RE: DRM, Statutory Licensing, Broadcast Flags, and Satellite Radio
Topic: Music
1:01 am EST, Feb 8, 2007
Rattle wrote:
So far, there are only three technical implementations of methods for securing digital downloads: Apple’s, Microsofts, and Real’s. Real can be written off, as Rhapsody is completely failing in the marketplace.
Forbes says that Real now has 1.4 million subscribers compared to its 700,000 customers at the end of 2004.
"Real executives argue that consumers are warming to the notion of subscriptions, arguing that the success of satellite-radio offerings from Sirius Satellite Radio and XM Satellite Radio prove that people are willing to pay a monthly fee for music. But to date, Internet music subscription offerings like those from Real, Napster and Yahoo! have yet to take off-–there are perhaps 3 million subscribers to Internet music services, compared to 9 million for satellite radio."
As of the September quarter, RealNetworks (Nasdaq: RNWK) claimed 1,650,000 subscribers to its Rhapsody music service ...
That's from a few months ago, so clearly they have leveled off. But note this:
Rhapsody subscribers, who pay $10 a month for unlimited access, today listen to about 130 million songs per month.
So Real is pulling in $200M annually, whereas Apple pulled in (less than*) $1B last year. So in terms of cash flow, Real has about 20% of the market. That isn't winning, but it's a far cry from "completely failing." Also, Jobs says iTunes now sells ~150M tracks in a month. That's comparable to the number of plays that Rhapsody sees from a much smaller user base.
Lately, they are moving beyond PC-based services; see their recently announced partnership with TiVo, for example.
Don't get me wrong, I am no fan of PlaysForSure -- it is incredibly flaky code -- but I think the business model is still full of potential.
Rhapsody, not iTunes, in my opinion, is the future of music.
...
RealNetworks is way ahead of Apple in navigating the complexities of licensing and software for a streaming music service. Maybe the two companies will somehow get together. Until they do, or Apple otherwise gets the music subscription religion, the iPhone won't be what it should be.
I tend to agree. The Rhapsody experience is so remarkably different from that of the iTunes Stores, it's hard to communicate effectively. I might draw comparisons to the way that the new/upcoming Netflix streaming service will change the way you watch movies.
(*) Jobs says that iTunes sold a billion songs in 2006. Considering discounts for album sales, this is less than $1B in revenue.
She’s part of a circle of New York singers and songwriters who play one another’s songs and swap backup musicians. Sometimes she visits Lower East Side karaoke bars and belts out songs by Shakira or Guns N’ Roses. She’s also a member of various bands — the Sloppy Joannes, the Mazelles, the Little Willies — who show up as opening acts at no-cover-charge places like the Rodeo Bar. But she’s far better known by her own name: Norah Jones.
Recommendation mapping is a new way to find music recommendations that are relevant to your specific taste. To get started, all you have to do is enter in your MyStrands username. Choose a playlist to visualize, and click "Create this map...". The mapping process should take less than a minute, and when it is done the map will automatically load on the page. Once the map is generated, you can retrieve it much more quickly in the future.
When the map is created, you will see a selection of colored "nodes". The nodes are all songs. The orange songs all come from your playlist, while the green songs are recommendations for those songs. The closer the two given songs are, the better the recommendation quality they are for each other. The size of the node gives you an idea of how popular the song is (bigger nodes are more popular). Also, older recommended songs will become darker and darker (very old songs will be black). Please click here to know more about this demo.
Fans of great dance music -- from Basement Jaxx and Daft Punk to old-school industrial -- will want to check out Land Shark's new release.
Slated for worldwide release September 12, 2006 the self titled, full length album from Land Shark a.k.a. Lance DeSardi on Coco Machete/OM will shake up any preconceived notions held by fans of all dance, rock, electro and alternative sounds. The Land Shark project is an edgy departure from Lance's previous releases as an underground house music mainstay. Still deeply rooted in dance rhythms, Land Shark takes derailing hard left turns into the sonic realms of industrial, punk and electro.
The music, all down and dirty house, will send the dancefloor into spasms of delight.
"Riot" adds even more funk to the mix and a touch of industrial to further dirty up the sound, and by the time one gets to the uncomfortably catchy "Fear (& Loathing)," it all begins to feel like an adulterous dirty weekend ... so good, at least before the guilt kicks in.
It's one hell of a ride, pulling house down into dark alleys it usually avoids, but De Sardi's careful never to take it too far, carefully balancing the set's sharp, dark edges with enough hypnotic rhythms and slick house styling to carry even the most trepidation-filled listener along the way.
The promo material boasts:
The music itself, drenched in angular synths, gravelly basslines, hypnotic live and electronic drums, defies genrefication, just like the label from which it spawned.
