Phew, well now I’ve actually finished a blog post for the first time in over a year (hey I’ve been too busy over at Twitter) I thought I would ‘weld’ together my three lengthy posts on digital music distribution and put them out there as one lovely PDF!

Now take into account that I haven’t reorganized anything so you’ll be getting them in chronological order from the top. I’m going to post it at Google Docs so feel free to grab. This is just the rough’ beta mix’ as I do intend to tidy it up and reorganise very soon. Feedback please!

Grab it here: The Buzzsonic.com Ultimate Guide to Digital Music Distribution Extra!

I’ve actually been promising an update to my two earlier posts on digital music distribution for waaay too long now, so apologies to all for the horrible delay (April 2009? What the..). Anyway. In case you missed them…

Part 1: ‘Exploring The Digital Music Distribution Jungle’ April 2009
Part 2: ”Digital Music Distribution Round-up Part 2′ April 2009

There were seventeen companies mentioned in Pt.1 and thirteen in Pt.2. Out of them, the only change to report from part one is that Australian based Musicadium has been rolled into Valleyarm.

In part two, WaTunes dropped their bespoke distribution service and changed tack to become a ‘social music store’ and now choose to go thru ReverbNation for distribution services.

The rest, as you were.

Rather than go over the same points here you’ll be much better off catching up with the first two parts. To make things a little more convenient I’m welding the three pieces together as one PDF so you can print and study at leisure.

Some points you may want to take into consideration when choosing a distributor.

Location. Is your distributor of choice in your own country? Possibly a key issue because of currency differences and support concerns. Do they phone support? A physical address?

Read the websites about page to find out names, history and credentials. If they have none, move on. Use Google. A lot.

Always amazes me when some site pops up claiming combined “20+ years industry experience” but giving no actual NAMES. Then you get a PO BOX for a mailing address. Run. In the opposite direction. (more…)

I didn’t get to mention all the digital music distribution outlets that I wanted too in my (part 1) post a few days ago, ‘Exploring The Digital Music Distribution ‘Jungle’’, so I thought I’d update the list in this ‘quick’ additional post. Thanks also to the  feedback and suggestions I got, especially from 101 Distribution and @Charles at 247 Entertainment.

Again I’ll refer to the  major download retailers as the ‘Big 5′ which right now would be iTunes, Amazon MP3, eMusic, Napster and Rhapsody.

Pro Music – Online Music Stores – Not a distribution company but an online worldwide map of legal online digital music retail stores listed by country and maintained by the IFPI and a very good resource for checking out worldwide outlets. The same website maintains  weekly download chart links across mainland Europe and Japan. Right now Lady GaGa seems to be universally topping the charts across Europe with ‘Poker Face’.

EPM Electronic – (Maastricht, Netherlands & London, UK)- European based company with a very comprehensive list of stores they service, including the ‘big 5′ worldwide and a very large selection of niche and independent retailers, including all the major electronic dance music stores across the USA, the whole of Europe, Asia and the Far East. Also cover some of the major mobile platforms like Nokia, Vodaphone and 3 Mobile. MySpace.

Its one of those application deals, where you fill in a short form and upload a music sample. There’s no terms on the website but there’s a demo page for label management.

WaTunes -(Atlanta, Georgia, USA)- One of the newer aggregator/distribution channels around, WaTunes are different from just about all the rest in that there is no sign up fee (at the moment) and the artist gets to keep 100% of sales royalties. They distribute to four of the ‘ big 5′ (excluding Rhapsody), plus Shockhound, Zune, Beats Digital and Masterbeat. I’m not entirely comfortable with the ‘everything is free’ revenue model tbh as it doesn’t exactly stimulate financial stability. CEO Kevin Rivers is  blogging here and tweeting here if you want to fire questions. MySpace.

Vidzone Digital Media -(London, UK) – leading distributor of Independent music via mobile networks internationally. More than 130 distribution partnerships across 40 countries. Have a very informative PDF of digital music FAQs too. A checklist of the basics and more advanced info on need to know stuff like UPCs, Metadata and ISRCs. Aimed at labels rather than individuals.

Digital Pressure -(Hollywood, CA, USA)- Another long standing big player on the digital distribution front and one of the first. Digital Pressure have been around since 1997 and are a subdivision of Peer Music. Seem to work more with labels/catalog and a percentage cut with no upfront fees. MySpace. Twitter.

“Our contracts with content owners are four-year, non-exclusive distribution agreements. These simple contracts empower Digitalpressure to become your exclusive agent for all of the partners within our global distribution network, but allow you to distribute your music outside of our relationship through any other service or site, including your own.” Contact page.

Ingrooves -(San Francisco, CA, USA) - Long standing distributor who also specialize in licensing music. Main site was down at time of writing. Another aggregator working with a percentage  share. MySpace.

Zebralution -(Berlin/London/LA)- One of the longer standing independent digital music distributors headed up in Berlin, Germany with multiple regional offices worldwide. Huge network of retailers worldwide including the ‘big 5′, genre specific retailers and mobile music outlets. Warners acquired a significant stake in the company in 2007.  There’s an application process for labels here.  MySpace.

The CAN -(Australia) – Oz based Chaos Artist Network supply all major digital retailers globally (iTunes etc) and traditional retailers throughout Australia (JB Hi Fi, Sanity, Big W, Leading Edge etc). Distribute physical product, CDs and DVDs as well as servicing digital retailers. Part of the Stomp entertainment group. MySpace.

EarBuzz.com -(New Jersey, USA)- Two programs offered here, the earBuzz set-up, which costs $25 sign-up and $2 a month for you to sell Cds and downloads on the earBuzz website. An additional $39 enters you into the WWX program which gets you into the ‘big 5′ retailers, ringtone store Myxer, We7 and LaLa. There’s same day payout for sales onsite and 100% royalty share. MySpace.

