Does Google have a personal vendetta against smaller blogs that maintain a solid readership? Yesterday evening they shutdown a premiere film site called The Playlist for some unknown reason, making it the latest casualty in a long line of sites destroyed by the host.
In a move to bolster its search engine features, Google is about to shake up the music streaming and download ‘biz. The search behemoth intends to launch a music service that would give users the opportunity to buy songs or listen to the tracks for free on its main results page, according to a report from the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday.
Music services Lala and iLike will provide the song previews and sales.
Patrick Walker, the Head of Video Partnerships at YouTube, outlined the site’s efforts in making progress towards deals with artists and royalty collecting groups at The Great Escape Festival in Brighton. Youtube blocked all premium music videos in the UK, after a failed deal with PRS for Music in March. Walker told the BCC that everything is “great” with the major labels. As for PRS, he said:
“We’re working very hard to come to an arrangement with PRS and we won’t strike a deal unless it makes economic sense. They’ve been a good partner in the negotiations and we’re trying to come up with something that makes sense for everyone involved. Ultimately no-one wins if the videos stay off the service, so we’re trying to come up with a win-win scenario.”
Vivendi, owner of Universal Music Group, posted a 16 percent rise in earnings for the first quarter of the fiscal year. Chief Financial Officer Philippe Capron said that they “can see some impact of the recession on our activities, but most are protected by subscriptions.” Primarily the millions of subscribers to World Of Warcraft, the online multiplayer game from Vivendi-owned Activision Blizzard.
Universal Music was able to maintain its earnings at $1.04 billion, with digital sales accounting for 28 percent of recorded music sales revenue. The artists seem to be in good hands, and the upcoming partnership with Google to create the music video site Vevo.com, could amend declining CD sales.
After getting repeatedly sued by major labels, music search engine Seeqpod filed for bankruptcy in early April 2009. But now CEO Kasian Franks says Seeqpod will avoid shutting down because a large company is going to buy it. He told Wired that Seeqpod is now in “final acquisition talks” with a partner that “is in the [same] position” as Apple, Google or Live Nation.
Seeqpod was supposed to be protected by the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA), which lets search engines link to any content, so long as they take down allegedly infringing links at the copyright holder’s request. But the recording industry seems to be oblivious to the Act, and has continued to pummel music search engines like Seeqpod, Muxtape and MP3Tunes with lawsuits.
Hulu, the site that offers free streaming TV shows and movies, is trying to strike deals with major labels Universal, EMI, Sony and Warner to host music videos. The dealings indicate that Hulu is planning to compete directly with YouTube-backed music video site Vevo.com, which is expected to launch later this year.
YouTube has already teamed up with Universal Music Group (UMG) for Vevo, but is also interested in negotiating the addition of the remaining labels to the new video site. Ironically, if all goes as planned, Hulu and Vevo will both stream the exact same music videos licensed from the same labels. They will undoubtedly be contending with each other for our attention in the near future, but if they are offering the same content, how will we choose between the two?
PRS for Music, a collecting society for UK songwriters, composers and music publishers, confirmed yesterday that it agreed “commercial terms” with music streaming service Spotify. PRS for Music wants to force YouTube/Google into a deal to pay for the use of UK music, and supposedly the agreement with Spotify shows that such arrangements are possible with streaming services.
Guy Chambers, who wrote the Robbie Williams hit Angels, said: “Google is manipulating the PRS for Music dispute in a deeply cynical way; to confuse the public into believing that the industry is outdated and behaving in a protectionist manner.”
With all the music streaming and download services available, it’s difficult to decide which one to use. iTunes recently introduced their tiered pricing, but Amazon is selling top-tier songs at a cheaper price. Even though iTunes controls the download market, fans looking to buy music might be enticed by Amazon’s price drop.
On the free streaming front, Spotify released libspotify Tuesday night, which allows third-party developers to write applications for the service, and YouTube, though reported to have blocked “premium” videos in the UK and Germany, still provides most music for free, through user-made videos.
Today, German music fans visiting YouTube will be frustrated, because certain videos have been blocked as the result of a failed licensing deal between Google and German organization GEMA.
GEMA represents 60,000 German artists, and said in a statement that incident is “similar to what happened in Britain two weeks ago.” We reported on the blocked videos in Britain, and the ensuing revolt of PRS for Music and the Featured Artists Coalition. Will there be a similar rebellion in Germany?
