Thoughts from the Shelf

Today it was announced that Internet Service Providers have finally agreed plans with the music industry that will aim to tackle piracy online.

The Shelf first discussed the proposed plans back in February in an article titled ‘Government Turns Up Heat On ISP’s and Online Piracy’ which discussed how the government was steadily growing impatient with ISP and the music industries failure to come to such an agreement, threatening that if both parties failed to come to agreement legislation would be introduced to curb online Music Piracy

Negotiated by the government, the deal has seen BT, Virgin, Orange, Tiscali, BSkyB and Carphone Warehouse all sign up and will mean hundreds of thousands of letters could now be sent to users suspected of illegally sharing music online.

The music industry is pushing for measures that would see users who ignore written warning having their connections disabled; however ISP’s are unwilling to enforce such measures.

The plan is “a first step, and a very big step, in what we all acknowledge is going to be quite a long process” said Feargal Sharkey, chief executive of British Music Rights.

In contrast to the US which has seen thousands of lawsuits launched against alleged file sharers, over the last couple of years the BPI has been focused on educational efforts to prevent music piracy online, with limited legal action being taken against copyright infringers.

As part of the deal, drawn up by the Department for Business, Enterprise & Regulatory Reform (BERR), ISP will be expected to ensure customers realise that file sharing online is illegal, and take measures to tackle repeated infringements.

The government is still considering plans to give ISPs a legal requirement to tackle copyright infringers.

Recently BT and Virgin have been reported to have been sending letters to customers on behalf of the BPI, a controversial move that many say puts the BPI in the role of net police, a role they don’t belong in.

It is currently he BPI who works out who it thinks is illegally file sharing by trawling file sharing websites and tracing back the IP addresses of users.

In previous posts on The Shelf we have followed the plans of several companies who have recently entered the digital music download market, including 7digital, (7digital to offer DRM free music from Warner), and PlayDigital, (PlayDigital Offers DRM Free Downloads)

Sky is now the latest player to enter the digital download market, with plans to launch a subscription based music streaming and downloading service.

A Sky representative said of the plans to launch the service that it is “Providing a simple new way for fans to consume music, both streamed tracks and downloads to keep are available through just one monthly subscription, a world first.”

It is expected that a range of subscription options will be available to customers that offer differing download packages which can be tailored to the individual needs of users.

With contracts already signed to offer the complete back catalogue of Universal Music users are sure to get access to some of the biggest names in the music industry, and with negotiations ongoing with major and independent record labels, Sky’s catalogue of digital music offering is likely to expand significantly.

Currently Apple’s iTunes dominates the music download industry in the US and UK and Universal has long been unhappy with the company’s reluctance to offer a subscription based service, instead opting to sell tracks individually.

The digital download market it one of the few areas of growth in the music industry and Universal also believe Apple’s dominance is strangling its development.

Recently Universal, the world’s biggest record label, has stopped providing Apple with exclusive annual rights to sell its catalogue and is instead looking to retain greater flexibility as to where it can sell its tracks.

The new service from Sky will be launched independent of Sky, with the satellite provider acting as majority stake holder providing “expertise in the delivery of subscription services… content aggregation, packaging and marketing”

As yet the plans are unclear as to what format music tracks will be available in and whether there will be any form of digital rights management, but the tracks will be playable “on any mp3-compatible fixed or portable device”. Some reposrts have gone as far to say that it will be offering a DRM free format

Both services from 7igtal and PlayDigital are offering DRM free music to customers.

As yet the name and date of launch is undecided, however it is thought to go live at the end of the year.

Universal said of the deal that – “The new Sky service will provide a compelling digital music experience, built for the ever growing digital appetite of music fans. In a world where a majority of UK homes have high speed broadband access, consumers will welcome a safe, state-of-the-art service and legal alternative to those services which exploit musicians without compensation.”

After news broke last week that Play.com had launched PlayDigital, offering DRM free music to its customers in direct competition with iTunes, Warner has now increased pressure on Apple by striking a deal to sell its own catalogue DRM free to customers of 7digital.

