An example? Here’s one right here. Google’s chief legal counsel, Kent Walker, pledges that Google will work even harder to make sure that copyright holders which send take-down notices because unlicensed content is on, for example, YouTube. That’s a nice gesture but, frankly, it’s been the rule of the road since the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) went into effect. (To qualify for the DMCA’s “safe harbor” provisions a site must take down copyrighted material when requested by the copyright holder.)

So, adherence to takedown notices, check.  Well done. And Walker notes that the company will improve its “counter-notice” procedures for those who post content that is removed for alleged copyright infringement. This is a nod to so-called “fair use” exemptions to copyright infringement claims. And boy, is that going to be a slippery slope. (The obfuscation of a complex issue.)

Two other items in Walker’s post, however, are worthy of discussion – and watching in the future: the promise to “. . . prevent terms closely associated with piracy from appearing in Autocomplete” and a promise to “. . . improve our AdSense anti-piracy review” to make sure web pages trafficking in infringing content are blocked and that violators are expelled from AdSense. (The illumination.)

What Google surely wants to avoid is any liability for copyright infringement (and earlier this year it won the first round in the $1 billion lawsuit Viacom filed brought against Google/YouTube but the media giant is vowing to appeal) but links ain’t copyrighted. This means Google is taking, for them, a fairly bold step in saying it’s going to be carefully policing AdSense so that when a user types in “free music,” links to possible file-trading software or illicit Torrents are filtered out.  I say bold because it’s quite possible that Google might have been deriving some folding money, as grandpa used to call it, from the operators of such allegedly nefarious software. (I said “might” and “allegedly.”)

So why did all this “ have to happen”? Because business is business, that’s why.  Google’s rumored online music service, its announced Google TV offering, not to mention the Viacom suit all hinge on Google being perceived and acting as an ally of rightsholders.  As a matter of law, the safe harbor provisions can and should protect Google from what happens between individual consumers and the sources of information or content on the Internet that they just happen to use Google search to locate. 

But that all changes when a company decides it wants to get in the business of actually generating users and money from content – as opposed to making it indirectly by merely providing a tool to find that content.

So, to all the media companies out there, you got something you’ve always wanted: a Google that’s willing to be a bit more engaged in your efforts to tame the Internet beast. 

To all those who thought Google was your copy-left friend, I say, business is business. Get over it.

At the root of this challenge is something that sounds fairly prosaic but is fraught with complexities and that is how a movie or episode of a TV series (or the entire series) is identified.

This announcement between CBS and Secure Path Technology, Inc.is an example of a couple of entities taking concrete steps to overcome the challenges associated registering and licensing content at time when incumbent distribution models are under siege by various Internet-based offerings.  As consumers increasingly program their own content experiences, demanding it on their schedule and on the devices they want, online service providers and media companies are going to struggle to keep up with the demands of the marketplace if they don’t make the investments in metadata systems and common content identifiers.

Beyond the very important requirements for automation of licensing and calculating royalties, prioritizing investments in metadata management and content identification standards will pay off for media companies in another important area: recommendation and discovery systems.  Why? The more consistent the metadata fields are across media sectors e.g. music or movies, recommendation and discovery technologies engines can be more rapidly deployed – if they’re developers aren’t having to spend time building up metadata fields.

At their core, deals such as the one between Secure Path and CBS are about efficiencies that need to be developed behind the walls of media companies. Look for more, lots more of these kinds of announcements.

What users can do is seed a “station” based on a song or artist on their device. Soundtrckr then the system starts driving related songs from Soundtrckr’s seven-million-track catalog (licensed from the labels so they’re not paying a webcasting royalty), based on the usual elements: genre, artist, band, album etc., etc.  The added twist is that the playlists can be tagged to a location and the iPhone app can help users find fellow Soundtrckr’s and their playlists by location.

