The Digital Meteor

New Ease to Peer-to-Peer File Sharing: Adam Fisk's Little Shoot

A very interesting video interview of an inventor of a new file-sharing technology that resides as a Flash player on your browser called "Little Shoot:"

It is unlike most other peer to peer file sharing software because it lives right on your Firefox or Internet Explorer or Safari browser. Little Shoot downloads and stores music, movies, any media files with one click. It is as easy to use as… AOL Mail. This interface simplicity allows it to blow away all the other lines of access to content on your computer. 

Hollywood 4.0...

What is Killing the Music Industry? Not the Pirates.

A great post by Jens Roland about how the music industry is off base and wasting its time by placing the blame of tanking music sales on the file sharers:

The fact is that the music industry’s revenues have been artificially inflated for decades because of limited consumer options. The last 15 years of innovation have lifted those limitations, effectively leaving the music industry with an obsolete, defective business model of monopolized production technology, forced album bundling, and almost nonexistent competition in the realm of home entertainment. What is happening now - the decline of music profits and the piracy witch hunt by the music industry - is merely the panicked struggle of a dying business model, a complacent industry’s refusal to accept its diminishing role in a digital world. The pirates are not the reason, and the decline is the not the disease. It is the cure.

How To Kill the Music Industry

All Forms of TV Viewing Up, Including Traditional Television

From the Wall Street Journal Online:

People are watching more video than ever on every type of screen -- television, the Internet and mobile devices -- according to a report on the nation's viewing habits to be released Monday by Nielsen Co.

Nielsen found that during the fourth quarter of 2008 the number of users and the time spent watching each of the three screen media rose from the previous quarter. "If people like video, they like it wherever they can get it," said Susan Whiting, vice chair of Nielsen.

The biggest jumps came in the number of viewers watching video on mobile devices and "time shifted" television, that is, programming viewed with a digital-video recorder. Each rose about 9% in the fourth quarter from the third quarter. Roughly 11 million people used mobile viewing and 74 million people watched DVR programming. Internet video users increased 2.3% to 123 million people.

Traditional television is still the most popular by far. Roughly 285 million of the nation's 306 million people watched TV in their home in the fourth quarter, up about three million people, or 1%, from the prior quarter.

Mobile, DVR Video...

Xbox Widens Lead Over Playstation3

Microsoft said today that it had sold more than 28 million Xbox 360s since introducing the game console in November 2005. That compares with more than 20 million PlayStation 3 consoles sold by Sony since it debuted the device in November 2006, according to Microsoft executives.

"We're widening our lead against PlayStation 3," said Aaron Greenberg, director of product management for the Xbox, who noted that going into the fourth quarter, Microsoft's lead had been 5 million consoles. "This was the best year in the history of the Xbox, despite the tough economy."

Greenberg credited last year's growth to a lineup of exclusive games, including Gears of War 2, Left for Dead and Banjo Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts.

He also credited the company's online game service, Xbox Live. The company said it now has 17 million Xbox Live subscribers who can use their consoles to find online opponents, download games or watch movies and TV shows. 

Microsoft Xbox...

War Between Music Industry and YouTube?: Warner Music Walks

After talks to renew a licensing deal failed, Warner Music Group pulled its songs from YouTube in what could be an opening salvo in a battle between the music business and the world's largest video site...

The Warner dispute could be the first of many as the labels renegotiate deals struck back in YouTube's infancy. Since then, the video service has grown into the largest video site, accounting for nearly 40% of all video views in the U.S., the second-largest search engine, and the fourth-largest website in the world. 

YouTube Pulls Warner Music...

Hulu's First Viewership Decline: Fewer Viewers But More Hours Viewed

Unique viewers dropped to 7.5 million from just more than 9 million, which coincides somewhat with ComScore figures released earlier this month that showed a decline in unique visitors to the site from October to November -- the first decline of any time for the fast-growing site since it launched to the public in March.

...Unique viewers aside, there's still good news for Hulu: Even without Sarah Palin, total viewing on the site is way up. The site served just more than 220 million video streams in November, up 7% from 206 million in October. Those numbers make Hulu the No. 3 video site in the U.S. And it's closing in fast on No. 2 Fox Interactive Media, with 243 million streams.

