2007 person-to-person music downloads were worth a staggering $69 billion, and movie/television piracy continues to grow, says a new study. And all that free promotion didn’t cost them a penny. At least, that’s how Techdirt sees it. And I agree. Instead of embracing what might be the largest free marketing giveaway in the history of the world, the music labels instead sue their customers. And ask the social networks for handouts. Somebody over there needs to put their thinking cap on, quit screwing around and just give the damn music away for free with no lawsuit strings attached. Then use...
As we mentioned yesterday, the normally $20 firewall and antivirus antispyware solution ZoneAlarm Pro is available for free today only, so if you're interested in some free quality software, consider this your reminder to grab a copy....
A few days ago you all enjoyed free license keys of Kaspersky products for 9 months and 3 months. And being a freebie lover myself, I have another free promotion to share for a popular internet suite. So don’t worry if you missed the previous ones. BitDefender Internet Security is one of the leading internet security providers. It provides all the security that your home, or work PCs need. It provides comprehensive proactive protection from viruses, hackers, spyware, spam and phishing emails, and it also protects children from inappropriate websites. Some of its features are: Firewall protection – controlling access...
Part 2: Today, marketing guru, blogger, and author of the new book Tribes: We Need You To Lead Us. Seth Godin, talks about the old music business, it's messy future, the economic downtugn and what's on his iPod. (Read Part 1: Tribes Heretics & Music) Q. Is it too late for the old music industry and what should new music industry tribes and their leaders focus on?GODIN: It's not too late for music, no doubt about it. It's probably too late for the music 'industry'. Most of the religion of this industry is about paying for people who add...
>>> READ PART 1 OF OUR EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH SETH GODIN ON THE MUSIC INDUSTRY, TRIBES AND THE NEED FOR PEOPLE TO LEAD THEM HERE. <<< All this week, alongside our regular features, we'll be looking at Seth Godin's new book Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us. Godin is an outspoken marketing guru and prolific author whose passion for music is almost as great as his passion for marketing in our post-tv, post-advertising, internet connected, socially networked age. We'll look at the need for music Tribes (aka passionate, active supporters) and how to lead them. You'll have a...
By Jerry Del CollianoThe relationship between radio and the record labels for a long time was a pretty damn good deal – for both.The stations got free programming, lots of prizes to give away and payola if they were into it (and some were over the decades of modern pop music).The labels got gazillions of dollars of free promotion, publicity and exposure and didn’t have to share a dime with the radio stations that made, broke and sustained their acts. In fact, if they had to pay for the air time, the labels would never have been able to crank...
Broadcast.com billionaire and trailblazer for online video Mark Cuban wrote Saturday in his the best impression of Andrew Keen that internet video was ideal for snacking, but for the big events, people turn to broadcast television and HD. Cuban argues that “the platform is the message” and that HD television is where the game is at. The problem with his argument is that he mixes the delivery method with the end result. He makes the presumption that we need broadcast television to obtain the end result of quality programming, but he’s wrong. There’s 105 million reasons today why he’s wrong....
Getting your album leaked online in advance of its official release is now standard operating practice in the music business. Nearly 10 years into the Napster era, many acts don't mind, and think of the inevitable leaks as free promotion. But some really don't want it to happen, and go through great effort to stop it -- without success. Radio-friendly hard-rock band Buckcherry, whose album Black Butterfly is being released in September, would like us to believe they're in the latter group. But they're actually in the former. Confused? Here's the story: Last week, after a single track from Black...
When we reported about the leak of a BuckCherry track last week, and specifically the band’s response to it, we hinted that this could be a covert form of self-promotion. Indeed, after a few days of research we found out that the track wasn’t leaked by pirates, but by Josh Klemme, the manager of the band. When BuckCherry found out that their latest single had leaked on BitTorrent, they didn’t try to cover this up, or take the file down. No, instead, they issued a press release, where they stated: “Honestly, we hate it when this s*** happens, because we...
Some artists, bands and labels claim that their lives are ruined by their material being available on P2P networks. BuckCherry are complaining that a track from their latest album has leaked to BitTorrent. How do they complain? Via an Atlantic Records press release. I smell a rather large free-publicity rat. Leaks of pre-release material onto the Internet are pretty normal events these days. Even the mainstream media are happy to cover the big leaks, usually while portraying file-sharers as the son of the devil. In the past many file-sharing news sites have covered such leaks of movies and music as...
A handy-dandy rule of thumb: avoid using a service whose name sounds exactly like "Fees!" (exclamation included)....
