due articoli in inglese sulla nuova funzionalita' lanciata da MySpace.
1. forse c'e' gia' un articolo in italiano da qualche altra parte, in
ogni caso la parte saliente e' che l'utente-artista potra' decidere il
prezzo delle canzoni...con la PICCOLA particolarita' che per CIASCUNA
canzone venduta l'utente-artista PAGHERA' A MySpace QUARANTACINQUE
cent., che e' tantissimo.
2. una mail da una mailing list internazionale frequentata da
produttori musicali, guru della rete e attivisti vari in cui
si racconta un esempio di come MySpace gia' ora guidi gli acquisti su
iTunes.
ciao
pinna
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http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/04/technology/04myspace.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
September 4, 2006
MySpace Music Store Is New Challenge for Big Labels
By ROBERT LEVINE
So far none of the companies that sell music online have emerged as
serious competitors to the iTunes Music Store of Apple Computer. But not
one of them has an audience like MySpace, which millions of teenage and
twentysomething music fans visit every day.
For the music industry, which worries about Apple’s dominance of the
online market, a MySpace music store could present difficulties of a
different sort.
MySpace, the online community site owned by the News Corporation, said
on Friday that it would sell music through a partnership with Snocap, a
technology company started by the creator of Napster, Shawn Fanning.
When the online store opens this fall, it will allow bands and labels of
any size to sell songs online for whatever price they want.
For the independent-label bands and unsigned artists who have found
MySpace to be an effective and inexpensive way to spread the word about
their recordings and concerts, a store on the site will be an important
outlet.
With more than three million pages devoted to a variety of performers,
from unknown garage bands to Bob Dylan, MySpace is already an important
online venue for musicians.
“Instead of going to iTunes and searching for music, which happens once
in a while,” said Tom Anderson, president and co-founder of MySpace,
“you can see the band and buy their music.”
But for the four major labels, which must approve each retailer that
sells digital versions of their music, the new store could represent a
challenge.
The MySpace store would let labels set their own prices for songs, which
they have complained that iTunes does not let them do. And all of the
major labels have put their catalogs into Snocap’s database, which uses
an audio fingerprinting technology to prevent people from selling songs
they do not own.
The MySpace store will sell music in the MP3 format, however, which
allows them to be played on the Apple iPod but does not offer any copy
protection. So far, the labels have been unwilling to sell music online
in any format that does not allow them to restrict how many copies can
be made.
At least one of the major labels, EMI, is in talks with MySpace,
according to one person with knowledge of the negotiations who declined
to be identified, citing the confidentiality of the discussions.
Chris DeWolfe, co-founder and chief executive of MySpace, said: “We’re
hopeful that once we start getting adoption from smaller bands and
labels, the major labels will want to participate. We’ll be talking to
them continually, as will Snocap.”
Others are more skeptical.
“The majors aren’t going to distribute music unprotected on MP3,” said
David Card, a senior analyst at Jupiter Research. Without their
participation, he suggested, the appeal of such a store could be
limited. Snocap has the ability to sell songs in other formats, but
Apple has never let other companies sell iTunes files, and right now
other restricted formats have little traction with consumers.
There is one other large online music store that sells songs in the MP3
format, eMusic. It offers a wide range of material from independent
labels, but nothing from the four majors. As of July, it had almost 13
percent of the market for online music.
Snocap’s system can be used by anyone, which would let small labels and
unsigned bands sell their music just as major labels do. Currently,
iTunes sells music from most sizable independent labels, but many
smaller ones go first through a digital distributor.
“It’s not that easy, if you’re an artist on the street, to get your
music on iTunes,” Mr. DeWolfe said. “With Snocap you can upload your
music, sign the contract and do everything online.”
For each track it sells, MySpace will charge a band or label a fixed fee
of around 45 cents, which it will share with Snocap, according to
Snocap’s chief executive, Rusty Rueff.
The iTunes store keeps about 35 cents from each purchase, according to
Mr. Card, because Apple is willing to accept low profits from selling
music to generate demand for the profitable iPod. MySpace, which
currently brings in most of its revenue through advertising, views music
sales as another source of profit. Its music store will accept PayPal,
rather than credit cards, because the transaction fees are lower.
Potential customers will be able to buy music directly from the pages
that bands have set up. “That’s consistent with MySpace’s mission to
build a direct relationship with the audience,” said Luke Wood, a talent
development executive at Interscope Records, which has a distribution
deal with MySpace Records, a music label started by the site. MySpace
will also let users link to a band’s storefront from their personal
pages to recommend their favorite acts, which could drive consumers to
buy music they might not otherwise.
With sites like MySpace becoming an important venue for music promotion,
the labels may need to weigh risk of online piracy against the potential
reach of a MySpace store.
“I think that kind of distributed retail could be really significant as
a model,” said Eric Garland, chief executive of BigChampagne, an online
media measurement firm. “More and more, we’re exposed to media by other
people. If I learn about music from you, I should be buying it from you.
I shouldn’t have to scribble it down in a note for when I go to Tower
Records.”
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Currently, here's a good example of how MySpace drives sales on iTunes.
Yes I said "how MySpace drives sales on iTunes". This happened just the
other day - my own experience. I would like to share it with you.
A "friend" on my MySpace friends list -- Jugoe
(
http://myspace.com/jugoe) -- a talented producer, "blasts his friends
list" with a "bulletin" making us aware of a gig he's got going with a
band called the Balkan Beat Box.
A really good description of the Balkan Beat Box is in Jugoe's bulletin,
and I'm now curious. I google "myspace" and "balkan beat box" hoping to
quickly access their tunes. No problem, the page comes up. And I like
what I hear (
http://myspace.com/balkanbeatbox). However, the band offers
no free downloads on their MySpace page, just streams. As you know free
downloads now is a current feature of MySpace if an artist sets up their
page that way.
I hit iTunes, and viola, in this case, the Balkan Beat Box tunes are
there and I pick off the tunes I want and pay for them. I suppose in the
future, I'll be bypassing iTunes then, correct, and buying directly on
Myspace.
So that's the case study here about how I bought off iTunes after a
MySpace recommendation. As an aside, I really like finding out about
bands from friends, collegues and other bands directly as happened in
this case. I played with a couple of music recommendation engines over
the past weekend - and they sopped up needed memory on my limited PC,
created plug in after plug in, and were confusing to me. That doesn't
mean I won't use them in the future however. Also alot of my digital
tunes are labeled wrong, incorrectly, etc so the recommendation engines
seem to just choke on them. I like the personal touch. I also get alot
of my recommendations in community message boards, blogs, and I love my
music magazine titles like The Fader, XLR8R, and URB. I can't take a
music recommendation engine with me to the swimming pool (yet);and mags
and rags are more portable and are fun to look at.
