Update: CTV has acquired the Hockey Night in Canada theme song. The song will now be heard during TSN’s NHL broadcasts and during the 2010 Olympic broadcasts.

For anyone who’s a hockey fan, the Hockey Night in Canada theme song that precedes every Saturday night telecast on CBC is an inherent part of our culture and arguably our second national anthem.

Written in 1968 by Delores Claman, it’s an iconic tune that most Canadian could recognize within seconds, and it’s easily one of the most popular ringtone downloads.

So, it’s a bit of a puzzler that the CBC has decided to walk away from “our song” after declining to renew the $20,000/year licensing rights – the day after the sublime Detroit Red Wings won the Stanley Cup. It’s probably some bean counter trying to save our national broadcaster a few bucks while forgetting that Hockey Night in Canada is, by far, the CBC’s most lucrative property. That’s saying something given the, um, commercial mediocrity of many CBC shows.

With the theme song in peril, it’s encouraging to see that people are trying to use the Web to save it.

GiveMeaning, which helps people raises money for all kinds of great charitable causes, is now running a campaign to raise $20,000 – the licensing cost for one year. While it would be an impressive accomplishment if $20,000 was raised, the fact this campaign exists gives you everything you need to know about how some people feel about the theme song.

For more, check out the Toronto Star in which writer Chris Zelkowich suggests the CBC’s move stems from a $2.5-million lawsuit that Claman launched against the CBC four years ago that apparently has to do with ringtone royalties. You can download the ringtone here or here.

Technorati Tags: CBC, Hockey Night in Canada

…..the experience of hearing her perform live, which I did last night, is so much more engaging, powerful and enjoyable than anything digital.

The ability for musicians to connect with an audience through their music and personality is what continues to make live performances the pillar of the music industry. At a time when many consumers want to pay little if anything for music, they will dig into their pockets for a concert – even dig really deep for a big star, which is what Feist will be soon if she isn’t already.

Playing in her hometown (Toronto), Feist was clearly “on” last night as was the audience. Even though there were 2,000 people there, it felt small and comfortable. The non-music highlight was her attempt to divide the audience into singing groups by using bicycles riders vs. non-bicycle riders. When that didn’t work, she moved on to area codes – much to everyone’s delight.

As the music industry scrambles to deal with its digitization, it is difficult not to get the feeling that it’s so obsessed with selling albums/singles that it forgets about live performances. You hear so much about the RIAA suing consumers for downloading music but little about how more bands have realized that if they want to survive and thrive financially and artistically, they need to get out on the road in front of the people.

It may be that music does want to be be free given consumers don’t see much value in it digitally. If that’s the case, the music industry and musicians have no choice but switch gears and make live performances the foundation of their businesses again. It’s a product that consumers will actually purchase.

Who knows, maybe a dividend along the way is that live performances resonate with consumers to the point where they are willing to pay for a CD, a high-quality digital track/CD, or an old-fashioned CD.

In many ways, Feist’s performance last night was a 90-minute commercial for her CD – and a pretty damn good one at that!

More: To listen to some of Feist’s music, check out her MySpace page. For the scoop on how the RIAA catches alleged music pirates, check out this story. To buy Feist’s new album, The Reminder, click here. The Leading Question and Music Alley have come up with five recommendations for the music industry to resuscitate its prospects.

Technorati Tags: Feist, Music

According to Forrester Research, half of all music sold in the U.S. will be digital by 2011, and digital music sales will surpass CD sales within the next four years.

In the midst of a digital revolution (evolution?), it is interesting to see artists still intent on offering consumers the option to buy CDs, which are quickly becoming as antiquated as cassettes tapes (remember them, those little plastic things that – unlike CDs – took a beating and kept on ticking?).

For all the attention that Nine Inch Nail is getting for offering a free download of nine songs from its Ghosts I-IV collection and a $5 download for all 36 songs from the album, it’s still trying to sell packages that includes CDs, including a $75 “Deluxe Edition” and a $300 “Ultra-Deluxe Edition”. Radiohead did the same thing earlier this year amid its successful pay-what-you-can marketing bonanza by offering an $80 special disc box that includes two CDs and two vinyl records.

If CDs are on life-support, why do artists continue to sell them? I mean, they’re just so 1990, right? Truth be told, there’s still lots of demand – at least for now – amid the ubiquity of iPods and the continued enthusiastic usage of P2P services. As long as consumers insist on buying these antiques, the labels and artists are going to serve them, including “premium” packages for the consumers will be pay more for scarcity.

