"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, 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, 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, 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.

As you can see, Alistaire is delighted with his winnings and says that he will surely continue to play the EMI Lottery. Evidently Bertie, the family corgi is, well, relieved. She no longer has to worry about leaving nasty remnants underfoot. Wife Madge proclaimed “And to top it all off, Alistaire and I have become huge Katy Perry fans. We’re constantly online at EMI.com… creating and sharing our favorite Katy Perry playlists”.

Thanks to EMI, at least one lawn in Perth will be poop free forever!

© 2009, Wayne Rosso. All rights reserved.

© 2009, Wayne Rosso. All rights reserved.

© 2009, Wayne Rosso. All rights reserved.