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Grooveshark to be sued by Warner and Sony

Janko Roettgers — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 15:41:47 +0000

Sony Music and Warner Music are about to sue streaming music service Grooveshark for copyright infringement, the New York Times reported on Thursday. The two major labels would be joining Universal, which sued Grooveshark’s parent company, the Escape Media Group, last month.

A joint legal front of the three majors is a bit of déjà vu for anyone who has been following the online music space over the past couple of years: Big music companies used to regularly join forces to pursue legal actions against numerous file-sharing companies like Napster, Grokster, iMesh and many others. However, the last of these lawsuits ended earlier this year with a settlement between LimeWire and the labels. LimeWire had closed shop over a year ago after being handed a permanent injunction. Now it looks like the majors may have moved on from the P2P space, targeting cloud music providers instead.

So why would Sony and Warner sue Grooveshark? The service is essentially a competitor to Spotify, something that became even more apparent when Grooveshark rolled out a major revamp that focuses on social network integration last month. However, unlike Spotify, Grooveshark doesn’t have licensing agreements with all rights holders. Instead, it offers users a chance to upload music and responds to take-down requests from rights holders, much in the same way that YouTube removes infringing videos from its site.

Grooveshark has struck deals with EMI and numerous indie labels; the company’s SVP of external affairs, Paul Geller, told me a few weeks ago that it is signing up between 10 and 20 labels per month. Universal, however, argued in its lawsuit that Grooveshark’s intent is to profit from infringement and that its employees as well as its executives personally uploaded countless songs to grow the site’s catalog.

The question is: With Grooveshark’s being sued by all three big majors and EMI’s being sold to Universal Music and Sony, will we see a return of the music industry lawsuits against online services? Back in the heyday of file sharing, the RIAA-led labels literally sued dozens of P2P operators out of existence.

These days, things are a little different, as many streaming music providers have been striking deals with the labels before launching their services. However, a possible victory over Grooveshark could embolden the labels to go after other unlicensed cloud services as well.

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Michael Jackson lives on through crowdsourced music video

Liz Shannon Miller — Sun, 12 Jun 2011 07:01:44 +0000

One challenge of releasing a posthumous album is deciding how to create music videos; after all, the person who should be appearing in them is no longer available. This month marks the second anniversary of Michael Jackson’s death, but there was enough of his back catalog left unheard to release a second posthumous album.

So for the release of the “new” Michael Jackson single, “Behind the Mask,” Sony Music and the creative team at Radical Media decided to make it about the fans — literally, by constructing a video from 1,600 pieces of amateur footage, submitted by Jackson devotees.

This is far from the first crowdsourced music video: The collaborative elements of YouTube and other platforms have enabled these sorts of experiments since at least 2007. One of my favorite examples from that year is the video for Terra Naomi’s “Say It’s Possible,” edited together with contributed footage of people holding up cards, upon which they’d written their dreams.

But what’s innovative about “Behind the Mask” is that the challenge put to those who contributed was both far more structured and far more elaborate. At the official site, fans wanting to pay tribute to Jackson were given forty different suggestions for their video submissions. Options included singing the entire song from a specific camera angle, faking a saxophone solo, performing a signature Michael Jackson dance move or putting a fedora and sunglasses on a cat or dog.

These options were grouped into five categories — singers, audience, musicians, dancers and extras — ranked in terms of difficulty and accompanied by bare-bones animation demonstrations, filmmaking tips and technical specifications. Submissions are now closed, but you can still check out all the options here.

The video goes live on Facebook and elsewhere on Tuesday, June 14th, and while its effect on record sales might be hard to gauge, it makes for a fitting tribute to one specific part of Jackson’s legacy — the passion he inspired in his fans. People from over 100 countries contributed to the ”Behind the Mask” video; he has 35 million Facebook fans. Two years out, Jackson still lives on.

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Upset YouTube Users Strike Back at Music Biz

Janko Roettgers — Thu, 17 Mar 2011 17:56:29 +0000

Employees of Sony, EMI, Warner Music Group and Universal Music aren’t welcome here: That’s the message an increasing number of German bloggers and website owners are conveying online these days through a new project called Bust All Major Labels.

Geo-blocked content on YouTube...

