New’s Corporation, owner of MySpace, has plans to roll MySpace Music out in other countries as well. So, this is being treated as a sort of test market for future expansion.

This product launch is also interesting in that in involves a partnership with Apple’s iTunes for download sales. Most of the artists that will be highlighted on the front page will be Australian artists.

This has the potential to be of major importance for artists in the USA. MySpace will be gathering all types of important information from user’s listening habits. Perhaps, if one style of music really takes off in a particular country, MySpace will seek to push bands of that music style in other countries as well.

The more information that MySpace gathers, the more that bands could learn (assuming MySpace will have some way to share or sell the informaiton) about potential international concert venues or fan bases.

Stay tuned,
Erik
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Universal Australia is now taking it one step further and is partnering with ebay in Australia to launch a new music portal at http://play.ebay.com.au/. Users will be able to purchase or stream Universal’s music through this site.

It’s nice to see a record label being proactive, even if it is in another country. I just have a hard time believing that consumers will go to a site with just some music when other sites (iTunes) have larger catalogs from all of the record labels.

Stay tuned,
Erik
erikrostad.com

Their first big tour will involved Simon and Garfunkel. Other upcoming artists will include Jason Mraz, Brooks & Dunn, and the Priests.

Denis Handlin, Chairman & CEO of Sony Music Australia, had this to say:

“On some tours we will really enjoy partnering up with the promoters and working with them, and some tours we’ll do on our own. The promoters know that we can partner up with them. We’re not there to be the enemy or a treat.”

Sony Music Australia is run as a joint venture with Caplice Management in Sydney. As part of this JV and the new partnership with Chugg, Sony will be involved in more than 80 shows between last year and this year.

Stay tuned,
Erik
erikrostad.com

This is a really brilliant plan on Sanity’s part. They are obviously seeing the pending doom of bricks and mortar music retailers as evidenced recently by Virgin’s Megastore in Times Square slated to be closed later this year. Sanity is being pro-active in reaching their consumer in new formats. And the really great thing is they will be integrating this new technology into their bricks & mortar stores to assist in the transition.

This also places a new value on music in the mind of the consumer. A few weeks ago, I blogged about a new site seeking to charge $0.03 per song in China. At 300 songs/month, this Australian site will be charging $0.10 per song. So what does that do to iTunes who charges $1.47 ($1.69 Aus$) per track? It will definitely make people rethink about where they purchase their music.

And even deeper into the issue, this just continues to show that the value of songs is approaching $0. I know that is very sad and tragic news for the industry, but it is true. Many consumers are already on the $0 download option through bit torrent sites. This goes to show that artists will not be making much money from songs in the future, but rather from auxiliary items.

Stay tuned,
Erik
erikrostad.com

Revenues for Australian Recording Industry for the first 6 months of 2008 were down 4.3% from the same period last year. Revenues were at $154.9 million compared to $161.8 million last year. Album sales dropped 8.4% while digital unit sales rose 236%. Digital unit sales numbered 56.3 million units, up from 15.9 million units during the same period 2007. Problem is that CD album sales still account for 95% of the market. So this 236% increase is only 5% of the market.

Australian acts accounted for 1/3^rd of these sales – the other portion were foreign acts.

Stay tuned,
Erik
erikrostad.com

Apparently the Australian government is well aware of this trend. In a recent blog, I wrote about the Queensland government’s wonderful plan to begin putting money behind exporting their top bands to music festivals around the world. Perhaps this will expand the international appeal of the bands which will lead to more touring income for these bands, and thus money coming into the Australian music industry. It probably won’t help recorded music sales, but the Australian government is smart to start getting into alternative revenue streams.

The fact that recorded music sales are declining in any country is not newsworthy. What is important though is to look at how musicians, labels, and even governments are handling the decline.

Stay tuned,
Erik
erikrostad.com