Irony

Just a quick one here, but Gerd Leonhard, self-proclaimed "media futurist" and shameless self-promoter, has released a new book, Music2.0. I admittedly have not looked too deeply into a lot of Leonhard's positions because so many of them sound foolish and ignorant on their face. From what I gather, his main vision is that recorded music as a commodity is a thing of the past, and he seems to be a huge proponent of using recorded music only as a means to get eyeballs for advertisements.

So I really find it funny that Leonhard, who thinks that copyrighted material should be subject to blanket licenses and distributed rather freely, and should depend on whatever means other than traditional sales to generate revenue, has a book for sale . . . for sale, through eBay. The "buy it now" price? $45!!! Sure, he let's you bid on it, starting at the modest reserve price of $12.99, though that's barely less than a CD at retail.

Why doesn't he just post it on his MySpace page, let people read it there for free, and hope he gets a few ad clicks in the process? If he can beat Billy Bragg over the head for speaking out against Bebo and other social networks' for their use of music, why is he releasing his book in such a traditional manner?

He's obviously a smart guy and I'm sure he has a brilliant answer to this question; I'd just love to know what it is.

OneRepublic Makes Forbes List

Thanks to hypebot for pointing to Forbes' article, The Year's Hottest New Music Stars. As Bruce points out, no one will care about most of these artists in 6 months, though I hope one artists who's not included in that forgettable "most" is #10 on Forbes' list, OneRepublic, which also happens to be a client. ;) It's cool that they are mentioned here because Forbes took so many things into account, including digital track downloads and album sales, ringtones, press mentions, and activity on peer-to-peer networks, though I obviously have some mixed feelings about that last category.

Vinyl + Free Downloads = Way to Go

I read this morning on Digital Music News that Elvis Costello will release his upcoming album, Momofuku, on vinyl and digital download only. DMN points out, apparently with some surprise, that a free download code comes with each album.

To anyone who's bought vinyl over the last couple of years, getting a free download of the album is nothing new and, in my opinion, is a brilliant idea. It provides the best of both worlds - highest-possible quality plus portability. I get the vinyl for my home and the free download for my iPod.

I've always been a proponent of highest quality audio, which is why I still loathe the MP3 format, and all "lossy" formats generally. However, if I'm only listening to it in my car or with earbuds then sometimes I'm willing to accept lesser quality. If it's a particularly special album, one that might highlight the imperfections in digital compression, then I'll rip the album to digital on my own, using my own settings and file formats.

The label's strategy for vinyl + download, however, satisfies the wants and needs of 99.99% of the population. As I've written on several other occasions, vinyl is the wise and relevant answer to the music industry's woes - it gives consumers a physical product with better sound quality than any download, and it even comes with artwork, liner notes, and sometimes even lyrics. Best of all, it is valuable and it cannot be duplicated.

CDs succeeded over vinyl not because of sound quality but because of convenience (portability, durability, ability to easily jump to tracks). Virtually all popular digital formats are successful over CDs because of even greater convenience (even more portable, even more durable, even greater flexibility in song selection). However, most MP3s sound considerably worse than CDs and CDs, while nice, still do not sound as good as vinyl.

Vinyl is not nostalgia. Vinyl is simply a better medium for delivering music. The only thing it lacks is convenience, a problem easily solved with free digital downloads.

Since a download is virtually free to distribute (bandwidth notwithstanding), and since a downloaded track provides all the things that vinyl lacks, it makes complete sense to offer downloads together with vinyl. As I pointed out before, cutting CDs out of the distribution picture is all but inevitable because the fidelity is gotten from the record and the convenience from the download; the CD offers nothing over these two formats and is likely to go the way of the 8-track.

Way to go, Elvis Costello.

hypebot Commentary on Pre-loaded iPod

Check out this article from Bruce @ hypebot - basically pointing out the negative impact on artists that could result from Apple's plan to preload iPods with music. Bruce also shames the majors for continuing to cede more power to device makers, and self-inducing a continued devaluation in recorded music.

Fraud in Trademark Filings: It's Closer Than You Think

John Welch at the TTABlog is a great resource for keeping up with the current state of affairs in trademark law. He recently pointed to a case where a trademark registration was invalidated because the Board found that the registrant had committed a fraud on the office. The fraud was committed when the registrant alleged in a statement of use that all the goods and services identified in a class were in use, when in fact only some of those goods/services were being used.

TTABlog now provides a very well-written article on the current state of affairs in fraud matters at the PTO. The article is by Carrie Webb Olson and is a must-read for all trademark owners and their attorneys.