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THE INDUSTRY STANDARD'S
B E A T S H E E T
A Weekly Report on the Convergence of Music and the Net
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| http://www.thestandard.com |
Tuesday, June 6, 2000
TOP STORY:
* My My, Hey Hey
Myplay's David Pakman talks about everything but the rumored Yahoo
buyout
NET NOISE:
* Scour.com
UPBEAT:
* Shades of Gray
Indie Musician and Label-Owner Jenny Toomey takes a stand
* Dot Dot Dot
Madonna's "Music" ... Offspring + Napster = T-Shirts ...
Prince 2 Type 4 U
SOUND OFF:
* Would security concerns prevent you from sharing music files?
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TOP STORY
~~~~~~~~~
My My, Hey Hey
Myplay's David Pakman talks about everything but the rumored Yahoo
buyout
by Julene Snyder
Last week brought rumors that megaportal Yahoo was finalizing plans to
acquire privately held Myplay.com for a whopping $200 million
according to CNET and others.
It's a juicy rumor, but Myplay Senior VP of Business Development David
Pakman would rather not talk about it.
Pakman, however, is happy to talk about the company he cofounded with
Doug Camplejohn, which launched in October of 1999. He's got a lot to
say about the firm's latest round of financing that brought in $18
million from investors like Vulcan Ventures, Paul Allen's investment
property. Pakman is eager to discuss new features like the company's
Infinite Locker, which lets users transfer MP3 files to the site for
personal use with impunity. In the meantime, the Yahoo rumor will
remain just that.
Myplay bills itself as the "legal and industry-supported Web-based
service that simplifies the digital music experience for the
consumer." Pakman isn't releasing numbers (of visitors, of songs up-
and downloaded, of revenue, or of how many people hold stock in the
privately held firm), though the company is nowhere to be found on the
current list of hot music sites compiled by 100hot.com. Nonetheless,
major partnerships abound. A few months ago, the company hooked up
with America Online to integrate its digital music locker with AOL's
Spinner.com and Winamp Internet music services. How that deal will be
impacted if Yahoo gets into the picture is unclear.
"We've gone through a significant amount of improvement since we
launched," says Pakman, "all really focused around the user
experience, and making things easier for them. We released a new
version of our dropbox which lets people [take] their entire
music collections from their local computer and batch upload them all
into their locker." This new feature lets users add music they
purchase from MyPlay partners like Emusic, Rollingstone.com and Winamp
directly to their 'infinite locker' without affecting their standard
3GB storage limit.
Like MP3.com's recently litigated MyMP3.com service, Myplay lets users
listen to their MP3 files anywhere. Unlike MyMP3, visitors must upload
their songs to their locker before they can listen to them; thus,
Myplay hopes to avoid the problem MP3 encountered when it uploaded
directly from its own collection. "We follow the law," Pakman says
flatly. "Sites like MP3.com, that blatantly broke the law, well,
that's a good way to end up in court," he says. "Myplay doesn't create
an archive of recordings. Myplay doesn't go out and illegally copy
large amounts of music that it then, at its own discretion, gives to
you."
At Myplay.com you can find playlists categorized into 16 genres,
ranging from alternative to pop to world music and handily organized
to show you the top 10 in each category. If you happen across someone
whose music taste fits yours, it's a painless way to listen to music
online. Although the company goes to great lengths to stay within
legal boundaries, users have considerably more latitude. It's an easy
proposition to download an MP3 file from a site like Napster or
Gnutella, upload it to your computer and transfer it to your Myplay
locker. Wipe it from your own hard drive if you're concerned about MP3
files hogging space, and voila - you've got a handy place to park a
boatload of music.
While 3GBs of locker space sounds like a lot (the equivalent of 60 CDs
at 128Kbps or 300 CDs at 24Kpbs, according to the company) there are
apparently plenty of people who need more room to store their
ever-expanding MP3 collections, hence the new "infinite locker"
feature. Pakman concedes that there's currently no technology in place
to stop users from signing up under more than one username and
password to get another 3GBs if they run out of space. "We don't allow
you to buy more space," says Pakman. "Every individual user gets up to
3GBs of fixed space and infinite space when it comes from
[partners on] the Web, but there's nothing preventing you from
opening up more than one locker today."
Of course, today, Myplay is a privately held company that's relatively
new to the digital-music scene. Tomorrow, it may become part of
something larger. One last try: "Mr. Pakman, do you have anything to
say about that?" "No," he says.
So much for that exclusive.
