“It’s called trusting the consumer.” This was the final quote from Phil Wiser, Sony Music Chief Technology Officer, in a recent Reuters inteview regarding the release of Sony’s own copy-protection format- a format that for now can only be played on Sony portable players. There are obvious consumer dissatisfaction issues that arise as competitive copy-protection [...]

What role within the entertainment experience does a music label play when the marketing equation is not meant to answer the question “what music should I buy,” but rather “what song should I listen to.” Recent deals involving the bundling of music subscription systems with other services (Napster with Penn State University, Rhapsody with Comcast, [...]

What role within the entertainment experience does a music label play when the marketing equation is not meant to answer the question “what music should I buy,” but rather “what song should I listen to.” Recent deals involving the bundling of music subscription systems with other services (Napster with Penn State University, Rhapsody with Comcast, [...]

A little story at the Indian Economic Times, followed by Cnet report MTV claims to be working on a download system to compete with iTunes et al. MTV has done this download stuff before, through the now, not-so-downloadable Rioport- a downloadable music service closed in July 2003 by its new owner Ecast. I think analysts [...]

This little patent was enough to bring me back from the dead. In 1992, SightSound was granted a nifty little patent over the crazy idea called “electronic sales and distribution of digital audio or video signals” – basically, the business which is selling downloadable music and video files. The company then sued or negotiated with [...]