Category: Technology

Major record label moves the ‘demo tape’ online
The days of the traditional demo tape may be numbered.
U.K. recording label EMI has set up a new, online system to accept music files and allow aspiring stars to tell if their work has been reviewed.
The London-based group’s Parlophone label has adopted a new software, called A&R Tools, which was created by ex-musician turned IT consultant Nigel Rees and the software group Senica.
Parlophone is considering phasing out acceptance of demo tapes and CDs sent by mail in favour of the online system.
Prospective musicians already send MP3 files, web addresses and links to personal sites such as MySpace, where demos can be placed online.
But, until recently, recording studios had a tough time keeping track of online demos.
The new software provides a more viable system to receive and rate these recordings.
Musicians and musical groups can upload their recording and photos to the Parlophone website.
The artist and repertoire (A&R) team at the recording studio can then rate the material, group it with other work from the same artist and, if it seems promising, forward it up the hierarchy in the company.
Artists are notified when their work has been seen and reviewed.
The software system is already in use at some independent labels and Parlophone tried it out for three months this summer before deciding to run with it.
“One of our top priorities is to keep our talent-spotting process as efficient and up to date as possible,” Parlophone’s Nigel Coxon said in a statement.
“This new system allows us to do just that, while at the same time, helping us stay committed to giving anyone the opportunity to be heard.”
In addition to Parlophone, whose artists include Paul McCartney, Radiohead and Norah Jones, EMI has other major recording labels, such as EMI Records and Virgin Records.
It has not announced plans to take online demos at these labels.

Classic Duran Duran Videos Hitting The Web
For the first time, Duran Duran’s glamorous, bold and sometimes risque catalog of music videos will be made available as digital downloads beginning next month.
An initial offering of 20 videos will roll out Oct. 2 across video-enabled download services, as part of a worldwide initiative driven by EMI, with whom the group recorded for much of its 25-plus year career.
Groundbreaking promos for “Planet Earth,” “Girls On Film,” “Hungry Like the Wolf,” “The Wild Boys” and “A View to a Kill” are among the first batch. Participating online retailers will set the price for the video downloads, according to an EMI spokesperson.
As part of the offering, an exclusive bundle will be available through Apple’s iTunes Music Store, which includes two documentary shorts, “A Day in the Life” and “Liberty.”
Keyboardist and founding member Nick Rhodes says band members welcome new opportunities in the digital music arena. “You have to accept that business has changed. We underwent the industrial revolution in the music business for the first time — in many, many years — over the last few years,” Rhodes tells Billboard.com. “There were many of us, including myself and Duran Duran, who seized the opportunity as we saw this as the beginning of something exciting and new that would undoubtedly revolutionize what we are doing. And it is still only the tip of the iceberg.”
As previously reported, Duran Duran will this month become the first major band to introduce its members as avatars in the Second Life virtual world.

Universal licenses songs for free downloads on ad-supported site
LOS ANGELES (AP) ó Universal Music, home to artists such as U2, The Killers and Audioslave, will make its catalog of recordings and music videos available for free on an ad-supported website launching later this year, the site’s operator said Tuesday.
The two-year deal calls for New York-based SpiralFrog.com to split advertising revenue with the recording company, said Lance Ford, chief marketing and sales officer for SpiralFrog.
Users can download an unlimited number of songs or music videos if they register at the site.
The tracks cannot be burned to a CD, but users will be able to transfer music to portable media players equipped with Microsoft Windows digital rights management software, Ford said.
However, the service will not work with Apple Computer Inc.’s Macintosh computers or its market-leading iPod music players.
Offering music and video for free on ad-supported websites is not new, but such services have generally been restricted to streaming, in which music and video files are not stored on a user’s computer, limiting playback to when there is an Internet connection. SpiralFrog will offer downloads, permitting playback offline and on portable devices.
SpiralFrog will require users to return to the site and renew registration at least once a month or the tracks cease to play.
The company is in talks with other major recording companies on similar deals, Ford said.
“They understand and support this ad model,” he said.
Ford declined to disclose the value of the deal but said it included advance payments to Universal Music. The label declined to comment.
SpiralFrog hopes to appeal to music fans who now flock to online file-sharing services to download music and videos that are often pirated.
A beta version of the site is expected to go live in December. Initially, only computer users in the United States and Canada will be able to download content.
In May, online music service Napster Inc. began allowing visitors to Napster.com to listen to tracks five times for free on an ad-supported site it launched to lure users to its paid subscriptions.

