Let’s reel this baby in, boys. Who cares if it’s a little stinky?

Last Wednesday a few people started tweeting that “Free and Legal Music Downloads now available from @Qtrax – Check it out: http://tinyurl.com/qtrax18”. At first most of these tweets emanated from Qtrax’s PR firm based in West Palm Beach, FL and from one of its attorneys, followed by some company insiders and acolytes. The tweet was immediately posted anonymously on an investors’ forum dedicated to Qtrax. Oddly there was no press announcement from the company or major labels. Qtrax would probably say “well this is a preview of the upcoming service”. If that’s the case, why start tweeting it and posting it in online forums?

Given Qtrax’s dubious history with launches and label licenses, not to mention a considerable number of lawsuits, judgments (including an Illinois judgment entered just last week in NY Supreme Court for over $1.3 million owed but never paid to John Fife and Chicago Venture Partners) and bounced checks, I was certainly curious to see what this was all about. The service has had numerous very public false starts and unkept promises over the last 8 years or so and has reportedly burned through at least $50 million in the process with little or nothing to show for it. Even though Qtrax is a publicly traded penny stock (BLLN.PK), company CEO Allan Klepfisz has not made any public statements to shareholders since a rambling paranoid blog post on Christmas Eve of 2009 in which he promised that Qtrax would launch in Asia in January 2010. Evidently it’s going to launch for real today. Again. At least temporarily. Break out the champagne, boys.

I went onto the “preview” site and downloaded the Qtrax Silverlight player. I then searched for and downloaded more than a dozen random tracks; all tethered wma-drm’d files. I found the content to be mostly deep catalog with no current releases available. However, much to my surprise, The Beatles and AC/DC entire catalogs were displayed, with links to tracks sending a message that “download for this track is coming soon”. To the best of my knowledge, services are not allowed to even display Beatles content without their permission. No service in the world has ever been licensed AC/DC’s recorded music. Period. Has Sony given Qtrax the first rights to exploit AC/DC catalog anywhere on the internet? Is anyone at Sony even paying attention?

Helter skelter

Highway to hell, anyone?

Surprisingly the links were live for Led Zeppelin, a band who has notoriously withheld their music from many online services. I successfully downloaded a wma version of “The Song Remains The Same” from the Houses of the Holy album. Was Zeppelin so impressed with Qtrax that they decided to license their music to a shaky start up with old, buggy technology and a less than stellar reputation? And for Qtrax to give Zeppelin music away for free at that? Did the band never hear about the 2008 MIDEM disaster where Qtrax spent well over a million dollars to celebrate their worldwide product launch, later to be humiliated when it was learned they never had signed licensing deals with the major labels? Who knows? Warner’s has repeatedly stated that they would not license to any ad-supported service. Have they changed their minds? If so, how come they’ve been so resistant to Spotify in the US? It just doesn’t make sense.

Somebody's very dazed and confused

Then I started looking for more Warner catalog and downloaded random tracks from complete albums by Madonna, Josh Groban, Linkin Park, Paul Simon, James Taylor, Fleetwood Mac, Rod Stewart, and Green Day. Industry observers I spoke with over the weekend who also checked out Qtrax had the same results, expressing surprise at the plethora of Warner catalog available on the service. I’m in the US and every Warner track I downloaded was owned or licensed in the US by WMG. Content is regularly licensed to foreign affiliates for use in their respective territories only. It’s impossible to casually explain this away as a technical glitch or some innocent misunderstanding.

I immediately started contacting the major labels and got a response first thing Thursday morning from EMI. It was the same comment that was sent the next day to news outlets saying “We apparently recently completed a short term agreement with Qtrax to enable them to distribute a selection of EMI content as ad-supported streams and conditional downloads”.  (I wonder if they saw the Beatles stuff on the Qtrax site. I guess they will now.) People in the know say that’s code for “they paid us upfront so we gave them a few old titles with tight DRM to test and for probably no more than 90 days”. Sort of like a pay-as-you-go mobile phone or a debit card–no credit. Fair enough. This was the most confirmation that anyone could get from the labels. They just didn’t want to talk about it. In their defense, I can’t blame them. It’s really hard to resist a sucker. They all need the money and take it wherever and whenever they can. It’s all about the money and any other rhetoric you hear is pure BS. This sure proves it. These guys would give Charles Manson  licenses if he put up enough cash.

