Music Downloads

Archive for the "Music Downloads" Category

Dec5

KazaaGate Copyright Trial Trundles On

Posted at 11:44 PM • No Comments

The expected three week long trial of Kazaa continued in Sydney, Australia with the music industry seemingly holding the upper hand by the end of the week. Major record labels, Universal Music Australia, EMI, Sony/BMG, Warner, Festival Mushroom and 25 additional applicants are suing Sharman Networks and associated parties–including Altnet, which delivers so-called “piggyback” technology with Kazaa, Altnet associated Brilliant Digital Entertainment, Sharman CEO Nikki Hemming and Altnet chief executive officer Kevin Bermeister and two technology directors–over alleged music copyright infringement made using the Kazaa software.

The labels hope to stop illegal P2P file sharing and to recover compensation for past infringements, says Michael Speck, general manager of the Music Industry Piracy Investigations unit of the Australian Record Industry Association.

The best coverage of the trial has come from Garth Montgomery’s lighthearted daily blog at Australia Personal Computer Mag where complete transcripts of the days proceeding are made available as PDF downloads as well as the writers rants and what he calls “anti-journalism’ pokes at applicants and respondants alike. He also deserves the credit for coining the term Kazaagate .

Music industry attorney Tony Bannon told Australian Justice Murray Wilcox that ownership of Sharman, which has been kept secret through its registration on the tax haven island of Vanuatu, is in fact controlled by Kevin Bermeister, CEO of Kazaa partner Altnet. Bannon said there is “ready inference that Kevin Bermeister is in fact the ultimate controller of Sharman,” ZDNet reported.

The music industry presented a number of key witnesses in effort to prove that Kazaa could indeed filter out copyrighted material despite denials to the contrary. Nigel Carson, a computer forensics investigator from KPMG, testified that it is possible to locate the physical computer and user of the machine by tracing the IP address. Carson said that if a company like Sharman Networks wants to trace a specific user who shared unlicensed music files, it would need to store the date and time that the transaction was done.

More potentially damning was the evidence given by Tom Mizzone, vice president of data services at New York-based MediaSentry who had been hired by the RIAA in March 2003 to search Kazaa for users located in Australia and download evidence they were swapping copyrighted material. Up to 600 scanners were turned to the task, and the internet addresses of the users recorded and checked against a database of internet service providers in Australia.

The court also heard that the major record labels were engaged in a program of actively disrupting the file-sharing network by bombarding it with billions of decoys and spoofs that pose as song files. The success of the spoof war meant as few as 7 per cent of a given artist’s tracks found on the network were usable, according to record industry memos.

Mizzone said that MediaSentry is also able to detect the copyright-infringing music files made available for download in the Kazaa system’s shared folders. He told the court that his company is doing what any ordinary user of the Kazaa system is able to do. Aside from detecting files, he said, they can also communicate with the users via the applications built in instant messaging.

Kazaa’a main defence inevitably seemed to rest on the previous legal precedent set in the 1980s. The much used Sony Corp. vs. Universal City Studios ‘Betamax case’ ruling in 1984 which said electronics giant Sony wasn’t liable when people used its Betamax videocassette recorder to copy movies illegally because the technology had significant uses that did not violate copyrights.

Federal Court Justice Murray Wilcox dumped 12 of the 14 of the respondents’ affidavits for the civil trial, saying they were not relevant to the case about copyright infringement. The rejected affidavits contained details of how Kazaa could be used to exchange legitimate materials. Wilcox said he agreed that Kazaa could be used for the sharing of licensed materials and that court time should not be wasted discussing the issue.

Judge Wilcox set aside Sharmans objections on Friday against more potentially damaging alegations in an affidavit containing a report from Dr. George Barker, director of the Australian National University’s Center for Law and Economics, Intellectual Property and Copyright.

According to the report, the Kazaa system is a “marketplace” that brings together people who have copyrighted works and people who want to make unauthorized copies of those works. The report adds that Kazaa “designs the rules, facilitates the ‘market’ for exchange of copyright works, and enforces or has the capacity to enforce the rules of that market.”

US. technical experts were due in Sydney over the weekend to debate whether its song files could be filtered to restrict the illegal flow of music on Kazaa’s “peer-to-peer” network on the Internet, the Sydney Morning Herald newspaper said on Saturday. The trial continues on Tuesday.

