Warner Music to quit licensing to free streaming sites

Stupid short sighted morons
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/8507885.stm

Record label Warner Music has said it will stop licensing its songs to free music streaming services.

Companies like Spotify, We7 and Last.fm give free, legal and instant access to millions of songs, funded by adverts.

Warner, one of the four major labels, whose artists include REM and Michael Buble, said such services were "clearly not positive for the industry".

That raises questions over the future of free streaming, which is popular with fans but not lucrative for labels.

Spotify has seven million users in six European countries and is in negotiations to launch in the US.

Ninety-five per cent of those fans use its free service, hearing adverts between songs, while 250,000 pay a monthly fee to get it on a mobile and with no ads.

[It] is not the kind of approach to business that we will be supporting in the future
Edgar Bronfman Jr, Warner Music

Two-and-a-half million people use We7's free offering, while Last.fm is also free in the US and UK.

Other popular audio services include Deezer, Pandora and Grooveshark.

Warner chief executive Edgar Bronfman Jr said: "Free streaming services are clearly not net positive for the industry and as far as Warner Music is concerned will not be licensed.

"The get all your music you want for free, and then maybe with a few bells and whistles we can move you to a premium price strategy, is not the kind of approach to business that we will be supporting in the future."

It is not clear whether Warner will remove its music from existing services or decline to do deals with new outlets.

He said the focus would be on promoting streaming services that require payment, which he said could appeal beyond those who currently pay for downloads in stores such as Apple's iTunes.

"The number of potential subscribers dwarfs the number of people who are actually purchasing music on iTunes," Mr Bronfman said.

Fans could pay a monthly fee direct to a streaming service, as with Spotify, or get access to the music as part of a deal for a mobile phone, broadband connection or another gadget.

Such subscriptions could be taken up by "hundreds of millions if not billions of people, most of whom are not today either buyers or certainly heavy buyers of music", Mr Bronfman said.

And they would be much more profitable than per-track downloads in the long term, he added.

The main legal streaming services have deals with most major and independent record labels and pay royalties for each song played.

But the amount is far less than a label would earn if that song was downloaded or if they got a slice of a listener's monthly subscription.

Paul Brindley of digital music consultants Music Ally said other labels including Universal and EMI had been more supportive of digital outlets and were unlikely to follow suit.

"There's a fairly widespread suspicion that free streaming services just aren't ever going to make enough money," he said.

"But it does seem to be that Warner is taking a firmer stand than the other major labels in terms of opposing a free ad-funded model.

"It would be an absolute tragedy if they were to adhere to that to such a degree that in their renegotiations with Spotify, they withdrew their content without even giving them a chance to see how well they could convert their users to the premium version.

"It would definitely be a tremendous blow to a service like Spotify if Warner were to withdraw their catalogue from the free service."

Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck. Just as Spotify is about to come to the States its going to fall apart. Damned fools.

http://filipspagnoli.files.wordpress.com/2008/07/shoot-yourself-in-the-foot.jpg

Honestly, has there ever been an industry so dead-set on rendering itself completely irrelevant?

Tom Ewing's thoughts http://tomewing.tumblr.com/post/381802004/warner-to-quit-free-music-streaming

OK, so who "warners" is on Spotify right now?

Is that the "Rhino" stuff as well?

If Spotify isn't making money for Warner and its artists then I'm struggling to work out why they'd want to continue giving away their music.

it's weird cuz WB on the video side is relatively forward-looking (free digital copies of most movies when u buy the dvd/blu-ray etc)

Don't get why this decision is attracting so much bile. I'm with Mr Bronfman. As the article says, free streaming is "popular with fans but not lucrative for labels". Guys, record labels aren't charities and they're not gonna give their shit away unless they can see a way of making it pay for them in the long run. Presumably they've run the numbers and haven't come away with the conviction that free streaming is a viable business model for them. I can see their point.

If Spotify isn't making money for Warner and its artists then I'm struggling to work out why they'd want to continue giving away their music.

― Mughal Beige (Noodle Vague), Wednesday, February 10, 2010 3:11 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

presumably the argument from spotify is that that will change, and they are developing a business/market that will one day be lucrative for the labels/artists.

