[Music Monday] Constructing The New Digital Music Ecosystem

The need to create something ‘new’ usually comes with the thought that the thing that came before it, something ‘old’, did not work, isn’t working anymore, or is simply too old to use. Many companies the world over, recently founded or has been in years of business, startup or established, have at some point changed their tack – or pivoted, in startup-speak – in pursuit of more lucrative businesses, mostly because their previous direction was losing business sustainability.

The recorded music industry was always an industry that relied on content to make its money, and thus tightly controlling the amount of recorded music copies that went out as a sale. The thing about the entertainment industry is that people get bored, so these industries always have to “pivot” to find something creatively new to sell to the market.

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[Music Monday] Does The Average Consumer Care About Legal, Digital Music?

Before I go on with this article, let me be clear – most references are anecdotal; I don’t have a survey or research results to refer to, but I think this will ring true to most consumers of digital entertainment – not many of us, including me, think of the legal aspects of something we want to hear/view/play. Having worked in intellectual property based-industries for some time, I avoid pirated content and always try to find legal ways to get music, movies and software. Full disclosure – I’ve done my fair share of downloading and torrenting, and I often download TV shows that have not aired in Indonesia, and sometimes movies I missed watching in the cinema. I’m no saint.

I’ll admit that I avoid illegal music and software, because I know what goes on behind the scenes and how they make their money. I also feel less guilty (but guilty nonetheless) about downloading TV and movies because I also know how they actually make their money (and outside of the cinema, it’s based on upfront royalties, advertising revenue share, cable subscription share, and so on). I’ll probably write more on that later… but here’s the point: I happen to have insight into these industries. What of the average consumer who does not?

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First Look: Ohdio Music Streaming Service

Music streaming service, Ohdio is now accessible for limited circles. A number of users who had registered their emails have begun to receive invitation to try this beta service. The core service of Ohdio is to provide good quality and legal online music streaming. For the time being, the service is free (but not ruling out the possibility of a premium service in the future) and members can stream the songs available in Ohdio database to their heart’s content and because this is a streaming service, purchase or download option is not available.

Unlike MelOn or other music services, we don’t have to download an app or any other tools to listen to the songs on Ohdio. All songs are stored in the cloud and playable on the browser moments after we put them in a playlist. All we have to do is sign up first, which can also be linked to a Facebook or Twitter account.

Ohdio offers music by local artists which are already more popular than foreign artists whose songs are more readily available from other streaming services. This is the market that Ohdio is after. Ohdio is currently accessible through desktop browsers only, namely Mozilla Firefox (versions 12 & up), Google Chrome (versions 18 & up), Safari (versions 5 & up) and Opera (versions 11 & up). For the time being, Ohdio is not accessible through Internet Explorer or mobile browser.

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[Music Monday] Musiklegal And The Fight Against Piracy

Piracy remains a sensitive issue for music labels. Efforts to curb piracy on the national level in Indonesia remains in full steam, with the Ministry of Communication and Informatics blocking 20 illegal mp3 download sites end of May 2012. I tried some of the addresses announced in the article and sure enough, the sites could not be accessed. This action was the result of a lengthy lobbying process by ASIRI (the Recording Industry Association of Indonesia) to the government, while at the same time they also had active discussions with the Phone Credit Theft Task Force appointed by DPR to alleviate and soften the impact made by the government’s decision to reset all mobile services dependent on subscription charged by SMS.

The effort to curb the spread of illegal music copies being spread through the internet would not mean a thing if the music industry did not offer something in its place – sure enough, music download stores have been around since 2009 but they have yet to achieve significant user traction and all-important revenue. Illegal downloads are said to be the cause of low user traction, and even before that ASIRI has been lobbying the government to start blocking illegal download sites. Since the latest administration seems intent on blocking pornography sites, the same technology could be used to block these illegal music sites. So it was just the matter of political will. Now, the government seems to want to listen to the plight of the music labels, despite only taking action online and not taking care of the equally damaging pirate CD stores.

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Gauging Ohdio’s Chances

Everyone is well aware of Spotify’s expansion to the region, having recently launched in Australia and New Zealand. There is also word that Deezer plans to come to town some time this year, so how does Ohdio plan to face those larger multinational competitors?

To start with, Ohdio will launch in Indonesia before their much bigger competitors do and the team is already experienced in dealing with music labels and artists in Indonesia. On top of that, Ohdio’s focus on Indonesian music should differentiate them enough from Spotify and Deezer who are more likely to carry a library of international music.

How is this last point an advantage? The majority of songs enjoyed by Indonesians are from local artists, a fact that has always been repeated at many local digital music events. According to DailySocial columnist and Ohdio Cheerleader Ario Tamat, the proportion of local vs foreign music in Indonesia in terms of popularity and distribution is about 80:20 with the larger portion going to local artists. This imbalance is actually what Ohdio is counting on because being first in the market means almost nothing. It has to have enough of a value to be adopted ahead of the others.

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Indonesian Music Streaming Service Ohdio to Launch June 14

Ohdio is a startup that aims to offer a free online music streaming service for Indonesians, backed by a comprehensive library of Indonesian music. We spotted Ohdio back in March when it was just a website with a logo and a sign up form. It actually still is today, but since then it has picked up a number of deals with local music labels and a significant funding from East Ventures, with a launch date set for June 14 according to its press release which was published on Tuesday.

Although Ohdio only announced publicly that it has begun to accept registration this week, the company actually has had it open since March. With one week to launch date, the company has scored deals with major local labels including Aquarius, Trinity and Nagaswara.