Further Coverage

Daily Despatch-KazaaGate [APCMag.com]
ZDNet Australia:Hot Topic, Sharman [ZDNet.com.au]
Report Asserts Kazaa Makes the Rules [CNet News]
Sharman Counter Attacks [MacWorld.co.uk]
US. Experts to Examine Filtering Web Songs [SignOnSanDiego.com]
Trial to Unmask Kazaa Owners [Wired.com]
Kazaa Faces Allegations in Copyright Trial [NewsFactor.com]
Witness Assaults Kazaa Filter Claims [CNet Asia]

Related Reading

Appeals Court Holds Grokster Not Liable [PCWorld Australia] August 2004
Digital Piracy – Definitive P2P Piracy Figures for Year 2003 [ITIC.ca]
RIAA, MPAA Appeal Against ‘Grokster is Legal’ Ruling [the Register] August 2003
Judge:File Swopping Tools Are Legal [CNet News] April 2003
File Swapper Eluding Pursuers [Washington Post] Dec 2002
Napster vs. the Music Industry [HK-Lawyer.com] June 2001
RIAA v. Diamond Multimedia Systems Inc. [Gigalaw.com] June 1999
RIAA, Diamond Sweep Away Suit [Wired.com]
Enforcement Bots-Who Does the Dirty Work? [No-ip.org]
CBS Songs Ltd. v. Amstrad Consumer Electronics 1988 [Xenoclast.org]

Dec3

Napster Guru Fanning Breaks Snocap Silence

Posted at 11:46 PM • No Comments

After months of quiet background development and some (mainly) unsubstantiated stories more recently, ex-Napster founder and P2P poster boy Shawn Fanning finally broke the veil of silent mystery surrounding his new P2P start-up Snocap today with the official launch of the company with a press release and the unveiling of the company website which filled in some of the blanks about their proposed plans for the much talked about new venture.

Fanning and major record labels are hoping that the peer-to-peer filtering software that his company have been developing will legitimize the revolution Napster started back in 1999. Snocap claims to be the first music licensing platform that will allow music download services and P2P networks alike to allow any track to be delivered or shared in the knowledge that the copyright holder gets paid. The software works by attaching a digital fingerprint to media that determines whether it can be shared and at what price.

Snocap has developed a proprietary content identification service system using technology licensed from Philips Research Labs which uses audio fingerprinting and scans downloads as they pass through the Snocap system and compares them to music in the company’s database. If there’s a match, the royalty rate is decided and usage rights applied. Philips have been working on the fingerprinting technology for a number of years and it is already in use by mobile music specialist Musiwave and music recognition database Gracenote.

“There are some good authorized online music services but they have limited content and a comparatively small number of users. There are unauthorized services that have content and users orders of magnitude higher, but the service they provide is inferior and they are at odds with rights holders. Snocap is the means to bridge that divide for the consumer.” said Fanning.

The company also confirmed rumours that it has signed a landmark agreement with Universal Music Group to provide technology and database services for the online distribution of the company’s entire catalogue. Universal has already begun to register its catalogue with Snocap. EMI and Sony BMG are reportedly in active negotiations.

Snocap received a $10 million round of financing led by WaldenVC, a San Francisco-based venture capital firm that has a strong focus on digital media companies, and Morgenthaler Ventures, a leading national venture capital firm focused on information technology, internet services and life sciences. According to WaldenVC General Partner Art Berliner, “Snocap represents the future of online music. We are excited to work with Shawn Fanning and his team in greatly expanding the boundaries of the digital media universe.”

The Snocap team is comprised of three of the old coding team from the Napster days, Fanning himself, Ali Ayder and Jordan Mendelson and headed up by venture capitalist veteran Ron Conway, who also invested in the original Napster.

The Snocap system will incorporate its technology into various P2P clients, In order for it to work, peer-to-peer networks must agree to build Snocap’s technology into their software, wether that will include current market leaders like Kazaa, Grokster, eDonkey and Morpheus depends on those companies agreeing to dumping their old ‘revenue model’ of free. So far the first P2P application using Snocap technology is expected to be Mashboxx, with an early 2005 launch date.

‘Rival’ P2P filter Audible Magic CEO Vance Ikezoye told the L.A. Times, “There will be peer-to-peers that are able to make that transition and compete, but technology is not the problem; it’s the business model, how do you convert somebody who’s getting something for free?”