I started with a live track from a Los Lobos concert in 2005 in my hometown. What followed were some interesting, and by my ear and preferences, appropriate matches. (Like so many recommendation systems, some of the songs linked to the Los Lobos seed were just so obviously based on the highest-level, and therefore loosest relationship between artists. For example, there isn’t really a direct musical relationship between Los Lobos and Santana. We can chat offline about this if anybody would like to discuss.

Founder and CEO Daniele Calabrese said recently that the company looks to drive revenue from advertising, affiliate fees from driving sales to stores and services.

It all sounds interesting. The dynamic Calabrese’s team is trying to tap into – music’s power as social currency – has potential as a revenue driver. What remains to be seen is whether it develops into a standalone business or if it becomes an ingredient in a larger service offering from a content store or service, perhaps even a carrier.

Definitely one to watch in the intersection of social, mobile and music.

Well, the answer is no and no. Really, all Google wants to do is just control the search results for music searches. And, you know, maybe help out a struggling online music service or two.

By pulling back the curtain on its new, refined music-search feature, Google also helped a number of legitimate online music services step out from the shadows of an online music ecosystem dominated by the Apple iTunes-iPod-iPhone troika or the dark net (the millions of folks using P2P and Torrent technologies to get free content).

My first take-away: Anybody who doesn’t admit that their use of P2P or Torrent technology is simply to acquire free music – and tries to rationalize it with some other reason – is really just a Philistine. Seriously.

Second take-away: if you’re iLike, Lala or Rhapsody and Napster, there’s nothing like having the world’s largest search engine ride in and help goose those site visitor numbers, am I right?

What really is important, however, are the key refinements Google’s made to searching for music online:

- Full-song streams directly within the search results.  Direct links to services such as MySpace+iLike, Lala, Rhapsody, Napster, iMeem and Pandora that, in their own way, will allow users to stream full-length versions of the songs they were looking for or make direct purchases if the service has an a la carte download store (which is all of them although Pandora’s actually provides links to iTunes or Amazon).

- Refined, filtered search results that logically arrange results by artist, band or song title

- Lyric-fragment search or partial-album-title search are resolved or enhanced due to Google’s work with Gracenote which has a comprehensive, licensed, lyric database

At a launch event held in the historic Capitol Records building in Los Angeles, and hosted by Google and EMI (represented by Marissa Mayer, Google’s head of search and consumer experience, and Syd Schwartz, SVP of global digital marketing, EMI, respectively), was really a testament to just how powerful a set of algorithms can really be in this day in age. Or more precisely, how powerful a set of refined search algorithms can potentially give a slew of legit online music services an important boost in their quest to drive revenue (to satisfy their investors).

Google noted that music-related searches are two of the top 10 search queries of all time. No surprise here as Gartner’s consumer research has shown that online music consumers usually start a search by getting a word-of-mouth recommendation and that the first thing they do is go to a search engine like Google. The most popular thing they do after they find the content they want? They want to sample it immediately. (See How U.K. Online Consumers Find Music on the Internet , How U.S. Online Consumers Find Music on the Internet, How Online Consumers in Italy Find Music on the Internet).

The primary beneficiaries of Google’s algorithmic largesse are going to be iLike (creators of popular social networking music apps which was recently purchased by MySpace) and Lala, a venture-funded start-up that started out as an online market where people could exchange used CDs has morphed into an online service where one can download a song for $.89 or pay $.10 to have permanent access to the song as a stream. Rhapsody and Napster are also likely to receive some incremental benefit from having links to their services as well.

To their credit, Lala and iLike execs, Bill Nguyen of Lala, in particular, noted that Google’s music search feature was a great step forward for consumers looking for music online, but that it was up to the services to turn that potential traffic into revenue. And Google’s RJ Pittman underscored that when he said that Google’s “…pushing the business opportunities down stream” to the services and that Google would benefit by simply providing a better search experience for their users.

And these days, the way you compete with “free” or iTunes is that you have to out “experience” them. And therein lies the challenge for iLike, Lala, iMeem, etc.

Not surprisingly, iTunes and Amazon weren’t part of the announcement and aren’t featured in the search results that a user will see. Frankly, neither of those two really need much help and the music labels are going to be more than happy to see searches which highlight iTunes competitors. So this isn’t really meant to be nor will it be an iTunes killer.

