Filed under: Products and services, Industry, Consumer experience, Marketing and advertising

A British trade group that reports on music retail has published new findings to Billboard Friday “indicating Britons buy more CDs than any other country, and are larger consumers of legal downloads than any of their European neighbors.” It’s the fifth year the British have led CD purchases, buying an average of 2.3 CDs in 2007, while Americans only purchased an average of 1.7 CDs. These findings come from the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry’s new handbook out this week: the Recording Industry in Numbers.

Digital figures for British music downloads totaled $169.5 million in 2007, and were announced at the New Music Conference at London’s Earls Court by the Entertainment Retailers Association Thursday. The association’s chairman commented that British retailers offer “more and better music retailing than anywhere else in the world,” but seemed to connect the higher CD and digital sales in the UK with consumers’ love of music, rather than where the real strength of the report is: consumers apparent continued satisfaction with CDs and interest in downloads.

Although this news indicates that CD sales are still steady, consumers buying an average of two CDs a year can hardly be that great for the music industry. In a market where CD sales continue to be seen as the lifeline of the industry, the reality of CD sales indicates how much digital downloads have to make up in order for some form of equilibrium in the industry. Clearly these numbers should force the industry to build up efforts to solidify and strengthen digital sales, but since it was put out by retailers, that group might resist such moves.

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Filed under: Windows, Macintosh, Linux, Productivity, Freeware

Whether you’re a freelancer working on multiple projects with different billable rates or someone who just wants to keep track of the time you spend on different tasks, Klok can help. Klok is a cross-platform time-tracking application built on Adobe AIR. That means you can use Klok on Windows, Mac, and Linux machines.

You can set up sub-projects for each project. For example, you could have a project called “watching TV,” and sub-projects for Pushing Daisies, How I Met Your Mother, and Rock of Love 2. Because we know that’s what you’ll really want to use a time tracker for.

Klok also has a nifty tiny reports tab that shows you how much time you’ve wasted spent on various tasks. And you can export your reports as an Excel spreadsheet.

[via Lifehacker]

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Filed under: Deals, Press releases, Products and services, Marketing and advertising, Sony Corp ADR (SNE)

British band Oasis have reportedly signed a new record deal with Sony BMG Music Entertainment via the band’s own record label Huge Brother Recordings. Large Brother will release the band’s new material while Sony BMG, a joint venture of Sony (NYSE: SNE) and Germany’s Bertlesmann Media Group, handles distribution of the new album and the band’s back catalog in all markets, and the two companies will share profits. Music newspaper NME additionally reports that all signs indicate the first album as part of the new arrangement will be released this fall.

The band has been associated with Sony BMG in some form or another since its first album was released in 1994. Creation Records, the band’s first label in the United Kingdom, handled distribution and release there, while Sony handled the same duties in other markets, including the United Says. When Creation folded in the late 90s and Huge Brother was set up, the same arrangement was kept. The band’s last album of new material was released in the U.S. by Sony BMG’s Epic Records, while the band’s final album under the old contract, a “best of” compilation, was released by Columbia Records.

Oasis’ management reported that the band is excited about the deal and the prospects that it gives the band in “building on the band’s already considerable international success.” The band’s management reported that the new deal “allows the band to take advantage of all the opportunities presented by the new business models available today as well as remaining totally in control of their own destiny.” Other band’s at the same level of international success as Oasis, like Radiohead or Nine Inch Nails, have pursued different business methods than more traditional record labels.

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Filed under: Products and services, Consumer experience, Apple Inc (AAPL), Amazon.com (AMZN), Marketing and advertising

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) reported Thursday that the company’s iTunes Store has passed the five billion download mark from the store’s “catalog of more than eight million songs, over 20,000 TV episodes and in-excess of 2,000 film titles.” Most impressive are the number of movies customers rent or purchase everyday, which is reported to be in excess of 50,000 movies. This announcement comes as the price of Apple’s stock has fluctuated slightly Thursday.

Despite this seemingly great news for the music industry, some artists are not as happy about iTunes’ share of music sales and distribution. According to Pulse 2.0, Kid Rock has decided to “completely boycott iTunes” because it is an “old system” where the store and the record company take all profits and don’t share it with the artists. Even more revealing, when asked his opinion about music piracy, Kid Rock advocated “leveling the playing field” calling for people to steal everything, from music to gas, because either way the executives and distributors have enough money and won’t “miss” what consumers steal.

Thinking about those sentiments and how much pull iTunes has in the music market raises questions about other stores that have emerged in the past year, like Amazon.com Inc.’s (NASDAQ: AMZN) MP3 store. That store notoriously acts as nothing more than an agent for the music companies, with Amazon.com taking a small fee versus the power that iTunes exerts. Whether artists see any more money from Amazon.com’s arrangement is unknown, but without Amazon.com working as another distributor it would seem hopeful and more likely.

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