Burn, Hollywood, Burn (DVDs, That Is)
Imagine. As of today you are able to burn a movie on your PC without worrying about it turning into a federal case.
The movie-download site CinemaNow has unveiled a new service that allows customers who buy films online to make a copy on disc that can be watched on TV sets via a standard-issue DVD player.
Studios and online distributors see the ability to watch movies on television–as opposed to a PC screen–as a key to making legal downloads a viable business model. Until now, however, studios were wary about permitting DVD-burning of downloaded films because copy-protection schemes weren’t reliable.
“Today, our customers will experience a true innovation in home entertainment: the ability to obtain a DVD in the comfort of their living room,” says Curt Marvis, CEO of CinemaNow.
The new service, a joint venture between CinemaNow and Disney, Sony, MGM, Universal and Lions Gate, features an initial offering of more than 100 big-name Hollywood flicks, including Barbershop, Charlie’s Angles: Full Throttle, About a Boy, Scent of a Woman, Backdraft, Resident Evil: Apocalypse and Agent Cody Banks.
Customers must first download CinemaNow’s Windows-only burning software (Mac fans are out of luck–at least for now, but more on that later) and then fork over $9 a pop for older titles to $15 for the fresher ones. The downloads include nearly all the bells and whistles of a DVD, including 5.1 digital surround sound, featurettes, commentary tracks and other bonus materials.
Marvis says the average download time will be about three hours–approximately the length of one Lords of the Rings installment.
One caveat: CinemaNow says that because the video is highly compressed to expedite downloading, the burned discs won’t be as high-quality as commercial DVDs. But according to one studio executive, the benefits outweigh the drawbacks.
“We see the additive to the packaged media business, because functionally, retail can’t carry every title,” Benjamin S. Feingold, president of Sony Pictures Home Entertainment tells the Los Angeles Times. “I think that’s good. If you can access My Beautiful Laundrette–that’s the classic example of a picture at some point you’ll be able to instantly download and make a copy for yourself. That’s pro-consumer.”
The same technology also prevents customers from burning more than one duplicate–a “feature” added to assuage piracy-shy studios that some pundits say is decidedly not pro-consumer.
CinemaNow will still offer rental downloads for $1.99 each.
The debut of CinemaNow’s “Burn to DVD” service comes two days after rival MovieLink, which is jointly owned by Paramount, Universal, Warner Bros. and Sony, announced its intention to launch a similar online service by the middle of next year.
Meanwhile, speculation continues to mount that Apple’s iTunes Music Store will soon be offering movie downloads, with an announcement coming as soon as the company’s Worldwide Developers Conference next month.
According to the rumor site ThinkSecret.com, Apple has sealed deals with Universal, Disney, Paramount Pictures and Warner Bros. to make the studios’ films downloadable to Macs and iPods.
However, iTunes will reportedly be more akin to the rental model, with the downloaded film viewable for a certain period before before “turning off.” Apple declined to comment on the report.

Apple Planning To “Rent” Movies Online
Apple has been quietly signing deals with the major studios in which they have agreed to allow their movies to be downloaded on computers or video iPods for one-time-only viewing, several online technology websites reported on Tuesday.
Apple Chairman Steve Jobs is expected to announce the deals during a keynote address to the Worldwide Developers Conference next month.
According to ThinkSecret.com, a website that claims to provide inside information on Apple, the deal marks a rare setback for Jobs, who has battled the studios to allow cheap downloads of movies that consumers would own, not rent.
The website said that the movies will be coded with a date stamp that would either limit the number of playbacks or allow the movie to be viewed an unlimited number of times for a predetermined duration.