Related Stories

Shawn Fanning’s Snocap Touts Vision of P2P Heaven [the Register]
Napster Founder Goes Legit [MercuryNews.com]
Napster Founder Basks in Funding, Label Support [CNet News]
Shawn Fanning’s New Tune:Snocap [BusinessWeek.com]
Napster Creator Touts Legal File Sharing [Forbes.com]
Napster Creator Reveals Next Step [BBC News]
SNOCAP Melts Barriers to Growth in the Digital Music Marketplace [BusinessWire.com-Official Press Release]
EMI Records Join the Snocap Queue [MusicbizNews24.com]
Napster Founder in Major Label Talks [MusicbizNews24.com]
Paid P2P Options Gain More Traction [MusicbizNews24.com]
Content Identification Audio Fingerprinting Technology [Philips Research]
A Highly Robust Audio Fingerprinting System [Philips Research] 9pg PDF

Napster Background

Napsters Back, What Did Silicon Valley Learn? (Oct 2003)
the Download on Napster (August 2003) [Alwayson-Network.com]
Napster Becomes Dot-goner After Sale Blocked (Sept 2002) [MercuryNews.com]
Napsters CEO Splits on Sour Note (May 2002) [BusinessWeek.com]
Inside Napster (August 2000) [BusinessWeek.com]
It’s a Rad, Rad Napster World [Darkridge.com]
All the Rave : The Rise and Fall of Shawn Fanning’s Napster [JosephMenn.com]

Dec1

CDs Still Rule but Digital Music Subscriptions Set to Top Downloads

Posted at 11:50 PM • No Comments

According to the latest digital music research undertaken by analysts at JupiterResearch their latest survey strongly supports two critical JupiterResearch forecasts: subscription services will eventually outpace a la carte downloads and CDs won’t be replaced by digital music in the next five years.

Downloads wont be replacing CDs just yet, according to a Jupiter Research Report

The study, “Consumer Survey Report: Music, 2004“, was based on a survey of over 2,300 online adults, and also compares results with a survey of over 2,100 online teens, ages 13-17 and suggests that by 2009 digital music sales will still represent just 12% of consumer music spending.

The majority of online adults, 51%, think physical music is more valuable than digital. “CDs offer higher sound fidelity, aren’t burdened with awkward copy protection and are compatible with pretty much every way people listen to music,” said JupiterResearch VP and Senior Analyst David Card. “MP3 players and portable rentals could turn around that value perception, but it will take time,” added Card.

“Digital music is a young person’s game,” said Josh Green, Analyst at JupiterResearch. “Forty one percent of 18-24 year-olds burn CDs and 31% use file sharing. For the over 25 crowd, those numbers are only 14% and 4%,” added Green.

A seperate study conducted by the Online Publishers Association in partnership with comScore Networks earlier in the month revealed that online music sales, seriously came into fruition in the beginning of 2004, and pushed the entertainment and lifestyles category of online content up by 78.3% in the first half of 2004 to a grand total of $182.8 million in spending.

It was the first time that the OPA had included online music in its online content measurements. The OPA report also noted that nearly all online content spending in the US is attributable to subscription payment programs, at 90% of sales.

In another report, published a week before the Jupiter study, Simon Dyson, editor of the ‘Music on the Internet’
survey for the Informa Media Group confirmed predictions that it’s going to be a long time before digital music downloads challenge CD sales, even in the online world. The IMG report says that by 2010 global online music sales will exceed $6bn. An impressive number, but still only 15.2 per cent of total spending on music worldwide.

Dyson, told BBC News, 2004 had been an “important” year for the digital music sector. But he warned that converting illegal peer-to-peer file sharers was central to the industry’s long-term success. He added that legal action being taken by record companies against illegal downloaders had so far failed to make an impact. But the IMG report differed from Jupiter in its predictions regarding subscription music services saying that digital downloads would continue to dominate (in terms of the value of sales) against subscription-based services.