I was annoyed at first but as long as they still allow paying users to access Warner music then wevs

presumably the argument from spotify is that that will change, and they are developing a business/market that will one day be lucrative for the labels/artists

And presumably the counterargument from Warners is that they can't see that day coming. If it comes then Warners can always jump back on. Until then, free streaming makes no sense for them.

xpost

yeah I get that caek, but it's a judgement call for the label, which also has a responsibility to its artists. Its the "ohmigod you luddites get with the program gimme my freebies now" response that's amusing/bemusing.

It's not like I'm "yay Capitalism!" but some people need to at least get a grasp of how the world goes down.

Um, no, I don't think anyone has been "demanding freebies". My frustration comes more from the point of view that Spotify hasn't even debuted in the States, so its frustrating that this wasn't even given a fair go to see how it would work here.

xxxp It might not be as simple as jumping back on the bandwagon. If free streaming is a gateway drug for people to eventually sign up to the paying service, then Warners are removing the wheels from the bandwagon before it's got going. Apologies for mixed metaphors.

Yeah, surely the right response here is for all you other guys to start subscribing to Spotify.

x-posts

jon I understand what you said, but frustration is one thing and thinking a company are "morons" or "fools" or "irrelevant" for making a business decision with unforeseeable and most likely neglible consequences seems a bit much.

Noodle Vague OTM. The kneejerk response is always "we deserve everything free now and, er, I don't know, maybe the money will fall from the sky?" The lack of big-picture thinking is pathetic.

If free streaming is a gateway drug for people to eventually sign up to the paying service, then Warners are removing the wheels from the bandwagon before it's got going

Well I guess Warners have had a good old look at Spotify and decided that that's not the way it's gonna go, based on their experiences in the UK or wherever. And as far as it not having debuted in the States yet, that's kind of the point of rolling these things out in stages. The label sees the initial run as a trial and uses that to decide whether it's gonna carry on with it elsewhere.

The problem is, is that the industry reacted with "yum, if downloading is what is going on, we shall charge the same money for d/l as for singles, so we save the manufacturing cost and convert it into pure profit"

Which was wrong, because if downloading was 'cheaper' than hard formats, it would create a straight increase in demand (basic demand/cost chart here plz)

What happened is that the demand went exponential because downloading was free, if not legal.

So now, there are lots of people with lots of music that they don't necessarily feel 100% is what they want, just because it was free/cheap.

So, now we get to Spotify. If they are supplying stuff to 'try', you can either stream it to your handy,um, minidisc recorder and keep it there, or go and get the 'superior' CD or LP format off the nice record label.

The lack of big-picture thinking is pathetic.

This is correct. Edgar Bronfman, however, will still be rich.

The problem is, is that the industry reacted with "yum, if downloading is what is going on, we shall charge the same money for d/l as for singles, so we save the manufacturing cost and convert it into pure profit"

Pretty sure this didn't happen: manufacturing not the only cost.

So now, there are lots of people with lots of music that they don't necessarily feel 100% is what they want, just because it was free/cheap.

Taking something you don't especially want isn't a defence of taking it. No moral judgement, just observation.

If Warner Brothers are wrong, then they'll lose money. So it's their call rilly.

For me, the kneejerk negative reaction comes more from viewing this as yet another instance of a major record label running away from technology instead of embracing it. Noodle Vague is 100% in his comments and obviously they don't see this as profitable, fair play. However, I'd love to see them at least offering other solutions rather than turning tail and hiding from the march of technology.

To set the record straight, I legally pay for at least 85% of the music I get. 12% of the remainder probably comes from review material sent to me and I, erm, acquire the last 3%. I'm not looking for a free ride, I was just anxious to give Spotify a whirl because the premise really excited me for sampling purposes.

If they crash and burn because they failed to grapple with the technology then hahaha, but I imagine that there's a lot of fear re: getting with the wrong technology - VHS vs Beta etc - plus maybe a simple case of defending the means of distribution that they're best equipped to profit from - in other words not making a bad decision so much as being forced to take a side which might end up being the losing side but was unavoidable for them as a company to take.

I've got no doubt that things will be shook up a lot over the next 10 years and I honestly don't care too much who wins or loses. I just wanna be clear that there's a real chance a lot of people on all sides are in the process of butchering their golden goose.

(I'm not calling anybody for liking free things. I like free things. We just need to be clear what the consequences of our actions might be.)

