Seven months after it was announced, Merlin, the body designed to represent thousands of indie music labels in striking online deals, announced finally plans to go live on Monday. Independent labels represent 30 percent of worldwide music sales and 80 percent of new releases, but in negotiating licenses for online sale and streams they have been fragmented. Dubbed a “virtual fifth major”, the organization was announced in a press conference at the Midem music industry conferences in Cannes back in January; now it has incorporated as a non-profit company in London and Holland, owned by its member labels. The aim is to put indies on a level playing field, correcting what Merlin reckons is a growing assumption that emerging media need only strike licenses with the four major labels. The 15 board members include IODA founder Kevin Arnold and Beggars Group chairman Martin Mills; CEO is Charles Caldas, joined by Worldwide Independents Network president Alison Wenham.

As Reported By Paid Content

Related:

@ MidemNet: Merlin To Sell Music Via MySpace; Unprotected MP3s; NMPA Talks Royalties

The news was supposed to be announced at a press conference tomorrow at 11 A.M. in NYC, but WSJ jumped the gun on it (to be fair, no one cared about getting journalists under embargo): MTV Networks (NYSE: VIA) is closing its poorly received online music service Urge, and is merging it with RealNetworks’ (Nasdaq: RNWK) Rhapsody music service. This means Urge’s hyped partnership with Microsoft is over and done with. Of course, MSFT launched its own Zune service a few months after Urge launched (Zune’s online client was built on top of Urge).

Update: Verizon will provide mobile distribution, according to a Journal source. The Journal suggests this will help the two tap into frustration with Apple’s decision to limit iPhone distribution to AT&T.

– The JV would give Real a major boost in terms of promotion via MTVN. The Journal was told the companies pressed to make a deal prior to the MTV Video Music Awards on Sept. 9.

– MTVN’s Michael Bloom will head the effort, according to the Journal. MTVN will contribute extensive content, including music blogs. No sense yet of how much MTV will contribute to actual music programming or how this will fit in with Real’s various other efforts. including RollingStone.com.

As reported by Paid Content

Just how important is cover art to the music industry now that downloads are image-free?

Some say that the end is nigh:

- Hard-Fi are claiming the demise of the record sleeve. Their ‘interesting’ attempt sees the cover of their new album adorned with the message ‘No Cover Art’. “We had the Sleeve of the Year in 2005 and we looked at every way of trying to top it. But perhaps the best way is to kill off the sleeve altogether, ” said the band.

- Vote for your favourite in the BowieNet Ziggy Stardust 35th Anniversary Cover Contest. That’s if you can find a favourite amongst this collection of pre-school PhotoShop disasters.

- Beck, Razorlight and Ryan Adams are among seven musicians who have designed personalised covers for the front of their favourite novels. Publisher Penguin has undertaken the campaign in order to promote its line in blank-covered books, hoping the musicians will inspire others to do the same.

So what?

Classic sleeve designer Peter Saville referred to the Hard-Fi concept as the “White Album for the digital culture”. He may have been misheard over the word “white” though. The campaign is both lazy and weakly-conceived, but it does raise some issues. Just where does cover art stand in the image-less culture of digital downloads? Can it still be effective when reduced to fit on an iPod screen?

Art itself died online with the onset of Google image search. The perception that images are free came long before the public perception that music was free (although you still won’t see a Google MP3 search).

Penguin, however, realises that people do actually judge a book by its cover. The impact of a cover as a bespoke from of artist expression has a unique sense of tangibility. Beck tried a similar campaign with his create-your-own-cover sleeve. Unfortunately he fell foul of chart rules, which make this unlikely to happen again in the near future.

Cover art should expand its remit in a digital environment, not reign it in. As for the end being nigh, let’s see who disappears first, cover art or Hard-Fi.

Brands, Bands, & Fans

Wow, I feel old!

Exactly 25 years ago the world’s first compact disc was produced at a Philips factory in Germany, sparking a global music revolution.

