Comments on: Face the Music: It's Time To Fix Licensing

By: Is Warner Music Killing Music Startups

Is Warner Music Killing Music Startups — Fri, 08 May 2009 04:49:11 +0000

[...] up on these ad-supported digital music startups and moving on. This comes as no surprise to us: Rags Gupta had pointed out in a post for us that music startups are destined to fail because the labels are gouging them silly. At a royalty [...]

By: Why MySpace Music is Likely to Fail - GigaOM

Why MySpace Music is Likely to Fail - GigaOM — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 15:38:54 +0000

[...] not facing the proverbial music and understanding that their business model is completely broken, including the licensing end of the game. They need to learn that they don’t need to start a company, but instead encourage a thousand [...]

By: Music Licensing Schemes Today Limit Innovation : InnovatingMusic

Music Licensing Schemes Today Limit Innovation : InnovatingMusic — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 22:16:47 +0000

[...] ‘Rags’ Gupta, current VP of Partnerships at Brightcove and previously at Live365, reiterated what many have been saying for years, that current music licensing schemes are hamstringing growth of the music ecosystem. He laid out [...]

By: Ian

Ian — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 14:05:43 +0000

Social network music by Qbox.com lets you search and discover music on artists’ profile pages that stream promotional tracks for free. Similar to the way Google brings traffic to online media properties that they do not own, Qbox simply brings the user to artist pages that stream legal and free music. This approach allows us to stay clear of the constraints imposed by the labels.

Once advertising space is carved out, it will help Qbox generate and share ad revenues directly with musicians/copyright holders. In this way, artists may be able to realize meaningful revenues even with free streaming (as long as their fans enjoy and consume their work).

By: Distorted-Loop.com » Napster’s lucky cat running short of lives

Distorted-Loop.com » Napster’s lucky cat running short of lives — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 13:02:02 +0000

[...] right now ($1.33 per share) trades for less than the cash it has in hand. We think the company – famous for its cat logo – may need to use another of its nine [...]

By: jk

jk — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 21:41:52 +0000

The sad thing about the dim hopes of the Ad supported players is that they help prevent piracy. At least, they prevent piracy in so much that they are legitimate and sate the ‘need’ to try out new music.

By: Petter Karal

Petter Karal — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 21:37:07 +0000

I wish I shared your (relative) optimism.

Each individual working at a major label – no matter what kind of executive title he or she brandishes – is woven into a sticky web of bosses, board members, artists, lawyers, other rights organizations, copyright law, media and incentive schemes that simply makes it impossible to initiate radical change. After a couple of years at such a place, the standards for what constitute “radical change” have sunk so low that nobody is even able to envisage it.

I believe we will need to see them crash hard and lose significance before a new paradigm for legitimate business can arise. I’ve met some real nice people who work for major labels, and I don’t envy them.

By: P2P Blog

P2P Blog — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 20:54:01 +0000

Napster confirms getting out of campus-wide subscription programs…

Digital music vendor Napster has confirmed today that it will phase out its university subscription program that gave students subsidized access to Napster’s music subscription service as part of their tuition fees….

By: George Kirikos

George Kirikos — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 18:01:42 +0000

You’re absolutely right, and its been that case for “ages” in internet time. Years ago my company acquired the Jukebox.com domain name, hoping to make a digital music store competitor to iTunes, Napster, etc. Perhaps we were a bit naive, but it turned out that the technology providers (e.g. LoudEye.com) who seemed to offer “turnkey” systems could provide the backend and billing, but you were on your own in terms of negotiating a license agreement with each music label. And, if you wanted to do that in all countries….well, unless you want to spend millions of dollars worth of billable time in legal fees, forget about it. I like my lawyers, but not enough to buy them new cottages. :)

Hopefully one day there will be a dramatically simpler and predictable process, just like for any other product be it shoes, videogames, jewelry or cameras sold on the internet. Without predictability, the reward would have to be gigantic to justify the risks involved in investing in this area.

By: David Hjortsoe

David Hjortsoe — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 17:44:31 +0000

Dear Rags,

There is actually another model that I thought I’d share with you. TDC — the Danish teleco incumbent — has introduced a service called TDC Play, which allows for all its mobile, fixednet and broadband customers to download music on a subcription-model base (disclosure: I work for TDC). The point of this being that as long as you are customer of TDC you will have a license (the license is renewed every 30 days) for the music (which is DRM’ed and can only be played by WMA-compatible players).

All the major 5 labels are licensing their music under the TDC subscription-model.

Further, you can actually share the music between ie. cellphones as long as they are both TDC customers (via bluetooth or MMS typically).

The point of all this – and the business rationale for TDC – is of course retention…

BR,
David,