The only streaming site I can see making financial sense for the industry is YouTube because it means you can try before you buy but it's too cumbersome to be a substitute for owning the music, whereas I know people - 30something music jouralists, not cash-strapped teens - who do virtually all their listening through Spotify now, and if enough people do that, especially now the iPhone, carries Spotify, the labels will lose more from them than they gain from people like you, jon.

iphonE requires subscription IIRC

However, I'd love to see them at least offering other solutions rather than turning tail and hiding from the march of technology.

I rather suspect that whatever profitable solutions there are for them, are already in play (e.g. making people shell out for "deluxe editions", remasters, repackages &c). The majors aren't stupid, they've got finance directors and all kinds of people who are actully very good at identifying how to make money from music.

The way I see it, the genie was out of the bottle from the moment CDs replaced LPs. One record industry mogul said that was like "giving away our master tapes", and I agree with him. I get tired of people saying that the industry is responsible for its own demise because it's failed to identify a profitable business model that would involve people paying for digital music. I'm actually sceptical that such a thing exists, and the majors can't find it, then I'm pretty sure it doesn't.

terrible world we live in where people will pay for plug-in air fresheners, not music

I was just anxious to give Spotify a whirl because the premise really excited me for sampling purposes.

if it really excites you why don't you pay five dollars a month to napster or rhapsody, which do exactly the same thing as spotify? (napster has been priced at five bucks for awhile; i'm pretty sure rhapsody is now matching that.)

The only streaming site I can see making financial sense for the industry is YouTube because it means you can try before you buy but it's too cumbersome to be a substitute for owning the music

yes, was just thinking exactly this - making music available freely but in really shitty quality strikes me as the best way to both satisfy the freebie mentality that many take for granted now and steer people towards handing over some cash for a decent quality version

"iphonE requires subscription IIRC"

Sorry, you're right. Taking a step back, though, I'd be interested to see how much £££ labels make from £10 subs - still doesn't seem enormously lucrative, but I guess it depends on the scale of take up.

This is quite depressing but understandable. Warner Bros has a huge back catalog and are careful in handling it. Even though for the past decade I roll my eyes on how they are too careful sometimes (taking videos off of Youtube). This is going to show my relatively young age and ignorance, but was there money lost when CDs were becoming the dominant format in the 90s? I thought it was always expected that when new technology comes along money is going to be lost regardless.

I either hope Spotify work a deal out with Warner Bros. with something like you after you pay the initial subscription you can pay extra to get the Warner Music catalog. Or Warner can make it's own streaming type website themselves so they can get all of the profits.

I do agree with anagram there probably isn't any distribution plan that can coincide with current technology. I'm still looking forward to Spotify coming to the US. I'm looking for a change.

the problem with tom's 90s isp analogy is that while the subscription itself was free you still got caned on the phone bill at the end of the month; and the shift to broadband, though being more expensive at the time, provided a much better product. the gateway drug business model for free streaming is fatally flawed cos there is no real step up from spotify besides the absence of advertising (the annoyance value of which is overplayed). if spotify had only played like a minute and a half of every track then we'd be talking.

i suppose spotify's offline thing was meant to be the big subscriber draw, but it's not quite right.

"(the annoyance value of which is overplayed)"

I must be much easier to annoy than you. Or maybe you're in the market for dating urban singles.

was there money lost when CDs were becoming the dominant format in the 90s? I thought it was always expected that when new technology comes along money is going to be lost regardless.

au contraire. an enormous amount of money was made. money was pretty much growing on trees, the same trees the labels cut down to make all those horrible longboxes that they packaged the discs in.

Isn't it Warners who are 'particularly bad' at handling "deluxe editions" potential?

e.g. the Beefheart CD that's out-of-print

the spotify ads annoy me so much that i can't use it at all, ever

shouldn't the fact that you can use google in 3 seconds to d/l almost every album out there, and that file hosting sites, dedicated album leakers and so on seem to be many steps ahead of the industry, be a bit more worrisome than spotify, anyway?

au contraire. an enormous amount of money was made. money was pretty much growing on trees, the same trees the labels cut down to make all those horrible longboxes that they packaged the discs in.