DashGo -(Santa Monica, CA,USA) – A slightly different selling point from Dashgo. They distribute music via the usual ‘big 5′ retailers and also offer placement on social music outlets including LastFM, iMeem, Blast My Music, iLike and YouTube which includes analytics breakdown. Also provide “full-service digital sales and marketing solutions, promoting your content to digital retailers, securing positioning with social sites, and soliciting coverage on influencer blogs and discovery sites.” Also offer the Audioswop service with YouTube. Twitter.

Kontor New Media -(Hamburg, Germany)- Worldwide digital content distribution of music, video, ringtones and audio books. Include the ‘big 5′ and a bunch of dance music outlets, Zune, Nokia, FNAC, 7 Digital and mobile music retailers. Contact. MySpace.

Consolidated Independent – (London, UK)- Not a service for individual artists. CI only works with labels or distributors with more than 200 tracks in their catalog. Fees start from £150 a month. Cover just about every retailer on the planet it seems and promise to get labels into ones that aren’t already on their list.

FineTunes-(Hamburg, Germany)- Not to be confused with Finetune. Finetunes distribute across all the major digital retailers as well as providing software solutions for labels, download stores and artists websites. Twitter. MySpace.

Was going to add Wild Palms but their website seems to be in disaray right know, so we’ll see later.

Related Resources

Digital Distribution For Unsigned Artists (PDF) (Chaos.com)
WaTunes Sells Your Music On iTunes And Amazon Free Of Charge (Techcrunch.com)
Get Music Online-Online Music Stores (Pro-Music.org)
DashGo Connects Musicians and Labels to Social Media (Mashable.com)
IFPI Digital Music Report 2009 (32pg. PDF) (IFPI)
The Digital Top 40 FAQ PDF (VidZone Digital Media)
Independent Distribution Solution:Getting Records from Concept To Consumer (Narip.com) (MP3 audio files with PDF and Excel Spreadsheet documents in a zip file.$59.99)
Music and Metadata (XML.com)
Digital Distribution (BeMuso.com)
Should I Do Something About Metadata? (NewMusicStrategies.com)

I mentioned 101 Distribution in my digital distribution round-up here:

101 Distribution – (Phoenix, Arizona, USA) – Not sure what warrants the high costs here. But there’s a massive $599 sign up fee, then $49.95 a month. 100% payout of all sales. You’re gonna need it with those kind of upfronts! You can Twitter questions why, here: @101Distribution

from my post earlier in the week.

Anyway, I did get a few Tweets from the guys at 101 explaining that their Pro setup is only $599, there is no monthly charge on top. The $49.95 monthly charge is actually a ‘payment plan’ for artists who can’t stump up the 600 big ones up front.

I did promise 101 I’d clear that up for them, so here you go!

I’ve touched on music distribution issues here before with Tunecore, Bit Torrent and even good old analogue vinyl but thought I’d dig around a bit deeper as there seems to be new distribution services springing up on a regular basis these days. Be they aggregator or ‘widget’ type tools. Ill be covering digital music aggregators here first and covering website widgets later in the week.

The Music Void – Denzyl Feigelson on MUZU

Things To Consider When Choosing Digital Music Distribution

With the Internet its easy to research background on companies these days. Thats what Google is for. Do it. Search around the distributors website. Look for the names of people running the company. Put a shout out on Twitter or music  forums if you need user feedback on any service.

What is the distributors background, how long has the company been around?  What is the revenue model ? Upfront yearly admin fee (like Tunecore) or a percentage of sales (CD Baby take 9%).

Which digital retailers do  the aggregators distribute too? Also, check the distributors  list of bands, artists and labels that are using their services. Always a good reference point. Its reassuring to know that Tunecore (who I use) also handle digital distribution for established artists such as NiN,  David Byrne & Brian Eno and Jay Z and newer MP3 blog faves like MGMT.

Also you need to know that you wont be signing away rights to your music and that you wont be tied down to any lengthy fixed terms

Music industry scribe Moses Avalon has a good breakdown of distribution terms for a few aggregators on his website. Its a couple of years old and as such covers only the longer established companies but is still very relevant. (more…)

Old School Marketing

My experience of marketing my music was started back in the late 80s I guess when my idea of ‘marketing’ was spending time stuffing envelopes full of cassette demos and posting them off to indie radio shows in the UK, major record labels, venues and indie fanzines.

Out of a mail out of around fifty tapes (yes tapes!) we got three positive responses. One was a phone call from Steve Lamacq (now at BBC Radio 1) who was helping out at Radio London at the time on the Gary Crowley Demo Clash show. We were being played on air in London as part of the demo clash show, which we were winning too. The DJs would play four new bands, the listeners would phone in and vote for their favorite.

As a result of that airplay we had some major label interest and a London showcase gig. Nothing came of that band (the archive is on MySpace though) though it was fuel enough for me to pursue other musical ventures with some commercial success in the UK some time later.

I’d managed to blag my way into some free studio time at a small studio in London by doing some work as a label runner and promoter and as a result we’d secured a P&D deal with a distributor. An unknown artist presenting a new track on a pristine piece of 12 inch vinyl drew more attention than the old method of the cassette tape and it eventually lead to a deal with a Warner’s sub-label.

Welcome To The New School

Killer marketing tactics will only get you so far but if the music isn’t up to scratch all the effort and money in the world is ultimately going to lead to failure. Get the song right and the breakthrough will eventually take care of itself.

Having said that you can help yourself make some noise using the tools available online today. And being a bit clever about it to set yourself apart from the herd.

One of the things I did that helped re-launched my music was to offer up various parts (vocals, hook, Midi file) of two of my tracks for remix. Its nothing new nowadays, in fact its positively de-rigueur. You can offer parts of your tracks up for download on your own site and MySpace or even newer web communities like MixMatchMusic.

With DIY remix culture exploding and related software becoming more powerful and affordable, sonic manipulators are growing hungry for disassembled pop music, and the music industry is beginning to see the benefit of increased exposure through releasing remix stems directly to the public.

Release a limited edition vinyl single. Its going to cost you around $900 for 500 7 inch singles but the prestige that would add to your release would be invaluable. Since the rise of Napster and, later, iTunes, a market for single songs has been reborn, and one of the unintended benefactors has been the seven-inch. Even Sub Pop Records’ famous singles club has been reactivated.

