jGerson
I’ve read a lot of negative comments regarding Jim Jones’ album sales this week, and I must say they’re uncalled for. He didn’t break the 100k mark, but if you ask me, the Capo’s winning. He dropped this album independently with very little promotion and it still debuted in the top 20 – that’s called grinding.
If you notice, a majority of these album sales are still physical. I often feel in the minority because I want to actually skim through the liner notes when I listen to an album, so it’s nice to see a vast majority of hip-hop fans share the same sentiment when they make their purchases.
Jim Jones “Capo” – 21,072 (18% digital)
Brotha Lynch Hung “Coathanga Strangla” – 7,274 (19% digital)
ILL Bill & Vinnie Paz “Heavy Metal Kings” – 2,357 (54% digital)
Blueprint “Adventures In Counter-Culture” – 1,998 (32% digital)
Ab-Soul “Longterm Mentality” – 1,225 (100% digital)
Rapper Big Pooh “Fat Boy Fresh Vol. 1: For Members Only” – 1,082 (100% digital)
J Rocc “Some Cold Rock Stuf” – 529 (32% digital)
Bone Brothers (Bizzy Bone & Layzie Bone) “Bone Brother IV” – 219 (32% digital)
Kool Keith “The Legend Of Tashan Dorrsett” – 23 (100% digital)
Warner Music Group has reportedly rejected offers to buy assets from the company in favor of putting the entire corporation on the market. The Wall Street Journal reports, Warner “could reach an agreement [for the whole company] within weeks.” This comes after reports of several bids being made of pieces of the company. A spokesman for Warner Music declined to comment.
Warner’s apparently been very hard to deal with…that is for Google at least. Google, which plans on launching its cloud based music service at some point in the near future, is none too happy with WMG. Warner is reportedly not budging on negotiations over liscensing their music to the tech conglomerate. Google wants to initially offer the service free of charge, while Warner apparently wants users to pay $30 a year off the bat.
This month, Amazon launched their Cloud storage system to the disdain of major record labels (like Warner) that are looking to renegotiate their licenses with the online retailer. Well it looks like these labels should start changing their tune because a handful of them are making more money than they were last month. By giving away 20 GB in storage with customer’s first MP3 album download, Amazon has created an incentive for people to actually buy music…and it’s working. Amazon is insistent that they don’t need additional licenses for the Cloud because it’s basically a virtual external hard drive. Regardless, Amazon’s planning to meet with labels today.
Growing up these days, kids are exposed to illegal file sharing at an early age. In fact, an overwhelming majority of them do not think they are doing anything wrong. In a recent study conducted by the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, nearly 200 college undergrads said they did not see illegal file sharing (piracy) as being akin to shoplifting. If you’ve watched a DVD in the past few years, chances are you’ve seen one of those bogus PSA’s where someone steals a car and then a caption comes up, reading, “you wouldn’t steal a car, so why would you steal a movie?” Guess what? Those don’t work! I didn’t think we needed a study to prove how laughable these ploys to deter piracy are, but apparently we did. The study also confirms that RIAA’s implemented system of suing downloaders is only a short term deterrent and has done little to stop piracy.
Yet, wouldn’t it be great for copyright holders if they could generate revenue from their illegally shared music? A Danish company known as 7 Sky Media and Bo Schønemann are aiming to make this a possibility. “Our software is designed to play all digital files and locate the copyright holders regardless of where the file came from,” said Schønemann. “We are the only company in the world that can offer the industry earnings from these vast quantities of music, from which they currently do not receive a single penny.” 7 Sky Media would embed its software in devices and a player, so that when a user plays pirated music an ad appears and revenue is shared with copyright holders. Users can also choose to pay a small fee to go ad-free.
