KCRW's On the Beat

LimeWire and the RIAA

webmaster@kcrw.org (Celia Hirschman) — Wed, 05 Jan 2011 21:44:00 EST

At the behest of record labels, last October, US District Judge, Kimba Woods ordered LimeWire, the popular file-sharing service to suspend its peer-to-peer site. The judge ruled that LimeWire had committed copyright infringement, was engaged in unfair competition and had induced others to also commit copyright infringement...

IPad Apps

webmaster@kcrw.org (Celia Hirschman) — Wed, 22 Dec 2010 21:44:00 EST

No doubt about it. The most exciting growth in the record business this year has come from Apple. In fact, Apple has dominated the last decade of excitement in the record business with the iPod, iTunes, and the iPad. The iPad applications have taken the company's old motto, Think Different, into a whole new direction...

EMI, Spotify and Google

webmaster@kcrw.org (Celia Hirschman) — Wed, 15 Dec 2010 21:44:00 EST

Guy Hands may finally be losing control of his company, EMI Music Group, to their chief investor, the financial bank Citigroup. EMI owes Citibank almost $3 billion. Mr. Hands recently signaled to his closest allies to expect the worst...

Creative Protection

webmaster@kcrw.org (Celia Hirschman) — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 21:44:00 EST

As we come upon the close of another year, it's hard not to be just a little nostalgic. Think about how much has changed in your life in the last ten years. How much of that change has been built on the backs of hard work and creative vision...

Advertising as Marketing

webmaster@kcrw.org (Celia Hirschman) — Mon, 29 Nov 2010 17:00:00 EST

Pomplamoose, the Bay area music duo, have done it again. Nataly Dawn and Jack Conte had already built a strong following around the country, making quirky music videos at home. Last year, they sold over 100,000 tracks out of their living room with only a little touring...

The Beatles - The Long Now

webmaster@kcrw.org (Celia Hirschman) — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 21:44:00 EST

The Beatles catalog has finally made it to ITunes. It?s a business deal ten years in the making.

Radical Act

webmaster@kcrw.org (Celia Hirschman) — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 21:44:00 EST

Punk rock music had its roots in the mid 1970's with bands like The Ramones, The Sex Pistols and The Clash. The defiant act of getting onstage, regardless of one's music experience, and embracing your unguarded truth in electrified raw sound created an entirely new genre. Punk rock was a social movement about brutal naked emotion, kicking the established norms of the day. But how can you really have a social movement without sexual politics...

The SoundExchange Debate

webmaster@kcrw.org (Celia Hirschman) — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 14:14:21 EST

The record business has notoriously been a closed mouth business. There's been little airing of laundry in public. But the digital music business is a bit more progressive...

The Record Business Is Volatile

webmaster@kcrw.org (Celia Hirschman) — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 21:44:00 EST

Predicting the future is often a fool's game, especially in the record industry. The business is a complex environment, with many micro-climates ? each one affecting the next. One significant shift of a large retailer, a talent agency or technology company can alter the overall infrastructure. With all the changes in the last decade, this is one industry craving stability. But that is definitely not in the cards...

This Year's Statistics

webmaster@kcrw.org (Celia Hirschman) — Wed, 20 Oct 2010 21:44:00 EST

In the film The Social Network, the character of Sean Parker, co-founder of Napster, claims he ruined the record business with his disruptive digital online company. While I think that's a misstatement of the truth, now 10 years later, here's where the record industry really sits...