Singles are also highly collectible. “The punk and indie-rock undergrounds have always been particularly fond of the seven-inch as a badge of fanhood, something doled out in limited quantities and often specific circumstances – on certain tour dates or on labels available only in a certain region.” (from the Toronto Star)

A DJing contact of mine came up with an excellent idea for sending out DJ mixes of his in an effort to get club bookings (if you haven’t released a 12 inch single that’s kicked up some dust!). Rather than do the usual task of sending out CDs he spent something like $200 on iPod Shuffle’s, put his mix on there and sent them out to promoters. It got an immediate reaction just for the original way he presented himself. He also happened to be a great DJ which helped too of course but the bookings he got back as a result paid for the outlay.

Makeamixa do some great looking cassette USB drives which would be great as limited edition albums or to do a cheaper version of the above DJ tactic.

Other Music Marketing Tipsters

Digital distributor Tunecore have these tips to help you promote your release once you get it placed on iTunes and other major distributors. They’re also doing video distribution nowadays too. They also have a bunch of free PDF marketing guides.

Andrew Dubber’s New Music Strategies give some useful insight with How Can I Sell My Music Online? “There are variations on this theme, but essentially it boils down to this very simple question: now that there’s this internet thing, where’s the money and how do I get at it? What’s the best way to sell music online?”

Tom Robinson explains the answer to the questions, Should I Put My Future Hit On MySpace? and Does Your Music Have Value? on his excellent blog.”The more seriously artists treats their own work the more seriously other people will take it. A series of full commercial releases gives you a better chance of airplay at radio. It also gives you a discography.”

Max Lowe writes, 7 Tips To Writing A Crowd Drawing MySpace Blog, “You must write frequently and often for more than one reason. First, the search engines will pick up your blog quicker and more often if you post every day or two. Second, your readers will return more often if they know there is going to be new content every day.

And I couldn’t write this without mentioning something from CDBaby founder Derek Sivers, in particular his much quoted (worth another mention here), Derek Sivers 7 Rules Of Marketing. “Stop thinking of it as Marketing and start thinking of it as creative ways to be considerate. Think of things from the other person’s point of view”.

We’ll have part two later this week. Ideas and suggestions please leave comments!

Related Links

Steve Lamacq (Lamacq Central) MySpace
Tunecore Music Survival Guides (Tunecore.com)
Tips For Playing SXSW (Tom Robinson, MySpace blog)
How To Send CDs To Radio (TomRobinson.com)
BBC-One Music How To..Fat Guides (BBC Radio 1)
30+ Essential Music Industry Resources And Links (Buzzsonic.com)
Should I Put My Future Hit On MySpace? (TomRobinson.com)
XFM Uploaded (XFM Radio)
Radiohead Remix (RadioheadRemix.com)
Remix Culture Is Exploding (Evolving Music)
The Mash Up Revolution (Salon.com)
Record Label Resource (RecordLabelResource.com)
How To Get Your Music Distributed On iTunes (And Keep Most Of The Money) (Buzzsonic.com)
Vinyl 45s Make A Come Back (TheStar.com)
Facebook Music Marketing Tactics (NotEvilMusic.com)

Wikipedia describes mash-ups (or bastard pop) as a song created out of pieces of two or more songs, usually by overlaying the vocal track of one song seamlessly over the music track of another. One cultural commentator went a little deeper explaining, “It is merely the latest incarnation of a widely shared, deeply embedded cultural habit of cultural recombination across time and space.” Got that?

Someone else once said “all plagiarism is necessary its takes the wrong idea and replaces it with the right one”. With that in mind I find that mash-ups have actually been educational for me by taking two artists I’d never listen to alone, twisting them into something new and actually getting me to seek out original works of both artists.

After writing  about the Green Day album ‘American Edit’ here (who’s whole career was launched by plagiarizing Stiff Little Fingers) and hearing ‘Give Me Novacaine’ in the blender with Queens ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ (as ‘Novacaine Rhapsody’) it forced me to re-evaluate both artists. I’ve also mentioned a variety of mash-up projects here including Primal Scream, War Of The Worlds, The Beatles, Chemical Brothers and the Prodigy. Not all great, but always interesting.

Latest album mash-up to pop up on the radar (admittedly its been around a few weeks now) is ‘Viva La Hova’ which takes some of the better known Coldplay moments and heaps Jay-Z over the top. Over the top sounds a little raw as these things are actually woven together with intricate precision  by  Brooklyn based mixtape crew Mick Boogie & Terry Urban.

Its very good too with big Coldplay hits like the Scientist, Clocks, In My Place, Trouble and Fix You all getting twisted and reborn into hip-hop epics and not sounding out of place either. Jetcomx blog writer Jim Fields illustrates things a little better.

” Late one night, I was at a small party, doing DJ duty and selecting songs on my iPod. I searched for a while, scrolled to a song, then clicked “play.” Chris Martin, of Coldplay, began to croon out his slow ballad, “Fix You.”

Initially, the crowd was not happy with this choice. “When you feel so tired that you can’t sleep,” Chris sang, slowly. “Stuck in reverse!” he whispered. Suddenly, the word “reverse” began repeating, and a bass beat started thumping. People at the party started tapping their feet. The beat built up, people started dancing, and by the time Jay-Z (aka Jazzy, Sean Carter, Jiggaman, Hova, The Roc, etc.) began rapping, the party was bumping. Such is the brilliance of Viva La Hova.”

Apparently the whole thing has already been given the thumbs up by Jay-Z himself. The rapper had an official co-lab with Coldplay late last year when he  dropped in for a guest verse on the Viva La Vida single “Lost!”, retitled “Lost+” and appears on the ‘Prospekts March’ EP.

Download The Album Here, here and here .

