Columbia House closes its doors, windows

The Britannia Music Club - Buy CDs for almost nothing, and then be beholden to buy crappier CDs at full price forever more - gave up the ghost in the UK back in 2007. Astonishingly, its US equivalent, Columbia House, has been battling on in the face of the internet. "Has" is the operative word, though, as it's finally sunk under the weight of its USD63million debt.

Knowing how tenacious these services were pursuing hapless members for their quota of coins were, you'd really hope that the creditors of Columbia House will pursue the company beyond the grave.

Primark to make HMV's life more miserable

A couple of weeks ago, I was in BHS - it's a handy cut-through to shops you might use - and noticed they've gone big for CD sales. Not just the sort they've done for a while, cheapo compilations, but actual chart CDs and to such an extent that you could probably expect to get what you were looking for, if you weren't too fussy and not after catalogue.

Now, Primark is getting in on the CD retailing business. Again, it's going to be better for you if you want Lady GaGa rather than Cate LeBon, but it's a surprising spasm of life from a declining product.

It's also a bit of bad news for HMV, who hadn't exactly been doing well as the only CD retailer on the high street. Now, the clothes shops are going to cherry-pick off customers who want the top-selling albums; the few people who don't shop online are already buying from supermarkets. Now the market will be further split by those adding an Ellie Goulding album to a quick couple of bras and some socks.

Why are Primark doing it, though?

Primark, which has 242 stores across the UK, decided to trial entering the music market as "fashion and music have always been synonymous", a spokesperson told BBC News.

"Primark has a strong relationship with licensed product and the CDs are a natural complement to Primark's merchandise," they added.

No, neither of those explanations seem that convincing.

The idea of music and fashion being synonymous is passable, but it does rather assume that fashion and Primark are synonymous, doesn't it?

Businessobit: Norio Ohga

Former head of Sony, Norio Ohga, has died.

Ohga's time at the head of Sony saw him take two decisions which, for good or ill, would shape the music industry for twenty years.

He threw the company's weight behind the development of the Compact Disc - which was important - but he also led Sony from being focused on being an electronics company into one that would be an entertainment company. Sony had been running a joint venture with CBS for twenty years, but in 1987 Ohga's company would buy CBS' music business outright. Ohga was still at the top when the renamed CBS arm, Sony Music Entertainment, merged with Bertelsmann's group to create the massive-major Sony BMG.

Ohga is the man who, in what might be a bit of an urban myth, persuaded the Sony-Philips team that CDs should be twelve centimetres across, in order to accommodate the full 75 minutes of Beethoven's Ninth.

Norio Ohga, who was 81, died from massive organ failure.

Gennaro Castaldo Watch: An astonishing new world awaits

Who is this turning up at the Music Tank event, Never Mind the Box Set: The Album Post-iTunes? Why, HMV's future-facing one-man knowopolis Gennaro Castaldo:

An audience member Gennaro Castaldo, head of press and PR at U.K. entertainment retailer HMV, disclosed that HMV customers will "soon be able to buy the physical [release] and find a digital file also waiting for them when they get home." He agreed HMV would need the labels' support for such a strategy.

Yes, Gennaro - presuming they've given all their details over to HMV. Or they could just go home and slip the disc into their computer and, why, they'd find a digital file waiting for them already. Given that ripping a CD is one of the easiest things you can do with a computer, is anyone really going to be bothered to hand over email details to HMV to save the no-effort?

The end of the Linn: CD players dumped

Linn have announced that they're ceasing production of CD players:

Gilad Tiefenbrun, managing director of Linn Products, said: "Our customers have fast recognised the limitations of CD players and in the age of home networking, people now want better control of their music and the ability to enjoy it in any room of their home.

"CD players no longer belong in the specialist domain."

To be honest, I suspect hi-fi heads have been looking for an excuse to drop the format ever since you started to be able to buy CD players for less than a couple of hundred quid - the joy of owning them for early adopters was more in pretending that they were worth all the extra bunce you had to drop and the sense of exclusivity. Now, they're to be left to the sort of people who shop in Argos, once and for all.

[via @emalyse]

Major labels lose bid to outlaw CD ripping in Germany

Back in 2003, Germany introduced a law which - quite sensibly - enshrined the principle that if you buy a CD, you can do with it such things as are necessary to enable you to enjoy your property. Making a copy to play in the car, putting the files onto your computer. That sort of thing.

As if determined to waste money on court cases designed to prove their dunerheaded greed, the RIAA labels have been trying to have the law struck out.

The attempt has been thrown out on a technical point - the music industry should have raised its objections in 2004, under German law. I don't think anyone is going be surprised it's taken the labels half a decade to work out how they're going to respond to a new development.

