LONDON (MarketWatch) -- EMI Music Chairman and Chief Executive Alain Levy Friday told an audience at the London Business School that the CD is dead, saying music companies will no longer be able to sell CDs without offering "value-added" material. "The CD as it is right now is dead," Levy said, adding that 60% of consumers put CDs into home computers in order to transfer material to digital music players. EMI Music is part of EMI Group PLC (EMI.LN). But there remains a place for physical media, Levy said. "You're not going to offer your mother-in-law iTunes downloads for Christmas," he said. "But we have to be much more innovative in the way we sell physical content." Record companies will need to make CDs more attractive to the consumer, he said. "By the beginning of next year, none of our content will come without any additional material," Levy said. CD sales accounted for more than 70% of total music sales in the first half of 2006, while digital music sales were around 11% of the total, according to music industry trade body the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry. CD sales were worth $6.45 billion and digital sales $945 million, the IFPI said. Levy said EMI is continuing to hold talks with Google Inc. (GOOG) on an advertising-revenue sharing partnership with the community video Web site YouTube, which the Internet search giant acquired in October for $1.6 billion in stock. EMI's rivals, Warner Music Group Corp. (WMG), Sony BMG - a joint venture between Sony Corp. (SNE) and Bertelsmann AG - and Universal Media have all signed content deals with YouTube. "The terms they were offering weren't acceptable," Levy said, adding that EMI continues to be concerned about copyright issues.
He's having a great senior year of soccer at Elkins High School. They are 14-2-2 now, ranked 4th in the state. A couple of weeks ago they were #1 but, recently had a couple of ties.
Woke-up early this morning to find my building shaking. Haven't felt an earthquake in Tokyo for a while (maybe a month or so). But, that doesn't mean there haven't been any. In fact, there are hundreds of small tremors a week here but, most of them you don't notice as you go through your daily like.
"When I met Lyle Mays, right off the bat we had an incredible rapport," says Metheny. "I had a little momentum going after winning a few jazz magazine polls as 'talent deserving wider recognition' and the previous records I'd made were well received. When I started the band, I was able to pay Lyle $30 a night, and Danny Gottlieb and Mark Egan $25 each. We were earning between $100 and $400 a night. I took the money that I'd saved from working with Gary and from when I had a paper route as a kid and bought a van and Lyle's polyphonic Oberheim synthesizer."
Metheny and company began to tour in May of 1977. They criss-crossed the country in the van taking every gig that came in. Metheny remembers one week when they played in Seattle on a Thursday, Dallas on Sunday, and Quebec City on Tuesday and took filler gigs at points in between. With few breaks, Metheny essentially stayed on tour in the United States and abroad until 1992. "I want to let young people who read this know that I still believe that anyone who has something really strong musically and is willing to go out and play hundreds of gigs for little or no bread has a very good chance of developing an audience on their own terms. I meet a lot of jazz guys who are sitting around waiting for the phone to ring. It didn't work back in the 1970s, and I don't think it works now. You have to get out there to make something happen."
Pat Metheny
Berklee Today Vol 16, Number 1: Summer 2004 Issue Pat Metheny: No Boundaries by Mark Small
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