Campuses Whip Back to College Crackdown

The Record Industry Association of America is cracking down on piracy on college campuses, a site where excessive piracy occurs due to illegal file-sharing over high-speed college internet networks. The RIAA’s tactic-- sending letters not to the students themselves who have been targeted, but to their universities. They recently sent out pre-litigation letters to 400 students via their respective 13 universities across the country that threaten lawsuit if the student doesn’t settle for between $3,000-$5,000 within the next 20 days. The student can log on to p2plawsuits.com and make a quick settlement online in order to avoid litigation. The organization plans to send 400 more next month. The university is expected to forward the letter to the student, acting as a messenger for the RIAA. This tactic makes the university aware of the problem of copyright infringement at their school, and the RIAA hopes that this will encourage universities to begin to implement methods that would tackle the problem and stop piracy at their university. Additionally, it is meant to create bad publicity for the university as a whole (USC has made RIAA’s publicly-issued ranking of the College Piracy Top Five, coming in fifth.)

However, campuses are cracking the whip of resistance against the RIAA. University of Maine has joined with administration at the University of Wisconsin and the University of Nebraska in a refusal to be the messenger for RIAA and a refusal to provide student information to the RIAA for them to target said student for piracy. The universities will inform the student if they receive a pre-litigation letter, but they will not forward it to the student directly and the student will have to come pick it up from a disclosed location.

The fact of the matter is that their method of attacking the user through their school will fail to stop kids from downloading music illegally, and more and more campuses will begin to be uncooperative with the RIAA’s requests. Check out this video that was released by the RIAA, available via YouTube and sent out to schools across the country explaining how students are able to be caught and targeted for piracy.

The video wasn't well received by students (many of the YouTube comments are sarcastic and its clear that the video is corny.) As a student at a top-five-targeted school, I never saw the video so USC must not have distributed it widely. While most campuses have implemented student conduct codes that prohibit file sharing, still these restrictions just won’t stop students from sharing. Since 2003, there have been 18,000 lawsuits, yet P2P filesharing has increased froom 5.5 million users per month to 9.3 million.

Piracy is definitely an issue, but suing the consumer is not the solution. The RIAA needs to develop a way for students to access music when and where they want it, free of restrictions, and they will be willing to pay for their tunes if they get the product they want.

Record Labels No More, Turn to the SnoCap Store

With the development of programs such as SnoCap which allow artists to sell their songs directly via their MySpace page, the necessity of record labels is slowly becoming obsolete and the all-digitial, do-it-yourself promotion is becoming increasingly popular with artists. Artists are able to record their songs and then through self-promotion via their MySpace websites, can set their own prices for their songs and collect the money themselves without a deduction of any of the profits. Take a shot of Tila Tequila for example—the self-made MySpace celeb has turned down two record label offers, claiming that she would rather have complete control over her music and her image rather than just another artist who is just a part of “the system”. She currently sells her songs via using indie911's Hoooka application on her MySpace page as well as on iTunes, but she has yet to release a record. Her fame has been built digitially alone, and her songs are downloaded directly to her consumers in a digital format. The singer has over 1.7 million friends and she is in the top 50 of MySpace artists for her genre. She has lots of fans, but the question lingers—is she making money? The growth of paid downloads is on the rise—up 54% this year. But still, the track is available solely online, and while the direct access from the MySpace pages is effortless, it may be just as easy for consumers to turn to P2P software when they are already at their computers. But SnoCap is still promising for struggling artists and it’s partnership with MySpace and the creation of MyStores is a promising venue—a recent study revealed that this year MySpace was recognized as a music outlet by 54% of survey respondents, up from 16% awareness level just 12 months earlier. And last week SnoCap signed a number of independent labels for distribution through its software, so it is expanding to artists who are signed to labels as well as unsigned artists. If the major record labels were smart, they would keep this Sno ball rolling and allow their music to be distributed through MyStores as an alternative venue to profit from legal, online downloading.

Music For Your Eyes

Nokia has created music for your eyes with their latest visual radio systems. Visual radio is radio broadcast paired with song information, video and interactivity that allows listeners to respond and give feedback—all via your Nokia cell phone. They are offering visual radio through Infinity radio, a station conglomerate that owns about 180 radio stations located in 22 states. Visual radio is also broadcast in seven other countries. The radio system not only shows pictures and reveals the name and artist of the song being played, but users can also directly purchase ringtones, take quizzes on the artists, rate DJs and songs, and get insider facts about artists and concerts.

Nokia actually understands that consumers consider interactivity with their stations and mobility as two key characteristics of quality radio. Visual radio offers consumers these two attributes, through a venue that they already own (their phone) and stations that they already listen to (their local FM), but also add a little extra through the additional features.

So Visual Radio is easy to use and accessible. But will it be a hit? It’s great that Nokia is working to help fix radio and actually encouraging technology, interactivity and a mobile radio through multi-functioning devices. However, the downfall of visual radio is that while the additional features are nice, it fails to change radios largest downfall—the content. The songs that listeners hear are identical to what they would hear on their local radio station, because it is just that—their local station. The cost of internet-ready phones and a wireless plan that includes internet access may also be a problem for lower-income users. And I wonder how much using visual radio drains the battery of your cell phone—enough to make visual radio dead?

