iTunes swallowed a quarter of US music sales

By Kelly Fiveash 

Posted in Music and Media, 18th August 2009 16:24 GMT

One in four songs sold in the US are done so via Apple’s iTunes store, according to a new report

NPD Group’s MusicWatch division said today that while audio CDs remain the most popular format among music consumers, digital tracks notched up 35 per cent of all songs sold in the first half of 2009.

That’s a 15 per cent leap in sales compared with 2007 figures, and a five per cent jump on last year’s numbers.

NPD said that the iTunes store dominated digital music sales, accounting for 25 per cent of all songs sold in the US in the first six months of this year.

In 2008 it pulled in 21 per cent of all digital music sales, while in 2007 it grabbed 14 per cent of the market.

US retail giant Walmart takes second place in digital music sales, according to NPD. It raked in 14 per cent from downloads sold via its website as well as in store.

But iTunes outshines all other digital music retailers, where Apple leads the market by a hefty 69 per cent ahead of its rivals, said NPD.

Amazon’s MP3 store lags a long way behind the iTunes behemoth, gobbling up just eight per cent of the digital music market.

NPD garnered its findings from US consumers aged 13 and above, who reported their purchases of CDs, digital music tracks and albums sold a-la-carte, and wireless over-the-air transactions, excluding ringtones.

It didn’t reveal how many US folk took part in the survey, however. NPD also overlooked the impact illegal file sharing has on digital music sales.

Source: The Register

Downloaded songs should soon surpass traditional formats, but the spoils will have to be shared.

By Robert Cyran, breakingviews.com

August 20, 2009: 11:16 AM ET

Free downloads nearly killed the record business. A generation of youthful customers got used to the idea that music should be given away. Compact disc sales fell around 15% annually year after year.

Yet the peak of this trend now appears to have passed. That leaves an unusually clear landscape for growth in paid-for music downloads.

These now account for 35% of all U.S. songs sold, according to market research firm NPD Group. What’s more, they are growing at up to 20% per annum, while CD volumes are shrinking at about the same rate.

That means the number of online songs sold should surpass traditional formats by the end of next year. Of course, since downloaded songs are somewhat cheaper, it will take a few years before revenues will follow if current trends hold.

Moreover, downloaded music sales shouldn’t be any less profitable. A CD costs $6.40 to manufacture, distribute and sell in a store according to research firm Almighty Institute of Music Retail. These costs disappear when music is distributed online. An album that costs $16 in a store is about as profitable as one downloaded for $10.

Unfortunately, this doesn’t mean happy days are around the corner for companies like EMI and Warner Music (WMG). The industry may once again think about growth, but the spoils will have to be shared quite widely.

About 70% of all download sales occur on Apple’s iTunes. The tech company demands a cut of the proceeds, and its dominant position means it has sway over music producers. Apple (AAPL, Fortune 500) has been largely able to resist pressure by record labels to increase the price at which it sells music.

Musicians also have increased bargaining power. Bands can more easily distribute music online themselves — or threaten to and demand better terms from labels. And the big retailers aren’t going down without a fight. Geriatric glam-rockers Kiss just signed an agreement with Wal-Mart (WMT, Fortune 500) that gives the retailer an exclusive album to sell while the band gets a bigger share of profits.

Music sales may once again grow. But that doesn’t mean the big music companies will return their prosperous heydays.

Source: CNN Money

Digital music has a tiny carbon footprint
Category: Music

The Carbon Case for Downloading Music

The greenhouse gas impacts of various ways to access music.

A new study has found that downloading music is substantially better from an emissions perspective than buying compact discs.

The study, which was financed by both Microsoft and Intel and written by two academics at Carnegie Mellon University and a third affiliated with Stanford University, found that buying an album digitally reduces carbon dioxide emissions by 40 to 80 percent relative to a best-case scenario for purchasing a CD.

That scenario involves a customer buying a CD online and having it delivered via a light-duty truck; the more carbon-intensive options examined by the study are express air shipment of the CD, and the customer visiting a store to buy the CD.

