Music Ally

Every morning, Music Ally subscribers are sent our daily email bulletin, offering a snapshot of news, analysts and rumours from the last 24 hours. We’re sharing today’s for free on this blog, to give an idea of what subscribers get in their inboxes by 9.30am GMT. If you’re interested in subscribing, you can sign up for a free two-week trial here.

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Music Ally Daily Bulletin :: Friday 12 February 2010

TOP STORY

Google under fire for deleting music blogs
Google is facing a storm of criticism for deleting six of the biggest music blogs on its Blogger service, including their entire archives. Google says the deletions came under its DMCA policy: “When we receive multiple DMCA complaints about the same blog, and have no indication that the offending content is being used in an authorized manner, we will remove the blog.” What’s causing the storm is that a.) the bloggers are protesting they had permission to host all the music on their blogs, and b.) they also say they weren’t given enough warning to file a DMCA counter-claim.
Source: Mashable – http://tinyurl.com/yjh3ape
Source: Google Blogger Blog – http://tinyurl.com/yancek9

NEWS

Veoh files for bankruptcy blaming UMG lawsuit
Online video startup Veoh Networks has filed for bankruptcy, with CEO Dmitry Shapiro blaming two years of litigation from Universal Music Group, which sued Veoh for copyright infringement – a case that was eventually dismissed in September last year. CEO Dmitry Shapiro says the lawsuit was a big factor in Veoh’s demise: “It was both financially draining and distracting, and it choked off the ability for any significant strategic deals, because everybody we talked to was terrified of getting sued immediately”. However, All Things Digital digs a little deeper, pointing out that Veoh was likely overspending on staff and infrastructure in an effort to rival YouTube, just as the online advertising market started to shake.
Source: All Things Digital – http://tinyurl.com/ykadgm7

Apple kicks off 10 Billion Song Countdown for iTunes
The iTunes Store is heading towards the milestone of 10 billion songs sold, and to celebrate, Apple has launched a 10 Billion Song Countdown promotion. Whoever buys the magic ten billionth song will get a $10,000 iTunes Gift Card. It took Apple four years to reach three billion downloads, which it did in July 2007 – so it’s on course to take less than three years for the next seven billion.
Link – http://www.apple.com/itunes/10-billion-song-countdown/
Source: AppleInsider – http://tinyurl.com/yhw9a5f

RealNetworks reports $145.5m revenues for Q4 2009
RealNetworks’ latest set of financials is a mixed affair. The company reported ervenues of $145.5 million for Q4 last year, which was slightly above analyst expectations, but down 5% year-on-year. The company posted a net loss of $13.3 million for the quarter. However, Real’s music business saw sales drop by 14%, while Rhapsody subscriber numbers fell for the third consecutive quarter, to 675,500. Acting CEO Bob Kimball reiterated its plan to spin Rhapsody off as a separate company. “We are aggressively moving to transform RealNetworks into a more simple and focused company that delivers value to its shareholders.” This’ll involve focusing on its RealPlayer software, and its B2B business working with mobile operators. Talking of which…
Source: PaidContent – http://tinyurl.com/yazfm6h
Source: PaidContent – http://tinyurl.com/yfnxczk

RealNetworks inks Sprint digital music deal
Alongside its financials, RealNetworks also announced a significant deal with US telco Sprint. RealNetworks will be running a new unified music storefront for Sprint, selling ringtones, ringbacks and full-track downloads. It’s part of Sprint’s plans to streamline its music offering – a trend that’s also won Real new business in Europe with the likes of Vodafone.
Source: Mobile Entertainment – http://tinyurl.com/yj227n3

MySpace inquest well underway (even though it’s not dead)
The big tech sites have been chewing over the abrupt departure of MySpace CEO Owen Van Natta earlier this week. All Things Digital has plenty of info on the tensions between Van Natta, COO Mike Jones, chief product officer Jason Hirschhorn and News Corporation digital boss Jon Miller. TechCrunch points to the continued slide in visitors and engagement at the social network, and claims MySpace’s only hope now is to be spun out of News Corp again, as a separate entity. Meanwhile, GigaOM suggests that News Corp would sell the company if it could, but claims it may be game over. “What the company needed was radical transformation. But what it got was infighting, politicking and constant contraction.”
Source: All Things Digital – http://tinyurl.com/ycmom9v
Source: TechCrunch – http://tinyurl.com/yhfnq7x
Source: GigaOM – http://tinyurl.com/y9oo5j7

Omnifone applies for DRM-based subscription service patent
We were rooting round the UK’s Intellectual Property Office website this week, and found an interesting patent filed by Omnifone on 4 February, for a ‘Method of Providing Digital Rights Management for Music Content by Means of a Flat-Rate Subscription’. The abstract describes mobile applications allowing users to browse and search music content on a remote server, download songs over the wireless network, and then play them on the device – with DRM wrapped around it to ensure that only people paying a flat-rate subscription can play the tracks. It’ll be interesting to see if they get it – and what happens next if they do…
Source: UK Intellectual Property Office – http://tinyurl.com/yf6gb8w