Related Research

JupiterResearch Full Press Release [Yahoo Biz]
Subscription Services to Drive Digital Music [CNet News]
Digital Music a Long Way From Displacing CDs [the Register]
Inside Digital Media Interviews [InsideDigitalMedia.com]
TEMPO:Keeping Pace with Digital Music Behavior [Ipsos-Insight.com] PDF
Researching the Digital Music Landscape [Ipsos-Insight.com]
Can Music Move Online Content Mountain? [E-Marketer.com]
Online Publishers Assoc. Online Paid Content US. Market Report Nov.04 [online-Publishers.org] 18pg PDF
CDs Still Overshadow Digital-Music Downloads [NewsFactor.com]
Industry Focus:Music [Forrester Research]
Online Music Report-2004 [IPFI.org] 20pg. PDF
Digital Music Research Network [Queen Mary, University of London]
CDs May Soon go the Way of Vinyl [CNN.com]
CD Prices Sing the Blues [CNet News]

Nov29

Universal Music Boss Pushes New Worldwide Anti-piracy Initiative

Posted at 11:59 PM • No Comments

Jean-Renï¿½ Fourtou, the CEO of Vivendi Universal met in Paris last Friday with more than 70 business executives, brought together by the International Chamber of Commerce from a broad range of companies and trade associations to unveil a plan to create an international organization called BASCAP, or Business Action to Stop Counterfeiting and Piracy.

Vivendi are the parent company of Universal Music Group who have had high profile battles against piracy and Fourtou’s message was stern, “”This illegal activity is spiraling out of control. It is a major threat. It’s like a cancer”. Fourtou and the International Chamber of Commerce are trying to initiate a global offensive to combat the darker side of commerce and promised that the new initiative would “take the fight against intellectual property theft to a new level”.

“Globally, it’s hard to believe,” Fourtou said, “but two of every five recordings are pirate copies.” One of his ambitions, he said, is to explain to customers the devastating results, particularly in countries like Germany or Brazil, where the fakes have drained away local investment in music. Fourtou wasn’t just talking to music industry executives but an eclectic and global mix of industries. Piracy is practically the only issue that could draw a tobacco manufacturer and a music producer like Vivendi, to the same meeting.

Fourtou took over the helm of the then flailing Vivendi from the ousted Jean-Marie Messier in 2002 after the company recorded losses of 23.3billion euros ($30.8billion), a record for a French company.

more [International Herald Tribune]

Related Reading
Corporate Anti-Piracy Battle Goes International [GlobeandMail.com]
BASCAP Programme 16pg PDF [Iccwbo.org]
Who Owns What:Vivendi Universal [CJR.org]
Speaking of Music Piracy.. [Wired.com]
Federation Against Copyright Theft [Fact-UK]
What is Piracy? [IFPI.org]

Nov29

Kazaa Copyright Trial Begins in Australia

Posted at 12:01 AM • No Comments

The long running saga of the music industry’s copyright battle against the worlds most popular peer to peer file sharing software Kazaa moved to Australia today as case number NSD 110, Universal Music Australia Pty Ltd v Sharman License Holdings Ltd got underway in the Federal Court of Australia in Sydney.

At the start of a trial over the legality of Kazaa software, the court was told today that Kazaa had 100 million users worldwide, sharing three billion music files a month. Five major Australian record companies-Universal, EMI, Sony BMG, Warner Music, Festival/Mushroom and 25 other North American, European and Australian record companies -are suing Sharman Networks, which develops and distributes the software, for copyright infringement.

The labels contend that Sharman was fully aware of how the software was used and did nothing to stop copyright infringements. Lawyers for Australia’s recording industry branded the popular Kazaa file-swapping network “an engine of copyright piracy to a degree of magnitude never before seen”. Kazaa’s owners, Sharman insist that while they urge users not to commit music piracy, they have no control over what people do with the popular “peer-to-peer” software they provide.

Tony Bannon, representing Australia’s major record labels dismissed Sharman’s defense, saying Kazaa’s owners actively take steps allowing users to filter certain files from the network such as those that could contain viruses or pornography but not the files containing copyrighted songs. Bannon said the owners of the P2P software were seeking to get rich from advertising revenue based on the volume of traffic on the Kazaa network, while painting themselves as crusaders for music fans. Mr Bannon said Sharman’s actions were “all a charade” because it was interested only in making money from the copyright-infringing behavior of its users.