The advantage for digital comes largely because CDs must be manufactured, packaged and transported over long distances.

Even in a situation in which a consumer downloads the music — and then burns it onto a CD and puts it in a CD case — the carbon differential is 40 percent in favor of the download, the study found. If the downloaded music is not burned onto a CD, the differential rises to 80 percent.

However, there is room for debate. The high carbon cost associated with visiting the store, for example, rises when customers make the trip by car. If a consumer walks to the store instead, then buying a CD is “nearly equivalent” in carbon terms, the study says, to downloading the music and burning it onto a CD.

Large file transfer sizes can reduce the carbon advantage of downloads, owing to “increased Internet energy use for downloading.” The study also concedes that in some instances, the downloading and purchasing of hard copies are not perfect substitutes. Some consumers, for example, pursue albums for reasons beyond the music — say, for the album’s artwork.

While the artwork is sometimes available for digital download as well, this may not be “completely satisfactory for some customers,” the authors write.

The study also did not look at the comparative carbon impact of CD players and digital music devices like the iPod.

Source: NY Times

Music webisodes back for season 2
Offbeat “Organic Groov” expands to second venue

“Organic Groov,” the unique neo soul and spoken word video webisodes, expands into a second venue, “Digital Funtown,” which combines in-house productions with user-generated content

Wrapping its first season, “Organic Groov,” created by producers Joseph Flowers and Frank Goss, sells featured artists’ music through Amazon Direct, splitting revenue with the musicians.

“Our goal is to be a place where independent and established artists will feel comfortable working with this new model. “We’re not into owning anybody’s rights,” said Flowers, managing partner of marketing and analytics company FLW International, LLC.

“If you have talent we can bring you a huge audience. We want to be the number one outlet in these genres.”

The most successful videos “Organic Groov” currently garner about 100,000 views, although, he lamented, “the bar is so high in the online space. Sponsors want to see a million hits. But if you were to rank a neo soul/jazz show online we’d be in the top five in the country.” www.digitalfuntown.com.

“Organic Groov” promotes its content via social networks and distributes its video through the Limelight and Edgecast networks. They’re looking for a corporate sponsor for the launch of streaming on the site.

Floyd Webb of E22 Digital Filmworks handles video production for “Organic Groov.” Surachai Sutthisasanakul is audio engineer. Corey Mixter edits and shoots.

There are four more episodes left in the first season of Organic Groov. The next episode, featuring saxophonist Audley Reid’s performance, went live Monday, July 20. “As the show gets more traction we’ll do more,” Flowers said.

Flowers came up with the idea for Digital Funtown in 2007. “I thought, ‘we know how to write software,’” he said, “‘why don’t we try to create content and create our own brands?’”

Digital Funtown launched in December 2007 with 19 shows. After refining the site and focusing on the more successful programming, they had their “hard launch” last August.

In March, Flowers partnered with Frank Goss, general manager of Loop Jazz Club CloseUp 2, to create “Organic Groov.”

Flowers, Jamarr Nance, and FLW partner Lana Goldshteyn opened My Soul Café in South Shore in early July. They plan to begin shooting and webcasting performances there in September. “We’re thinking about branching into world music,” Flowers said.

Digital Funtown continues to produce a steady stream of video with actors from Second City, Annoyance Theatre, IO and other venues.

FLW International is at 1147 W. Ohio; phone, 312/239-2174. See —Ed M. Koziarski

Ed M. Koziarski is co-director of the feature film “The First Breath of Tengan Rei”. Email: Ed M. Koziarski

Breaking: MySpace Close To Acquiring iLike For $20 Million
Category: Music

Breaking: MySpace Close To Acquiring iLike For $20 Million

by Michael Arrington on August 17, 2009

MySpace is close to acquiring popular social music service iLike, we’ve confirmed with multiple sources. The deal, which should close this week, will be MySpace’s first acquisition since new CEO Owen Van Natta took control of the company in April 2009. The price is “around $20 million.”

iLike, which launched in late 2006, is a social music recommendation service that now has more than 50 million registered users. It tracks what you listen to and like and gives you recommendations on new music based on that data as well as what your friends are listening to. It is the top music application on Facebook, Bebo, Hi5 and just about every other social network other than MySpace, which has MySpace Music.

iLike also hosts band pages which are second in popularity only to MySpace Music. By acquiring iLike, MySpace solidifies their already leading position as the most popular online identity for bands. Last week iLike also launched their own music download store.

