Hypebot’s New Music Business Briefing For Tuesday November 14th, 2006

> Today is official Zune launch day. The devise is getting weak reviews (NY Times – "iPod It’s Not") and the Microsoft "points" system that must be used for purchases is drawing fire. (MacDailyNews) And don’t forget to vote in our Zune poll located in the upper right hand column.

> Does the Universal deal with Microsoft for per player royalties on Zune signal a new era in digital music?  Personally we hope no, but others disagree. (MacWorldNews)

> Interviews with the SnoCap VP Alex Rofman (Coolfer) and Mika Salmi, the digital chief of MTV Networks. (Hollywood Reporter)

> A look at the growing number of foreign alternative bands who are touring with financial help from their homelands. (NY Times)

> EMI Vice Chairman David Munns revealed some of the label’s future plans including a new mash-up release strategy that’s starting with the Beatles at the Web 2.O Conference. You can listen to the full panel here or read more including some links to samples after the jump.

> Worthy Click – The ultimate iPod accessory. (click) Thanks to Patrick May for the tip, but what does this say about him?

EMI Music Vice Chairman David Munns participated in a discussion about the music business earlier today at the Web 2.0 conference (www.web2con.com) in San Francisco.  During the session led by conference co-founder John Battelle called, "The Pirate & The Suit", Munns and UK-based masher & DJ Eric Kleptone had a wide-ranging discussion about EMI’s past experience with mash-ups – both licensed and un-licensed; the rapid pace of change occurring in the music industry; new ways of making music available for consumers to use – while also compensating artists and rights holders; and ways in which EMI could collaborate with Web 2.0 attendees to explore new business models together in the future.  Below are excerpts of some of the things Munns said during the discussion:

“We have an open mind to licensing our content for these kinds of things [mash-ups] – in fact we’re putting out a newly recorded mash-up album in February, and in fact the Beatles Love album you could consider a mash-up because it’s a change of all the Beatles music and presented in a way that you haven’t heard before.  This has become a part of our business…”

“What you’re seeing everyday if you’re sitting in my shoes is that 5 yrs ago the internet was basically – from our POV – about piracy.  Three years ago we knew there was an opportunity and a very exciting opportunity – our income was zero.  This year our income from digital platforms will be 10, 11, 12 percent and in three years time it could be 25 % of biz.  This is an enormous amount of change in our business…”

“…all these different ways of consumer accessing music and our motto if you like is enabling consumers to get music when they want, where they want and how they want – that is changing every day of our life… We are dealing with a huge pace of change – the people in our company need to change, our artists need to change, all of our constituents in the music industry need to change – Eric’s [Kleptone] gotta change.  In the end he will license music for his mash up albums and we’ll find a way to do that.” 

“It’s not just about selling flat things with a hole in the middle anymore – and we changed our name from EMI Records to EMI Music because it’s about selling music in broad set of platforms, and whole bunch more business models that we don’t know about that people in this room are going to invent and come and say we want to use your content, and we’ll have to find a way to make a deal with you and that’s the challenge right now, and it’s very exciting and you need to be very aggressive but you also need to remember that the tone that you set and the business rules that you set are going to last a long time so you’d better get them right so we can all have a fair shake out of this.”

Munns also used the Web 2.0 conference to play a new version of "Strawberry Fields" from the forthcoming new Beatles album, "LOVE", which can be streamed at www.thebeatles.com, and he also announced that EMI would be releasing an album of mash-ups called, "Mashed" in early 2007.  Selections from the as yet unreleased album can be found here:

http://www.gohomeproductions.co.uk/mashed1.html
http://www.gohomeproductions.co.uk/mashed2.html
http://www.gohomeproductions.co.uk/mashed3.html
http://www.gohomeproductions.co.uk/mashed4.html