7digital is one of the biggest online music retailers and has now started selling more than 150 of the most popular albums from Warner, £3 cheaper than iTunes offers the same music for. The deal will allow customers who do not own an iPod and don’t use iTunes to get access to Warner’s offerings.

The DRM protection Apple uses on tracks sold through its iTUnes service has been a frustration for many music lovers for a long time, as in essence it is meant to prevent customers transferring music to portable music devices that are not iPods.

By offering tracks in a DRM free format Warner’s albums are available to customers of 7digital in Britain, Spain, Ireland, France and Germany and playable on almost all digital music players. Material owned by Warner includes that from artists such as Madonna and the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

With the deal 7 Digital becomes the first major European download sevice offering Warner Music and EMI tracks in the MP3 file format. PlayDigital itself is yet to strike a deal to sell the Warner music catalogue. 7digital are also said to be in talks with Sony BMG and Universal to sell DRM titles from the catalogues of these big industry players.

“The addition of Warner Music’s MP3 catalogue means that over 80 per cent of 7digital.com’s 3.5 million track catalogue is now DRM-free.” - Ben Drury, 7digital’s CEO

7digital hope to make their entire catalogue DRM free by 2008.

This deal is just one example of how, due to a decline in CD sales and increased illegal music downloads, the record industry is being forced to find new ways to appeal to music fans.

“Hopefully this will lead to a price war, as I think Apple have had things their own way for too long and are simply too expensive.” - Tim Wiggins of Stuff Magazine

Launching an online music download store has been a popular online money maker with the rise of portable mp3 players, and with that, online retailer Pay.com is the latest company to announce that it has launched such a service, but this time with a difference – its downloads are DRM free.

Providing music tracks without digital right management copy protection will allow customers of PlayDigital to download tracks and albums onto most mp3 devices. Tracks with DRM are restricted to what players that they can be played on, and can even be restricted to a set amount of plays.

Amazon has released a similar service in the US offering DRM free music to its customers. Amazon did have plans to launch in the UK, but PlayDigital is now the first DRM free music download service to enter the UK market.

With the launch of PlayDigital, Jersey based Play.com is challenging the dominance of Apples iTunes service in the UK with Apple selling tracks with DRM included. Tracks bought without DRM from PlayDigital will not only be cheaper but can be played on more mp3 devices including Apple iPods.

The DRM free songs that are to be offered initially are made up from records from the catalogues of EMI, with expansion planned throughout the services first six months pending major deals with other record labels enabling PlayDigital to sell their DRM free music tracks.

Top 100 tracks will be available for 65p as opposed to 79p on iTunes, with albums available from £4.95.

Not long after a recent post about Kanye West’s latest success in the charts at the expense of rival 50 cent, the Hip Hop star has announced another high profile song release with an upcoming duet along side Michael Jackson.

The announcement has only fuelled further rumours that Michael Jackson himself will be releasing a new solo album in the near future. The single with Kanye West will be his first release since 2001, since the release of invincible.

Kanye West is not the only star to have teamed up wit Michael Jackson in the studio lately, with Will.i.am and Ne-Yo both said to be working with him to create a new sound which will be eagerly anticipated by fans.

A quote from Kanye on the sure to be successful partnership read
“I’m working on stuff for Michael Jackson. If I like a person’s outlet or what a person brings to the table, then I’ll speak to them.”

I really don’t know what to expect from this collaboration, but with the input of Kanye West it will defiantly be worth a listen.

It seems that the message that the sharing of music file online is music piracy is still being hammered home in an effort to protect the revenues of the music industry. Music companies have taken increasingly drastic steps in an effort to clamp down on illegal music file sharing, starting with peer to peer software providers all the way through to individuals who share music files ignoring any copyright in place.

Just how much the industry loses to piracy is shady. A recent report put the cost of piracy at $12.5 billion annually to the US economy, whilst many critics instead say that when this figure is broken down as it should be, the entertainment industry loses around $1.6 billion to fake CDs, and another $3.7 billion to illegal downloading.

