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THE END OF FREE LEGAL MUSIC


daviebhoy

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Is Free Music Finished?

Posted Wed 10 Feb 2010 4:36PM GMT by Johnny Famethrowa in Touching The Void

In recent years, a revolution has taken place in music, allowing fans to hear most of their favourite songs for nothing. However, those days could be numbered after one of the world's biggest record labels announced plans to stop their catalogue being used on free music services.

Warner Music's decision means acts like Madonna, Muse, James Blunt, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Green Day, Sean Paul and Metallica will no longer be available on popular music streaming sites. It also throws the future of legal, instant-access streaming services such as Spotify, We7 and Last.fm into jeopardy, as labels look to milk their prized assets for all they're worth.

The news was broken by Warner chief executive Edgar Bronfman Jr today. He explained: "Free streaming services are clearly not net positive for the industry and as far as Warner Music is concerned will not be licensed.

"The 'get all your music you want for free, and then maybe with a few bells and whistles we can move you to a premium price' strategy is not the kind of approach to business that we will be supporting in the future," he said, in a move which could yet be mirrored by the other big labels - EMI, Universal and Sony BMG.

It remains unclear if Warner's decision will see the removal of its catalogue from existing services like Spotify, which has seven million users across Europe and is in negotiations to launch in America. But with the industry still unconvinced it will ever make money this way, the future of free music is clearly under threat. :( :( :(

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Is Free Music Finished?

Posted Wed 10 Feb 2010 4:36PM GMT by Johnny Famethrowa in Touching The Void

In recent years, a revolution has taken place in music, allowing fans to hear most of their favourite songs for nothing. However, those days could be numbered after one of the world's biggest record labels announced plans to stop their catalogue being used on free music services.

Warner Music's decision means acts like Madonna, Muse, James Blunt, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Green Day, Sean Paul and Metallica will no longer be available on popular music streaming sites. It also throws the future of legal, instant-access streaming services such as Spotify, We7 and Last.fm into jeopardy, as labels look to milk their prized assets for all they're worth.

The news was broken by Warner chief executive Edgar Bronfman Jr today. He explained: "Free streaming services are clearly not net positive for the industry and as far as Warner Music is concerned will not be licensed.

"The 'get all your music you want for free, and then maybe with a few bells and whistles we can move you to a premium price' strategy is not the kind of approach to business that we will be supporting in the future," he said, in a move which could yet be mirrored by the other big labels - EMI, Universal and Sony BMG.

It remains unclear if Warner's decision will see the removal of its catalogue from existing services like Spotify, which has seven million users across Europe and is in negotiations to launch in America. But with the industry still unconvinced it will ever make money this way, the future of free music is clearly under threat. :( :( :(

I guess they are (WB/Time Warner) trying to make-up for the failed AOL investment.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/05/technology/05disc.html

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They can try all they want. It will never happen. There are too many sites out there for them to monitor them all.

Their music will be free, like it or not! Technology has surpassed their ability to stop it!

I called this happening about two year ago when I first saw you-tube and other similar sites. I knew eventually more and more people would utilize it and more and more people would stop paying for dvd/cd's.(which is now) and then the recording labels would do whatever they could to stop it.

The only way that the big labels are going to make money is with special promo stuff that they include when they sell a dvd/cd. Limited edition stuff would sell also. Buyers are going to have to get something other than just the music in order for them to "sell" anything. Other ways of increasing income for them would be to record and sell every live show. Also using blue-ray video would make it harder for copiers/streamers, etc.(excuse my limited knowledge on the how-to).

The days of the artists and record producers being megarich are over. Artists will always be rich with fame, but not as monetarily rich as in the past.

But then again, this is only my two cents.

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They can try all they want. It will never happen. There are too many sites out there for them to monitor them all.

Their music will be free, like it or not! Technology has surpassed their ability to stop it!

I called this happening about two year ago when I first saw you-tube and other similar sites. I knew eventually more and more people would utilize it and more and more people would stop paying for dvd/cd's.(which is now) and then the recording labels would do whatever they could to stop it.

The only way that the big labels are going to make money is with special promo stuff that they include when they sell a dvd/cd. Limited edition stuff would sell also. Buyers are going to have to get something other than just the music in order for them to "sell" anything. Other ways of increasing income for them would be to record and sell every live show. Also using blue-ray video would make it harder for copiers/streamers, etc.(excuse my limited knowledge on the how-to).

The days of the artists and record producers being megarich are over. Artists will always be rich with fame, but not as monetarily rich as in the past.

But then again, this is only my two cents.

"Artists will always be rich with fame, but not as monetarily rich as in the past."

I disagree....I believe that based on a much wider audience / product line merchandising, the potential is there for even greater profits for the business savvy artist.

As to whether WB has the ability to thwart copy rights infringement and proliferation of "free music"....only time will tell. I believe it will take much greater effort than the Blu-Ray example above.

Streaming "Live Concerts" interests me personally. Won't appeal to everyone, but the thought of always having a front row seat without having to fight the crowds (not to mention driving to the event and parking), seems like a very good value proposition :D .

