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[JimH]

[Harry the Hipster's post moved from another thread]

From an NYT article today re MM's radio service:
"It had sold about 1 million copies of its $20 premium software, Mudd said. Apart from being available over the Internet, MusicMatch is bundled with PCs from Dell, Hewlett-Packard (news/quote) and Gateway, and also comes with many portable digital music players."

They brand you, which is important. It's also a not-so-subtle form of peer review.

HTH

BTW, the rest of the article is interesting too. Discusses how MM's for-fee radio service is doing OK, while the d/l sites from the majors are sucking canal water.

"``We think this really does serve as an indication that MusicNet and Pressplay are going about this the wrong way,'' Mudd said.

For a subscription service to be successful, Mudd said, ``You need all the content from all the artists across the labels, it needs to be all you can eat and you need an easy way to find play lists and music that you want.''

Article is at http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/technology/tech-tech-musicmatch.html

[JimH]

The NY Times link requires a signup.  Here's another article:

http://biz.yahoo.com/rf/020220/n19125241_2.html

I do believe that MusicNet and Pressplay are struggling, but I don't believe MusicMatch's numbers.  For example, in this press release:

http://www.musicmatch.com/info/company/press/releases/?year=2002&release=2

they claim:

"MUSICMATCH Jukebox is enjoyed by more than 12 million music fans worldwide. "

I believe this is the total number of downloads they have had, and _not_ the number of users they have.  

The reason I say this is that their downloads are about 3X ours now (and we're catching them).  Here are numbers last week at CNET:

http://download.cnet.com/downloads/0,10151,0-1896422-106-0-1-10,00.html?tag=st.dl.1896422-106-1.lst-10.lst&

(Numbers on this page are also probably a little high because about half of the people downloading RealOne don't like it and have probably downloaded another jukebox after trying RealOne.)

If you assume their base is larger because they had an earlier start, you still can't get to 12,000,000 users.  I think the number is off by almost an order of magnitude.

The other way to arrive at a number is to take the number of employees (100|PLS|) and multiply by $150,000 to get their annual cost of doing business (wages, rent, advertising, etc).  This works out to around $15 million.  Divide this by $20 per program and you get 750,000 units sold each year.  Discount this number by some unknown percentage because MusicMatch admitted that they "plan to be profitable" by end of 2001.

[Alonso Nefarious]

HTH's link says:

>It had sold about 1 million copies of its $20 premium software, Mudd said.

Which is what you were getting at.

The NYT registration is free & worth doing, IMHO.

[Charlemagne 8]

"San Diego-based MusicMatch hoped to offer downloads at some point, but said current licensing terms by the labels were too restrictive and costly to make such a service viable."

Sound familiar?

[JimH]

Yes.  Thanks.  I read that after I wrote the above.  It's the first time I've seen a number that is believable.

Real, by the way, claimed 150,000,000 users last time I looked.

[Harry|PLS|The|PLS|Hipster]

Well, while we're debating the merits of various music delivery systems, the Copyright Arbitration Panel is recommending a royalty for streamed music 2x what is paid for live performances, even though there is already a royalty for the same on-the-air broadcast that's being streamed. To make it even more tasty, the royalty will be charged on a per listener/per file (or track) basis. This melds nicely with the most recent extension of copyright lives to 75 years (for corporate copyrights) and the life of the artist plus 95 years for individual copyrights.

So, pretty soon we can use our fancy software to stream 19th Century Buddhist chants from Tannu Tuva, piano rolls circa 1903 and glockenspiel bands from the Isle of Skye. Or alternatively, we can pay Messrs. Dowe Cheatem and How $40 a month to stream contemporary sounds from their proprietary programs at 32 kbps (put away your Total Recorder, King - that's going to be a capital offense in the New World Order).

Nice. I thought I'd seen every possible scam in the field I work in, but this takes a gold medal.

One glimmer of hope. The Supremes are going to take a closer look at these repeated extensions of copyright life. After all, the Constitution does make reference to a 'limited period' for copyright. Good luck - this one has longer odds than the Patriots did on the Las Vegas boards.

There are times I understand why the Weathermen tried to burn down the house.

HTH

[Charlemagne 8]

The Supremes - Stop! In the Name of Love.MP3

[KingSparta]

>> Put away your Total Recorder, King
don't use it

[zevele1]

Las summer MuscM was everywhere in France.With computer magazines,with rockmusic magazines,with players.Many many people had a try to it.Did they keep it?For a large part,yes.Why?Because in no english speaking countrys,the best software is the one in your mother tongue.This is the case with real and WinAmp as well.Few months ago was a HUDGE headline on zdnet france
       cdclone enfin en francais!!!!!cdclone in french at least!!!!!!
Because family,friends had it,i had a try for give them some help.But i hate all this windows,i hate the color blue,and even with the plus version[a free one i am not yet that dum] you get pop up for update to the radio.And i had a lot of problems with encoding,ripping
And i saw they had a very clever trick.When you make a cd for a friend-redbook,mp3,wma- you can include MusicM on it

Listening to Ryan Adam Gold......not a good record

[JimH]

> cdclone enfin en francais!!!!!cdclone in french at least!!!!!!