Whatever the exact figure it is a threat to the industry and the loss in revenue has led the music industry to take action against illegal file sharers. As a result there have been several high profile cases against music sharing sites that offer peer to peer file sharing services, the most famous of which being the Napster case in 2000 that trail blazed the way for legal proceedings brought by the music industry as a collective.

The latest file sharing site to face legal action has been allofmp3.com, in which a Moscow court threw the case out, sending ever more confusing messages to consumers.

Such legal action is not just restricted to peer to peer service providers, individuals have also found themselves amongst high profile judicial proceedings for participating in the sharing of copyrighted music files. These cases simply highlight the consequences that come with music piracy.

A recent case has seen a court in the US order a woman to pay $222,000 (£109,000) in damages for illegally file-sharing music. Jaime Thomas 32, from Minnesota, was ruled to has shared 24 specific songs illegally, costing $9,250 a song. Although the case was focused around the top 24 songs, it was claimed that she shared 1702 songs.

So far there have been around about 26,000 lawsuits filed against alleged file-sharers, but most defendants settle privately by paying damages amounting to a few thousand dollars. It seems contesting the charge has ended up costing this specific file-sharer near a quarter of a million dollars. Interestingly with this particular case, the hard drive of the women in question was not required for a guilty verdict, having been replaced shortly after she had been contacted by the record industry.

But with different messages coming from different areas of the music industry could file sharers be forgiven for stepping into grey areas in the law. For instance Sony’s philosophy means that transferring music from your CD albums onto your MP3 player is a form of piracy, yet (as previously mentioned on The Shelf) Microsoft seems to be heading in a different direction with the upcoming launch of its Zune Social. Microsoft it seems is actually encouraging music downloaders to share their music collection with friends through the wireless feature on the Zune player.

It seems that cases like that of Jaime Thomas send a clear message people abusing peer to peer networks, that the industry will come after with the full extent of the law if you leave yourself exposed and break the law. When the law is and is not being broken in terms of file-sharing however, seems to be an area where the goal posts are shifted depending on the latest stance of different players within the industry.

After a hectic week in the Hip-Hop world, I am pleased to read that the album Graduation by Kanye West, this week outsold 50 Cent to debut at number one in the album charts. It seems in the run up to the release of each album everybody has had something to say about the head to head, with 50 Cent even stating that if out sold, he would no longer perform as a solo artist. On reason the outcome pleased me so much.

Estimates based on sales as early as Wednesday stated that Kanye was outselling his competitor by over 150k copies. There has been a long running feud between the two artists for some time, and this joint album release date has simply thrown any past differences of opinion into the media spotlight

It is a long standing tradition in Hip-Hop that rappers have antagonistic beefs with other artists. The east coast west coast divide has been labelled as a reason for some famous Hip-Hop rivalries in the past, for instance Biggie and TuPac, but that fact is these rivalries are more fabricated to generate record sales than they are based on real life differences.

Used as a promotional tool, the same day release of ‘beefing’ artists is a great way to send loyal fans more promptly to the shelves, and undoubtedly the main winner is not the artist with his self proclaimed bragging rights, but the record labels behind each artist. One thing is for sure, the increased media coverage generated by feuding artists certainly hasn’t slowed record sales for either artist in the past.

The silver lining in the hype generated by the launch of these albums this week, is that Hip-Hop as a genre has been thrust into the limelight, and that can only have a positive impact for fans of the genre.

As a fan of Kanye I was glad to see him have a top selling album, however I’m afraid I didn’t buy into the beef and go running to the shop to buy his album. For those of you interested in what’s up next? A joint release date in November for albums from both Mary J Blige and Mariah Carey. No thanks ta!

Being online nearly all day most days I listen to a variety of music over the interwebs that keeps my appetite for new music quelled and my IPod full. As a result I have found that of late I haven’t had the urge to buy any specific music albums and have instead reverted back to the days of comprising my own play lists from individual sounds I have liked.

This is very much a different stance to what I have been used over the past 5 years or so, where I have enjoyed listening to entire albums of artists that I have unearthed. That is however until I heard a song from Maximo Park entitled Books From Boxes off of their album titled Our Earthly Pleasures.