The project is a reaction to the fact that rights holders have blocked hundreds of YouTube music videos in Germany, and it uses a kind of eye-for-an-eye approach to get its point across: Website owners add a few lines of JavaScript code to their site to actively block visitors with IP addresses owned by major labels.

Bust All Major Labels even copies the message YouTube shows its visitors when videos are blocked in a certain geolocation, albeit with a few differences. Employees of major labels are shown the middle finger, with a warning that reads: “The content of this site isn’t available for you. We’re not sorry at all about this.”

... and on German blogs. Can you spot the difference?

The two people behind the project are Christoph Maeschig and Mathias Keswani, who told German online magazine jetzt.de that they’re not doing this to fight the man. “We are not trying to say that record labels are bad,” said Keswani, adding, “We are just trying to say that we are annoyed.”

The heart of the conflict is that German rights holders haven’t been able to agree with YouTube on royalties for music videos. Germany’s performing rights organization GEMA is currently battling YouTube in court on this very issue, and more than 600 videos have been blocked on behalf of rights holders. A number of musicians have taken issue with this measure, complaining that they’re losing an important promotional opportunity, and many local Internet users have voiced their displeasure as well.

Maeschig and Keswani don’t expect that Bust All Major Labels will actually help to resolve the issue, but the duo told jetzt.de that they really just wanted to make a point. Said Keswani: “Record labels and YouTube are somehow working together in the U.S., generating millions in profits. Why can’t we do the same in Germany?”

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Report: The Live-Stream Video Market

paulzagaeski — Tue, 16 Nov 2010 08:00:15 +0000

The live-stream video market is entering an upturn in the typical hockey stick growth chart. Tens of millions of desktop viewers use browser-based players to find live-streaming content on an ever-increasing number of web sites and mobile devices. Raw viewership will grow fastest in the consumer segment, where sites like Justin.tv and Qik are focused. Those like Kyte, Livestream, Ustream and BitGravity, meanwhile, primarily offer platforms to commercial content providers seeking a mass audience. And as the market grows, both in terms of viewers and of the number and type of content providers, it will support both those with a diverse, one-stop-shop approach and those who specialize in particular content and audiences. Additional companies mentioned in this report include YouTube/Google, Sony, HTC, Vivu, Facebook and Apple. To see a full list of companies and to read the full report, sign up for a free trial.

After a Month in Business, Vevo Already Tops in Music Video Traffic

Ryan Lawler — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 21:49:24 +0000

Vevo logo

Vevo started off with a bang, further confirming what we already knew — that people really like watching music videos online. So much so, in fact, that the online music video site launched on Dec. 8 still managed to beat out existing sites like MySpace Music, AOL Music, Warner Music and MTV Networks Music, while clocking more than 35 million viewers for the month.

Despite some early troubles on the destination site, the Vevo network drew 35.4 million unique users in December, according to comScore Media Metrix. But it’s worth mentioning that not all of that traffic is attributable to Vevo.com — in fact, comScore’s numbers take into account all views on YouTube’s Vevo channel. It also counts all views that occur in the Vevo-branded player on third-party web sites, including artist sites such as ladygaga.com.

Vevo was formed as a joint venture between Universal Music Group and Sony Music Entertainment, with financial backing from Abu Dhabi Media Co. and technology backing by YouTube. Like a “Hulu for music videos,” the company was created as a way to extract more value from music videos online, by creating a destination site that could demand higher CPMs than what record labels were getting from video-sharing sites like YouTube.

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Why Vevo Will Fail

Janko Roettgers — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 02:30:50 +0000

It makes sense that Vevo, the music video site that launched as a joint venture between Universal Music and Sony Music yesterday, is trying to cast itself as MTV meets Hulu. An unlikely underdog when it entered the scene back in early 2007, Hulu — a video platform backed by major broadcasters — sounded to many like a recipe for disaster. We gleefully ridiculed the venture, calling it names and predicting its imminent demise.

Boy were we wrong. At least in the U.S., Hulu has become practically synonymous with watching TV online. The site served an astonishing 856 million streams in October alone, according to comScore, and a few missteps along the way haven’t managed to substantially hurt the venture. Clearly, Vevo would like to follow Hulu’s rise to fame. I just don’t think it will happen. Vevo, in its current form, is doomed to fail.