DIGITAL MARKETING

Tapulous sold 100k Ke$ha tracks in two weeks in Tap Tap Revenge
If you missed our Sandbox report last night, here’s one of the notable stories. iPhone games firm Tapulous sold 100,000 of Ke$ha’s Tik Tok track in two weeks within its Tap Tap Revenge 3 game recently. What’s more, CEO Bart Decrem told us that since 20th December when the game itself went free, the company has sold millions of song downloads within its in-app store. Decrem added that some players have spent upwards of $100 buying music from the store. Tapulous is taking a leaf out of Rock Band’s book, and working on more tools to help labels and artists create their own downloads for Tap Tap Revenge.
Source: SandboxFM – http://tinyurl.com/yf2ksz5

STARTUPS / APPS

PositionApp lets you track global iPhone app charts
If you’re at all involved in developing or commissioning iPhone apps, you should get to the App Store now and download a new app called PositionApp. Developed by UK firm ustwo, it tracks the Top 300 app charts in every country where there’s an App Store, and lets you drill down into the data however you like. For example, you can login whenever you like to check the global performance of your apps (or those of your competitors), while also monitoring the biggest climbers in the music – or indeed any – category.
Source: Mobile Entertainment – http://tinyurl.com/ykcx54f

Shazam integrates its apps with Last.fm
Music service Shazam has announced a partnership with Last.fm, which will see users able to build personalised stations around the tracks they’ve tagged in Shazam. The news comes as Shazam also introduces tour and ticketing info for tagged tracks, using geolocation to offer users recommendations for upcoming concerts near them. That ties into Shazam’s recently-announced deal with O2 UK to offer targeted ads for gigs at its network of venues.
Source: Music Week – http://tinyurl.com/yfuzzjk

Pirate Bay man launches micropayments service
Former Pirate Bay spokesman and music industry baiter-in-chief Peter Sunde has launched a new startup that – sit down for this bit – aims to help artists get paid for their music. Well, that’s one of its uses. Flattr is a micropayments service, currently in beta, which gets people to sign up to pay a monthly subscription fee, which is then distributed among musicians, artists, software developers and other content producers. Their share is determined by how many people click the Flattr button on their sites – so it’s a combination of a flat-fee subscription and a donation model. Intriguing stuff.
Source: GigaOM – http://tinyurl.com/yfkwvmw

GADGETS / GAMES

Music game meltdown? More bad news from Harmonix and Activision
Viacom has revealed that it’s going to be asking for a refund on the $150 million earnout payment it paid to Rock Band developer Harmonix in 2007. “We believe that we are entitled to a refund of a substantial portion of amounts previously paid, but the final amount of the earn-out has not yet been determined,” says an SEC filing from the media giant. Meanwhile, influential games blog Kotaku claims that Activision has closed its RedOctane studio – which published the original Guitar Hero – while laying off as many as 50 people at its Neversoft studio, which is currently in charge of the Guitar Hero series.
Source: PaidContent – http://tinyurl.com/yfq8lrn
Source: Kotaku – http://tinyurl.com/ygula65
Source: Kotaku – http://tinyurl.com/yh4r6fj

EVENTS

Are Pre Releases killing the UK music biz?
MusicTank has announced its next event in London, with the provocative title ‘Number One With A Bullet… Is Pre Release Killing Our Business?’. It’ll focus on the UK’s famously front-loaded release schedule, which in the organisers’ words “produced a system that creates demand for a product that is by definition not legally available. Which doesn’t work when it takes just one promo CD to be uploaded to a p2p network for a release to spread around the world.” It should be sparky – we’re hoping there’ll be some discussion of how digital services fit into all this, with the likes of Spotify and we7 competing to secure pre-release streams of new albums, as an alternative to piracy.
Link – http://www.musictank.co.uk/

WIDE ANGLE

Microsoft on iTunes: ‘We were smoked…’
A bunch of emails between senior Microsoft execs in 2003 have leaked, revealing the reaction of Bill Gates and colleagues to the launch of Apple’s iTunes Store. Former Windows boss Jim Allchin’s terse missive is the best: “1. How did they get the music companies to go along? 2. We were smoked.” Meanwhile, an email from Gates marvels at Steve Jobs achievement in “getting a better Licensing deal than anyone else has gotten for music… This is very strange to me. The music companies own operations offer a service that is truly unfriendly to the user and has been reviewed that way consistently. Somehow they decide to give Apple the ability to do something pretty good.”
Source: All Things Digital – http://tinyurl.com/yjaft3c

Heaven knows what the terrorists think
This was too good not to use: legal blog Concurrent Opinions has uncovered the bit in the iTunes Terms of Service that people on the US government’s terrorist watch list are barred from using the software. “not only are terrorists — or at least those on terrorist watch lists — prohibited from using iTunes to manufacture WMD, they are also prohibited from even downloading and using iTunes. So all the Al-Qaeda operatives holed up in the Northwest Frontier Provinces of Pakistan, dodging drone attacks while listening to Britney Spears songs downloaded with iTunes are in violation of the terms and conditions, even if they paid for the music!”
Source: Concurrent Opinions – http://tinyurl.com/ybzoeun

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Tags: Activision, apple, flattr, Google, Guitar Hero, harmonix, iTunes, Last FM, microsoft, music ally, musictank, Myspace, Omnifone, pirate bay, positionapp, RealNetworks, shazam, sprint, tap tap revenge, tapulous, UMG, ustwo, veoh

This entry was posted on Friday, February 12th, 2010 at 11:27 am and is filed under Digital Music News, Music Ally Feature. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.