There is at least one artist willing to give up the CD, and embrace digital. Daniel Lanois’ new album, Here is What Is, is only available in digital format on redfloorecords.com. Lanois’ jump into digital is so complete he’s offering the album in two formats – .mp3 and .wav (Lanois, a renown music producer for the likes of U2 and Bob Dylan, thinks that .wav offers a richer sound). The Toronto Star had a story on Langlois last weekend.

More: CNet has an extensive story on the music industry yesterday that looks at everything from P2P and DRM to social networks and the future of music labels. As well, the New York Times has a story looking at NIN’s “innovative Web pricing plan”.

Technorati Tags: Daniel Langlois, Music, Nine Inch Nails

Mathew Ingram, friend and fellow mesh conference organizer, has an interesting story in today’s Globe & Mail about how talented Canadian singer Kathleen Edwards is auctioning a 160GB iPod on eBay that contains her entire library of recorded music with the proceeds going to the Alicia Ross Memorial Fund.

Here’s a description of what the auction winner will get:

An engraved 160GB iPod Classic – Proceeds going to the Alicia Ross Memorial Fund through Project Canoe – www.canoe.org MUSIC – My full catalogue : Failer, Back To Me, Asking For Flowers – Bonus tracks: 2004 Starbucks Compilation: a cover of Tom Petty’s “Face in the Crowd” 2 Alternate versions of songs on Asking For Flowers: “Asking For Flowers”, “Scared At Night” 2 unreleased songs: “Lazy Eye” and “I Can’t Give You Up” Bandmate Jim Bryson has also contributed his latest release, “Where the Bungalows Roam” PHOTOS -10+ Photographs of me VIDEOS -Music Videos for 1. In State 2. Back To Me 3. 6 O’clock News 4. Hockey Skates -Video for “The Making of Asking For Flowers” We’ll ship world wide! Also, the winning bidder will be eligible for 2 tickets to any Kathleen Edwards headlined show in 2008 (City/Date are the Bidder’s choice).

With five days and two hours to go, the bidding is fast and furious with the top of 20 bids at $1,010.

If music is becoming a commodity, artists – and labels – need to be a lot more creative if they want to make money. While I’m certainly not suggesting that auctioning/selling iPods with your entire music catalog is going to become wildly popular or lucrative, it does illustrate how some out-of-the-box thinking could go a long way.

If you do it properly, consumers will happily spend money on music and/or music related products. Radiohead’s pay-what-you-want got a lot of attention last year but it apparently also led to pretty impressive sales of its “physical” box set that included the new Rainbows album on CD, two vinyl records, a CD with additional songs, photos, artwork and lyrics.

Who knows, maybe if Apple keeps lowering the price for the iPod shuffle, you’ll be able go to a concert and buy all of an artists music and a shuffle for, let’s say, $30 to $50 depending on the size of an artist’s catalogue.

Update: The Toronto Star has a story looking at how with CDs on the decline, there may be a concert glut as bands go on the road to generate revenue.

Technorati Tags: eBay, Kathleen Edwards

For the decade, the music industry has been trying – and mostly – failing to battle the scourge of piracy.

They’ve gone after the facilitators (Napster, Kazaa, etc.) and carried out a nasty legal/lawsuit strategy against their customers. But despite all the effort and money spent, the music industry has made little progress in stemming the digital tide.

So, what’s their next offensive tactic? Who can the music industry bring into the anti-piracy fold? Encouraged by moves made by the French government, the IFPI believes it’s time for the ISPs to become more pro-active in helping the music industry crack down on all those evil pirates out there.

In a press release, the IFPI proclaims: “2007 was the year ISP responsibility started to become an accepted principle. 2008 must be the year it becomes reality”.

In particular, the IFPI wants the ISPs to engage in the “systematic disconnection of infringers and the use of filtering technologies” to stop “copyright theft”, while alleging that 80% of ISP traffic comprises distribution of copyright-infringing files.

Question: Why must the ISPs become the front line policeman for the music industry, which has yet to come up with a new business model that reflects the digital reality in which they now operate? Is the music industry that desperate that they need the ISPs to help them? Or do they simply realize that lawsuits aren’t doing the job?

In terms of the ISPs, what are they going to do: monitor every single packet at a time when they’re having a difficult enough time trying to provide enough bandwidth for legitimate activity such as video streaming and downloads. At the very least, it looks like an awful lot of work an aggravation for the ISPs.

Don’t get me wrong, stealing music is wrong. But there has to be a better, more creative way to convince consumers not to download music for free. Of course, it may be that music should be free or really inexpensive while the music industry would make money in other ways – concerts, merchandise sales, etc.

For an in-depth look at the IFPI report, check out paidContent. You can download the IFPI’s full report here.

Technorati Tags: ISPs, Music, Copyright