Ares Connect

7Digital, a London-based service offering music downloads, is one of the few such services to have hung in there in a market that has become incredibly competitive. Part of the reason for the success of 7Digital has been its commitment to supporting unsigned bands and record labels.

The online store recently received £4.2m to fund its expansion into Europe and the US. Most music-download store have found themselves outdone by iTunes at every stage of the game, but not so 7Digital.

The music-download store has strong links with Radiohead, ITV, Bebo and Last.FM. As well as 3.5 million music downloads, the online store may soon offer film and game downloads.

Other good news for 7Digital comes with major record labels removing digital-rights-management restrictions from music downloads, making it easier to sell music to consumers. Competition is good and it’s positive to see more music-download stores than just iTunes and Amazon.

We’re rooting for 7Digital in 2008.

Proving that young people in America are really in tune with technology, an NPD report has found that most US youngsters aged between nine and 14 years old are using paid services to get their music downloads, rather than filesharing service like Limewire and Ares.

About 70% of kids in that age range download music, with 49% getting their music downloads from iTunes. Only 26% use the filesharing service Limewire, while 16% get music downloads from MySpace.

The report warns that parents aren’t watching over their children’s music-download habits, but with most kids choosing legal music downloads, it looks like things are about as good as could be expected.

Just wait until those kids become students and barely have enough money to eat. That’s when they’ll see the benefits of using P2P filesharing programs like Limewire to get their music. After all, what does a nine year old get out of downloading music for free? Their parents pay for everything anyway.

Last.FM took a major step to offering completely free music on the Internet. Last.FM is an ingenious idea that let’s users share their playlists with the world and provides bios and reviews of bands and artists. It’s social music as its best.

Last.FM has now announced that it will work in partnership with the record industry to do something remarkable — offer streaming audio of tracks from all of the major record labels. This isn’t like filesharing or typical music downloads, because users will only be able to stream a track three times before they have to pay for it.

After listening to the free music, users can then buy the music downloads from places like iTunes. Users of Last.FM will have access to countless tracks that they will be able to listen to for free. This is great news for the online community and this is the most logical way of the record industry working with a service to combine streaming audio with music downloads. It’s amazing that nobody has done this before on this scale.

Artists will get paid because advertising on Last.FM will mean that each time a track is streamed, money is made. The free-music service is set to go live in US, UK and Germany.

This is the start of something new.

Ten brave students from the University of Maine have decided to take on the RIAA in its clamp down on illegal filesharing. Two of these students are backed by a university program, which could lead to a landmark ruling in the music industry’s battle against filesharing students.

The Cumberland Legal Aid Clinic is representing two of the students because they cannot afford legal representation. The remaining eight students accused of filesharing are being represented by Bob Mittel, a local attorney.

The case against the students is said to be very vague. One of the students accused of filesharing said that the letter he received from the RIAA was “riddled with ambiguity” and did not actually state his name.

Cases of the RIAA targeting students for filesharing are becoming increasingly common, but instances in which students take on the RIAA and win are incredibly rare. In this case though, it looks as if the charges may be dismissed. It could, however, take several months before a verdict is reached.

Although not directly related to music, the implications to filesharing could be huge. Hollywood has tended to blame students filesharing as the root of the entire movie industry’s problems. In a report in 2005, it was asserted that 44% of the industry’s losses was down to filesharing by college students. As if having the RIAA on their backs wasn’t bad enough, the MPAA was also at it — and still is to a large extent.

However, it turns out that students filesharing isn’t as big a problem as the MPAA had first thought. Apparently, the MPAA got its numbers wrong. Students filesharing now only account for 15% of the industry’s losses.

Of course, filesharing is evil to the MPAA, so those guys are still adamant that 15% is a significant amount. Mark Luker, vice president of campus IT group Educause, said that he suspects that students filesharing accounts for only about 3% of the movie-industry’s losses.

The theory put forward by the MPAA was that if campus filesharing could be eradicated, somehow the entire movie industry would be rejuvenated. Obviously, this is not the case.

Maybe the RIAA will start analyzing it’s figures and ease off on suing students who indulge in filesharing. We can but hope.

