February 2012

"I look at the Internet as the new radio. I look at the radio as gone...Piracy is the new radio. That’s how music gets around...That's the radio."

So said legendary singer/songwriter Neil Young in an interview at the Dive Into Media conference in Los Angeles. And tech publication GigaOM agrees.

"Comparing piracy to radio is a smart way of looking at the issue," writes Matthew Ingram in GigaOM. "In the early days of the music business, when live performances and record sales were the main revenue generator for artists and publishers, radio itself was seen as a form of piracy (as sheet music was before that)."

But of course, radio became a "huge revenue driver" and "publicitiy engine" for music.

GigaOM writes that online file sharing may be on a similar path, though: "File-sharing and monetization aren’t mutually exclusive, and in many cases a certain amount of so-called 'piracy' can actually be good for business, as authors, musicians and even game developers have come to realize."

Additionally, GigaOM writes (here) consumers often engage in copyright infringement because it's easier than navigating distributors' "cumbersome" routes to official content. One could perhaps argue radio offered the same benefit to music lovers when buying records or attending live concerts were the only alternatives.

What do you think? Is Neil Young right that piracy is the new radio for music? Sound off in the comments!

New data from RAJAR -- the UK's radio audience measuring body -- shows that Internet radio's share and listening hours in Q4 2011 increased over the previous year.

Internet radio collected 35 million hours of listening during the quarter, RAJAR reports, and held a 3.4% share of radio listening. Both figures are up around 10% from Q4 2010.

That said, MediaWeek argues (here) that the figures "have yet to demonstrate that Radioplayer, the one-stop shop for online radio listening launched on 31 March last year, has had a real impact on the number of hours listened to internet radio." The publication points to the fact that Internet radio's 35 million hours of listening is actually down from the 40 million reported in Q3 2011.

You can find RAJAR's Q4 results here (PDF). James Cridland has more coverage and analysis of RAJAR's findings about digital radio at his blog here.

Canadian television, Internet, and telephone company Shaw Communications has unveiled fifteen branded commercial-free online music channels, powered by Galaxie Music.

While there are a couple "usual suspects" formats among the offerings ("Canadian Indie," "Headbangers," "Hip Hop"), most of the channels are dedicated to contemporary Asian genres ("Guangdong," "Punjabi," "Bollywood Hits," "Mando Pop") and other "cultural music."

Galaxie is the music content provider owned by Montreal-based Stingray Digital, who last year struck a deal with Canadian label-group Music Canada to pay $0.002 CAD per performance (see our coverage here) for the streaming rights to copyright recordings. In August, Stingray launched 45 commercial-free, subscription-based streaming music channels for mobile devices. These channels were branded as Galaxie for various cable and satellite television services.

Shaw's branded versions of the Galaxie channels will be made available on Shaw's television service as well. In total, 55 Galaxie music stations are now available to Shaw Digital TV customers for free.

In October, Astral Radio announced its on-demand music streaming service (see RAIN here, with more recent coverage here), offering "niche format channels" and "personalized streaming music." Just last month, the CBC announced it had forged a licensing deal that will enable it to launch its own digital music service (our coverage is here). Read more about Shaw's announcement here.

Stefan Baumschlager, Chief Label Pleaser for CBS Interactive's Last.fm, is leaving to join on-demand music service Rdio.

Baumschlager tells All Access he'll help Rdio "with their roll-out across Europe." He had served with Last.fm for more than 5 years.

All Access has more coverage here.