Hulu's November Viewers Down...

Viacom & MySpace Team to Profit from Piracy

A new technology that essentially allows content owners to profit from piracy will get a high-profile test this month from MySpace and MTV Networks.

Instead of triggering the usual take-down notices, copyright-infringing footage of select MTV NetworksMTV, BET, Comedy Central, Spike and Nickelodeon. programing uploaded by MySpace subscribers would be automatically redistributed with advertisements that would generate revenue for the companies. MTV Networks is the parent company of such channels as

MTV & MySpace Test Piracy Profit Plan

Hulu Web TV Dominates with Fewer Ads- 142 Million Streams in September

While Hulu was not the first site to serve up full-length television shows or create new advertising units, it now dominates the emerging market for ad-supported TV and movie streaming. It emerged in public beta form one year ago with 10 advertisers, made its official debut in March, and now counts more than 100 sponsors, from General Motors to Old Spice.

The site has grown steadily, providing 142 million streams to 6.3 million unique viewers in September, Nielsen Online reported last week. Hulu is now the sixth-most-popular online video brand in the United States, surpassing the online video networks operated by ESPN, CNN, MTV and Disney. 

The half-hour comedies that are so popular on Hulu — “Family Guy” from Fox and “The Office” from NBC — have an average of eight minutes of commercial time on TV. On Hulu, where the sitcoms are especially popular, each show averages about two minutes of ads.

Web Site's Formula for Success: More TV Content with Fewer Ads

LaLa's Web Based Jukebox-- 10 Cents Per Song

Previous eras of digital music revolved around software and hardware, but LaLa founder Bill Nguyen says the future of music, e-mail and many other activities will happen in the browser as applications migrate online. "Our iPhone, our iPod, our magic super device is the browser," Nguyen told Wired.com. "We think the future of everything is in a browser -- forget about devices, forget about everything else."

LaLa: How Does Ten Cents a Song Strike You?

Hulu.com Continues to Make Gains in Monetized Web Streaming

Hulu generated more than 142 million streams in September, as the premium content site continues its steady climb up the Nielsen VideoCensus rankings of the top brands on the web...

...Sure, YouTube may trounce the competition with big fancy numbers like 5.3 billion streams — but YouTube can reportedly only monetize 4 percent of its videos, whereas Hulu can monetize all of its content.

Hulu Surpassed 140 Million Streams in September

ASCAP Wants Pay for 30 Second Clip Use

Just as more and more sites are adding full song streams, ASCAP and BMI are trying to get paid for 30 second song samples.  The Digital Media Association (DiMA) filed an amicus brief today in the case of ASCAP vs. AT&T Mobile asking the federal district court to rule that 30-second music preview clips are “fair use” and do not justify public performance royalties as demanded by songwriter and music publisher representatives. 

ASCAP Seeks $ For 30 Second Clip Use

The Shape of Things To Come?-- Death of DVD Sales

Hollywood take note: Sony Pictures is the sixth (and final) major movie studio to pull up stakes in South Korea, where blazing fast, ubiquitous broadband has sucker-punched the market for DVD sales and rentals, NewTeeVee reports today. In Korea, where average broadband penetration rate by household hit 90.1 percent last year (and in Seoul reached 107.8 percent), nearly 50 percent of Internet users say they download movies, and the typical users is downloading about a movie a week. Unsurprisingly, perhaps, DVD sales have more than halved between 2008 and 2002, and rental shops feel to a third of their 2001 numbers by the end of 2007.

But here’s the real zinger: In the face of ubiquitous broadband, DVDs won’t be replaced by other physical formats or even VOD services, but by the cloud.

The Death of DVD Sales in Korea...

