November 05, 2009

By By Glenn Peoples, Nashville

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

-- A panel at Ad:tech NY talked about free online content. Paul Jelinek, senior VP, Digital Media at A&E Television Networks, said it doesn't come down to free or paid. Like many media companies, A&E deals with both. "It's not competing against free," he said. "It comes down to your business objectives. Hulu, for example, drives viewership and provides incremental advertising for us. It is a fragmented world and in our case, the objective is to distribute video in a smart and scalable way. We have dual revenue streams on TV: subs and advertising." (paidContent)

-- Bad news, piracy fighters: one academic in Sweden estimates as high as 6-7% of Swedes are hiding their identities online. (TorrentFreak)

-- A paper titled "The Wisdom of the Few: A Collaborative Filtering Approach Based on Expert Opinions from the Web" may be good reading for young, cash-strapped music start-ups - or music critics who wish to stay relevant in the era of the music blog. The results say a small group of experts "addresses some of the shortcomings" of collaborative filtering and is "comparable to" traditional collaborative filtering algorithms. The researchers used reviews at the Rotten Tomatoes web site to predict user ratings at Netflix. ("The Wisdom of a Few," via Geeking With Greg)

-- Legal analyst Ben Sheffner looks at EMI's complaint against BlueBeat.com, which is selling and streaming the songs of the Beatles. The complaint alleges BlueBeat.com is "engaged in music piracy of the most blatant and harmful kind." There's an interesting issue here: psycho-acoustic simulation. BlueBeat.com says it used psycho-acoustic simulation to create entirely different sound recordings and argues that process is covered under Section 114. In its reply, EMI points out Section 114 is for cover versions, not new recordings using new technology. "This is absurd," concludes Sheffner. "One cannot copy a sound recording and then avoid an infringement claim by adding pictures." (Copyrights & Campaigns)

-- It seems Olympia, Washington, a hotbed for independent music in the heyday of K Records and Kill Rock Stars, is once again flush with indie record labels. Which is odd, since more than one influential pundit thinks record labels are unnecessary in the Internet age. Some Olympia labels cite the ability to sell their music on the Internet as a deciding factor in their operations. "People overseas are interested in our music because it's good and partly because of the history and reputation of the Northwest," said one label owner. (Weekly Volcano)

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

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