Saturday, February 11, 2012


Here is the deal!
OfficeMax buy $60+ in Inks, receive $15 iTunes

So here it is, PROOF POSITIVE that music can be used to support in-store promotions.  A current ad campaign is using music to bring you to a specific store to buy a specific product, in this case, to buy ink at Office Max stores. You purchase $60.00 of ink from Office Max and you receive $15.00 of free music from ITUNES. Office Max secures a high margin ink purchase (and hopefully some additional high margin impulse purchases) and you get free music.

I have been saying for years that the IF MUSIC Kiosk will do the exact same thing. If you have an IF MUSIC Kiosk in your store or hotel lobby or wherever it might be hosted, you can use the IF MUSIC Kiosk to bring patrons into your store specifically to receive a “something for nothing deal” using music (mp3 track) giveaways or coupons to receive something with a purchase or a future purchase. This promotion benefits the venue/retailer in numerous ways. The first obviously is increased retail traffic leading to increases in sales, the second not as obvious, is an additional revenue opportunity for the retailer/venue through the IF MUSIC Kiosk located in their locations. With the IF MUSIC Kiosk, the retailer or venue hosting the kiosk receives a revenue share unlike the Office Max-ITUNES deal referenced above. In that deal, Office Max benefits from the increased store traffic but they do not have an option for revenue share through transactions completed through ITUNES.  This revenue share to the retailer or venue can be substantial in augmented income to their bottom line.

Another benefit of using this type of promotion on the IF MUSIC Kiosk, patrons receive their music right there at the IF MUSIC kiosk for “instant gratification”. Customers do not have to leave the store to receive the benefit of the promotion (no need to leave the store to go to their computers to download the music).

This is one very real current promotion using music to incentivize customers to visit a specific store. The IF MUSIC Kiosk does this and more. Imagine the power of having this great little kiosk in your store, hotel lobby, college campus, school or any public space! The IF MUSIC Kiosk will become a destination because its reputation for being a kiosk to receive music will be synonymous with receiving coupons, discounts, or something for nothing with either the purchase of music from the kiosk or products from the venue hosting the IF MUSIC Kiosk. Can the IF MUSIC Kiosk sell a venues product? In a word YES!! Can it sell and promote in two words YES AGAIN!

Thursday, February 9, 2012


BY THE YEAR 2020 TRUTH IS
NO ONE KNOWS

Seems like there is always an article on here about how great the cloud will be and how we should all trust our data to it. Backing up 120GB to an external hard drive isn't that big of a deal if your files are organized properly. Just start the process before you go to bed. It will be done when you get up. It can even be automated. No big deal. Actually the idea of being able to listen to any song I want instantly and in high quality for a (hopefully) reasonable monthly fee isn't a bad idea. I listen to Pandora Radio myself quite a bit. That being said, I still like the idea of having my music available if the internet (or even the power) goes out. Also, not everyone today even has access to the Internet. By 2020 the percentage should have improved by quite a bit, but I doubt it will be 100% of the population.

While all the talk concerning clouding and streaming is well and good, the bottom line is how much is this going to cost us? Listening to any song on demand at high quality sounds great, but affordability will determine its success or failure. We should remember when cable TV came to replace the TV antennas once seen all across America. Sure we got more stations and the reception was fantastic, best of all when cable first came to my little town back in the late 70’s early 80’s the bill per month was only $7.95 as I recall and what a bargain for all those channels back then ( 30 of them I believe). Well as time passed and we all signed up and took our antennas off our roofs we began seeing more channels then options like HBO of course that was more money but worth it right? Well then the years passed and in order to watch your TV you had no choice but to have cable otherwise you could get 3 or 4 channels maybe 7 to 10 with the right “rabbit ears” and those were not worth watching. So we all become hooked no more like prisoners or beholding to the cable companies and their services. By the time the late 90s came average cable bills toped $60 per month or more (Basic service mind you) then they added more of this more of that and finally we went digital with all kinds of options costing all kinds of additional fees. Our cable bill is over $130 a month now. The moral to this little tip toe through history is simple what do you think clouding and streaming is going to cost by 2020 or in the coming few years

I assure you it won’t be free once or if they can get the masses hooked. Worse you will be charged and charged heavily and like the small charge to have cable in the beginning we will find ourselves being hit with fees and charges that will grow like wild fire over the years to come. Finally if we come to the point of using the clouding and streaming in masses and find we are locked in to paying to use our own content etc. it for sure will become huge fees we will be at their mercy and truly have no control of what we currently are capable of choosing to listen to or use what we bought and paid for choosing from our libraries at will without the need to connect to a service to retrieve what is ours.

The bottom line is as old as time “there is no such thing as something for nothing” even clouding and streaming!


