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Universal Music cuts streaming music to 90 second clips

Posted by aubin on Tuesday, December 4, 2007 at 12:00 PM (EST)

In a baffling but not entirely surprising move, Universal has decided to require all of their artists to provide only 90 clips of music on their myspace pages. The news comes from Wired Magazine which cited an email from Universal artist Colbie Caillat:

Due to circumstances beyond my control I have to swap the songs out on my page for 90 second versions instead of full length versions. In fact some of the songs have already been swapped as I write this. Every artist signed to a Universal label has to comply immediately.

The story reports that some artists were required to do this a few months ago, but it is apparently trickling through their entire base. It's unclear how the removal of low quality streams will increase CD sales, particularly since it provides some incentive for more morally-questionable methods of hearing music.

Universal Music Group (78 comments)

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Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way. Seriously.

Mookie_Blaylock (December 4, 2007)

What bands are on universal that I might like?

7+ Replies

trevor_the_exploder (December 4, 2007)

bryan adams (not to be confused with ryan adams who is also on universal)...

Mookie_Blaylock (December 4, 2007)

remember when bryan adams, sting and that other dude had the theme song to the disney movie "The 3 Musketeers", that was pretty sweet. Need to find that on youtube

xcarlupanddiex (December 4, 2007)

brand new

and then maybe angels and airwaves, plus 44, and a tons more.

but i don't think anyone like them

ArtieFufkin (December 4, 2007)

MOOKIE - IGNORE THIS COMMENT. You're getting false information. Aviod Angels & Airwaves at all costs! (just based on the gayness factor alone)

Ed-tron (December 4, 2007)

Jawbreaker, Blue Meanies, MxPx, Long Beach Dub All-Stars, Blink 182, H2O, Unwritten Law, Sublime, The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, Jimmy Eat World, New Found Glory, Face to Face, Nirvana, Lefty, Bloodhound Gang, ALL, The Hippos, Face to Face, Henry Rollins, Sparta, Midtown, Box Car Racer, Something Corporate, Sonic Youth, theSTART, Jurassic 5, AFI, Matthew Good Band, Dredg, And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead, Living Things, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, The Mars Volta, The Revolution Smile, Saves The Day, All-American Rejects, JamisonParker, The Rapture, Circle Jerks, The Cure, The Hives, Chronic Future, Number One Fan, Rise Against, A Thorn For Every Heart, Recover, The Starting Line, The High Speed Scene, Finch, Razorlight, Reel Big Fish, Helmet, Institute, Queens of the Stone Age, Abandoned Pools, Angels and Airwaves, Brand New, Be Your Own Pet, Wax, Rocket from the Crypt, TV on the Radio, Plus 44,

show rest of comment

Mookie_Blaylock (December 4, 2007)

ty.

Mookie_Wilson (December 4, 2007)

you're not the only mookie around now

Mookie_Blaylock (December 4, 2007)

lame

SumWon (December 4, 2007)

It's like they are doing everything in their power to be left behind in the dust.

1+ Reply

NotPatriotic (December 4, 2007)

It does sort of seem that way

baseball (December 4, 2007)

wow, good luck getting me to purchase something i can only preview 90 shitty quality seconds of

music on myspace sounds awful to begin with

SloaneDaley (December 4, 2007)

this is the type of tech savy business minded thinking the industry needs right now.

2+ Replies

veganboyjosh (December 4, 2007)

yes.

NotPatriotic (December 4, 2007)

YES, lets go Sony BMG, Warner, and EMI. Follow suit guys. Hopefully no one will hear a full song from any band on these shitty labels ever again.

Banal242 (December 4, 2007)

This is one of those moves that came from someone high up who is really really out of touch but has too much power for anyone to say otherwise.

2+ Replies

David_Arquette (December 4, 2007)

If I had to guess, I'd say that that's the basis of most major label business moves these days.

Banal242 (December 4, 2007)

If you work in any office in America, you'll see this.

iamnormie (December 4, 2007)

And that is why you fail.

Good going UMG.

xmoshx1 (December 4, 2007)

rise against... ha

Someone (December 4, 2007)

i was in a baffling but certainly not entirely surprising mood yesterday.
-nic

3+ Replies

matt_b (December 4, 2007)

"someone" can post again?

sceneupdates (December 4, 2007)

I think they need to make a FAQ page just for this, seriously!

matt_b (December 4, 2007)

wait, how can "someone" post again?

LooseKanonYankee (December 4, 2007)

Ive posted as "someone" before, When I clicked "post" it said there was an error, so I clicked it three times, and I had a triple "someone" post.

listofdemands (December 4, 2007)

it's true. i have 2 computers and post off of both of them. my desktop gives me the error message no matter how many times i log out and log back in. never had a problem with my laptop, though.
-nic

Someone (December 4, 2007)

you bet your sweet ass i can
-nic

ibitchslappedyourmama (December 4, 2007)

Good thing there are no bands on UMG like Paint It Black who have 30 second songs. That would be funny.
By the way, pathetic move by UMG.

