HHR New Media, Entertainment and Technology Group

Turntable.fm is the recently launched online music service that caught the attention of the music industry, music-loving consumers and digital media commentators.  The service enables users to become DJs in a virtual music club divided into multiple rooms, each with enough space for five DJs and an audience of listeners.  The DJs take turns playing songs to the entire room, pulling from a wide catalog that Turntable.fm licenses through MediaNet.  Users then interact with each other, rating the last song played and discussing the music in an in-room chat.  In theory, this interaction guides the flow of the other DJs and helps to shape future music played in the room.

As unique as the service is though, it appears that many of its features were designed and implemented to enable Turntable.fm to operate as a “non-interactive” service under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (“DMCA”), similar to an internet radio station, thus avoiding the need for direct licenses from the music labels.  For Turntable.fm, the distinction could mean the difference between sustaining a viable business or joining a long line of digital music services that were unable to survive because of the burden of paying license fees to the labels.  While it is too early to determine if this strategy will be challenged and/or whether it will ultimately prevail, Turntable.fm’s service clearly raises some unique legal issues. Continue Reading »

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• As online, targeted advertising becomes more and more common, the question of balancing privacy concerns and commercial demands is becoming increasingly more complex.  While website privacy policies can disclose how information provided to the site’s publisher may be used, they can’t explain how and why you are being shown a specific advertisement when you visit the site.  Joseph Turow, a marketing professor at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania, has developed an approach to provide consumers with more information and control over how they view ads.  Mr. Turow’s plan:  place an icon on Continue Reading »

What’s new in digital media?   Subscribe to digitalhhr.com to receive today’s news:

• The New York Times has a piece on Facebook Connect, a new initiative to extend the web’s most popular social networking service to other web sites. 
• The Huffington Post just closed a new round of financing totaling $25 million, bringing the company’s valuation to $100 million.  More info here. 
• Digital music sales will continue to grow, reaching 41 percent of total sales by 2013, according to a report by Jupiter Research.  However, overall growth will continue to drop from annual sales of $10.2 billion to $9.8 billion.
• A new study on web video viewing habits may help marketers refine their ad strategies.  According to TubeMogul, only 16.62% of folks who click on a three-minute video will watch it all the way through.  While this sounds like a nail in the coffin for post-rolls, marketers seeking “true believers” (i.e. those sitting through an entire video) may see the post-roll as a cost-effective approach.
• Microsoft and Blockbuster collaborate to deliver video on demand to mobile devices.  Click here for more info.