Warner To End Free Streaming of Its Content 278
eldavojohn writes "If you have a license to stream content for free from Warner, be aware: Warner has announced plans to cancel streaming licenses. Major sites such as Last.fm, Spotify, and Pandora may be affected — Warner has not yet spelled out whether streaming restrictions will apply to existing licenses, or only to future ones. Warner's CEO Edgar Bronfman said, 'Free streaming services are clearly not net positive for the industry and as far as Warner Music is concerned will not be licensed.' You might contend that Warner gets a cut of the ad-based revenue these free streaming sites take in. While true, Bronfman contended that this revenue comes nowhere near what they need in compensation for each individual's enjoyment of each work. The article quotes spokesmen for other labels who disagree with Warner's stance, however. Music's digital birthing pains continue."
Mandatory downtime for criticism (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Just a question, and thought.. (Score:3, Informative)
You get an n% cut from reseller A.
You add reseller B, and you get an (n/2)% cut.
Customers move from reseller A to reseller B.
Your revenue drops.
More greed (Score:4, Informative)
Didn't the laws for streaming compensation just change in the US because labels thought they weren't being paid enough? Now they want more money? Oh well, it's their loss. Streaming is the new broadcast radio. It's how people are discovering new music these days. If you don't have your music out on these sites then your artists will have less exposure. This is great news for the other artists (on other labels and independent) who will now have less competition on the streaming sites.
EMI (Score:4, Informative)
Maybe they're trying to imitate EMI's recent success.
For those who don't know, EMI, who own the likes of the Beetles records and so forth recently just announced a £1.5 billion loss over the last financial year. They currently look like they could very well be heading to bankruptcy.
At least if they do end up that way, that's what, 1 down, 3 to go?
Re:This is what's keeping me from paying for Spoti (Score:4, Informative)
Spotify denies that they're losing Warner.
To be clear WMG is not pulling out of Spotify. Media is taking things out of context. So don't worry-be happy :
http://twitter.com/spotify [twitter.com]
This doesn't apply to pandora (Score:3, Informative)
http://gizmodo.com/5469042/warner-music-doesnt-much-care-for-this-free-internet-music [gizmodo.com]
Edgar Bronfman's comment on the Warner conference call was addressing free on-demand services such as Spotify that are directly licensed. Pandora operates under a different licensing structure and won't be impacted by Warner's apparent decision with respect to free, on-demand services.
Quick, stop the radio! (Score:3, Informative)
And before that we tried ad-based radio and television, and see how it worked out! There's no way the music industry can grow if anyone can listen to music broadcast on the radio bands without paying. How will the artists live?
Re:See! (Score:2, Informative)
I stream Radio Paradise, Pandora, C-SPAN, NPR, etc. all via 3g on my iPhone while driving. It works fine until I stray out of 3g coverage. Unlimited data means it costs me nothing.