To be fair, their contention was that the law was repeated in a 2008 bill, which they claimed made it 'new' legislation. From an industry which thinks sticking a couple of video tracks on the end of an album makes something a new album, that's not surprising.

And are they taking their defeat well?

Stefan Michalk, managing director of the association of the German music-industry (BVMI), commented: "The interpretation of the German Federal Constitutional Court is controversial, also among experts of German constitutional law. Before filing the claim we were aware of the risks, but we had to take our chance because the fact of whether private copying is legal or not is of such a big importance for the record business. For us it is still very questionable that the court refused our claim for formal reasons."

Michalk doesn't appear to explain why the record labels are pouring money into trying to have a court rule that their product should be less useful than it already is. At a time when hardly anyone wants to buy CDs, they're pushing a court to criminalise their few remaining customers for doing something that has no real impact on their business at all.

Record labels: People are not going to buy two copies of the same CD just to use them in two different places. If you tell them that copying their own CD for their own personal use is a crime, they might well conclude that you might as well be hung for a lamb, and go straight to the not buying anything stage. Thank the German courts for saving what remains of your business from your own stupid impulses, and move on.

Everyone still loves you, small plastic circle

Some interesting data from the Leading Question [pdf] this morning, which suggests that in the UK, the CD is still people's first choice for music:

• 73% of music fans are still happy buying CDs rather than downloading
• 66% of 14-18 year olds prefer CDs
• 59% of all music fans still listen to CDs every day
• CD burning is top of all sharing activities (23%), above bluetoothing (18%),
filesharing single tracks (17%) and filesharing albums (13%)

The conclusion, surely, is if people still love buying CDs, but aren't buying as many of them, then there must be something wrong the offering of the product.

Those who are paying for a digital music subscription service (such as Napster or
Musicstation) spend more on CDs each month than most music fans (£16.87 per
month compared to £11.37).
• Music streamers (ie those who listen to streamed music on their computers every
day) also spend more on CDs (£12.17 a month) and downloads (£7.02 per month
compared with a survey average of £3.81) than most music fans.

I don't think it would be unfair to extrapolate from that 'people who collect digital music' generally are more likely to be buying music in whatever form.

Digital ate my music industry

There have been some awful explanations and pretty intense finger-pointing in the bid to find out what killed the music industry (or at least, what the RIAA-PRS believes to be the music industry). Joe Mardin is pointing his finger firmly at the CD.

Yes, the CD:

“In a way, the CD is what destroyed the music business,” says Joe Mardin, a musician, producer, arranger, and engineer. Mardin grew up in the music business; his father was Ardiff Mardin, the legendary producer of Hall & Oats, Norah Jones, Aretha Franklin, and others. “People were buying millions of CDs to replace their catalog," says Mardin, explaining how industry greed ended up killing the Golden Goose. “There was this imperative that started to emerge: 'You must fill up a CD with as much music as possible,’” Mardin says. “The rest was filler. You ended up with albums that were one or two hits and a bunch of wanna-be hits.” The record industry itself killed the album, trying to maximize profits.

So... having a format which persuaded people to rebuy the records they'd already owned with the promise of some sort of better experience was bad for the music industry?

I'm not sure I buy the idea that there ever was an imperative to "fill up" CDs, either - certainly, there's been enough lightweight releases in the last decade to suggest that some people were immune. And hasn't 'one or two tracks you want, and the rest so much bilge' been pretty much the standard set-up for an album since someone said "how about if we spin it at thirty-three and third?"

But even if you take Mardin at his word, he still makes no sense at all - if the music industry put out a load of tosh and killed off their audience, would you blame that on a small, inert, plastic disc - or, perhaps, the music industry management who took the decision? "Idiotic management decisions and greed killed the music industry" is both more honest, and a banner that many of us would be able to march behind.

[Thanks to Sarah D for the link]

UPDATE: Was going to stick this in the comments, but it probably deserves a higher profile - Peter Gorman on album length and the CD

Free Sigur Ros

The Independent - yes, it's still going - is attempting to boost its circulation with a free Sigur Ros album this Saturday.

Now, I love Sigur Ros, and look forward to Saturday and picking up some free music from them. But... they're not exactly the band I'd be looking to in order to try and turn around the slump in the Indie's fortunes. Couldn't their columnist Alex James whip up something with his newly refound chums?