Tuesday, February 7, 2012


This is the future all things self Serve
02 / 07 / 2012

If you thought Coinstar was through making industry rattling announcements today, you were wrong. After taking the wraps off its joint venture with Verizon, now the company has announced it'll be taking over NCR's entertainment division for $100 million. That includes DVD kiosks, retailer contracts and an inventory of discs for stocking the machines. That's big news not only because it expands Redbox's already sizable self-serve rental empire, but because it's doing so at the expense of the floundering Blockbuster, since NCR owns the blue and yellow rental kiosks. Presumably existing Blockbuster Express installations will become Redboxes, though, how quickly that might happen is unclear. For a few more details about the deal check out the PR after the break.

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

new news

Where are the deals? On the IF Music Kiosk That's where.

If Music Kiosk is not only a music download kiosk, it is teaming up with a number of the top coupon companies allowing you to take advantage of specials every day of every week. While music cost on the net with the top download companies will cost you an average of 1.29 per download per track. Taking advantage of coupons along with in store promotions and even advertising deals your tracks can cost as little as .79 or .49 maybe even as low as .20 in some cases nothing at all.

So what is the best bang for your buck ... always the IF Music Kiosk!!

Wednesday, May 19, 2010


Mobile music downloads struggle to make headway

PARIS (Reuters) – Fewer than 2 percent of mobile users in the United States and western Europe used their phone to download music in the first quarter, showing the uphill task facing Apple iTunes challengers like Nokia.

Although 24 percent listened to music on their phone, the vast majority loaded the tracks on to their handset from music they already had on a computer, according to data from industry tracker comScore released on Wednesday.

Services such as Nokia's Comes With Music and advertising-funded start-up Spotify, which both launched in late 2008, have sought to break iTunes's virtual monopoly of the legal market for digital music.

Nokia does not say how many users it has for Comes With Music, which comes free with certain handsets and allows users to download millions of tunes to their phones or PC for a year and keep them afterwards.

Stockholm-based Spotify has more than 7 million users. It has a free service for listeners who accept advertising, and paid-for services without ads.

Rhapsody America was one of the first services to offer unlimited music packages, in 2007, in an attempt to rival iTunes. Its owners, RealNetworks and Viacom, are now separating it into an independent company.

ComScore's data was gathered from users aged 13 and over in Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the United States.

The figures also showed that 82 percent of users in the five European countries used their phone for text messaging, 35 percent for applications including games, and 25 percent browsed the Web on their phone.

(Reporting by Georgina Prodhan; Editing by David Cowell)
Student must pay $675k for songs

Jury votes damages for illegal downloads Lawyer calls verdict unfair; vows appeal

BU graduate student Joel Tenenbaum said he was thankful his fine ‘wasn’t much bigger, that it wasn’t millions.’

A Boston University graduate student was ordered yesterday to pay four record labels a total of $675,000 in damages for illegally downloading 30 songs and sharing them online in only the second such lawsuit to go to trial.

After deliberating for about three hours, the jury in US District Court in Boston concluded that Joel Tenenbaum infringed on the copyrights of songs such as Nirvana’s “Comes As You Are’’ and Beck’s “Loser.’’ The record labels were awarded $22,500 for each infringement.

The verdict was reached the day after Tenenbaum, a 25-year-old doctoral student in physics, unapologetically admitted from the witness stand that he had illegally downloaded and shared hundreds of songs from 1999 to at least 2007 through peer-to-peer networks.

As a result of his admission, US District Judge Nancy Gertner ruled Thursday night that Tenenbaum had conceded liability, and she directed the jury to consider only how much he should pay in damages.

“I’m disappointed but not surprised,’’ Tenenbaum told reporters after the ver dict in the civil case. “But I am thankful that it wasn’t much bigger, that it wasn’t millions.’’

Tenenbaum could have been ordered to pay as much as $150,000 for each song, or a total of $4.5 million, because the jury concluded that the infringements were “willful.’’ Under federal law, the jury had to award at least $750 for each infringement.

Tenenbaum’s mother, Judie of Providence, said that if the award stands, he will have to declare bankruptcy. “What choice would he have?’’ she said.
Earlier this week, she said that prospect was “horrible’’ considering her son’s misdeeds.

“We’re not talking about capital murder,’’ she said. “We’re not talking about Bernie Madoff.’’

The Recording Industry Association of America promptly issued a statement praising the jury for recognizing “the impact of illegal downloading on the music community.’’ An economist called as an expert witness by the record labels had testified that CD sales have plunged since 1999, largely because of file sharing, although Tenenbaum’s lawyers challenged that assessment.

The association also said it was pleased that Tenenbaum testified that he never intended to deprive recording artists of income.

“We appreciate that Mr. Tenenbaum finally acknowledged that artists and music companies deserve to be paid for their work,’’ the statement said. “From the beginning, that’s what this case was about. We only wish he had done so sooner, rather than lie about his illegal behavior.’’

Tenenbaum’s attorney, Harvard Law professor Charles Nesson, who told jurors his client is part of a generation that thinks nothing about downloading music for free, said he will appeal.

“It was not a fair verdict because the jury never got to hear the fairness issue,’’ he said. He was referring to Gertner’s ruling before jury selection that the defense could not argue that Tenenbaum had the right to download and share songs under the fair use doctrine of copyright law. Nesson said yesterday that the ruling is “vulnerable’’ to challenge.