Thank you fact checking cuz. Then I just think Warner Bros should just create their own streaming website. They seem to hate working with other entities about these things, so they can just do it themselves. They have Madonna and "Purple Rain" money leftover from the 80s right?

i'm not saying spotify ads aren't annoying - but no one but the flighty bourgeousie is going to shell out just to get rid of them for otherwise the same service. people are tenacious on this shit.

shouldn't the fact that you can use google in 3 seconds to d/l almost every album out there, and that file hosting sites, dedicated album leakers and so on seem to be many steps ahead of the industry, be a bit more worrisome than spotify, anyway?

yeah absolutely - and to be more precise that doesnt involve playing whack-a-mole with blogs or persecuting the odd downloader to make an example but addressing the whole shadowy ripper crew industry, or at least labels having a better grip on in whose hands their product lies before it's released. the delicious problem of course is that for top level pirates it's just a lolgame with no financial motive (correct me if anyone knows better.)

whereas I know people - 30something music journalists (...)- who do virtually all their listening through Spotify now,

jesus fkn christ btw

I know, I know. On their fucking iPhones no less.

at least labels having a better grip on in whose hands their product lies before it's released

yeah I totally don't get why things like digital watermarks aren't more widely used, not just on promos but on general releases. they should attempt to stem the flow of top level piracy, make it so unattractive that ppl don't wanna do it

from Warner's pov, things like Spotify may be more of a concern than googling for rars as people start to move away from wanting to even download albums just to hear them.

i mean because you are more likely to find major label music on the streaming apps than the more underground/obscure/niche stuff.

Depends..

You can find lots of "Finders Keepers" stuff on Spotify.

xxxps Lex on the money about Spotify being the lesser of two evils here. And presumably Spotify is a revenue stream for WB (if not a good one), as opposed to the precisely nothing they get from people d/ling their stuff for free.

blueski that's true to an extent (i would dispute this utopian vision of the future personally tbh), but cracking down on the totally free good quality criminal alternative would give companies some sort of leverage in manipulating official outlets.

the great misconception the industry seems to have is that anyone would want to share anything they've originally had to pay for (until like a decade's gone by at least).

Isn't it Warners who are 'particularly bad' at handling "deluxe editions" potential?

e.g. the Beefheart CD that's out-of-print

that's a rights issue i believe?

sometimes when i send people an mp3 i've legit bought, i feel really quite virtuous. my moral boundaries have shifted.

xp

And presumably Spotify is a revenue stream for WB (if not a good one), as opposed to the precisely nothing they get from people d/ling their stuff for free.

Yeah, but it's easy for WB to do something about Spotify and not so easy to hunt down all those 1334 15 year-olds out there gleefully destroying their industry for nothing more than kudos.

I'd imagine it's also tempting to see Spotify and the pirates as points on the same spectrum.

well as an inveterate thiefing and hoarding chief of trilobitic moral compunction i can only salute your largesse from a reassuringly safe distance. xp

How big is rar culture in the demographics Warner hopes to make money from? I'm always a bit concerned that people jump from "everyone i know does it" to "everyone does it". About 90% of rapidshare, torrent etc use seems to be for TV shows and movies so maybe the music biz are hoping for a bit more of that industry's legal muscle in the mole-whacking?

I'm not sure Rapidshare-type sites are that big a deal in the wider world, especially as there are more and more of these aggregation sites that just seem like a conduit for viruses and intrusive ads and the like.

Spotify could just as easily go the way of newspaper websites, ie people get so used to streaming for free that the very idea of paying for it does not compute.

Also Spotify fucked up by making the 'Buy' option a clunky piece of shit. I've had so many failed downloads now I've pretty much stopped bothering with it.

Well, to be honest I'm more than amazed that Spotify even exists, let alone has content that's more attractive than "Curt Smith from Tears for Fears' solo album" ...

honestly i'm not sure this is a terrible decision. i mean, is there a _good_ decision to make here? the record industry is in an uncomfortable position. i'm not sure that, should the ridiculous happen and i be charged with running a multinational multimillion dollar record label, i would make a different call.

it's not a terrible decision for THEM, just sucks for me

That pretty much sums it up.

Wonder if there's a "Run Your Own Evil Major Label" game out there somewhere? Freeware, obv.

really liked this brave new world where the entire history of major label music was available to me as long as i'd endure a brief pop up every 4 songs, hoped it would turn out to be a workable economic model

dream app: Spotify that is subscriber only, user upload only and actively bans/prohibits major label content and only used by roughly 30,000 elitist tossers. fuck yeah.

so like, what do we do once all music is in this perfect cloud? just... listen to stuff? sounds pretty boring imo.

blueski - you're describing slsk, no?

