The usual canned introduction:

The original Napster corporation has been destroyed, its trademarks
now owned by an authorized music retailer which does not use
peer-to-peer technology.  But the Napster paradigm, in which computers
and networks give ordinary people unprecedented control over content,
continues.

This is another quarterly installment in a series of weblog and
discussion about the deconstruction of the music industry and other
copyright industries, with side forays into "intellectual property,
freedom of expression, electronic media, corporate control, and
evolving technology," as polygon once phrased it.

Several years of back items are easily found in the music2, music3
and music4 conferences, covering discussions all the way back to
the initial popularity of the MP3 format.   These items are linked
between the current Agora conference and the Music conference.

30 responses total.

Hug your record store on Saturday!  (If you still have one.)  
It's "Record Store Day," April 19 2008.

http://blog.wired.com/music/2008/04/happy-record-st.html

http://www.recordstoreday.com/

(Maybe I should go leave carnations on the sites where the good stores
used to be.  It's been ten years since Ann Arbor's Schoolkids Records
closed its original store, about eight years since SKR Classical
folded, eight and seven years since the Tower Records outlets went,
and about that long since Michigan Where House Records closed.)

I was realizing the other day that the late 20th century record store
was a creation of the baby boomers and their musical demands, and so
it exits with them.

Thanks for the reminder to get my tickets for this year's "Horse and
Carriage Day"!

Encore's still there.

And that was the only record store that ever really mattered anyway.

And wazoo too, right?.

It's not clear to me how long the used shoppes like Encore have, 
as the flow of new CDs slows down towards a trickle.   Maybe we'll 
all trade the existing base of CDs around for decades, but I kinda 
doubt it.   Don't get me wrong, I do love Encore and I have bought
more CDs there in 2008 than at any other retailer.
 
(Encore also has the problem that the big realty company wants to 
redevelop their space.)
 
Wazoo is still hanging in there.  I don't get there much any more 
because in the genres where I buy the most -- folk, "world", 
jazz and classical -- they are pretty weak in all except jazz.

I'd say the bulk of Encore's inventory is vinyl, and appeals to a certain type
of collector.

NBC suggests that software tools which load content into portable 
players -- think iTunes, though the NBC spokesperson did not name that
product --  would be a good place to enforce some antipiracy measures.
 
Presumably the loading software would somehow fail to load 
content which did not have some sort of proof of authorized-ness?
NBC was not full of technical details here.

http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9920399-7.html?tag=nefd.lede

Here's a quote:
 
> "To limit unauthorized consumption of media it's imperative to 
> control the audience," Robert Hughes, executive vice president 
> of global sales, services and marketing for Akamai tells the 
> Business Technology Bog.

How's that controlling-the-audience thing working out for ya?

http://blogs.wsj.com/biztech/2008/04/16/media-companies-need-to-pick-up-the
-pace/

They're pinning their hopes on a nice, controllable Internet2.

The problem for them is DRM is quickly losing in the marketplace. 
Amazon's online music service gives you nice, DRM-free MP3 files.  You
do have to use their "download manager" tool, but once you have the
files you can do what you like with them.

 I believe you only have to use their download manager if you want
 to buy albums at the $8.99 price.  If you want single tracks at
 $0.99 there's a way to work that without using their download
 manager.

I may be getting an iPod soon and plan on filling it with music not 
purchased from iTMS. :)

 As does pretty much everybody who buys an iPod but doesn't have $10,000
 lying around to blow on music downloads.

Re resp:10: I think you're right.  They have download managers for most
platforms now, though, including Linux, so it hardly matters.

The majority of the music on my iPod is still from CDs I own, but when I
buy new music now it's mostly in downloaded form.

I don't know. I have a LOT of iTunes music. But then I don't mind the DRM that
much. 

I find it kind of an annoyance, but that's partly because I use more
than one computer.  iTunes does not cope with this well.

A couple of music retail stories with Michigan angles.  Apologies 
for not having links.
 
Borders reported that their music sales were down 25+% for the 
first quarter of 2008.  They acknowledge that part of the decline 
is because they are shrinking the inventory and the square footage
"aggressively."   I think it's a race to see if Borders gets rid
of CD sales before Borders itself goes bust or is sold.
 