I will always enjoy live performances as well, but in more intimate settings with good sound!

B)

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"Artists will always be rich with fame, but not as monetarily rich as in the past."

I disagree....I believe that based on a much wider audience / product line merchandising, the potential is there for even greater profits for the business savvy artist.

As to whether WB has the ability to thwart copy rights infringement and proliferation of "free music"....only time will tell. I believe it will take much greater effort than the Blu-Ray example above.

Streaming "Live Concerts" interests me personally. Won't appeal to everyone, but the thought of always having a front row seat without having to fight the crowds (not to mention driving to the event and parking), seems like a very good value proposition :D .

I will always enjoy live performances as well, but in more intimate settings with good sound!

B)

Very good point on the merchandising. Soon there will be Lady Gage sunglasses, lunchboxes, shirts, lipstick, etc. and bands will have to do this since, in my opinion, they won't get as much from the music itself. Also a good point that with larger populations a wider audience base, but also more bands to choose from compared to the day of zep.

Either way they will always be much wealthier than the average joe. As they should be.

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what they need to do is work with the microsoft or whomever designs pcs,

bring the ISP'Sinto it,and find a way where you add a 10$$ dollar a month charge

and they quit trying to monitor everybody who gets free files.

get the tv and movie industry involved.i know internet service is

expensive,but if i had to pay 10 bucks extra every month and download

all i wish,i'd do it in a heartbeat!

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what they need to do is work with the microsoft or whomever designs pcs,

bring the ISP'Sinto it,and find a way where you add a 10$$ dollar a month charge

and they quit trying to monitor everybody who gets free files.

get the tv and movie industry involved.i know internet service is

expensive,but if i had to pay 10 bucks extra every month and download

all i wish,i'd do it in a heartbeat!

Oh yeah, that's a good thing to do (I'm being funny here).

You guy's need to start thinking out side the box if you want to give the people who made the music all there power back.

Giving more power (and money) to the people who provide the means to the delivery will not change a thing for this situation! In fact it will likely make it worse!

If the development of computer and internet technology's goes in the proper direction, it will not be long before you will not be able to do this sort of thing.

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Oh yeah, that's a good thing to do (I'm being funny here).

You guy's need to start thinking out side the box if you want to give the people who made the music all there power back.

Giving more power (and money) to the people who provide the means to the delivery will not change a thing for this situation! In fact it will likely make it worse!

If the development of computer and internet technology's goes in the proper direction, it will not be long before you will not be able to do this sort of thing.

But I don't want to give the power back to the people who made the music. I want to give the power to the everyday person and take it away from the corporations and extremely greedy musicians(i.e. Lars from Metallica).

I agree with you on giving the funds to the internet provider to distribute to the artists. Not good.

No offense, but in my opinion the proper direction would allow everyone to share everything.

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But I don't want to give the power back to the people who made the music. I want to give the power to the everyday person and take it away from the corporations and extremely greedy musicians(i.e. Lars from Metallica).

I agree with you on giving the funds to the internet provider to distribute to the artists. Not good.

No offense, but in my opinion the proper direction would allow everyone to share everything.

The power needs to be derived from the people (consumer). Any other solution is temporary in nature and will ultimately fail.

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The power needs to be derived from the people (consumer). Any other solution is temporary in nature and will ultimately fail.

To follow up on this line of reasoning, let's not forget that a business is out there to make a profit. iTunes seems to have done quite well charging for music and has developed a loyal customer base. This change to eliminating free music would benefit them more than anyone else.

Some companies are successful gouging the consumer (People) for short-term profits, and when the trend reverses, getting out to gouge them somewhere else. This seems to work as long as the People are either unsuspecting -or- ignorant...which means this could be a whole lot of people ;) . Typically, most companies can not change fast enough (culture) to accomplish this do-si-do, and eventually the value proposition wins out anyways.

I can see this change benefitting Apple the most which means my monthly credit card charge will go up :( .

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You would feel very differently if you were the one who made the music.

:rolleyes:

I agree with you. But I didn't/don't so I have a different take on it. I can understand their desire for huge profits but several artists have really scammed their very own fans. i.e. Van Halen ticket scamming and Lars from Metallica's Napster suit.

Again I think the artists should profit on the recorded material, but not to the extent that they do now or in the past. I certainly don't feel that they should not make money, only that they should consider their fame part of their fortune.

If artists made less from the recordings it would require them to tour more and do more recordings, thus giving their fans more of what they want. Music from their heroes.

I'd love to hear some opinions of people who are more knowledgeable of the industry than myself. It's an area I've thought about alot over the past few years. which direction will the marketing of music go in the next decade(s).

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Very dumb move indeed if you ask me, yes these sites were "free" but they did obviously bring in some income and perhaps more importantly they were helping to change the net culture away from illegal free DLing. You'll always get a certain amount of people looking for the free option but at least if there just streaming you make it more likely they'll buy sometime in the future.

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I agree with you. But I didn't/don't so I have a different take on it. I can understand their desire for huge profits but several artists have really scammed their very own fans. i.e. Van Halen ticket scamming and Lars from Metallica's Napster suit.