One interesting thing about this, re the idea of Warner doing their own streaming, is that major labels have been very very very very very bad about branding since at least the 1970s. The man in the street has no emotional feeling at all about "Warner Brothers" -- "Ooh, it's on Warner, I'd better check that out." Epic, Elektra, Atlantic-- at one time these labels meant something to at least some people but they haven't done that at all, for at least a generation. They might as well be on Altria. So the idea of streaming a particular major label, few people have a clue about what's on it.

dream app: Spotify that is subscriber only, user upload only and actively bans/prohibits major label content and only used by roughly 30,000 elitist tossers. fuck yeah.

Sounds like indi3torr3nts without the subscription

I've never understood why majors buy indies, then maintain the labels name, rather than simply absorbing the parts of the catalog they wanted. They nearly always screw up whatever branding the indie had within few years, as non-syncophants flee.

blueski - you're describing slsk, no?

to make it clearer i think spotify's UI/ease of use is pivotal and not something p2p clients and torrent-based apps match, so it's about taking the spotify model and applying it to everything else out there that's conceptually cool but suffers design-wise (includes YouTube). but it doesn't have to be exe-based like spotify currently is and probably shouldn't be.

One interesting thing about this, re the idea of Warner doing their own streaming, is that major labels have been very very very very very bad about branding since at least the 1970s. The man in the street has no emotional feeling at all about "Warner Brothers" -- "Ooh, it's on Warner, I'd better check that out." Epic, Elektra, Atlantic-- at one time these labels meant something to at least some people but they haven't done that at all, for at least a generation. They might as well be on Altria. So the idea of streaming a particular major label, few people have a clue about what's on it.

That's true but they can always call it another name. Wasn't the reason why their were many CD clubs back in the day because they had specific major label catalogs? So Warner can just give it some name with their catalog. I know people are greedy (and too damn demanding) and will say "How come (insert artist here) isn't on this website?" because they are not from Warner Brothers but it's better than nothing.

People dont want to subscribe to multiple services. They will go to the service that has the most choice at a decent price. Who is going to pay a premium just to get WB stuff when for the same price they get 75% more choice?
They are obviously hoping the other labels will follow suit, kill off ad based free services, then start an overpriced subscription service with all the labels on board.
Unless they are really stupid enough to think shitloads of people will fork out to stream Warners stuff only.

Well if that is the case then Warner Bros is running out of options then. Oh well.

I think they're just going to sit tight and hope something better comes along that changes things in their favour.

OK, so who "warners" is on Spotify right now?

Is that the "Rhino" stuff as well?

― Mark G, Wednesday, February 10, 2010 7:04 AM (9 hours ag

almost certainly. elektra and atlantic as well.

probably nonesuch too

Warner, one of the four major labels, whose artists include REM and Michael Buble

labels in the US are in bed and backing MOG.

in bed with, rather.

http://freespace.virgin.net/roger.mainwood/index_files/image002.jpg

L-R: MOG, Warners, EMI

wait REM is the default warner artist to mention? haven't they sold like 12 new albums in the last decade?

think Spotify lets you listen to old records as well

I don't see how the world would need an ad-based thing like Spotify anyway. Paying for downloading tracks is cheap as fuck, and the kids are already doing it on their mobile phone. Shouldn't be too dangerous to teach them that. And then what is needed is only to teach them that albums >>> singles and that lossless >> mp3. That'll come too.

http://thecia.com.au/reviews/d/images/dangerous-minds-poster-0.jpg

Had to remind myself who's on Warners:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Warner_Music_Group_artists

No more Hottie and the Bluesfish you guys

Paris Hilton has taken over!

And then what is needed is only to teach them that albums >>> singles and that lossless >> mp3. That'll come too.

ugh

Can just imagine kids on the bus listening to lossless MC Smalley bangers on their mobiles.