The Handleman company, based in Troy, was one of the largest 
distributors of physical music recordings in the US.  Maybe they were 
the largest?  Their web site says they were a Fortune 1000 company
in 2002.  Handleman is winding up its music business in North 
America and selling the assets to rival Anderson.  
Anderson is the leading supplier of CDs for Wal-Mart; Handleman
had been #2.  I am still trying to figure out the implications of
this for what's left of CD retail, but I suspect it isn't going to 
be good.

I'm surprised Handleman has lasted as long as it has. 

Quoted without content:
 
-----(start)-----
The music business once had to bear the accusation that it was full 
of dinosaurs who looked back to an old business model rather than 
embracing a new one.

Today, though, it is the music business that is charting the way 
to the future. We are the ones exercising the brains of government 
about how to balance a free internet with an internet that respects 
intellectual property, is properly regulated and is not the Wild West. 
I believe President Sarkozy truly caught the spirit of the age with 
that statement. The visionaries and the dinosaurs have perhaps changed 
places. If there are dinosaurs around today, I think they are the 
internet free-thinkers of the past who believe that copyright is the 
great obstacle to progress, that the distributors of content should 
enjoy profits without responsibilities and that the creators and 
producers of music should simply subordinate their rights to the 
rights of everyone else.
-----(end)-----
 
Paul McGuinness, manager of U2, remarks at the MusicMatters conference
in Hong Kong a few days ago.

http://www.u2.com/news/index.php?mode=full&news_id=2230

Remember the "broadcast flag" that was intended to restrict home
recording of HDTV programs?  The FCC rule requiring its implementation
was struck down in 2005.  However, Microsoft Windows Media Center is
honoring it anyway -- something users found out when NBC apparently
started setting the flag on some of their programs, blocking Media
Center from recording them:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-10784_3-9946780-7.html

Here's an amusing story about a chain that accidentally ordered some
LPs, AND THEN ACTUALLY SOLD THEM!

http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/06/10/vinyl.records.ap/index.html

It may be nostaliga but I still think a vinyl LP with a 1/4 gram 
magnetic cart. on the turntable still gives the best sound

I'm partial to DBX Dolby with FLAC.

Re resp:21: I think that's true for certain values of "best."  It's not
objectively accurate as the sound from a digital recording, but if you
happen to like it better, then that's how you should listen to music.

The Associated Press has decided to object to the quote-and-link 
style of most political blogs.  They have filed numerous DMCA takedown
notices against a web site called The Drudge Retort.  The excerpt 
quotes in question range from 33 to 79 words, according to the 
report here:

http://www.cadenhead.org/workbench/news/3368/ap-files-7-dmca-takedowns-agai
nst-drudge

From Monday's NY Times, a feature on venture capitalist Guy Hands and
his tenure at the head of the EMI record company.  The most important
quote:


>>"An analysis by McKinsey and KPMG found that EMI had lost £750
>>million ($1.5 billion) from selling new music over the last 
>>five years.

>>"'We didn't believe it at first,' he said, explaining that the
>>figures that EMI previously reported counted sales of re-releases of
>>music from old acts like the Beatles as new music revenue."
<< endquote


Just, wow.  EMI's recorded music business is no longer creating any
value from new music -- in fact new music is a giant money pit and
it's probable that the corporation would benefit from shutting it 
down and just selling music from the back catalog.

Mmmm'Bop!

Re resp:25: I'm sure they'll find a way to blame this on illegal
downloading.

I'm always kind of distrustful of entertainment industry loss figures. 
My understanding is it's common to use creative accounting to come up
with loss figures so that they can get out of paying royalties.  It's
been said that if you believe movie industry accountants, no movie has
ever turned an overall profit. ;)

An actual response about Napster!!  :)
 
Best Buy has acquired Napster.  The bloggy speculation is that Best Buy
is doing this to acquire an online delivery system which might be able
to compete with walmart.com.   I can't vouch for this myself, but 
the blogwriters argued that Best Buy's existing online music system 
was not very good.
 
On the other hand, we recall a previous Best Buy acquisition: they bought
the national CD retail chain Musicland in 1999, just before the market
started to collapse, and eventually Best Buy gave Musicland away for 
zero cash, a year or so before Musicland's final shutdown in bankruptcy.

To the music conference:
 
Looks like about a year since I had one of these items.  In the past 
there were some readers in the music conference who objected to having
this linked from Agora, but I suspect those folks are all gone now 
anyway.  Any thoughts?

Link away.

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