music industry posts

Is Steve Jobs music's savior, or is he the angel of death? Jon Bon Jovi cast his vote in The Sunday Times Magazine; the American rock musician thinks Jobs is "killing" the music industry with iTunes.

The massive success of iTunes, says Bon Jovi, has caused the "magical" experience of buying records in a store to disappear. "Kids today have missed the whole experience of putting the headphones on, turning it up to 10, holding the jacket, closing their eyes and getting lost in an album; and the beauty of taking your allowance money and making a decision based on the jacket, not knowing what the record sounded like, and looking at a couple of still pictures and imagining it," the rocker told The Sunday Times Magazine. Bon Jovi says that "in a generation from now people are going to say: 'What happened?' Steve Jobs is personally responsible for killing the music business."

I am not sure the record industry would completely agree with Bon Jovi's assessment of the situation. Labels and recording artists have sold more than 10 billion songs through Apple's music store since it launched on April 28, 2003. Today, the iTunes Store is the top music vendor in the United States and has proven to be a worthy competitor to the illegal peer-to-peer and music download services that preceded it.

Music site Symphonic Distortion reports Apple has sent word that song previews in the US iTunes Store will soon be extended to 90 seconds, up from the 30-second previews the store has featured until now. The only caveat is that songs must be longer than 2 minutes, 30 seconds in order to get a 90-second preview; shorter songs will stay at a 30-second preview. Makes sense.

The extension in song preview lengths was reportedly supposed to happen earlier this year, but the complex state of licensing issues in the music industry reportedly held up the process. Either those issues have been resolved, or Apple has decided to play hardball -- the new licensing agreement basically states that by keeping their music on the iTunes Store, labels agree to allow 90-second song previews. Any label that doesn't want 90-second previews of its songs must withdraw its music from the iTunes Store under the new licensing terms ... and since doing so would do serious damage to the bottom line of most music labels, it looks like 90-second song previews are finally here, and hopefully here to stay.

[via Mac Rumors]

One of the things that was widely rumored to appear but ultimately absent from Apple's music event last week was an extension of song previews on the iTunes Store from their current 30 seconds to 60 or even 90 seconds. According to CNET, we can blame the Byzantine licensing arrangement of the music industry (surprise, surprise).

Apple had a deal worked out with Broadcast Music, Inc. (BMI), all four major record companies, and a contract with American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) that never limited preview lengths in the first place. Apparently that still wasn't enough to increase preview lengths, because CNET says the National Music Publishers Association objected and basically said, "No, you have to make a deal with us, too."

All of which just makes me wonder: how many different licensing associations does this cash cow industry need, anyway?

The music industry giants gave up a lot of their power (and money) to Apple in the mid-2000s, and it seems they've learned their lesson. Unfortunately for us users, this obstructionism means we end up losing out on neat features. As CNET notes, the current mini-battle over song previews is likely just a warmup for the headliner bout: Apple's predicted music streaming service.

Music industry execs already tried to get Apple to pay "performance fees" for its 30-second song samples; I can imagine Steve Jobs's response to that one was something like maniacal laughter followed by a hearty "No." If Apple does finally manage to get 90-second previews pushed through, it could be a good sign for its music streaming aspirations.

[Via MacRumors]