It’s not even the ownership that’s bugging me, even though there is much to be bugged by. Vevo is jointly owned by Sony Music and the Universal Music Group, with an investment coming from the Abu Dhabi Media Group. This isn’t the first time Sony and Universal have tried to cook up something together; they formed an online music joint venture called Pressplay back in the heydays of Napster.

Pressplay was supposed to be “on the leading edge of music” by offering pricey, DRM-laden subscription packages to people used to free downloads. EMI was wise enough not to join the venture, thought it ended up licensing its music. But while Pressplay went nowhere, the very same ownership and licensing structure is now in place with Vevo.

Nor is it the fact that Vevo.com has been struggling for the better part of yesterday and today, serving up 503 error messages and at times even going completely blank, that leads me to believe it will fail. Even though that’s pretty embarrassing for a site backed by two major labels and sitting atop Google’s infrastructure.

No, what really bothers me is the fact that Hulu for music videos is a fundamentally misguided idea, one that ignores key differences between music and TV programming. TV is for the most part still a lean-back medium. Sure, we love to surf the web and send out tweets while we watch the latest Heroes episode, but we’re not interacting with the show in the same way that we would with a song, or even a music video. Not to be too poetic here, but one could argue that we create our own music videos every time we listen to music. The same can’t be said of TV shows. I don’t really act out too many Heroes episodes in my head.

But music videos have become a participatory medium. Cases in point: The tens of thoudsands of OK GO music videos from high schools and bored teens all around the world, the JK Wedding Entry Dance and the thousands of wedding dance clips it inspired, never mind the countless uploads of fan-filmed live shows and remixes. Heck, if I search for Bono on Vevo, all I get is a handful of clips. Do the same search on YouTube, and you’ll get the official footage, plus dozens of live gigs from all around the world.

The idea is not to separate music videos from all these user contributions, but to embrace them, much in the same way Warner Sony did with the JK wedding video, which helped to propel the Chris Brown song used in the video to the top of various download charts. In other words, if you want to have a Hulu-like success story for music videos, you shouldn’t build another Hulu, but something with an upload button.

Of course, there’s already a site that offers music videos, fan remixes and participation that goes far beyond leaving a comment or rating a video: YouTube. Trying to build a separate location for content that’s such an integral part of YouTube without tapping into its user-generated content — that’s a recipe for failure.

This article also appeared on BusinessWeek.com.

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Vevo Stumbles Out of the Gate

Ryan Lawler — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 16:43:54 +0000

Vevo FAIL

If Vevo is supposed to be the future of the music industry, that future has gotten off to a slow and ignominious start. Apparently Vevo’s servers are still hungover from a wild night of partying with Bono, Adam Lambert, Mariah Carey, and Lady Gaga, because it’s the day after launch and the new music video site is slow to load — that is, if you can get it to load at all.

The Universal Music Group-Sony Music joint venture has big aspirations for revolutionizing the way that viewers interact with artists and their music videos — and for better monetizing those videos with ads from premium brands running alongside them.

At last night’s launch event, Vevo CEO Rio Caraeff stressed that building a positive user experience would be key to the site’s success. “If we focus on the fan, if we focus on the experience, the rest will fall in line,” he said. But the user experience thus far has been sub-optimal, to say the least.

Vevo acknowledged as much through Twitter late last night, copping to a “launch overload,” and saying that the Vevo team was “working on it.” But that was more than eight hours ago, and I still can’t get a video to load.

In response to a request for comment, a Vevo spokesperson wrote, “The traffic VEVO.com is experiencing right now has exceeded even our largest expectations and is multiple orders of magnitude above what any other online video service has generated at its launch. The VEVO team is working diligently to enhance the infrastructure required to more than meet the demands of the tens of millions of users who are trying to access the site on day one.”

While the technical problems might be temporary, it’s difficult to overlook the embarrassment some people in the industry may be feeling after talking up a “revolutionary” new site, only to watch it stumble on its first day in business.

