Fair Trade Entertainment

Amazon sell protection free music

Online internet store Amazon have announced that they will offer music downloads free of DRM.

DRM or 'Digital Rights Management' technology limits the usage of music you download. For example, you can download a track to play on your PC, however DRM will not allow you to burn the track to a CD or portable music player. If you want music on your portable music player you usually need to ensure the DRM protected music you download allows this transfer, in some cases you might be paying for two downloads, one for PC and one for digital device.
The same applies to Digital movie download, so where you might download a 1GB+ movie file for your PC, you usually get a smaller download for your portable device included. (e.g. www.coolroom.com)

Music fans have a love/hate relationship with DRM - the developement of the technology gives music rights owners no excuse to distribute music through digital chanels, however it reduces the flexibility of the music you own. Hence why I criticised USB music sticks in this post.

Now you know what DRM is, you can see why DRM free downloads are such a great option for the music lover. Still, nothing can compare to buying CDs , artwork + mobile format + the ability to rip to digital.

More on this story | More about DRM

But some animals are more equal than others..

Reading this article on the BBC news site has really suprised me today.

Members of the House of Commons have for reasons unknown to this blogger, decided that Music artists copyrights should be extended..

I wonder if these MPs have read the Gowers report, a Treasury commissioned a report into copyrights which concluded that extending rights beyong the 50 year period was unneccesary.

This 150 page report (worth reading this interesting summary) seems to have taken an approach to rights and copyright that can be fair to consumers and record labels.

It will be interesting to see of Gowers other suggestions are followed up, or also disregarded.
I sense that there will be elements of this report that really benefit the consumer that will be lost to the sands of time..

Another section of the Gower report suggested greatly relaxing copyright law, allowing music to be shared and copied legally, in exchange for a levy on music, making it cost more...
This is a very hot topic for discussion. - What are your thoughts? Would you pay more for music that you can copy freely? Or is this giving record companies the right to charge us for freedoms you already have...?

Podcasters giving right to feature full tracks

The UK Podcasters Association - http://www.ukpa.info - has signed with AIM, the Association of Independant Music, allowing full music tracks to be added into produced podcasts.

Podcasts have been around for quite some time now as a versatile form of broadcast, blurring the line between live broadcast and recorded medium.
It is great that the 'live broadcast' element has been identified by AIM as a way of promoting rather than pirating music, and now podcasters will be able to produce long more entertaining podcasts, and podcasts will now become a great deal more popular!

Cost of listening to music goes up

The internet  is commonly recognised as the leading edge of technology and retail, with companies spending huge sums creating sales and distribution channels through the web.
One large part of this is for entertainment, and over the past few years we've seen sites such as Last.fm and Pandora launch, which use clever technology and social networking to reccomend new artists to music fans, broadening their taste and ultimately increasing music sales.

One of the key features of these sites is the ability to listen to tracks of artists you may like, so that you can experience new artists and, presuming you like them, purchase their albums.

Sadly a group representing labels and artists has increased the royalties fees for the online streaming music that is so vital to these sites.
The step means that soon there will be a much higher cost, paid each time somebody listens to a musical track online. In addition, these fees are to increase year on year.

To maximise their cash in, labels will also be charging online broadcasters retrospectively for 2006 activity, and billing is to be based on estimates based on current listening trends, essentially penalising broadcasters for any growth they saw between early 2006 and today.

The charges could likely close down broadcasters, which one imagines would not be useful for artists who can benefit greatly from internet radio and other web publicity - take the Arctic Monkeys for instance who famously had a hit album, grown initially from popularity in the online community!

Currently these charges will only be used in the US. There is hope that the UK record industry will not take such a harsh strategy, letting down music lovers and artists - but based on their attitudes to profi t making in the UK currently, I don't expect anybody to be optimistic.

Read more here - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6562823.stm

EU investigate iTunes

Little more than a week after a court ruled in favour of the music industry artificially manipulating market prices for CDs, the EU has begun investigating Apple's iTunes music store, which charges users in the UK 20% more than users in Belgium and France, for identical product.

According to this article on the BBC site, Apple who run iTunes claim the prices are enforced by the labels and record industry, stating - "We were advised by the music labels and publishers that there were certain legal limits to the rights they could grant us".

Which? - the company who made the complaint to the EU, stated "The announcement means that companies can no longer hide behind intellectual property rights to restrict competition for consumers."