More than 200 billion CDs have been sold worldwide since then and it remains the dominant format despite the growth in digital downloads.

The CD was jointly developed by Philips and Sony and the disc has also become a key storage method for computer users.

The first CD produced was The Visitors by Abba.

Piet Kramer, who was a member of the optical group at Philips during the disc’s development, said: “When Philips teamed up with Sony to develop the CD, our first target was to win over the world for the CD.

“We did this by collaborating openly to agree on a new standard. For Philips, this open innovation was a new approach and it paid off.”

Dire Straits
Dire Straits’ album Brothers in Arms helped popularise the CD

He said the companies had never imagined that the computing and entertainment industries would also opt for the CD as a storage system for content.

Jacques Heemskerk, who was one of the senior engineers involved with the optical side of CD players, said the team knew they were building a revolutionary product.

“It was revolutionary in many fields - the optics were new, the disc was new. At the start of development there wasn’t even a laser that would work well enough for our needs.

“The most advanced laser at the time had a lifespan of only 100 hours.”

He said the company had always planned on the format lasting at least 20 to 25 years.

“That was the model we had in mind although it seems that CD is going to last a lot longer than that. For many people the CD is still the original format, with others being derivative or back-ups.”

The two companies began work on the format in 1979 and targetted a disc which could hold an hour of audio. The capacity was extended (more…)

Adidas - Rock the Pitch - Represent!

Adidas launched a new campaign, “Rock The Pitch” further proving that in the music industry these days, it’s all about Bands, Brands, & Fans. Adidas and the MLS teamed up with artists such as RJD2, The Rapture, Polyphonic Spree, Bad Brains, and others to produce official team songs for each city’s league, encouraging fans and users to “Rock The Pitch” via a interactive website allows you to make your own videos, remixes, and interact with other fans. The bands have tweaked the lyrics of their own tracks, turning out major stadium anthems to the verb age of “Your Team Don’t Score No More, go Redbulls!”

My iTunes is loaded with so many plugins that I always thought it had attained a technological nirvana only possible through a massive collection of custom scripts. I can have it automatically open the Wikipedia page for the band I’m listening to, I can have it make a playlist of all songs without artwork, and I wouldn’t be surprised if I could have it making me coffee one of these days. But I was wrong, as arrogant music/tech geeks usually are. We all have a long way to go.

Simplify Media is a new plugin that lets you view and listen to your friends’ music libraries from anywhere. Until now you had to be on the same network, but now you only have to be online. You can listen to your home music library at work, or create a social music network of up to 30 people and all share streaming music at a bit-rate of 160kbps. You are free to judge your friend’s taste from anywhere in the world (and it might be time to hide some of your guilty pleasures). The program won’t let you download the music to your own computer, but I’m sure some clever folks can find a way around that (not that I’m openly condoning it, but we’ve all got an inner pirate.)

Oh yah, it’s also freeware.

HAVE YOU EVER HEARD OF IT?

One of the best-read blogs in technology circles has been the Secret Diary of Steve Jobs.

Otherwise known as “Fake Steve Jobs (FSJ),” the author writes as if he is, in fact, Steve Jobs, and uses his blog to make fun of anything Apple, technology or Silicon Valley, all the while claiming the mantle of the marketing genius that is Steve Jobs. His motto? “Dude, I invented the friggin’ iPod. Have you heard of it?”

Excerpt from FSJ:

So, AT&T? I mean, seriously. AT&T?

Fake Steve: Yeah. Agreed. I know. And look how they’ve (messed) it all up already, just in the first three days. F—–g frigtards. You wouldn’t believe the phone calls I’ve been having with those idiots. Well, maybe you would. I called that jackass CEO, got his receptionist, and she asked me what I was calling about. I told her the iPhone, and she told me I had to dial a different number, 800 something or other. I’m like, lady, I’m f—–g Steve Jobs, and she says, “Sir, I don’t care who you’re f—–g, you can’t just call up and get our CEO.” Unreal.