The BBC has an interesting article about attitudes to Digital Rights Management (DRM) systems in Europe music firms. According to the study by Jupiter Research, almost two-thirds of music industry executives think removing digital locks from downloadable music would make more people buy the tracks.

Many of those surveyed criticized current DRM systems as “not fit for purpose” and that they get in the way of what consumers wanted to do. Analyst Mark Mulligan said he was “surprised” at the strength of the responses which came from large and small record labels, rights bodies, digital stores and technology providers.
The study revealed that about 54% of those executives questioned thought that current DRM systems were too restrictive. 62% believed that dropping DRM and releasing music files that can be enjoyed on any MP3 player would boost the take-up of digital music generally.

Despite the criticisms of current DRM systems, though, few respondents said DRM would disappear in the near future.

Blubrry has announced that it now has 1,000 podcasters partcipating in its podcasting community. Blubrry combines standard podcast directory features with community-building and podcasting advertising options.

“In creating Blubrry, we all thought about our previous bad experiences with directories and podcast listing sites,” said Blubrry founder Todd Cochrane. “So Blubrry’s monetization options, the lack of contract, how we treat our members, all came from lessons learned from others.”

The site is free to join for listeners and podcasters. Podcasters can participate in ad revenue sharing, but have the option to accept or turn down ad deals.

Business Week is hyping the advertising potential of podcasts, calling them The Next Big Ad Medium.

According to their analysis, podcasts are poised to grab a larger slice of the multibillion-dollar online advertising pie. They highlight research from eMarketer expects that advertisers will spend more than $400 million on podcasting by 2011, up from $80 million last year.

The increase of video podcasts, which lend themselves to the kind of video ads that marketers are accustomed to developing for television, has also increased advertiser interest. Also expected to entice advertisers is the highly targeted audience of many podcasts, says Belcher. For example, there are podcasts for people interested in consumer electronics, skateboarding, and comic books. “You can really serve a niche much better than traditional television,” says David Prager, chief operating officer and VP of programming at Revision3, an online television network that shows video podcasts. Its most popular, Diggnation, is viewed 250,000 times per week, Prager says.

The more targeted the audience, the more likely advertisers can reach a consumer willing to buy their product. And in theory, that increased targeting will at some point lead to higher-priced advertising.

Fueling the anticipated growth is the expected entrance of Google into the podcasting arena, as well as the emergence of podcast services focused on addressing the needs of advertisers.

The cell phone industry must improve the mobile music experience for consumers or it risks losing out to new competitors like Apple, Warner Music Group CEO Edgar Bronfman Jr. warned Wednesday at the 3GSM World Congress.

According to Bronfman, although there are already millions of music phones available throughout the world, only about 8.8 percent of people with the devices actually buy their music over the air. The reason, he said, is because such purchases are expensive, complicated and slow.

“We need to make it easy, affordable and quick to get music on mobile phones,” he said. “Until we achieve this goal, we will be leaving billions of dollars on the table.” It can take a person 20 clicks to buy a ringtone, depending on the carrier. He also complained about the fact that ringtones, full-track songs, music videos and album art are all sold in separate virtual stores.

Bronfman pointed to Apple as an example of how to do it right, noting that “It’s amazing we have generated as much money as we have, given how cumbersome it is to buy music,” he said. “Imagine what we could do if it was fun and easy for consumers.”

“Apple has raised the bar in terms of what users expect even before the product has been released,” Bronfman said. “While this presents a challenge, ultimately I think it will be positive for the industry because it’s getting people excited about music phone devices. Now it’s up to providers and manufacturers to fill the emerging demand.”

via CNET News

Veoh Networks has announced its official launch, offering publishers and viewers a “new era of Internet television”, according to the company.

According to the Veoh, their automatic syndication and reporting features lets video publishers reach and manage the largest audience on the web. For viewers, Veoh offers a comprehensive set of features and viewing options, including a downloadable player that turns a viewer computer into a virtual DVR that can download content from video sites across the Internet. Veoh’s peer-to-peer network, built from the ground up for video distribution, is designed to ensure that publishers can provide viewers with a full-screen, DVD-quality experience.

“Veoh’s mission is to bring the next generation of television to people wherever they are–office, living room, or on the go.” said Dmitry Shapiro, CEO, Veoh. “Technology will allow us to dramatically improve the experience, and we believe our formal release today is an important step towards realizing our goal.”

The service offers several interesting new options for publishers and viewers alike.

