Music Industry News

Limewire: They Still Just Don't Get It

Source: Michael Ricci
June 22, 2010

LimeWire wants parents to know that that stealing is OK as long as it's music.

By Moses Avalon

So, in one of my many news feeds I came across this open letter by an anonymous webmaster of LimeWire. In it he still maintains that what they did was not wrong and that his children will continue to use illegal P2P to get their music.

His children?!?! WTF?

I don't usually post responses on pages like this but as a parent ...

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Digital Music Sales to Outpace Physical by 2011

Source: We All Make Music
June 20, 2010

There's been a lot of talk about digital music sales outpacing those of physical recordings.  Now there's a well researched study that sheds some light on when that will actually happen.

PricewaterehouseCoopers Entertainment and Media Outlook for 2010-2014 projects that digital music sales will overtake physical in 2011.

There you have it. It's very likely that two years from now most music sales will be digital.

The report also predicts is that music sales will start to turn around in ...

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The Voice of Music

Source: Jazz Lives by Michael Steinman
June 21, 2010

I began my jazz life rather innocently as a Listener: a child sitting close to a V-M (The Voice of Music, it said on the inside lid) three-speed phonograph. I can summon up the worn brown felt of the turntable, the pattern of the speaker grille. And as I listened to the record of the moment I watched the label revolve, transfixed both by the music and by the whirling shapes the writing on the label made. When the record ...

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Pawn Shops and the (Jazz) Underclasses

Source: Brilliant Corners, a Boston Jazz Blog
June 21, 2010

One measure of the way things have been going for the jazz underclasses and the working poor in general over the last 20 years is to look at what's happened to pawn shops.Pawn shops are like tidal wetlands. You take estuaries for granted until a weather catastrophe hits and your split-level gets washed out to sea. Look at New Orleans.In the same way, when financial storms hit, pawnbrokers have been there to absorb some of the ...

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Trust and the Social Consumer

Source: HypeBot
June 20, 2010

If you subscribe to the concept that (at least sometimes) the band is a brand and the fan is at their core a consumer, there is something to be learned from the new Nielson Consumer 360 study.

“Consumers expect brands to be listening," Pete Blackshaw, Nielson EVP of Digital Strategic Services concluded in summing up the new study. “It's a no-blink environment." Consumers aren't always paying attention to your marketing message, according to the study, but they're always paying attention ...

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Live Nation's Stock Drop 16% Due to Concert Cancellations

Source: All About Jazz
June 21, 2010

Concert touring giant Live Nation, a Wall Street darling for much of the past year as it far outperformed the S&P 500 index, has hit some sour notes of late.

Widespread reports of a poor summer concert season -- including high-profile cancellations, poor ticket sales and the move by the company to drop its $13 per ticket service fee -- have hit the company's shares hard. Since April 1, Live Nation shares have fallen 16 percent compared to a 5 ...

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Music Revolution Forces Major Label EMI to Evolve

Source: All About Jazz
June 21, 2010

Back in the nineties, when CDs were selling strong, we called the major labels the Big Six. After the music business's major transformation over the past decade, we're down to the Big Three -- officially speaking anyway.

EMI, one of the so-called Big Four major record labels, no longer considers itself a “label" per se, but a “comprehensive rights management company" under new leadership of Roger Faxon, formerly the head of its robust publishing division. EMI's new strategy was undertaken ...

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Bandwidth Music | Technology Conference to Meet

Source: HypeBot
June 18, 2010

On August 19 and 20

TheBandwidth Music | Technology Conferencetakes place on August 19 and 20 in San Francisco. This year's event will feature speakers from LimeWire, Beggars Group, IODA, and A2IM, with a special keynote by Jac Holzman, the former CEOand Creative Head of Elektra Records(1950) and Nonesuch Records (1964), who isnow serving as Senior Advisor to WMG's ChairmanEdgar Bronfman Jr.

Other Featured Speakers AtConference: