Thursday 31 December 2015, 15:43 | By

David Lowery’s lawyer says Spotify’s ‘bad-data’ line is “the worst excuse in the world”

Business News Digital Legal

David Lowery

Opinion seems divided in the music community regarding the news that musician and prominent artist rights campaigner David Lowery is suing Spotify, accusing the streaming music service of failing to pay him and other songwriters millions in mechanical royalties.

Legal representatives for Lowery insist that litigation is necessary to force the hand of Spotify, and other streaming services, when it comes to the way they license mechanical rights in the US, while labelling the digital firm’s claim that the real problem is a lack of decent music data “the worst excuse in the world”.

As previously reported, Lowery’s lawsuit relates to the issue at the heart of that short-lived spat between Spotify and Victory Records earlier this year. An on-demand stream exploits both the ‘mechanical’ and ‘performing’ right elements of a copyright. Which is important when it comes to licensing song rights, because the music publishing sector has traditionally licensed these two elements of the copyright separately.

In Europe, most publishers and collecting societies have sought to provide streaming services with licences that cover both mechanical and performing rights, but in the US copyright rules have prevented the performing right organisations from also repping mechanical rights, so the two are generally still handled through separate licences.

It is the mechanical rights where there have been issues. There is a compulsory licence covering mechanicals in the US, so streaming services don’t need specific permission from a songwriter or publisher to stream their songs. However, under the compulsory licence the digital service must alert a rights owner that their music is being used, and then pay royalties at rates set by statute. Spotify, and other services, are accused of not complying with that part of the compulsory licence.

Spotify says the problem is data. With no central music copyright database, the company doesn’t know who to alert and pay. Spokesman Jonathan Prince said in reaction to Lowery’s lawsuit: “We are committed to paying songwriters and publishers every penny. Unfortunately, especially in the United States, the data necessary to confirm the appropriate rightsholders is often missing, wrong, or incomplete. When rightsholders are not immediately clear, we set aside the royalties we owe until we are able to confirm their identities”.

Prince’s colleague James Duffett-Smith, Spotify’s Global Head Of Publisher Relations, announced just before Christmas plans to build a super new database to help overcome these problems. In the meantime, Prince added: “We are working closely with the National Music Publishers Association to find the best way to correctly pay the royalties we have set aside”.

However, Sanford Michelman of Michelman & Robinson LLP, which is representing Lowery, is not impressed with Spotify’s response. “I think it’s the worst excuse in the world”, Michelman told CMU. “If you see a car for sale in the street, you can’t just break in and take it and then say, ‘But I didn’t know who was selling it’. It’s the same here. Spotify has pursued a ‘catch me if you can’ approach to licensing, and that’s a totally irresponsible business model. Spotify’s statement is an admission that they knew they were intentionally violating the copyright laws designed to protect artists”.

The basic argument from Lowery’s side is that just because it can be hard to identify who owns and controls any one song, that doesn’t mean streaming companies can ignore their obligations under the compulsory licence.

Michelman’s colleague Mona Hanna told CMU: “Besides, it’s just not true that the data Spotify needs simply isn’t available. With the songs referenced in this case, a simple search of the USPTO database would have revealed who Spotify needed to notify. And there is a process in law to follow even when you don’t have the right information. Spotify has ignored this process”.

Explaining more how the compulsory licence process works, Hanna continues: “Where the information regarding the copyright owner is unavailable, or unknown, the compulsory licence can be used to legally obtain the right to distribute the music. [But the law] requires a ‘notice of intent’ to obtain a compulsory licence be filed with the Copyright Office and then the statutory royalties for that work to be deposited to the Copyright Office until the name of the copyright holder is identified. At which point, the royalties go to the copyright owner or his agent directly”.

Sanford adds: “We don’t yet know much about Spotify’s planned new database, but I’m not sure that will address the problem, which is more about policy than data. From what we have heard, it sounds like the new database is merely a more efficient way to violate the law, rather than to cure the violation of taking artists’ works without their permission”.

The lawyers concede that Spotify is not the only streaming company with a mechanical rights problem in the US, and they hope this case will set a wider precedent.

“We have focused on Spotify because of its size and scale”, says Sanford. “We hope this action will make others comply with the law as well. Our message is that everyone must comply. And if you enter this market anew, you can’t build market share simply by ignoring your obligations under copyright law. We cannot, and should not forget, that the underlying issue here is that the artists pour their heart and souls into their work and Spotify is taking it without permission to do so and making money off of it. That’s just wrong”.

Lowery’s lawsuit is a class action, which means, if successful, it would benefit other songwriters who believe Spotify owes them mechanical royalties. “We have artists from all over reaching out to us about this case”, Sandford says, “telling us that this has been a key concern of theirs for some time now, and that they are grateful that David Lowery is doing something about it at last. We’ve had a lot of contact from across the industry and the support is tremendous”.

That said, as we noted, the music community is divided on this issue, with even some artists and songwriters siding with Spotify. Those on that side of the fence argue that Spotify has actually done more than any other digital service to try to overcome licensing complexities and database issues to ensure the right labels, publishers, artists and songwriters are paid.

In a blog post about Lowery’s litigation, digital music consultant Sammy Andrews – until recently also Head Of Digital at Cooking Vinyl – calls on the music industry, which has long discussed the need for better music data, to finally rise to the challenge in 2016, and work with the streaming sector to produce the publicly accessible global music rights database everyone agrees is needed.

Andrews writes: “It actually saddens me that, of all the digital service providers he could have chosen to go after, he’s going after one that actually recognises [the need for a music rights database] and is actively trying to build one. I’ve seen a lot of people on social networks posting in support of the lawsuit without any comment on why this occurred. Read past the headlines and actually think about why this happens! If Spotify are found to be at fault here, every DSP will be guilty of this without exception. But I believe the fundamental fault here lies with us, the industry, not the service, and we have a collective responsibility to sort this out”.

Back at Michelman & Robinson LLP, Hanna agrees to an extent, saying that “in my opinion, the long term solution requires all the parties to come to the table to discuss an equitable arrangement. I’m not necessarily saying what that solution should be, but it must be fair to all parties. And that means artists and songwriters as well as labels, publishers and distributors”.

However, she and Sandford insist that, whatever data issues there may have been, and whatever data solutions Spotify or the industry may come up with in the coming year, the core allegation of Lowery’s lawsuit still stands: ie the claim that the streaming service has simply not complied with its obligations under the US compulsory licence. And if a service wants to exploit the mechanical rights of songs in America, they add, those obligations must be met.

“We hope Spotify will do the corporately responsible thing and come forward and fix its business model”, says Sanford. “We believe that their recent statements are basically an admission of liability. If we can address this matter out of court, it could take less than a year to settle. I do want to stress that this is a watershed moment, so to speak, for Spotify. If they truly care about doing the right thing, then they will resolve this matter and set the standard for the rest of the industry. They have an opportunity to be a good corporate citizen”.

But settling the case won’t be as simple as speedily handing over any unpaid mechanical royalties. Sanford concludes: “I don’t think Spotify can just say, ‘Oh, sorry, we forgot to pay you’, and then hand over what it unilaterally believes it owes. It has enriched its balance sheet by ignoring its legal obligations, and no company should get away with that. A clear message needs to be sent to new businesses operating in this space, that legal obligations must be met from the off. So yes, we will be pursuing damages for our client in this case, but more importantly, to protect the artists and the industry”.

For a guide to how digital services are licensed check this free trends article, or the ‘Dissecting The Digital Dollar’ report produced by CMU Insights for the UK’s Music Managers Forum.

Premium CMU subscribers can also check this review of the music industry’s data challenges, while Bruno Guez of Revelator discusses the same in this free to access interview here.

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Thursday 31 December 2015, 12:50 | By

Q&A: Bruno Guez, Revelator

Business Interviews Digital Labels & Publishers

Bruno Guez

This interview appeared in the December 2015 edition of the CMU Trends Report. Buy our reports from the CMU Shop or get every edition by signing up for CMU Premium.

Bruno Guez created Revelator to solve his own label’s data problem, as the monthly reports from key streaming platforms got ever larger. Now a standalone business providing data solutions to labels, distributors, societies and creators, Guez is evolving the Revelator platform to help music clients bring all their data together in one place and, crucially, to enable the sharing of data and information between the various stakeholders with an interest in any one track: label, publisher, band members and manager. We sat down with the Revelator founder to discover more.

CC: There has been much talk about data in the music community in recent years, though we’re talking about a number of different kinds of data: eg copyright, sales and fan data. Are the challenges different for each set?
BG: There are indeed plenty of challenges with data. The copyright data is the most complex, whereas the fan data is pretty easy, because you’re just collecting it from the various different channels and sources.

Sales data is just the reports that come in from the streaming services and download stores. The only challenge there is how to ‘parse’, or process, the information. But you only need to work that out once. Once you’ve built ‘parsers’ for the various reports that come through, then you know how to read those files.

The real challenge is knowing who to pay, which brings us back to the complexities of copyright data – who owns what and who are the beneficiaries? A key challenge there is matching publishing data with recording data. You need to know about both the song and the recording to effectively report and distribute income from digital services.

CC: There is no central database of copyright ownership – for either songs or recordings – but there are plenty of other databases that do record some copyright information. What are the key sets of data out there?
BG: When it comes to any song that has been registered with a performing rights organisation – and therefore has an ‘ISWC code’ attached to it – you can get the basic information quite easily.

There is the ISWC Network, which lists songs and their songwriters, and the accompanying ISWC codes. It is managed by CISAC, the worldwide association that brings together most of the performing rights organisations who deal will song rights. I imagine that it’s pretty reliable, because CISAC are the ones who issue the ISWCs.

Then you’ve got the databases of the individual PROs which work for publishers and songwriters. These will provide more information about the songs, though there is no central resource, so you have to go to each society in each individual territory. Different societies have different policies on what information they make available to everyone.

When it comes to recordings, there is no central ISRC database. The ISRCs are bought in bulk from the RIAA [Recording Industry Association Of America] or IFPI [International Federation Of The Phonographic Industry] ISRC Office. Labels buy a batch and then attach them to recordings as they release them. But because the RIAA and IFPI aren’t actually managing or controlling the issuing, there is no central database and that’s a real problem.

So you can’t easily access a database of ISRCs, unless you buy the data from a company like Medianet or Omnifone, and that has a cost. Services like Spotify and iTunes have pretty good ISRC databases of their own, because the record companies that push content to them provide pretty accurate metadata with each track, but they’re not about to start sharing their database with anybody and everybody!

Some companies, especially in the US, also outsource some of their royalty reporting to either the Harry Fox Agency or MRI, so they have a pretty good list of ISRCs too. But again, they are not accessible to just anyone.

CC: Do you think either the industry or a start-up from outside the business will ever deliver something close to a comprehensive database of song and recordings? And if so, what should that database include?
BG: I do think that a start-up is a lot more likely to do this than the industry. A start-up is providing a solution to a problem, whereas I don’t think the industry is necessarily looking to solve the problem.

The start-up is looking to achieve a specific ‘use case’ and they’ll be very resourceful in scraping the data together, tapping into different APIs and everything they need to prove their use case. There is no reason the industry would do that: it benefits the copyright beneficiaries [ie artists and songwriters], but not necessarily the industry [ie labels and publishers]. A start-up would do it because the beneficiaries would probably be their customers. A start-up has an inherent reason for being a catalyst of change, they don’t necessarily care to be governed by industry politics.

I think the specifics about copyright ownership and beneficiaries – such as how revenue is split between different parties – will ultimately always need to be kept private. But the central database can be a way of contacting the artist’s representative. I do think there should be say a Yellow Pages of all the songwriters, producers, artists and so on.

CC: Although, as you said, in theory it’s easy to process sales and usage data from the digital services – once you have parsed their reports the first time – labels, publishers and CMOs all struggled with the flood of data that started to come in once those services gained momentum. Do you think they are now coping better with all that?
BG: Not yet, no. I think there are very few that have the technology stack to deal with it. Certainly every customer we talk to is struggling with the demands of big data.

Some of our customers process more than 300 million lines a month. A good independent label will process something between 30-50 million lines of data a month, a large distributor will process around 300-500 million lines, a major can process a billion lines a day. We’re dealing with big data and none of the companies are used to receiving 500 reports a month, and they don’t have the ‘parsers’ or the cloud solution to ingest them efficiently.

It could take you two to four hours to process the data. A large YouTube or Spotify file can’t open in Excel, as it doesn’t support a file bigger than 1GB, and a Spotify file can easily be 4.5GB, YouTube could have four million lines in a file, but you can’t even open it! So I don’t think many labels, publishers or rights societies have yet found a way of managing this problem efficiently. So they outsource it, or are interested in Revelator’s solution as we are built for scale and we really simplify the process.

CC: Beyond processing the files and the money, is the industry fully utilising the marketing and consumer insight potential of all this data?
BG: No, I don’t think it is, and even where companies are trying to utilise the data in this way, they are often looking at it in a very fragmented way. They’re looking at social data, and they’re going somewhere else to look at revenue data, and elsewhere to look at audience data. This is ineffective. If you don’t integrate this data into one place, then you’re dealing with fragmented insights that don’t give you the big picture. People are increasingly aware that there is a need to better combine all this information, but they don’t necessarily have the integrated solution yet for them to do it well.

CC: Why did you decide to create Revelator?
BG: It was a solution for my own label originally. I didn’t want to run my label the old fashioned way any more. I wanted a more modern way of sharing information with my artists, the publishers and other rightsholders. I wanted a more efficient business, not least because of the drop in recorded music revenues in the last ten years. And I wanted to focus on the content, the art and the creative side of releasing music, and therefore to spend less time on the admin of running a label, on the back office.

In fact, I ultimately decided I didn’t want to run a label if I had to continue with the same cost structure and human resource requirements as in the past, it just wasn’t interesting to me. But at the same time, cloud-based solutions became a reality, providing the opportunity to move many of the label’s workflows and operations online to provide a new level of efficiency and automation, making it easier to scale.

I didn’t really understand the problem of big data when I started this venture, because my label – Quango – isn’t that big, but I still had more data than I could handle. I still had hundreds of thousands of lines monthly to reconcile from various sources, and I didn’t want to have to pay accountants to process all this information.

I felt it was time to invent the future of what a digital label should be. Until now, there’s been nothing digital about how record companies work besides distribution. That was really the inspiration, to move more elements of the label online, including managing the assets, the metadata, reporting, accounting, analytics and now the promotion. The promotion tools are starting to look really good.

CC: Now you are making this system available to others too, who are your main target clients?
BG: Anybody who’s running a digital business. Anyone who has a need for managing metadata assets and revenue data, and a need to account to other people.

Beyond labels, it’s other rights owners and rights managers, anybody that fits within those kind of frameworks. It could be an artist manager that needs to account to their artist or wants to turn their management company into an independent label. Or an artist wanting to take more control of their business.

One of our clients in Saudi Arabia started out as an artist, then upgraded to become a label so he could distribute his friends’ music, because he realised he could manage that himself, because you are basically just pushing content, pulling data and claiming revenue, and then re-distributing that.

CC: For rights owner clients, what kinds of data is your platform designed to process? And how does it access the data?
BG: If you’re a label and you have direct deals with Amazon, Google, YouTube, Spotify, Deezer and so on, then you’re getting revenue reports every month. And you have to put all those together into a consolidated summary of what you earned, so that you can in turn account to your artists and other rightsholders.

You have to remember that each of those digital service providers has multiple elements to their business. So when you look at Apple, that has four different services and 34 different statements for each, Google Play has three services in around 60 countries, so that’s another 180 files you’re getting from them.

So you’re actually selling to a lot more stores than it might initially seem, and you’re having to manage the different revenue files they provide: services may be reporting separately for an ad-supported service, subscription streaming, interactive radio, non-interactive radio, locker and downloads, and so on. There are different ways you can process all this data with our system, though at its simplest, people can drag and drop reports onto the platform and process and consolidate them.

But we’re trying to be smarter and more efficient about it too. So, you can gather together all your own reports and drag them onto the platform, or we can pull in much of that data directly from the DSPs. So, the customer goes into their account settings, looks at all the services we are directly connected to, and enters their own account information in our system. This allows us to connect to the DSPs and pull the customer’s data and automatically process that information, which the client can then see through their personal dashboard.

Our platform could similarly pull in data from the social networks, website analytics, and other marketing data, and consolidate all that into a dashboard that makes sense, and which helps people understand the impact of their campaigns, and the conversion of their artist’s fans to customers who are streaming and buying. The great thing is when you can see the marketing data alongside the revenue data, that’s when it becomes really interesting.

What I’m focussed on now is building the digital marketing, social and audience layers of the platform, so the analytics suite will be complete and you can actually compare other types of data sets besides the revenue and trending data. You’ll be able to see if your marketing campaign had an impact on downloads and streams, or you can see if your social traffic actually moved the needle on your sales.

CC: One of the challenges in the music industry is you have a number of different stakeholders who all need access to the data. How does the platform go about, for example, sharing data between labels, artists and management?
BG: This is one of the things that none of our competitors do at all. We have a very unique architecture to the platform which enables the ‘passing through’ of the data to each different stakeholder in the value chain. So it can go from the DSP to the distributor to the label, and directly onto the artist, to different band members, and to management.

So rather than the distributor accounting its customer – the label say – and then it having to separately account to its customers, so artists and managers, our platform can pass through data from one party to the next. So in the enterprise account of a distributor, you can invite your labels to a portal and enable them to see their revenues, but only their revenues, obviously.

Labels who sign up can then use the same platform to report to artists. So they put contract logic into the system for each artist – so, say, we split this revenue 50/50 – and then they can invite their artists into their portal, where each artist only sees revenue relevant to them. So if the distributor takes 10%, and the label then splits that 50/50, the artist sees the 45% of original income they are due. The artist can then put in their management contract terms, and let the manager see what information he or she needs, including what their cut of the revenue will be.

Each stakeholder automatically sees the data they need to see, with the flow of data controlled by the stakeholders further up the chain. This is the unique architecture that we have designed for the platform.

CC: Some music rights companies have talked up their own data platforms in recent years. How does Revelator compare?
BG: We’re still at the stage where we are still trying to solve a problem, so we’re not yet at the stage where we’re bragging. We’re trying to provide solutions to customers that have 300 million data-points to manage each month. What’s becoming interesting is mining that data and making sense of it, and creating a user interface for the product that can be used in a meaningful way.

We don’t aggregate and collect data to sell it, the data we have is our customer’s data, it’s not our data. Data security and data portability are really important to us. So if you’re not happy with the service, you can export your data and move on, we’re not going to hold you hostage. When my label ended its affiliation with The Orchard, I couldn’t take my data with me, none of my metadata, my assets, nothing. So I had to rebuild my metadata elsewhere. We’re not like that.

Some people might say that’s not a good business model, because the data passing through out platform is very useful, and we could sell it, or build services around it, but it’s not our data – it belongs to our customers.

We are also distinct in our ‘software as a service’ offering. Most other companies provide their platform as part a wider distribution or rights management service. The technology may be a USP, but ultimately they are selling you another service. If you don’t want to use that service anymore, you can’t have access to the technology. We’ve taken a different approach. We’re really more of a technology company than a distributor and we’re providing technology so that other people can build layers on top of our stack.

This also means we bill differently. Typically in the past, the music distribution model was always based on a percentage of revenue, which you’d have to give up in order to distribute your music. There has been a new model, as we have seen with Tunecore and CD Baby, where you pay ‘a la carte’ every time you want to release a single or an album, or annually to access services. But there hasn’t yet been a service where you pay a flat monthly fee and then all the available services are at your disposal. As a ‘software as a service’ company we can offer that package.

CC: Your platform can be utilised by other start-ups. How does that work?
BG: The API infrastructure we built is there for anyone to use and to build new services with. So that could be start-ups, music companies, video companies, and so on. What that means is, we’ve created workflows that can be used by any company to create payment, accounting, reporting, analytics, distribution, rights or asset management systems. It can be used in part or in whole to simplify the complex processes of the music business.

CC: There has been lots of talk of the blockchain in music circles this year. What is it, and how could the music community use it? 
BG: The blockchain is essentially a ‘chain of blocks’ online in which transactions are recorded. So it’s a general ledger – a complete record of all transactions – that’s distributed across the internet.

It’s the underlying technology of the Bitcoin virtual currency. So every time a Bitcoin transaction takes place, it gets recorded on the blockchain. It’s secure and enables one person to pay another person without them knowing each other, because there doesn’t need to be trust between the two parties, because they can trust the system to record the seller and the buyer’s contract.

In music we are looking for ways to transact more efficiently, so transactions are faster and cheaper, with fewer intermediaries in the middle. So the idea is that we could use this ledger – the blockchain – to record transactions. Smart contract logic can then dictate how the money gets split between parties, which means you get a ‘trustless’ exchange, in that all parties know the system is trustworthy, so you don’t actually need to trust anyone else in the transactional chain.

Ultimately, if music transactions were recorded on the blockchain, and with the smart contract logic, you could create a real-time payment infrastructure, so that as somebody consumes the content, the rightsowner is paid in real time. That’s the real promise and it would be transformative for the industry. Right now people are often waiting 60-90 days to get paid, so if you could listen to my song now and I could get paid right now, that’s worth working towards. It’s exciting.

The blockchain could also be used to power entirely new business models. For example, an iPhone app where an artist and a fan connect, and the artist crowdfunds a project from the fans by selling them shares in future content, the management of which would be handled on the blockchain. The fan can then follow the song they helped fund, see when more transactions are posted against that asset, and track the value of it. An app like that becomes a virtual stock exchange around music, with the blockchain used to automate it all.

To me, the blockchain offers an engine of growth for a transactional economy, and that’s how the music community should use it. It’s still too early, and people are wary of it, but it’s the first thing I’ve seen in terms of the promise of a new model that can deliver a more automated, streamlined and above all real time transactional business for music.

CC: What is the blockchain project you are working on?
BG: Revelator is developing a blockchain-powered search engine of global IP. We have created an integration with Colu – who are a developer platform for the blockchain – and we’re now pushing asset and rights information through. The plan is to create a decentralised database of content and IP, to make the metadata more transparent and accessible, and to provide more monetisation opportunities around the information.

As we discussed, it can be hard to identify who controls a song or a recording. The information may simply not be available online, or if it is, it can be hard to find. This can lead to lost income for the music community. If a company uses a song or recording, but simply doesn’t know who owns it, then money doesn’t get attributed to the right person and it stays with the service until someone claims it.

So metadata is the new gold, and better accessibility of metadata provides greater monetisation opportunities. Which means, by providing the opportunity to register metadata and assets to the blockchain, we are providing more opportunities for rightsholders. We aim to bring the search engine to market at SXSW 2016, and until then we’ll keep building our infrastructure, and adding extra layers of interesting metadata.

CC: What are your other plans for 2016?
BG: A real focus is mobile. We realise that we’re living in a mobile-first economy, people are going to their mobiles before they go to their computer. And artists are always on the go, especially when they are on tour, and want to be able to do more from their phone.

Revelator’s mobile analytics app is being launched early next year, and we’re now looking at bringing our digital marketing solutions to a mobile application too, so you’ll be able to create your promo pages direct from a mobile device. Imagine creating a website for your music, your video, your album, all from your mobile device, and promoting it to your audience based on the data you’re collecting, which is all available for you on your phone, that’s unique. We’re almost there and it’s amazing.

Our clients are very excited about it – in fact, most people can’t quite believe it when we show it to them! It feels like people who work in the music industry don’t understand that the business of music can also be on mobile. They haven’t made that leap yet, and that’s what we are providing.

On a personal level, my mission is to bring transparency, simplicity and efficiency to the way record labels and music publishers manage their businesses in today’s fragmented digital landscape. With the industry finally ready to embrace streaming and mobile, the market dynamics are right for Revelator to accelerate the growth of everyone in the rights management value chain, and enable artists and creators to realise their dream of making a sustainable career out of their talent.

This interview appeared in the December 2015 edition of the CMU Trends Report. Buy our reports from the CMU Shop or get every edition by signing up for CMU Premium.

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Thursday 31 December 2015, 11:59 | By

US Copyright Office announces review of safe harbours

Business News Labels & Publishers Legal

US Copyright Office

At the end of a year in which ‘safe harbours’ have consistently topped the agenda of the music industry’s lobbyists, the US Copyright Office has announced a review of ‘section 512’, which contains the safe harbours in American copyright law.

As much previously reported, the safe harbours provide protection to technology companies whose servers or networks inadvertently assist in the distribution of unlicensed content. Providing that distribution is the result of user or automated activity, and providing there is a ‘takedown system’ for rights owners, the tech firm cannot be held liable for copyright infringement.

Safe harbours have been a talking point in the music community this year because of increased frustration over set-ups like YouTube, which rely on safe harbour protection to operate ‘opt-out’ rather than ‘opt-in’ streaming services. This, music rights owners complain, gives the likes of YouTube an unfair advantage at the negotiating table, which means opt-out services get preferential rates resulting in a ‘value gap’ in the wider digital music market.

The music industry doesn’t want to axe safe harbours outright, recognising that such a move would be totally impractical. But record labels and music publishers want safe harbour rules to be revised, so that a service like YouTube could no longer rely on protection, and would therefore need to ensure content was kept off its platform until a rights owner opted-in.

To date, most attention has been put on similar provisions that exist in European law, because the European Commission has been reviewing copyright rules as part of its Digital Single Market initiative all year. But an announcement by the US Copyright Office yesterday means that there will now be an opportunity for the music industry to argue its case on safe harbours in America too.

The office said that its review would cover “the general operation of section 512’s safe harbour provisions, the processes for issuing takedown notices and counter notifications, and the legal standards that apply under the statute”. The Copyright Office is inviting submissions from interested parties, the deadline for which is 21 Mar, with public meetings then planned to further discuss the issues.

The tech lobby – led by the likes of Google and Facebook – is likely to fight hard against any restriction of the safe harbours, in Europe or the US. Though after a year of shouting about the safe harbour problem with increased volume, the music industry will welcome the opportunity to formally present its arguments in the jurisdiction where many of the web giants exploiting safe harbours are based.

To read more on why the music industry has made ‘safe harbours’ its top lobbying issue this year, read this free CMU trends article on the topic.

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Wednesday 30 December 2015, 15:05 | By

James Barton not heading to SFX, as EDM firm ends Spotify and TMWRK alliances

Business News Digital Live Business Management & Funding

SFX

With the future of EDM powerhouse SFX still uncertain as 2016 approaches, the New York Post reckons that Cream founder James Barton has decided not to join the flagging dance music festival operator and Beatport owner.

As previously reported, earlier this month the Post revealed rumours that Barton, who has been Head Of Electronic Music at Live Nation since it bought his clubbing and festival business in 2012, was considering taking a senior role at SFX.

Although it was never clear what that role would have been, it was thought that Barton may have been courted for the top job of CEO, currently occupied by SFX founder Robert FX Sillerman. Investors and money lenders have become increasingly critical of Sillerman’s leadership as the company’s share price has slumped this year.

Sources say that Barton was interested in a new opportunity beyond Live Nation, but ultimately decided that SFX wasn’t the place to go. Some sources say the flagging EDM firm couldn’t meet his salary demands, while others say he was simply concerned about SFX’s financial position and ongoing rumours of its impending bankruptcy.

As also previously reported, some of SFX’s money lenders are now hoping that Barton’s current employer, Live Nation, might swoop in and buy SFX outright. The live giant is reportedly interested in some of SFX’s assets, though it’s unclear whether it would consider taking on the whole group. That might depend on the current SFX management’s ongoing efforts to restructure the company’s debts.

In other SFX news, the company has terminated its alliance with Spotify, which was confirmed back in July last year. The deal was interesting because SFX had recently moved Beatport into the streaming music domain, making it a competitor of Spotify.

It seems that for SFX the attraction of the content partnership, via which Beatport would provide Spotify with exclusive audio and video content, may have been the $10 million advance that was agreed. That money will now be paid back.

Though one final SFX development should see the company receive rather than hand over monies, in that management firm TMWRK – which manages the likes of Diplo and A-Trak amongst others – is seemingly buying itself out of SFX ownership.

The EDM group acquired TMWRK in April 2014, allying the management firm alongside its marketing and ticketing agencies. The TMWRK managers will seemingly take back control of their company in a deal that will net SFX $3.6 million

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Tuesday 29 December 2015, 17:41 | By

Tributes aplenty for Lemmy

Artist News

Lemmy

The music community has been busy paying tribute today to Lemmy, following the news that the Motörhead frontman had died, aged 70, just two days after being told he had cancer.

Lemmy, real name Ian Kilmister, formed Motörhead in 1975 and was the only constant member of the band throughout their 22 album career. Known for living the true rock n roll lifestyle, the frontman had been suffering from ill-health of late, and told The Guardian earlier this year that he was now off the whiskey, though was opting for vodka instead.

In a short statement, Lemmy’s bandmates confirmed his passing last night, and that he had discovered he had an “extremely aggressive cancer” in his final few days. The band wrote: “There is no easy way to say this… our mighty, noble friend Lemmy passed away today after a short battle with an extremely aggressive cancer. He had learnt of the disease on December 26th, and was at home, sitting in front of his favourite video game from The Rainbow which had recently made its way down the street, with his family. We cannot begin to express our shock and sadness, there aren’t words”.

The band’s manager, Todd Singerman, subsequently told the BBC that Lemmy’s cancer had been in his “brain and neck”. Paying tribute, he added: “He was was one of the last true rock stars left, this guy lived it every day. He was one of the kindest men I ever met – he was the people’s man”.

Unsurprisingly, a plethora of fellow rock stars took to Twitter to pay tribute to the Motörhead frontman. Ozzy Osbourne tweeted: “Lost one of my best friends, Lemmy, today. He will be sadly missed. He was a warrior and a legend”. While Osbourne’s Black Sabbath bandmate Geezer Butler added: “Very sad to hear of Lemmy’s passing. We’ve lost a true, true legend. RIP”.

Alice Cooper said: “He was one of a kind. He was innovative, true to his art and an icon. Condolences to his family, band and fans”. Kiss star Gene Simmons remarked: “Lemmy: Rest In Peace. Shake the heavens, my friend”. And Metallica said in a tweet: “Lemmy, you are one of the primary reasons this band exists. We’re forever grateful for all of your inspiration”.

Meanwhile Dave Brock of Hawkwind, who Lemmy played with for a short time before forming Motörhead, said: “Lemmy was a gentleman and a friend. I’ll miss our eccentric text conversations. We had that magic when we played together. His legend lives on.”

Lemmy’s death follows on closely from that of former Motörhead drummer Phil Taylor, who died last month. Acknowledging both losses, another ex-member of the band, ‘Fast’ Eddie Clarke, wrote on Facebook: “I have just been told that Lemmy has passed away in LA. Like Phil, he was like a brother to me. I am devastated. We did so much together, the three of us. The world seems a really empty place right now.
I am having trouble finding the words… He will live on in our hearts. RIP Lemmy!

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Tuesday 29 December 2015, 16:45 | By

David Lowery sues Spotify over unpaid mechanicals

Business News Digital Legal

David Lowery

Musician David Lowery has filed a class action lawsuit against Spotify in relation to the mechanical rights mess that exists in the streaming music space Stateside.

Lowery – frontman with Camper Van Beethoven and Cracker and, in recent years, a very vocal critic of digital music companies and the royalties they pay – has hired the services of law firm Michelman & Robinson LLP to pursue the litigation. As a class action, other songwriters could chase damages if the lawsuit is successful.

As previously reported, all sides agree that the payment of so called mechanical royalties by US on-demand streaming services is a mess, though there has previously been a difference of opinion as to whose job it is to clean things up and make sure songwriters and publishers are paid in a timely fashion.

The payment of publishing royalties by streaming services is a complex affair at the best of times. While a streaming platform assumes that whichever label or distributor provides it with any one recording needs to be paid if and when that track is played, the digital firm doesn’t know who controls the copyright in the accompanying song. And if it’s a co-write, the song could be controlled by an assortment of songwriters, publishers and collecting societies.

Add to that the fact that a stream exploits both the ‘mechanical’ and the ’performing’ rights of the song copyright, and the music publishing sector has traditionally handled the two elements of the copyright separately. So in the UK, PRS would always handle the performing right, while either the publisher or collecting society MCPS would handle the mechanical rights, depending on the repertoire and scenario.

In Europe, Spotify has direct relationships with the five biggest music publishers and then with each of the European collecting societies. It provides all its song licensors with monthly reports of all songs streamed, and they must work out which songs they own, invoice, and then split monies between the performing and mechanical rights, before ultimately reporting back to and paying any beneficiary songwriters.

Though in Europe, generally the publisher and/or collecting society will invoice for both mechanical and performing royalties in one go, and then split the income at their end. In the US, however, where Spotify primarily deals with the collecting societies BMI and ASCAP, those societies only handle performing rights, leaving mechanicals somewhat in limbo.

The mechanical rights in songs are covered by a compulsory licence in America, so streaming services are automatically allowed to exploit that side of the copyright, but they must comply with the rules of that licence, which basically means letting a rights owner know their songs are being used, and then paying a set royalty.

The digital services point out that the way song licensing works is needlessly complex and hindered all the more because there is no central database of song rights ownership. Some in the music publishing sector agree that the lack of decent data is the primary problem and that’s sort of the industry’s own fault. But others point out that the compulsory licence comes with obligations, and digital services need to comply with them, even if doing so is annoying and expensive.

This whole issue was at the heart of the Spotify v Victory Records spat earlier this year, of course. At the time, Lowery wrote to the New York Attorney General urging him to investigate the alleged failure of streaming services to pay royalties to songwriters, noting that the New York AG’s office had investigated similar failings by record companies to pay royalties to artists back in 2004.

Although Spotify subsequently settled with Victory, the streaming service’s Global Head Of Publisher Relations, James Duffett-Smith, conceded just before Christmas that more needed to be done to more efficiently pay publishers and songwriters their royalties, adding that the streaming firm would be investing in new “resources and technical expertise to build a comprehensive publishing administration system” in 2016.

To Spotify’s critics, that was basically an admission of guilt that the company had failed to pay royalties due to songwriters. Though the streaming firm would deny that, and point out that it has always been willing to pay songwriters their due, if only it can work out who to pay.

Lowery’s lawsuit, which is seeking at least $150 million in damages – six times higher than the $25 million Spotify is rumoured to have set aside to cover previously unpaid mechanicals – was filed yesterday at the Central District Court of California.

According to Billboard, the complaint claims that Spotify unlawfully “distributed copyrighted music compositions to more than 75 million users, but failed to identify or locate the owners of those compositions for payment, and did not issue a notice of intent to employ a compulsory license”.

Spotify is yet to respond.

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Monday 28 December 2015, 15:56 | By

Some festive feuding and a seasonal suit from 50 Cent

Business News Legal

50 Cent

50 Cent got into the full festive spirit last week by providing his favourite feuding partner Rick Ross with a brand new lawsuit, and just in time for Christmas.

Fiddy filed legal papers against Ross on 23 Dec over a mixtape the latter released at the end of last month to promote his new album ‘Black Market’. The ‘#RenzelRemixes’ mixtape included Ross rapping over 50 Cent’s 2003 hit ‘In Da Club’.

Promotional mixtapes in the hop hop community routinely make use of music without permission, of course, and often those whose music is sampled turn a blind eye unless the mixtape is distributed for profit. But in this case legal reps for 50 Cent say that, by using their client’s track without permission, Ross has breached his rap rival’s rights.

Paul LiCalsi of law firm Robins Kaplan LLP, which is representing Fiddy, told Billboard: “50 Cent’s most valuable asset is the name and reputation he has painstakingly built through his Grammy-winning music, acting and business endeavours. He chooses his projects carefully for the very purpose of protecting that name and reputation. Our complaint alleges that Rick Ross has taken these without permission to advertise his own album, and violated 50 Cent’s rights in the process, and we believe he should be held liable”.

The two rappers have long feuded, of course, and earlier this year 50 Cent was ordered to pay $7 million to Lastonia Leviston, who has a child with Ross, at the conclusion of a legal case related to that feud.

Back in 2010, Fiddy had posted a sex tape featuring Leviston online, seemingly in order to anger Ross. When the legal case stemming from the video leak finally reached its conclusion earlier this year, 50 Cent filed for bankruptcy protection, allegedly in a bid to avoid paying additional damages to Leviston.

Probably alluding to Fiddy’s new legal action, Ross tweeted on Christmas Eve: “Enjoy every minute of it” and then “They file lawsuits to settle for conversations” before concluding “I pray you live rich forever”.

We await to see if and how this particular dispute proceeds.

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Monday 28 December 2015, 14:25 | By

MegaUpload founder uses ‘Christmas address’ to summarise his many grievances with the US

Business News Digital Legal MegaUpload Timeline

Kim Dotcom

As you got busy opening all your presents on Friday – and while LCD Soundsystem and Radiohead got busy plonking surprise new tracks online – MegaUpload founder Kim Dotcom got busy posting a Christmas address onto the Torrentfreak site.

Coming after that decision in the New Zealand courts last week that Dotcom and his former colleagues can be extradited to the US – where they face criminal charges of money laundering, racketeering and copyright infringement in relation to their former business. The festive post was a summary of the one time MegaUpload chief’s many and various grievances with the US government.

Most of those grievances we already knew. The severity of the raid against him and his former colleagues as the US swooped onto MegaUpload and its management just under four years ago. And the overnight shutdown of his company and the loss of access to – and, in some cases, subsequent deleting of – data that is important to both Dotcom’s defence and the former customers whose legit files were lost.

A big chunk of the address then repeats Dotcom’s disagreements with the US authorities on points of law – ie whether or not MegaUpload was liable for the rampant infringement of its customers – before calling out prosecutors in America and New Zealand (although he mainly blames the Americans) for, he reckons, dodgy dealings in building and pursuing a case against him.

There’s also time to repeat the claim that the US government has been preventing him from getting a fair hearing in court by insisting seized MegaUpload funds that have been returned to pay Dotcom’s legal fees cannot be used to hire American legal expertise during the extradition process. Dotcom’s reps tried on numerous occasions – unsuccessfully – to halt the extradition proceedings on those grounds.

As for why the US government might be making false claims, employing bad process and relying on non-existent law to drive Dotcom et al out of business, well, it’s all Hollywood’s fault, apparently. “If you have read all of the above you may wonder why the US government is acting so badly”, he concludes. “This case is a political thriller authored and produced by the Motion Picture Association Of America and its ‘senator for hire’ Chris Dodd. His lobbying, calling in favours and close relationships within the White House made this unprecedented abuse of power possible”.

Although it was published on Christmas day, Dotcom clearly penned the piece before last week’s extradition ruling, as he ends his address with the resolution of that particular battle pending. Of course, despite last week’s judgement, the extradition stage of this long saga continues because Dotcom now intends to appeal. Indeed, just before Christmas he said the judgement against him was so weak, and therefore so easy to appeal, that it was “a Christmas gift in disguise”.

It remains to be seen if that confidence is justified. Although MegaUpload, and the piracy it enabled, all seems to have happened so long ago now, if this case ever gets to a US court it will be a key test of the safe harbours in US copyright law that have proven so controversial in music industry circles this last year. But if there is one thing we’ve learned about the MegaUpload case so far, it’s that things are unlikely to happen quickly. Dotcom could well be writing another Christmas address while still sitting in limbo this time next year.

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Thursday 24 December 2015, 13:02 | By

Joy to the world: Bieber confirms he’s still the nicest guy

Artist News

Justin Bieber

Just in case there was any doubt about Justin Bieber’s status as the nicest human being alive – and I’m slightly disappointed any of you doubted the modern day Biebster for even one moment – the pop star has urged his fans to buy the NHS Choir’s ‘A Bridge Over You’, even though its competing with him to secure this year’s UK Christmas Number One.

Despite a somewhat lacklustre Christmas Number One race this year, sales and streams of the charity song ‘A Bridge Over You’ have been incredibly close to Bieber’s single ‘Love Yourself’ all week, with the NHS Choir initially ahead, but then the Biebster taking the lead.

But, having dominated the UK charts for a few weeks now, Bieber yesterday took to Twitter to say he was supporting the charity record for the Christmas number one, encouraging his fans to buy the track.

He wrote: “I’m hearing this UK Christmas race is close…but the @Choir_NHS single is for charity. So for one week it’s OK not to be #1. Let’s do the right thing & help them win. It’s Christmas. @Choir_NHS good luck”.

Responding to the Bieber tweet, Official Charts Company boss Martin Talbot said yesterday: “It was already looking too close to call this morning, but Justin Bieber’s call to arms really could make all the difference between the NHS Choir winning the Christmas race or not. It is a fantastic gesture – and could mean we are all Beliebers this Christmas Day”.

Sales and streams of the two tracks all the way up to midnight tonight will count for the Christmas chart, which – with Friday now chart day – will actually be revealed on 25 Dec itself this year. The Top 40 will be revealed on Radio 1 earlier than usual between 10am and 1pm.

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Thursday 24 December 2015, 11:58 | By

Spotify to invest more resource into “comprehensive publishing administration system”

Business News Digital Labels & Publishers

Spotify

Spotify has said that it plans to “invest in the resources and technical expertise to build a comprehensive publishing administration system”, so to tackle the issues that remain in how it pays songwriters and publishers for the songs it streams.

It follows Spotify’s temporary spat with Victory Records earlier this year over unpaid mechanical royalties to the label’s sister publishing company.

When it comes to sound recordings, services like Spotify assume that whoever provides a track is the copyright owner – or the rights owner’s representative – and they get paid whenever that recording is streamed. But when it comes to the accompanying song copyright, streaming platforms don’t know who to pay, so usually rely on the publisher – or the publisher’s collecting society – to claim any royalties due for the streaming of their songs.

This is a relatively cumbersome way of doing things, and requires publishers and collecting societies to process complete usage reports from each streaming platform every month, to work out which songs in their repertoire have been used. But with no central database of song copyright ownership available, and no accompanying database to link the codes used to identify recordings (ISRC) to the codes used to identify songs (ISWC), there isn’t really any better way to do it.

It’s all the more complicated in the US where the collecting societies that Spotify works with only represent the so called performing rights of the songs streamed. But a stream also exploits the mechanical rights, so two sets of royalties have to be paid. In Europe, alliances between publishers and collecting societies mean that a streaming service can usually cover performing and mechanical rights through once licence, even if the money is then split up behind the scenes.

It was mechanical royalties that were at the heart of the Spotify/Victory fall out. Opinion is divided, even within the music publishing sector, as to whose responsibility it is to sort out the complexities and database gaps that mean not all streaming royalties get paid to the right people, ie do the publishers need to provide better data, or do the digital service providers need to be more proactive in this domain?

Spotify, which has started courting the songwriter community this year in much the same way it previously reached out to artists, is now pledging to be more proactive.

In a blog post, the streaming firm’s Global Head Of Publisher Relations, James Duffett-Smith, writes: “One of our core commitments is making sure that everyone involved in the creation of music is paid fairly, rapidly, and transparently. Unfortunately, when it comes to publishing and songwriting royalties, especially in the United States, that’s easier said than done because the data necessary to confirm the appropriate rightsholder is often missing, wrong, or incomplete”.

He goes on: “Today we are excited to announce that Spotify will invest in the resources and technical expertise to build a comprehensive publishing administration system to solve this problem”.

Admitting that even with Spotify pumping more resource into this issue, it’s not going to result in super-efficient royalty payments over night, Duffet-Smith adds: “In the meantime, we have been working closely with our partners and friends in the industry, especially the National Music Publishers Association, to find the best way to correctly pay the royalties we have set aside to the right publishers and songwriters. But we want to do better than that – we want to fix the global problem of bad publishing data once and for all, and that’s why we’re making this commitment today”.

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Wednesday 23 December 2015, 12:20 | By

Beatles to arrive on streaming services at midnight tonight

Business News Digital Labels & Publishers

The Beatles

So, as expected, music legends and popular luddites The Beatles will finally arrive on the streaming platforms at midnight tonight.

In something of an opposite to the exclusivity deal we previously expected the band to do with one streaming platform, they will appear on pretty much every service at the same time, including Amazon Prime Music, which has a much more limited music catalogue than most of its rivals.

Despite freemium streaming having been increasingly criticised this year, including by Universal Music – which now controls the Beatles catalogue in partnership with the band’s own company Apple Corps – the fab four’s music will be on the freemium levels of services like Spotify too.

While we’ve been expecting The Beatles to arrive on the streaming platforms for a while now, it’s interesting that the band’s people have decided to embrace the entire sector in one go. It’s presumably further confirmation that streaming is set to become not only a significant revenue stream for the recorded music sector, but the significant revenue stream.

With the festive timing, Universal and its digital partners may be hoping that The Beatles’ arrival on Spotify et al might turn older and more mainstream consumers onto the streaming platforms, just as they are trying out their new devices and are spending more money than usual.

The services getting some Beatles action at midnight are: Apple Music, Deezer, Google Play, Microsoft Groove, Napster/Rhapsody, Amazon Prime Music, Slacker Radio, Spotify and Tidal.

And the albums that will be streaming are: Please Please Me, With The Beatles, A Hard Day’s Night, Beatles For Sale, Help!, Rubber Soul, Revolver, Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, Magical Mystery Tour, The Beatles, Yellow Submarine, Abbey Road, Let It Be, The Beatles 1962 – 1966, The Beatles 1967 – 1970, Past Masters (Volumes 1 & 2) and 1.

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Wednesday 23 December 2015, 11:06 | By

Pandora becomes best mates with BMI an ASCAP, new deals announced

Business News Deals Labels & Publishers

Pandora

Pandora may be busy doing direct deals with the US music publishers – thus relying less and less on the country’s collecting societies to license song rights – but it’s nevertheless decided that the time has come to play nice with performing rights organisations BMI and ASCAP too. It’s almost as if Pandora has plans to not be the most hated streaming service in the American music community next year.

As previously reported, until recently Pandora licensed its personalised radio service pretty much exclusively through the collective licensing system in the US. It exploited the SoundExchange compulsory licence on the recordings side, and had licences from BMI and ASCAP on the songs side, because the big publishers were told they couldn’t pull their digital rights from those societies without abandoning collective licensing across the board.

Pandora got a bad rep in the music community because it invested so much time in playing the collective licensing system in a bid to cut its royalty obligations, lobbying hard the Copyright Royalty Board that sets SoundExchange rates, while fighting BMG and ASCAP in the rate courts which ultimately set fees for the song rights.

More recently Pandora has become more conciliatory, starting to opt to do direct deals with labels and publishers even if that means paying slightly more. There are various reasons for this move. A reform of US collective licensing rules will likely allow the publishers to pull digital rights from BMI and ASCAP and force Pandora into direct deals anyway, so the service is pre-empting the inevitable. But also, the digital firm’s plans to launch in new territories, and to move into fully on-demand streaming, will require a more consolatory approach.

It is the latter that is presumably behind Pandora’s decision to enter into voluntary agreements with BMI and ASCAP, bringing to an end the firm’s ‘see you in the rate courts’ approach to dealing with the societies. As part of the deal, Pandora specifically agrees to not appeal the rate court ruling that actually went in BMI’s favour back in May.

Confirming the deals, the societies say that the new arrangements “create business benefits for Pandora, while modernising compensation in the US for ASCAP and BMI songwriters and publishers”.

ASCAP CEO Elizabeth Matthews added: “This agreement is good news for music fans and music creators, who are the heart and soul of ASCAP, and a sign of progress in our ongoing push for improved streaming payments for songwriters, composers and music publishers that reflect the immense value of our members’ creative contributions”.

BMI boss Mike O’Neill commented: “We’re extremely pleased to reach this deal with Pandora that benefits the songwriters, composers and publishers we are privileged to represent. Not only is our new agreement comparable to the other direct deals in the marketplace, but it also allows us to amicably conclude our lengthy rate court litigation and focus on what drives each of our businesses – the music”.

And finally, Pandora chief Brian McAndrews said: “At Pandora we are delivering on our commitment to ensure that music thrives. These collaborative efforts with the leading performance rights organisations, as well as our recent direct deals with several music publishers, demonstrate our progress in working together to grow the music ecosystem”.

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Wednesday 23 December 2015, 10:59 | By

Songkick sues Live Nation over anti-trust claims

Business News Legal Live Business

Songkick

If you are still disappointed that the big PRS v SoundCloud case is now never going to get to court, well, this new legal battle is a fine alternative, even if it is coming from a different strand of the music industry.

Gig recommendation service Songkick is suing Live Nation over allegations that the live music giant has been exploiting its monopoly power to keep competition out of the market place, especially when it comes to the pre-sale of tickets to concerts to an artist’s online fanbase.

Live Nation, of course, is a major player concert promoter and venue owner, has a significant artist management business, and through Ticketmaster is a big deal in ticketing, including pre-release, primary and secondary ticket sales.

Although best known for its data and recommendations service, Songkick has been steadily moving into the ticketing game itself, in particular via its merger earlier this year with direct-to-fan platform Crowdsurge, and more recently by overseeing the pre-sales on Adele’s upcoming shows, with a focus on stopping those tickets going to the touts.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Songkick’s lawsuit alleges that Live Nation has held at least some of the artists it works with to ransom over their allocation of tickets for pre-sale promotions, by adding service charges to those tickets and threatening to withhold the act’s entire allocation if they don’t agree to pay those extra fees.

This makes it less attractive – or viable, even – for artists to work with the likes of Songkick, rather than Ticketmaster, on pre-sale activity. The lawsuit goes onto allege that Live Nation boss Michael Rapino has specifically told artists not to work with Songkick on pre-sales.

Despite recently securing another $10 million in finance from key backer, Warner Music owner Access Industries, this is a bold bit of litigation for Songkick to pursue, ie to go to battle with a company as well funded and so dominant in the live space as Live Nation. It will need to show that the various Live Nation businesses collude to stop artists from working with rivals in the ticketing space, and that that behaviour breaches US anti-trust laws.

It will be a case watched closely by most of Ticketmaster’s rivals, and especially start-ups operating in the ticketing space. Getting access to Live Nation artists and tickets is a key challenge for any new company operating in the ticketing domain, to the extent that you often wonder if the exit strategy for most start-ups is to sell to the live music giant, which has bought up a few businesses innovating in this space.

Songkick is trying something much bolder. If it gets to court, this could be one of the legal battles to watch in 2016.

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Wednesday 23 December 2015, 10:57 | By

New Zealand court says MegaUpload men can be extradited to US

Business News Legal MegaUpload Timeline

MegaUpload

Nearly four years after the US authorities shut down often controversial file-transfer service MegaUpload, a New Zealand court has ruled that its former management – including founder Kim Dotcom – can be extradited to the States to face charges of money laundering, racketeering and rampant copyright infringement.

As much previously reported, Dotcom et al’s extradition hearing was postponed multiple times because of an assortment of legal technicalities, but finally got underway in September.

Though legal reps for the MegaUpload managers argued that their clients weren’t getting a fair hearing because of limits on the ways they could spend money seized and then released from their former company. They tried on several occasions to postpone matters yet again, but were ultimately forced to present arguments against the prosecution’s case for extradition.

The issue at the heart of the extradition hearing was whether or not the crimes the defendants are accused of are covered by the US/New Zealand extradition treaty. That required the prosecution arguing that the levels of copyright infringement conducted by MegaUpload and its users were sufficient to amount to fraud.

Earlier today judge Nevin Dawson ruled that a sufficiently solid case had indeed been made, and that Dotcom and his former colleagues could be extradited. If found guilty of the alleged crimes in the US, the four men could face significant jail terms.

Needless to say, Dotcom said he was “disappointed” by the ruling as he left the New Zealand court this morning, though he and the other accused men can appeal and almost certainly will. He tweeted this morning: “My team and I just had a good read of today’s court decision. It’s weak and a Christmas gift in disguise. Woohoo!”

Dotcom’s chief legal counsel Ira Rothken, meanwhile, told Reuters: “We think the judge was wrong on the law; justice wasn’t done today”.

If the case does get to the US, it will likely put the spotlight on the so called safe harbours of US copyright law, which have become increasingly contentious in music circles this year. Dotcom will argue that his company fulfilled its obligations under the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act, and if MegaUpload was liable for copyright infringement, then so is Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.

Prosecutors will likely argue that Dotcom and his colleagues were at best wilfully blind to, and at times actively encouraged, the copyright infringement that occurred on their networks, because they were building a business around the unlicensed content illegally uploaded to the platform.

The safe harbours in US law are somewhat ambiguous, and early cases on their reach didn’t always go in the copyright industry’s favour, though the recent ruling in the BMG v Cox Communications case confirmed that it is possible for the safe harbours to fall if it can be shown a company’s employees are only paying lip service to the anti-piracy measures they instigate to qualify for DMCA protection.

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Wednesday 23 December 2015, 10:21 | By

Trends: The music industry’s big copyright data problem

CMU Trends Labels & Publishers

Chain

A year ago we discussed the collapse of the music publishing sector’s Global Repertoire Database project, an admirable attempt to create a one-stop shop that would be able to tell you who wrote any one song, and which publishers and collecting societies control the various elements of the copyright in each work in each territory.

Given that many songs are co-written and therefore co-owned, the GRD would also have been the uber authority on co-works, recording what percentage of a co-owned song each writer, publisher and society controlled. Where there was a dispute over ownership – so maybe two publishers both claim to own 60% of the same work – a mediation system would be in place that would aim to settle any disputes.

Many outside the music industry are surprised that no such central database already exists, while decision makers in the political community have at various points – usually while considering requests by music rights owners for tougher anti-piracy measures – demanded that music publishers and record companies make it easier to license their songs and recordings, the big starting point for which is better copyright data.

The GRD project failed, but even if it had succeeded, it would only have provided data for the song copyrights controlled by songwriters and publishers, and not the separate recording copyrights controlled by artists and labels.

A whole separate project would have been required to build a database for the latter, and then a final project would be needed to do what is possibly the most important bit, linking the song data with the recordings data, so we know what song copyrights are exploited in any one recording.

Aside from being annoying for licensees trying to work out who they need to deal with in order to utilise any one song or recording, the lack of publicly available copyright data is damaging to rights owners, performers and creators too, because it makes the processing and payment of royalties inefficient.

That is an ever increasing problem as the recorded music market shifts to streaming, because the music rights sector is now >
processing many many more transactions than it did before, but the value of each transaction is often tiny, making it vital that the system is as efficient as possible.

SEEKING AN ALTERNATIVE TO GRD
Despite the collapse of the GRD, everyone agrees that the music industry needs to do something about its copyright data problem. But what? And who is going to lead?

Some wonder if ‘regional repertoire database’ projects – like that created by the ICE venture that now includes German songs society GEMA as well the UK’s PRS and Sweden’s STIM – could eventually merge to form a global hub. Others think that that plan, even if it could work, would take far too long to achieve.

In our trends piece on the GRD last year, we concluded that the solution to this problem might actually come from outside the music industry. There are several start-ups already dabbling in this space, and they won’t be so constrained by the politics and vested interests that will get in the way of any industry-led initiative (and, indeed, did seemingly get in the way of the GRD).

Label owner Bruno Guez, whose own start-up Revelator is providing innovative data services for rights owners, agrees. “I do think that a start-up is a lot more likely to do this than the industry”, he told CMU. “A start-up is providing a solution to a problem, whereas I don’t think the industry is necessarily looking to solve the problem”.

He went on: “The start-up is looking to achieve a specific ‘use case’ and they’ll be very resourceful in scraping the data together, tapping into different APIs and everything they need to prove their use case. There is no reason the industry would do that: it benefits the copyright beneficiaries [ie artists and songwriters], but not necessarily the industry [ie labels and publishers]. A start-up would do it because the beneficiaries would probably be their customers. A start-up has an inherent reason for being a catalyst of change, they don’t necessarily care to be governed by industry politics”.

While everyone in the music community would ultimately benefit from some sort of central copyright database – because of the efficiencies it would enable – Guez is right that it is arguably artists and songwriters who would benefit the most. Because while bad data stops money moving from licensees to the music sector, it also stops money moving from labels, publishers and collecting societies to the right artists and songwriters, meaning performers and creators are stung twice.

Numerous companies in recent years – both established music firms and start-ups – have spotted an opportunity in providing services that help artists and songwriters better manage their rights and royalties, ensuring they get every penny they are due, especially through the collective licensing system. This has been a growth strand of the music rights sector as artists and songwriters have become more proactive in this domain.

Though perhaps the solution to the copyright data problem isn’t a start-up working for artists and songwriters, but a start-up actually led by the artist and songwriting community. Indeed, in the last year the most interesting developments in copyright data have come from that side of music sector: with the songwriter-backed Auddly and Imogen Heap’s Mycelia project.

Both are based on the idea of performers and creators taking control of – and responsibility for – their own data. The logic goes, if rights owners and collecting societies can’t get a GRD together, what if artist and songwriters logged all the works they were involved in creating, and the labels, publishers and societies they are allied to.

If artists and songwriters truly embraced such an initiative, they could see an immediate kickback in increased payments and, more importantly, could engineer a situation where they sit between the digital platforms and the music rights companies and institutions, rather than the other way round.

WHERE DOES THE BLOCKCHAIN FIT IN?
One term that has come up with increased frequency in amidst the copyright data debate this year is ‘the blockchain’ which, some have argued, could help the music community tackle this challenge, with a decentralised approach to building a central copyright database.

The blockchain is a “distributed database”, which is to say a body of transactional data, or a ledger, that is simultaneously stored on multiple servers, or ‘nodes’, across the internet. Updates, or new transactions, that occur at > any one node are gathered into ‘blocks’ which are added to the ‘chain’, with each new block containing information about the previous one, so that all the blocks in the chain have to stack in chronological order. Each node then updates as new blocks are created.

Best known for powering cryto-currency Bitcoin, there are various features about the blockchain that make it an attractive framework for a copyright database, especially for the creative community.

It is decentralised, so does not rely on any one organisation or server, and has in built mechanisms to identify conflicts in data and to stop people tampering with the information it contains, records of which go all the way back to the first transaction recorded.

That said, it is still early days when it comes to utilising the blockchain in the music copyright domain. Even if the artists, techies and start-ups dabbling in all of this – and Heap’s project has a focus on the blockchain – come up with something practical and scalable in the near future, many challenges and questions will still remain.

The blockchain may be the right technology to power a central copyright database. And, if it was truly embraced by the artist and songwriter community, perhaps there would be a source of data available to feed that information network, certainly for new works. But an important question remains: what data is being shared with whom? Even within the creative community there may be disagreements on that point.

WHAT DATA?
Some envisage the blockchain-powered artist-controlled copyright database as containing everything a streaming service would need in order to pay labels, publishers, artists and songwriters what they are due each time a track is played.

So, for each country, who owns the sound recording copyright, which featured artists are due what cut of the income by contract, and which musicians are due statutory ‘equitable remuneration’ if and when such payments apply. Then, what song copyright is exploited in the recording, what publishers and songwriters have a stake in it, what those respective stakes are, and which publishers or collecting societies will process the money.

That database, if publicly available, could then be tapped by streaming companies which could push their consumption data in at one end, and get a list of who should be paid what for each track played at the other. All stakeholders could be reported to and monies paid directly, even where direct relationships between parties did not previously exist.

But – even if we assume we could successfully gather together all that data (which, even with an artist/songwriter-led initiative, is ambitious) – there is still the debate over how much of that information all and any stakeholders would want to make public domain. Labels, publishers and collecting societies are often accused of lacking transparency, but how much information would the average artist or songwriter really want available to the public about their arrangements with their business partners and each other?

It may well be that – despite the artist and songwriter community leading the call for more transparency in the music rights domain – there would only be so much they themselves would want to be transparent about.

Though those, like Heap, who pretty much advocate full transparency, do so while proposing a totally overhauled and much more artist-friendly music industry.

One where artists and songwriters are increasingly reported to and paid directly for their work by the companies who use their music. An industry where less middlemen are required. And perhaps where label and publishing deals are reworked so that while the corporate rights owners have a right to control and earn from the songs and recordings they fund, they no longer routinely filter royalties as they flow from licensee to performer and creator.

All of which might seem a little over ambitious, Utopian even. Though, as the GRD project proved, any attempt to seriously tackle the music industry’s copyright data problem is going to be a major challenge, yet it’s a challenge that is going to have to be met one way or another. So why not set the bar high? And, like Heap, motivate artists and songwriters to make this all happen with the promise of an overhauled music rights sector with performers and creators at its heart, once the various hurdles have been crossed.

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Wednesday 23 December 2015, 10:14 | By

Trends: Why ‘making available’ is now on the European Commission’s copyright agenda

CMU Trends Legal

European Commission

Earlier this month the European Commission published more information about its Digital Single Market initiative, and the areas of copyright law that will be reviewed as part of the project.

The music industry – and in particular the labels, publishers, collecting societies and their respective lobbyists – have been pushing hard for a review of the so called ‘safe harbours’ provided by European law to tech firms.

These have been used by the likes of YouTube and SoundCloud to enable ‘opt-out’ rather than ‘opt-in’ streaming services, where anyone can upload content to the platform, and it’s then the responsibility of rights owners to request their content be removed, if they don’t see the marketing and/or revenue benefits of being featured on such a service.

Rights owners have become frustrated with opt-out services, and the obligation safe harbours put on them to police the platforms of tech firms which build businesses around the content uploaded to their servers, much of it unlicensed. The existence of such services has – says the music industry – resulted in a ‘value gap’ in the wider digital music market as it continues to emerge and evolve.

The responsibilities of technology companies in monitoring and regulating the unlicensed distribution of copyright works across the internet will be part of the review, the EC confirmed in this month’s DSM update, which is a slightly ambiguous way of putting safe harbours on the agenda.

Though the Commission was much more explicit about its intent to review an area of copyright law that is of particular interest to recording artists, but less so to publishers and their societies, while the labels would probably rather it not be on the agenda at all: the ‘making available right’. That it is very much on the EC’s radar is a testament to the recent lobbying efforts of the artist community, and especially the UK’s Featured Artists Coalition and its affiliate the International Artist Organisation.

A BIT OF BACKGROUND
First, a little bit of copyright law that you need to understand for any of the ‘making available’ debate to make sense.

Copyright Controls
Copyright law provides copyright owners with a number of ‘controls’ over the content in which they own the rights. Although the precise list of controls, and accompanying terminology, varies from country to country, these controls commonly include the exclusive right to reproduce, distribute, rent out, adapt, perform or communicate the work. If anyone else wants to exploit one of these controls, they must seek the copyright owner’s permission. The copyright owner sells their permission, which is how copyright makes money.

Performer Rights
Copyright law also often provides so called ‘performer rights’. These apply to sound recordings, and benefit recording artists (featured artists and session musicians) who – by convention – often do not own the copyright in recordings on which they appear and, in the case of session musicians, are often not even beneficiaries of those rights.

This is because labels commonly own the sound recording copyrights, and while they will usually be contractually obliged to share subsequent revenues with featured artists (once initial costs have been recouped), session musicians are often paid a one-off fee and get no future royalties.

There are two main sets of performer rights: approvals and ‘equitable remuneration’. The former says that no one can record an artist’s performance, or exploit the resulting recording, without said artist’s permission.

All and any artists who appear on any one recording must give their permission for their performance to be recorded, and for the subsequent reproduction, distribution, rental, adaptation, performance and communication of the recording – basically the exploitation of each of the controls enjoyed by the copyright owner. A label will usually secure all these approvals in a featured artist’s record contract and each session musician’s individual session agreement.

The ‘equitable remuneration’ rule says that all performers who appear on a recording have a right to be ‘equitably remunerated’ – along with the copyright owner – whenever monies are generated by exploiting some but not all of the controls of the copyright. Performer ER commonly applies when the ‘performance’ or ‘communication’ controls are exploited – what are often collectively referred to as the ‘performing’ or ‘neighbouring’ rights – which basically means the public performance and broadcast of recordings.

Although copyright law doesn’t define ‘equitable’, usually monies are split 50/50 between the copyright owner (normally a label) and the performers, including all the featured artists and any session musicians. When it comes to the artists’ share, the featured artists usually get a bigger cut than the session musicians.

In most countries performers set up their own collecting society or societies to collect their ER, though in the UK PPL – which collects monies for labels whenever their performing rights are exploited – also collects for artists (and in the US, SoundExchange also pays featured artists their ER directly).

Adding a new control for digital: Making Available
Whereas the manufacture of CDs exploited just the ‘reproduction’ element of the copyright, and radio exploited just the ‘communication’ control, it is generally agreed that when music is distributed digitally both the ‘reproduction’ and ‘communication’ controls are being utilised at the same time.

However, the ‘communication’ control, where it is specifically defined in copyright law (which it is in the UK), traditionally related to conventional broadcasting. So whereas with simple webcasting services it seemed logical that this should extend online, there was some confusion over whether or not it would or should apply to downloads and on-demand streaming services (the former was the main concern when this was first being discussed in the mid-1990s).

To ensure digital communication of this kind would still be restricted by copyright, and perhaps to distinguish it from the existing controls that covered broadcasting, back in the early days of the web some rights owners – and especially the major record labels – lobbied to have a separate control added to copyright law called ‘making available’.

The ‘making available right’ was formally introduced in the World Intellectual Property Organisation treaties of 1996, and then in the European Union in 2001.

This control has two distinct features to it, firstly that the transmission of the copyright work is ‘electronic’, and secondly that members of the public “may access it from a place and at a time individually chosen by them”. Although now often referred to as a standalone and separate control, in many ways ‘making available’ is actually a sub-set of the existing ‘communication’ control, and UK law formally defines it as such.

The new control also had an impact on performer rights. First, as ‘making available’ was added to the list of controls enjoyed by the copyright owner, it was also added to the list of controls enjoyed by the performer, so that labels needed approval to exploit this control like all the others. Second, there was the tricky question as to whether or not Performer ER should apply, given ‘making available’ was basically a sub-set of ‘communication’, where Performer ER was paid. But the labels, unsurprisingly, reckoned “no, it does not apply”, and in the UK copyright law was written as such.

We are now nearly two decades on from the introduction of the ‘making available’ control at a global level, but this element of copyright law is probably a bigger talking point now than at any point previously, especially in the artist and management communities. This mainly relates to the performer right elements of ‘making available’, and a belief in the artist community that the labels got to shape this newish element of copyright to their advantage whilst most artists weren’t really looking.

THE MAKING AVAILABLE APPROVAL
Because ‘making available’ was added to the list of controls enjoyed by performers as well as copyright owners, labels need to secure the approval of artists who feature on a recording before exploiting this element of the copyright. For new recordings this is no problem, because labels will secure this approval in any new artist contract as a matter of course, for both featured artists and session musicians.

What about legacy contracts that were written before the ‘making available’ element of the copyright even existed? Do labels need to go back to every artist who appeared on every recording released pre-2000 and request permission to exploit the new ‘making available’ element of the copyright, which applies on every download and on-demand stream remember?

If they did, legacy artists still being paid tiny royalties from 1960s and 1970s record contracts – or artists with contracts that pay a 50% split on ‘licensing income’ who are angry that labels have not treated download and streaming revenues as falling under this category, despite their ‘licensing deals’ with iTunes and Spotify – could negotiate new terms around digital income. Or, at least, they could if their catalogue generated enough revenue that it would hurt the label if it couldn’t service that music to the download stores and streaming platforms.

Unsurprisingly, most labels have decided that specific approval isn’t required to exploit the ‘making available’ element of the recording copyrights they own. Either because ‘making available’ is a sub-set of the ‘communication’ control, approval for which was provided in old contracts, or more commonly by citing a catch-all clause in old agreements that talked about the label getting all and any approvals that may be required now or at anytime in the future.

Many artists think that is unfair, and possibly illegal, in that some artist lawyers have questioned whether the vague catch-all clauses many labels are relying on here would really stand up in court. “How could artists give up a right that didn’t even exist at the time they signed their contract?” the argument goes.

This has all been rumbling on for some time, but it was only this year that we started to see some test cases, first in Finland with the rock band Hurriganes and then in Sweden with musician Johan Johansson. In both cases, the artist side prevailed, though in the first case there was an added complication in that neither artist nor label could actually put their hands on a copy of the contract being disputed.

Nevertheless, both these cases were very interesting developments, and a move in the right direction for the artist community. It is still early days. Appeals may follow, and it’s not clear yet if a precedent has been set in Finland or Sweden, or beyond; in other countries it may depend on the whims of local copyright and contract laws, and in the EU on whether European harmonisation rules apply.

Still, momentum could now build around this across Europe and worldwide. In the Scandinavian cases the local musicians’ unions provided legal support on the condition artists didn’t settle out of court, and the UK’s MU is priming itself to do the same with a test case over here. So watch this space.

MAKING AVAILABLE AND PERFORMER ER
The other issue around ‘making available’ – and the point that affects all artists, not just heritage acts – is that key question: should Performer ER apply? The record industry has generally assumed that Performer ER does not apply to ‘making available’, and in some countries – such as the UK – the labels successfully lobbied for copyright law to explicitly say so.

Many artist managers and lawyers argue that if ‘making available’ was intended as a sub-set of the ‘communication’ control – where Performer ER does apply – then the same should be true of the new control as well. Even more so with streaming, as opposed to downloads, because there are more parallels between streaming and the radio experience that is covered by the ‘communication’ element of the copyright.

Indeed, there’s an alternative form of this argument that stems from that point: if Performer ER doesn’t apply to ‘making available’, well, who decided that it was the ‘making available’ control – rather than the conventional ‘communication’ control – that is being exploited by the streaming music platforms anyway? Certainly statute doesn’t define which elements of the copyright are in play in a stream.

Straight online radio services are assumed to be exploiting the conventional ‘communication’ control (and often only the ‘communication’ control, even though technically a reproduction is also occurring in a webcast) and therefore Performer ER is paid. That sometimes applies to personalised radio services like Pandora as well, partly because in the US a compulsory licence says that [a] personalised radio can be licensed via the SoundExchange collective licensing system and [b] when that happens Performer ER should be paid.

However, with Spotify-type services – where the really significant streaming revenues are being generated – the labels insist it’s all about ‘making available’. There is a certain logic to this argument, in that ‘making available’ – remember – applies when a user can access music “from a place and at a time individually chosen by them”. The labels argue that the extra functionality a Spotify-type service offers over a Pandora-type service – or a straight online radio station for that matter – is what moves it from ‘communication’ to ‘making available’.

Though you could argue that “from a place and at a time individually chosen by the user” is really talking about downloads not streams. After all, with a streaming service the user must be in a place connected to the internet and at a time when their subscription to said service is still valid, so there is only limited choice (though Spotify’s off-line listening and freemium level make things less straightforward).

Whatever, the question remains: should performer ER be paid on ‘making available’, and should ‘making available’ apply to streams? In the survey of artist managers we conducted for the UK’s Music Managers Forum earlier this year, 78% of respondents said they thought Performer ER should be paid on digital income.

Which isn’t surprising. It’s no secret that artists and their representatives are angling for a bigger slice of the digital pie, and a clarification on ‘making available’ in their favour could achieve just that. But having an obvious agenda doesn’t mean the management community – and the artist community they work for – haven’t got a strong case here.

Especially as, at a global level, performer rights are usually very popular amongst political decision makers. Those rights are often watered down when treaties are written, and even more so when those treaties are implemented at an EU and national level, mainly because traditionally the labels have led on the music industry’s lobbying efforts.

But, as we said, artists are now lobbying on their own, and especially on this issue. And having got ‘making available’ back on the agenda, this time any reforms at an EU level (and subsequently through to WIPO) could be implemented in a more artist-friendly way by individual states.

That’s not to say there isn’t wiggle room for the labels, even if ‘making available’ was reformed in the artists’ favour, so that Performer ER was indisputably due on streaming income. First, as we said, the law doesn’t actually define what ‘equitable remuneration’ means, it is simply an industry convention that monies are split 50/50 between labels and artists. Secondly, a stream is only partly ‘making available’ – what portion of income should be allocated to that control and what portion to ‘reproduction’?

Regarding that latter question, again statute doesn’t tell us. Though the ‘making available’/‘reproduction’ allocation has already been considered on the publishing side of the music industry, because publishing contract conventions and collective licensing rules means the split has always been an issue with digital income. In publishing, the splits vary from country to country. It may be a simple 50/50. Or sometimes it’s deemed that a download is more ‘reproduction’ than ‘making available’, but a stream more ‘making available’ that ‘reproduction’.

Whatever, if Performer ER was applied to ‘making available’ so that artists received 50% of the money, and it was deemed that the exploitation of the ‘making available’ control constituted half the licence and so half the revenue, then artists would automatically receive 25% of the record industry’s streaming income, oblivious of record contract. Though that would then be shared with session musicians as well as featured artists, remember.

Which would actually mean that a featured artist already on a standard 15-20% split of streaming income might not be any better off.

Though there are some caveats: [a] they would also likely have a claim to a contractual share of the income allocated to the ‘reproduction’ control; [b] it would prevent labels making deductions from their ‘making available’ income; and [c] Performer ER payments are not subject to recoupment, so new artists would see this revenue from day one, rather than waiting for the day they pay off any debts related to their original record contract.

So there are benefits. Though it would be session musicians, and legacy artists on contractual splits way below 15%, who would really benefit. Many of those artists already rely heavily on the Performer ER that comes in from broadcast and public performance, and some have pointed out that – as streaming goes mainstream and starts to compete with radio – that vital income stream will likely go into decline.

Which means that, for those artists, this is not just about providing session musicians and legacy talent with an income boost, it’s as much about ensuring said acts don’t lose a current revenue stream that is essential to make ends meet.

This makes the ‘making available’ debate all the more important and urgent; and that debate will now be had in Europe. It will be fascinating to see how discussions develop in 2016. For many artists, this could prove to be the most important development in digital music in the years to come.

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Wednesday 23 December 2015, 10:04 | By

Trends: Five key digital challenges for the music industry in 2016

CMU Trends Digital Labels & Publishers

Streaming Services in 2015

The key trend in the recorded music market this year replicated that of 2014: CD sales continued to decline, download sales declined a lot, and streaming income boomed.

The big debates around digital music were also pretty familiar: royalties, freemium and YouTube. Though the publishers and songwriters became more vocal in the royalties debate; some of the labels that had previously embraced Spotify’s freemium-to-sell-premium approach started to become critical of it; and the YouTube hate that emerged in the music community in 2014 evolved into a campaign to reform the ‘safe harbours’ in copyright law which the video site exploits.

In terms of the streaming services available, several operators disappeared from the market, while we had one big new entrant in the form of Apple Music. Though it is offering pretty much the same product as Spotify and Deezer. Even though the one thing many commentators agreed on this year is that what the streaming market really needs is more variety; because the truth is, the £120-a-year all-you-can-eat set-up is not attractive to mainstream consumers.

Which means that, despite Spotify founder Daniel Ek insisting his service was now “mainstreaming”, it is still early-days for the streaming sector. Spotify may be cornering the £120-a-year all-you-can-eat niche – with Apple Music already in second place – but when it comes to the much bigger mainstream market, it is still all to play for. Though Amazon and YouTube – and, in the US, Pandora and iHeartRadio – probably have the head start.

As we head into 2016, what are the five biggest digital challenges facing the music industry?

1. SOLVING THE ‘DIGITAL PIE’ DISPUTE
This was certainly the most lively debate at CMU Insights @ The Great Escape back in May, though the digital pie is still being sliced pretty much the same way as it was this time last year. What we are talking about here is how the monies generated by streaming are split between the digital service providers (or DSPs) themselves and the record labels, music publishers, recording artists and songwriters.

Although rights owners will usually put ‘minima’ into their agreements with DSPs – which mean they are assured minimum per-stream payments – ultimately most streaming deals are revenue share arrangements. Given that streaming services cannot afford to be loss-making ventures forever, the DSPs need to get to the point where revenue share arrangements outperform the minimum guarantees, because while minimum rates are being paid they are basically subsidising the music industry.

Every rights owner reaches its own revenue share arrangement with each DSP, and the specifics of those deals are secret. Still, we know that labels are taking 55-60% of the DSP’s post-tax revenue, while the publishers (directly or via their collective management organisations, or CMOs) will be taking 10-15%. Overall the DSPs are seeking to keep about 30% of revenue.

The label receives so much more than the publisher primarily for legacy reasons. The label always kept the majority of CD income, because of the costs it incurred in producing new recordings, and manufacturing and distributing the discs. And that model was basically transferred over to digital. Publishers receive slightly more from downloads than CDs, and slightly more from streams than downloads, but the label still sees the lion’s share.

Publishers have started to question whether that is fair, asking if labels make quite the same investment with streams as they did with CDs. While there may not be a case for having a 50/50 split between labels and publishers – which is more or less how it works with radio income in the UK – some feel the publishers should still be getting a bigger slice of the digital pie.

The big question is how can that be achieved? With CDs, the label pays the publisher its share of revenue, so the publisher and label can in theory negotiate splits (though compulsory or collective licensing rules may get in the way). With streams, the publisher has its own direct relationship with the DSP, rather than dealing with the label. It can ask for more money from the streaming service, and some have, but the DSP will insist that it needs its an approx 30% split to be a viable business, and up to 60% of its revenue is already committed to the labels.

Which means publishers ultimately need to sort this out with the record companies. Many publishers (and all three majors) are in common ownership with a label of course, so that might seem like an easy thing to achieve. Though because record deals are conventionally stacked in the label’s favour, whereas publishing deals pay the majority of income to the songwriter, businesses that deal in both recording and song copyrights will prefer the status quo.

The battle must be fought, therefore, by standalone independent publishers and/or the songwriters themselves. Both have been criticising digital royalties this year, though they have sometimes criticised the DSPs more than the record companies. Will that change in 2016? Don’t hold your breath. Though if the world’s biggest music publisher – Sony/ATV – was to be sold by Sony, and there’s an outside chance it might be, then it could potentially lead on this push for a re-slicing of the digital pie.

Beyond the recordings/publishing split is the debate over how monies are shared between labels and artists, and publishers and songwriters. The former is more contentious, because publishing deals tend to be at least 50/50 arrangements, or more likely tipped in the songwriter’s favour, whereas many record deals allow labels to keep the vast majority of core revenue streams.

There are various strands to the label/artist digital royalties dispute, especially with heritage acts who are still earning from legacy contracts that don’t specifically reference download or streaming income. There is the ‘sales v licence’ contractual interpretation dispute which, although partly settled in the US this year, is still a feature of some outstanding litigation.

There is the debate over whether or not labels actually need new permission from legacy acts to digitally exploit their recordings, because doing so arguably exploits an element of copyright called ‘making available’ that didn’t exist before the mid-1990s, and is therefore not mentioned in old record contracts.

And there is the debate over whether or not streaming actually does exploit ‘making available’, because if it doesn’t, it exploits the ‘communication’ element of the copyright where artists are due an automatic 50% revenue share under the principle of ‘equitable remuneration’.

We consider the latter two strands in more detail in our trends article on ‘making available’ in this edition of the Trends Report. For now, what we know for certain, is that all elements of the digital pie debate will continue in 2016. Though the labels will be hoping that they can keep the debates just rumbling on until the digital pie is so big, those taking smaller slices will still get their fill, and shut up about the splits.

2. GETTING BETTER AT PROCESSING THE MONEY
We know that many labels, publishers and CMOs have struggled in recent years to cope with the ever-increasing amounts of data that they have had to process as the record industry has shifted from sales to streams, so that DSPs report every time a track or song is played, not just the initial sale. This challenge only increases as key streaming services increase their user-bases, and reports from the streaming platforms become ever bigger each month.

Record companies need to ensure that they have received the right royalty payments from each DSP based on each service’s consumption reports. They then need to work out what is owed to any featured artists, producers and other parties who are beneficiaries of recordings in their catalogues, and then report and pay those royalties.

Publishers – and/or their societies – have an extra task to handle. DSPs assume that when a label or distributor provides a track, it owns or represents the sound recording copyright in that recording, and therefore pays the label when that track is consumed. But the DSP doesn’t know who controls the accompanying song copyright. So it provides each publisher and publishing CMO with a complete report of all songs played in any one month. The rights owner or society must then work out, of those songs played, which it owns or co-owns, and invoice accordingly.

Like the label, it must then work out what cut of the income needs to be shared with the songwriter. Again, there is an extra layer of complexity here in publishing, because a stream exploits both the ‘mechanical’ and the ‘performing right’ elements of the copyright (the latter being – technically speaking – the aforementioned ‘making available’ right).

This is important because mechanical and performing rights have traditionally been managed differently in music publishing. So, in the UK, mechanical rights income is paid to the publisher (either directly by the DSP, or via collecting society MCPS), which then shares a cut of that money with the songwriter, according to the terms in their publishing contract. But performing rights income goes to PRS, which pays 50% direct to songwriter and 50% to publisher, which might then have to share some of its half with the songwriter, according to the terms in their publishing contract.

So, even once a publisher or society has worked out what it is due from the DSP, it must then split that money between the mechanical and performing right elements of the copyright (the split varies from country to country). UK songwriters will then receive their share of mechanicals from their publishers, 50% of performing rights income from PRS, and probably a top up of performing rights income from their publishers too. Basically, it’s rather complex.

Most labels, publishers and CMOs have now developed technology platforms – or have engaged the services of distributors or rights administrators with such technology – to more efficiently process the data provided by the streaming services each month, and to work out what money they are due and what needs to happen to that income. Needless to say, some of these platforms are better than others.

Challenges still remain. Most companies are still evolving their data systems, especially when it comes to how they report usage and royalties to other parties, ie their artists or songwriters. And even where decent data systems have been built, there remains work to be done on helping artists and songwriters – and their managers and accountants – navigate that data.

Plus, of course, the lack of transparency over the fundamentals of the deals between labels, publishers, CMOs and the DSPs make it impossible for artists and songwriters to truly audit the information their business partners provide.

Things would be simplified, of course, if there was a central database of music rights ownership information – listing who controls and benefits from each song and recording – and via which DSPs could automate more of the process. Everyone agrees such a database is needed, but few agree on how it should be created, who should pay for it, and who should hand over their data to make it happen.

In his interview with CMU, Bruno Guez of music data firm Revelator reckons a start-up is more likely to solve this problem than the industry itself, possibly by building a database on the blockchain. But that start-up would still need access to source data, and that is probably the biggest challenge, given rights owners are often nervous of publishing the specifics about what songs or recordings they own or control.

3. DRIVING SUSTAINED LISTENING
Most music marketing is led by labels, and most marketing campaigns are built around album releases, and those campaigns usually aim to ensure maximum hype around launch in a bid to achieve maximum sales in the month or months immediately after release. Within a few months (maybe a few weeks even) of release, the label will stand down its marketers, who will begin work on the next record.

As we shift ever more towards the streaming model, success in the first few weeks after release is not going to bring in enough money for any of the stakeholders, and especially those on a small cut of the income (basically everyone but the label). The goal, therefore, is no longer ‘first week sales’ but ‘sustained listening’, meaning the message of the campaign is no long “buy me” but “playlist me”.

There has been much talk this year of the importance of playlists on the streaming platforms – and especially on Spotify – with labels putting increased effort into pitching new tracks to those who control playlists on the streaming services.

Anyone can set up a playlist on Spotify and make it publicly available, and anyone who does so – and somehow finds a following – is now likely being PRed in the same way as radio programmers. Though most of the biggest playlists on Spotify are controlled by the DSP itself, making access to its team of curators all the more important for the music community. Some label-controlled playlists have also built sizable audiences, and record companies large and small have been putting more effort into this of late as well.

There are different elements to the big playlisting pitch party. Getting added to public playlists with decent followings is a great way to get new artists and tracks onto the radars of streamers, and can assure short-term listening and therefore short-term revenue.