Related Links

Viva La Hova (IllRoots.com)
Mixtape Mondays: Jay-Z vs Coldplay:Viva La Hova (Jetcomx.com)

Its been a good few months since Buzzsonic heard anything of note on the yet to be fully operational Snocap, the legal P2P download service founded by (original) Napster founder Shaun Fanning. Music blogs Hypebot and Coolfer were the first people this week to spot that a new Snocap technology was being used by new (to us) band the Format, selling tracks via their MySpace profile using the Snocap service Linx.

The Format tracks are available as MP3′s at 79c each and use Paypal as the merchant for payment, though Snocap Linx works with MP3 as well as content encrypted with WMA DRM according to the Snocap website. Bands can cut and paste the Linx code into their MySpace profiles (or any website for that matter) much like other online services like YouTube, Slide and Photobucket and are offering code to MySpace users to promote their own services.

Snocap’s Linx service is also designed to let online retailers sell music from the companies huge selection of songs. Snocap has distribution deals with Universal Music, Sony BMG, EMI Group and Warner Music, along with a number of independent labels.

David Berlind at ZDNet had an interesting point on the news on his blog this week.

“Actually, it’s the independents that will really benefit from MySpace as a sales channel (while the traditional labels go the iTunes, etc. route). While I don’t believe were at a tipping point yet, the idea of commerce-enabling MySpace for music sales could position indies for an interesting offensive against the entertainment establishment. And, with no DRM, it’s definitely a step in the right direction.”

Related Reading

Napster Founder Commerce Enables Unprotected MP3s on MySpace (ZD Net Blogs)
Snocap Looks Beyond P2P (MP3.com)
Napster Guru Fanning Breaks Snocap Silence (Buzzsonic.com) Dec 3 2005
Mashboxx and Snocap Get Busy (Buzzsonic.com) May 6 2005
EMI Records Join the Snocap Queue (Buzzsonic.com) Nov 20 2004
Napster Founder in Major Label P2P Talks (Buzzsonic.com) Nov 13 2004

As a recording artist myself I’m always looking for new distribution outlets but so far I’ve been slow to exploit digital sales at all. Two mixes from my latest UK released 12 inch vinyl (yes they do still exist) single, ‘I’ll Be There’ are actually available at underground dance store Xpress Beats but with Apple’s iTunes store dominating 70-80% of the download market (depending on who you believe) its the one place you really want to be if you want to get in the online shop window.

I’ve been aware of digital music distribution aggregators for a while and have had a look around well known outlets like CD Baby and IODA so I was very interested in the news of newcomer TuneCore (tip via the essential Moses Avalon). Tunecore works much the same as most digital music aggregators in as much as they sign up artists and label content and place music on the all important download majors like iTunes, Napster and Rhapsody. The difference with Tunecore (FAQs here) is that there is no lengthy terms, no exclusivity and the killer for me, no percentage share of revenue (other outlets range from 8-15%).

There’s a very informative podcast interview with founder Jeff Price at the 75 Minutes blog which is well worth an hour of your time and needless to say Jeff is blogging about the whole thing here. I’ll be commenting further on this as we prepare to upload our first digital release to Tunecore very soon.

Founder Jeff Price is the owner of Spin Art Records other board members include the former head of RykoDisc, George Howard and Toolshed Inc. owner Dick Huey.

Related Reading

Digital Distributor Comparisons (MosesAvalon.com)
Back From Canadian Music Week (BradSucks.com)
Digital Music Report 2006-24 page PDF (IFPI.org)
Digital Music:Industry Answers (BBC News)
The Long Tail (Wired.com)
99th Floor Elevators (Floorelevators.com)
iTunes Outsells Traditional Music Stores (CNet News) Nov 21 2005
Apple Touts iTunes 80% UK Market Share (The Register) Sept 7 2005

Its been a while since we featured any posts on musical mash-ups here. Since the last mention (the excellent Green Day mash) the word mash up has taken on a slightly different meaning. Now the term is more likely associated with the latest Google Maps Api mash up rather than the latest frankenstein pop remix flying out of some digital DJ’s laptop studio.

Latest renegade remixers to join the fray are the Brooklyn based DJ duo Sound Advice who have ironically (see DJ Dangermouse) chosen to weld the music from the ubiquitous Gnarls Barkley album ‘St Elsewhere’ to the vocals from deceased rapper Biggie Smalls biggest hits.
The result is Gnarls Biggie a hit and miss collection of eleven tracks (all available as MP3′s naturally). ‘Smilie Faces Hypnotize’, ‘Gimme The Online Loot’ and ‘The Last Nasty Boy’ are worth more than one spin but the simple A vs. B formula is not nearly as inspired as the more elaborate examples of the ‘art’ like DJ Dangermouse’s (half of Gnarls Barkley) groundbreaking Beatles vs Jay Z mash up the ‘Grey Album’ or the aformentioned Green Day (or Dean Gray) remix project.

The guys have already got themselves banned from MySpace (though another ‘fan page’ has already sprung up). The cease and desist is in the post.

Related Reading

Gnarls Barkley Mashed Up with B.I.G (Spin.com)
Green Day Mash Up Leads to Cease and Desist Order, Grey Tuesday Style Protest (MTV News)
Grey Album Poducer Danger Mouse Explains How He Did It (MTV News)
Gnarls Barkley (Wikipedia)
Sound Advice Blog (Blogspot)
Party Ben (PartyBen.com)
Mark Vidler (GoHomeProductions)
Grey Tuesday:A Quick Overview of the Legal Terrain (EFF.org)
Grey Tuesday-Free the Grey Album (GreyTuesday.org)

Primal Scream are the latest in a long line of artists to be ‘honoured’ by getting some of their best known music hacked and rehashed by a group of Mash-up bootleg remixers.
The Beatles, the Beastie Boys, the Prodigy and the Chemical Brothers, Blur and the Clash have all recently been given the unofficial remix treatment by DJ ‘Mashers’.

Primal Screams classic 1991 UK indie-dance crossover album ‘Screamadelica’ was hailed by NME writers as one of the top albums of all time in 2003. The original album boasted production credits from UK club legend Andy Weatherall, the Orb and veteran Rolling Stones producer, Jimmy Miller.