TV's Evolution: Free VOD in 10 Years with Web-like Targeted Ads

TV advertising has been suffering from media fragmentation and ad skipping. Under pressure from advertisers, traditional television networks finally team up with cable multiple system operators (MSOs) and telco services to build a modern ad-supported television delivery system called Personal TV. It will serve non-skippable, interactive targeted ads to the set-top box (STB) and insert them at runtime in both linear and video on demand (VOD) programs. Advertisers will use the system to send interactive ads just to their target consumers or to address a mass audience by inserting an ad at the same time in many different programs at a certain time of day. The benefit for viewers is a free VOD system. The full industry shift to Personal TV will take a decade...

Personal TV: The Reinvention of Television

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TV advertising is poised to change dramatically over the next decade, embracing the kind of targeting and user control already common on the Web, according to a new report by Forrester Research.
 
Forrester lays out a decade-long evolution that will ultimately result in most programming delivered on-demand with targeted ad messages based on location and behavior, along with community functions...

Forrester sees this shift giving TV an opportunity to remain the dominant ad medium it is today. While a personalized offering would seem geared toward further audience fragmentation, Forrester anticipates systems that would allow advertisers to reach mass audiences in a targeted manner. What's more, cable companies, with subscribers' billing histories, know more about users than Web companies. Ultimately, TV will work like the Web, enabling viewers to interact with ads up to the point of purchase...

Forrester predicts that in 2010, targeting and on-demand programming systems will be up and running, before the big industry-wide shift takes place from 2012-18.

TV's Future Looks Like Web's Present...

Mobile Phone Sales Soar in U.S.

Despite a slumping economy and rapidly approaching market saturation, mobile phone shipments in the United States grew in the second quarter of 2008, according to research firm Strategy Analytics.

Mobile phone shipments in the U.S. grew 5.3 percent in the last year to reach 41.9 million in the second quarter from 39.8 million in Q2 2007.

Mobile Phones Soar in U.S.

Ringtones Do Gigantic Business

Rapper T-Pain's digital-only record label, Nappy Boy Digital, claims he has sold more ringtones than any other recording artist -- over 15 million...Hoping this success continues, the mobile media Zed has signed Nappy Boy Digital to an exclusive deal that will see all of the ringtones created by T-Pain and his stable of up and coming rappers released only through its mobile network.

Nevermind that many feel ringtones should be free, since they're just truncated versions of songs we've already purchased whose play button is tied to an incoming call. They're big business nonetheless, due in part to cellphone manufacturers insistence on disabling phones' ability to use MP3s as ringtones.

Top Selling Ringtone Rapper...

Report: 40% of Music Will Be Sold Digitally by 2012

Digital sales of music represented 10% of the total worldwide music market in 2007, up from 6% in 2006, reports In-Stat (http://www.in-stat.com). By 2012, digital music sales will represent an impressive 40% of all music purchased worldwide, the high-tech market research firm says.

“Digital piracy continues to represent the primary challenge to online music service providers,” says Stephanie Ethier, In-Stat analyst. “Other obstacles still include the lack of interoperability between services and devices due to differing digital rights management (DRM) technologies, and weak consumer demand for subscription-based services.  Another potential market inhibitor is the fact that content owners, cellular service providers and handset manufacturers are increasing the amount of marketing and promotion for mobile music.”

Recent research by In-Stat found the following:

• Sales for online digital music reached $3.05 billion in 2007, up 48% from 2006.
• Revenue for worldwide full track mobile downloads will reach approximately $4.2 billion by 2012.
• The majority of respondents who accessed online video (72.3%) in 2007 did not pay for the video they saw from the Internet.

Digital Sales Will Account for 40% of All Music Sales by 2012

Music Industry Considering Ad-Supported Streaming

The idea of combining ad-supported streaming with paid downloads is very similar to the upcoming MySpace Music (due to launch next month), except that it will be available to other sites.  In that sense, it is closer to what Rhapsody has done, powering music streams for Yahoo Music, iLike, and MTV.com, and trying to up-sell full subscriptions or paid music downloads.

Full-track, on-demand, advertising-supported music streaming (as opposed to randomly-sequenced Internet radio) is gaining steam as a business model. The music labels have licensed their catalogs for uninhibited streaming to imeem and MySpace Music. And a number of other sites, including Lala and Last.fm, have signed more limited deals that still provide access to a broad range of artists. For example, Rhapsody offers a limited version of free streams (25 songs a month) to their songs.