Player upgrades, new devices on music horizon
SAN FRANCISCO (Billboard) – If the rampant speculation over the digital music plans of Microsoft and Apple Computer are to be believed, the digital music landscape is about to change radically in the very near future.
Both companies are said to be readying portable digital music players in time for the holiday sales season that significantly raise the bar on features and functionality previously unavailable in their respective product lines.
That Microsoft may actually introduce an MP3 player at all has generated the largest amount of buzz. Such a development would mark a major shift in the company’s strategy. To date, the Xbox game console is the only product Microsoft makes itself. Historically, the company’s model has been to license its technology to those creating the hardware and services, fostering an ecosystem of developers.
But in the digital music market, neither the MP3 player manufacturers nor online music retailers using the company’s technology have proved capable of successfully competing with Apple’s iPod and iTunes Music Store. Introducing its own combined device and service essentially is a vote of no confidence in the very ecosystem the company has been trying to create.
Microsoft has not commented to date on the rumors.
CUTTING INTO APPLE’S PIE
For Microsoft to mount an effective challenge to Apple, analysts say, it will have to bring something newer and/or better to the table than what the iPod currently provides. The consensus among several industry sources is that Microsoft will attempt to do this with a device featuring a Wi-Fi wireless Internet connection. This would allow users to download music and other content directly to the device without using a PC.
Whether this tactic will prove to be Microsoft’s silver bullet remains a matter of debate.
“It’s a nonissue,” Jupiter Research analyst Michael Gartenberg says. “It’s something that the geeks are into, but Wi-Fi isn’t mainstream or ubiquitous enough to affect the masses.”
Besides Wi-Fi’s penchant for eating up battery life, Gartenberg says that the idea of music search and discovery on a handheld device is a user-interface nightmare, which makes it a questionable lynchpin. Instead, he hopes to see a device that builds upon the key factors that made the iPod a hit — design, usability and marketing.
Its success with the Xbox proves Microsoft has the ability to develop hip products and the willingness to back them up with extensive lifestyle marketing campaigns. In fact, the same team responsible for the Xbox reportedly is behind this new entertainment initiative.
Meanwhile, Apple is not expected to stand idle. The company is rumored to be working on a Wi-Fi-enabled iPod. Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster notes that Apple, which normally releases two new iPod models every 12 months, has yet to unveil a new product in the series this year. He expects Apple to introduce a wireless version of the iPod this fall.
GETTING VOCAL
Other Apple patent applications point to interest in text-to-speech and speech-recognition capabilities that would enable the iPod to “speak” song titles and allow users to give voice navigation commands. Additionally, there’s the “real” video iPod featuring a touch-screen display, plus the long-rumored iPhone.
All of this is good news to the music industry. Microsoft and Apple have the clout to do much more than simply get existing iPod owners to replace their old devices.
“If these scenarios pan out, and we get some interesting products out there, the potential would be that these could be devices that attract more consumers to buying more digital downloads than physical CDs,” says Michael McGuire, an analyst with Gartner G2.
But it’s really the rumblings of an integrated device and service from Microsoft that has the music industry abuzz, and that’s a significant feat, given the hype factor Apple has enjoyed to date.
Analysts suspect many consumers have not made the transition to digital music because they see it as Apple’s domain and not a real market shift.
“It is important to have more than one or two vendors if you want the market to grow rapidly,” McGuire says. “It is an actual ecosystem as opposed to a smaller ecosystem dominated by one company.”
Additionally, music industry execs who publicly praise Apple’s establishment of the digital music field have been waging a silent war with the company over exactly how digital music is sold, with such issues as variable pricing and device interoperability as battlegrounds.
If executed well, priced reasonably and backed by an extensive marketing campaign, a Microsoft challenge could set the stage for real competition to the iPod.
“Another strong player who can grow the market overall and take away some of the power Apple wields in negotiations is something people are quietly rooting for,” Gartenberg says. “If the rumors are true, it’ll be an interesting fall.”