For sustained listening, labels probably need users to start adding their tracks to their own personal playlists, and especially those they come back to time and again: the work playlist, the gym playlist, the late night playlist, the long drive playlist, and so on. And that might require changing the messaging across an album’s marketing and PR campaign.

It may also require marketing campaigns that go beyond the traditional twelve-week album launch. But are labels structured and resourced to do that? If the marketing of any one artist is going to become a year-round venture, should management lead? Does management have the resource? Could labels be incentivised to change their approach to artist marketing by being cut into other revenue streams via multi-stream record deals? So many questions.

With streaming set to become the dominant recorded music product, music marketing is in flux. Though what is required for sustained listening on the streaming platforms may be the same as what is required to fully capitalise on the opportunities of direct-to-fan, and if labels can build a new marketing machine capable of delivering for both – and then sign-up artists to deals that mean they benefit from both streams and D2F – there could be a winning formula somewhere out there.

4. CONVERTING FREEMIUM
We all know that there are many, many more people accessing free streaming services than the paid-for platforms. We also know that the monies generated for the music industry by free services – both per-play and per-user – are much smaller than with the premium set-ups. Which means a minority of avid music fans are subsidising the listening of the more mainstream majority. Plenty of people in music don’t like that fact.

Though it is worth noting that that phenomenon is not actually new. Prior to digital, a minority of consumers regularly bought CDs, while the vast majority consumed music primarily through free-to-access radio services, which paid nominal royalties to the music rights sector. The difference now, of course, is that the services enjoyed by the paying minority are not so different to those enjoyed by the free-ride majority.

Either way, there is increasing resentment to the free-to-access services within the music community, even if artists, labels, songwriters and publishers can’t actually cut off the freebie platforms, for various reasons. But the free services could and should evolve. Quite how depends on what purpose, exactly, the free streaming services play in the wider scheme of things: are they marketing channels, revenue streams or up-sell platforms, and if the latter, what are we up-selling?

The labels always accepted relatively low royalties from radio (or tolerated no royalties from US radio) because they knew airplay was an important marketing tool. In the digital age, YouTube also sits in this domain. Everyone agrees YouTube is a vital marketing channel for most artists today, and Google has arguably exploited that fact to secure preferential rates from the music industry.

But marketing what to whom, exactly? If the average young YouTube viewer is never going to buy an album – or even pay for a Spotify subscription – while they have all the music they want on-demand via YouTube itself (which seems likely), what is the aim of the marketing effort? Tickets, merchandise, direct-to-fan perhaps?

Though the label – which maybe doing most of the heavy lifting in terms of feeding and managing the YouTube channel – doesn’t necessarily share in those revenues. Which means for the label, YouTube itself needs to generate more income. Which means both labels and the video site need to capitalise on the advertising and brand partnership opportunities that the platform provides.

Even if the record company is cut into other artist revenues through multi-stream deals, again, both labels and YouTube have much work to do to fully capitalise on artist-based up-sell opportunities.

For Spotify, of course, the primary up-sell opportunity on its free level is turning freemium users into premium customers. True, Spotify could also be up-selling tickets and merch (and it has dabbled in this kind of up-sell), but really it wants to persuade people to become ten pound a month subscribers.

The record industry also wants this to happen, Spotify premium users being amongst its best customers in 2015. And while Spotify’s 1-in-4 up-sell rate is actually pretty impressive, the labels would like Spotify to be turning ever higher numbers of its free users into premium subscribers.

To date Spotify has promoted premium to freemium users with the promise of no ads and more mobile functionality. Though the former hinders the company’s ability to sell ads on the free level (you are basically asking advertisers to pay to inconvenience your listeners) and the latter, while a decent plus point, isn’t enough to persuade most free users to upgrade.

Many feel that keeping the most in-demand content off freemium – ie the biggest artists and latest in-demand releases – is probably the simplest way to differentiate free from paid.

Spotify has heavily resisted this approach to date, possibly not wanting to face the politics of having to decide which albums and artists qualify for the premium-only status. The DSP also points out that this will only work if labels ensure premium-only content isn’t freely available on-demand on YouTube.

Though, having seen its freemium level come under fire with increased frequency in the music community this year, it seems that Spotify will start dabbling with the hold-some-music-off-freemium approach in 2016.

However good you make Spotify premium, the issue remains that for most consumers £120 a year for recorded music is simply too high a price. As no one wants to cut prices across the board, to tackle this problem the industry needs to offer some mid-price alternatives that offer less content or functionality than the ten pounds a month package, but more than freemium.

Quite what the £2 and £5 a month premium services look like remains a key question in digital music. Which brings us to challenge number five…

5. DEVELOPING A BETTER RANGE OF SERVICES
The record industry – usually when countering the “bloody luddite labels” allegation – likes to point out the long list of digital services it has licensed. “Look how innovative and forward looking we are”, they imply.

It’s true, a lot of digital services have now been licensed, both in the UK and worldwide, though the vast majority are operating one of three business models: the iTunes model, the Pandora model or the Spotify model. Most have pretty much the same catalogue and charge pretty much the same price (in any one market). Rival services compete on user-interface and discovery tools or – actually, in commercial terms – often on how many mobile bundling deals they can negotiate.

The Spotify model is the one that is in rapid growth, in terms of users and revenue, but – as we said – realistically the £120 a year price point will only ever appeal to a minority audience, even if it’s a lucrative minority. What we now need are lower-priced subscription set-ups, that offer less than Spotify, so they don’t compete with the £120-a-year services, but can turn casual music consumers into paying subscribers.

Digital start-ups will say that labels and publishers won’t license innovative mid-price products. Labels and publishers will say that their hands are tied by Spotify – a key business partner – but one locked to its freemium-sells-premium business model.

Spotify freemium is arguably too good, making it hard to launch mid-price products that have decent unique selling points without being too close to Spotify premium. Spotify will say that it needs a compelling freemium level to hook-in new customers, and that it can’t cut back on its freemium package while YouTube’s free offer is so good.

The labels and publishers will say that they can’t do anything about bloody YouTube because of the bloody safe harbours in copyright law, which the video site exploits. So they tell their lobbyists to argue for a rewrite of copyright law in Brussels and Washington, meaning the future of the streaming music market now relies on a political battle the music industry will probably lose.

So what next? Well, ironically, while all that has been going on, YouTube – with its new subscription service Red – might have already kickstarted the next stage of streaming music’s evolution. Though, YouTube-haters might like to know, Amazon got there first by adding music to its Prime package.

Because providing a better range of streaming services for consumers might be less about launching the £2 streaming music platform, and more about bundling music in with other forms of entertainment for which, when put together, mainstream consumers are willing to spend ten pounds a month, or thereabouts.

LOOKING AHEAD
So, there we have it, the five big digital challenges the music industry faces in the next year, some internal challenges, some marketing-based, and others all about further evolving the streaming music market itself. To conclude, the questions the music industry needs to ask itself this new year are as follows…

• Is there anything we can do about the digital pie debate?
• Can better performer rights – and ‘equitable remuneration’ – protect artists?
• Will labels/publishers/CMOs get better at processing data/money?
• What can artists/managers do about the lack of transparency?
• Can artists/labels get better at marketing for streams?
• Can we make more money and/or better up-sell from free services?
• How can we ensure a better choice of streaming music services?
• Are bundled services really the future?

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Tuesday 22 December 2015, 11:09 | By

Vigsy’s Festive Club Tips

Club Tip CMU Approved

Katy B

The festive season sees a lot of events occurring, but the two main clubbing nights are Boxing Day and, of course, New Year’s Eve.

Here are a few ideas for navigating the best of those two nights out in London this year. A couple for dancing off the Christmas pud the day after the main festivities, and then, cripes, there’s too much choice for seeing in the new year, but I’ve limited myself to three crackers (pun probably intended).

Jungle x Garage Boxing Day Special at Brixton Jamm
This Jungle Splash & Garage Splash Boxing Day Special at Brixton Jamm is looking rather fine, with a great list of big hitters on the bill.
Saturday 26 Dec, Brixton Jamm, 261 Brixton Road, Brixton, London, SW9 6LH, £8-10, 10pm-6am. More info here.

Rinse FM Boxing Day at Ministry Of Sound
Rinse FM is taking over Ministry Of Sound on Boxing Day and is pulling in plenty of friends and family of the radio station to make up a big fat line-up, including Katy B, Novelist, DJ Zinc, Horsepower Productions and Fatima Al Qadiri.
Saturday 16 Dec, Ministry Of Sound, 103 Gaunt Street, Elephant & Castle, London, SE1 6DP, £14-19, 10pm-7am. More info here.

Sasha presents Last Night On Earth NYE at Electric Brixton
Midnight is always a bit early for seasoned clubbers, to be honest. But I think you’ll be alright if you want to quaff a bit of champagne elsewhere first, as Sasha goes for an eight hour set at Electric Brixton (or the ex-Fridge, to olduns like me).
Thursday 31 Dec, Electric Brixton, Town Hall Parade, Brixton, London, SW2 1RJ, £25-35, 9.30pm-6am. More info here.

Soundcrash Tropical New Year’s Eve Party at Village Underground
We also have 6 Music’s Gilles Peterson strutting his stuff at Soundcrash’s Tropical New Year’s Eve Party with Quantic, Kode 9 and LV at Village Underground – the first Soundcrash party on the 31st of December for two years.
Thursday 31 Dec, Village Underground, 54 Holywell Lane, Shoreditch, London, EC2A 3PQ, £27-45, 10pm-6am. More info here.

Wiggle & Superfreq present Superwigglefreq NYE Party at Pond Dalston
Finally, Wiggle and Superfreq take over the Pond in Dalston. Got to love Mr C with Evil Eddie Richards. And there’s a secret special guest on the bill too.
Thursday 31 Dec, Stamford Works, 3 Gillett Street, Dalston, N16 8JH, £20-30, 9.30pm-8am. More info here.

A smorgasbord of choice for Hogmanay. Happy Christmas to one and all and best wishes for 2016!

Vigsy

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Tuesday 22 December 2015, 11:01 | By

SoundCloud and PRS reach licensing agreement, legal action off

Business News Deals Digital Labels & Publishers Top Stories

SoundCloud

Right, everyone, Christmas is cancelled. PRS and SoundCloud have gone and ruined it all with some goodwill, which is not in-keeping with the season at all. I was promised a long drawn out bitter legal showdown and now I’m not going to get it. Next you’ll be telling me Santa’s not real.

Yeah, well, anyway, PRS For Music and SoundCloud have reached a multi-territory licensing agreement, which brings an end to the litigation that was launched by the UK publishing sector’s collecting society against the streaming service earlier this year. As previously reported, back in August, PRS announced that “following five years of unsuccessful negotiations” with SoundCloud, in a bid to agree a licensing deal covering the society’s repertoire, it was left with “no alternative but to commence legal proceedings”.

“Launched in 2008, [SoundCloud] now has more than 175 million unique listeners per month”, said PRS at the time. “Unfortunately, the organisation continues to deny it needs a PRS For Music licence for its existing service available in the UK and Europe, meaning it is not remunerating our members when their music is streamed by the SoundCloud platform”.

The dispute related to the online music platform’s existing service, which, of course, allows anyone to upload music. SoundCloud was originally primarily pitched at creators as a tool for sharing their work. But even if artists and producers upload their own music, if they are PRS members, then a licence is required from the society to cover those streams. And that’s before you consider the people uploading music to SoundCloud that they were in no way involved in creating it.

Like YouTube, SoundCloud tells rights owners that if they don’t want their music to appear on its platform they should issue a takedown notice. And like YouTube, SoundCloud has refined its takedown procedures over the years. Both tech firms argue that, under the safe harbours of copyright law, by operating a takedown system, they cannot be held liable if their users upload content without the rights owner’s permission.

Safe harbours have, of course, become increasingly contentious in the music community this year. And PRS is among the organisations in the music rights sector calling for copyright law to be amended so that services like YouTube and SoundCloud can no longer rely on safe harbour protection. Though the current law is somewhat ambiguous, and had it got to court this dispute would have been an important test case on what exactly European law says about the responsibilities of intermediaries in the unlicensed distribution of music.

The ambiguities mean that the case could have gone either way, though SoundCloud arguably had more to lose, [a] because PRS is concurrently lobbying for the law to be amended anyway, and [b] because the digital firm, which is busy pivoting its business model to become an ad-funded and subscription-charging streaming platform, could really do without the cost and PR damage of a high profile copyright lawsuit.

As it was, the litigation was already seemingly hindering SoundCloud’s efforts to sign up the majors to its new ad-funded/subscription gubbins. Universal was rumoured to be close to inking a deal when the PRS lawsuit landed, with those deal talks being frozen as a result.

Both parties insisted throughout that they’d prefer an out-of-court settlement here, and that’s what’s been achieved, just in time for Christmas. Which means we won’t get our fascinating test case on safe harbours and music streaming in Europe. Nor any passive aggressive bickering between the music and tech communities. Which is no fun for us, even if this is a good result for songwriters and publishers.

Though, of course, the specifics of the deal – which relates to past grievances and usage as well as future opportunities and streams – are not yet known. So it remains to be seen just how good a result this really is for songwriters and publishers. Perhaps there will be some fun to be had watching the songwriting community try to drill down into what has been agreed.

Meanwhile, PRS For Music chief exec Robert Ashcroft was careful to remind everyone that safe harbours are still a big problem, even if this safe harbours dispute has been resolved. He said yesterday: “On behalf of our members, I am pleased that we have been able to reach a settlement with SoundCloud without extended legal proceedings. This ends over five years of discussions on the licensing requirements for the platform, resulting in a licence under which our members are fairly rewarded for the use of their music”.

He continued: “The safe harbours in current legislation still present ambiguity, and obstruct the efficient licensing of online services, but our agreement with SoundCloud is a step in the right direction towards a more level playing field for the online marketplace. Many of our members love the SoundCloud service and I greatly appreciate their management’s willingness to work with us in the way they have”.