Is it real, or is it Memorex

For reasons that aren't entirely clear, scientists at the University of Granada have come up with a way of telling the difference between "genuine" and "pirated" CDs:

Through the new technique proposed by the scientists of the Department of Optics of the UGR it is possible to identify if a CD has been recorded using a method or a device different to those used in industrial processes, which allows to differentiate between original CDs and copies. This technique uses the phenomenon of light diffraction on a CD surface to appreciate the differences between original and bootleg CDs, as they generate different types of diffraction models.

Of course, a cheaper way is to compare if you've bought the CD from a shop, or off that bloke Dave who works with Aileen down the council depot. But you don't, presumably, find the same level of research funding for that technique.

Foreigner affairs

Good news for Americans who refuse to buy CDs unless they have that FBI warning on the sleeve: Johnny Foreigner is getting a US release for Waited Up Til It Was Dark. Not til October, mind.

Meanwhile, enjoy some video fun with the JFs.

No money shifting CDs

The physical music market has lost a major company this week, with the announcement that Handleman will handle CDs no longer. They're the US company whose main interest in the music industry was shipping products to WalMart stores. Their official announcement makes it clear that they don't see much profit in the business in future:

As to the timing of our decision, we took into consideration a number of factors, including indications from existing customers of their reluctance to maintain long-term relationships with multiple music distributors in a shrinking market, a growing question in our minds whether our key music suppliers would provide trade terms sufficient for us to support our customers for the peak holiday shipment season, and uncertainty whether our credit agreements would permit sufficient liquidity to operate normally through the upcoming Christmas season if our suppliers did not return to historical trade terms.

"Taking all these factors into consideration, we determined that exiting the North American music business now, in the transactions announced today, was in the best interest of our customers, vendors, employees, shareholders and other stakeholders. We regret the impact of this decision on many of our employees, and will do our best to assist them at this difficult time. We also will work with our valued customers and vendors to achieve a smooth, seamless and timely transition."

The bad news is for the 260 people who will be entering the US job market at a time when it's nowhere near its strongest.

The glimmer of hope, though, is Handleman's suggestion that the market isn't quite dead, but can no longer support "multiple" distributors.

The worry for the industry as whole, though, is the hint that the major labels are no longer in a position to offer stock on credit - even to its largest customers - in anything like enough quantities to allow it to function.

The conclusion is not that there is no market for records; but that the market is small, shrinking, and might become a specialist niche. After years of the big retailers crushing out the small, specialist stores, we could be about to see a major reverse.

Costello dumps CDs

Elvis Costello won't be bothering with CDs any more, he's decided: new album Momofuku is getting released on digital (in digital) and on vinyl only. The vinyl version will come with a code to allow a free digital download; we suspect if you buy it online you won't get sent a small black disc and a scratching device.

Why (or, perhaps because) HMV is trying to turn itself into a games store

Last year, for the first time, more cash was spent on games than music in retail stores in the UK, says the Entertainment Retailers Association.

More music items are still being bought, but in terms of actual pound notes changing hands, music has been eclipsed. And, we suspect, there's a much healthier mark-up on games.

It only takes a Midem, girl: MIDEM 2008

This weekend, the music industry is gathering for its annual back-slap and tax-write-off in the South of France at Midem.

Yes, yes, it's funny how an industry which can only be saved by changing the centuries-old relationship between creative people, the public and copyrights can still afford to have a big old bunfight in one of the most expensive places on Earth, isn't it?

The first big announcements of the event has come at a session with Vivendi CEO Jean-Bernard Lévy, who signalled that Universal is still fond of DRM, reports PaidContent:

"We are still testing (DRM-free models) - but our policy is still that we are strongly attached to DRM, especially for advertising-based models and subscription-based models."

Levy also predicted that CDs have a long - if not entirely glorious - future:

“People for many years will still buy physical products from shelves ... in Tesco and in Walmart. There is a very large segment of consumers, a very wide population that will still buy physical products. But we also understand that there is a decline. I believe there will be sales of physical products still for many years.”

We're not sure, judging by how Tesco and WalMart are reigning in their CD rackspace, that the stores feel that their customers are going to be buying physical products from them for very much longer. Nobody apparently asked him how this large segment of CD-buying punters can exist if the threat of download piracy is so great, but then much of the audience for Levy's speech is drawn from those of similar degrees of inconsistent thought.

Assuming anything else happens at Midem worth mentioning, we'll build a mini-index here
Sony BMG favour all-you-can-eat model
Harvey Goldsmith realises something's up
Qtrax: Legal peer-to-peer service announced
YouTube want to hand out cash... what's stopping them?
QTrax falls apart
RoyaltyShare threatens traditional collection agencies
QTrax: the "ink is not dry"
SpiralFrog battles bravely on
U2's camp calls for ISPs to be punished
John Kennedy wants broadband switched off for bad boys
QTrax: was it all a stock stunt?
FT smells restraint; misses QTrax's funny smell
Orange being hobbled by DRM

Gennaro Castaldo Watch: Phew

The news that In Rainbows is likely to take the number one slot in the album charts this week has come as something of a relief to Gennaro Castaldo:

"This demand underlines the enduring appeal of the CD," said HMV's Gennaro Castaldo.