It sounds to me like Qtrax has somehow gotten an unsuspecting investor to front enough cash for them to give the appearance of having a real operational product in order to attract more new investors. Good luck with that. As one former Qtraxer recently told me, “Their business model is so last century”.

At the same time I contacted Warner Music (I’m sure they were delighted to hear from me) and asked them if they had a deal with Qtrax and specifically for Led Zeppelin tracks. They also got back to me on Thursday morning but had no comment at that time.

Now here’s where the story starts to get interesting. On the above-mentioned investor’s forum, a user named “speedyrush” posted the following (deleted by forum administrators shortly thereafter):

WR <—— SO YOU ARE THE A$$HOLE

that flagged Warner and Warner woke AK [AK refers to Qtrax CEO Allan Klepfisz] up at 03:30 dark and early, only to then have to apologised to him once they realized that those particular tracks were NOT WB property. This will come back to haunt you. We were wandering who the prick was.

Yes, that’s me he’s talking about! And threatening. Young “speedyrush” must be a Qtrax insider who sleeps with Allan Klepfisz and thusly was also awakened by that 3:30 AM phone call as well (I don’t think that even the fiercely dedicated Warner staffers are working at that hour). Coincidentally, by Saturday morning the links to the Zeppelin tracks were still up but miraculously deactivated, replaced by the familiar and reassuring  “download for this track is coming soon” message.

Now I started to really get curious. Could it possibly be that these tracks really didn’t belong to Warner’s? No way. So I checked the files that I downloaded and found that there was no metadata attached to any of them! What the hell was this all about?

I spoke with several industry pros and asked them if they thought that this was unusual, and indeed it is. Anything’s possible, but this is certainly not the norm. When a service gets a label’s digital feed, identifying metadata is typically attached to each track. The Zeppelin downloads raised everyone’s eyebrows and all let out a gasp when told about The Beatles catalog being posted on the service, even with dead links. That’s a big no-no.

Let’s analyze what’s going on here. Either Warner Music has a deal with Qtrax or it doesn’t. If it does, then why the sudden support for the lamest ad-supported service to come along since SpiralFrog and not for a proven service like Spotify in the US? The label has licensed Spotify around the rest of the world for the past 2 years and even recently re-upped that agreement, but for some reason won’t play ball with the service in the US. After losing millions with their investment in imeem, another failed “free” music service, WMG has insisted they would no longer back  ad-supported models.

The bottom line is very simple. Warner Music is either being totally hypocritical (I know it’s a shocking thought) or their music is being distributed without the proper permission.

Well, Junior, you’ve got tiger blood and Adonis DNA. Which one is it?

Screen shot of the Qtrax player and the tracks that were downloaded through it. Included Warner Music tracks are: “You Can Close Your Eyes” by James Taylor from the Mudslide Slim album; “Welcome To Paradise” by Green Day; “This Old Heart of Mine” from Rod Stewart’s Atlantic Crossing; “The Song Remains The Same”, Led Zeppelin, Houses of the Holy; “My Confession” by Josh Groban; “Go Your Own Way” from Fleetwood Mac’s Rumors; “Hung Up” by Madonna; “Leave Out All the Rest” by Linkin Park; “Me And Julio Down By The Schoolyard” by Paul Simon from the Warner album Live Rhymin’.

UPDATE: Mar. 8, 2001, 9:39 AM EST

Within hours after posting this story, all downloaded Warner tracks were no longer playable within the Qtrax player and artist pages for The Beatles and AC/DC had disappeared from the site. When asked about this and other dead links to music files on the service, a Qtrax spokesperson would only say “Music will indeed be available upon launch”. When asked when that would be, she replied “We are in the final preparations for launch”.

Warner Music has repeatedly refused to comment.

© 2011, Wayne Rosso. All rights reserved.

The main problem with these services is that they can’t offer the depth of catalog that would scale. Add to that the fact that they generally aren’t very hassle-free and user friendly (you can’t just create a queue of downloads and walk away, for instance) and you’ve got a pretty hard sell.

