Digital Digest: Burger King, Apple, XM & Sirius, Mom vs. Universal Music
Fast food chain inks music deal; Apple swims in money; satellite radio firms to offer a la carte pricing; woman sues over YouTube takedown.
BK Lounge inks music deal
Your next Whopper might come with a side of Robbie Williams or Corinne Bailey Rae. EMI Music has inked a deal with Burger King in the UK to give away DRM-free downloads from its catalog, allowing customers to get vouchers for free downloads with their purchase. EMI has teamed up with Chicago-based digital agency VerveLife for the promotion, which is the first in a planned series of global campaigns with VerveLife's brand partners. The downloads and samples will come from a specially created microsite.
"EMI's recent decision to drop DRM has had a hugely positive impact on our potential to collaborate with brands in order to offer consumers downloads that they can play across all digital music players," Barney Wragg, global head of digital, EMI Music, said in a statement.
Apple makes things people like to buy
Apple reported its third-quarter earnings today, and not surprisingly the House of Jobs saw its profit soar more than 73 percent, fueled by demand for its Macintosh computers and iPods. Apple said it sold 9.8 million iPods during the quarter, up 21 percent over the same period a year ago, for revenue of $1.57 billion. Apple also said today that it sold 270,000 iPhones in the first two days on the market, though the do-it-all music phone didn't impact the quarter's results because the company plans to account for its sales as subscription revenue over two years.
For the quarter ended June 30, Apple's profit rose to $818 million, or 92 cents per share, up from $472 million, or 54 cents a share in the year-ago quarter. Sales grew to $5.41 billion from $4.37 billion last year. "IPhone is off to a great start--we hope to sell our one-millionth iPhone by the end of its first full quarter of sales--and our new product pipeline is very strong," Apple CEO Steve Jobs said in a conference call.
XM, Sirius to offer a la carte pricing
Hoping to convince federal regulators to approve its proposed merger, satellite radio companies XM and Sirius have promised to offer a la carte pricing to subscribers, meaning that users could select the channels they would like to subscribe to from both services and pay accordingly. XM and Sirius said the a la carte pricing would launch within one year of the approval of the merger.
Under the proposed pricing structure, one plan would run $6.99 for 50 channels plus additional channels for as little as 25 cents each; the 50 channels could come from either XM or Sirius but not from both. The base price is 46 percent less than the current standard price of $12.95. A 100-channel version for $14.99 could pull channels from both services, a savings of more than $10 based on the current pricing structure, the companies said.
Universal faces YouTube lawsuit
For the better part of 2007, the major record labels have been forcing video-sharing giant YouTube to police its network and remove videos that infringe on its copyright. But in the case of Stephanie Lenz and her toddler son, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) believes that one of those labels has gone too far. The EFF filed suit today against Universal Music Publishing Group (UMPG), asking a federal court to protect a 30-second video Lenz shot of her song dancing to Prince's "Let's Go Crazy."
The video, which has since been reposted, features the boy dancing the song as it plays in the background. Lenz uploaded the home video to YouTube in February to share it with her family and friends. YouTube took down the video last month after Universal claimed that the recording infringed a copyright controlled by the music company. Under federal copyright law, a mere allegation of copyright infringement can result in the removal of content from the Internet.
"Universal's takedown notice doesn't even pass the laugh test," EFF Staff Attorney Corynne McSherry said in a statement. "Copyright holders should be held accountable when they undermine non-infringing, fair uses like this video."
