Techdirt. Stories filed under "releases"

Epic's 'Music First' Approach: Delay Album Release; Drop Band When They Leak It

Mike Masnick — Tue, 6 Nov 2012 07:44:40 PST

Last month, we wrote about how the band Death Grips, an indie sensation who had signed with Epic Records (owned by Sony Music), had decided to release their latest album for free all over the internet, after some sort of dispute with Epic over the release date. The band was already considered one of the top authorized downloaded bands on BitTorrent due to earlier releases it had put online for free itself. However, with Epic trying to take a standard "slow down and wait" approach, the band posted its new album to various file lockers and started tweeting out links, noting that "the label will be hearing the album for the first time with you."

Last week, the band posted a screenshot of an irate email from the label about this. Epic notes not only that is it absolutely furious about the leak, but that (1) the release is a breach of contract; (2) since Epic owns the copyright, the label considers the leak to be infringing; (3) the band's decisions have "financially damaged Epic"; (4) even though Epic still intended to release the album, the album would not count towards the recording commitment in the band's contract and (5) while Epic still intended to collect money for the sale of the album (which, again, would not count towards the recording commitment), Epic would not cover the cost of recording the album. Those last two points are the really interesting ones to me. If it's not counting the album towards the recording commitment, and it now refuses to pay for the cost of the album, it seems wrong to then still consider it something that Epic gets to sell and to keep all the revenue from.

Either way, it appears that won't be an issue, because just a few weeks after that email was sent, Epic officially began the process of dropping Death Grips from the contract. This probably won't surprise many people, though it will be interesting to see if Epic retains "ownership" of the work in question or if Death Grips is able to get back control of its masters. That said, Epic's "statement" about this move is absolutely hilarious for being obviously, blatantly, false:

Epic Records is a music first company that breaks new artists. That is our mission and our mandate. Unfortunately, when marketing and publicity stunts trump the actual music, we must remind ourselves of our core values. To that end, effective immediately, we are working to dissolve our relationship with Death Grips. We wish them well.

First of all, Death Grips had already "broken" without Epic's help. Second, since when has a major label ever really cared about "the actual music" as compared to the ability to make money off of it with marketing and publicity stunts? And, really, if it were just about "the music," then why would it have freaked out so much when the band made "the music" available for free?

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Beastie Boys Embrace Many Different Platforms In 'Leaking' Own Album

Mike Masnick — Tue, 26 Apr 2011 16:37:58 PDT

More and more musicians seem to be recognizing that having a record leak is not a bad thing. Even as some artists decide to send leakers to jail -- others are recognizing that it's yet another opportunity to connect. The latest is the Beastie Boys, with their (long-awaited) latest album. There's been a buildup over the past few weeks, with the band "leaking" stuff as they go. While I have a hard time believing the claims from the band that these leaks were not part of the "plan," it really seems to have built up anticipation for the album. First the band offered up the single after it had already started to be found online:

This wasn't really part of the plan, but since this track is out there we wanted to let you hear it here first, or maybe second. Enjoy

Of course, the band has also been promoting the combination half-hour movie/five minute music video thing they put together with more famous actors than any music video in the history of music videos. If you're in the US (yes, I know regional restrictions suck, but I didn't do it), you can watch the full video here: The five minute music video is here: There's also a two minute "trailer" for the longer movie here: And, finally, earlier this week, the band started streaming the entire album using SoundCloud, claiming that it was in response to the "clean" version of the album being leaked:

Good people, unfortunately due to circumstances beyond our control, the “clean” version of our new album, The Hot Sauce Committee pt 2 has leaked. So as a hostile and retaliatory measure with great hubris we are making the full explicit aka filthy dirty nasty version available for streaming on our site. We hope this brings much happiness, hugs, and harmony.

Again, whether or not this is all planned out (and I'm still betting it was), it's interesting to see the band embracing so many different ways to promote and share its content. If you look at just the content here, we're talking about video, audio and text... and a ton of different platforms. There's Tumblr, Hulu, MTV, YouTube and Soundcloud. I find this interesting, since many bands seem to pick a single platform and stick with it. I'm not sure why the Beastie Boys are going with a different platform for different pieces, but I'd be curious if the band ever explains some of the thinking behind these choices. And while the different limitations on different platforms (mainly Hulu -- no permission for TV browsers? WTF?) it does seem pretty clear that most people should be able to access at least some of all of this. I particularly like the use of SoundCloud as it really makes the audio more interactive in allowing fans to comment at specific time points in the songs.

Once again, I have no idea if this particular strategy will work, but it's always interesting to see how bands -- new and old -- look for better ways to embrace the internet.

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Movie Studios Add Another Window: The $30 Dollar Rental

Mike Masnick — Fri, 1 Apr 2011 09:49:41 PDT

btr1701 points us to a report from Thursday's (not April Fool's Day) Variety, which claims that the movie studios are getting ready to offer $30 dollar per movie Video On Demand (VOD) offerings. This is a classically short-sighted Hollywood-type of solution. Over the past few years, the big movie studios have become even more enamored than ever with the concept of release "windows," in which they offer movies on different platforms/formats at different times. Rather than moving in the other direction, towards so-called "day and date" releases that offer up movies on all platforms at once, they're trying to make the whole thing more frustrating and annoying for customers by spreading things out and offering more windows.