Tech Crunch:  The Record Industry's Digital Distribution Plan...

Warner Music Complains The Rockband and Guitar Hero Need to Pay More for Music

Despite the fact that the games Guitar Hero and Rock Band have breathed new life into various musical acts and helped pump up sales of certain artists, the recording industry is starting to complain. It seems unable to recognize how something that promotes its music or makes that music more valuable is beneficial -- instead freaking out that it's somehow being ripped off. Proving, once again, that they overvalue contentRock Band and Guitar Hero aren't paying enough for music... and undervalue the service that makes that content valuable, Warner Music's Edgar Bronfman is bitching and complaining that

Techdirt: Warner Music Complains...

Wired: Warner Threatens to Pull Music...

"The Next Great Network That Won't Be Televised:" TheWB.com

TheWB.com, now in Beta testing, will launch on August 27, offering classic series that aired on the now defunct WB TV network along with new web series.

Warner Bros. Television Group is promoting the new site as “the next great network that won’t be televised.” But cable operator Comcast, will offer classic WB series via its video-on-demand service...

TheWB.com’s shows will also be distributed free across the Internet on Comcast’s Filmcast.com and Comcast will make available more than 1,000 TV episodes from Warner Bros. library that will be available on the cable operator’s video-on-demand service. AOL will also feature a WB.com branded channel that will stream full episodes of classic WB series.

TheWB.com Set to Launch

Apple #1 in Music Sales- Amazon Up To 4th Place

The latest figures are in from NPD MusicWatch, and they confirm that Apple iTunes is beginning to dominate music sales in the US. Earlier this year, they surpassed music sales by Wal-Mart and these latest stats show that iTunes remains the leading U.S music retailer, with Amazon starting to also climb the charts.

Amazon rose from fifth place to fourth due to two main reasons, the first being that online CD sales are not dipping as fast as those at high street stores, and secondly the fact that Amazon was now gaining sales from its newly launched digital music store, Amazon.mp3.

Apple Maintains Music Sales Lead...

Does Piracy Hurt the Film Industry?

Illegal downloads of popular films are nearly as numerous as box office visits, a French antipiracy association claims. The Association Against Audiovisual Piracy (ALPA) analyzed P2P traffic in France between November 2007 and June 2008 and concluded that a number of popular films had been downloaded so many times that the phenomenon could endanger the entire film industry.

Piracy Could Put Film Industry Out of Business

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But do illegal downloads really hurt movie sales?   (Analagous to cable rating higher this summer than last despite piracy):

A bunch of folks have sent in this report from Variety about a study talking about what a big deal unauthorized movie downloading is in France. Specifically, it points out that movie downloads are "reaching box office levels." Except... that means they're basically counting every download as a lost sale, which we (as well as those putting the study together) all know isn't true. Even worse, the folks behind the study (who go by the already biased name: Association Against Audiovisual Piracy) seem to totally miss the most obvious point from their own report: that movie piracy doesn't seem to have a major impact on movie ticket buying. After all, their own report points out that the most popular movies at the box office in France are also the most downloaded. If it were really true that movie downloads were harming the box office, then wouldn't that mean that the most downloaded movies ended up with fewer tickets sold?

Techdirt: Totally Misunderstanding Movie Downloading in France

 

Courts OK Remote DVR Function for Cable Companies

This ruling allows cable companies to essentially function as DVR's (e.g. TiVo) remotely, that is, without a set top box.  If this holds up, it further clears the way for what some have termed the "celestial jukebox," where consumers can play any content from anywhere at anytime.

Cablevision Wins on Appeal...

MobiTV Exceeds 4 Million Subscribers

Sorry, but I just had to post almost all of this press release:

EMERYVILLE, Calif. – July 31, 2008 – MobiTV,       Inc., the leader in the delivery of rich media mobile content and services, today announced that its managed network for mobile television and radio has surpassed four million subscribers. Since launching its first mobile television service in November 2003, MobiTV has successfully sparked a new market for wireless entertainment services, deploying its Emmy® Award-winning television offerings on more than 15 carrier networks, including Sprint, AT&T Wireless, Alltel, Telus, Rogers and Bell Mobility among others...

