October 31, 2006

On November 21st, 2006, eMusic will begin offering new plan options to new members. While the price of our eMusic Basic, Plus, and Premium subscription plans will remain the same, the number of downloads in each plan will change:



If you are happy with your current monthly or annual rollover plan, simply do nothing. Your selected plan will be guaranteed as long as you keep your account active and in good standing. However, if you wish to lock in a new rollover plan, you must do so before November 21st, 2006. We recommend that you review and set your rollover plan now to lock in at the lowest price per download available After Nov 21st, if you want to upgrade, you'll no longer be able to upgrade into the older plans. All the more reason to upgrade now!

October 30, 2006

So this report got a lot of attention in the media, which shows how much interest there is in the topic. However some of the coverage has been quite selective in which parts it has highlighted and some have even used it as evidence for Apple-bashing. So for the record here are the key thrusts of the report (all of the below refer to Europe): MP3 player owners of all types (iPods included) don't regularly buy much digital music. iPod owners are actually more likely to buy digital music than other MP3 player owners. Free online music consumption significantly outweighs paid, significantly more so for owners of non-iPod MP3 players. Device owners are much more likely to buy CD albums online than digital albums.

truncated version of graph click it to see the full version

October 27, 2006

You could argue that Tower Records courted its own demise in 1995, when the company became one of the first marketers to introduce an online shopping site. Those who embrace the Web as the ideal way to purchase CD's argue that Tower Records became obsolete. Anything can be bought online these days.

Maybe. But for many people, tracking down a CD online, with only various critiques by unknown purchasers to guide them, is not the same as mingling with other opera buffs in front of the Verdi shelves. I am convinced that there is money to be made for someone willing to set up a classical music CD shop in New York, a place that does not promise to stock everything, but provides an in-depth catalog, including a smart selection of historic recordings and essential reissues.

Rob Miller, partner in the Chicago-based alternative-country label Bloodshot Records, said that online sales account for just 10%-15% of the company's business. He estimates that Tower accounted for about 5% of Bloodshot's sales.

"If it was a one-to-one trade (for lost physical sales), it'd be great, but it's not," Miller said of online sales. "It's a good bandage on a much larger hemorrhage."

October 26, 2006

"In the paper we show that both the long-tail and superstar effects take place -- but that each comes with a twist," Elberse says. "Consumers can find videos online that they can't find anywhere else. And yes, there is a shift in sales to the tail -- but there is also an increasing number of titles that do not sell at all."

The iPod seems like a revolution because there was a brief gap in the march of personal stereo products. As the sales of Walkmen and cassette tapes declined, Sony was ready and waiting with the Discman. But the early models were prone to skipping, and CDs were never as portable as cassettes. Also, you couldn't comfortably fit a Discman in your pocket. So, for a few years, there was dip in the number of people running around with headphones on. In 2006, more than 50 million iPods are in circulation, and the media love fest is in full bloom. Still, the iPod does not match the star quality of the Walkman in its heyday. To take one cultural field: The Walkman served as a plot device in Ghostbusters, Back to the Future, The Goonies, and (insert your movie here). The Walkman was also first--the original king.

October 25, 2006

When Gaddis Rathel needed to learn Spanish for his job, his boss gave him an unusual tool to help: a black video Apple iPod, preloaded with language lessons.

Last month, Mr. Rathel's employer -- ACG Texas LP, a Plano, Texas, franchisee of the pancake-house chain IHOP Corp. -- started testing Apple Computer Inc.'s digital media player on a few employees to save money on Spanish-language classes. Now, rather than sit in a class on company time or read a textbook, Mr. Rathel uses the iPod for audio training in his spare time. "I've used it in several scenarios around the house and in the car," says Mr. Rathel, 45 years old, who, as a manager of field training, spends a lot of time on the road. He also uses it while waiting to pick up his daughter from soccer practice.

People used to hide their iPods from their bosses, if they used them in the office at all. Now the bosses are passing them out to their employees. Companies from health-care suppliers to fast-food chains are handing out free iPods so that employees can download audio and video files of CEO announcements, training courses and sales seminars.

October 24, 2006

Boy Scouts in the Los Angeles area will now be able to earn an activity patch for learning about the evils of downloading pirated movies and music. The patch shows a film reel, a music CD and the international copyright symbol, a "C" enclosed in a circle.

The movie industry has developed the curriculum.

Scouts will be instructed in the basics of copyright law and learn how to identify five types of copyrighted works and three ways copyrighted materials may be stolen.

Scouts also must choose one activity from a list that includes visiting a movie studio to see how many people can be harmed by film piracy. They also can create public service announcements urging others not to steal movies or music.

October 23, 2006

Acquiring an MP3 player may well change your music habits or those of someone you're shopping for. It's likely to increase how much music is heard, where it's heard, and how it's bought -- with more of it acquired online, unsurprisingly, and perhaps song by song rather than in the album-sized helping of the compact disc.

Five years ago tomorrow, a computer company with no history of selling music devices released a portable media player that cost more and did less than much of the hardware already on sale. Naturally, this gadget and its successors sold in the millions, all but defining the entire digital-music industry in the process.

The iPod completes my conversion to Mac in general -- even though I held on to my PC beliefs long after my friends had switched over. ITunes is so functional, whether for managing songs or listening to friends' music. It's simple, seamless integration. And maybe that makes me less hard-core -- a sellout who bought into the marketing and joined the bandwagon. It's not because I can't figure out computers -- it's just easier. I may never buy another PC again.

