links for 2011-02-07

On February 15, the radio service built into Last.fm mobile apps and on home entertainment devices will become an ad-free, subscriber-only feature.

I just came back from the MIDEM conference, and the hype there was that the record business is over, that digital downloads is over and that everything will move to access away from acquisition. I think it's bullshit, honestly. If that's true than Pandora wouldn't be the #1 driver of sales to iTunes and Amazon. People are finding out about great new music there that they wouldn't have heard of before.

When the CD format came out, fans upgraded their LP collections, igniting a boom in sales that lasted from 1984 to 2000. When the MP3 format trickled up from the tech-geek community, fans ripped their CDs to their computers and downloaded free digital files of the web, causing a decline in sales that has lasted from 2000 until present day. Oops. Some fans have re-bought their music collections several times now.