Each file traded on Kazaa has a unique digital fingerprint in the form of an MD5 hash a mathematical signature produced by running an algorithm across the contents of a file. This signature allows Kazaa to identify how many users are sharing the same file so that it can be downloaded from many places at once with complete integrity. If Kazaa were really trying to become a legitimate service, an obvious first step would be to block the MD5 hashes for known pirated files, argues the music industry. The reliability of P2P filtering technologies are still conclusively unproven however and are still under constant development.

Kazaa already has one major court victory under its belt, with the Dutch Supreme Court ruling in December 2003 that Kazaa’s then Swedish owners could not be held liable for copyright infringement. A possible difference in the Australian case is the recording industry’s invocation of the controversial, Anton Pillar Law that allows litigants in civil copyright cases to gather evidence. An Anton Piller order is granted when a judge is persuaded that there are reasonable grounds evidence may be destroyed if advance notice is given.

In February, after a six-month inquiry by the Music Industry Piracy Investigation unit of the Australian Record Industry Association, the record labels, organized under a cloak of absolute secrecy secured the Anton Piller order permitting a surprise search of Kazaa premises, to avoid any potential loss or destruction of evidence and legal authority to gather evidence without police being present. The information gathered has yet to be revealed.

The true owners of Sharman remain a mystery. Although it has offices in Australia, Sharman was formed in the island state of Vanuatu, a no-tax haven where the secrecy of private companies is sacred, improper disclosure of financial information to others is subject to criminal prosecution and tax information is not shared with any outside jurisdiction.

The Federal Court case, before judge Murray Wilcox, is expected to stretch over three weeks.

Nov28

Increasing the FLAC. Lossless Audio Format Offers High End Download Alternative

Posted at 12:17 AM • No Comments

One of the undoubted ‘limitations’ of music downloads from the current explosion in paid digital music services is that tracks downloaded from major stores like iTunes (in AAC format), Rhapsody (RA), Sony Connect (ATRAC) and all the WMA formatted stores (just about all the rest) is that all the music on offer is, to grossly understate matters, of greatly inferior quality than what you would expect if you purchased the same track on CD. All these services provide only “lossy” compression audio files.

AAC, WMA, ATRAC, MP3 and RealAudio (or RA files) are all by differing degrees, heavily compressed ‘lossy formats’ compared to the quality you’d expect from an original CD recording that is, some frequencies in the original signal are lost in the encoding process, and can’t be restored in playback. All lossy compression codecs work by removing portions of the original signal which are determined to be essentially inaudible a technique known as “perceptual coding.”

So in effect music retailers are grossly misleading the public into thinking that the music they are downloading is of similar quality to the equivalent CD. “CD Quality” is often claimed for music ripped at bitrates of 160kbps or 192kbps, but considering that the actual CD bitrate is 1400kbps its plainly misguided to repeat the mantra that the relatively low bitrates hawked by major stores are the same as buying the CD.

The main problem for the consumer in downloading uncompressed music is file size. With a minute of CD audio taking up around 10mb compared to 1mb of MP3 audio, lossless audio delivery will only be feasible when high bandwidth availability improves drastically.

As much faster internet connections become more affordable and widespread some music punters are looking for better quality downloads at much higher bitrates. Catching on in popularity with online distributors and audio enthusiasts alike right now is the relatively new (compared to the ageing MP3) FLAC. FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Codec) compresses audio like ZIP compresses files — it doesn’t lose any quality but it does result in about a 50% reduction in file size compared to a full-sized WAV or AIFF file. What’s more, FLAC files can easily be converted to WAV or AIFF formats — thus you get a full CD-quality audio file that you can use on any media device, including standard CD players.

Ironically one of the bands promoting the use of the high quality FLAC codec is Metallica, the band still reviled by many for their much publisized legal battle with the original shackle free Napster. Most of their live shows are now available for download as either MP3 or FLAC files. Mindawn.com is an online download store specializing in progrock and independent bands and all tracks are offered in the option of both “lossy” compression in the Ogg Vorbis format–Ogg Vorbis is an open source, licence free music codec that gives similar results to the popular MP3 format.–, or lossless files in FLAC format and more importantly for the customer, no DRM limitations. Royalty rates for artists range from 55-75% in favour of the artist.

