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What Sex and Great Music Really Have in Common
Source:
HypeBot
Scientists say that our brain reacts to great music similar to way it reacts to sex. In both of these situations, the experience of pleasure that we have is mediated by the release of the brain's reward chemical, dopamine. This finding is based on the results of experiments done by analyst Valorie Salimpoor of McGill University in Montreal, Canada. Music produces an intellectual reward, because the listener has to follow the sequence of notes to appreciate it. For the study, the participants ...
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53 Billion Visits a Year...
Source:
Digital Music News
How many visits are pirate sites getting in a year? Well, one security firm drew a circle around 43 'pirates,' and found traffic levels of 53 billion visits a year. MarkMonitorcounted a range of upload, torrent, and P2P destinations, though actual trades were not tallied (a critical component). “Traffic to sites suspected of offering pirated content was over 146 million visits per day," the report claimed. That's a big number, but MarkMonitor promised it was just 'the tip of the ...
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Nielsen Ratings at Odds with RIAA's Claim of 'Lost Sales"
Source:
Moses Supposes
In April of 2004 I was working on a piece for Keyboard magazine about bar codes. I was trying to determine if the “free" barcode many CD Replicators provide is a real added value to the indie artist, or just a bogus premium. But what evolved was a much bigger and more important story. Talking to SoundScan revealed a massive mistruth disseminated by the RIAA about the reality of declining record sales. Soundscan (owned by Nielsen) uses the barcodes on ...
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Report: Piracy Sites Attract 53 Billion Visits Yearly
Source:
HypeBot
A report from security firm MarkMonitor states that 43 sites identified for piracy attract 146 million visits daily for a total of 53.29 billion a year. 67% of those 43 sites are hosted in North America or Western Europe and according to the study the 3 largest—RapidShare, MegaVideo and MegaUpload—collectively get 21 billion visits each year. To be sure, some of the named sites also host legal content and a only fraction of the unauthorized content is music, but these ...
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Luke Lewis: "Streaming Will Stop Looking Like the Future - Which Means Piracy Will Flourish."
Source:
HypeBot
This grim end-of-the year forecast comes from NME Deputy Editor Luke Lewis. He starts off his article of digital music predictions for 2011 by saying that, “Streaming will stop looking like the future... which means that piracy will flourish." His reasoning: “Spotify lost £17 million last year, and key albums keep getting yanked from its library. Last.fm has never turned a profit in eight years," he says. “Last year, Sky Songs died, and We7 scaled back its unlimited on-demand ambitions." Sure, ...
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Here's a Better Version for Free - How One Band Responded to Their Song Getting Leaked
Source:
HypeBot
These days songs leak out. And if you have rabid enough fans, they'll start listening to, downloading, and postings such songs before you intended. But how do you respond? Threaten to sue. Say damning things. Maybe even quit music—forever. This band, not so much. Once Eisley found out that their new song “Smarter" had leaked - after having debuted on a podcast - they were excited. Fans had cut their song out of the podcast recording and started to post it everywhere. Rather than ...
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In Defense of Ultimate Chart - It's More Than Hype
Source:
HypeBot
After comparing the hype surrounding Ultimate Chart with the result, Richard MacManus, the Founder and Editor of Read Write Web, felt underwhelmed. Numerous publications and music industry thinkers, including myself, proclaimed Ultimate Chart to be nothing short of a game changer and a Godsend. So why, after all this publicity and enthusiasm, does Ultimate Chart look vaguely similar to Billboard's rankings? That's what MacManus wants to know. Well, because they're not supposed to look THAT different. Overtime, some of the artists ...
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If Major Labels Are Bleeding so Badly, Why Are They Still Creating the Biggest Artists?
Source:
Digital Music News
Do we have to talk about the demise of the major label system again? Perhaps this is just a four-car pileup that demands a slow-down and stare. The lights are dimming at EMI, political upheaval is tainting UMG and Sony, and WMG is often considered 'next' for the wolves. But if the majors are bleeding so badly, then why are they still creating the biggest artists? And, perhaps more importantly, why aren't indies and DIYers even close to taking the ...
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