WarnerMusicGroup
Latest
iTunes Store to add enhanced liner notes, extra media to album purchases
Digital music purchases have been dominating the market for some time now as physical CD purchases continue to fall. For Apple, a significant lead over the rest of the music proprietor world is not enough: according to the Financial Times, the company is now working together with the four largest record labels in the business to add new features to accompany digital music purchases through its iTunes Store in hopes of stimulating full album purchases. [The FT also reports, without hedging, that Apple's "media pad" tablet device will ship in time for the holiday shopping season. According to the paper, the long-rumored iPad is intended as a full-featured portable computer and video & music player, like an oversized iPod touch, including wireless data connectivity but no built-in phone functions.] Apple has formed an alliance with EMI, Sony Music, Universal Music Group, and Warner Music to bundle whole albums with perks like interactive booklets, digital sleeve notes, and video clips. By doing so, Apple hopes to increase sales of the albums over single track purchases, a sales model that has been immensely popular in the advent of digital music. The project, codenamed "Cocktail," is intended to recreate the former experience of album-purchasing, where you could browse the liner notes, follow lyrics, and look at the album artwork as the music played. Executives have said that users will even be able to play music straight from the proposed interactive booklets without having to use iTunes. Of course, the main motivation for increasing album sales is to increase profits, as albums have a higher margin than individual songs. This change is one that should have taken place a long time ago- having to search for lyrics on shady, ad-ridden websites should already be a fading, shudder-inducing memory (though liner notes have been available on some albums, a change across the board has yet to take place). As items like liner notes and photos are possibly the last benefit that physical CDs can offer over digital purchases, this may turn out to be a very serious blow to the CD market. The iTunes Store album add-ons are set to roll out in September.
Amazon starts dishing out DRM-free Warner Music MP3s
We're not sure if Amazon's forthcoming DRM-less Super Bowl promotion has anything to do with it or not, but the company has just announced that its finally brought Warner Music Group into its MP3 fold, with a slew of music from the label now available for download without any of those pesky restrictions. According to Dow Jones, the pair also plan to offer other "digital music products," including album bundles with exclusive tracks, although details are few and far between beyond that. Still no word from Sony BMG on its intentions to go DRM-free (with Amazon or anyone else), but it sure looks like things are increasingly stacking up against them.
XM and Warner settle, it's a Festivus miracle!
Well, not really miraculous -- this was totally and completely expected when we saw XM and Universal kiss and make up a couple weeks ago -- but now XM and Warner Music Group have finally found some common ground over the XM Pioneer Inno player song recording issue. The terms of the settlement are undisclosed, but we're sure they include stipulations of heavy DRM and various feats of strength.
More details on Motorola's partnership with Warner Music
It's one thing to say you're partnering with another company, but it's another matter entirely for said partnership to bear fruit. Motorola and Yahoo, see, they've done alright; Go for Mobile 2.0 went live in beta form the very same day they announced it. The Warner deal is another matter, though, with nothing consumers can put their hands on today. So what does it mean? It sounds like the two companies are going to use the agreement do some serious cross-marketing, with promotions for Warner properties appearing in Motorola product packaging (as we saw in Ed Zander's keynote this morning) -- and likewise, we would assume Motorola phones are going to start mysteriously appearing in Warner materials as well. A more tangible outcome will finally show up in the latter half of the year: "MOTO Experience Packs." These things'll download just like applets, but will basically serve as one-stop shops for all sorts of paraphernalia related to specific albums of music -- wallpaper, ringtones, full song downloads, and the like. Long story short, hang tight for a few months and this deal should start to produce some results we can see and hear.
