HD Radio Lets You Tag Music, Store Song Metadata In Your Car
Yes, that’s Radio with an ‘A’ – as in ham. RadioMagOnline reported from CES that
several HD Radio integrations were available for play and viewing at the Las Vegas show. According to RadioMagOnline, HD Radio receivers will also broadcast and hold vital metadata, which also changes the entire experience of radio not only in fidelity, but with multimedia.
Album art, concert photos, station logos, and other imagery was visible in the HD Radio models at CES. The first OEM implementation is by Volkswagen. Apparently HD Radio listeners will also be able to “capture and store information about radio content in real-time for later reference.” In addition to Pandora, Toyota has launched HD Radio in 2012 cars and is the first to offer iTunes tagging on all HD Radios in their model vehicles.
CES Trumps Weird Prediction From Spotify GM That Made No Sense
After not launching in time for the new year, a strange quote emerged from a Spotify staff member. I noticed it, and waited for some industry reaction. There wasn’t any, really. Just a lot of tweets for a few hours, and then actual news from CES spread across the wires large and small.
But a little earlier in the month Spotify’s GM Jonathan Forster told The Guardian UK we are “One step closer to the URL being the new universal format for music.” To share this strange announcement with a friend, I pulled out my iPhone to send a text message. Within two seconds I realized how little that model fits with my smartphone, on which i use dozens of applications. I can’t even remember the last time I celebrated the arrival of a music URL in my email or via SMS.
I enjoy apps because the process behind the URL is completely eliminated. Still, the bizarre prediction occurred around the same time rivals Rdio, Mog and of course Pandora took trips to CES in Las Vegas to announce various groundbreaking digital music and hardware integrations ranging from Sonos, Pre-loaded cloud music into Verizon 4G Smartphones, and the reinvention of drive time radio by Tim Westergren, respectively.
Question, for you. Yes you: Do you think the URLS are the future of music, and if so, how do you suppose they will fit into any of the other announcements made at CES?
Supreme Court Orders Major Labels To Face Antitrust Lawsuit
Paid Content reported that the US Supreme Court turned down an appeal from the four major recorded music labels regarding an antitrust lawsuit. All four major labels combined some 28 cases under litigation and had asked the Court to toss away an antitrust suit dating back to the the beginning of the new millennium. As the burgeoning industry of digital music began, major labels were accused of setting a “wholesale price floor” of 70 cents per track for the two existing digital music retailers at the time, from whom I personally have never consumed: Pressplay and MusicNet.
Michael Hession, Senior Counsel at Clyde & Co LLP and contrib for the Appeal, says this is not really a sign of any impending wins or losses, just the hand of Justice running its course.
“The Supreme Court’s Order doesn’t mean major labels have lost anything at all,” he told me, “it just means the major labels are going to have to fight their case in trial, and it could take years before a judgment is ever handed down.”
And that could become very expensive. As active Defendants and Plaintiffs in more than one case, the question remains: how many lawsuits can approximately 3 major hit acts per year fund, and was the .70 cent cap worth it? It could take a few years to work out, even with the impending loss of EMI in the mix.
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