MTV Launches Online Music, Video Store
LOS ANGELES – For years, MTV Networks Inc. sat on the sidelines while Apple Computer Inc., RealNetworks Inc. and others racked up sales of music downloads. Now the cable network group that helped popularize music videos two decades ago is entering the online music fray with URGE, a new service that makes its public beta debut on Wednesday.
URGE comes integrated into the newest version of Microsoft Corp.’s Windows Media Player, which users of Microsoft’s Windows will receive in coming weeks as an upgrade. Prior to that, the player upgrade will be available for download at the URGE and Microsoft Web sites.
At launch, URGE will have more than 2 million tracks, which can be purchased individually at 99 cents or as full albums starting at around $9.95.
The service also will offer unlimited downloads at a monthly rate of $9.95, or $14.95 for the ability to transfer songs to any of more than 100 compatible portable music players.
Initially, URGE will also feature streaming videos, with video downloads becoming available for purchase later this year.
URGE will also be the featured music service on Microsoft’s media player, which will continue to have built-in links to several other services.
The company has begun clearing content from its vault of exclusive appearances by recording artists on staples such as “TRL” and “MTV Unplugged” for sale on URGE, said Van Toffler, president of MTV Networks Music Group.
The tie-in to MTV should also help URGE sell consumers on the upside of subscription services better than others have to date, said analyst Phil Leigh with Inside Digital Media.
“The thing that works to their advantage is they have a well-recognized brand that is popular to a demographic that is going to be receptive to purchasing digital music,” Leigh said.
Still, URGE enters an online music market struggling to compete with online piracy and the dominance of Apple’s iTunes Music Store and its market-leading iPod digital music player.
And like established rivals RealNetworks’ Rhapsody and Napster Inc., URGE is not compatible with Apple’s Macintosh computers or its market-leading iPod digital music player.
That incompatibility, combined with the availability of music on Internet file-sharing networks, has made subscription music plans a tough sell.
Earlier this year, Napster said it had more than a half-million subscribers. RealNetworks, which doesn’t break out the number of Rhapsody subscribers, says it has more than 1.7 million paying customers for the service and its cadre of radio streaming plans combined.
Apple’s iTunes Music Store, which doesn’t offer a subscription plan, has sold more than 1 billion songs since its launch three years ago, while more than 50 million iPods have been purchased since 2001.
“Whether the consumer really wants a service that’s only compatible with non-iPod players is going to be the big issue,” said Steve Gordon, entertainment attorney and author of “The Future of the Music Business.”
Toffler acknowledges the popularity of Apple’s store and player, but argues both the a la carte singles model and the subscription business are still in their infancy.
“Only 5 percent of music sales happen digitally,” he said. “Hopefully, through the TV channels we have and the dot-com sites … we can educate people about the virtues of subscriptions. It’s not about selling a million singles.”