With unlimited channel capacity and more than 50 channels available in the U.S. currently, MobiTV offers the industry’s largest line-up of live television, premium and primetime programming, video-on-demand and satellite and digital music services programming from major brands such as ESPN, NBC, Disney Channel^SM, A&E Networks® and Discovery Communications. MobiTV’s extensive programming line-up includes MSNBC, Animal Planet, Bravo, USA Network™, Bloomberg Television, Access Hollywood, CNBC, CNET, Fox Business, Oxygen (Oh!), Pussycat Dolls, Sci Fi, The History Channel™, The Weather Channel®, TLC, ToonWorld TV Classics, V40 Top Hits, XM Radio® an more. Available channel line-ups vary by carrier partner.

“Not only are we experiencing a phenomenal rise in subscriptions, we’re also seeing rapid growth in daily unique users and viewing time, both of which have increased over 50 percent in the first half of 2008,” said Paul Scanlan, president and co-founder of MobiTV. “These indicators confirm that we are entering a period of mass market mobile TV adoption and MobiTV is quite simply the best delivery platform for carrier and content     partners as we all work together to create, distribute and monetize the next generation of mobile entertainment services.”

The MobiTV® service is available on more than 350 devices currently, the widest range of handsets in the mobile television industry, and provides the market’s first and only truly interactive platform for advertising, voting, polling and mCommerce. MobiTV’s ongoing development initiatives focus on enhancing both the back-end infrastructure as well as the front-end user experience for mobile television.

   

MobiTV Soars Past 4 Million Subscribers

LG Blu-Ray Player to Stream 12,000 Netflix Movies

On Thursday, the company made famous by sending DVDs to consumers via snail mail announced, in conjunction with LG Electronics, the imminent availability of a Blu-ray disc player that will also allow Netflix subscribers to view streaming video of movies and TV shows...

With the LG box, due to come out this fall, Netflix subscribers will be able to make use of Blu-ray discs and standard DVDs and also to tap into an online repository of about 12,000 movies and TV episodes (a fraction of the overall inventory at Netflix). The service will be available to subscribers at no additional charge.

LG Blu-Ray Box...

Disney Embraces Digital: Sells 5 Million Movies on iTunes

[Disney President, Bob] Iger noted promise with [Disney's] early established digital presence. Disney has long supported online iTunes film download sales before most other studios hopped on board. To date, Disney has sold 5 million movies on iTunes, according to Iger.

“In a world where more and more people are migrating online, the Disney company is served well by having a strong [Web] presence,” said Iger. “That presence has created benefits [for] the bottom line.”

He also highlighted the building attraction to the studio’s Disney.com Web site, which corralled a record 32 million unique visitors in June.

Disney Earnings Up...

Amazon Poised to Sell Content Through MySpace

Ten months after its debut, Amazon (AMZN, Fortune 500) has overtaken competitors like Wal-Mart (WMT, Fortune 500) and RealNetworks' (RNWK) Rhapsody to become the second biggest online store after iTunes, according to market research firm NPD. Now two music industry sources tell Fortune that Amazon is talking to MySpace (NWS, Fortune 500) about becoming the social networking giant's download store partner when it rolls out its highly anticipated joint venture with Universal, Warner Music and SonyBMG in September.

Amazon: The Avis of Digital Music

Do "Technologically Promiscuous Youth" Doom Viacom?

...the "youth demo" that Viacom has hotly chased after for the last couple decades is a bust. Teens and twenty-somethings don't watch TV anymore; they don't read newspapers; and they're technologically promiscuous -- how can big media sell advertising against them if you can't corner them in front of any single device?