Je pense, c'est "cdclone in French at last" or "cdclone finally in French".

We hear your point about language, but the economics of this are difficult, and especially so when the program is changing daily.

Maybe we should convert to Latin, so more people have a chance...

[zevele1]

JimH
At last of cause,and not in the least "atleast"
What i mean is that if you give away your software,and you have this software in x languages,you will have much more people using it that if you are in one language.Therefore the hudge numbers from MM and Real are easy to understand.I do not see the point to put MediaJukebox numbers against this numbers.The much revelant number for you is the hardcore contingent of WinAmp users.This people are ready for MediaJukebox.WinAmp is an other case concerning languages,it is the users who did it,not WinAmp.Let's hope the same thing will happen to MediaJukebox
I do not use any program in french.If you understand french,have a  look to french translations,you will have a lot of fun.This is just ridiculous


listening to Dharma Bums Welcome-can't stand Adams

[claudio]

I have been only "playing" with digital music for some time, but never really seriously until the last year or so. I used to have a few mp3, wav etc here and there, but I was still using mostly CDs. Then I started my own business and working from home, so I began to listen to music more and more while working.. not that I couldn't before, but I felt that listening with headphones and similar at work was "isolating" me too much from the rest of the office, and speakers in a open space sw shop are no kosher.

So here at home the problem was that more often then not the cd in "loop" mode would drive me nuts : my full cd collection was 2 floors down and ,as every respectable geek, if I can't get there pushing my office chair it's definitely too far. So I started looking seriously in digital music. I did a few semi-manual rips (including renaming manually the tracks !!!), and then pretty quickly started looking for something better. When I tried MM I was pretty impressed, it did pretty much all I needed in a nicely integrated pkg. I bought the registered version and also registered to their MX radio. So for some time I was pretty happy and ripping away at my Cd collection, downloading music etc. Then I reached the point (probably when I crossed the 10 gb of music and I got an Archos Jukebox 20 GB) where organization and playlist became one of the most important thing, and realized that MM really sucks at that.

A few more searches and I discoverd MJ ... and I just loved it and it took me no time to switch... Actually that's not entirely true: I still use MM for the MX radio. I find it very convenient, realiable, with reasonably good selection, well priced and the music quality is very good compared to the average free streaming source.

So my generalization is that the opportunity for MJ is to catch user that are growing out of their existing music tools. I believe that trying to "dumb it down" to appeal to the first time user would not be the best strategy, since that part of the marketspace is already quite crowded with some well established brand and also because I believe as digital music matures there will be more and more need for the more advanced organization features ala MJ. Competion will not stay still but MJ has a significant advantage, so I believe it has a good chance.

Now subscription services are also obvioulsy very appealing for the substained revenues that they can generate, and I would say that is another area that should be looked at, but I don't have a lot of knowledge of the issues at stake. Again my personal view is that, with the current state of the digital music marketplace,  the MM Mx radio works for me (selection, price, quality): my only regret is that I need to use clunky MM to access it instead of my favorite jukebox!

Claudio

[Harry|PLS|The|PLS|Hipster]

Well, I guess this on-topic ......

How about integrating Web Media with a station locator like the old MIT program, now at

http://www.radio-locator.com/cgi-bin/home

Further to Claudio's point, this would add great functionality to a fine program.

Of course, if the legal trend continues, we'll be pretty much restricted to social notes from Radio Tirana ("The Xiantou family is pleased to announce the slaying of 3 members of the Hufid clan in retaliation for an offensive wedding toast delivered by a Hufid elder in 1838") and weather reports from Radio Bhutan.

HTH

[IQ10]

Hey Harry,

Maybe we got off course when we permitted any non-live perfomance. So from now on, only allow live performances.  Real time performance.  Wake the performers from their beds, negotiate a contract, schedule the time to perform, and charge each pair of eyes/ears that wish to experience the performance.

But what if the author was not the performer?  Hmmmmm ... Ok, the author must be present for the performance to be legal. Hmmm... but then what if more that one performer wanted to perform the same author's work at the same time?  Hmmm ... maybe just the proper level of control for the author! Make it illegal to perform an author's work without his presence! Rightfully rewarding of the author.

Hmmm ... but what if the author is dead.  Ok, if the author is dead, and has designated a proxy, and the proxy is present, then the work can be performed. Or maybe, dead or alive the author could authorize a performance, without being present. Of course, if dead, this would be the author's proxy. That way the author could sleep through the perfermance.  Or at least rest in peace.

Confiscate any equipement the first time it is used to provide anything but a real time performance.  Kind of like boxing matches, where if you wanted to view an old match, you would have to hire actors.  Any volunteers?

[former member]
Did the world become too smart for its own good, when we invented Digital Objects?