2008 - Death of the retail Audio CD according to Gartner

Gartner Research thinks that 2008 will be the last year of the retail CD. They have concluded that the music industry must move away from the retail CD as a primary source of revenue and focus on an online distribution method. The report states that the worldwide sale of music CDs which peaked in 2000 is dropping rapidly and they believe that the current level of sales will never regain market share. They are suggesting that the music industry must provide a digital first or a burn-on-demand process that would see music being made available online and for portable devices such as ipods first before being made for retail release. I guess we'll have to wait and see how 2009 turns out before we can say that Gartner was right.

Best Buy To Purchase Napster

Electronics retailer, Best Buy, announced today, that it would buy Napster for $121 million. Napster was one of the first P2P music file-sharing services but never really got off the ground, lawsuits in its early days eventually forced it to get out of the P2P business. Later attempts by Roxio Execs to get it going as a subscription based service also failed to render any real viability as a business model, The purchase is a strategic decision as Best Buy currently sell mp3's online, but have not really made a big impact to date. They are hoping that they be able to leverage Napsters brand recognition into a real solution for selling content to go with the hardware they sell.

Yahoos DRM Legacy...

Yahoo are closing its Yahoo! Music Store for good. They are also taking their DRM license key servers offline on September 30, 2008. Problem is, that by doing so, they will be rendering any of the DRM based music bought through their store obsolete. Chalk one up for the protectionists in this one, congrats you just screwed a whole bunch of people out of their legally acquired music.

Trent Reznor Releases Latest Music Under Creative Commons...

Ars Technica are reporting that Trent Reznor has released his latest NIN (Nine Inch Nails) album under a Creative Commons license. He has released Ghost I-IV under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike license that allows for noncommercial redistribution. Reznor has leveraged his musical history into some real selling power generating real sales via a number of attractive product figurations. A free download version of Ghosts I is available to those who wished to pay nothing. A digital version of all four albums is also available for $5, and for $10 you could get a CD version along with a digital download. $75 and $300 deluxe versions were available and include things like a Blu-ray disc, a DVD of the multitrack audio files from the project, videos, deluxe packaging, and more. These deluxe editions sold out immediately, the $300 version alone getting $750,000. It all goes to show you that you dont need the major labels backing you to make some serious money. For more info read the original article at ARS Technica

Music, Media & Money

I'm both fascinated and annoyed at many of the approaches the music companies are taking at making money. They bitch and complain about piracy and to be honest they are probably right to certain degree. However, I've been buying music for a long time, and much of my music until about 10 years ago was on vinyl. Every time a new device or media technology is announced, I cringe and think "does this mean I'm going to have to buy all the music in my library again". I've previously bought music on LP's, Tapes, CD's, DVD's and even the odd piece of digital music online and on memory card. I love gadgets like many others, however I can tell you this, I won't be jumping to, or spending a lot of money on new mediums. I'll continue buying CD's and then ripping them to my media players. I'm happy enough with that. Stop re-inventing the wheel ... Frankly I'm sick of spending my hard earned money to make some fat cat music executive or lawyer rich. If you want me to buy music I already have, you've got to offer me a lot more than a new package or a "remastered" version. Invest some money in value added content and pay the artists more ... you media moguls can certainly afford it. In case you're wonder why I'm so pissed I sat down recently and figured out how much it would cost me to replace my record collection at £15 a CD ... I freaked. Think about this a moment ... the record companies sue the hell out of copyright violators and yet when it come to paying the creators of that same music, they drag their heels and cry saying the music business is expensive. Yet the RIAA and other organisations with similar interest have been trying to change the law as regards to royalties so that they dont have to keep paying the creators of the music they're selling. Read this article over at IGN for more, it details that the RIAA recently petitioned Judges to lower the royalties so that the record companies can make more money... For another take on why the MPAA thinks piracy exists read another article again at IGN, it made sense to me.