Pleasure Avalanche's Blog

IFPI publishes Digital Music Report 2009: ’95% of Music Downloads are Unauthorised’

pleasureavalanche — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 15:02:17 +0000

With global digital music sales growing, the digital music business is booming, but according to IFPI’s Digital Music Report for 2009, published today – this success is overshadowed by the fact that 95% of downloads are said to be illegal and unauthorised, with no payment to artists and producers.

In addition to this, the IFPI report contains details on how music companies are developing and embracing new revenue and business models – offering consumers more choice – and details on the progress of ISP cooperation.

The following has been extracted from IFPI.org:

The music industry has transformed its business models, offering consumers an increasing range of new services with leading technology partners. Yet generating value in an environment where 95 per cent of music downloads are illegal and unpaid for is still the biggest challenge for music companies and their commercial partners.

The digital music business internationally saw a sixth year of expansion in 2008, growing by an estimated 25 per cent to US$3.7 billion in trade value. Digital platforms now account for around 20 per cent of recorded music sales, up from 15 per cent in 2007. Recorded music is at the forefront of the online and mobile revolution, generating more revenue in percentage terms through digital platforms than the newspaper (4%), magazine (1%) and film industries (4%) combined.

At the same time, a new generation of music subscription services, social networking sites and new licensing channels is emerging. These were led in 2008 by services like Nokia Comes With Music, MySpace Music and a raft of partnerships with Internet Service Providers (ISPs), such as TDC in Denmark, Neuf Cegetel in France, TeliaSonera in Sweden and BSkyB in the UK.

Despite these developments, the music sector is still overshadowed by the huge amount of unlicensed music distributed online. Collating separate studies in 16 countries over a three-year period, IFPI estimates over 40 billion files were illegally file-shared in 2008, giving a piracy rate of around 95 per cent.

IFPI’s Digital Music Report 2009, published today, gives a comprehensive overview of trends in the music business internationally. It shows an industry that has shifted its approach from one based only on unit sales of music to “monetising” access to music across a multitude of channels and platforms.

Single track downloads, up 24 per cent in 2008 to 1.4 billion units globally, continue to drive the online market, but digital albums are also growing healthily (up 36%). The top-selling digital single of 2008 was Lil Wayne’s Lollipop with sales of 9.1 million units – 1.8 million more than the 2007 best selling digital single.

The Report also shows how the digital age is expanding the role of music companies in developing and marketing artists and it outlines the progress being made internationally in getting ISPs to cooperate to curb mass-scale copyright infringement on their networks.

John Kennedy, chairman and chief executive of IFPI, says:

“The recorded music industry is reinventing itself and its business models. Music companies have changed their whole approach to doing business, reshaped their operations and responded to the dramatic transformation in the way music is distributed and consumed. There is a momentous debate going on about the environment on which our business, and all the people working in it, depends. Governments are beginning to accept that, in the debate over “free content” and engaging ISPs in protecting intellectual property rights, doing nothing is not an option if there is to be a future for commercial digital content.”

Available Resources courtesy of IFPI (2009) ‘IFPI publishes Digital Music Report 2009‘ [online] January 16. London.

Joint Venture: HMV & MAMA Group Plc

pleasureavalanche — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 16:07:46 +0000

MAMA Group Plc, the live music venue operator, is entering into a joint venture with music retailer HMV.

MAMA is disposing of its interests in a number of its subsidiary operating companies to a new venture, Mean Fiddler Group (MFG). The subsidiaries are responsible for the ownership and operation of 11 UK venues, including the Hammersmith Apollo, The Forum, The Edinburgh Picture House, The Borderline and The Garage.

MAMA will receive 50 per cent of the issued share capital of MFG and an initial cash consideration of £18.25m from HMV – which is being funded by a share placement worth up to 5 per cent of the chain.

Adam Driscoll and Dean James, co-chief executives of MAMA Group, released a joint statement saying:

“This is a landmark deal that alters the face of the live venue business in the UK. Our venues are already key destinations for artists, promoters and fans.

This new partnership between MAMA and HMV enables that live experience to be augmented by enabling us to offer the artist and fans a range of other opportunities to interact. We believe that linking tickets, tracks and merchandise through a direct artist-to-fan relationship is a way to help the music industry grow and prosper.

Artists will perform at venues with a strong presence at the point of retail to help drive ticket sales and to offer incentives to their fans via HMV’s online and store channels, while fans will have more points of access to purchase tickets and the opportunity to build a closer relationship with their favourite artists.”

Under the terms of the agreement, HMV will receive naming rights in relation to certain venues so for example, the Hammersmith Apollo will become the HMV Apollo.

The venues will continue to be operated by MAMA on a day-to-day basis and it is intended that the joint venture partners will actively consider expansion where high-quality, larger venues become available.

Excerpt courtesy of: Leisure Opportunities (2009) ‘MAMA Group and HMV sign joint venture‘ [online] January 15.

View official details here: MAMA Group Plc (2009) ‘MAMA Group joins forces with HMV in the Live Venue Market‘ [online pdf] January 14. Mama Group Plc.

Warner’s Social Media Strategy

pleasureavalanche — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 13:41:08 +0000

After years of watching music fans flood online social networks to interact with their favorite recording artists, the music industry is starting to get serious about adding community features to its own websites.

Hoping to become a big player in that effort is networking giant Cisco, which during the Consumer Electronics Show, January 8-11 in Las Vegas, introduced its Eos platform — a set of hosted online tools designed to enable media and entertainment companies to build social networking functions into websites.

For record labels, that means adding fan community services to artist sites. Warner Music Group (WMG) is the first label partner signed on to use the Eos platform.

WMG Vice President of Digital Strategy and Business Development, Michael Nash, comments:

“As the Web shifts from the enterprise to the consumer in terms of where the traffic is coming from, the social media revolution — which is all about fans interacting with artists — is going to provide an enormous opportunity. This is a recognition that having a social media strategy is not just about partnering with social networks, but it’s also about what we do with our direct-to-consumer efforts.”

View full article here: Bruno, A. (2009) ‘Warner Music adding social networking to websites‘ [online] January 10, 2009. Reuters: Technology.

Introduction

pleasureavalanche — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 02:39:43 +0000

This blog serves to act as a personal archive in which I will document, classify and occasionally annotate texts (articles, journals, literature), photographs, videos and other works about – and related to – the Music and Digital Media Industries.