The remade opus, ‘Screamadelica-Primal Scream Remixed’ was reworked by some of the main players in the UK bootleg / remix community including Mark Vidler (who produced the albums bonus track, ‘Screamadelica’), Soundhog, Tone 396, FakeID, Dunproofin and Cry On My Console, amongst others.

Like all the best made projects in this vein, the album is available for download as a BitTorrent file. The makers are eager to confess, “ We don’t pretend to think this comes close to the Scream’s masterpiece, but then nothing else does. So what primalscreamremixed.com offers is a different spin, moving from chill through dub via glitch to drum & bass. Not a million miles away from the eclecticism of the source.”

Thanks to Beatmixed.com

Related Links

Get Your Bootleg On [GYBO]
Culture Deluxe [CultureDeluxe.com]
Bootie San Francisco [BootieSF.com]
Twenty Questions [TwentyQ.Blogspot]
BitTorrent FAQ and Guide [Dessent.net]
Bastard Pop [Wikipedia.org]
Boom Selection [Boomselection.info]

NWA’s 1989 album ‘Straight Outta Compton’ is hailed by many as one of the most seminal albums in the history of rap and greatly influenced countless gangsta rappers. Ice-T and Schooly D were the first gangsta rappers, NWA took it mainstream with this controversial and massive selling piece of profanity. The parental advisory sticker could have been invented just for this album and backlash from the ‘moral majority’ at the time lead to the album being issued with an alternative version, sans-profanity.

Over fifteen years later, Ice Cube is a film star and Dr.Dre is producing Eminem. Technology has also taken a great leap forward and in a humorous about turn Brooklyn design and technology student Evan Roth has cut up the NWA classic and spliced it back together in an edit of the entire ‘Straight Outta Compton’ album with all the adjacent non-curse words edited out. A nod to Steinski but with swearing. Like one of the college radio station WFMU’s blog poster’s comments say, “I haven’t laughed this hard at cursing since I was nine”.

According to the creator, “‘F**k tha Police’ edits down to 42.6 seconds after all the non-explicit material is edited out. This gives it a 12.3% explicit content index (much higher than ‘Straight Outta Compton’ at 7.4%)”.
Now you know. get it here, whilst its still up.

Thanks to WMFU’s Beware of the Blog

Related Links

Napster Dealt Copyright Rap by Dr. Dre [CNet News]
Chilling Effects [ChillingEffects.org]
Illegal Art Audio [Illegal-Art.org]
History of the Cut-Up [Beatmixed.com]
Bastard Pop [Wikipedia.org]

P2P software pioneer Ian Clarke, creator of the Open Source P2P platforms Freenet and more recently Dijjer has this week quietly unveiled his latest project, Indy.

Speaking to P2PNet Clarke promised that Indy, “does for freely available independent music what Google does for the world wide web.” Indy uses collaborative filtering, a system similar to that used by Amazon to recommend books, etc, to prospective buyers, to learn about your musical preferences in relation to other Indy users.

“Everything it plays is from online indie music freely available on the web and you can rate each piece at between one and five stars. Using that as feedback, Indy will find and download music that’s keyed to what you like as opposed to what you don’t like.”

“We were concerned that even with all of the advancements with online media in the past few years, it was still pretty difficult just to find new independent music that you liked.”

According to Clarke, Indy is inspired by iRate, another collaborative music filtering set-up. As users rate music in iRate it automatically finds more free music that you’ll like by finding people with similar music tastes. Indy is said to have a much cleaner and simpler user interface and it is freely available for Windows OS initially with other platforms in development.

Submit Music to Indy

Related Links

iRate Radio [iRateRadio.com]
Freenet Creator Unveils Dijjer P2P [Buzzsonic News]
Dijjer [Dijjer.org]
The Free Network Project [Sourceforge]
Mobster [Sourceforge]
Collaborative Filtering Research Papers [JamesThornton.com]
Collaborative Filtering Comes To Independent Music Makers [MasterNewMedia.org]
The Music Business and the Big Flip [Shirky.com]
InDiscover [InDiscover.net]

Seems nobody and nothing is sacred in the world of the bootleg remixer, the bastard pop purveyer or the mash-up DJ/remixer. Impeccable coincidence it seems in light of Steven Speilbergs forthcoming (June 29th in the US) Tom Cruise starred remake, but latest opus to get the once over is Jeff Wayne’s 1976 ‘rock musical concept album of the film’, ‘War Of The Worlds’, courtesy of one Grafyte (aka Alex C) Dundee student by day, DJ and Masher by night.

Thankfully he edited the whole thing down to less than half an hour and threw in a bunch of breaks and the like from Leftfield, Faithless, Led Zeppelin and the Prodigy to liven up the prog rock classic and make it into one of the best mash-up projects I’ve heard in many many months. A bit of a keeper and handled with great respect for the original it has to be said.

Download from here

Trailer for Steven Spielbergs remake of ‘War Of The Worlds’ here.

Related

War Of The Worlds Trailers [Apple.com]
The Complete War of the Worlds [WOTW.org]
Study Guide for H. G. Wells: The War of the Worlds (1898) [Washington State Uni.]
Get Your Bootleg On [GYBO.org]
Yet More Beatles Mash Up Mayhem [Buzzsonic News]
Music For the Bootleg Generation [Buzzsonic News]

We ran a report on the uber-fast Internet2 college broadband network back in November last year. At the time the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) were said to be in tentative talks with the administrators of Internet2, hoping both to test next-generation video delivery projects and to monitor peer-to-peer piracy on the ultra high-speed network.

No great surprise that today the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) filed lawsuits against 405 students at 18 colleges in the U.S. , alleging that they are using the private-research network to trade pirated songs. According to the RIAA, students with access to Internet2 are increasingly using a file-sharing application called i2hub to “steal copyrighted songs and other works on a massive scale,” the organization said in a statement released yesterday.

“Students find i2hub especially appealing because they mistakenly believe their illegal file-sharing activities can’t be detected in the closed environment of the Internet2 network,” it continued.