Details are still flying in, but at first blush the deal is particularly interesting for two reasons.

First, simply because iLike is so deeply integrated into the Facebook experience. Nearly 10 million Facebook users use the iLike application every month. And iLike has also been a key part of Facebook’s ongoing struggles with what-to-do-about-music. MySpace is now going to own this.

Second, it’s MySpace, not the MySpace Music joint venture with the music labels, that is acquiring iLike. We’ll have more to say on this shortly. We’re hearing that a key driver of the deal is the iLike team, particularly founders Ali Partovi, Hadi Partovi and Nat Brown, and the underlying technology.

Competitor Last.fm was acquired by CBS in 2007 for $280 million. June 2009 Comscore stats show Last.fm with 12.9 million monthly unique visitors. iLike had just 3 million monthly unique visitors, but that doesn’t take into account the massive usage of the service on social networks.

The company has raised a total of $16.5 million from the founders, Scott Banister, Bob Pittman, Vinod Khosla and Ticketmaster to date. But their last round of funding was in 2006, where Ticketmaster put the bulk of the capital in via a third round of financing that valued the company at a whopping $53.2 million.

In Q4 2008 Ticketmaster wrote down a number of their venture investments, including a $5.8 million charge for iLike. Internally, they valued that $13.3 million investment at just $7.5 million. Last month we reported that iLike was considering a new round of financing that would cash TicketMaster out of the company.

Neither MySpace nor iLike would comment on this story.

Source: TechCrunch

By JIM FUSILLI Chicago

One lesson of this year’s Lollapalooza, held this past weekend at Grant Park here, is a confirmation rather than something new: ­Recorded music drives fans to live shows. Thus, it can seem like the recording industry exists to support the concert business.

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Andrew Bird at this year’s Lollapalooza.

“The music business is upside down,” said alt-country singer-songwriter Robert Earl Keen. “You don’t tour to support your record. You put out a record to support a tour.”

“Do you see people going ­record shopping? No,” said Perry Farrell of Jane’s ­Addiction. “Downloading free music. Yes. Going out for live music. Yes. I love recorded music, but the best bang for my buck is the night I go out.”

Jane’s Addiction Performs at Lollapalooza

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Jane’s Addiction performs at Lollapalooza 2009 in Chicago.

Mr. Farrell seemed to anticipate the changes in the music industry when he launched ­Lollapalooza as a multiact touring show in 1991. He helped it find a home here in 2003; the festival is committed to the city until 2018. Clearly, he doesn’t believe the yearning among fans for live music will soon disappear.
Nor does he think the audience for it has been thoroughly tapped. Bands whose principal appeal is to an older fan base are now regulars at the major festivals.

“Who went to the first Lollapalooza?” Mr. Farrell asked rhetorically. “People who have children now. So they come to see Lou Reed, Depeche Mode, us and Tool.
“I’m 50 now,” he said. “I love going to festivals. I want to go out to hear what music people are making.”
For artists such as Andrew Bird and Dan Deacon—two of the many musicians here who have, or should have, ­cross-generational appeal—­appearances at major festivals are mandatory, if risky.
Mr. Bird, whose charming and very clever chamber pop made for one of the best sets here, told me: “These festivals are kind of a crapshoot. It’s hard to control the sound. It’s throw and go. You have to be a really good band. A record is kind of a moment in time. Maybe you nailed it, maybe you didn’t. It’s far more interesting to do it differently every night.”
A festival, Mr. Deacon said, “is a great way to play for a bunch of people who otherwise wouldn’t see you. Digital media is so devalued. Real value is in live shows.” Here, he brought about 30 musicians on stage to play his kind of joyful, experimental electronica.

