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 Mobile Music Briefing Event Report : 29:7:2003 More than 130 PPL and BPI members attended the organisations’ first mobile music briefing held on July 17 2003 at the DTI Conference Centre in central London. The event was provided to members in association with the Mobile Entertainment Forum (MEF), a body which represents the interests of content owners, mobile applications suppliers and networks. The DTI also supported the event. The briefing aimed to provide BPI and PPL members with the know-how to do business and create revenue with partners in the mobile content marketplace. Mobile music consultancy Ear To Earth assisted with conference agenda and topics. Hosted by MEF Americas chairman Ralph Simon – also one of the co-founders of Zomba Music – the briefing provided delegates with information about five key areas within the rapidly evolving mobile content marketplace; > Market opportunity: content types and future growth predictions, > Technology: how handsets, network capacity and applications will enrich the consumer experience, > Compliance: Legal challenges and best practice in the heavily-regulated mobile market, > Routes to market: the value chain in mobile content and ways to reach consumers, > Payback: how rights owners earn from the mobile market today and how they may collect revenues in the future Speakers & demonstrations included representatives from Nokia, Vodafone, Universal eLabs, mBlox, the MEF, aggregator Buongiorno Vitaminic, Finnish mobile marketing experts Starcut and legal firms Benedicts and Denton Wilde Sapte. To open, chair Ralph Simon outlined the theme - that mobile opportunities for music companies represent a bright spot for labels, which should “extend music into mobile devices with built in revenue models for labels, with targets set for artist and audience development.” BPI members can download Ralph Simon's presentation here. Analyst and writer Peggy Salz discussed her report “Pump Up The Volume: Unleashing Revenue Potential With Mobile Music Services”. Highlights include: > Durlacher Research believes European annual revenues from ringtones will more than double from €1.2bn to €2.4bn between 2002 and 2005 > IDC asserts that mobile data revenues from music will reach £4.7bn in 2005, making music the second largest data revenue category after information services > The European Union mobile music market will be worth €2.7bn by 2006 according to the European Commission Directorate-General for the Information Society BPI members can download Peggy Salz's presentation here. Ed Kershaw, head of music for Vodafone’s content portal Vodafone Live! outlined how his company offer consumers a proposition rather than a technology, and how technologies such as 3G would allow speedier delivery of the company’s current proposition rather than a revolutionary approach to content. David Williams, director of business development from Nokia Mobile Phones, offered an insight into how music functions attract customers, demonstrating the company’s 3300 music player which can store up to 100 hours of music. BPI members can download David Williams' presentation here. Universal’s VP of eLabs Barney Wragg sounded a cautionary note regarding the immediate future of mobile music, saying that the wireless environment had the potential to become a “mobile Kazaa” in terms of potential losses to the mobile industry. Andrew Bud, CEO of mobile messaging platform mBlox - who also chairs the MEF’s regulatory affairs committee - outlined the potential hazards in marketing to minors and the rules governing financial transactions on mobile platforms. He also examined discrepancies between how premium services regulator ICSTIS and current UK data protection laws define a child. BPI members can download Andrew Bud's presentation here. Jere Teutari of Finnish content aggregator Starcut presented the company’s view of how artist campaigns could work, including tour diaries, greetings and mobile downloads. Chris Cass, operations director for Vitaminic Buongiorno’s Global Mobile Services division, mapped out where content owners such as labels stood in the value chain, noting content providers had to deal with service providers such as his company, who in turn would deal with utility providers such as mobile networks to eventually reach the customer. BPI members can download Chris Cass' presentation here. To emphasise the “here and now” of the mobile market, the session closed with a legal overview from John Benedict of Benedicts and Duncan Calow of Denton Wilde Sapte. Benedict outlined how difficult other industries find dealing with the music business’ fragmentation of rights between artists, composers, publishers and collecting societies. | ||
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