To connect to this extremely fast network students need to download a free client from Direct Connect who’s website states, “Unlike other impersonal, server-driven file-sharing networks, Direct Connect offers a community-oriented, open, user-controlled network.”

Internet2 is part of the Abilene network and is essentially a vastly faster version of the Internet, a proving ground for high-bandwidth technologies. Speaking to Tech Republic last year Steve Corbato, the director of backbone network infrastructure for Internet2 said, “Abilene has become a necessity for research universities,and it’s not just about building a really fast network. University members rely on it to collaborate with colleagues and students around the world.”

The network used by Internet2 was launched in 1998 by a nonprofit consortium of 206 universities, 70 corporate partners (including IBM and Microsoft) and a number of government agencies, including the Library of Congress, to develop the next generation of Internet technologies.

The RIAA has sued more than 9,000 people for distributing songs using peer-to-peer software like Grokster and Morpheus in the past two years.

In a seperate action announced yesterday the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), the world governing body for the international music industry said they were launching the biggest wave of legal actions against internet music file-sharers yet. New cases were launched against 963 individuals in 11 countries across Europe and Asia. Netherlands, Finland, Ireland, Iceland and Japan pursued illegal song-swappers for the first time

Related Links

RIAA Targets New Piracy Epidemic On Special High-Speed Campus Network [RIAA]
High-Speed US Net ‘Pirates’ Sued [BBC News]
RIAA Sues More Than 400 College Students Over Internet2 Downloads [MTV]
New Wave of Lawsuits to Hit ‘Illegal File Swappers’ [the Register]
Music File Sharers Face Biggest Round of Legal Actions Yet [IFPI]
Internet 2: 2004 And Beyond [Tech Republic]
MPAA Eyes Internet2 P2P Traffic [Buzzsonic News]

We’ve already mentioned the Beastles and the ‘Revolved’ Beatles remix mash-ups on these pages in recent weeks and now there’s another one worthy (or not) of your attention. Beatallica.

Although they’re not in the truest sense of the meaning, mash-up or ‘bastard pop’ as celebrated vigorously on the bootleggers ‘bible’, ‘Get Your Bootleg On’ (or GYBO to those in the know), Beatallica have the spirit of the art down to a tee. A sense of humour and an unlikely clashing of musical genres. Online rockzine Blabbermouth probably summed them up the best by saying that musically they were, “arrangements of Fab Four standards with wonderfully unsubtle references
to Metallica’s songs and a spot-on imitation of James Hetfield’s distinctive vocals…”

So probably more in common with parody like the Rutles and Dread Zeppelin than the genius of Loo and Placido but worthy of a mention here also for their usage of BitTorrent to distribute both their albums, ‘A Garage Dayz Night’ and ‘Beatallica’, not only in the ubiquitous MP3 format but in the lossless audio format Flac. Props all round and great fun to boot (no pun etc….).

Related Reading

Another Beatles Mash Up [MusicbizNews24.com]
Meet the Beastles [MusicbizNews24.com]
Music For the Bootleg Generation [MusicbizNews24.com]
Culture Deluxe [CultureDeluxe.com]

Big Beat ‘Godfathers’ the Chemical Brothers are the latest big names from the world of ‘Electronica’ to get booted and remixed on the eve of the release of their new album ‘Push The Button’.

The Prodigy have been given the same honour twice. Last November ‘Music For The Bootleg Generation’ an unofficial remix of the ten year old rave classic ‘Music For the Jilted Generation’ appeared on BitTorrent and mash-up websites. Their last album, ‘Always Outnumbered, Never Outgunned’ appeared on P2P networks, remixed, as ‘Always Outsiders, Never Outdone’ even before the release of the official album.

The Chemicals unofficial remix/mash-up album ‘Flip The Switch’ will be available for download tomorrow, with renegade reworkings from mash up scene hipsters like Cry.On.My.Console, Fake ID, Dunproofin, McSleazy, Big Bad Baz and others. The official album ‘Push The Button’ is released the same day.

Related Reading

Flip The Switch [ChemicalBrothersRemixed.com]
Chemical Brothers-Official Site [ChemicalBrothers.com]
Music for the Bootleg Generation [MusicbizNews24.com]
Boom Selection [BoomSelection.info]

The much vaunted arrival of the eXeem P2P software application was unveiled yesterday. The software that some peer-to-peer advocates are hyping as “download of the year”, Exeem is said to merge the speedy “swarmed ‘ downloads of BitTorrent with the powerful global search capabilities of Kazaa.

Andrej “Sloncek” Preston, Swarm Systems spokesman-the Caribbean registered company behind Exeem-told CNet News, “We have not created BitTorrent, but a totally new P2P, which is a lot different from BitTorrent.” ‘Sloncek’, who operated the now-defunct SuprNova site added, “I think it’s a fresh approach. Only time will tell if it’s going to work.”

The hype seems to have been working with 120,000+ downloads of the new P2P app in little over 24 hours though like many other file-swapping programs, eXeem comes bundled with several pieces of advertising spyware, including the Cydoor Technologies adware utility and the LookSmart toolbar, which plugs into Internet Explorer.

The software isn’t meeting with universally good reviews around the Net. Some users have already complained about the addition of the advertising software. Needless to say an unofficial spyware free version of eXeem, called eXeem Lite has already appeared online as a pre-emptive strike for file sharers wary of spyware laden P2P software like the underfire KaZaa.

Users looking forward to the ‘decentralised BitTorrent’ claims of eXeem will maybe paying attention to the claims of peer-to-peer tracking company BayTSP, who track illegal downloads for major film studios and record companies. BayTSP said it has long provided information on BitTorrent users, including specific files shared and IP addresses, to its clients. It will likely do the same with eXeem, its executives said.

“We can still identify all the BitTorrent users,” BayTSP Chief Executive Mark Ishikawa told CNet. “Everyone who uses it still has the same issues of getting caught that they’ve always had.”

