BitTorrent Site Mininova Makes It Easier To Sell Scarcities With Downloads

from the neat dept

A bunch of folks have been sending in the news that popular BitTorrent site Mininova is now making it much easier to monetize your own BitTorrented music. Basically, it makes it easy to sell other things alongside the torrent. This is very much about using the free music to sell related scarcities, such as concert tickets, CDs or other promotional goods. Imagine taking the various tiered upsell solutions that are becoming popular and connecting them directly to your own torrent of the music? As the story notes, at least one indie record label, Beep! Beep!, has signed up and is releasing all of its music via this system -- and even offering those who download a 20% discount on products as a thank you for helping to seed the files:

"It's only fair not to pay for something you haven't heard yet. In our opinion torrents are an excellent way to present you with our music. That's why Beep! Beep! and Mininova have teamed up. We like the fact that you're taking the effort to get to know new music. In fact, we'd like to thank you for downloading and seeding our music by giving you a discount on our hardcopies."

But, of course, we'll probably still hear from people about how such torrent sites are destroying the recording industry... even as it helps enable exactly what's coming next.

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EMI Sets Up Its Own Online Store As YouTube Tries Selling Music

from the try,-try-again dept

Lots of folks are trying to figure out new business models in the music space, and here we have two separate big companies testing out ideas that seem unlikely to work all that well. First up is EMI, the big record label that keeps insisting that its going a different route but can't seem to reign in its lawyers from taking the same old route. This time around, it's launching its own music download site, where it's promising lots of extras and goodies -- including some stuff for free. It will be interesting to see how the actual site is set up, but the idea of setting up just a label specific site seems destined to fail. People want a one-stop shop. They don't want to have to know that the music they like is on EMI. Imagine, back when people bought CDs, if they had to go to a different store for each record label. Maybe there's more to it than what's being described, but at first pass, this sounds like more of the same: a big record label sticking a square peg into a round hole, covering it with shiny paint, and talking about how awesome it is.

Then there's Google, which has been struggling mightily to come up with ways to make money off of YouTube. At the same time, record labels have been complaining about how much "music" (accompanied by videos, of course) is available on YouTube, and the folks at Google put two and two together and will start offering options to buy the songs you hear on YouTube at partner sites such as Amazon or iTunes. While it's not a bad idea (why not offer people a chance to buy if they want it), it's hard to see this really getting that much traction. Some people may go ahead and buy out of convenience, but it's hard to see people actually doing that much music "shopping" this way.

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Selling Stuff On The Internet? Why, That Infringes On A Patent!

from the prepare-to-get-sued dept

Erich Spangenberg was mentioned here earlier this week for having to pay $4 million for shuffling some patents around to shell companies and suing a company he had already agreed not to sue over those patents. Of course, that's not slowing him down apparently. Not only has he asked for a new trial on that ruling, he's continuing to file new patent lawsuits -- with the latest one apparently being for a patent on selling stuff on the internet. Yes, the patent may say it's about selling vehicles, but of the 47 new companies being sued over this patent, it looks like they're all selling other stuff, not cars. Basically, it looks like he's trying to sue every internet retailer there is -- because, of course, none of them ever would have come up with the concept of selling stuff online if this patent didn't exist.

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