Both Guvera and Free All Music have been in the US for the last 10 moths or so and their traffic stats don’t seem to offer much encouragement for ad-supported downloads. According to Wolfram Alpha, Free All Music has 7600 daily visitors generating 18,000 daily page views. Not very impressive. But Guvera fares even worse with 5300 daily visitors, however those users generate about 32,000 daily page views.

By comparison, paid services generate significantly more traffic. Napster has 250,000 daily visitors, about the same as streaming subscription service Mog with 260,000. Both services dwarf the other new entry into the subscription streaming service space, Rdio, which lags way behind with a mere 48,000 daily visitors. Spotify, which hasn’t even launched in the US, has 950,000 daily visitors, grossly outpacing all of the others, including the ad-supported sites, combined. As Glenn Peoples points out in Billboard this week, Spotify’s user experience makes the difference.

There are so many services out there now and so many ways to get free music by download or streaming that the Guvera’s and Free All Music’s of the world have to struggle to get users. And without traffic advertisers won’t buy in. Judging from the numbers it won’t be long before they join SpiralFrog, Ruckus and Qtrax in the ad-supported music graveyard.

In the midst of this, Limewire continues to insist that they are determined to work with the recording industry on their new music service, Spoon, despite having fired a third of its work force in the wake of being ordered by a federal court to shut down. I don’t know if this is cynicism or sheer fantasy.

Either way Limewire owner Mark Gorton will have an easier time holding on to his millions than making Spoon fly.

© 2010, Wayne Rosso. All rights reserved.

Music industry legend Clive Davis and guitar hero Carlos Santana teamed up this week in an historic effort to curb piracy. They released a CD not worth stealing.

A couple of days ago I nearly won $140,000. Well, actually $70,000. A very senior major label A&R exec sent me a copy of Santana’s new album, Guitar Heaven: The Greatest Guitar Classics Of All Time. He offered me $5,000 for every track I listened to provided I did so non-stop, at high (though not full) volume, and with absolutely no distractions. Halfway through the CD he offered me double-or-nothing if I could listen to it twice back-to-back. I instantly demurred, but did attempt to go for the $70K.

Toward the end of track 1, “Whole Lotta Love” with Chris Cornell on vocals, I felt as though I was in a scene from A Clockwork Orange. At around track 6 (“Back In Black” featuring the rapper Nas on vocals) I could only think of one person: Robert Korman. My dentist. I felt like I was in his chair and he was drilling non-stop into my jaw. The big difference is that at least Dr. Korman would have gladly given me nitrous oxide. By the time I had gotten to the middle of track 11, a cover of “Fortunate Son” featuring the overblown Scott Stapp on vocals, I had to throw in the towel.

I won’t go into an extensive critique of the album. After all, I’m really not known as a music critic, but suffice to say it’s hard to ignore the uninspired vocal performances –which you really can’t hear anyway as Santana’s relentless, repetitious and superfluous playing drowns them out–the lame choice of repertoire (“Bang A Gong” was a guitar classic?) and even the K-Tel worthy cheesy cover art. All in all, it is an insult to the senses.

Clive, now 78 years old, is a man of many accomplishments, the most noteworthy being a gargantuan ego of Presidential proportion. To help market the CD, the first lucky 250,000 buyers will get an exclusive interview with Clive tucked inside their copies. Perhaps the label should throw in a bottle of ibuprofen instead.

BMG (and later SonyBMG) had tried on several occasions to boot Clive out. He’s a notorious pain in the ass, but Clive has always been able to stare them down. He always had the Germans afraid of him. But Clive has now become not just a pain in the ass but a joke as well. Or at least his projects are. His last record with Harry Connick, Jr (a 21st century Jerry Lewis) sounded like the old Bill Murray/Saturday Night Live parody of a lounge singer.

With Guitar Heaven: The Greatest Guitar Classics Of All Time, Clive has dialed it up to 11 on the volume knob, so to speak. This project embodies all that is wrong with the recording industry today. It defines the total corruption of the artist, the label and the music.