"Yeah, but if you get "The Revealing Science of God" as a 99p download, it's better innit?"

the genie was out of the bottle from the moment CDs replaced LPs

In retrospect this was the genie, but I still don't buy that in 1981 when CDs first came out anyone could be expected to look at the computing technology of the time and go "well in 20 or 30 years we won't have thought of anything better, and everyone will have a device on their desk or even in their pocket which is capable of playing and storing the contents of thousands of these things and sending any one of them to someone on the other side of the world within 20 minutes, and all our attempts to monetise that process will have been too little too late"

Don't know whether it's clever or sickening watching labels latch onto wringing more pennies out of those who still pay for physical objects, e.g. Warp's "we know 99% of you kids are going to steal the new Autechre off the internet, but there are just enough obsessives to make money off if we get them to buy a thirty quid 'special edition' in a plain white box with a poster in"

(not that this didn't already happen, of course)

don't know why that would be sickening, except from a fervently anti-materialist standpoint.

i wonder if warner's decision has anything to do with its catalogue having debuted on emusic recently? that is, i wonder if warner views emusic as the "lesser of two evils," compared to spotify.

not sickening exactly, it just relies too much on commodity fetishism for my tastes.

Don't know whether it's clever or sickening watching labels latch onto wringing more pennies out of those who still pay for physical objects, e.g. Warp's "we know 99% of you kids are going to steal the new Autechre off the internet, but there are just enough obsessives to make money off if we get them to buy a thirty quid 'special edition' in a plain white box with a poster in"

Well, virtually all albums are still marketed at physical CDs. And they still sell, you know. Maybe not as much as 10 years ago, but they sell.

I, for one, will insist on buying physical CDs until a format appear where you can have 1000+ albums with perfect lossless hi-fi-sound stored at one portable unit at the same time.

So the idea of streaming a particular major label, few people have a clue about what's on it.

in 1996 warners came to the company i worked for, looking to get a web site built. they wanted the web site to showcase all their music. it would be a "portal" to all their bands. they didn't have a name for it. they wanted something catchy, edgy, cool. they offered 10 CDs to whoever came up with the winning name. wow. at that time there were loads of fantastic domain names that were completely unspoken for. "musicbox.com" "headphone.com" etc etc. all were suggested, all rejected. what they really wanted was "ear.com" but somebody had already taken it. so they chose.... "ear1.com". brilliant.

http://www.businessweek.com/the_thread/techbeat/archives/2010/02/is_rhapsody_as.html
story ends up pretty lol but i didn't know about real losing rhapsody. undoubtedly a good thing for the software, maybe doom for the service of course

Tracer Hand, that's beautiful and sad.

> I, for one, will insist on buying physical CDs until a format appear where you can have 1000+ albums with perfect lossless hi-fi-sound stored at one portable unit at the same time.

an archos 7. 320GB storage, flac playback.

or two ipods taped together

anyway I know the big about MOG because I interviewed there. They are pretty cool (and really tiny). WB, or maybe it was Universal, apparently invested some unbelievable shitload of money in some other service that never happened and fell apart last year, panicked and went to them at the end of 2009 and said "can you be the service we use?" and they pulled some incredible deal with the major labels. That said, they are very independent label friendly. I think it remains to be seen how well they will do but because the licensing for the content for them is cheaper than it was for anyone else (and when Spotify comes to the US it will be a very limited thing compared to what is in Europe) and becuase their actual overhead is pretty low because they only have like, 5 employees, I think they will probably be around for a while. How this translates to being good for artists and smaller labels, I don't know. But I think they are the ones to watch. And no I don't work there.

the genie was out of the bottle from the moment CDs replaced LPs

I believe wholeheartedly in this. But to be honest this was the best way to forecast profits for an industry whose business model revolved around finding new ways to sell "The Eagles Greatest Hits" and The Beatles catalog to the same customers over and over. They got greedy in the late 80s when they switched to recycled vinyl in order to both save costs and ensure the product line would wear out quicker. People complained about flimsy, cheapness, sound quality, etc. so they successfully created the market demand for CDs. Customers that were sick of buying the same album over and over again were told they could buy a CD, have perfect audio quality forever, and they would last a thousand years.

The recording industry has lost the one thing that ensured its profitability; its near monopoly over the ability to reproduce recordings. And they are never getting that back.

mean late 70s

The industry are still largely selling new stuff though. Dunno exactly the quota, but I have the impression that the majority of record sales are of records made within the past year or so (has the biz ever done statistics on this btw?)

Would like to point out that Warner did in fact just add most of its catalog to emusic (including atlantic, rhino, etc). So not entirely just running and hiding from tech.

Warners is still the duke of ear1.com, but the server times out. I would be nice if they forced some pop punk band to change their name to Ear 1 so they could recoup the $600 in domain renewals they've rung up over the years.