
Google Launching Its Cloud Service Tomorrow, Without Big Music's Approval - andre3k1
http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/20110509/google-launching-its-cloud-service-tomorrow-without-big-musics-approval/
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blinkingled
I patiently await the day when artists are able to cut better deals with AAPL,
GOOG and AMZN to market and sell their content directly - probably at a 70/30
split like the apps and the books.

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sp332
Magnatune isn't a big label, but it's DRM-free and splits 50/50 with the
artists. It's also non-exclusive, so the artists can make deals with others as
well, if they like. Their "end-user" license lets each subscriber give 3
friends a copy of the music.

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shadowpwner
I'm not familiar with the industry, but is 50/50 split considered good?

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pyre
IIRC, the major label deal goes like this:

    
    
      * Major label gives artist a loan for $X to cover the costs of
        producing the album.
      * Artists earn back something like 12% on album sales (though I
        believe 12% is on the high end).
      * That 12% goes directly towards paying back the loan for the
        production of the album.
      * Artists don't retain the copyrights to their works (at least the
        recordings, they may retain copyright to the lyrics, depending on
        the contract/studio).
      * Artists don't give a cut of merchandise sales, or ticket sales for
        live shows.
      * Artists retain the copyrights to recordings of live performances,
        which is how bands like Grateful Dead or Dave Matthews can allow
        'bootleg' recordings of their live shows.
      * The studio retains rights to copyrights of live shows that are
        professionally recorded for the purposes of putting out a 'live'
        album though.
      * Most artists are never able to pay back the initial loan to create
        the album.

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smackfu
The other side:

* Major label advances an unknown artist a bunch of money.

* Album sells poorly.

* Artist never pays back advance.

* Major label would have been better not making the deal.

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andrewstuart
No one seems to be respecting/fearing the music companies any more, not even
big companies.

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aphexairlines
Seems a bit premature. You still can't..

* listen to Pandora outside the US

* or Amazon Cloud Player outside the US

* or Spotify outside Europe

* buy music from Apple's iTunes Music Store US catalog in Japan

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bschaefer

        or Spotify outside Europe
    

It's frustrating to keep hearing this come up as someone living in Germany.
Europe is a big place, and Spotify is available in only a handful of
countries; namely France, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Finland, Norway, Netherlands,
UK.

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aphexairlines
That's true, I should've said Spotify outside a few European countries.

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alexqgb
It's worth remembering that Page & Brin could probably buy the major labels
outright, and personally dismiss any lawsuits against Google.

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andrewstuart
At some stage isn't that likely to happen? All the tech companies will start
eyeing the music and movies studios, wondering what it would mean if Apple
owned them all, and they'll start snapping them up.

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Elepsis
Sony is perhaps the front runner in this, given its large movie studio and
music label, but it's not clear that owning these businesses has been a great
boon for Sony's electronics or software.

One can also look at the not-that-long-ago "merger" of AOL with Time Warner as
another example of a media/tech marriage where the supposed synergy was vastly
exaggerated.

I'm not sure I see any reason for another major tech company to leap in to
buying huge legacy businesses given the lessons learned by their competitors.

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joejohnson
Big Music is fucked. There have been so many times when they could have taken
a graceful way out, and switched to a new realistic and reasonable business
plan.

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michaelcampbell
Don't underestimate their $$$ influence on the US political machine. Perhaps
Canadian, too.

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gsmaverick
It seems very likely they will get their way with draconian copyright
legislation in Canada in the near future.

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dotBen
I don't doubt they are launching this but I'm surprised Google is launching
such a consumer-facing product at a developer conference. Perhaps there is a
developer/API angle but I doubt it.

It would be like Steve Jobs launching a new version of iWork at WWDC. Sure,
it's great, but it doesn't have any impact on developers.

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schrototo
I don't know about Google I/O, but WWDC has always had announcements of
consumer products: iPhone 4, FaceTime, iMovie for iPhone, upgraded MacBooks,
MobileMe,...

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obtino
I certainly hope that it's not a rushed product that's aimed at beating Apple
to the market.

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spiffworks
Fat chance. It launches as "an invite-only beta", so I wouldn't get my hopes
up.

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bigiain
"It's Wave for bands! It's invite only, so first all the bass players will get
their parts up for download. They'll be able to invite 5 other bass players or
drummers each. We'll add guitars, keys, and vocals once we've gained traction
as the worlds best bass line download site! If we don't get enough users
downloading bass lines, we'll close the project down and have the engineers
behind it defect to Facebook..."

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dotBen
I wonder whether a service like this is actually better off without 'big
music's approval'?

It all comes down to whether you see a cloud music service to be a purchase
orientated service or a playback/consumption service.

If the latter, then at a conceptual level what does it have to do with the
record labels. I don't need to get Warner's permission to play Dr Dre back on
WinAmp.

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jsz0
The details are a bit murky at the moment but if Google is going to launch a
music service that does not offer any method of purchasing or subscribing to
music it will probably alienate a lot of users. Music sales may be down but
they're not nonexistent. Lots of people don't pirate music for whatever
reason. The whole experience will have to be pretty seamless in the way it
scans and updates any music you bought from other services. For Google that's
problem because you're probably buying that music from Amazon or Apple. Why
not just use their cloud music services instead? It makes things a bit too
complex. Amazon is in a better position but it'd be kind of shocking if the
labels don't retaliate against them. It seems to me both Google and Amazon are
forcing the labels back into Apple's camp here.

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shrikant
I really hope it's not going to be US-only :(

edit: FTFA: "Google Music to roll out to all U.S. google users within weeks of
launch."

The wording doesn't say "U.S-only" so there might be a glimmer of hope.