Another early adopter of FLAC is internet only label and distributor Magnatune who offer all their tracks in a wide variety of audio formats, again DRM free and available in lossy or lossless quality downloads. Florida based digital dance distributor EDM Digital are another store that have the option of FLAC. DiscLogic.com, MusicToday.com, and AliveAudio.net are joining the early movers too and although the overall choice is limited, its getting broader. The FLAC format is increasingly favoured by live music traders, who prefer the full audio experience in comparison to the stripped down MP3 version. If your looking for a free comparison test head over to the bulging collection of live downloads at the Live Music Archive where you can grab a huge collection of concert recordings from the obscure to known ‘trade friendly’ names like: And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead, the Grateful Dead, Phish, Hank Williams III, String Cheese Incident and 100s more. All free of DRM shackles, the threat of lawsuits and with a choice of lossy (Ogg/MP3) or lossless (FLAC) audio flavours.

Related Reading

Mindawns Role Model for Digital Music Purchases [the Inquirer]
Giving Apple Some Flac [MacWorld.com]
Flac Etree Wiki [Etree.org]
Live Music Archives (Freeand legal Flac Downloads) [Archive.org]
Flac Wikipedia [Wikipedia.org]
Music Everywhere-It’s all About the Algorithm But Which One Will Win? [IEEE Spectrum Online]
Lossless Compression of Audio [FirstPr.com.au]
Monkeys Audio [MonkeysAudio.com]
Shorten Audio [UMBC.edu]
Live Lossless Music Traders Database [ETree.org]
Audio Coding Wiki [AudioCoding.com]
Audio Data Compression [WikiPedia.org]
Lossless Codecs Forum [HydrogenAudio.org]
the DRM Debacle [TBray.org]

Nov27

Legal Download Search Engine GoFish to Launch Monday

Posted at 12:26 AM • No Comments

A new search engine launches Monday (November 29th) aimed at helping potential buyers find legal digital content across the growing number of legal download services. In essence GoFish.com is another shopping metasearcher though with a narrower target. It fetches feeds from merchants’ media catalogues, indexes them and makes them searchable. The company is getting feeds from iTunes, Napster, Musicmatch, eMusic, Streamwaves and a host of other online merchants, allowing users to search across all the services from one place. The site also looks for audiobooks, video, ring tones and games.

San Francisco based GoFish, was started by Michael Downing, founder of the ill-fated “music locker” service Musicbank.com. Musicbank was originally designed to compete with (pre-Universal and CNet) MP3.com’s streaming locker service — known as My.Mp3.com — that allowed users to stream music from a database of music the company stored on its servers. Downing sold his music-player software company Sonique to Lycos in 2000.

GoFish will make a 9 percent to 15 percent commission from merchants for every sale it sends their way. The site also will earn commissions when users sign up for monthly music subscription services offered by Napster and other online stores. Given the already wafer thin margins operated by merchants its hard to see anyone getting rich from that revenue model though the company are pinning their hopes on licensing out the technology to other websites and search engines.

Downing said he already has talked with most search engines about partnerships and hopes to announce a deal before the end of the year. In an interview with the Mercury News he said the prospective partnership is with a second-tier search engine rather than a top site like Google or Yahoo.

In the sparse detail on the GoFish website they report to have indexed 12 million media files and claim to be the largest, deepest reaching, and most expansive search platform for digital media in the world. If the project sounds alarmingly familiar, late last year SingingFish.com another audio video search specialist from Seattle sold out to AOL for an undisclosed sum. Though Singing Fish relies on their own indexing technology rather than plugging into third party databases and also outsources the search service.

Related Reading

Fishing For Music With GoFish [SiliconBeat.com]
Napster, My.MP3.com, Digital Music, and the Future [NetFreedom.org]
Musicbank Calls it Quits [Wired.com]
Eric Gibb’s Musicbank Portfolio [Chromatic.net]
Musicbanks CEO: Hitting the Right Notes [BusinessWeek.com]
Singingfish Grows As Multimedia Search Provider [SearchEngineWatch.com]

Nov26

UK Recorded Music Sales At All Time High Say BPI

Posted at 12:38 AM • No Comments

Despite some near hysterical predictions, rumours and reports in the press about the effect of file sharing on CD sales this year, todays Q3 sales figures from the UK record companies trade association, the BPI suggest that despite of rampant music file sharing on P2P networks UK record companies are celebrating their best ever year for album sales, with a record 237.2 million sold in the 12 months to September and a figure of 51.5m CD albums shipped in Q3, both all time highs.