This explains the recent efforts to delay various movie rental releases and the whole plan to break your DVR/TV so that you can't actually record certain VOD showings. Now that they have these in place, apparently they think the answer is to offer this new window, between theater showings and when you can rent from Netflix or your video store of choice, in which they somehow think people will be okay paying $30 per movie.

It kind of makes me wonder what they're pumping into the air down in Hollywood.

I'm sure their argument is that since a "whole family" or a group of folks can watch the film, it's more cost reasonable, and they'll argue that the release -- closer to the theater release -- makes it worth the extra money. This, however, assumes that consumers are stupid, and I think Hollywood may quickly discover that consumers aren't quite as stupid as the studio execs think. Of course, even more amusing is that the theater owners -- who have always fought any attempt to do releases close to the theatrical release, are freaking out about this. I doubt they have much to worry about.

The report notes that Paramount has chosen not to join in this scheme, suggesting that it's worried about how this might increase piracy. I'm not sure if that's true. After all, Paramount is the one studio that has publicly said that those 28 day rental delays didn't make any sense and that it didn't drive customers to buy DVDs. So maybe the folks at Paramount actually realize that consumers don't want more windows and more ridiculous price points...

Of course, at the very same time that Hollywood is going down this ridiculous path, others are urging them to go in the other direction. TorrentFreak has a post about a UK movie reviewer's simple and clear explanation for why the studios should offer day and date releases:

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Big Record Label 'Innovation': Actually Release Songs For Sale The Same Time They Hit The Radio

Mike Masnick — Mon, 17 Jan 2011 12:47:54 PST

I can't quite figure out which is more amusing: the fact that record labels are just now thinking that maybe it makes sense to release songs for sale the same time they're sent to radio stations, or that it's seen as newsworthy as a strategy to "beat piracy." I mean, it's a good sign that the labels are finally realizing that a lack of availability is often a driver for unauthorized copies making the rounds, but the fact that they're only coming to this conclusion in 2011 suggests just how out of touch these labels are with the world. People were making this point over a decade ago.

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Odeon Cinemas Admit The Experience At Their Theaters Is So Bad It Can't Compete With Your Home Theater

Mike Masnick — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 13:38:53 PST

We've seen this before, but it's still really incredible. The Odeon movie theater chain is apparently refusing to show the new Alice in Wonderland film, directed by Tim Burton, in the UK, Ireland and Italy, because Disney is (smartly) trying to shorten the "window" between the cinema release and the DVD release. Basically, what Odeon is admitting here is that it knows the experience of going to its theaters is so bad that it simply can't compete with watching the movie at home. This is a rather stunning admission by Odeon and probably should make you think twice before going to any Odeon theaters.

The reason that the box office had its best year ever last year was because people like going out to the movies, for the experience, even if they can watch the movie at home. Odeon's admission that it can't compete even with a 12-week head start is really incredible. Disney isn't even really pushing the bar that much. Many of us believe that there shouldn't be any window at all, but Disney is just trying to reduce the window on this movie from 17-weeks down to 12-weeks. And Odeon is giving up all the revenue from people wanting to see the movie because it's afraid it might make slightly less in just 12 weeks? This makes no sense at all. Not only is Odeon guaranteeing no revenue at all from this movie, it's publicizing the fact that it believes its theaters aren't worth going to.

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Redbox Caves To Warner Bros., Will Delay New Movie Releases From Kiosks

Mike Masnick — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 16:10:42 PST

Some of the movie studios (admittedly, not all of them) have been on a braindead fight against Redbox -- despite the fact that Redbox had created a service that people liked and were paying for and that generated revenue for the movie industry. There are still ongoing lawsuits, but today came the news that Redbox caved to Warner Bros., on the most important point: delaying the availability of new release movies until 28 days after the release. Yes, this is the same deal that Warner Bros. convinced Netflix to agree to last month. Basically, Warner Bros. is telling people to either not rent its video or to download them from an unauthorized source.

The whole thing makes no sense at all. Warner Bros. mistakenly thinks that if people can't rent a particular DVD in the first four weeks of release, they're more likely to shell out money to actually buy the DVD. This is Warner Bros. pretending that it can influence customer behavior by denying them what they want. That's a strategy that has never worked well. What this means is that at the moment when Warner Bros. actually puts some marketing effort behind the DVD release, that movie will not be available from the most popular rental options. And, the bizarre reasoning put forth by Netflix that this would benefit customers by improving inventory and availability of movies is not seen in reality. So rather than pissing off some customers because a movie is not available, you're now pissing off all customers by making the movie not be available on purpose, and then effectively massively increasing the amount of time they have to wait to see the movie? Does no one at Warner realize that a lot of those "customers" will simply decide to go see other movies or to download an unauthorized copy instead?

Based on Warner Bros., logic here, why release movies at all?

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