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Digital Audio Insider is David Harrell's blog about the economics of music and other digital content. I write from the perspective of a musican who has self-released four albums with the indie rock band the Layaways.

My personal website has links to my LinkedIn and Google+ pages and you can send e-mail to david [at] thelayaways [dot] com.

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If you enjoy this site, please consider downloading a Layaways track or album from iTunes, Amazon MP3, Bandcamp, or eMusic. CDs are available from CD Baby and Amazon.

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March 05, 2013

Tuesday Odds and Ends: A YouTube Music Streaming Service
by David Harrell
YouTube is already the largest music-streaming platform, but it looks like it will launch a dedicated Spotify-style streaming service.

Felix Salmon on Amanda Palmer's TED Talk and content economics:
There are basically three ways to go about this. You can put up a paywall; you can ask for donations; or you can sell non-digital things to your digital audience.

On its face, Palmer's talk is about the second strategy, but in fact it's about all three. (And yes, I’m the "financial blogger" referred to in the talk.) For instance, when it comes to online publishing, why are paywalls more common than tip jars, despite the fact that they're much more difficult to implement? Palmer does a great job of walking us through the answer to that question: there's something shameful, there's a whiff of the panhandler, in asking strangers for money.
Nicholas Carr highlights another study showing that students prefer paper textbooks to digital versions, despite the seeming advantages of the latter format (portability, interactivity, etc.):
However, researchers often overlook students' personal beliefs about how they learn and study most effectively. Their resistance to replacing paper textbooks with e-textbooks together with an ongoing desire to be able to print electronic content suggests that paper-based information serves students' needs better in the educational context.
And if you missed it, this Music Ally story from last month rounds up a slew of reports on artist payments from Spotify (including ones from this blog).

tags: YouTube Spotify ebooks

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February 11, 2013

Monday Odds and Ends
by David Harrell
Amazon has received a patent for a method of selling "used" digital files. More coverage from Wired and a statement from ReDigi. (The firm had previously indicated that it would roll out a marketplace for pre-owned digital books.)

Is Apple testing an IOS-powered watch?

The Businessweek story on Doug Morris.

And the Gizmodo story on how Monster Cable, the lawsuit-happy purveyor of expensive audio and video cables, fared poorly in its business relationship with Beats Audio.

tags: used digital content Amazon

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February 08, 2013

Friday Flashback Fun: The Cars Perform "Let's Go" in 1979
by David Harrell
The Cars perform one of my all-time favorite songs during a 1979 appearance on the Midnight Special:



tags: the Cars 1979

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February 06, 2013

Wednesday Odds and Ends
by David Harrell
My Bloody Valentine is selling its new album (its first in TWENTY TWO years) direct to fans. The digital version is album-only, with a fixed price ($16) for your choice of three file format choices:
16bit 44.1 K WAV - This is CD quality with no digital compression. i.e. it's exactly like a CD. This format may not be compatible with some devices.
320kbps MP3 - This format is compatible with most devices.
24bit 96 K WAV - This format may not be compatible with some devices.
Meanwhile Prince is hawking his latest singles for 88 cents a track.

Audiogalaxy (recently acquired by Dropbox) pulled the plug on its music streaming app.

In the WSJ, discovering music via fitness classes -- Vanilla Ice attempts to cash in:
Zumba fans have already helped revive the career of Rob VanWinkle -- better known as the rapper Vanilla Ice. Last year, Mr. VanWinkle rerecorded his 1990s hit "Ice Ice Baby" with a Latin flavor and Zumba-friendly tempo, then starred in a video featuring Zumba choreography. Released last August, the single has sold nearly 17,000 copies.
And the Atlantic has the audio of the oldest playable recording, from 1878. The rhythmic noises at the beginning (the foil was stored folded for more than a century) make it sound vaguely techno.

tags: Audiogalaxy My Bloody Valentine

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January 30, 2013

A Few Quick Thoughts on the NY Times Spotify Article
by David Harrell
Spotify Banner
I know I've promised a long-form post on Spotify, but in the meantime, some quick observations on this week's NY Times article on the economics of music streaming:

1. Mainstream press -- please don't conflate streaming services with personalized Internet radio ("...as listeners begin to move from CDs and downloads to streaming services like Spotify, Pandora and YouTube."). Spotify and Pandora are cousins, not siblings.

2. With all due respect to Sean Parker, the glory days of music sales in 1990s aren't coming back. It was a unique time, when consumers were willing to repurchase music they already owned (on LP and cassette) in a more-expensive format (CD). Even if a magical new format is rolled out, one that makes average consumers want to upgrade, my guess is that many of them would manage to acquire the content without paying for it.