Blip.tv has announced a new way for content creators to make money with online videos. The model, “do-it-yourself targeted advertising,” allows shows to promote products, services and causes that are directly relevant to their content. The do-it- yourself (DIY) ads can be used by shows to sell t-shirts, DVDs or other promotional products in addition to promotion for pledge drives, charities or content partners.

MAKE Magazine, a do-it-yourself (DIY) technology publication, will be the first show hosted on blip.tv to incorporate the new model in their videos.

“For over two years MAKE has delivered some of the best do-it-yourself projects in print, online and video — and now we can finally put our own clickable relevant ads in our popular weekly how-to videos,” said Phillip Torrone, Senior Editor of MAKE Magazine. “We now have a lot of creative control — it’s perfect for us.”

A new study in the Journal of Political Economy has found that illegal music downloads have had no noticeable effects on the sale of music, contrary to the claims of the RIAA and other music industry organizations.

The study, The Effect of File Sharing on Record Sales: An Empirical Analysis, by Felix Oberholzer-Gee and Koleman Strumpf, matched an extensive sample of music downloads to American music sales data in order to search for causality between illicit downloading and album sales. Based on their analysis, the researchers estimated that P2P file-sharing affected no more than 0.7% of sales in that timeframe.

“Using detailed records of transfers of digital music files, we find that file sharing has had no statistically significant effect on purchases of the average album in our sample,” the study reports. “Even our most negative point estimate implies that a one-standard-deviation increase in file sharing reduces an album’s weekly sales by a mere 368 copies, an effect that is too small to be statistically distinguishable from zero.”

The report is sure to be controversial, but it doesn’t settle the P2P controversy. While there was no measurable negative affect of file-sharing on sales, there report doesn’t support claims by P2P advocates that file-sharing leads to increased sales because it helps popularize tracks. .

via Ars Technica

The Star-Telegram has an interesting article that looks at the growing use of podcasts for distance learning:

Distance learning has been around for decades, but thanks to the iPod and other digital music players, higher education is becoming as portable as a pop song.

“I do testing for offshore rigs,” said Melvin Robinson, a Sugar Land engineer who recently began viewing graduate electrical engineering lectures from the University of Texas at Arlington on his video iPod. “Plane rides are really nice to kick back and watch a few of them.

“I’ve viewed them as far away as Norway,” said Robinson, a Ph.D. candidate who travels extensively in his job. “I would hope all of our courses would be in the MP4 format.”

Educational podcasts are rapidly becoming an accepted tool, especially at the university level.

Orb Networks has announced the free MyCasting service, which allows users to share YouTube, Google, DailyMotion and Yahoo videos from their PCs to mobile phones by text message links. This new capability, offered first in beta to users in the U.S., will be rolled out internationally in the coming weeks.

“Demand for Internet video on the PC is insatiable with more than 100 million streams daily on YouTube alone and many of those streams are being forwarded and shared virally via email and IM,” said Joe Costello, Chairman and CEO of Orb Networks.

“Those are staggering numbers considering these sites didn’t exist 18 months ago, so we know consumer demand is high,” adds Costello. “Now factor in more than 120 million handsets today are video-streaming enabled worldwide, and it’s pretty clear consumers will quickly seek that viral ability to share Internet videos to the mobile phone. That’s what Orb did.”

The RIAA has sent out a letter to ISP’s (PDF), updating them on the RIAA’s prelitigation policies, and asking them to provide the information that the RIAA needs to sue alleged copyright violators.

In the letter, the RIAA discusses:

• Enlisting ISP’s to encourage customers to settle, instead of going to court;
• Only offering new settlement options to customers of ISP’s that agree to preserve logs for 180 days;
• Offering a $1000 discount on settlements to customers of ISPs that help the RIAA out;
• Asking ISP’s to let the RIAA know if they have previously “misidentified a subscriber account in response to a subpoena” or became aware of “technical information… that causes you to question the information that you provided in response to our clients’ subpoena”; and
• Asks ISP’s to notify the RIAA “as early as possible” as to whether they will enter the 180 day/”pre-Doe” plan.

The letter suggests that the RIAA wants to work with focus its litigation on the customers of ISPs that have record retention policies that will help the RIAA’s case. It also sounds like the RIAA may want to minimize the effort it spends dealing with ISP’s that may not keep their logs long enough to let the RIAA make an effective case.

More discussion at Ars Technica, Tech Dirt

via Recording Industry vs The People