Crenk

It looks like FireFox’s campaign to get the most software downloads in 24 hours has worked. They now have an announcement on their website saying :

Thanks to the support of the always amazing Mozilla community, we now hold a Guinness World Record for the most software downloaded in 24 hours. From 18:16 UTC on June 17, 2008 to 18:16 UTC on June 18, 2008, 8,002,530 people downloaded Firefox 3 and are now enjoying a safer, smarter and better Web.

I still find it quite amazing that their servers could handle all of those downloads in one single day. Well lets not forget that there were some major issues when the day started because it was really difficult to actually get the download from the sites.

GroovesharkLite is a self-contained flash based application which lets you search, listen and purchase mp3’s online. It has a library of over 6 Million songs covering everything from tiny Indies to all the Majors.

It’s a peer to peer music service in the same vein as Limewire, which also allows users to stream and purchase songs.

Users are not required to register or login to their account in order to search and play songs. You are only required to login to your account when you want to purchase a particular mp3. Otherwise you are free listen to songs as much as you want.

You can also get free mp3’s with GroovesharkLite, for example if someone purchases a song that you seed, you would receive a credit that can be used to purchase more songs from the network.

Check it out: http://listen.grooveshark.com

Crenk has long been a part of the Insomnia Media Group, which today is launching our music initiative.

RouteNote is a user driven music distribution service, allowing indie artists to get access to major online retailers and make their music available to film, radio and other media producers for quick, easy licensing.

The site is launching into public beta which involves our distribution section. Distribution through RouteNote will allow unsigned artists and independent labels from all over the world to sell their music in some of the worlds largest online stores. RouteNote is a completely non-exclusive music distributor that has some of the best rates in the industry. Artists are able to sign up for FREE, uploading as many tracks as they would like and being able to keep 90% of the revenues from download sales.

What RouteNote offers:

• Retain 100% Ownership of your tracks
• Non-exclusive
• Worldwide Exposure
• No Signup Fees
• Receive 90% from all download sales
• It wont stop you from signing up to a record label in the future
• Forward looking partnerships and marketing expertise

RouteNote is a unique service that can help hundreds of thousands of artists all over the world. So why not signup today.

Stay tuned for more features to also launch over time.

Here at Crenk we have already reported about Myspace and their new music offering several times. It seems now that the launch is imminent. The LA Times has reported that Myspace will be launching their music offering as early as tomorrow. The new service will compete directly with iTunes and will be offering music downloads, streams, videos and mobile phone ring tones, along with related items, such as merchandise and concert tickets.

Stay tuned for more coverage about the launch in coming days.

Amie Street have just announced today that they have signed the Beggars Group to their service. The Beggars Group consists of labels such as XL, Rough Trade, 4AD, Matador Records and Polyvinyl Recording Co. This means a further 15,000 tracks to the Amie Street catalog.

As most of you already know Amie Street is a music download site that has been funded by the likes of Amazon. This is due to their unique pricing model. All tracks in their catalog start of at being a free download and once the popularity of a certain track increases, then so does the price accordingly. Tracks are finally capped at $0.98 per download.  However, one of the most important selling points for the consumer is that the Amie Street tracks are totally DRM free Mp3s.

I made my prections for 2008 about 2 weeks ago and already Napster seems to have listened to me and they are now more open to DRM free solutions. Napster just announced that they will be abandoning DRM completely in its music download store in the second quarter of this year. Napster will still however apply copyright protection to its subscription service, but when a user purchases an a la carte download the files will no longer be in DRM WMA format, but in Mp3 format.

This is a very positive move for Napster because they are currently in approximately 5th in download store ratings, behind iTunes, eMusic, Amazon and Rhapsody. This move and forward thinking is slowly getting pushed upon online download stores from the major record labels, and it is very refreshing to see Napster is trying to improve their position in the market and jumping on board the DRM free before some of the others.

In the last few days I have been reading some great articles over at RWW on the music industry, where it is headed and how Apple could potentially lose its dominance. These articles have fueled great debates on the RWW site and here is my take on the whole music industry.

Having the Complete Package

Josh wrote a great article at RWW that basically talked about Apple and how they are slowly coming under fire from Amazon and Zune. I think the situation is very straight forward until someone really tries to shake up the market!

