to throw a song out there and hope it sticks.
Pandora is targeted advertising of music, under the transparent guise of letting you listen to free music. Once you hear a song on Pandora, it's unlikely you'll hear it again anytime soon, so if you want it you will have to buy it. And Pandora's selection certainly brings up a lot of stuff their listeners will want, since the music is targeted to the tastes of that specific listener.
Streaming services where the listener has *absolute* control over what content gets played are a clear threat to the labels. Streaming services where the listener only controls the types of music but not the specific song are the greatest marketing engine a record label could possibly hope for.
These guys should be falling all over themselves to give Pandora all the music they have, and BEGGING (no, PAYING) Pandora to play it. A lot.
Pandora is, at its heart, a gathering of interested customers who willingly reveal their purchase preferences and ask to be exposed to new music in return for the right to listen to tracks you have chosen for them based on those preferences. Those customers can then purchase music directly from within the application, or research the artist further to see if they want to buy more of their music.
If there are marketers out there and the previous paragraph did not make you orgasm uncontrollably, you need to go back to marketing school and pay attention this time.
"This post contains words, known to the State of California to cause thought. Wash brain thoroughly after reading."
Pandora introduces me to new artists I like, whose music I do purchase. Pandora has directly resulted in increased spending on my part due to this.
I have no idea what this article is talking about. The source is apparently an interview with BBC news, so I'm wondering if this is something that only applies to Britain or maybe Europe in general.
In the US we have a fantastic little organization called SoundExchange. You may remember them from previous stories on slashdot about how they were trying to destroy internet radio by charging massively inflated prices. Part of the reason it was big news is because in the US internet radio broadcasts fall under a compulsory license. Even if you're an independent artist who is not represented by any of the labels that SoundExchange represents, broadcasters must pay SoundExchange to play your recordings.
Warner is in the same situation, and cannot opt out of this no matter how much they want to. They could make specific agreements with each and every internet radio station, but all the stations would have to do is say no. If no agreement could be reached it goes right back to the standard terms of SoundExchange.
I'm not an expert in licensing, but I do work for a radio network that also broadcasts on the internet. During the big SoundExchange debacle last year this is how everything was explained to me. I highly doubt any internet radio service in the US will be in trouble.
I stream Radio Paradise, Pandora, C-SPAN, NPR, etc. all via 3g on my iPhone while driving. It works fine until I stray out of 3g coverage. Unlimited data means it costs me nothing.