Emusic says:
It's packed with lean, limber dance grooves made more to fill floors than to blow minds. Which is by no means a problem: "Riot" reveals DeSardi's early love of darkwave, "Can You Relate" is taut and tense and "Shake Me" is four and a half minutes of ominous pulse and pound.
"You photograph well," he said, looking at a picture, propped on her music stand, of a sultry Dombasle embracing her late, beloved cat, Sloogy.
"Well, with the right lighting everyone does," Dombasle said.
Although she rose to prominence as an actress, first in Eric Rohmer's Pauline at the Beach, she is in New York this week to sing -- at the Supper Club, no less. She has two albums this year; the first, Amor Amor, has been out for several months and is a best seller in France. Her latest album, C'est Si Bon, goes on sale in the US on October 17.
Dombasle is also profiled in the Sunday NYT: More Parisian Than M. Eiffel’s Tower, where she is said to be "perhaps the Frenchest person alive", despite having been born in Connecticut and spending her childhood in Mexico.
She was also featured earlier this month in The Telegraph. Of her previous album, the reviewer wrote:
Even more so than last year's retro-hit for Pink Martini, it conjures up a forgotten world of romance and sensuality.
'Over the Next Hill (We'll Be Home)', by Johnny Cash
Topic: Music
5:29 am EDT, Aug 11, 2006
Today I'm bringing you two topically minded songs from the master. This is the second of two; both were released earlier this year on "Personal File" (which was previously recommended here).
By the way the land is layin' I think I'd be safe in sayin' That over the next hill, we'll be home It's a straight and narrow highway No detour and no byways And over the next hill, we'll be home
From the prophets I've been hearin' I would say the end is hearin' For I see familiar landmarks all along By the dreams that I've been dreamin' There will come a great redeemin' And over the next hill, we'll be home
By the speed that we've been makin' I would say there's no mistakin' That over the next hill, we'll be home There's a place that we are nearin' That so many have been fearin' And over the next hill, we'll be home
When we get there, we're all hopin' That we'll find the gate is open And there'll be a refuge from the comin' storm For the way's been long and weary But at last the end is nearin' And over the next hill, we'll be home
There is one Wednesday between here and August 22.
Today I'm bringing you two topically minded songs from the master. This is the first of two; both were released earlier this year on "Personal File" (which was previously recommended here).
(Have a little drink) No thank you brother (Wanna get rich) Don't need it brother (Wanna fool around) No thank you sister Ain't you heard that that old evil man within me died (Let's have a party) I ain't goin' (Well watcha gonna do) Gonna keep prayin' And keep workin' out my salvation, tryin' to get sanctified
No more condemnation, repented Jesus brought salvation, He saved me Justification brought me safely to His side And as I get to know Him more He gives me a taste of the comin' glory And I'm tryin' to whip the devil, I'm tryin' to get sanctified
Sanctified, sanctified I'm workin' to whip the devil I'm tryin' to get sanctified
(Don't go to church) Yes I'm goin (Why do you read that old Bible) 'Cause I like it (Well I don't believe in God) Well God bless you You ain't got no argument for what I feel inside (Aw have a little fun) That's what I'm havin' (Life's passin you by) I can hardly wait Well I got my mind set upon eternity, tryin' to get sanctified
And there's no more condemnation, I repented Jesus brought salvation, He saved me Justification brought me safely to His side And as I get to know Him more He gives me a taste of the comin' glory And I'm tryin' to whip the devil, tryin' to get sanctified
Sanctified, sanctified Sanctified, sanctified Yes I'm tryin' to whip the devil I'm tryin' to get sanctified
Sanctified, sanctified Sanctified, sanctified I'm workin' out my salvation Tryin' to get sanctified Sanctified
"We want to be a dangerous band, like Fugazi or The Clash or Bob Dylan. Woody Guthrie's folk music influenced me a lot," Yang said. "But because the government doesn't care about us, we are not forbidden from playing. Maybe we are not dangerous. It's sad."
I'm sorry, but anyone whose music appears on "Friends" is not dangerous. Furthermore:
It was voted as the best album of the year in The Village Voice's Pazz & Jop critics poll. In 1998 Q magazine readers voted London Calling the 32nd greatest album of all time; Rolling Stone named it the best album of the 1980s (although it was released in 1979 in the UK, its U.S. release was in 1980) in 2000, and in 2003 named it number 8 on its list of "The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time"; also in 2003, the TV network VH1 placed it at number 25. Pitchfork Media ranked it number two on their Top 100 Albums of the 1970s. In 2004, Entertainment Weekly named it the Greatest rock album of all-time.
They go on:
"We are trying to change the image of punk rockers. We just want to tell the audience that the music is pure and that we are nice and not violent."
Many punk rockers in China are long on style and short on substance, critics say. Few of them can articulate what they stand for or explain what their songs mean.
So which way do they want it? The scene seems split on the most basic issues.
