There's also a couple paragraphs on the vagaries of music licensing law as it relates to on-demand versus streaming services. There are massive legal and financial distinctions here, all of which should be kept in mind when considering the changing landscape of the digital music market.The internet removed a sense of place from our lives by connecting people and content from everywhere, but location-aware smartphones are changing that by affixing tweets, pictures, business listings — and now songs — to specific real-world locations.
An exciting new iPhone app by Soundtrckr mashes maps and internet radio, letting listeners geotag stations and songs, and listen to other users’ stations based on location. It’s a simple yet powerful concept, which allows you to see what your neighbors (or people anywhere) are listening to, tune in, leave comments and become friends. [Wired]
...internet radio services are relatively doing well because they enjoy far lower per-song royalty rates than on-demand music services — they’re closer to a radio than an encyclopedic iPod, so they pay less. (The difference between the two types of service is why, when people say Spotify will compete with Pandora, they have no idea what they’re talking about.) [Wired]
And when you start thinking about international expansion, these issues get even weirder. The fragmentation of the music market into national silos necessitates the renegotiation of licenses for each individual country where a company wants to do business. This is a major hurdle for socially-inclined music services, as it limits the sharing of content across borders and hinders the creation of a truly global user community.
In any event, with so many web-based music services being acquired by major media companies, it will be interesting to see how all of this plays out during 2010.
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