How American Youth Will Screw Viacom

Video Without TV, Web, or Cellphone: Nickelodeon & Hertz Debut a Media Player with 40 Hours of Content

What is a show you watch that isn't on a t.v., not on a computer or cellphone?  And, what do you call this?  Streaming?  No.  Video downloading?  No, shows are already installed on a portable hard drive of a proprietary media player.  Rental?  Kinda- it's more rental of a fully-loaded video jukebox- that's probably been licensed from the studio, in this case, Viacom/Nickelodeon.  I've seen variations of this player for a few years now--including cute little flash-based players-- and of course, no money from any of it.  Cartoons have always led the digital distribution trend, as they are typically shorter in length (6 or 11 minutes) and are more easily chopped down to even shorter chunks.  Plus you have the ever-renewing audience of kids to consume the toons.  Whether its on iPods, cellphones, or media players like this one, cartoons are usually among the first video content to appear. Typically without the studios having negotiated a rate with talent. We're a number of years into this and our unions are still playing catch up.

Such new forms of content distribution could be a great way for talent to make money (not to mention the studios and other partners, in this case, Hertz), provided there were a contract to cover it and some way for talent and their unions to account for it and recover money owed reliably.   Without the ability, the technology, and the resources to track down and recover what is owed us, we will probably continue to be paid less and less of what is contractually owed us.  By the way, the older shows listed here are SAG shows, the newer ones are covered by AFTRA.

Nick on the Go is preloaded with more than 40 hours of top programming from Nickelodeon and Nick Jr, including popular episodes from SpongeBob SquarePants; Drake & Josh; Avatar: The Last Airbender; El Tigre; Danny Phantom; The Fairly OddParents; Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius; All Grown Up; Catscratch; Rugrats; My Life as a Teenage Robot; The X's; Unfabulous; and Zoey 101.

Preschoolers can watch Dora the Explorer; Blue's Clues; Blue's Room; and The Wonder Pets. Programming and content for all ages will be regularly refreshed to meet the needs of frequent renters.

Nick on the Go

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The Official Pitch

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Another story in Information Week details how the movie studios are suing piracy sites for making movies available for free:

The Motion Picture Association of America has sued two sites that show free movies, including recent releases, by streaming the films from third-party Web sites that offer the copyright-infringing movies...

The MPAA claims the movie industry lost $18.2 billion in 2005 as a result of piracy. More than $7 billion of that was attributed to Internet piracy, with the rest coming from hard-goods piracy, including bootlegging and illegal copying.

I wonder how much money talent "loses" each year as a result of their work being sold and distributed by the studios without negotiation or payment in the digital realm?

RoyaltyShare Lends Transparency and Accessibilty to Digital Music Royalties.

Just beautiful.  Why couldn't this be worked to apply to video content as well?  Imagine the windfall for creatives and those that service them (agents, unions, etc).  Big media saves on accounting and legal and creatives get what's owed them.  With digital transparency, everyone can win.

There are several competing ways that music can end up in an online music store, but RoyaltyShare's approach offers an interesting advantage: they attach rights information to each song, so that all royalties are automatically generated for every song sold. Compared to the opacity of traditional royalty reporting, this transparency is a welcome change for artists, because each stakeholder's share is perfectly clear.

For labels, the allure of RoyaltyShare is that they don't have to do royalty calculations, and can spend more resources on signing and developing acts. Once RoyaltyShare's system learns the royalty rate due to the studio tech who subbed in on bass guitar on one and a half tracks during a given album, it knows how much the label owes him each month for sales. All of this reporting is available via a simple web interface.

RoyaltyShare Music Distributor Expands...

Some Viewers Choose Online TV Instead

It is interesting the conflicting information.  A couple posts below shows that network ratings are actually up. 

A fifth of U.S. television viewers are putting down their remote controls and clicking on a mouse instead to watch primetime programs online -- particularly professional women, according to a new survey.

It showed that 50 percent of people viewing TV on the Web are watching programs as they become available and "appear to be beginning to use the computer as a substitute for the television set," Integrated Media Measurement Inc. (IMMI), which conducted the poll, said.

"This is the first study to show there are a significant amount of people watching primetime shows online who are not watching some portion of those shows on television," Amanda Welsh, head of research for IMMI, said in a statement.

   

Fifth of TV Viewers Watching Online...