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NET NOISE
~~~~~~~~~
Scour.com
Hmm. Verrrry interesting. If you're waiting for the old "but stupid"
"Laugh-In" punchline, you're in for a long wait, because Scour.com is
anything but. Along with original content like movies, videos and
reviews, the Los Angeles-based company recently released Scour
Exchange, a file-sharing program that searches a vast shared database
for MP3s, videos and still pictures that you can download with
impunity. (Sound familiar?) At most times, there are at least 10,000
people logged on and sharing files, a number that will doubtless grow
since the service was just launched a few weeks ago. Scour Exchange
itself is a snap to install and use, and downloading is quick, so long
as you make sure that the connection speed of the person whose file
you're sharing is at least as fast as that of a cable modem. Is it
legal? Well, of course! After all, you have to sign an agreement that
reads in part, "Scour respects copyright and other laws and expects SX
and other Scour users to do the same." Besides, Hollywood powerhouse
Michael Ovitz is part-owner. Nudge nudge, wink wink, say no more.
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UPBEAT
~~~~~~
Shades of Gray
Indie Musician and Label-Owner Jenny Toomey takes a stand
The Napster debate is polarizing people into camps divided by a
sharply drawn line in the sand, but a new voice spoke out this week
for independent artists. Jenny Toomey recently cofounded the Coalition
for the Future of Music, designed to give an alternative voice to the
music industry. The singer-guitarist for Tsunami and co-owner of the
indie label, Simple Machines, examines the Napster debate and lays out
the organization's mission to serve as a bridge between artists,
techies and the legal community.
Read more at
http://www.thestandard.com/article/display/0,1151,15718,00.html?nl=bts
Dot Dot Dot
Madonna's "Music" ... Offspring + Napster = T-Shirts ... Prince 2 Type
4 U
Bits of the title track from Madonna's confusingly dubbed "Music"
record apparently turned up online this week, prompting sputters of
indignation from her manager, who issued a statement saying "the music
was stolen and not intended for release." While speculation that the
track may have been deliberately leaked to drum up interest in the
once-relevant icon's upcoming album is entertaining, but unlikely to
be proved Š It's been a busy week for frat-rockers the Offspring.
First, the band announced the availability of unauthorized Napster
merchandise on its Web site, thumbing its nose at Napster. Offspring
stated that if Napster sued the band, it would be exposing a "huge
hypocrisy." Just one day later, the band got slapped with a "cease and
desist" order from Napster. Everybody kissed and made up almost
immediately with an announcement that "Napster and the Offspring have
agreed to work together to offer a more complete line of Napster
products" with profits going to an undetermined charitable foundation.
So much for smashing it up .Š Unpronounceable Symbol - oops, we
mean Prince - will be on AOL this Thursday at 9 p.m. (EST) for a chat.
Expect lots of cutesy writing quirks like this tip for Courtney Love
posted on the Purple One's Web site: "Please change ur band's name 2
WHOLE."
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SOUND OFF
~~~~~~~~~
This week's question: Would security concerns prevent you from sharing
music files?
E-mail your opinions to julene@well.com with "sound off" in the
subject line, and we'll print a selection of the responses in next
week's newsletter. Letters may be edited for clarity and length, so
keep them short and include your name and affiliation, if any.
Last weeks question: Would you buy more digital music downloads from a
particular e-retailer if it meant you'd get free stuff like speakers
and CD burners?
"I wouldn't pay to download more music because I can get it for free
through Napster." - Thomas Frank
"Lemme think ... Buy 10 MP3s get a free portable player vs. buy 10
MP3s and get nothing? EMusics' offer to give a Nomad II portable MP3
player valued at $200 if you download $50 worth of music is exactly
what promotion is all about. It's a partnership intended to draw users
to EMusic and make digital downloads more attractive. What good is a
download without a player? What good is a player without a download?
This promotion would bring traffic and revenue to any site offering
downloads; EMusic was simply the first to arrange it." - Rick Dickow,
Sales Development Associate DoDots
"Depends on the pricing of the download and my perceived value of the
free stuff. If the pricing of the download closely mirrors my
perceived value of the free stuff, I would buy the digital music
download. In my opinion, the price of digital music downloads should
be zero or near zero, reflecting the low cost of reproduction (but
higher sunk costs). From a business perspective, this can be an
interesting e-tailer experiment, to discern which users are loyal,
hard-core fans that value a particular music download highly. Those
who would buy the particular music download in a situation when no
free stuff was offered would be a more desirable segment than those
who would buy the same music download in a situation when free stuff
was offered." - Mark Pui VP of Operations, Finance and Content
Development Music4nothing.com
STAFF
~~~~~
Written by Julene Snyder. Send news tips and press releases to
julene@well.com.
Edited by Steven Zeitchik (szeitchik@thestandard.com).
Copyedited by Elese Veeh (eveeh@thestandard.com).
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