Many people are not aware the complex structure that sits in what is vaguely known as “the music industry”. For many people, what is seen through the media is the musician, artist or songwriter (albeit not as often), and sometimes a mild mention of the music label here, a record producer there, and sometimes the supporting musicians of a certain album. But actually, a clockwork between songwriters, publishers, record producers, music labels, distribution channels, artists, and countless other people and bodies are involved in an intricate (and often confusing) dance. So, what happens if that clockwork breaks down?
Tag Archives: downloads
Indonesia Left Out of the Asian iTunes Store Launch Party
Apple has announced an expansion of its iTunes Store into Asia by adding a dozen countries across the region. The countries are Brunei, Cambodia, Hong Kong, Laos, Macau, Malaysia, Singapore, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam. Missing from the list? Indonesia is the only Southeast Asian country (Well, Myanmar can’t count due to the various embargoes) not on the list [East Timor isn’t either -Ed]. Other than Indonesia, South Korea isn’t on the list as well [even though it was back in March -Ed].
What does this expansion of iTunes Store mean? With credit cards issued within those countries, consumers will be able to purchase more than 20 million songs available from iTunes Store including Asian idols such as Jay Chou, Girls Generation, and Andy Lau. Songs from iTunes Store are available as 256Kbps AAC with no DRM. Consumers will also be able to buy or rent various movies in high definition, thanks to the cooperation with major film studios.
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[Music Monday] Constructing The New Digital Music Ecosystem
The need to create something ‘new’ usually comes with the thought that the thing that came before it, something ‘old’, did not work, isn’t working anymore, or is simply too old to use. Many companies the world over, recently founded or has been in years of business, startup or established, have at some point changed their tack – or pivoted, in startup-speak – in pursuit of more lucrative businesses, mostly because their previous direction was losing business sustainability.
The recorded music industry was always an industry that relied on content to make its money, and thus tightly controlling the amount of recorded music copies that went out as a sale. The thing about the entertainment industry is that people get bored, so these industries always have to “pivot” to find something creatively new to sell to the market.
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[Music Monday] Mengapa Toko Unduhan Musik Tidak Akan Berhasil di Indonesia
Makin saya pikirkan, semakin yakin bahwa layanan musik – setidaknya di Indonesia – berjalan ke arah yang salah. Sejak 2008, Indonesia telah memiliki beberapa toko unduhan musik online. Berbagai model bisnis telah dijalankan – ISP mencoba pembayaran ISP, operator telekomunikasi mencoba dengan membayar via SMS, dan beberapa layanan lain bahkan menyediakan pilihan sistem pembayaran; baik lewat SMS atau voucher elektronik.
Investasi (yang cukup mahal) di-hosting dan sistem pengiriman konten dilakukan dalam usaha untuk meniru apa yang sepertinya berjalan di luar negeri – unduhan musik. Pada dasarnya, pengguna akan membayar untuk sebuah lagu yang mereka inginkan, dan hanya untuk lagu yang mereka mau saja, dan mengunduhnya ke perangkat mereka. Kebanyakan layanan membutuhkan implementasi DRM untuk menghindari proses penyalinan yang tidak sah, dan file itu sendiri biasanya terkunci hanya pada perangkat yang mengunduh file tersebut.
Tentunya, ini tidak berhasil. Pastinya praktik ini tidak pernah memberikan hasil yang diinginkan oleh industri musik.
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[Music Monday] Why Music Download Stores Won’t Work In Indonesia
The more I think of it, the more I think that many music services – at least in Indonesia – are going about it the wrong way. Since 2008, Indonesia has had a number of online music download stores. Various business models were tried – an ISP tried ISP billing, telcos tried charging via SMS, and some others even had a choice of payment systems; either through SMS or electronic voucher.
Investments in (quite expensive) hosting and delivery systems were made, in an attempt to replicate what seemed to work overseas – the music download. Essentially, users will pay for a song that they want, and only the song that they want, and download it to their choice device. Most services were required to implement digital rights management (DRM) as a way to circumvent unauthorized copying, and the files themselves were usually confined to the device that downloaded the file.
Needless to say, it didn’t work. It has never delivered the results that the music industry wants, that’s for sure.
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