3. To its credit, the article does mention (but doesn't emphasize) what I think is the most important point about the Spotify model -- the coupling of artist/label compensation with listener consumption, as opposed to consumers pre-paying for a lifetime of listening via the purchase of a download or CD:
"Unlike the royalties from a sale, these payments accrue every time a listener clicks on a song, year after year."
4. The per-play amounts paid to artists/labels are, as everyone knows, quite small. As noted in the article, self-released artist Zoe Keating reports an average payment of 0.42 cents per play. When you adjust that number for the 9% commission she pays to CD Baby, you end with 0.47 cents, which is almost identical to the most recent numbers I've posted here for Spotify plays of the Layaways.

Should Spotify pay more? In an ideal world it would, but the company is currently paying 70% of its revenue to rights holders and publishers. In addition to the freebie service, it offers two subscription tiers in the U.S. -- $4.99 a month for an ad-free service and $9.99 a month premium service with higher sound quality and a mobile option. Based on a 0.47 cents figure (and assuming that the current mix of free, $4.99, and $9.99 subscribers remained stable) Spotify would need to increase its U.S. subscription prices to $10.62 and $21.26 to accommodate a one cent per-play payout.

That larger number is still less than the $30 that Sam Broe, the 26-year-old music fan quoted at the beginning of the article, used to spend each month on music purchases before becoming a Spotify subscriber. But would he -- and other current/potential Spotify subscribers -- be willing to pay it?

related: Updated Spotify Artist/Label Per-Stream Payments

tags: Spotify music streaming music subscriptions


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December 12, 2012

A Quick Review of NoiseTrade
by David Harrell
NoiseTrade banner
I've been testing the NoiseTrade site/widget for the past week and, for the most part, really like it. NoiseTrade is a promotional platform, not a digital music store, though some of its functionality overlaps with the features offered by sites such as Bandcamp.

The concept is simple -- artists can create albums of up to 20 tracks, which listeners can download in exchange for providing an e-mail address and zip code. Albums are downloaded as zip files of 192k mp3s. All downloads are free, with the option to tip the artist $1 to $25. Labels can also use the service to create sampler albums. The service is free to use, with NoiseTrade taking a 20% cut of any tip money. Artists or labels receive the remaining 80%, after any credit card or PayPal fees.

The site is well designed, and individual artist/label pages can link to official websites and social media sites, as well as multiple stores (iTunes, Amazon MP3, eMusic, etc.). Yet NoiseTrade doesn't try to do everything and doesn't offer a ton of flexibility. There's only widget design available and the suggested tip amount always defaults to $6. And you can't allow users to download individual tracks, only the entire album, though you can set up a single song as an "album." Some artists offer a full album, a sampler from a single album, or a compilation of tracks from multiple releases. Whatever you do, it's one album per artist name, and you can't create pages/widgets for multiple albums without resorting to alternate artist names. Josh Rouse, for example, has an album under his own name and one as Josh Rouse and the Long Vacations.

While most of the artists using the service aren't well known, there are a decent number of names you might recognize, including Andrew Bird, Sloan, Aimee Mann, Sufjan Stevens, and the Civil Wars. At the risk of sounding slightly hypocritical (I'm hawking my own unknown music) that's a good thing, as even adventurous music fans want to see a few familiar names on a music site.

My overall take is that while NoiseTrade only does a few things, it does them well. (Though that makes me wish it had more features, mainly the ability to upload multiple albums.) I'd love to learn more details about how well the tipping system works on average -- the percentage of people who tip and the average amount. The total NoiseTrade downloads for the Layaways are still too few to make any sort of estimate, and it seems likely that tipping rate/amount will vary, based on the quality of the individual release. But I'll post an update after the holiday season about our download count and the tipping rate.

tags: NoiseTrade online music promotion

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December 06, 2012

Thursday Odds and Ends: Apple Goes to 11
by David Harrell
Walt Mossberg of the WSJ likes the new iTunes:
I've been testing this major new version, called iTunes 11, and I consider it a significant improvement in the look, feel, speed and function of the program, which had become somewhat bloated, sluggish and dense over the years as new features were added.
But Slate's Farhad Manjoo isn't a fan of the new version, or iTunes in general:
Is the new iTunes any better? Not markedly, to my eye. I've been using it for a few hours now. Naturally, the interface has been completely redesigned, though it's too early for me to tell whether the new version is better or just different. Now, instead of a pane of options on the left side, you click between functions using buttons and menus on the top. Is this a genuine improvement, or just a face-lift masking the rot beneath? I suspect the latter: While some parts of iTunes move a little bit faster (the iOS app management screen, for example, used to be unusably slow; now it's OK) most of it still feels lumbering.
Also from Slate, some advice on gift wrapping digital books that could also apply to digital music. Suggestion six seems like a really bad idea.