And record labels wonder what went wrong.

To make matters worse, Clive has invented a new way for the Grammys to honor him. Clive has always given himself executive producer credit on practically every album he has had anything to do with. But according to the rules, executive producers are not eligible to receive a Grammy, only the actual album producer. So Clive has taken to naming himself album producer (in this case he shares the credit with Carlos Santana) and then list “tracks produced by….” (fill in the actual producer’s name). This way if the album by some miracle wins a big award, Clive gets to go up and collect his statuette on network television.

I can imagine Clive’s next project may be Billy Joel:The Piano Man Celebrates The Piano Men.

The back cover may look something like this:

“Crocodile Rock” (special guest vocalist Russell Hitchcock of Air Supply)

“I’ll Be Seeing You” (Liberace version special duet with Harry Connick, Jr.)

“Tribute to Brother Ray: Georgia On My Mind” (special duet with Michael Bolton)

“Tiny Dancer” (featuring Kenny G.)

“Piano Man” (featuring special guest Barry Manilow)

“Imagine” (special duet featuring original vocal by John Lennon and track produced by Phil Spector)

Album produced by Clive Davis

Maybe its time for Clive to move on to a more appropriate position, like heading Time-Life Records. Guitar Heaven: The Greatest Guitar Classics Of All Time exceeds all boundaries of tastelessness. I can’t help but be reminded of the famous K-Tel parody by the National Lampoon years ago.

It may take quite a while to surpass the crass factor of this project. But then again Clive is about to release Rod Stewart’s American Songbook Vol. 5 in a few weeks.

© 2010, Wayne Rosso. All rights reserved.

Music lovers can now be immortalised when they die by having their ashes baked into vinyl records to leave behind for loved ones.

A UK company called And Vinyly is offering people the chance to press their ashes in a vinyl recording of their own voice, their favourite tunes or their last will and testament. Minimalist audiophiles might want to go for the simple option of having no tunes or voiceover, and simply pressing the ashes into the vinyl to result in pops and crackles.

The company was founded by Jason Leach, who co-founded the techno group and record label Subhead in the 1990s and has since founded a number of other labels, including House of Fix, Daftwerk and Death to Vinyl.

Leach explained to Wired.co.uk that there were a number of factors that made him launch the service, including thinking that he was “getting a bit old” and “might not be invincible”. His mother also started working at a funeral directors, which brought the whole funeral process closer to home. A third prompt was when he saw a TV programme that showed someone in America putting their ashes into fireworks, which made him think about how he might want to be remembered. And, he says, “It’s a bit more interesting than being in a pot on a shelf.”

How does it work?

The process of setting human ashes into vinyl involves a very understanding pressing plant. Basically the ashes must be sprinkled onto the raw piece of vinyl (known as a “biscuit” or “puck”) before it is pressed by the plates. This means that when the plates exert their pressure on the vinyl in order to create the grooves, the ashes are pressed into the record.

The site has a very irreverent style and operates under the strapline “live on from beyond the groove”. One of Leach’s family stories, he tells Wired.co.uk, suggests why he has a practical attitude to people’s ashes.

He explains how he went out on a boat with his family members to sprinkle the ashes of his grandfather into the sea. His uncle “released them on the wrong side of the boat and so the ashes went all over us.” Apparently the same thing happened to his father, too!

And Vinyly also offers personalised RIV (Rest In Vinyl) artwork — the simple version just carries your name and your life span, or you can have your portrait painted by artist James Hague, using your ashes mixed into the paint.

The basic package costs £2,000 and comprises of the standard artwork along with up to 30 ash-flecked discs with whatever sounds you choose, lasting a maximum of 24 minutes.

Extras include “Bespook Music”, where artists from The House of Fix and www.daftwerk.com write a song especially for you and global distribution of your record in vinyl stores.

The main challenge is choosing the music. Leach says: “It’s difficult to think of what to put on your record because you want it to be the best album you can imagine.”

What would he have on his own record? “I would definitely have a recording of my own voice as well as some ‘sound photos’ of places that are important to me and then I would have some of my own music on there. It’s something I’m working on.”

Via Wired

© 2010, Wayne Rosso. All rights reserved.

