[January 27, 2006]

Global music fair opens as industry seeks to unlock digital dream

(Turkish Daily News Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge)MIDEM, the world's most influential music trade fair, opened its doors in Cannes on Sunday, with much of the focus expected to be on the challenges posed by online music sales.

Online music sales are finally bringing in the bucks for the piracy-battered music industry but there may still be no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

That was the mixed message from a bevy of music and hi-tech heavyweights on the eve of the opening of MIDEM.

On the bright side, latest figures released on Thursday by the global recording industry body, the IFPI, showed that digital music has expanded rapidly around the globe.

Today, there are 335 legal online music services, compared with 50 two years ago and last year, single track downloads more than doubled to 420 million, proving the most popular online music product.

On the downside, music piracy is still rife, particularly on illegal Internet peer-to-peer (P2P) music file-sharing services.

"It's all about making an industry survive," EMI Europe boss Jean-Francois Cecillon told a packed MidemNet session. Of the one billion songs downloaded from the Internet in France last year, just 20 million were bought. "That's not even theft, that's pillage," Cecillon stressed.

In addition, the rapidly expanding number of new digital music channels including radio, video, podcasting (do-it-yourself audio or video broadcasts) and the controversial move towards legalizing some P2P services, is creating a crowded sector where everyone is jostling for a slice of the digital pie.

But whilst the plethora of new music devices is good news for music and hi-tech gadget fans, the big problem for the music industry is still about surviving in a sector where the rewards are, at least for the moment, small.

Speaker after speaker appealed for the price of single song and video downloads to be raised from the current virtually standard rate of one euro.

Some new entrants on the music scene, including Internet giant AOL, are even losing money on their new music services.

But the digital revolution is not going to go away. It's here to stay and will continue to grow, the speakers all agreed.

"Digital distribution is still very much in its infancy," the chairman of music giant EMI, Eric Nicoli, told participants on Saturday.

"The potential for its expansion is unimaginably large," he said, adding that he expected that digital would account for 25 percent of the world music market by 2010.

"But the physical market still has a very important role to play and will have for years to come," Nicoli stressed.

The digital music revolution that is transforming the music scene worldwide has attracted record numbers of participants from across the music, mobile telephone, Internet, video and radio sectors to this year's MIDEM.

These new high-tech markets are now considered so important that the one-day MidemNet brainstorming session traditionally held the day before the MIDEM opening, was extended to two days.

Some 9,500 top executives from 92 countries have jetted into this small French Riviera resort town for the five-day show, which is celebrating its 40th anniversary.

Mobile phone companies are out in force for the first time at this MIDEM including the world's largest mobile phone handset maker Nokia as well as Sony Ericsson, whose new Walkman music phones are proving a big hit with consumers.

But the trade fest will not only be about the latest hi-tech digital music trends.

The five-day event will also be big on the live music side, with more than 70 bands and world artists from across the music spectrum slated to make MIDEM's 40th anniversary rock through the night, as well as the day. A glittering line-up of A-list pop stars came to Cannes for the annual French NRJ music awards on Saturday.

Among them was U.S. chart-topper 50 Cent who was to share the stage with British-born pop idols Coldplay and singer-songwriter James Blunt, hip-hop masters Black Eyed Peas and French rock legend Johnny Hallyday.

The trade fest will also celebrate the 250th anniversary of Mozart, one of music's best-loved composers, with a pyrotechnical musical extravaganza.

Another highlight will be this year's MIDEM Personality of the Year Award, which for the first time will go to three well-known music personalities.

The award will be made to the three people behind the massively successful Live Aid and Live 8 concerts, Bob Geldof, Harvey Goldsmith and John Kennedy.

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