3+ Replies

SumWon (December 4, 2007)

Yeah, I was about to post something about that. Like, if this was truly punk news, the 90 second limit would barely matter.

ArtieFufkin (December 4, 2007)

Yea, most good punk bands write 90 second songs anyway

pleasekillyourself (December 4, 2007)

i'd go one step further and say most good punk bands don't sign to universal.

fallingupwards84 (December 4, 2007)

haha zing

BarleyPat (December 4, 2007)

As if I need another reason not to buy shit from these out of touch assholes.

2+ Replies

BarleyPat (December 4, 2007)

Seriously, do these guys just sit in a room and dicuss: "Let's see, what could we do to even further alienate any potential customers?"

The4footpartysub (December 4, 2007)

it certainly seems that way...

fallingupwards84 (December 4, 2007)

Rise Against, AFI, who else?

6+ Replies

SloaneDaley (December 4, 2007)

The Bronx

veganboyjosh (December 4, 2007)

I believe the question was in regards to bands he'd be interested in.

JohnnyZ77 (December 4, 2007)

RYAN ADAMS. the man is AWESOME.

patman (December 4, 2007)

against me!
tegan and sara
the subways

these are all sire artists. Does anyone know if this is applying to the entire UM family?

givemeamuseumandillfillit (December 4, 2007)

It should apply to the whole family, meaning it does NOT apply to Sire because Sire is a part of warner...

XkingbuzzoX (December 4, 2007)

Jimmy Eat World.

pleasekillyourself (December 4, 2007)

with logic this idiotic, i'm guessing the high ups at universal spend the rest of their free time drooling on themselves and shitting in their pants.

Toxic_Toast (December 4, 2007)

I'll play devil's advocate.

This is a good move because they give FOX the rights to 90 second clips of songs instead of entire songs.

I think they can still put full streams on Purevolume which sounds better anyways.

2+ Replies

InaGreendase (brian) (December 4, 2007)

If the latter is true, pretty great point right here.

PaC (December 4, 2007)

Didn't Billy Bragg get Fox to clarify that point of the Myspace user agreement?

douglas_is_rad (December 4, 2007)

Mood swing?

karmabad (December 4, 2007)

funny. so you can't listen to it here, now just go get it at isohunt and decide if you like it. when's someone going to grab one of these out of touch music execs and just slap them silly for being the reason for musics downfall? happy tuesday!

http://thisblogisover.wordpress.com/

1+ Reply

KillThePatriarch (December 4, 2007)

This is why major labels suck.

Klyph14 (December 4, 2007)

AFI is apparently sticking it to the man because Carcinogen Crush is still 1:39. You can't tame this beast Universal.

2+ Replies

Diver (December 4, 2007)

What's the point!? I mean, doesn't it leave an empty feeling? Hahah.

jacknife737 (December 4, 2007)

I approve of that post

ThomPunkAheaddotcom (December 4, 2007)

good, hopefully even less people will buy their crap

Dante3000 (rich) (December 4, 2007)

Are there many artists on Universal you'd want to hear more than 90 seconds of anyhow? It's weird because I preview less music than ever. If something comes from an act I like I tend to buy it. If it comes from a trusted recommendation I'll probably buy it , maybe check it out first. It's only really bit me on the ass a few times but for the most part it's been the best method I've used thus far.
Myspace players suck and offer shit quality audio anyhow, I don't know how people stream whole albums off those things.
-Dante

1+ Reply

TheRepoMan (December 4, 2007)

i heard nothington on their myspace about a year ago and got their cd... there are a couple of other instances, but for the most part im the same way.
gay and proud

skankbook (December 4, 2007)

I don't think we're going to see a reasonable "solution" to the music industry anytime soon. The majority of media outlets are a few years behind pirating trends, so instead of adapting to the times, they end up making moves that really don't make that much sense (although the post about Fox owning the rights is pretty reasonable).

I'm surprised they haven't started sending bills to people who make mix tapes.

01011010 (December 4, 2007)

01010100 01101111 00111010 00100000 01000001 01110101 01100010 01101001 01101110 00001101 00001010 01000110 01110010 01101111 01101101 00111010 00100000 01011010 00001101 00001010 00001101 00001010 01000110 01101001 01110010 01100101 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 01110010 00100000 01100101 01100100 01101001 01110100 01101111 01110010 00101110 00001101 00001010 00001101 00001010 01010100 01101000 01100001 01110100 00100000 01101001 01110011 00100000 01100001 01101100 01101100 00101110

2+ Replies

Banal242 (December 4, 2007)

0100010001101001011001000010000001111001011011110111010100100000 01101001011011100111010001100101011011100110010000100000011101000 11011110010000001101000011000010111011001100101001000000111010001 10100001100001011101000010000001110001011101010110010101110011011 10100011010010110111101101110001000000110110101100001011100100110 10110011111100100000001000000100100101100110001000000110111001101 11101110100001011000010000001100110011010010111001001100101001000 00011110010110111101110101011100100010000001100010011010010110111 00110000101110010011110010010000001100100011001010110001101101111 01100100011001010111001000101110

01011010 (December 4, 2007)

01000100 01101001 01110100 01110100 01101111 00101110

RRR (December 4, 2007)

I was thinking the same thing.