Ohdio CEO Yoga Nandiwardhana said in a statement, “The web music streaming concept is definitely not new, even in Indonesia, but we want to put forward how easy it is to search and share music. We want to empower one of the main characteristics of the Indonesian music listener – that listening to music is as much of a social activity as it is personal.”

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Rekap Hari Kedua Konferensi Music Matters 2012

Widi Asmoro adalah Entertainment Services Manager Nokia Indonesia, yang tahun ini kembali menghadiri konferensi All That Matters di Singapura, mewakili Nokia sebagai salah satu sponsor acara. Tulisan ini pertama kali terbit di blog pribadinya.

Puncak forum Music Matters disuguhi panel diskusi yang bergizi, sebutlah one-on-one dengan Bob Lefsetz, Lachie Rutherford, Michael Chugg dan Bob Ezrinserta hadirnya artis sebagai studi kasus seperti Indah Dewi Pertiwi dan Tiger JK.

Pagi sudah mulai terasa panasnya di Singapura dengan kritikus musik Bob Lefsetz tampil diatas panggung. One-on-one interview yang dipandu oleh Ralph Simon ini mengalir begitu saja tanpa terbendung. Bob Lefsetz terkenal dari The Lefsetz Letter, yaitu sebuah mailing list tentang perkembangan industri musik, terutama di Amerika Serikat, yang kebanyakan adalah pendapat pribadinya dipandang dari sudut pengalaman ia sebagai veteran music label dan juga pengacara. Hey, every American is lawyer, aren’t they?

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Rekap Hari Pertama Konferensi Music Matters 2012

Music Matters hari ini dibuka dengan penuh suka cita. Diskusi tahunan pelaku industri musik ini telah memasuki tahun kedelapan semenjak diselenggarakan pertama kalinya di Hongkong. Jasper Donat, Presiden & Co-Founder Branded Ltd, mengungkapkan ada sekitar 1200 partisipan, 175 pembicara dan ada 40 artis atau band yang akan tampil. Pesertanya pun kebanyakan adalah level-level pengambil keputusan di perusahaan dan terutama perusahaan yang bergerak di industri hiburan ataupun pertunjukan.

Music Matters kali ini adalah juga yang kedua diadakan di Singapura. Jasper memberikan momen pembukaan ini kepada Singapore Music Society (SGMUSO) untuk meresmikan terbentuknya komunitas musik Singapura. Graham Perkins, Presiden SGMUSO, naik ke mimbar didampingi oleh Dany Loong, co-founder Timbre dan Aarika Lee, vokalis grup band SIXX untuk mengumumkan berdirinya komunitas ini dan juga memberi selamat kepada Music Matters untuk penyelenggaraan diskusi kelas internasional ini. Saya mencoba menyelinap untuk bertemu Aarika dan bertanya langsung tentang komunitas musik yang dibentuknya ini. Saya rasa Indonesia juga perlu belajar dari mereka dalam membentuk komunitas sejenis untuk sama-sama membangun industri musik dan hiburan tanah air.

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Day One Recap of All That Matters Conference 2012

Widi Asmoro is the Entertainment Services Manager for Nokia Indonesia who is currently attending All That Matters Conference in Singapore representing Nokia Indonesia as one of the event’s sponsors. This post appeared originally on his personal blog.

As I did last year, this year I received the opportunity to attend the Asian music and technology discussion, Digital Matters & Music Matters. As with last year, this event is being held at Ritz Carlton Millenia Singapore for four days between 22-25 May 2012. Even though this is an Asian event, the speakers are world class. On the first day we had Ralph Simon, a mobile content entertainment guru, Michael Schneider a top mobile app developer who developed apps for Lady Gaga and Katy Perry, as well as Ted Machover, a lecturer and professor at MIT Lab.

The first day began with three workshops; Gaming Matters, Digital Publishing Matters, and Video Matters, all of which were happening concurrently which meant that attendees had to choose which workshop to follow. I went with Video Matters. In the afternoon after lunch, President of Digital & Music Matters Jasper Donat led the opening ceremony and followed by several panel discussions such as digital entertainment, publisher’s challenge to monetize digital content and to chose the right platform to create apps.

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Rekap Hari Pertama Konferensi All That Matters 2012

Tahun ini saya mendapat kesempatan untuk kembali mengikuti ajang diskusi musik dan teknologi skala Asia, Digital Matters & Music Matters. Seperti tahun lalu, ajang ini kembali diselenggarakan di Ritz Carlton Millenia Singapore sepanjang empat hari dari tanggal 22 – 25 Mei 2012. Meski skala Asia, pembicaranya adalah kaliber dunia. Sebutlah yang hadir di hari pertama ada Ralph Simon, guru mobile content entertainment, Michael Schneider, jagonya aplikasi mobile yang pernah membuat aplikasi untuk Lady Gaga dan Katy Perry, dan juga Ted Machover, dosen yang juga profesor di MIT Lab.

Hari ini dibuka dengan tiga workshop; Gaming Matters, Digital Publishing Matters, dan Video Matters, yang berlangsung pada saat bersamaan sehingga peserta harus memilih salah satu dari materi tersebut untuk diikuti. Saya ikut Video Matters. Siangnya setelah lunch seremoni pembukaan dilakukan oleh Presiden Digital & Music Matters, Jasper Donat dan lanjut dengan beberapa panel diskusi seperti digital entertainment, tantangan publisher untuk me-monetize content digital dan juga memilih platform yang tepat untuk membuat apps.

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