November 09, 2009

By By Glenn Peoples, Nashville

Business Matters is a daily column that offers insight, analysis and opinion on the day's news.

-- A Q&A with Hank Risan, the CEO of BlueBeat.com. Risan explained the technology behind psychoacoustic simulation, the technology at the heart of EMI's legal complaint against BlueBeat.com. In short, Risan argues his technology creates the equivalent of a cover version. (Although that does not explain why BlueBeat.com was selling cover versions labeled as Beatles songs and packaged with Beatles artwork.) "As long as we've been in existence, people have been able to take other people's art, and with substantial variation, they can create new art that transcends the old. That's the history of this country. The fact that it's now done in the digital domain and virtual environment does not mean it's art that should be neglected. I think that's a very important thing for your readers to understand the ability not to stifle art, but to encourage it. That's what the Copyright Office does, and that's what Congress does. It's not a loophole."
(Pop & Hiss)

-- Following an errant report - and a correction - by IDG News Service about its search deal with Baidu, Qtrax commented at its blog and then admitted it has missed its planned launch date in Australia. (In the past CEO Allan Klepfisz has posted at this blog. No name was attached to this post.) On the Baidu deal: "It is NOT referring traffic from the Baidu main music search page of mp3.baidu.com. It does NOT represent a settlement between the industry & Baidu. But it WILL generate very substantial traffic for us. And we are NOT paying for that privilege."
(Qtrax blog)

-- Little information about Choruss escapes to the outside world, so it's nice to see an article on the music service in the Chronicle of Higher Education. Led by Warner Music Group, Choruss is an experimental service that is now being used at six unnamed universities in the U.S. Students are given unlimited access to a catalog of music for a flat fee. The six participants are employing different terms and prices to find out what combination of the two results in the greatest uptake of the service. This multi-variable test implies students sign up for the service and are not charged a Choruss fee along with other student fees. If enrollment in Choruss was not voluntary, it seems there would be no need to try different terms and price points to gauge student reaction.
(Chronicle of Higher Education)

-- Want to listen to the Billboard singles charts on Spotify? Try the Spotified Billboard Singles Charts, which combine the APIs of Billboard and Spotify. (Spotified Billboard Charts, via Music Machinery)
(Spotified Billboard Charts, via Music Machinery)

-- Cambridge University's Trinity College, the third largest landowner in England, has bought the holding company that controls the 999-year lease on London's O2 Arena.
(AFP)

-- Sixty percent of British file sharers say using Spotify has helped them reduce their amounts of illegal downloading.
(Broadband Expert)

Follow Billboard senior analyst Glenn Peoples on Twitter at twitter.com/billboardglenn.

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