LooseKanonYankee (December 4, 2007)

This guy is good

AlmostPunkEnough (December 10, 2007)

LOLOLOL oh man i just laughed my ass off.

Albert_Belle (December 4, 2007)

Wow! What a shitty move.

wrongstring (December 4, 2007)

awesome to see this lumbering beast gasping for air. its an exciting time for music again.

FuckYouOiOiOi (December 4, 2007)

good, 90 seconds is all i can stand of any of the crap thats on universal anyway.

skaboom (December 4, 2007)

I'm guessing the Universal CEO just now found out about those websites that can rip songs from myspace even when the artist chooses not to make it available for download.

Up next: he realizes you can use a cassette player to tape songs off radio, limits radio play to 90 seconds

1+ Reply

HumanUnkind (December 4, 2007)

You say that like it's a joke, but they'll realise that music on myspace is pretty much the same as watching a video on the television or the internet or listening on the radio and that WILL be the next step...

Universal sucks.

GlassPipeMurder (December 4, 2007)

Rise Against is still streaming their full major label songs.

giantphallus (December 4, 2007)

90 seconds? that wouldn't be a problem for HARDCORE bands

LooseKanonYankee (December 4, 2007)

Im pretty glad these major labels are screwing up. The quicker they realize they cant make mounds and mounds of cash off of music, the sooner they will leave. Once the guys in it for the money leave, then people who truly care about music will be the only ones left.

"when theres no more money in politics
they'll be tearing down the union brick by brick"

Tar0n (December 4, 2007)

*gasp!*

90 seconds...NOOOOOOOOOO.

wellplannedattack (December 4, 2007)

sounds like homeboy's just bored, sitting around with nothing to do, and saying "let's give everyone a time-consuming, inane task to do so i can feel like i'm paying them to do something." just like any other job in america.

victim (December 4, 2007)

General Gordon Baker

This is a speech given on the eve of Labor Day, September 5, 2005 at the
Central United Church in Detroit, Michigan.

Those who refuse to study history forfeit their opportunity to learn from
that experience. We want to learn from our historical lessons.

Today we are celebrating the sanctity of human labor. The first Monday of
September of Labor Day was born in New York City in 1882. It was the call of
Peter McQuire, an Irish American cabinetmaker, and a leader of the Brotherhood
of Copper Makers and Journeyists. In most of the world, May 1 is celebrated as
a labor holiday out of the struggles for the eight-hour day in 1886. Both
dates were born on US soil. One was conceived in the struggle and sacrifice
and
bloodshed and the other b

show rest of comment

Ed-tron (December 4, 2007)

Jawbreaker, Blue Meanies, MxPx, Long Beach Dub All-Stars, Blink 182, H2O, Unwritten Law, Sublime, The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, Jimmy Eat World, New Found Glory, Face to Face, Nirvana, Lefty, Bloodhound Gang, ALL, The Hippos, Face to Face, Henry Rollins, Sparta, Midtown, Box Car Racer, Something Corporate, Sonic Youth, theSTART, Jurassic 5, AFI, Matthew Good Band, Dredg, And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead, Living Things, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, The Mars Volta, The Revolution Smile, Saves The Day, All-American Rejects, JamisonParker, The Rapture, Circle Jerks, The Cure, The Hives, Chronic Future, Number One Fan, Rise Against, A Thorn For Every Heart, Recover, The Starting Line, The High Speed Scene, Finch, Razorlight, Reel Big Fish, Helmet, Institute, Queens of the Stone Age, Abandoned Pools, Angels and Airwaves, Brand New, Be Your Own Pet, Wax, Rocket from the Crypt, TV on the Radio, Plus 44,

show rest of comment

ChokingVictim (December 4, 2007)

this reminds me of a quote out of a good article on piracy:

"The major labels are like Terry Schiavo right now - they're on life support, drooling in a coma, while white-haired guys in suits try and change the laws to keep them alive."

ashtraymonument (December 4, 2007)

this just makes me laugh

aorta (December 4, 2007)

"It's unclear how the removal of low quality streams will increase CD sales, particularly since it provides some incentive for more morally-questionable methods of hearing music."

Hey Punknews, stop editorializing in your news bulletins. It's unprofessional.

1+ Reply

iconoclast (December 5, 2007)

shut up.

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