It’s always fun looking at figures to do with music downloads. Although stats can vary from one source to the next, the general consensus is that music downloads and filesharing are dominating how we get out music.

According to stats from the IFPI, digital-music sales grew 40% during 2007, a bit of a slow down after doubling in 2006. Digital-music-download sales, including music downloads bought through iTunes, now account for 15% of the global music market. That figure is up from 10% in 2006.

One thing of note is that the sale of music downloads have, of course, not been enough to offset the decline in CD sales. This has been widely understood for some time now. The global music market has, apparently, declined 14% over the past year.

The most popular format of digital music is single-track downloads, of which there were 1.7 billion in 2007, up 53% from 2006.

IFPI CEO John Kennedy cited piracy and illegal filesharing as still being a problem. According to him, for every one music download bought the proper way, 20 more are downloaded illegally.

When deciding which P2P filesharing software you want to use, there are heaps of options to choose from. These options, however, vary in quality dramatically. Consistently one of the best choices for filesharing is Ares, an open-source application that is yet to be hit with the same sort of legal problems as services like Limewire.

Ares is open source and so it is constantly being improved by the people who use it. Each different version utilizes the same network and protocol, making Ares one of the top-performing filesharing programs available.

Ares is quick to install and easy to use, with fast music downloads and a huge network of music to search through. Any song you can think of, you’ll be able to find it on Ares.

There are more than 100 million tracks on the Ares network — and that number is growing every day. Filesharing also has its advantages over some services that place restrictions on the music files that people download.

If you are new to filesharing or want to find a service that is vastly superior to its competitors for music downloads, Ares should be the first place you look. Filesharing is becoming the primary way that people obtain their music. If you haven’t taken the plunge with a program like Ares, you’re behind the times.

Other filesharing programs for music downloads include Morpheus and newcomer Omemo.

The University of Washington (UW) has been under the spotlight recently for its stance on filesharing. As with a number of universities in the US, UW has received letters from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) as part of the RIAA’s attempt to curb the number of people who download songs using filesharing services like Ares and Omemo.

Students who download songs at countless universities have received pre-lawsuit settlement letters offering the chance to settle out of court or else be sued for filesharing.

While most universities forward all letters to students, UW only sends the letters to students when they may face legal charges. UW has defended its actions, saying that it forwards letters when students are likely to face legal action after downloading songs.

Sometimes in the letters, several students are named. Also, a number of the letter are ambiguous and will not lead to legal prosecution, says UW.

UW encourages students to download songs from legal filesharing services, but the university refuses to tell its students what to do. The key, as UW sees it, is that students better educate themselves about filesharing and how to download songs without being sued.

Things don’t look good in the EMI camp. Possibly reeling from the music-download revolution, EMI looks sets to lay off one third of its staff. The problems EMI face are many. The entire music industry is apparently bruised and battered from the fact that legit music downloads are not growing at a fast enough rate to offset the dip in CD sales.

Add to this that illegal music downloads are flourishing and you have one big problem. It gets worse though, as Robbie Williams is currently on strike, refusing to release his next album until EMI’s management plans become clearer.

Radiohead have already quit EMI. The band went on to release their own album without a label. The music-download experiment of In Rainbows was a huge success – and the album is now number one in the US and the UK after getting a normal release, although without EMI this time.

EMI seem out of touch with music fans. Music downloads are only partly to blame. If top artists are pissed off, perhaps top management should take a look at themselves.

Napster hit the headlines again this week with the announcement that the music-download service will begin selling music solely in MP3 format, to commence later this year.

In the past, Napster has sold music downloads in Microsoft’s restricted WMA format, although these sales will continue for some subscription-based offerings.

The move to offer user-friendly MP3s is a great step for Napster and will likely help boost the image of the service.

Napster is based in LA and the music-download giant claims to have about 750,000 subscribers. Sony, Warner and EMI are all offering their music (or at least some of it) DRM-free.

This is great news for music fans who have been bugged by music downloads that come in protected format. 7Digital recently announced that 2008 will be the year that music downloads can finally say goodbye to restrictions on MP3s — for good.

The digital music industry is having to consistently evolve to meet the needs of consumers. If only the RIAA would do the same.