Watching my fellow climbers lug their broken iPods up and down Mount Everest gave me some strong opinions. I'd go as far as to say I think Paris Hilton is to Hollywood what the iPod is to portable music players. Both are radiant, glossy and coveted, and like any flash-in-the-pan they are overpriced and cantankerous.

October 19, 2006

8. No resale value. So you logged onto iTunes in a drunken haze and downloaded the complete works of A Flock of Seagulls. What happens after the hangover has passed and you realize your mistake? In the good old days you could take your used CD's down to the nearest record store and sell them for cash or credit. When you buy digital media products that's not an option. The traditional Right of First Sale has been stripped away in the digital age.

CR's take. iPods remain a leading choice in digital players for ease of use and appearance. The players work almost seamlessly with their iTunes music-management software, and the iTunes Store is the biggest online content retailer, with many exclusive songs and videos.

CR's take. Though our data can't predict performance for current iPods, our findings raise continuing questions about how long iPod batteries might last compared with those of other brands. And iPods are at best undistinguished in tech support and features.

The latest results defied concerns among some analysts and investors that the iPod, which dominates the market for MP3 players, was seeing weak sales in the market. The company sold 8.7 million of the devices in the quarter, for $1.56 billion in revenue, up from 6.5 million iPods and $1.21 billion in revenue a year earlier.

October 18, 2006

But now there's a growing recognition among some record executives and performers that the people who are downloading illegally are frequently huge music fans and that marketing to them may be more desirable in the long run than suing or otherwise harassing them.

Hence the alliance between Jay-Z and Coke. By inserting promotional material into the decoy files, and then planting those files prominently on file-sharing sites, record labels and other marketers can turn what is now an antipiracy tool into an advertising medium. "The concept here is making the peer-to-peer networks work for us," says Jay-Z's attorney, Michael Guido. "While peer-to-peer users are stealing the intellectual property, they are also the active music audience," and "this technology allows us to market back to them."

With YouTube, though, the company isn't getting any technology to speak of; in fact, YouTube users will probably notice an improvement in coming months in some of the secondary parts of the site, like mail and messaging, which were known for their occasional hiccups and downright outages.

Instead, Google is getting an awesome brand name, and the eyeballs that come with it. It's one of the ironies of the current Internet that success is often uncorrelated with a company's R&D budget or the number of programmers on its staff. As proven with social networking sites such as MySpace, what makes for success is often being in the right place at exactly the time that a particular fad breaks your way.

The suits, against Sony Pictures Entertainment's Grouper Networks Inc. and Bolt Inc., mark the first time a major media company has tried to use the courts to narrowly interpret "safe harbor" protections provided by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 so it would exclude video-sharing sites.

October 17, 2006

And what you'll find out is a fucking digital file album, sans packaging, sans disc, sans anything but the lousy compressed files with DRM no less, costs $14.69 cents in the U.K. But it gets worse, MUCH worse. Let's say you want the new Jet album, or the John Mayer album, then the price is 9.48 pounds sterling, or $17.63. But, it gets even WORSE! Let's say you want the Justin Timberlake record, then you pay 9.99, or $18.57 cents. Same price for Diddy's new masterpiece. As for Dylan's "Modern Times", you're paying 8.99, or $16.72. THIS IS FUCKING NUTS!

October 16, 2006

The song "Waitin'" by R&B and hip-hop singer Choklate, can be downloaded from several places online. On iTunes and Napster.com, it costs 99 cents. But on a new Web site, it's selling for 23 cents -- for now, anyway.

Amie Street, a recently launched music Web site that carries independent -- and mostly little-known -- artists, is trying an unusual model for selling music. Instead of selling songs at one fixed price, the site determines prices for songs based on how frequently they're downloaded. Newly submitted tracks are free when they're added and then rise in price as people download them; after about 130 buys, they reach the site's maximum price of 98 cents. Many songs on the site are currently priced at six cents or less.

October 13, 2006

When a song is downloaded, you will have an option. You can decide that ownership of this song is your right and freely distribute the files to your friends and to the people who also think it's their right, without payment.

Or, you can support the artist who wrote and recorded this song and click the PayPal button at the top of the page and send Juliana a contribution. The iTunes standard of $.99 per song may seem too high for you, in which case you can send $.50 - though there is virtually nothing else you can buy legally for $.50. Alternatively, you can think of the number of people with whom you might share these files and give a multiple of $.99 for each song you download.

One distinctive feature: The ability to sidestep the computer altogether by allowing users to upload music directly onto the device by connecting it to a CD player with a cord. The Walkman can be plugged directly into Sony's Net Juke home-stereo system, which was revealed yesterday.

While stressing the new Walkman allows users to organize music on personal computers in a similar way to Apple's iTunes, Sony said it saw non-PC users as a significant opportunity for growth.

October 11, 2006

October 09, 2006

October 06, 2006

October 05, 2006

October 04, 2006

In explaining his ruling, Judge Norgle cited numerous other companies that use "max" in their names, including OfficeMax Inc. and CarMax Business Services LLC. Amerimax's use of "max" is "not likely to cause confusion among consumers," Judge Norgle said.

Indeed, trademark infringement cases are generally "about consumers and whether they're confused," said Philip Jones, a partner at Chicago law firm Brinks Hofer Gilson & Lione.

To win the case, Re/Max would need to submit evidence, such as a survey, showing that consumers have suffered from confusion as a result of the two names, Mr. Jones said.

October 03, 2006

October 02, 2006

Computer scientists say that after years of steady progress in this field, there has been a slowdown -- which is what Netflix executives say prompted them to offer the problem to a wide audience for solution.