Category: Music

Through Deezer you can listen to 2.5 million streamed songs. Downloading is no longer necessary. You can mark what you like and Deezer just starts.

Scott Hobbs is a student at Dundee University, UK, who designed an interactive turning table, operated by touch-screens, for his graduation project. Instead of turntables, records or cds the DJ gets to use two large touchscreens. Hobbs calls it the ATTIGO TT.

In the new video game Grand Theft Auto IV players can buy MP3s of music that can be heard on the radio stations in the game.

Music lovers have unlimited possibilities to discover new music with Musicovery. Although the interface counts five languages, almost all interaction is visual. We click something, and fast as lightning get new, similar music. The service is free. Registered members can listen, save their favorite music, and exclude certain songs. Songs can be ordered or downloaded at Amazon, eBay or iTunes. Besides, paying members can listen to HiFi music, and don’t get any advertisements (dc, Dutch).

Thus new business models in music slowly evolve. It is all about being entertained musically, to discover music, and to re-experience music (and the emotions that go with it). The better a brand is capable to offer this experience, the more money they can charge. And advertisements then are only disturbing. It is very simple: the more value you add, the more money you can charge. This is a nice example.

European commissioner Viviane Reding (Information & Media) has plans for a European music market, although national copyright laws are in her way. Licenses for copyright, which have to be taken care of separately in every country now, could cover several countries, or even the whole European Union (dc, Dutch). In the past local copyright was introduced, like countries borders were a couple of years before that. The world however isn’t divided in countries: we have done that ourselves at some point. To protect us from evil from outside. As this threat is fading, borders slowly fade too (the process of denationalizing), and we have to start thinking of copyright on a worldwide level. Let’s start with Europe. This will prove to be hard enough…

Transmissions is the new music initiative of social network site MySpace. Musicians can provide materials to be sold through Transmissions: especially live-concerts. The artist determines the sales price. The income is shared between MySpace and the musicians (em, Dutch).
The music business model slowly but surely totally turns around: artists in the near future will make money on their live concerts, and use their recorded music as promotion. At the same time, personal music brands evolve: brands that can entertain you with music, wherever you are in the world. They can easily develop from social networks, as the relatively young users of these networks (coincidently) also have a more than moderate interest in music than other age groups. In the end social networks will return to their core activity: facilitating mutual contact, and personal music brands will go their own separate ways. Their own brand name, and their own look-and-feel are good first steps.

Users of the new iPod Touch will automatically see an icon ‘Starbucks’ when they enter an outlet of this coffee chain. When they click the icon, they can see the latest play list, and directly download a song or album through online music store iTunes. This goes over the wireless network standard available at Starbucks, which is automatically recognized by iPod Touch (mf, Dutch). And thus iTunes further develops as a personal music brand. Now just through iPod, later through any mobile device. Now you still have to download a play list, later iTunes will directly recognize the music you are listening too. Then you can say: ‘that song they played at least three times that night! That song.’ iTunes then always listens along, and can directly recall every auditive experience. Wherever in the world, no matter how long ago. This is a small step in that direction.

Music channel TMF starts the ‘kweekvijver’ (breeding ground). Here artists can upload their music and promote themselves. Through their activities they save credits for their own TV campaign or online campaign (mf, Dutch). This way personal music brands develop more and more. This type of brands stimulate, facilitate, and distribute music. Music we will in the end hardly pay for. The most important function will then be creating a live experience in the physical world or the virtual world. That is what people will pay for. The rest is just promotion. The time in which artists could earn big status is over for good. Making music is going to be just like the other arts, and like before will be an activity by and for the people, which is really hard to make good money of.

Through Simplify Media users can share and play each other’s music play lists. With some extra software users can download and install, they can add friends, check their play lists and directly play them in iTunes. At the moment it is only available for iTunes, but the versions for WinAmp and Windows Media Player are on their way (mf, Dutch). Thus personal music brands develop more and more. Now we can see the play lists, in the future we will also see the appreciation, we can review music we don’t even have on our own PC, and we will automatically see what music our friends, family or colleagues liked. New music will be discovered quickly this way. A young band through play lists can conquer the whole world in a couple of days after making their music available online. This is a small step in that direction.

Controversial music exchange service LimeWire gets a legal version. With this, users can legally download music for about 1 euro per song (dc, Dutch). This way a personal music brand comes into being. At first, most important is to have a complete assortment, so there is no reason to find music in another place, and then the personal profile follows. LimeWire can have built the profile based on the illegal music downloads, and then give advice about music that can be downloaded legally. In the end, new artists will come who will sell their music cheaper, or even give it for free (and make money on concerts and merchandise), so there will be price competition between the various personal music brands. The added value in the end will be the personal advice. This is a small step in that direction.

Amazon starts an online music store in which you can buy and download MP3 music without digital rights management software. It is expected that Amazon will work with more than 12,000 music publishers, and thus can offer millions of songs. British recording company EMI has signed the first contract with Amazon. The store will open before the end of this year (dc, Dutch). Amazon this way could grow into a personal music brand. For a start, a personal brand needs to be complete: offer ALL music ever made in the world. After that, a personal music brand can make selections on an individual basis, adapted to time, place and situation. This is a possible step in that direction.

Social music platform Last.FM‘s users can now also watch music videos. Recording companies, among others EMI and Warner, will make about two thousand clips available online. And the amount will grow quickly, according to Last.fm. Their final goal is to have all music videos online that have ever been made (em, Dutch). This way personal music brands gradually take shape. These brands give us auditive entertainment, and can show us the matching video if we wish. Or the song texts, the karaoke version, or the versions of the various instruments. And that for all music that has ever been made. This is a small step in that direction.