"It would be in your best interest to accept our generous offer"

The guys at Torrentfreak do a terrific job of covering the torrent and p2p scene. I’m always amazed at the stories they break and the excellent writing. And if I understand it correctly, they do it in their spare time when not at their day jobs.

Last weekend they broke another story that I found particularly interesting. Torrentfreak’s Ernesto reported on DigiRights Solutions (DRS) a German company that published a powerpoint sales and marketing presentation to push its anti-piracy services.

After initially running through some pretty mundane stats about how much online piracy is costing copyright owners, the DRS presentation goes through their process of finding and pursuing users who illegally download songs and movies. They explain that after they find the alleged downloader, they send out an email demanding a payment of 450 euro ($650) per file. DRS keeps 80% of whatever they collect thus leaving 20%, or 90 euro ($130) per download, for copyright holders.

Then suddenly the presentation turns into a pitch comparing the profitability of legal and illegal downloads. Ernesto goes on to report :

“A legal online purchase of a song brings about €0.60 into the pockets of the copyright holders compared to the €90 per alleged file-sharer that pays up. So, the copyright holders get 150 times more from pursuing filesharers than from selling actual music, the company claims.

However, not everyone who receives a letter will pay up, but DRS says that an impressive 25% of all recipients do without asking questions. This figure is much higher than most people assumed previously.

DRS states that it’s realistic to track and pursue about 5,000 filesharers per month per title. Considering that 25% of those people pay the €90, then the copyright holders would have to make about 150,000 online sales. Which is equal to the number of sales that are required for a Gold record award in Germany.”

Needless to say, this is absolutely bizarre and outrageous. Rarely are such blatant attempts made to turn piracy into a profit center, especially when the labels do not have to share this type of revenue with the creators.

Evidently DRS is currently successfully operating in the UK and Germany at the moment, but are clearly looking toward other territories. The fact that the UK government, or any government in fact, would allow such legalized extortion is beyond the pale. I understand that European governments are moving quickly to quash illegal downloading and that’s fine. But to allow and condone the organized extortion of its citizens by a private for profit company heralds new lows in the war against piracy.

This brings to mind the famous confrontation between Joseph Welch and Senator Joe McCarthy at the Army-McCarthy Senate Hearings in 1954 when Welch effectively put an end to McCarthy’s reign of terror when he said “Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?”

© 2009 – 2010, Wayne Rosso. All rights reserved.

Well, its been reported that about 25% of the fans who bought tickets to the O2 shows in London are keeping their tickets as keepsakes instead of getting refunds. Go figure. And Randy recently publicly stated  that in addition to the fabulous wealth of video they have from the rehearsals and other shit will be released to help make up for AEG losses. And  there was talk of a tribute concert.

Well there turns out to be a little more to it. According to a friend of mine who is very close to Randy, all of this tacky shit will still leave a $30-$35 million shortfall for AEG that Randy has been ordered to fill. So the latest grand plan is to actually take this “tribute concert”, which is basically a clone of last week’s MJ memorial service, on tour! The funeral hits the road. My only question is will Randy schlep the corpse around with the show?

Tacky tacky tacky.

© 2009 – 2010, Wayne Rosso. All rights reserved.

Life Is Good At EMI

Here’s a really good one for you. Last week EMI sales reps started making calls to many if not all of their small accounts, mostly independent mom & pop stores, to tell them that they would no longer sell them product!!! Were these accounts bad payers? Nope. Would they not stock catalog or new artists? Nope. Then why in God’s name, you may ask,  would they simply cut loose paying customers? The answer given by sales reps — cost cutting.

So let me get this straight. EMI intends to save money by not selling their CD’s to independent retailers. Instead they want these retailers to go to one stops for their product.  These retailers are the only ones who buy catalog anymore. You sure can’t find it at Walmart and Best Buy. These are small businesses who have been loyal customers of EMI for 20, 30, 40 or more years. Like in the movie High Fidelity, these guys know every catalog number ever released. Every disk ever cut out of the catalog. They live and die by making personal recommendations to their customers–turning them on to new music. These shops are where music lovers go to discover and buy music. Several I have spoken with are so upset that they vow never to buy any EMI catalog again–or any new artist releases either. Only the certifiable hit product that they know will sell. They will no longer take chances on new EMI artists.

