HMV, Woolworths, 7digital, Digitalstores, Tescodigital, Tunetribe, and Play.com have all agreed to promote a new “MP3 compatible” logo that they hope will raise the profile of the open MP3 music format and inform users on what they can do with their DRM-free downloads.
The logo should also help consumers identify legal music stores from P2P.
The Entertainment Retailers Association created the logo and says it will emphasize that MP3s can be played in all media players.
7digital’s Ben Drury added that digital sales “have been booming because users love the freedom of MP3″.
“The beauty of an MP3 file is that once you have bought it, you don’t need to be a computer genius or a lawyer to make it work and you are not locked in to a relationship with a single retailer or hardware manufacturer,” he said.
The BPI is also standing behind the new proposal.
“This logo will not only help give consumers confidence that the music files they are buying will play on a wide range of devices, but will also help them know that they are legal and that artists are getting paid,” noted Geoff Taylor, BPI chief executive.
Result for: bpi
After last month’s “three strikes and you’re off the Internet” announcement in the UK was made official, it seems the large ISP Virgin Media will be the first to implement the plan.
Although record labels have been pushing for a plan like this for years, it is not even known yet whether the actual measures are legal. The government is expected to have a meeting on that very subject sometime next month. Despite this fact, BPI and Virgin say they will enact a pilot program using the infamous “three strikes and you’re off the Internet”.
A spokesman for Virgin Media said: “We have been in discussions with rights holders organisations about how a voluntary scheme could work. We are taking this problem seriously and would favour a sensible voluntary solution…the BPI has teams of technicians to trace illegal music downloading to individual accounts. It will hand these account numbers over to Virgin Media, which will match them to names and addresses.”
BPI plans to send warning letters for first time offenders, a temporary suspension of Internet services for the “second strike” and finally a full disconnection for the final strike.
Result for: bpi
The umbrella group UK Music has been created today to establish a unified anti-piracy position.
The new group will be releasing a program on October 30th that includes “cross-industry submission to government on illegal file sharing and a music industry manifesto.”
UK Music will also look into new revenue models such as unlimited music subscriptions bundled with broadband service.
Feargal Sharkey, UK Music CEO added “The launch of UK Music marks a bold new chapter for the UK’s commercial music industry. [It] will serve a huge spectrum of the commercial music sector, and championing our industry’s creativity and shared commercial interests will be at the heart of what we do.”
Chairman Andy Heath says, “Until now, it has been incredibly difficult to establish a unified music business position, whether that’s concerning illegal file-sharing or music education. In that sense, this new organisation, which pulls together and represents such a wide range of interests, is a real game-changer.”
The founding members of UK Music include the BPI, the Association of Independent Music, the British Academy of Composers and Songwriters, performing rights body the MCPS-PRS Alliance, the Music Managers Forum, the Music Publishers Association, the Musicians Union and Phonographic Performance Limited (PPL).
