Noank Vice President To Keynote Debate

· Panelists include Frank Taubert, CEO 24-7, Jonathan Friend, Friend MTS

After a lively first think tank, that set out exactly where we stand today in terms of current and emerging legal download and file sharing services, the debate moves on to look at how technology might enable licensed services to develop some of the functionality of existing unlicensed sites. How reliably can we sample and identify internet traffic for managing tracking and payments? Should we be looking to license the end user rather than the delivery platform, at a stroke enabling the consumer to carry on with their embedded habits whilst still ensuring that rights holders are fairly compensated? How would any new application work with ISPs and what kinds of ISP may want to develop these sorts of content services?

To answer all these questions and many more MusicTank have assembled a panel of the brightest technologists and commentators in the field. Flying over from the States to deliver the keynote address for this 2nd session is Jim Gelcer, award-winning and internationally acclaimed technologist, composer, and producer and Vice President Content Acquisition and Business Development of Noank Media Inc. a startup founded at Harvard with a new model for distributing digital media, compensating creators, and solving the problem of illegal file sharing.

Joining Jim will be Frank Taubert, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of 24-7 Entertainment, one of the leading B2B technology providers specializing in online and mobile distribution of digital media and who provide the technology back end to Vodafone’s Music station, Denmark’s TDC music subscription service, Tesco’s online music store. . With over ten years experience off the music industry Frank has a profound understanding of the intricate workings and needs of both the labels and artists.

Alongside them will be Jonathan Friend, founder and technical director of Friend MTS, one of the world’s leading providers of internet inspection, protection and content monitoring systems which carried out the monitoring for this year’s Olympic Games. Having worked in this field for much of the past ten years Jonathan is one of the world’s foremost experts on the subject and a man who has the ear of everyone from the major ISPs to the CTO’s of some of the world’s largest entertainment corporations.

More panellists to be announced later this week.

Date: 04.11.08 – Think Tank 2 – We Have The Technology, What’s The Solution?

Time: 18.30 – 21.00

Venue: The Basement, MCPS-PRS Alliance

Location: 29-33 Berners Street, London, W1T 3AB.

Nearest Tube: Goodge St. (Northern Line)

Price:

Individual Think Tank:

£30 / Trade Body Member* £25 / MusicTank Member £20

Ticket For All 3 Remaining Think Tanks:

£50 MusicTank Members | £65 Trade Body* | £80 Full Price

*AIM, BACS, BPI, MMF, MPG, MPA, MU, MCPS-PRS Alliance, PPL, ISPA and LINX.

All places MUST be booked and paid for in advance. Further info at www.musictank.co.uk

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Full Think Tank Programme

Let’s Sell Recorded Music!

Illegally downloaded any music recently? Given that nearly two thirds of all internet traffic is made up of P2P activity these days, if you haven’t, then most young people you know are. Since Napster first reared its head in the late nineties, the recorded music business has tried in vain to put the genie back in the bottle; the result some pr blunders and an estimated 20:1 illegal download rate.

For music fans it’s been a golden age where hard to find and out of print releases have been readily available alongside the latest hits of the day, but with no way of monetising these streams the record labels have been forced to watch their profits dwindle while the world’s been moving online.

The government has taken notice and is overseeing a three-pronged initiative aimed at educating and developing awareness, dealing with the most serious infringers and facilitating legitimate offerings.

This series will focus on that third prong: effective legitimate alternatives. Over the course of the four events we will review what people want, where technology is heading, what the most plausible new models are and how they might be licensed.

Think Tank 2 – We Have The Technology, What’s The Solution?

Tues 4th Nov

How can technology enable licensed services to develop some of the functionality of existing unlicensed sites? How reliably can we sample and identify internet traffic for managing tracking and payments? Is this only possible within a walled-garden system, or is the technology available to monitor all traffic for accounting purposes? How might this sit with the notoriously privacy minded torrent communities? What are the benefits and pitfalls of using deep packet inspection and can this work for encrypted content? Is copyright filtering on a network level desirable or possible?

Are there more creative, compelling or enduring models out there? What can we learn from some of the more advanced licensed P2P platforms such as Korea’s Soribada? What about licensing the end user or the access point, a la Noank, rather than the delivery platform? Might this enable music fans to continue to with their consumption habits and trusted filters in a way that better utilises the internet’s potential?

How does the blue-sky models square with the needs of ISPs and device manufacturers? What kind of ISP might be interested in developing content services anyway? And would they look to do so themselves or rather to provide a platform for third parties?

And how many kids are right now in their bedrooms cooking up new ideas that will do to P2P what Napster did to the traditional business? Can we develop more futureproofed solutions or are we forever doomed to play catch up?

Think Tank 3 – Coalition of the Billing

Tues 18th Nov

What’s the best way to license these new services?

Labels are now ready to license as widely and flexibly as possible yet understandably wish to control the value they place over their rights, especially when ISP music services may one day provide their major income stream for recorded music.

Might collective licensing through a mandated body enable the widest range of music to be legally available, from finished studio recordings to live bootlegs, radio sessions and mash-ups? Or is that incompatible with the business needs of rightsholders, leaving such content doomed to continue to exist unlicensed?

How will future licensing vary between streams, on-demand streams and downloads when technology is increasingly causing the three to converge?

How can we streamline and simplify the process for licensees, is it desirable or possible to create one-stop joint ‘master and composition’ licenses to make everything easier?

Will labels increasingly extend vertically into the businesses they are licensing, such as MySpace, and how will monies track back to artists?

Think Tank 4 – Squaring The Circle

Tues 2nd Dec

The final think tank will look to pull together the conclusions from the series.

How can the different stakeholders better understand each others’ needs in order to develop the most effective and compelling new services? Is further consumer research necessary? What can be modeled and test-marketed? How might UK platforms be affected by developments in other territories? And how could the film, TV and software industries plug into these new models?

In scoping areas for further development, MusicTank will facilitate consultation, analysis and research required to better inform the conversations that will deliver real innovations and help square the circle.