Related Reading

Exeem Opens New File Swapping Doors [CNet News]
eXeem Decentralises BitTorrent Sharing [BetaNews.com]
Exeem Released [Slyck.com]
Why eXeem Shouldn’t be Replacing our BitTorrent Clients [P2P Consortium]
eXeem Lite Launched [Slyck.com]
More On The Exeem P2P App [MusicbizNews24.com]
Bit Torrent Meets Kazaa? Exeem P2P Arrival Imminent [MusicbizNews24.com]
BayTSP Provides Automatic DMCA Notices [Slashdot.org]

Its not exactly a groundbreaking new idea, grab an old Beatles album, mash up with random choice of other tracks etc. Still, mash-up DJ/ ‘Frankenstein Pop’ artist CCC has undertaken the not undaunting task of putting his own spin on the Beatles classic 1966 ‘Revolver’ album.

The full track listing and ubiquitous MP3 downloads for ‘Revolved’ will be up next month on its completion, meanwhile there’s five variations already up for grabs, the most promising of which is ‘Eleanor Ciccone’ a rather wonderful pairing of Madonna’s ‘Ray Of Light’ and the Fab Fours ‘Eleanor Rigby’ . Theres an unadventurous mash-up of the Jams ‘Start’ and the Beatles track that was the inspiration for Paul Weller, ‘Start’ and overall its great fun but not nearly as clever as DJ Dangermouse’s groundbreaking (at least in terms of column inches)‘Grey Album’.

Related Reading

Meet the Beastles [MusicbizNews24.com]
MTV Premier’s New ‘Download’ Show [MusicbizNews24.com]
Music for the Bootleg Generation [MusicbizNews24.com]

There’s a more indepth look at the much talked about Beta release of the Exeem P2P client on French file sharing magazine/website Ratiatum , revealed today. Screen shots aplenty and some insight into the functions which include searching for specific files ala Kazaa , though as mentioned before the software is built around the ‘swarming’ concept used by BitTorrent and uses a BT client authored by Swedish software engineer Arvid Norberg called LibTorrent.

Rather than being the ‘replacement’ for the Suprnova BitTorrent site it seems that Exeem is owned by an offshore development company much like Kazaa and will be using Suprnova owner Sloncek as its ‘spokeperson’ and official PR front. Anxious fans of the now defunct Suprnova site will be alarmed to hear that Exeem is to be shackled with adware and be closed source rather than the Open Source BitTorrent. A public beta outside of the closed circle of 5000 testers will be released later this month.

Related Reading

Exeem “Successor” to Suprnova Announced [Slashdot.org]
Bit Torrent Meets Kazaa? Exeem P2P Arrival Imminent [MusicbizNews24.com]
The BitTorrent P2P File Sharing System [the Register]

Boston, Mass. based spinner DJBC is the lastest Mash-up instigator to have a bash at the Beatles with his Beastles project. A mash-up of the Beastie Boys and the Beatles, unsurprisingly. There’s 9 tracks on the site and even downloadable cover art. Not sure if its on par with the much mentioned ‘trendsetting’ DJ Dangermouse ‘Grey Album’ Beatles mash-up but its a lot of fun and better than the Beatallica project.

Widespread publicity will probably mean a C&D somewhere along the line so grab the downloads while you can.

Related Links

Beastie Boys
The Beatles
Get Your Bootleg On [Gybo V3]
At Last the Mash-up Has Gone Mainstream [NewsDay.com]
Raiding the 20th Century, the History of the Cutup [MusicalBear.com]
Protest Music [Alternet.org]
BeatMixed [Beatmixed.com]
Boom Selection [BoomSelection.info]
Grey Tuesday, Online Cultural Activism and the Mash up of Music and Politics [FirstTuesday.org]

Everybody who knows a little about P2P file applications will be aware of BitTorrent, the fact that it has long been the most popular P2P measured by the amount of data transferred between users and that it was created three years ago in the Python programming language by Bram Cohen.

More importantly, BitTorrent uses a file sharing system known as ‘swarming’ . It works by breaking a file into lots of little packets, distributing those packets around to computers that have downloaded the file, and randomly requesting those packets from whoever has them. Most notably, the system allows many people to download the same file without slowing down everyone else’s download effectively making more efficient useage of bandwidth.

Though BitTorrent is the P2P app gaining all the column inches in the worldwide press due to recent litigation from the MPAA the first peer-to-peer content delivery system to use the term “Swarming Downloads” was Swarmcast, invented by Justin Chapweske and bought by open source P2P developer OpenCola back in 2001.

Chapweske’s latest project from his Onion Networks outfit, SwarmStream –software algorithms that will let users stream video and audio data more rapidly– was unveiled this week . “If people are impressed by Bittorrent, they’re going to be absolutely blown away by swarmstreaming and how far we’ve taken swarming since its humble beginnings five years ago,” promises the software author.

This third generation swarming technology greatly enhances swarming by allowing streaming or progressive playback of media files. This means that users can watch videos while they are still being downloaded. “Swarming is mathematically provable as the fastest way to download data,” says Chapweske, founder and CEO of Onion Networks. “Whether it’s a web page, a pdf or a video file, computers are now going to be able to stream it.”

“The technology improves swarming by ensuring that the bytes that the user wants next are scheduled to be received next. So if they’re playing back a video file, the bytes from the front of the file will be received first. If the user (or application) skips forward to the middle of the file, the bytes at the middle of the file will be prioritized. Thus, unlike first generation swarming systems like Swarmcast or Bittorrent, you don’t have to wait for the entire file to download to do something useful with it!.”

The technique of downloading a single file in pieces from multiple sources is also used in peer-to-peer systems
derived from Gnutella such as BearShare and LimeWire.

Related Reading

Data Swarms to Speed Net Streaming [NewScientist.com]
Swarmblog [Chapweske.com]
Brian’s BitTorrent FAQ and Guide [Dessent.net]
Has Hollywood Met its Napster? [Wired.com]
P2P Makes its Business Case [InternetNews.com]
Open Cola:Swarming Folders [OpenP2P.com]
OpenCola Creates Collaborative Computing Solutions for Content Communities [EContentMag.com]
Dissecting BitTorrent: Five Months in a Torrent’s Lifetime [Pam2004.org] 12pg PDF

The Record Industry Association of America unleashed another barrage of lawsuits at file-sharers illegally trading in music using P2P software this afternoon. The 754 new lawsuits were filed in federal district courts across the USA, including 20 alleged file-traders using university computer networks.