Figures showed a slight drop in revenue as retail prices continue to decline, with 60% of CD albums now selling at less than ï¿½10, and this has had an effect on overall sales value, which fell by 1.5% to ï¿½221m in the third quarter. Annually, however, positive growth
continues to be recorded with CD revenue increasing by 2.3% and total album value by 2.1%.

CD Singles sales dipped 21.6% over the quarter, whilst twelve inch singles continue to slide with a 6.8% dip. The popularity and revival of the seven inch single continued unabated however with the eleventh consecutive quarterly rise. Sales of the ‘vintage’ singles format much beloved in the 70s and 80s were up a massive 86.5% over the quarter and up 74.8% over last years corresponding yearly totals.

The market for legal downloads grew rapidly in the third quarter following the launch of Napster, iTunes and Connect. Had digital sales been added to the third-quarter figures, the singles market would have shown a 9% increase instead of a 12% decline. Around 1.75 million individual tracks were purchased from new and existing services such as MyCokeMusic and Wippit, compared with 7.3 million physical singles, and download sales
are currently running at up to a quarter of a million units a week. The BPI said download sales, currently recorded in their own chart, would be integrated into the top 40 by “early next year”.

The increasing range of repertoire available to buyers is reflected in the fact that more than 40,000 different tracks each week are being downloaded. Chris Green, BPI’s Research Director said, “The level of legitimate downloading in the UK clearly demonstrates that consumer demand for music on a track by track basis remains strong”.

Last week, the world’s third-largest music group, EMI, said the industry was rebounding as the firm’s digital music revenue more than quadrupled in the six months to September 30 and as it tackled illegal online file exchanging.

The BPI also said music DVDs were flying off the shelves, with sales leaping 52 percent year on year during the traditionally quiet third quarter. The format now accounts for 4 percent of the music market, almost as big as the singles sector.

Related Reading

BPI Quarterly Market Review Nov 26 2004 [BPi pdf]
UK CD Album Shipments Break Q3 Record [the Register]
UK Music Sees Record Album Sales [BBC News]
Online Sales May Prove Singles Saviour [ Guardian Unlimited]
British Association of Record Dealers [Bardltd.org]
Is Downloading Really Bad? [Guardian Unlimited]
Its Black and Back, the Vinyl Single Spins Back into Favour [the Independent]
Elastic Pricing is Killing the Singles Star [the Guardian]
Industry Facts and Figures [MusicTank.co.uk]
the Day the Music Shop Died [Guardian Unlimited]

Nov25

Napster Extend UK Retail Reach

Posted at 12:40 AM • No Comments

Napster today stepped up the retail distribution of the Napster download vouchers in the UK by announcing the availability of the ‘top up’ cards in over 1000 newsagents across the country owned by the TM Retail group. The new deal will see the increasingly ubiquitous cards in branches of McColl’s, Martin’s, Forbuoys and Dillon’s across Britains high streets.

‘TM Retail is an excellent partner for Napster because it gives our localised UK online music service a high street presence in hundreds of smaller shops around the country. Our retail roll-out is gathering pace and shows the tremendous appeal of the Napster brand to traditional offline retailers,’ said Napster UK general manager Leanne Sharman.

Napster Music Vouchers are colour coded. Green vouchers offer access to Napster’s online music subscription service for two months and cost ï¿½20, or ï¿½35 for four months. Blue vouchers entitle the bearer to take their pick of permanent downloads from Napster in bundles of 10, 22, and 33 tracks at a cost of ï¿½10, ï¿½20, and ï¿½30, respectively.

The announcement follows other recent deals with the Post Office and the Dixons chain of electrical stores.

In the US. earlier this week Napster rolled out a joint promotion with video rental chain Blockbusters. The new “Digital Duo” card will offer consumers access to the Napster subscription service for one month, along with two free a-la-carte downloads. Movie rentals are also part of the offer, with cardholders receiving access to a Blockbuster`s new Netflix-style service. The card will retail for $20, and is currently only available at RadioShack outlets during a trial period.

Related Reading

Napster Nips into Newsagents [the Register]
Napster Vouchers on Sale at Newsagents [Web-User]
Napster in 1000 UK Newsstands [MacWorld.com]
Napster Expand UK Distribution Partnerships [MusicbizNews24.com]