Apple currently has 70% of the portable music player market and approx 85% of the music download market. Apple additionally has a very strong brand awareness and loyalty. Apple are very smart at what they do and for companies who only offer part of their package, it will be very difficult for them to compete and actually grab any market presence. Im sure we will see companies like Amazon attempt to attack parts of the music market but if they succeed in any particular area (such as cut pricing of downloads and DRM free downloads), then Apple will just calculate the right times to cover the advances and offer equal services. At the end of the day Apple knows that they have brand loyalty like no other and services such as Amazon Mp3 in the long run will only help them sell more iPods or Macs, because these people who download have to put their music somewhere.

In terms of Zune they have been receiving some good reviews for their new product, however this is Microsoft we are talking about. Microsoft has long been serial monopolists and Zune is not going to change that fact. Apple have of course AAC files that can only be played on iPods and Microsoft have exactly the same with the Zune.

At present no one can challenge Apples dominance and I dont think anyone will challenge them for at least another 5 years. Microsoft with Zune have just launched a product and service exactly the same as Apple did years ago with the iPod and iTunes, there is no difference to me. Amazon however, have launched a service that was need, a service that offers DRM free music not via subscription and via a cut price. Amazon hit a small gap in the market that was needed, but does this mean they will get any where near iTunes? No chance in hell!!

Future of DRM

I predict that 2008 will be the year that all the big 4 (Sony BMG, Universal, Warner and EMI) start selling DRM free music more openly. Amazon has Warner on the books and iTunes has EMI already signed up with Warner to come on board very soon.

In 2007 there have been lots of experiments with the music business model, such as Radiohead and also Amie Street, but have they proved anything? Yes I think they have. The Amie Street business model of offering music low and then prices increase when the track becomes popular has proved so successful that Amazon has bought into the company. Radiohead proved that selling digitally on a website can be just as popular as selling on the huge iTunes.

Conclusions. Overall, I really think customers are willing to pay for good quality music, especially DRM free music that can be transported to any portable music player, but only at the right price! Im still not too sure if we have found the right price yet. This is mainly due to the big 4 wanting to make a good margin on their sales on iTunes, thus prices are currently high. I cant wait to see a service that skips all of the hassels and just offers a simple service that sells good quality mp3s DRM free at a price such as $0.50 per download.

What Needs to Happen to Break the Music Industry

Currently, I am CEO of a company which is entering the music space but focusing on music licensing and distribution. Hypothetically, if I had the resources and money to launch a product in the music industry that would compete with iTunes and Apple, I would do the following.

• Digital music downloads need to have a copyright system in place that actually tracks who the music is sold to and if the music is transported between computers or players it just needs to be unlocked via a password or something similar.
• Offer a DRM free music store in which the music can be transfered to any portable music player
• Offer a reasonable price and optimize the transaction fee the third party takes.
• Then offer other vertical services such as videos, games, ebooks and more.
• Finally, move into horizontal integration, such as a revolutionary portable music player, online and satellite radio stations and many more ideas.

This is the only way I can see someone breaking the Apple dominance and taking at least some share of the music market. If you are a VC and would like to fund my idea, please get in touch with me! haha. I love a challenge!

P2P music sharing and sales service Grooveshark has raised their level of compensation for sharing music from 10 cents to 25 cents a track, their entire profit on each sale. Users upload their music to Grooveshark, and any member can listen to those tracks for free. If they want to download a song, they can purchase it DRM free and the user who uploaded the song gets a cut of the sale; previously this was 10c and now its 25c. The remainer of the 99c sale goes to the record companies; the service is legal and Grooveshark has agreements with the record companies to provide the service and to cover copyright obligations.

I dont see how this program can actually succeed! I really need someone from Grooveshark to explain to me the finer details. As far as i know it runs the same as any other P2P, where companies and users each run their files from a folder on their computer and thus allowing other users to purchase audio tracks, movies, etc. How is Grooveshark going to monitor copyrights on songs for example, because i know a lot of people out there have illegally downloaded songs on their computer and if they are in the same folder that Grooveshark is using how will they track it all and keep control? Especially also considering a user could change the name of the songs in their folder and then make it more suceptable to being accepted at owning a copyright.

Finally, why would i want to purchase from a P2P network when currently I can head over to LimeWire and get it all for nothing??

Starbucks said it will be giving away millions of songs via download on iTunes. It is reported that more than 10,000 US Starbucks locations will be participating in the give away, which will be running from October 2 to November 7. Customers can receive “Song of the Day” cards redeemable on Apple’s iTunes store for a complimentary song selected by Starbucks. Starbucks said it will give away 1.5 million downloads per day for a total of more than 50 million free songs. Customers will have until the end of the year to redeem the song on iTunes.