Again I think the artists should profit on the recorded material, but not to the extent that they do now or in the past. I certainly don't feel that they should not make money, only that they should consider their fame part of their fortune.

If artists made less from the recordings it would require them to tour more and do more recordings, thus giving their fans more of what they want. Music from their heroes.

I'd love to hear some opinions of people who are more knowledgeable of the industry than myself. It's an area I've thought about alot over the past few years. which direction will the marketing of music go in the next decade(s).

What part do you need to know about? Yes, there will always be greed and even if I think that the people that write a song and make a deal with a company for everything about that song should have total control over what happens to it, some will not like that idea.

That's to bad, it's theirs, they have made the contribution's and signed there life away to the label and it really should be their song and should get the reward's. All of the reward's, the money, the fame (good and bad) and the happiness one get's from having others enjoy what they created.

If we keep flooding the market with all free and all available music, it will be very hard to weed out the crap from the true gold! This is what has been happening for 25 years now (trust me, I've been around long enough to know).

We must have a more intelligent web and less intelligent delivery system to combat all the waist that will render us all tasteless and lost!

Sorry for the rant but that's how it needs to be.

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Right now many homes have computers but there are still alot of people who refuse to deal with them. In the next ten years the percentage of people listening to digital music versus CD's will significantly increase.

The more people that listen to digital versus CD the fewer the sales will occur. Unless the corporations come up with a new way of encoding it will be free for us. If they do come out with a new way of encoding, within a year it will be deciphered and then it will be free for us.

They cannot stop this. There are millions of people VS. the large record companies. Maybe at this conference/meeting they are holding they will figure this out and come up with fresh new ideas to increase their revenues...because over time the revenues from CD sales will be decreasing more and more.

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if free music ended that means the end of radio. thall never happen

Ok, I do understand that you are young but radio is not free dude. How do you think the rock star's get so rich? If radio is free then there would be no super star's and no one would be making and money off of radio and it wouldn't have even started to begin with.

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Right now many homes have computers but there are still alot of people who refuse to deal with them. In the next ten years the percentage of people listening to digital music versus CD's will significantly increase.

The more people that listen to digital versus CD the fewer the sales will occur. Unless the corporations come up with a new way of encoding it will be free for us. If they do come out with a new way of encoding, within a year it will be deciphered and then it will be free for us.

They cannot stop this. There are millions of people VS. the large record companies. Maybe at this conference/meeting they are holding they will figure this out and come up with fresh new ideas to increase their revenues...because over time the revenues from CD sales will be decreasing more and more.

Deal with computer's?

I'm amused with your prediction of digital music but you forget that a CD is digital media!

The new encoding is called MP3 (not that new really) and it will eventually go back to the better 44.1K, as well as the higher format of 96K as soon as the speed and bandwidth get's to the point for that kind of file size to be easily moved through cyber-space.

I still don't understand where your coming from, yeah for now the theft will go on but in time (with in 5-10 years) you will be using a computer with no operating system or hardrive. So, no one will be able to down/up/load anything for free, only stream from the web and if you pay for it get a copy for yourself. Also, you wont be able to run program's so hacking will be a thing of a past too.

Think of it like a high tech TV or like the old day's of Mainframe's and Terminal's.

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This is so un-true, where do you get your information about the near-future of computer and web technologies?

La La (streaming music).....I get your gist. On the otherhand --- my daughter just took over ALL my old vinyl because she has a suitcase phonograph that was purchased at a Salvation Army store (sounds sweet), and I threw out the ol' Technics turntable thinking I never needed it again (dumbass). I want my old records back...she has my Quadrophenia Album!

:angry:

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La La (streaming music).....I get your gist. On the otherhand --- my daughter just took over ALL my old vinyl because she has a suitcase phonograph that was purchased at a Salvation Army store (sounds sweet), and I threw out the ol' Technics turntable thinking I never needed it again (dumbass). I want my old records back...she has my Quadrophenia Album!

:angry:

Well, kids are good for doing thing's like that too there folk's. Got to like anything The Who made. B)

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Deal with computer's?

I'm amused with your prediction of digital music but you forget that a CD is digital media!

The new encoding is called MP3 (not that new really) and it will eventually go back to the better 44.1K, as well as the higher format of 96K as soon as the speed and bandwidth get's to the point for that kind of file size to be easily moved through cyber-space.

I still don't understand where your coming from, yeah for now the theft will go on but in time (with in 5-10 years) you will be using a computer with no operating system or hardrive. So, no one will be able to down/up/load anything for free, only stream from the web and if you pay for it get a copy for yourself. Also, you wont be able to run program's so hacking will be a thing of a past too.

Think of it like a high tech TV or like the old day's of Mainframe's and Terminal's.

I'll have to start by clarifying that my meaning of digital is download vs. cd/s albums, something you can touch and feel. sorry if I didn't use proper terminology there. Is the correct term streaming?

Computers with no hard drives? I don't know about that one. Anything is possible but I just don't see the world digressing back to the days of a webtv type device.

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