Do you own songs bought online? Well, sort of
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Like millions around the world, you have an iPod, the market-leading digital music player made by Apple Computer Inc. and have spent perhaps a few hundred dollars buying songs from the company’s iTunes music store.
But do you really own the tunes? Whether you do, however, depends on how you define ownership.
“Owning implies control and if you bought the tracks on iTunes you don’t have complete control,” said Rob Enderle, president of market researcher the Enderle Group.
Those songs you bought online from Apple play just fine, of course, so long you do so on the company’s iTunes digital jukebox software, on an iPod, burn a CD (you can only burn the same “playlist,” or collection of songs, seven times), or stream them wirelessly to your stereo using another Apple gizmo.
But Apple’s FairPlay digital rights management, or DRM, software prevents you from listening to those purchased songs on a music player from Dell Inc., Creative, Sony, or others. The same thing goes for songs you’ve imported to your computer from CDs you already own.
The DRM software is Apple’s way of preventing piracy and is a large part of the reason why the recording industry has so warmly embraced the iTunes Music Store.
“A lot of people would argue it’s the closest thing you’re going to get other than buying a CD,” said analyst Mike McGuire of market research firm Gartner of the restrictions Apple and others place on music bought online.
To be sure, Apple rivals have their own DRM technology to protect against piracy, such as Sony Corp. and Microsoft Corp., but none have been as successful so far as Apple. The Cupertino, California-based company has a 70-percent market share in the United States for digital music players, and higher than that for music purchased online.
Beyond just having songs you bought from iTunes “trapped” on the iPod and in iTunes, it’s also not a snap to move songs from an iPod – whether you bought them or initially pulled them off a CD – back up to a computer. While it’s possible to do so, Apple doesn’t make it easy, right off the bat, because it’s trying to discourage piracy.
“They do it to lock you in,” Enderle said, noting an example of if you spent $500 on buying songs from iTunes. “You now have a $500 switching cost to pull out of iTunes.”
But there are a number of different and perfectly legal reasons why you’d want to be able to do that.
For example, your computer suffers a disastrous crash, you lose data that includes your music library, and you want to recover your lost music library from your iPod and return it to your now-repaired computer.
There are programs that let you move songs from the iPod, up to a computer – such as Senuti and PodWorks – but, for the average user, it may be more than he or she is up for. There are some ways around companies’ DRM technology, but those are far trickier to use and Microsoft and others frequently plug holes in their software to prevent converting DRM-protected songs into unprotected MP3 files.
As for how complicated it is to get around DRM protection, consider this quote from a Website: “Microsoft’s DRM is actually, for a change, really well thought out. The XML content header at the top of every protected WMA file just can’t be changed because it’s digitally signed using either ECC or RSA. The same thing goes for the actual license files and corresponding keys.”
That’s language that is probably not readily understood by the average consumer.
“The average consumer hasn’t run into the restrictions” that the likes of Apple, Microsoft and Sony have placed on online music purchases, McGuire said. “Certainly there’s some interest in Apple wanting people to return to the iTunes store but these restrictions are really due to the rights holders and the labels.”

BitTorrent teams up with Warner Bros. to sell movies, TV
BitTorrent, the internet file-sharing site once blamed for helping people pirate movies and TV shows, has partnered with Warner Bros. to sell the studio’s content.
Starting in the summer, the BitTorrent website will offer for sale more than 200 movies and TV shows from the Warner Bros. catalogue.
Available titles will include new films such as Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride and The Dukes of Hazzard, as well as selections from the studio’s library, including The Matrix, Dog Day Afternoon and the sci-fi TV series Babylon 5.
Customers will be able to download the content to their computer drives using the BitTorrent technology.
However, they will not be able to copy files to another computer or burn them onto a DVD.
Shows to be released on same day as DVDs
New content is scheduled to be available on the site on the same day as new DVDs are offered in retail stores.
Prices have not yet been finalized, but the company expects to price TV shows at around $1 US per episode and movies at the price of a new release on DVD.
“We have just been embraced by the largest movie studio that is owned by largest media company,” said BitTorrent co-founder Ashwin Navin, according to Reuters. “We expect to see more deals and to push the envelope.”
In 2004, the Motion Picture Association of America began actively pursuing legal action against websites around the world that facilitated file sharing using the BitTorrent software.
The system allows a large file ñ for instance, a movie or TV show ñ to be broken into smaller parts, so that a person downloading the file can also begin sharing it with another person. This allows for faster downloads because the bandwidth is shared.
In 2005, the California-based BitTorrent formed an agreement with the motion picture association to help stem unauthorized swapping of pirated movies and TV shows on its website.

Ricky Gervais Podcast to Be Sold
MOUNT LAUREL, N.J. – Ricky Gervais’ podcast is going commercial.
A New Jersey-based company announced Tuesday it will begin selling subscriptions to the “Ricky Gervais Show” next week.
Gervais and Stephen Merchant, the team behind the BBC’s acclaimed comedy series “The Office,” launched the podcast in December. Podcasts are audio recordings that are posted online; most are free.
The 30-minute show contains much scatological humor. It features the pair interviewing Karl Pilkington, a producer at their old radio show, about topics such as the cognitive abilities of chimpanzees and the existence of vampires and ghosts.
Wayne-based Audible said it will offer two seasons of the show ó one starting Feb. 28 and one in the fall ó each with at least four episodes. The podcasts will cost $1.95 per episode or $6.95 per season.