Damien Saunders

Damien Saunders says -research shows continued growth in file-sharing and downloading of mp3s is now common place. This survey supports the view that prosecuting the mass population is not the right approach by the labels and rights associations.

British Music Rights research shows that file-sharing is done by a large number of people and even more are downloading music.

Music week reports these findings:

42% of those surveyed say they have uploaded files.

63% of people illegally download

48% of tracks on the average MP3 player are not paid for

just 15% of respondents are persuaded not to upload because of the risk of getting caught

95% engage in some form of copying

Source: http://www.musicweek.com/story.asp?sectioncode=1&storycode=1034563&c=1

Vodafone has agreed to acquire 100% of ZYB which operates a social networking and online management tool enabling mobile phone users to back-up and share their handsets’ contact and calendar information online.

Source: http://www.vodafone.com/start/media_relations/news/group_press_releases/2007/vodafone_announces5.html

Vodafone has launched its Vodafone Music Manager software for your PC. The new software allows you to browse, buy and play music on your computer. Additionally it will sync or sideload music to your mobile phone.

When you shop, you are buying songs and tracks encoded with Windows DRM, but you are able to copy this to a number of devices and of course burn to CD.

Sideloading is simple -  as the DRM rights object gets sent to your phone when you buy something. Connect your phone to the PC, run the software and select the tracks to copy.

Vodafone Music Manager is currently available in Germany and Italy. You might need to click on the link to Music Manager after confirming you are running windows/internet explorer.

Vodafone today announced it has signed an agreement with Apple to sell the iPhone in ten of its markets around the globe. Later this year, Vodafone customers in Australia, the Czech Republic, Egypt, Greece, Italy, India, Portugal, New Zealand, South Africa and Turkey will be able to purchase the iPhone for use on the Vodafone network.

Comment: Shows how far technology has come to enable Vodafone users in 14 countries to watch Madonna perform fron New York on their mobile or PC

FROM NEW YORK’S ROSELAND BALLROOM ON 30 APRIL 2008

• Show to be broadcast live on 30 April 2008 from Roseland Ballroom in New York City on Vodafone live! and from www.vodafone.com/music
• Social networking technology will allow customers to chat to other online show goers and change camera angles to capture the atmosphere, excitement and vibe of this unique event
• Vodafone customers will have an opportunity to win tickets to the event and become one of the lucky few to see Madonna perform in person

This has many implications - first is drive awareness of Vodafone Music as not just a ringtones shop and could now help internet usage. This will showcase state of the art technology with a simulcast live on PC and mobile.

The show will also be replayed on mobile for up to 2 weeks and users can join a replay on their PC at specific times and chat to others watching the show.

Vodafone’s brand appeal grew 75% in the last year to number 1 UK brand in the Financial Times annual brandz listing on Monday.

Vodafone moved to position 11 in the global brands list up from 22 and was number 2 in Europe and in the Mobile sector.

source details see http://www.ft.com/reports/globalbrands2008.

Hard Candy - Madonna’s new album today is available exclusively on your mobile in a number of countries from New Zealand to the UK.

Each day customers can download to their mobile or PC one track from the album - 7 tracks in 7 days and on the last day, all tracks from the album will be available.

This is a first for Madonna as we all learned when 4 Minutes was made available also to Vodafone around the world in an exclusive.

Apple has changed its tactics - a few weeks ago it launched Safari as a part of an update for iTunes users. Safari will now be changed from an update to new software not installed.

Many people rightly pointed out that this was a shady tactic to get software on peoples computers.

source: http://blog.wired.com/monkeybites/2008/04/apple-appeases.html

Comment: Internet traffic to the iPlayer site is growing rapidly supported by outside advertising posterboards as well as reminders during TV advertising. However a lot of internet traffic seems to be sucked up by their kservices P2P network which aims to share the downloaded files with other iPlayer users.

UK Internet traffic to the BBC’s iPlayer website increased 14-fold between the week ending 8 December 2007 and the week ending 5 January. The online catch-up TV service ranked as the 80th most visited website in the UK for the week ending 5 January 2008, having peaked at number 62 on New Year’s Day.

The BBC heavily promoted iPlayer on TV and in the press over the Christmas period and it seems to have paid off. Searches for ‘iPlayer’ increased 15-fold over the last month, and one fifth of the site’s traffic came from search engines last week. UK TV viewers are also finding iPlayer when searching for their favourite BBC programs online: ‘eastenders’ was the most popular non-navigational search term sending traffic to the site over the last month. Other popular program searches sending traffic to the site were ‘live at the apollo’, ‘three men in another boat’ and ‘holby city’.

source: hitwise.com

comment: The reason that Apple charges different retail prices in each market is due to the differences in wholesale prices charged in each market by the major labels. Apple could use this as leverage against the labels to lower their prices in all major EU markets