With the latest round of legal action, the RIAA has now sued more than 7,700 alleged file-traders since September 2003, including more than 3,000 lawsuits since Oct. 1 of this year.

As in previous cases, the new lawsuits were filed against “John Doe” defendants identified only by their numeric Internet protocol addresses. Music company lawyers must obtain the identity of defendants by issuing subpoenas to Internet access providers. Last month the recording industry body issued suits against 761 alleged illegal file sharers.

RIAA President Cary Sherman, said in a statement that: “With legal online retailers still forced to compete against illegal free networks, the playing field remains decidedly unbalanced, That’s why continued enforcement against individuals stealing and distributing music illegally is essential, as is holding accountable the businesses that intentionally promote and profit from this theft.”

Despite increasingly high profile suits from both the RIAA and the film industry association the MPAA, recent studies measuring the effect of the legal action suggest that it has had little or no deterrent in stemming the actions of file sharers using P2P networks.

Latest figures from P2P monitor Big Champagne reveal that in November, the average number of people simultaneously logged on to the P2P file sharing networks at any given moment increased significantly from 6,255,986 in October to 7,452,184. The number of users on P2P networks in the US went up from 4,435,395 in October to 5,445,275 in November.

“While these increases are consistent with the trend we’ve observed in Q4 in previous years, strong growth in the USA in particular has yielded an active (logged-on) P2P user base that’s more than one-third greater than it was in the fourth quarter of last year,” Big Champagne CEO Eric Garland told news site P2PNet earlier this month.

Related Reading

Record Industry Sues 754 for Internet Song Swaps [Reuters.com]
Computer Users Sued for Swopping Music [SiliconValley.com]
Chilling Effects Clearinghouse [ChillingEffects.org]
File Share Top 10 [P2PNet.net]
New Survey Indicates Musicians Split On File Sharing [MusicbizNews24.com]
Big Music P2P Stats Dont Tally [P2PNet.net]
How File Sharing Works [HowStuffWorks.com]
Big Champagne’s Burst Bubble [bIPlog]
New P2P File Sharing Stats [P2PNet.net]

Edmonds, Washington headquartered digital media company Netmusic.com today announced the acquisition of Los Angeles based independent music distributor and download platform Audio Lunchbox. The combination of both companies catalogs creates the largest online collection of independent music in the world — a licensed catalog of over one million tracks, incorporating 4000 plus labels.

Downloads from the Audio Lunchbox website are unrestricted by digital rights and geographical limitations making the catalog available worldwide in the popular MP3 format encoded at 192 kbps variable bit rate (VBR) and in the emerging open source compression codec Ogg Vorbis. Vorbis files (which have an .ogg extension) compress to a smaller size than MP3 files and are said to be of better quality though the format has limited support from current portable digital audio players.

“We are thrilled to join forces with Audio Lunchbox,” said NetMusic Entertainment CEO Glen Starchman. “The acquisition of Audio Lunchbox makes NetMusic the largest independent music community on the Internet.”

“We now have the firepower to achieve our vision of bringing great independent bands to the masses,” said Morgan Harris, CEO of Audio Lunchbox. “The deal gives Audio Lunchbox a tremendous boost. The acquisition is a win-win-win for the artists, our users and the Company.”

AudioLunchbox’s nearest rival is industry ‘veteran’ EMusic who have been offering unrestricted downloads since 1998 and boast a catalog of over 500 000 tracks.

Related Links

Indie Only Audio Lunchbox Serves Music With no DRM [MacWorld.com]
the Orchard Independent Distribution [theOrchard.com]
Ogg Vorbis Tutorial [AngryCoffee.com]
About EMusic [EMusic.com]

New findings from Tempo, research firm Ipsos-Insight’s quarterly study of digital music behaviors reveal that in summer 2004, American downloaders aged 12 and older were equally as likely to be aware of Napster and Apple’s iTunes on a top-of-mind basis (20% each) amongst American fee-based digital music stores. However, when prompted with brand names, more than four out of five (79%) downloaders recognize the Napster brand, while only half (46%) are aware of iTunes.

“Over the course of the past year, we’ve witnessed the high profile introductions of numerous legitimate online music services. This data indicates that while consumers may be well aware of many of these services,
iTunes and Napster have emerged as top-of-mind brand leaders. It’s particularly interesting to note that Apple’s iTunes MusicStore, although introduced only 18 months ago, demonstrates consumer top-of-mind awareness equal to that of the Napster brand, which was established in the late ’90s.” said Matt Kleinschmit, author of the Tempo research study.

The report goes on to say that those who have downloaded music are most likely to place importance on good sound quality, low prices, a broad music selection, and perceptions of a good value. Less importance is placed on perceptions of a hip or cool site. Brand awareness for the other ‘major players’ in the US. download market, RealPlayer, WalMart, MusicMatch and MTV stores was less than half that of Napster, which although now a well established paid outlet (though trailing in the wake of iTunes in terms of market share) gained notoriety in the late 90s when teenager Shawn Fanning wrote the original mass popularity P2P app, before it was shuttered under a mountain of music industry litigation and brought back to life last year by Roxio after an aborted takeover by BMG.

Related Links

Napster And iTunes Most Recognized Brands…[Ipsos-NA.com]
Apple iTunes Remains Dominant in Paid Digital Music Downloads [NPD.com]
Apple Launches iTunes in Canada [NewsFactor.com]
Lowdown on Downloads: Load up on Pros, Cons of Music Services [Earthlink.net]
Real in Online Music Price War [BBC News]
Downloads Fuel Music Recovery [BBC News]
Rival Targets Apple’s iTune Customers [Forbes.com]
iTunes5 Napster1 1st Week Sales Figures [Mp3Newswire.net]
iTunes is Bogus Napster Sucks Edition [DownhillBattle.org]