There was much of almost every genre on today’s rock and pop menu at Lollapalooza ‘09, though we could have used a bigger dose of Chicago blues, given the festival’s location; maybe it was witnessing 10-year-old blues prodigy Quinn Sullivan jamming with Buddy Guy that made me hunger for more. Band of Horses, Blind ­Pilot, the Greencards and Mr. Keen represented alt-country and Americana. Thievery ­Corporation and Zap Mama were among the acts that blended world sounds to come up with a thing of their own. At least five bands featured trumpets, not a customary instrument in rock.
If you’ve attended festivals in the past year or so and turned up here, you would have seen how Alberta Cross, Delta Spirit, Fleet Foxes, Friendly Fires and the Heartless Bastards have continued to grow, the confidence that comes with acceptance adding muscle to their music. And you might have had the joy of stumbling upon a band you’ve never heard of. For me, Miike Snow was an unexpected treat, as singer Andrew Wyatt’s voice floated over its pop electronica. Another surprise was Carney, a talented group from L.A. that drops jazz inflections into its anthemic rock.
Many times the schedule ­offered the 75,000 attendees each day at least two interesting bands at the same hour. To see Portugal. The Man or Bat for Lashes? Mr. Bird or Of Montreal? Kaiser Chiefs or the Airborne Toxic Event? Glasvegas or Santigold? When I made a list that would allow me to hear continuous music, it seemed inevitable that the bands I picked were at opposite ends of the mile-long park, where it rained on Friday and was roasted by temperatures in the mid-90s for the rest of the event.
But what I saw satisfied, including Mr. Reed, who explored his 2000 masterpiece “Ecstasy,” and the Decemberists, who I’ve now witnessed perform their rock opera “The Hazards of Love” three times at festivals in the past five months. Depeche Mode played with panache and Tool with power. Mr. Farrell delivered his promised spectacle, but the Jane’s Addiction set was built on a platform of Stephen Perkins’s extraordinary drumming and Dave Navarro’s flashy guitar. I’ll not soon forget the rain-soaked audience singing along with Justin Vernon of Bon Iver, his falsetto matched by the sweet sound of the crowd. And I regret missing Ida Maria, but given the explosion in the number of similar events in the U.S., Canada and around the world, I have a feeling I’ll catch her soon.
There’s a trap for artists in the rapid growth in the number of festivals. Lollapalooza, All Points West in Jersey City, N.J., Denver’s Mile High Music Festival, the coming Austin City Limits Music Festival and others may be regional concerts, but they book like national events. Some bands feel they have to play every one to build an audience they might have found in the past with an album marketed well and wide by a major label.
“I like to do festivals in moderation,” Mr. Bird said. “I don’t want to become a band that writes music to fit that scene.” Too many bands can overload a music lover. “At worst, it can feel like a musical mall,” he said.

Source: Wall Street Journal

Monday Inspirations—Here are 3 weekly ideas for song lyric, poems, instrumental titles, photos, video, short story or anything they inspire you to create.  Use the title if you like & make something!

45.  Wiggle Waggle
Wiggle Waggle little puppy dog and come on home.  Wiggle waggle to your mama cause I got your bone.  Twitch your tail down the road and I will - pat your head.  Wiggle waggle little puppy that’s how you get fed!  ~ A children’s song, a metaphor for love, a Country novelty song.  You’re game, what do you hear+

One of my tasks at my last job was to counsel one of our brokers.  At our initial meet I sat across the table from him and had a set of questions prepared to help him focus on what he wanted to accomplish.  One of his goals then, nearly 8-9 years ago, is the same as his goal today although I no longer counsel him.

Moral of the story:  Keep putting your boats in the water.  We call each project we work on, spec or contracted, a boat into the water.  One day the ship does come in.  The more boats, the better chance of landing a ship contract as Sean did.  The Songs2Share program is another opportunity to get your music heard and land a placement.  Please visit the website, LOGIN and upload 1 song submission.  We want to help you move your music - forward. 

Monday Inspirations—Here are 3 weekly ideas for song lyric, poems, instrumental titles, photos, video, short story or anything they inspire you to create.  Use the title if you like & make something!