I felt this was a good song, but having not heard much music from Maximo Park in the past, they had a sound I felt was inline with other bands that I like. I eventually got the album and I have to say that it is up there with the best I have heard this year.

It is the first artist album I have found myself lusting after for quite some time, since the Artic Monkeys release of Favourite Worst Nightmare back in April. It seems to have broken the lull of new music artists not appealing to me, and I now have the thirst for several new albums recently (or soon to be) released including Biffy Clyro, Kanye West and Athlete.

After recently getting a new phone I thought I would comment on how good the new Sony Ericsson W850i actually is.

To prove I am not bias I should mention my previous experience with Sony Ericsson phones. A few years ago I purchased a brand new Sony Ericsson model on a ‘Pay as you Go’ plan for around £150. This phone, (the model escapes me), was indeed an excellent phone for the time, however within a month there were problems.

After continually returning the hand set to the local dealer I was told that it had to be sent away to Sony Ericsson HQ located in France (at the time). Initially this left me without a phone for 4 weeks and then a less than adequate replacement for a further 6 weeks, where by other manufacturer warranty claims were generally investigated within 6 weeks. Justifiably disgruntled, I boycotted Sony Ericsson hand sets until now.

Already pessimistic I ordered the handset on the recommendation of several online reviews and was more than pleased with its performance. The latest in the generation of walkman phones with a 1GB memory makes my previous MP3 player redundant, and the 2 megapixal camera although not the best available, is still a good piece of kit.

Last year was notable for the remarkable variety of good music released, and it seems that the guitar band trend continues to be popular with plenty of new and exciting bands continuing to emerge.

The Kooks – Inside In/Inside Out
Probably the best album of the year for me and remained in the music charts for much of the year. The strength of the album was demonstrated by the release of four separate singles all of which charted solid positions, with Naive the first to hit back in early 2006.

Snow Patrol – Chasing Cars
Chasing Cars is the best selling album of 2006, and is as good if not better than the Kooks contribution to the list, albeit for different reasons. Chasing cars, the aptly named single re-entering the charts on download only sales, proving how much the band has developed since ‘Chocolate’. The strength of the album and the guys growing popularity was demonstrated with the release of their latest single ‘Set Fire to the Third Bar’ featuring Martha Wainwright, which entered the charts at No.1.

Hot Chip – The Warning
These electro-knob twiddlers burst onto the big stage on the back of indie dance-floor filler ‘Over and Over’, and if there was any justice would have picked up the Mercury Music Award ahead of the Artic monkeys in my eyes. The Warning is a rarity, an album which grows on you, moves you and has the ability to genuinely surprise you. Excellent stuff and after the lads debut album, no-one really saw this coming. Also a class act live.

Sufjan Stevens – Illinois
Granted, this was 2005 but I didn’t get my hands on it until February (my blog, I’m allowed to bend the rules!). Sufjan is one of the most talented and prolific songwriters around today. Described as a folk storyteller (I know, just stick with me here) Sufjan’s latest grand project was to write an album for each American state. Illinois is a mixture of lush strings, ballads and uplifting songs that have incredible grace, beauty and detail.
All of the songs are in-fact historical stories that give way to even more grand titles such as ‘Decatur, Or Round Of Applause For Your Stepmother!’ or ‘John Wayne Gacy Jr’ a song about the infamous 70’s ‘Clown Killer’, but as soon as your ears catch the opening to tracks such as ‘Chicago’ and ‘They are night Zombies..’ you will be in no-doubt that this man is a wonderful talent. A truly special and unique album and talent.

Artic Monkeys- Whatever People say I am, that’s what I’m not
What a year it has been for the Artic Monkeys, coming from nowhere to not only dominate the music scene in 2006 but also launching a whole bunch of clones on the back of their sound (Imitation is the most sincere form of flattery). ‘Whatever People Say..” is an album full of lyrical flair, painting a bleak but ballsy picture of modern life, youth and drinking with tracks such as “Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor’ becoming instant classics, and ‘Fake Tales of San Francisco’ dominating my iPod.