SXSW version 1.0

SXSW consists of panels during the morning at the convention center and musical acts during the night at many nearby venues. The number of people that attend the convention center in the morning is far less then the number of people that attend the shows at night. Over a 1,000 bands from around the world were present at the 2006 Music Conference. SXSW is bitter sweet: While attending a great showcase, there may be an even better act playing down the street that you will miss. Nonetheless, it is an amazing experience. SXSW, in Austin, is perhaps the biggest and longest music party that spans over four days. The streets were packed and venues were constantly inspected by fire marshals. I spoke to a lot of people that have attended SXSW back when it only had unknown/unsigned acts playing. They spoke reminiscing of past festivals and stating that it used to better. This was my first time at SXSW and the only disappointment I faced was when Bettye LaVette could not make it to perform. I do not want to make it seem like SXSW was all fun and no work … Christie and I attended digital panels during the mornings.

There was an underlying theme to all of the digital panels at the SXSW Conference: Music is ubiquitous and more available. At the same time, music also is still difficult for consumers to purchase music online. The San Francisco Tribune noted that iTunes comprises of 83% of downloadable music on the Internet.  To date, no other model has been able to penetrate the online music market the way Apple has. Not even Walmart’s cheaper 80 cents/song online model could compete. In order to increase competition, there has been a lack for interoperability. In other words, music purchased through iTunes cannot be played on Windows Media Player and vice versa. The issue of interoperability was barely touched upon in the panel discussions. In fact, during one panel discussion it was even referred to as “the big elephant.” This reaction is not surprising since the panel comprised of some online music companies. However, if the problems of interoperability are not fixed then it will lead to an increase of both physical and online piracy. Rules will have to be set to determine an industry standard.

... More on that to come later in version 1.1

-Bahareh

Comments

[Chelsy]

This has been an ongoing feud for quite sometime now. If I tunes is legal then it all should be.I have made a cd from the music i have downloaded off of i tunes before...isn't that the same concept ? The music is still getting out into the hands of the public without any form of revenue for the artist or the publishing company , so should I tunes be legal after all ?