antti.vilpponen.net

I heard some very exciting news just a moment ago; Sony BMG drops DRM!

The fight that I was involved in as well through Olen Rikollinen? -campaign was not carried out in vain. All the largest record labels have finally dropped DRM (or have publicly announced to do so).

This just made my day.

That’s Hans Rosling going on about how we destroy our planet. He’s one of my new heroes :) The other two are definitely Kevin Rose and Evan Williams – two guys who have done incredible things online in terms of social web.

It’s 3.19 am, been awake for almost 24 hours, it’s time to get a few hours sleep and go conferencing again tomorrow. Like my friend said, or almost accused me of – I do actually do feel being here a bit like being in a candy store.

Widescreen mode, a previously unknown band to me, has been quoted in a Kauppalehti article on their record sales online. They have been on the official downloads list for 15 weeks (src) with their single Everlasting Bomb. Kauppalehti has written that the 15 week sales add up to about 100 000 purchased downloads. That’s a very good amount in Finland.

Now, to the problem itself: the sales don’t generate a lot of revenues for the band itself. This is nothing new and something I have been preaching about for a long time. The problem in my opinion is the business model. It may have worked in the age, when record shops reigned and bands needed distribution deals to break it big time – not to forget a proper amount of radio play.

However, in the age of the internet, this model does not work anymore – at least from the artist’s perspective. In my opinion, there are too many useless middlemen. Widescreen mode has created a phenomenon online with the help of their Mikseri page (an online music community supporting amateur bands), their IRC-gallery community and lots more. With regard to a group of supporters, they have quite a solid fan base online already – they are reaching to them directly in terms of communication, why not in sales?

Currently Widescreen mode sells their music through online music stores, which sell the song for around 1‚Ǩ. Teosto, record labels, the government and the music store all take bigger proportions for themselves than the band itself (my guess, but I’ve done some work in this sector and the figures are quite strong). Needless to say, the business model is very distorted. Radiohead did what bands should have been doing for a long time already, they sold their new album online directly from their own website and went even further with it – they let the users decide on the price!

It takes guts to work on the edge and take the risks (and eventually reap the rewards). However, in some cases it simply makes sense to forget and dump the old ways of doing business and go ahead with new ideas and methods. Because, when you stick to the safe ways of doing business you’re taking a risk of staying behind and dying slowly.

(Seth Godin has a good post on why industries don’t break the conventions of doing business and stick to the old safe ways of doing business.)

Sony has made a strategic move in it’s online music business and has decided to adopt Microsoft’s DRM as a technology for its online content. Sony had been trying push its proprietary ATRAC along with its own music player for PCs. Smart move, although I don’t support DRM that much. I guess Sony was trying to go the Apple way and create their “own” DRM that would create a technology lock on their customers – thus artificially enhance customer loyalty.

Apple has an incredible customer base, which is full of evangelists that promote Apple and support them in their products and decisions. Sony doesn’t have this. It’s quite obvious that even Apple was taking a gamble with their “own DRM”, but succeeded in it because they were the first to market with their iTunes music store (that actually took the customer point of view of shopping for music) as well as the sleek and cool iPods that were once again superior to products already on the market. Sony didn’t have any of this with their online strategy.

So why try to create a walled garden in very competitive market? Beats me. Sometimes these decisions are made so high up, based on figures and calculations by highly paid consultants that money is poured into the most stupidest of ideas.

(via Guardian Unlimited)

For the sake of May 1st, this is the song for “The Official Finland”. Pro Patria – happy May 1st :)

Sit?§ tiesitk?? ennen ollenkaan
maamme kolmeen kastiin jaetaan
arkit??iss?§?§n rehkii varsinainen kansa
niskan p?§?§ll?§ r??hkii virallinen kansa
ja vallan huippu istuu p?§?§ll?§ kaiken kansan

K?§ytt?§ydy oikein, n?§ytt?§ydy oikein
kumarrus sinne ja huomaavaisuus t?§nne
ehk?§ pieni lahjoitus jonnekkin
joskus pieni muisto milloin minnekkin