And in the latest issue of TapeOp magazine, Jeff Lynne says he recorded an album note-for-note ELO remakes because "...there was something I didn't quite get right about the sound of them in those days." But this reviewer hits on something else that probably factored into the decision -- it gives Lynne a new set of master recordings (that he, not his original label, owns) for licensing purposes. I can't fault him (or any musician) for taking steps to maximize earnings from a back catalog, though acts like Squeeze have been more upfront about this particular practice. Glenn Tilbrook explains the motivation for the band's re-make album from 2010:
"Originally, it wasn't going to be an album," says Tilbrook, 52. "It was going to be a series of rerecordings that we could offer to movie and ad people as an alternative to the original versions. But the closer we got to the end of it, the more I realized that we put a big amount of effort into it, and it stood up on its own, as a record."
tags: iTunes iTunes 11

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November 20, 2012

Tuesday Odds and Ends
by David Harrell
Some mind-boggling download stats from the New Yorker story on the live archives of the Grateful Dead:
Most users merely stream the music; it's a hundred cassette trays, in the Cloud. But you can download some of it, too. Some have been downloaded so often they'd be gold albums, were someone paying for them. (Anything the Dead release commercially gets removed from the Archive.) A mediocre recording of an unremarkable 1979 gig at Madison Square Garden has been downloaded almost seven hundred thousand times.
A nice bit from a Grantland story on Lindsey Buckingham:
It never ceases to amaze me how much new music is released by quantifiably popular artists -- and Buckingham's sales statistics are better than most -- that you never hear about in the media. It reminds you just how futile it is to even pretend that you can cover popular music at all comprehensively. At best, you can rope off a small portion of the overall landscape and convince yourself that the rest of it doesn't exist.
And this one's old (from January) but still worth a look. Nicholas Carr has a suggestion for publishers -- free ebooks:
Readers today are forced to choose between buying a physical book or an ebook, but a lot of them would really like to have both on hand – so they’d be able, for instance, to curl up with the print edition while at home (and keep it on their shelves) but also be able to load the ebook onto their e-reader when they go on a trip. In fact, bundling a free electronic copy with a physical product would have a much bigger impact in the book business than in the music business.
tags: The Grateful Dead Lindsey Buckingham eBooks

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    THE LAYAWAYS

    Out Now -- "Maybe Next Year" -- The New Holiday Album:

    <a href="http://thelayaways.bandcamp.com/album/maybe-next-year">Joy To The World by The Layaways</a>

    "This is a sweet treat, deliciously musical without being overbaked for mass media consumption." -- Hyperbolium

    "Perfect listening to accompany whatever holiday preparations you may be making today." -- Bag of Songs


    O Christmas Tree - free mp3 lyrics and song details
    Away In A Manger - free mp3

    Download from eMusic, iTunes, Amazon MP3, or Bandcamp. Listen to free streams at Last.fm.



    album cover art from The Space Between

    <a href="http://thelayaways.bandcamp.com/album/the-space-between">Keep It To Yourself by The Layaways</a>

    "...about as melodic and hooky as indie pop can get." -- Absolute Powerpop

    "Their laid-back, '60s era sounds are absolutely delightening." -- 3hive

    "...melodic, garage-influenced shoegaze." -- RCRD LBL

    Where The Conversation Ends - free mp3
    January - free mp3
    Keep It To Yourself - free mp3

    Download from eMusic, iTunes, Amazon MP3, or CD Baby, stream it at Last.fm or Napster.



    album cover art from We've Been Lost

    <a href="http://thelayaways.bandcamp.com/album/weve-been-lost">Silence by The Layaways</a>

    "The Layaways make fine indie pop. Hushed vocals interweave with understated buzzing guitars. The whole LP is a revelation from the start." -- Lost Music

    "Catchy Guided by Voices-like rockers who lay it on sweetly and sincerely, just like Lionel Richie." -- WRUV Radio

    Silence - free mp3 lyrics and song details
    The Long Night - free mp3

    Download from eMusic, Amazon MP3, or iTunes, stream it at Last.fm, Napster, or Rhapsody.



    album cover art from More Than Happy

    "These are songs that you want to take home with you, curl up with, hold them close -- and pray that they are still with you when you wake up." -- The Big Takeover

    Let Me In - free mp3
    Ocean Blue - free mp3

    Download from eMusic, Amazon MP3, or iTunes, stream it at Last.fm, Napster, or Rhapsody.

    More Layaways downloads:

    download the Layaways at eMusic download the Layaways at iTunes

    the layaways website