This seems entirely contradictory to the UK ruling against online music shop CD WOW! in which the court found in favour of the BPI and its members, who are now the same companies in the spotlight over the iTunes battle. For more details on the BPI vs. CD WOW! case see this post.
                   

Anti-Piracy Pups

I could not resist posting this article from the CD WOW! US blog..

Music and movie pirates in Asia are trying to hunt down Lucky and Flo... two Labrador dogs who sniffed out close to one million illegal discs last week. These great friends of CD WOW! are notable for being the first animals trained to detect discs by scent, but according to sources they can't tell the difference between counterfeit and legitimate discs... stupid dogs!

They are obviously a huge disappointment to their original owner who spent years training them to fetch his slippers.

They joined Malaysia's anti-piracy crackdown recently and quickly earned their treats with the big find. Allegedly there is a bounty on their cute little heads and they have since been moved to a safe 'dog' house. Wait for it... wait... it's a dog's life!

More info : BBC News

End of Affordable Music?

Just been to buy Motorstorm for my spanking new Playstation 3, when I saw a curious note on the CD WOW! site. What I researched made me more frustrated than a viagra-starved Hefner!

The flamin mongrels at the BPI have won a court case against CD WOW! For them selling CDs bought from cheaper suppliers outside of the EU and selling them in the UK. The judge has ruled that affordable CDs will be no more through their shop.

What is crap is it promises to keep the prices inflated (that's what mr UK record executive wants) and threatens other companies selling perfectly legal CDs. The Boring Plums Industry argue that it affects the copyright holders but that is poop as the CDs aren't pirated and have been sourced from the same companies but outside of the EU!

Surely forcing prices higher will push consumers to go for pirated goods and "illegal" downloads? They also are claiming that CD WOW! Are parallel importing (illegally), but isn't it little old me that is doing the importing? - instructing the website to get me my beloved Cheeky Girls album.

Seems mental that these morons at the BPI (backed by 400 record companies) are using bully-boy tactics to go after a little company like that, I can see this blowing up in their face. Consumers are faced with a global internet and they demand choice and I hope we can fight this. After all when has it been illegal to bring other goods into the country to sell them on, like fruit and vegetables, or even petrol Mr Judge!

Oh and I checked, and CD WOW! haven't raised prices - bansai!

The Official Reading Festival Line Up

Friday

MAIN STAGE

• Razorlight
• Kings Of Leon
• Interpol
• Maximo Park
• The Gossip
• Gogol Bordello

R1/NME STAGE

• Ash
• Brand New
• The Subways
• Enter Shikari

Saturday

MAIN STAGE

• Red Hot Chili Peppers
• Arcade Fire
• Bloc Party
• Panic! At The Disco
• Angels And Airwaves

R1/NME STAGE

• The View
• We Are Scientists
• Biffy Clyro
• The Twang

Sunday

MAIN STAGE

• Smashing Pumpkins
• Nine Inch Nails
• Lostprophets
• Fall Out Boy
• Funeral For A Friend
• +44

R1/NME STAGE

• Klaxons
• LCD Soundsystem
• CSS

Reading Festival

At 7pm tonight, those of us happy to endure burnt down tents, portaloos, and worst of all, wet muddy socks, will be pulling our wallets out and buying Reading Festival tickets.

Undecided, I'll be making the critical decision of whether or not I want to spend a weekend stinking of sweat in the 15 minutes prior to ticket release, when the official Reading Festival line-up is announced.

We'll put up the confirmed artist list up, and ticket vendors details, ASAP when the details come out, so stay tuned in.

Buying music on USB

Record companies, keen to keep up with technology while maintaining a prominent in-store presence, are testing out selling music on USB sticks.(NME)

I'm yet to grab hold of one of these to to give it a try, but personally I think the idea is a few years behind - and rather than being the exciting step forward it sounds like, it's control in disguise.

Digital music formats are ideal for music portability, but not very much else. Purchasing your music in a USB format offers the digital format, but fails to offer additional portability to say, buying the CD.

If you want digital music in your mp3 player you will still need to transfer the tracks from the USB via a PC/Mac, making the USB version no better than a CD..

If you want the music in your car you will need to burn the mp3 to a CD, which you don't need to do if you buy the CD in the first place.

 

If anybody can spot a benefit for the consumer, please let me know! - Personally I'll keep on buying CDs and consider other options when can a buyer can download music to their MP3 player immediately in store.. or even better wirelessly..