MTV Breaking Through the Net

MTV wants to party like its 1999—back in the late 90s, MTV was synonymous with youth culture, defining style, music and social attitudes. But today, television is no longer the outlet where young people turn to discover these cultural norms; rather, people turn to the Internet. MTV Network has lost that pull that they had in previous years with this important demographic, so they are turning online in order to recapture the youth generation. The network already has 150 Web sites online, but they are preparing to create thousands more along with three interactive online communities— Laguna Beach for teens, Nicktropolis for kids and Virtual Hills for young adults. They hope that by creating these digital gateways, they will encourage viewers by allowing them to watch shows, generate feedback, re-edit its television shows and contribute to the MTV channels.

The network has already began MySpace-esque communities, up-to-the-minute message boards where viewers can simultaneously watch MTV on the television and comment on the show online and personal profiles. The expansion into audience-segmented communities will only offer users a place that is more specifically geared towards them, and will be more effective for the user and for MTV as well. The communities will be a tool to discover what it is exactly that this youth demographic desires.

The move online is a smart move for the company, which created controversy in February in response to their demand that the MTV and Viacom content would be removed from YouTube. Consumers were frustrated that they wouldn’t be able to access content online (a venue where young consumers absolutely are turning to find content). They will be able to use feedback from the users as tools to improve their stations along with giving the consumer the easy access to content that they desire.

Despite criticism, MTV Networks have reported that since the removal of content from YouTube, their own sites have received 55% more traffic than this time last year. By creating interactive websites that take into account their audience (the three communities will be focused to audience demographics in content and aesthetic appeal), MTV has a chance to regain viewers that have been lost in the last ten years. Viacom expects that the move online will help double their revenues from its digital services to $500 million next year, and I think that if they successfully capture their audience, the capabilities of the expansion to the Internet community are endless.

I Liiiiiiikkke Good Music

“I liiiiiiike” is no longer just an overquoted phrase from a popular movie. It is now also a social networking service. iLike is a music-focused site similar to last.fm that allows users to create profiles online and share music with friends (real friends or those with similar musical tastes through thier high compatibility ratings). The program also caters free downloads according to musical taste. The site recently hit half million users and ticketmaster.com has also invested $13.3 million in the company, giving Ticketmaster 25% of the shares in the company in hopes to promote concert ticket purchases.

iLike is growing, and their lack of wariness about working with other companies is part of their appeal. Not only is iLike Ticketmaster-friendly, there is also the incorporation with the iTunes software. The program has a downloadable sidebar that directly connects to the iTunes library to offer recommendations and also has a wishlist where users can place songs they enjoy and directly connect to the iTunes music library. The system is so easy to use—so easy, that in fact people are actually buying music. The company released a statement saying that “more than 50 percent of logins result in a purchase, or the filing of a song in a wishlist for purchase consideration later.” This means that half of the time a user signs on, that user either buys or considers buying a song from iTunes.

While there hasn’t been data released yet that I could find about ticket sale boosts for Ticketmaster after their iLike partnership, I’d like to predict that ticket sales will grow from this affiliation. Clearly the iTunes sidebar has made it quick and easy for consumers to purchase the music that they find on iLike, and a similar venture with Ticketmaster will make newly-discovered artists’ concerts just a click away. The fact is that people aren’t unwilling to pay for music so long as the music is good and easy to purchase. By assisting people to find this good music, using easy-to-use formats, and working with other corporations not against them, everybody will benefit in the end.

Don't Let Copyright Ruin WiFi

In 2009, smog won’t be the only thing that blankets Los Angeles. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa recently proposed a wireless internet (WiFi) plan that would supply over 4 million residents in a 498 square miles radius with free or low cost wireless internet. The project would be completed in 2009 and would be one of the largest urban WiFi networks.

So if the proposed plan does come to be, what does this mean for the radio industry? The expansion of WiFi networks will allow internet radio to expand rampantly—ubiquitously accessible Internet radio will allow the musical diversity, accessibility and interactivity that radio consumers of the modern world desire. Internet radio is already on the rise, with “revenue from online streaming music radio has risen to $500 million from $49 million in 2003.”

With free internet available to everyone in Los Angeles, it will allow even the underprivileged easier access to Internet radio. There is already WiFi in many homes and commercial locations across the city, but with WiFi across entire metropolitan areas, the internet will become entirely universal. With WiFi, consumers would be able to access custom-made Internet radio broadcasts not only at home, but also over their mobile phones, or other multi-functioning internet ready devices (like the iPhone). WiFi will allow greater accessibility to these Internet radio stations and in turn higher number of listeners. Internet radio adaptors could be invented and installed in cars so that drivers could listen to the radio too (perhaps one of terrestrial radios last real successful venue these days).

But sadly once again, there are those out there that are working against for radio consolidators and small online indie outlets. The Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) proposed March 5 to change the way online radio stations pay royalties. They are currently determined by a percentage of revenue that each particular station makes, but if the new rule becomes law, they will be forced to pay per-song and by the number of listeners that each station draws (larger corporations like Time Warner's AOL Radio, Yahoo!'s online station, and Clear Channel's Online Music & Radio are already forced to do this.) The more hefty fees still can generate profit since they are such a large corporation, but for a smaller online radio stations, “could raise royalty fees paid by some online radio stations more than tenfold —enough to put many smaller stations out of business.”

If smaller stations weren’t able to continue production in the face of larger radio stations and the large conglomerates take over the market online as well, WiFi won’t be enough to help save the radio industry. But if CRB fails to pass the proposed increase in funding, digital radio accessed through universal wireless internet will be just the makeover that the radio industry needs. Let’s hope CRB is tuned in to this reality.