2highbehind

Universal's CEO Once Called iPod Users Thieves. Now He's Giving Songs Away

By Seth Mnookin                                

                                                                                                                                 

Illustration: Demetrios Psillos                                                                                                             It's Monday afternoon, and Doug Morris, chair and CEO of Universal Music Group, is eating lunch in his private dining room at the company's Manhattan headquarters. >> Wired

 

UK retailers: DRM is killing us

UK retailers to record labels: DRM is killing us

       

By Ryan Paul          | Published: November 21, 2007 - 08:57AM CT        

                   

In response to declining music sales in the UK, the Entertainment Retailers Association (ERA) has called for the music industry to put an end to DRM. The organization—which represents retailers who sell music and DVDs—blames draconian digital copy protection technologies for the slow growth of the digital music market. ARS

I have been writing about DRM for two years now and I wonder why it took retailers so long to speak out about this silly copy protection technology. Anyway, it's about time this technology becomes obsolete and music becomes available in a better way. I have a bet that 2008 will be DRM free, it feels different from the other big liberations in history though. Mark You will have to pay for dinner in Toscanini ;-)

Accenture innovation awards

IIP is selected out of over 100 Dutch companies (25 left) to take a shot at winning the Accenture innovation award. There is also a prize given by the public. You can VOTE  here >>

TED

Looked at Andrew's blog and saw this great TED presentation. This professor is a great ideas man ;-)

Is Piracy the cause for the decline in CD sales?

Interesting study >>

Thanks Radiohead and "Free is more complicated than you think"

Today I also downloaded the Radiohead album, for free of course. It was a simple experience and the album is waiting for me to play it. Maybe tomorrow. I saw a great blog post on Chris Anderson's blog about the Longtail:

A few years ago I tried an experiment where I put the entire text of my book, "God's Debris," on the Internet for free, after sales of the hard copy and its sequel, "The Religion War" slowed. My hope was that the people who liked the free e-book would buy the sequel. According to my fan mail, people loved the free book. I know they loved it because they emailed to ask when the sequel would also be available for free. For readers of my non-Dilbert books, I inadvertently set the market value for my work at zero. Oops >>

Radiohead Numbers Emerge, 62 Percent Paid Nothing

Just 38 percent of Radiohead fans paid for the latest album, according to data recently supplied by comScore.  The band began allowed fans to name their price for the downloadable release, In Rainbows, a closely-watched experiment.  But most fans grabbed the album for nothing, and a significant percentage paid next to nothing.  According to the data, 17 percent paid an average of $4 for the album, while 12 percent paid between $8 and $12.  >> DMN

I had many meetings last weeks and almost everybody I spoke to asked me what I thought of this. My world is all about imagination and I pictured a world where every artist did this, the  excitement would last very short.  It's  a fantastic experiment, but  not a very sustainable one IMHO. What would happen if you put a basket with $100 bills in a crowded park and wrote a note to saying 'only for the poor'? Do you think only the poor would take money out? My point here is simple. If you record a piece of music, you need to package it, price it and distribute it. Free can be part of the mix, but you want people to pay a fair amount for the product. I would like to see the experiment where Radiohead launches a new album and sells it online for 5 euro, paying 15 euro extra gives you the entire Radiohead repetoire, including never before released songs, the lyrics, and a bunch of pictures and video's. Of course everything DRM free and in good quality.