Following up on Radiohead's experiment, and why Metallica SUCKS!

So I made a huge deal about Radiohead's last album being released on line. In Rainbows was a great work (which eerily lines up with OK Computer), but the band was pretty tight lipped about whether the digital download plan was a success.

A reader just sent in this BBC News article where U2's manager declares the experiment a failure:

The majority of fans who downloaded In Rainbows ignored the band's website and acquired it illegally by other means, Paul McGuinness told BBC 6 Music.

"Sixty to 70% of the people who downloaded the record stole it anyway, even though it was available for free."

U2's next album - due this year - would not follow the same approach, he added.

Ummm-Kay...
First off, I don't get how U2's manager gets to make this declaration. Even if the numbers are accurate, this perceived theft would probably have fallen in line with the number of people who would've downloaded the album for free any way. I know I had SERIOUS problems even accessing Radiohead's site the day the album went live.

Next the goodwill generated is completely incalculable. The spectacle of releasing a commercial work of this quality for free probably reached farther out than just Radiohead fans. I had quite a few friends who weren't Radiohead fans before, but enjoyed In Rainbows enough to check out their earlier work. I'm assuming there was a subtle "Napster effect" after In Rainbows release, with earlier albums experiencing a small sales bump.
Add that exposure to concert ticket sales, and sales of the hard copy of In Rainbows, and I think the download experiment has helped the band a lot more than some estimated loss of units sold could hurt it.
I found the last line of the BBC story telling:

The album went straight to number one in the UK and US when it became available on CD in January.

And speaking of "Napster effect" Metallica seems pretty resolute about continuing on their march to complete irrelevance.

Just after drumming up some buzz by embracing iTunes, and talking about trying their own NIN like download album release (making them the greatest flip-floppers of all time imho), they go and pull a stunt like this.
Ars is reporting on the bands inability to NOT piss off all of their fans who happen to use the web. First they invite music critics to review 6 tracks off their new album (I didn't even know there was another album in the works). Then they send the critics and bloggers off to write stories about those tracks. THEN the band's management threatens the bloggers who wrote reviews, and bullied them into taking those reviews down. Then the band makes an "official" statement on their website saying:

"Our response was 'WHY?!!! Why take down mostly positive reviews of the new material and prevent people from getting psyched about the next record... that makes no sense to us!'"

OK.

I stopped listening to Metallica after they embraced the litigious nature of the RIAA, and were brutally public about suing all of their fans. It was a sticky situation, and file sharing is stealing (not piracy though), but this was the wrong move to make. If they're played on the radio I change the station. The fact that they are considering following NIN and Radiohead, proves to me that their reputations (along with their album sales) have been damaged to the point where they need to eat some crow, make a magnanimous gesture. Great. Good for them.

This latest episode just shows that they still don't know what the crap they're doing with this whole intarweb thing.

I'll be adding them to my list of "no buy" along with Monster Cables and Creative sound cards...

What the HECK is going on with the Music Industry‽‽‽

Yes, THREE interrobangs!

But seriously, what is going on? It seems every day over the last week I've been reading about incredible change, and yet I'm still seeing business as usual.


First off is the whole debacle over Trent Reznor's remix site remix.nin.com. After butting heads with Universal (apparently releasing NIN samples in this manner would impact Universal's lawsuit against Youtube/Google, lol), Reznor just threw the site up anyway. Universal's control is weakened, but not completely absent as Reznor did make some small concessions. From LiveDaily.com:

The head-scratching apparently ended on Monday (11/26), when Reznor unveiled remix.nin.com, where an FAQ explains how the site is dealing with the aforementioned concerns about fans using unauthorized materials in conjunction with their NIN remixes. The site describes unauthorized materials as "samples of songs by other artists, or samples from movies, TV shows, or video games," and says that any remixes containing such elements "will be rejected during the approval process."
"Please understand that it is not our wish to impose these restrictions on your creativity or the functionality of this site, but we have no choice in the matter," the FAQ continues.