But now we know what Google’s position is going to be any current or future developments in online music (and other media): at the starting line.

Discussions with MOG’s David Hyman, and some demos of the service,  leave me thinking that one thing Hyman and crew have to be recognized for is their willingness, or perverse stubbornness, to engage in extended negotiations with the labels (and publishers)  to obtain favorable license terms. These terms translated into the fully interactive streaming and playlist creation capabilities – functionality many consumers associate with more expensive Rhapsody and Napster services.

As we’ve noted in multiple notes and presentations, licensing content (by services from rightsholders) is a bigger challenge than any particular technology issue, and Hyman did nothing to dispute in that in our discussions. Hyman is no newbie when it comes to dealing with the labels given his time at Gracenote and SonicNet. That said, All Access is going to hit the market at roughly the same time Rhapsody and Napster (owned by BestBuy) will still be plugging away  but their subscriber numbers have either hit a plateau or dropped. But they continue to invest as apster just announced a deal with Dell to preload the Napster software on select Dell PCs and provide a year’s worth of free streaming and 60 free MP3 downloads, and Rhapsody has announced an iPhone application that lets existing subscribers extend their access to the iPhone. All Access will hear the footsteps of Europe’s favorite music service, Spotify, which is supposed to launch in the U.S. sometime in 2010.

What MOG’s going to be able to leverage is the nine-plus-million monthly visitors (counted in October, according to Quantcast) to MOG’s blogging network, started in 2006. Much of the MOG blogging network’s appeal is the nearly constant flow of reviews, thoughts and observations about music – the sort of information one would expect to see on a site devoted to music geeks who treat the interest with the kind of enthusiasm one typically sees with (some) sports fans.  If All Access can use the MOG network as a customer acquisition tool (without harming its inherent appeal to the bloggers and readers), one can imagine that incumbent music subscription services will be scrambling to survive.

What’s really likely to happen, though, is the favorable terms MOG was able to obtain will quickly be replicated by others. At that point, it will all be about the type of experience MOG can deliver that will differentiate it from the competition. But until I can get my hands on a demo account for All Access, we’ll have to wait and see.

That, my friends, is the most important news to come out of Apple Inc.’s 09/09/09 announcement, whether you’re a content company, a game or software developer, a technology vendor looking to develop online content stores or services, of if you’re a competitor.

Oh, and Steve Jobs is apparently back, because he was on the stage for a bit more than hour during Wednesday’s announcement. 

During the keynote, Jobs and a cadre of lieutenants and guests took the stage to announce: upgraded Nanos, iPod Classics, Shuffles and iPod Touch models. (My colleague Van Baker is blogging about the hardware on his blog space within the Gartner Blogging Network http://blogs.gartner.com/van_baker).

For my money (and my coverage area) the real news was not just the number of credit cards iTunes (the store) has amassed, but also the subtle changes/enhancements Apple made to the iTunes software and, by extension, the iTunes store. 

First off, what was referred to as “Cocktail” in the rumor-mill run-up to Wednesday’s event is formally known as the “iTunes LP” and is the iTunes version of what some refer to as an “interactive” album or digital album. In addition to the songs that comprise an “album,” Apple works with labels and artists to include lyrics, bonus tracks, liner notes, promotional art such as pictures, as well as video content.  As of Wednesday’s event, there are eight “LPs” on the iTunes store including the Grateful Dead (“American Beauty”), the Dave Matthews Band ( “Big Whiskey and the GrooGrux King), Bob Dylan (“Highway 61 Revisited”), and Norah Jones (“Come Away with Me”). Will lyrics, memorabilia, rare photos or videos be enough to get consumers to give the notion of “bundled” content?

