Week of September 29, 2008

Move Over Play MPE and DMDS...Here Comes Sound Cloud

Friday, October 3, 2008

Sound Cloud, a German start up is launching a new service in one week to allow artists and other music professionals to upload and share music. This is designed not as a consumer site, but one for music insiders, such as individual artists and those who work in the music business. Unlike Play MPE and DMDS, this service caters to individual artists.

There are various social networking aspects which also take it beyond some of the digital distribution systems. An artist, for example, can upload a song once and distribute it to whomever they like. The widget will also allow, should the artist permit it, for users to include comments about the song. It can also be designed to send alerts anytime someone downloads the song and even a drop box feature to allow users to upload songs.

What does the passage of the Webcaster Settlement Act mean?

Thursday, October 2, 2008

The "Webcaster Settlement Act" has passed the House and Senate and sits on President Bush's desk for an expected signature. The bill does not settle all Internet radio royalty issues. Instead, it makes the process easier. It makes agreements with SoundExchange have the complete force of law. Under existing law, any agreements that webcasters reached with SoundExchange would not apply to all rights holders unless ratified by the Copyright Royalty Board. Under the new law, this approval would be automatic, in essence giving webcasters one stop shopping when it comes to cutting deals.

Flash for iPhone Coming

Wednesday, October 1, 2008

Adobe has confirmed that it is developing a flash player for the iPhone. Currently, while the iPhone has by far the best browsing experience of any mobile phone, it lacked the ability to view flash elements, including much of the video that is sent to the web today. With the announcement, the iPhone comes one step closer to being a platform for delivering the Internet--the whole Internet--to your phone.

Google Goes Way Back

Tuesday, September 30, 2008

For a bit of fun check out Google's tenth anniversary search site. You can do a real search of the web circa 2001 and many of the results are hooked up to the Internet Archive, so you can get a real feel for what the web was like in 2001. Point your browser to http://www.google.com/search2001.html, type in "All Access" and you'll find something interesting: All Access Music Group was the top search result in 2001, as it is today. Congrats Joel Denver!

Wal-Mart Shuts Down DRM Servers

Monday, September 29, 2008

For many consumers, the battle over DRM is of little consequence. They have bought their DRM songs via a site and listened to them on their computer or a Windows compatible music device or cell phone, such as the Samsung Blackjack. But those consumers who did this through the Wal-mart digital store are in for a rude awakening at one of the key issues with DRM: They can lose access to their music at any time. For Wal-Mart users that will happen on October 9, when Wal-Mart shuts down their DRM servers.

Users with DRM-enabled songs purchased through Wal-Mart have two options: Lose the flexibility of moving their music or burn them to CD or DVD before October 9. In essence, after October 9, all of the consumers music will be solely tied to one computer. The ability to authorize new locations (such as a new cell phone or laptop) will be gone.

One of the interesting things here is that thanks to the lack of DRM support, Wal-Mart is implicity telling its customers to break the DRM by burning it to CD and then converting it back to open MP3 to make it portable. This is exactly what the labels have been trying to fight and what DRM servers are supposed to stop.