So I guess it just isn’t worth it to EMI to take these orders over the phone anymore. Too labor intensive. And after all, they’re doing so well that they really don’t need the business. Small potatoes. Let ‘em eat cake.

INTERESTING UPDATE: In making this policy change, EMI took the unusual step of notifying these retailers by phone instead of the standard letter. Could it be that they didn’t want anything in black & white?

Also, don’t forget that by being forced to buy from a one stop, not only does a mom & pop retailer pay more for his product (cutting into the already slim margins and pricing pressure from the likes of WalMart, etc.), but the one stops don’t carry nearly the depth of catalog that these guys need in order to make a living. And is this really a good strategy for EMI to introduce their new artists?  Another gripe they have is that now they won’t even get new and/or important releases (does EMI have important releases? Maybe the upcoming umpteenth release of remastered Beatles catalog) on Tuesdays, the new release day. It just makes it all the more difficult for them to compete and stay in business, even if it we were experiencing better economic times.

© 2009 – 2010, Wayne Rosso. All rights reserved.

Wuss Rockers Coldplay

Wimp soft rockers Coldplay are trying to get hip by giving away their new CD.  Fans who attend one of their upcoming North American tour dates will get a free copy of their new live album  The CD, called “LeftRightLeftRightLeft,” will also be available as a free download through the band’s website www.coldplay.com

This isn’t the first time for this type of giveaway. Prince gave away copies of his album ”Planet Earth” to readers of a Brit newspaper. But Coldplay, lame band that it is, seems to be catching on to the realities of the new music business and are sure to piss off their label. EMI, by putting a huge dent in their billing. So you have to give Coldplay credit where credit is due. But these knuckleheads at EMI can’t catch a break. They’re even leading in the Wayne’s World poll of which major record label will be the first to go down in flames with 55% of the vote. This is the highest percentage of anything that EMI has had since 1964 when the Beatles held all five slots in the Top Five US singles.

This all underscores the fact that physical product is becoming more and more utterly useless. CD’s are nothing more than coasters. At least Coldplay recognizes this and seem to understand that recorded music is just another marketing tool to build their brand and help sell tickets, merchandise, etc

So the next question will be if bands will now kill the golden goose by raising concert ticket prices to replace lost revenue from recorded music. Of course they will!!! Stay tuned.

© 2009, Wayne Rosso. All rights reserved.

According to the press release:

MYPLASH, the reloadable Visa Prepaid Card program created for the teen and young adult market, and EMI Music, one of the world’s largest music companies, have entered into a multi-tiered agreement. The two companies will offer artist-themed MYPLASH cards to consumers, launch a new awards program through which MYPLASH cardholders can redeem points for physical and digital artist merchandise, and give cardholders access to discounted downloads and special promotions.

The two companies will immediately begin integrating music, merchandise, imagery and more from EMI Music’s artists into the MYPLASH Prepaid Card Program, which features today’s hottest recording artists, action sports athletes and teen lifestyle brands – all tied into exclusive discounts, promotions, and content tailored specifically for the teen and young adult market. In the coming months, consumers will be able to purchase MYPLASH cards featuring top recording artists from EMI Music’s vast roster, which includes labels such as Astralwerks, Blue Note, Capitol, Manhattan and Virgin.

In addition, the two companies have also agreed to launch MYPLASH’s first-ever Awards Program, allowing teen & young adult cardholders and their parents to redeem points for EMI music content (albums, tracks, ringtones, wallpaper, merchandise) and more. In the coming months, MYPLASH EMI branded cards will be a major part of key strategic retail promotions featuring EMI’s top artists and content. All MYPLASH cardholders will also be able to login at www.myplash.com to purchase EMI music content with exclusive discounts and promotions at the site’s e-commerce area known as the MYPLASH MALL

So does this mean that I can get a year’s supply of Depeche Mode Depends?

Attention shoppers. There’s a special on prune juice on aisle four.

© 2009, Wayne Rosso. All rights reserved.