Well, yes. Although it also kind of undermines the claims of the music industry that downloading music must harm physical sales, and if there's an "enduring appeal" to the CD, why are HMV so busily withdrawing from CD sales?

Users of "free" music buy more music, too - study

There's long been a defense - moral, if not legal - of people sharing music on peer-to-peer networks on the basis that they're probably the sort of people who buy more music than average anyway. Sure, it might be soft-stealing, but it's still your best customers.

Now, a survey has confirmed that to be true - at least in Canada. The Impact of Music Downloads and P2P File-Sharing on the Purchase of Music: A Study for Industry Canada has studied 2,100 Canadians and concludes:

our analysis of the Canadian P2P file-sharing subpopulation suggests that there is a strong positive relationship between P2P file-sharing and CD purchasing. That is, among Canadians actually engaged in it, P2P file-sharing increases CD purchasing. We estimate that the effect of one additional P2P download per month is to increase music purchasing by 0.44 CDs per year

It's important to note that they don't find filesharing increases CD sales as an absolute, but filesharing appears to make filesharers more likely to buy more music.

In effect, it's something the labels should at least see as a positive good, if not actively encourage. Based on this survey, anyway. And anecdotal evidence. And common sense.

Real Media disGraces itself

The once ubiquitous Gracenote CD look-up service is getting less ubiquitous all the time, with news that in future, Real will be using All Music Guide's rival - and cheaper - Lasso service to autopopulate the fields when you slip in a CD.

Bookmarks: Some stuff to read on the internet

Currybetdotnet recalls when Record Collector ruled the second-hand music industry:

If you've got an interest in music and music marketing, and have never read a copy, then you should grab one and have a look. Each month the magazine features in-depth articles and discographies of a range or artists from the fifties to (in my day) the nineties. There are a huge number of bands and artists that I know a wealth of information about because they were featured in Record Collector during my tenure at Reckless.

They often used freelance writers who were real specialists on one band or artist through being chairperson of the fan club or an ex-manager or something like that. I used to hope that one day I would get to write the definitive Record Collector article about one of my more obscure favourites, like Slab! or Globo or Tot or The Wolfgang Press or Clan of Xymox, but sadly that call never came.

And it is funny how you always seem to remember crushing blows to your ego many years later.

Bob Stanley delivers an overview of DRM and the persistence of vinyl in The Times:

Pop consumers, teenagers, have swung back to the spiritual beauty of the 7in-single, the album. To walk to school with one under your arm is a badge of honour. Downloads, by comparison, are so uncool.


The industry may dismiss this as a fleeting trend, but one group is taking it very seriously indeed. Having decided that no digital format is stable enough for posterity, the Church of Scientology has been pressing the collected thoughts of L. Ron Hubbard on to futuristic, nondigital, unbreakable, good old-fashioned vinyl.

Meanwhile, BBC News celebrates the 25th anniversary of the CD:

Jacques Heemskerk, who was one of the senior engineers involved with the optical side of CD players, said the team knew they were building a revolutionary product.

"It was revolutionary in many fields - the optics were new, the disc was new. At the start of development there wasn't even a laser that would work well enough for our needs.

"The most advanced laser at the time had a lifespan of only 100 hours."

He said the company had always planned on the format lasting at least 20 to 25 years.

"That was the model we had in mind although it seems that CD is going to last a lot longer than that. For many people the CD is still the original format, with others being derivative or back-ups."

Some more formats! Yes, a confused marketplace is a healthy marketplace

A couple of weeks after Warners unveiled the MVI disc, which is effectively a CD with some watchable stuff lobbed on top, comes Disney's Hollywood Records with their brand-new CD-VU format. Which is, effectively, a CD with some watchable stuff lobbed on top.

Some grudging respect to the label for trying to interest an audience with something extra for their money, even if it is an uninspired idea to simply add in "digital magazine extras, song lyrics, band photos and other extras to boost fan loyalty" and hope that will do it. And since the bloody labels spend so much time coming together to plan how to shake down their customers for cash with legal threats, is it really beyond their wits to get together to co-operate before launching a range of similar-but-different new formats?

Oh, and while we're on new formats: Scratch and sniff CDs. We can't begin to guess what a Smashing Pumpkins album would reek of.