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Bono: Vevo Is Rebirth of Music Industry

Ryan Lawler — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 01:59:37 +0000

Online music video destination site Vevo launched tonight with an introduction by Bono, who forecast that the new site would strike a new paradigm in the music industry. “Friends, we are gathered here today to mourn the loss of a great old cash cow that was the music business,” Bono said. “But friends, we’re also here to celebrate new shoots, new life, and the birth of a new model for our industry.”

Taking a page out of Hulu CEO Jason Kilar’s playbook, Vevo CEO Rio Caraeff told the crowd at the company’s launch event in Manhattan that the new site would be all about the user experience. “If we focus on the fan, if we focus on the experience, the rest will fall in line,” Caraeff said. But then taking a page out the music industry’s playbook, he welcomed Mariah Carey, Adam Lambert and Lady Gaga to the stage. Let’s just say record labels don’t do humble very well.

Vevo will have a huge amount of video content at launch, as its owners control more than 80 percent of all music videos created. YouTube provides backend management for the videos and will also drive viewers to the new destination site.

The site will get rid of duplicate and low-quality uploads that currently plague YouTube, redirecting to the official highest-quality recording studio version on Vevo. High-definition videos are coming early next year, and synchronized lyrics are posted for as many videos as possible. Vevo videos are embeddable, though there doesn’t seem to be anyway for users to participate or mash them up beyond leaving a comment.

The company has future plans to make its videos available not just online, but on mobile and connected devices. “It’s not about building a destination site, it’s about building an experience,” Caraeff said. “It’s about putting out the best experience wherever people are.”

Universal Music CEO Doug Morris, who had the vision for the site and brought the team together, said that Vevo would be a boon for music lovers, artists, brands, and recording companies alike. And it marks a dramatic change in industry cooperation. “Major record companies are actually working together, and controlling their own destiny,” Morris said.

Vevo has seen a fair amount of interest from other content providers in the days leading up to tonight’s event. Yesterday, the company struck a licensing deal with EMI. And last week, the company announced a deal with CBS Interactive to bring content from Last.fm and more than 90 CBS radio stations to the site. In addition to the new content partners, Vevo has signed up a couple of big distribution partners. Both AOL and CBS were named as part of the “Vevo Music Network,” which will have embedded videos from the site.

Perhaps more importantly, Vevo has the support of advertisers and brands. The Universal Music Group-Sony Music joint venture is being referred to as the “Hulu of music videos,”and like Hulu, the site aims to better monetize video by giving it a clean, well-lit place. By moving their music videos off YouTube and onto the new site, the associated partners hope to create more value for advertisers that might be scared off by user-generated content.

Morris said brands are committing millions of dollars to Vevo before it has even launched. Key brand launch partners include AT&T, Colgate, Infiniti, McDonalds, Nikon, Sony, and Stoli, among others.

If successful, the companies involved in Vevo might be able to build a nice business from the ad-supported site, adding a much-needed additional revenue stream for a music industry that has been decimated by a drastic decline in sales of physical CDs that has not been matched by a rise in digital music sales.

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Vevo Gets Music Content from CBS Interactive

Chris Albrecht — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 22:05:07 +0000

VEVO, the forthcoming music video site from Universal and Sony music (and powered by YouTube), announced today that it will also be getting content from “the vaults” of CBS Interactive Music Group.

Starting next year, VEVO will run programming from Last.fm and more than 90 CBS radio stations. Content will include live performances and in-studio sessions, along with interviews and other exclusive behind-the-scenes stuff. VEVO also plans to make events like KROQ’s Acoustic Christmas concert available through the site.

VEVO is set to launch in the U.S. and Canada on Dec. 8th. In the meantime, the site’s blog launched a cute li’l video yesterday entitled “The Great VEVO Gummi Bear Battle,” which, we guess, is supposed to get us psyched for next week’s debut.

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Vevo Gets a Launch Date

Chris Albrecht — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 23:19:05 +0000

Vevo, the forthcoming music video site from Universal and Sony Music and powered by YouTube, announced via Twitter this afternoon that it is officially launching on Tues. Dec. 8th. Here’s a screen grab of the Tweet:

The only thing missing from Vevo’s Twitter post was a “suck it, Hulu!” (it still would have still been under 140 characters). Last night Hulu announced it was getting into the music video game in a very minimal way with a limited distribution deal with EMI, kicking off with a Norah Jones music video section.

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