The Collapse of Music Journalism, American Idol Gets Beatles Songs, Music 1.0 is Dead, and Recommended Listening…
Posted February 28, 2008 — in Music News
The Collapse of Music Journalism: Rapper Nas was shocked when Maxim gave his new album, “N - - - - r,” a 21/2-star review - because it isn’t even finished yet. “I’m finishing the album now, and it will be out April 22,” Nas told Page Six.
Study Sees Digital Music Shakeout: “There are too many online and mobile shops around,” says Point Topic analyst Oliver Johnson. Many music players will collapse and others will be bought out.
American Idol Has Dibs on Beatles Songs: Sony/ATV Music Publishing that controls the Beatles’ mega hits has given Idol the go-ahead to lets its contestants sing and torture “Yesterday”, “Let It Be” among others. “It’s something we’ve waited for for seven seasons now,” Idol executive producer Nigel Lythgoe told Seacrest. “Sony has agreed to release the Lennon and McCartney songbook to us.”
Music 1.0 Is Dead: Five hundred top members of the music business gathered today in New York to hear that “music 1.0 is dead.” Ted Cohen, a former EMI exec who used the phrase, opened the Digital Music Forum East by pleading with the industry to be wildly creative with new business models but not to “be desperate” during this transitional period. Check out the full article here.
Face The Music: Facebook has launched its music section today.
China Has No Music Industry: The Music Copyright Society of China and China’s largest digital music distributor, R2G, have filed suit against Baidu.com in Beijing. The Chinese music industry has seen its hellish days - no respect for artists, no respect for copyrights; all in the name of FREEDOM.
Guys Hands Feels The Strain of EMI Takeover: Guy Hands first 100 days at the group has not gone to plan according to the Telegraph. “What we are doing is taking the power away from the A&R guys and putting it with the suits - the guys who have to work out how to sell music. Trying to persuade 260 people to give up their power has been hard.”
“We had labels at EMI that were spending five times as much on marketing as their gross revenues. We told them you could stick a £50 note on the cover of a CD and have the same effect, and we also wouldn’t have to pay them. Those sorts of comments don’t go down too well.”
Recommended Listening:
Baby You by Made In Hollywood
I don’t think that China is stealing music in the name of freedom. I think it’s a completely different scenario. And it’s hardly the fault of baidu.com… piracy has been rampant in China for much longer than it has in America, back to the VHS days. Hell, I buy my imitation Ray Bans off ebay from China & taiwan. You can get pirated/imitated anything at little shops & booths all across China. Part of this is economic, part of it has to do with tourism, part of it has to do with lack of education, & part of it has to do with the dentralized nature of it making copyright infringement very difficult & costly to enforce. The same stuff goes on in Mexico, though it’s less technology/media driven.
This kind of thing has long been commonplace among the Chinese & digital piracy is a natural outgrowth of it. But going after baidu.com is like holding the yellowpages responsible for listing shops that sell pirated material. Whether you take baidu.com or the yellowpages completely down, the content is still there. And whether it’s through word of mouth or some other search engine or whatever, people are going to find the music & download it. It’s just a really terrible plan.
The idea that “What you’re doing isn’t illegal, but you could help us & you won’t so we’ll just make what you’re doing illegal” is totally absurd.
Comment by Jon Cole — February 28, 2008 @ 12:11 pm
@Jon, it seems that this case against Baidu is different in that Baidu is being accused not of being the yellowpages, but the warehouse where the stolen goods are stored. In fact, if I read the Forbes article carefully, what they are saying is “What you’re doing IS illegal…period, and don’t hide behind the guise of being a neutral search engine”
Comment by max — February 28, 2008 @ 4:06 pm
Maybe that’s what they’re accusing them of, but that doesn’t mean that it’s what’s actually going on. It’s pretty obvious that the Chinese labels are clueless, even more clueless than their international counterparts. And with all of the ridiculous allegations thrown at Oink, I’m all the more eager to call their bluff.
I browsed the site myself & couldn’t find any mp3s hosted on baidu.com. I found plenty of lists of mp3s, but unless they own domains like music.yaan.gov.cn, the files all seem to be located externally. That’s what a search engine does.
I’m not familiar with Chinese law & I’m not familiar with the Yahoo! China case mentioned in the article, but I think the comparison to the yellow pages plenty of water.
How can you run such a huge company based on media & completely ignore technology for so long? It absolutely blows my mind.
Comment by Jon Cole — February 28, 2008 @ 6:57 pm
Jon, you hit on it exactly…”but unless they own domains like music.yaan.gov.cn, the files all seem to be located externally.”
Chinese publications have been pointing to Baidu being suspiciously linked to these “external” music hosting domains….read it here: http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/bw/2008-03/10/content_6521101.htm
It is fairly obvious what is going on here - Baidu is probably working under the guise of a search engine..
If you were here in China, you would understand that the assertion that Baidu’s music search is akin to Yellow Pages is laughable…..
Comment by max — March 18, 2008 @ 11:30 pm