So Universal's been hamstrung, and apparently so has Warner. Hot on the heels of Warner Music CEO Edgar Bronfman Jr's admission of mishandling music's digital conversion (add that to Doug Morris bumbling through his explanation of how these new intarwebs frighten his age-ed soul, via Wired), we're now witnessing an accelerating drop in CD sales. Warner specifically, is reporting a 58% drop in CD sales over this time last year, and a net profit of only five million dollars (as opposed to twelve last year, via Yahoo/Reuters).
Warner's plan is to get more involved in artist "packaging" including image rights, management, advertising, and touring revenue, but for a company that is, admittedly, reactionary and obstinate about change, one has to wonder if they can actually shift gears fast enough to stay relevant. Madonna has already left to pursue more non-traditional distribution, not to mention a whole slew of others like NIN and Radiohead. Will others follow their example, or stay with the current, failing business model?
[Cartoon from HijinksEnsue]


Lastly, EMI is considering pulling funding for the RIAA. One of the Big Four that support the fan-suing organization, it's looking to cut a significant portion of the $132 million it contributes to the RIAA each year. This would be a positive step in my opinion, and right in line with EMI's new radical stance (Idolator), but I can't let go of that number. One HUNDRED and THIRTY TWO MILLION dollars, every year! That's TEN times the profit Warner made LAST year on album sales. You really have to question an industry that will pay ten times what it makes to sue and harass the very customers it's trying to attract. [Story @ Ars Technica]


So, we've got all this news, newsnewsnews, and yet the RIAA is still blackmailing people, artists aren't getting paid any better for their work, and it still costs me $15+ for a new-ish album (unless I go "gray market", or locked DRM crappy low bitrate download). Great.

*sigh*

Enough bitching from me, back to work...

Whole Ton of Music News...

So I was reading through Idolator today, and a couple stories struck me as interesting.

Both Kanye and 50 Cent are seeing decent success with the release of their respective albums. Currently though Kanye is outselling by a sizable distance (400,000 units to Fiddy's 300,000). So even though 50 took it too the streets to advertise, it looks like Kanye will win this one. I'm glad. I don't really care that much for either, but now we'll get to see if 50 Cent will keep his promise to never record again if Kanye beats him.


To follow that up here's Kanye's new video:

I kinda hate it. Late Registration had this great "becoming a man" vibe for me. If this is indicative of Kanye's new work, I'll stay far away. I'm just not that hyped up on another rapper telling me how much money they have, that they "got mine", and even telling me "You're Welcome" for all the joy they've brought into my life. Thanks but no thanks...


And lastly in "rip off Idolator" news, it looks like we'll be seeing a crackdown on Lyrics sites. This makes me mad, as we don't always get inserts with music anymore (especially downloaded), so if I want to check out the lyrics of a song I go online now. I understand the argument that these sites make ad revenue off of content they don't own the rights to, but to me it seems like a silly target to go after. It serves as free advertising for the music, fans get what they want, and the music biz didn't have to pay for any of it. Are they wanting to charge people for this service. If I have to pay for lyrics ... oh bad things ... very bad things ...

The move against lyric sites comes as the publishing business is in the midst of rolling out official online-lyric offerings through such places as Yahoo! Music and Real Networks' Rhapsody, via deals with lyric aggregators Gracenote and LyricFind.
In those deals, publishers license lyrics for online reproduction in exchange for a portion of ad revenues from the sites. Illegal lyric sites have been in operation for years, and top ad-supported sites like AZ Lyrics Universe have attracted some of the most traffic among music-related Web sites.
Industry insiders say all take-down requests at this point are "voluntary," and part of an "educational" push on behalf of music publishers to inform lyric Web sites that reproducing the words to songs without authorization is a violation of copyright law.
However, sources warn that sites that do not cooperate will be subject to cease-and-desist notices under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. DMCA notices often serve as a precursor to music-industry litigation.

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