Conceptually, “LP” is not new, because the labels would love to be able to get back to the time where consumers want to buy a complete bundle of songs. Makes sense since the selling price goes from $.99 to, maybe something more than $.99. However, Apple is pulling this off at the time of rumors in the press that the major labels are working on their own format that they have called CMX.   Honestly, I don’t think this is going to be much of a conflict. The thought that the labels decide to create a format or file that’s incompatible with iTunes or with iPods or iPhones seems too illogical. And, here again, I’m fairly certain there is no other legitimate online music/media service/store that has 100 million credit cards on account.

Second, Apple extended its “Genius” recommendation technology beyond simply generating playlists and recommendations for additional purchase at the iTunes store in two important ways.

First, the “Genius” recommendations will now be extended to the AppStore for iPhone and iPod Touch applications. So an iPhone or Touch user will get recommendations based on the applications they’ve already purchased, as well as other inputs such as what types of applications a user has searched for, as well as collaborative-filtering approaches.

The second extension of “Genius” is to create what are called a “Genius Mix.” In the initial version, a “Genius” playlist was a fixed number – 25, 50, 75 or 100 songs. A “Genius Mix” extends that to a playlist that is really only limited by the user’s existing library. More important the “Genius Mix” is updated as new content is added to the user’s library. So, supposing a user creates a “Genius Mix” based on John Coltrane, instead of a fixed number of songs, a stream of jazz, jazz- or Coltrane-related songs will play. Here again, how long a “mix” plays depends on the extent of the customer’s library.

Apple is refining the user-experience for iTunes users by delivering a pick-and-stream usage model similar to Pandora, Spotify or Slacker. Unlike those Internet-stream/cloud models, however, the Genius Mix’ extensibility is limited by the user’s existing library.  This makes a lot of sense if you’re Apple because the emphasis is helping the customer “rediscover” music they already own.

There were no tablets, no new iPhones and no announcements about the Beatles catalog showing up on iTunes. On the other hand, if you’re a company with 100 million credit cards on account, day-the-earth-stood-still product announcements aren’t necessarily easy to pull off. More important, they’re not as important as showing steady continual improvements to the products that got those first 100 million folks to plop down those credit cards in the first place.

If true, the promise of some new type of content bundle could be an interesting new opportunity for music labels to redefine their roles. Or they could totally screw up this one last chance they have to find a profitable slot in the music industry.  One thing is for sure, the concept is coming into a marketplace for pre-recorded music which has been completely reshaped by consumers exerting complete control over the configuration of the music they will purchase.

Unimaginative attempt to drive an average selling price-per-unit from $.99 to something more or is it a compelling new mix of content types that justifies any price above $.99? Not clear to me which way it will swing, but until somebody does something, we can speculate.

Among the ideas for what might be layered in include lyrics, “extra” or “special” songs, perhaps a video or two, maybe a coupon or code so the buyer can maybe get pre-order concert tickets for the band or artist’s tour. (The pre-order-for-concert-code might actually be more important for the live-performance market than the pre-recorded market, given the ups and downs of that sector not to threatened congressional hearings into the merger of Ticketmaster and Live Nation, the two largest concert promoters.)

It certainly has potential as a concept.  Anybody can think of interesting possible bundles. Off the top of my head:

• Curated bundle: the band’s mix of songs, lyric sheets, animation, video, schedule of additional songs (new or live)  etc. More adventurous bands can consider things like providing stems to be used by consumers to create mash-ups or remixes using tools such as Mixmatchmusic.
• Loose bundle: basic set of songs, cover art, lyrics, future releases e.g. live cuts or new singles.

But with anything “new” in the online music industry, it would appear that this new concept has created yet more tension between Apple and the major music labels – and probably some of the independent labels, too. According to the News.Com story, Apple is taking an idea for interactive albums first proposed by the labels a few years ago.  One can only hope that they figure out a single, compatible solution.  Actually, what I’d hope for is that if there are going to be two formats for the interactive album, that they’re not incompatible e.g. I need a “special” digital or interactive album to play on an iPod, or iPhone vs a Windows PC or mobile device. 

But that just won’t happen, will it? I mean surely . . . Nobody would seriously believe that would  be a good thing. Right?