As is typical with first days of summits, Monday at Jupiter Media Metrix’s
sixth annual Plug.In digital music festival at the Sheraton Hotel and Towers
in New York City went by with nary a whimper, but according to some sources,
Tuesday promises to be a different story.
Reuters squeezed out of Napster Inc. sources that Hank Barry will
finally cede his CEO throne and will name
former Bertelsmann AG executive Konrad Hilbers as the file-swapping firm’s
new skipper when he takes the podium as the 12:15 p.m. keynote speaker.
But there was nothing earth-shattering to be gleaned Monday. There was a
morning panel loaded with record label and technology firm reps such as TVT
Record’s Founder Steve Gottlieb who seemed to make it a point to anger
Liquid Audio’s CEO Gerry Kearby by implying that his business was
illegitimate and that he didn’t want his business tied to third-party
Internet plays such as the music download firm. This prompted an irate
Kearby to ask Gottlieb why he asked for an advance. Of course, there were
casual jokes made by Ted Cohen, vice president of new media at EMI Recorded
Music, to Aimster CEO Johnny Deep about who was suing who, but other than
that any animosity was kept to a bare minimum even if it was roiling under
the surface.
While bickering among label guys and pioneering techies may be commonplace
these days in the wake of Napster, it’s true that one important party
typically gets shut out in all of the discussions. And that is what is great
about such summits as Plug.In, really. Canadian-born pop star Alanis
Morissette followed the “label/techie panel” with a broad-sweeping speech
about changes in the music industry. She spoke well over the course of her
20-minute “Artist’s Perspective” speech and rattled off such depressing
statistics as “less than one-third of one percent of artists today receive
enough royalties to make a living.” She also repeatedly (and justly) thanked
the industry and fans for the fact that, as a multi-platinum-selling star of
pretty much international proportions, she got a break. That her speech was
modest was gratifying, but it was really more of the presidential variety,
pointing out the goods and the bads without actually suggesting what anyone
does about them. Morissette did acknowledge that the current business model
the Big 5 employs will not work on the Web in favor of artists. She also
made a point to ask fellow artists to join her in becoming educated about
how music is being distributed on the Web.
This was a perfect segue for the next panel, “Artists, Labels and Management
Collide: Who’s in Control?” Who indeed? Jenny Toomey, executive director for
the Center for the Future of Music and Ann Chaitovitz, director of sound
recordings for artists’ rights organization AFTRA both expressed concern
about the current “big label buys small digital music start-up climate,”
which they feared would not work for artists trying to break free.
Toomey wondered if Vivendi Universal’s purchase of MP3.com will change what
the pioneering music firm might do for up-and-coming artists now that “it
has been folded into the machine.”
Jonathan Zavin, a partner at Richards & O’Neil and a long-time defender of
record labels sprang to the Big 5’s defense, praising them for their
marketing and their ability to help bands saturate the public’s collective
mind.
But there would be no definitive statements about the music industry looking
forward made Monday. After all, the Big 5’s pressplay and MusicNet have yet
to launch; in fact that most interesting comments made about these two (yes,
Toomey and Chaitovitz expressed concern that these new entities would not be
artist-friendly) came from Jupiter’s most ubiquitous digital music analyst
Aram Sinnreich, who expressed doubt that pressplay and MusicNet would both
roll out on time (they’re due before summer’s end), and worse, that they
would work. Sinnreich based his observations on the fact that the average
music consumer does not even spend $10 a month on music, which is what many
analysts have speculated online music subscription firms would charge.
However, this should not depress anyone. Jupiter claims online music sales
will break $6.2 billion by 2006; in fact, 32 percent of audiophiles will
procure their tunes online.
There were some absolutes though; CenterSpan, which bills itself as the
legal answer to Napster, unveiled its C-Star digital music platform. It’s
wrapped in Microsoft Corp.’s digital rights management technology (DRM) and,
unlike Gnutella in all of its decentralized server glory, C-Star “mediates”
the peer-to-peer activities of its user. Basically, it chooses for the
audiophile which file that person is going to hear, providing what
CenterSpan hopes will be a safer medium for file-sharing. Basically, no
files get traded without clearance and proper compensation. CenterSpan’s
approach appears to be cost-effective as C-Star is one-ninth the cost of
streaming and 1/3 the cost of central server-based systems.
Also of note Monday, Musicmatch launched Radio MX digital music subscription
service, the industry’s first near music-on-demand service with customizable
radio and professionally programmed stations — all layered with the
company’s personalization technology.
Tuesday promises to be more exciting with RealNetworks Inc.’s Chairman and
CEO Rob Glaser slated to kick off the keynote at 9 a.m. sharp, followed by
Vivendi Universal’s Vice Chairman Edgar Bronfman Jr., and Barry and
Bertelsmann eCommerce Group’s President and CEO Andreas Schmidt in the
afternoon.