Andrew Beckerman-Rodau, a professor at Suffolk Law School who specializes in intellectual property law, said before the verdict that he was puzzled that Tenenbaum did not settle the suit out of court before trial. The only logical explanation, he said, is that Nesson hopes to obtain a precedent-setting ruling on a matter such as the fair use doctrine, which he considered doubtful.

Regardless of whether Nesson appeals, his plate will be full with another matter related to the suit. Weeks before the trial, lawyers for the record labels asked Gertner to sanction him for taping depositions without the permission of the plaintiff’s lawyers. The lawyers said they would drop their motion if he destroys the tapes, but Nesson told the judge yesterday that he wants to keep them. Gertner has yet to rule.

As Joel Tenenbaum tells it, his battle against the recording industry was set in motion in 1993, years before he began to download music illegally.

Tenenbaum was 9 when he saw Michael Jackson perform at the Super Bowl halftime show and was so mesmerized that he told his parents he wanted to be a singer like the self-proclaimed King of Pop.

Tenenbaum gave up that ambition, but he still loves music and plays the piano. And as a skateboarding teenager in 1999, he began to amass a huge collection of music he downloaded, first from Napster, then from Kazaa, and later from other peer-to-peer networks.

A few years ago, he received a letter from the recording industry at his home in Providence demanding payment for songs he had shared online with potentially millions of other people. He is among about 18,000 people against whom the industry has sought to enforce copyrights.

Most settle out of court for $3,000 to $5,000, but Tenenbaum took the matter to trial. Although Gertner precluded both sides from presenting evidence about negotiations, Tenenbaum said on the witness stand and in an interview yesterday that he wanted to settle but the record labels kept increasing the sum. At one point, he said, he offered $3,000, but the labels insisted on $4,000.

Cara Duckworth, a spokeswoman for the recording industry, said Tenenbaum neglected to mention that at one point he demanded thousands of dollars from the labels and that he flagrantly continued to download.

In the only other downloading lawsuit to go to trial, a federal jury in Minnesota in June ordered a woman in that state to pay record labels $1.92 million for infringing on the copyrights of 24 songs.

Tenenbaum did not appear to help his case with his three hours on the stand Thursday. He matter-of-factly admitted lying in sworn statements to the record labels and falsely blaming others he said might have had access to his computer in Providence, including his two sisters, friends, and house guests.

After the verdict, Tenenbaum acknowledged that his lies might have hurt him with jurors. He said they never heard about how he had already admitted some of his falsehoods in other sworn statements.

In his closing argument yesterday, Nesson said his client “became addicted to free music’’ and implored the jury to award the most modest damages possible.

“What is the value of the infringement? It’s what he’d have to pay for it if he purchased it on Amazon . . . 99 cents,’’ Nesson said. “This is a federal case, and what’s it about? It’s about a kid in his bedroom clicking on a computer screen.’’

But Timothy M. Reynolds, one of the lawyers for the record labels, countered that “the defendant is a hard-core, habitual, long-term infringer who knew what he was doing was wrong but did it anyway.’’

Reynolds was among a team of lawyers for Sony BMG Music Entertainment, Warner Bros. Records Inc., Arista Records LLC, and UMG Recordings Inc.

Friday, February 19, 2010


JupiterResearch Forecasts That
Digital Music Spending in the U.S.
will Reach $2.5 billion in 2011


NEW YORK -- JupiterResearch, a leading authority on the impact of the Internet and emerging consumer technologies on business, forecasts that digital music spending in the US will reach $2.5 billion in 2011.

Detailed in a new report, "US Music Forecast, 2006 - 2001," digital download spending will grow at a 16 percent rate compounded annually over the next five years, while the smaller subscription service business will grow at a 32 percent rate."

"Strong hints of digital substitution - consumers buying digitally instead of buying CDs - are finally appearing among early digital music users," said David Card, Vice President and Senior Analyst at JupiterResearch. "Last year we witnessed downloads growing over 30 percent, to over $800 million and subscription services grew 14 percent, to over $185 million.

In addition, per the IFPI (International Federation of Phonographic Industry), global digital music trade revenues reached a staggering US$4.2 billion, up 12% in 2009.

Per the IFPI’s recent report “More than a quarter of all recorded music industry revenues worldwide are now coming from digital channels, as music companies license music in partnership with ISPs and mobile operators, subscription services, streaming sites and hundreds of download stores,” it says, going on:

“Sales of music downloads, the dominant revenue stream in digital music, are seeing steady growth. Single track download sales increased by an estimated 10%, while digital albums rose an estimated 20% in 2009.”

Notwithstanding that growth, industry revenues remain substantially below their peak in 2004.

It is clear that there is a need for a new method of selling music...a sort of "new music store" to take the industry forward and give consumers a new and exciting method to enjoy this age old passion.

Just in case you missed it...IF Music is more than ready for this adventure! Thanks so much for joining us!!