Meanwhile SoundCloud CEO Alexander Ljung added: “SoundCloud is a platform by creators, for creators; we’re working hard to create a platform where all creators can be paid for their work, and already have deals in place with thousands of copyright owners. PRS For Music is also fully committed to creators, and we’re pleased to have reached an agreement that will expand revenue opportunities, improve the accuracy of royalty distributions, and launch new services for our 175 million monthly active listeners on SoundCloud in 2016”.

It should be noted that there had been rumours a settlement was incoming on this nice little squabble for a few weeks now, so we carefully steered away from the topic in the our Review Of 2015 on the CMU Podcast, not wanting to bring the mood down with an amicable settlement. And if you want proof of that, why not check it out? And look, you can do that on SoundCloud! Who, let us remember, we’ve never sued.

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Tuesday 22 December 2015, 11:00 | By

Thrilled in 2015

Business News Marketing & PR

Thrilled In 2015

Sometimes in life it can be hard to let your true feelings flow out unimpeded. But the one place where that doesn’t seem to be the case is when announcing something – anything really – via a press release.

As soon as someone is able to communicate their thoughts and emotions through this most basic of PR tools, the feelings just flood out. It’s almost as if the person speaking isn’t actually speaking at all, and some PR dude has just typed some key words into a waffle machine and said machine has worked its magic. But that can’t be it.

Either way, the result is a long line of men and women shouting to the sky about how thrilled they about everything. Well, mainly about the contract they just wrote, executive they just hired or the app they just released.

Think about it, no one ever says the word “thrilled” in normal conversation. No one. It just never happens. And yet in the world of the press release nearly everyone is thrilled about something. Wouldn’t it be nice to live in that world? No. It would not.

Anyway, here, for your reading pleasure, is a summary of just some of the times music people got thrilled about something in a press release in 2015.

January

• James Corden was “thrilled, overwhelmed and honoured” to get an OBE, which would have been relevant to us if he was still presenting the BRITs. Maybe.

• Fervor Records CEO David Hilker was “thrilled” to sign Pistoleros.

• Jordan Wolowitz, a partner at Founders Entertainment, was “thrilled” to announce the line-up of this years Governors Ball Music Festival in New York.

• Producer CJ Vanston was “completely thrilled” to work on Toto’s new album.

• Randy Wachtler, President & CEO, Warner/Chappell Production Music, was “thrilled” that “the undisputed champions of news theme music” Frank Gari Productions and Gari Communications had been acquired by his company.

• Bloc Records was “thrilled” to be able to release a Jake Chudnow single in “circular format” (ie vinyl).

• The Orchard’s COO Colleen Theis was “thrilled” to partner with Dangerbird Records.

• Pusha T was “thrilled” to have discovered OWS before you.

• Downtown Records was “thrilled” that Ellen DeGeneres likes Chet Faker.

• The Common Linnets were “thrilled” to win Best Festival Act Award at the European Festival Awards.

• Uber’s Matt Wyndowe was “thrilled” that people would be able to book cabs at the same time as buying tickets from Live Nation.

• Marathon Artists founder Philippe Ascoli was “so thrilled” by a partnership between his company and Green United Artists.

• Jessica Hernandez & The Deltas were “thrilled” to announce that they would play this year’s Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival.

• Kobalt Label Services UK Managing Director Vincent Clery-Melin was “incredibly excited and thrilled” to be working with Placebo.

• Conrad Withey was “thrilled” to be working with Warner Music, after being named CEO of YouTube artist development label Popshack.

• Songwriter Jonny Wright was “absolutely thrilled” to sign a deal with Insieme Music Publishing.

• SVP & MD of INgrooves International Alex Branson was “thrilled” that Nick Roden had joined the company as Director of International Business Development.

• David Hirshland of BMG Chrysalis US was “thrilled” that Sleater-Kinney had renewed their publishing deal.

• Band On The Wall and Brighter Sound were “thrilled” that Beth Orton had agreed to lead the fourth event in their Wall Of Sounds Artistic Directors Series.

• Beth Orton was “thrilled” to lead the fourth event in Band On The Wall and Brighter Sound’s Wall Of Sounds Artistic Directors Series.

• Convergence curator Glenn Max was “thrilled” at how great a job he’d done.

• Funeral For A Friend frontman Matthew Davies was “thrilled” that his band was asked to play Camden Rocks.

• ‘Geordie Shore’ star and ‘Celebrity Big Brother’ winner Charlotte Crosby was “absolutely thrilled” to have the fastest selling workout DVD in British history.

• Nick Jonas was “so thrilled” to sign a publishing deal with Universal.

• Converse Global Music Marketing Director Jed Lewis was “thrilled” by the response to the Converse Rubber Tracks programme.

• Henley Festival CEO Charlotte Geeves was “thrilled” to announced Lionel Richie would be playing this year’s festival.

• Urban-folk act Billy Momo were “thrilled” that one of their songs had been used in a ‘Better Call Saul’ trailer.

• Midem’s Bruce Crolot was “thrilled” to have Doug Morris delivering a keynote.

• Sony Computer Entertainment’s Andrew House was “thrilled” to be ditching Music Unlimited and replacing it with Spotify on the PlayStation Network.

• Nathan Salsburg from The Association of Cultural Equity was “thrilled” to be working with PledgeMusic on an Alan Lomax boxset.

February

• Natasha Guiotto was “genuinely thrilled” to join the booking agency side of MN2S.

• Warner Bros Records CEO Cameron Strang was “thrilled” that Nile Rodgers had agreed to return to the label both as an artist and with his label Land Of The Good Groove, and “doubly thrilled” that the label deal would also see the return of Michael Ostin.

• Melissa Etheridge was “so thrilled” to be playing songs from her new album on her European tour.

• Cooking Vinyl founder Martin Goldschmidt was “thrilled” to be partnering with John Black on his new management company.

• Nervo was “thrilled” that Ultra Music had chosen ‘It Feels’ as a single from their debut album.

• Musixmatch CEO Max Ciociola was “thrilled” to add Thomas Hesse to the company’s advisory board.

• The Orchard’s CEO Brad Navin was “thrilled” about a strategic partnership with German music services company Membran Entertainment Group.

• INgrooves’ SVP of INresidence Artist Services Bryan Mead said the company was “positively thrilled” to be handling US distribution for Xtra Mile.

• Capitol Music Group’s Head Of Media Strategy & Relations Ambrosia Healy was “thrilled” that Lauren Ceradini had joined the company as Vice President of Publicity. Ceradini in turn was “thrilled” to have the opportunity.

• Rdio CEO Anthony Bay was “thrilled” that people buying tickets through AXS.com in the US would also get a 30 free trial of the streaming service.

• Secretary General of German indie labels trade body VUT Jörg Heidemann was “thrilled” that Caribou had won IMALA’s Indie Album Of The Year award.

• Justin Broadrick said that Godflesh were “thrilled” to be playing Bloodstock this year.

• Holly Miranda was “so beyond thrilled” to sign to Dangerbird Records.

• Marty Bandier was “thrilled” that Sony/ATV had renewed its European agreement with Spotify.

• London FolkFest director Tony Moore was “thrilled” at how the festival had developed over its first five years.

• Republic Records CEO Monte Lipman was “thrilled” to sign Charles Hamilton.

• Włodek & Karol from Lekko Stronniczy were “absolutely thrilled” to win a competition to work on a Clean Bandit video.

• Aaron Keyock was “thrilled” that he’d signed a record deal with Mascot Label Group.

• The Gentlewoman’s editor-in-chief Penny Martin was “absolutely thrilled” with the results of the magazine’s Björk cover shoot.

• Schott Music was “thrilled” that Richard Dinnadge had joined the company, said Creative Director Sam Rigby.

• Director of Music at BBC Worldwide Salim Mukaddam said that the Beeb’s commercial division was “thrilled” to be handling the worldwide rights to screen the BRIT Awards.

• Zedd was “thrilled” to finally be able to share some new music with the world.

• Steve Hackett was “thrilled” that guitarist Roine Stolt had agreed to join his band.

• Curator of the Convergence festival Glenn Max was “thrilled” about the line-up he had curated.

• Anna Christian Productions was “thrilled” that Nigel Kennedy was going to play a charity show in Leamington Spa.

• Clara Amfo was “honoured and thrilled” to be the new host or Radio 1’s Live Lounge.

• Cutting Edge Group’s Managing Director Phil Hope was “thrilled” that Kobalt had taken over its CEG Rights film score administration business.

• Toya Hankins was “absolutely thrilled” to join Primary Wave.

March

• Live Nation Global Touring President Arthur Fogel was “thrilled” that Madonna had decided to go on tour.

• Country musician Breelan Angel was “beyond thrilled” that Bud Light had bunged her a few quid in sponsorship money.

• London Symphony Orchestra Chair Lennox Mackenzie was “thrilled” that Simon Rattle had agreed to come on board as Music Director.

• Azealia Banks was “thrilled” to be involved in “a potentially groundbreaking new ‘norm’ in the future of making music video”. And who wouldn’t be?

• Rachel Springate of Dubset Media Holdings said the company was “thrilled” that Steve Aoki was supporting its MixSCAN technology.

• Warner Bros. Records President Dan McCarroll was “thrilled” that Duran Duran had signed a new deal with the company.

• UK Music CEO Jo Dipple was “thrilled” that “so many” people were “enjoying” its terrible music management simulator, Music Inc.

• Ooh La La Records founder Theo Aronson was “thrilled” to be working with Caroline International.

• Living Indie was “so thrilled” to be live streaming a show put together by the Attitude Is Everything charity.

• Eden Project Marketing Director Rita Broe was “thrilled beyond words” that Motorhead were to play an Eden Sessions show this year, something she noted in a 79 word quote.

• 4AD boss Simon Halliday was “thrilled” that Holly Herndon had chosen to sign to his label. Which is fair.

• Emily Eavis said she was “thrilled” to have Kanye West playing Glastonbury.

• Nile Rodgers was “thrilled” that Butler & Bontan and Krystal Klear would be supporting him on his UK tour.

• Vice President Of Marketing at 7Up Dave Falk said the drinks brand was “thrilled” to be working with Twitch and Ultra Music Festival via its sponsorship of the festival.

• Tito Jackson was “thrilled” to have a London show in the diary.

• US distributor Redeye was “thrilled” to partner with Proper Music Distribution in the UK, said co-founder Glenn Dicker.

• Earache’s Dan Tobin said the label was “thrilled” to sign Biters.

• Tim Burgess said The Charlatans were “thrilled” to be playing the 20th anniversary of V Festival. Really though? V Festival?

April

• SFX Entertainment was “thrilled” to be bringing Dutch festival Awakenings to the US.

• Composer Bear McCreary was “thrilled” that his first vinyl release was to be his soundtrack for the ‘Outlander’ TV show.

• Kate Pierson found it “thrilling” that Nick Valensi has played guitar on two of her new songs.

• T In The Park Festival Director Geoff Ellis was “thrilled” that Afrojack would be DJing at this year’s festival.

• Pat Benatar and Neil Giraldo were “thrilled” to be releasing a live version of their song ‘Promises In The Dark’.

• Record Store Day was “thrilled” to be selling a record player for charity.

• Heritage Foundation President Vicki Michelle was “thrilled” that Red Bus Studios was the first building, rather than individual, to get a blue plaque.

• LA Reid “couldn’t be more thrilled” to be working with Mariah Carey again.

• Sony/ATV Senior Vice President of Creative Jennifer Knoepfle was “thrilled” that MoZella had renewed her publishing deal.

• Full Fat’s Dan Walsh was “absolutely thrilled” to be working with Toyota on some street music marketing thing.

• Doreen Ringer-Ross, BMI’s Vice President of Film/TV Relations was “thrilled” that Alexandre Desplat was getting a BMI Icon Award.

• Live Nation’s Graham Pullen was “thrilled” to be involved in the ‘VE Day 70: A Party To Remember’ concert.

• Daylight Music’s Ben Eshmade was “thrilled” that teremin player Sarah Angliss would be performing at one of his shows.

• AudioBoom CEO Robert Procter was “thrilled” that Alan Brazil And Mike ‘Porky’ Parry were reuniting for a new podcast.

• Believe Digital’s Oleg Bounetsky was “thrilled” that the company was sponsoring Rockcomm.

• Illustrator Hattie Collins was “thrilled” to being working with Lovebox.

• The Eden Project’s Marketing Director Rita Broe was “thrilled” to have Spandau Ballet performing at the Eden Sessions.

• Baio was “beyond thrilled” to sign a record deal with Glassnote.

• Scott Hueston was “thrilled” about his new job at PledgeMusic.

• Nettwerk’s Blair McDonald was “thrilled” to be working with Aaron Keylock. As was Silver Fox’s Peter McCamley. Keylock himself was just “really excited”.

• CD Baby’s Rob Filomena was “thrilled” that its users would get access to rights company Loudr’s technology.

• Tony Visconti was “thrilled” about how a live recording of him and Woody Woodmansey covering David Bowie’s ‘The Man Who Sold The World’ had turned out.

• Simon Le Bon was “thrilled” to be supporting this year’s Bike4Life festival.

• Katie Vinten was “thrilled” about being promoted to the role of Vice President A&R at Warner/Chappell.

• Dan Moore was “thrilled” to be the new Head Of Marketing And Membership at BASCA.

• Universal Publishing Production Music’s Kris Pilling was “thrilled” to be launching new hip hop-focussed unit, Block, in partnership with London Boy Entertainment.

• Steel Wool Entertainment CEO Kevin Morrow was “thrilled” that Fabienne Leys had joined the company.

• WellChild Chief Exec Colin Dyer was “thrilled” that the charity was working with the Isle Of Wight Festival.

• IV Rox were “so thrilled” to get some cash from the Momentum Music Fund.

• Billy Corgan reckoned that working for TNA Wrestling would be a “thrilling challenge”.

• Munira Mirza, Deputy Mayor For Education And Culture at London’s City Hall, was “thrilled that Ticketmaster share our love of supporting grassroots talent”.

• Ultra Records’ Patrick Moxey was “thrilled” to be involved with Simon Cowell’s DJ talent search show (the one that didn’t happen).

• Shazam’s Senior Music Manager Stephen Titmus was “thrilled” to be working with Resident Advisor.

• Charles Fitzgerald from BM Management was “thrilled” that one of his band’s, Gunship, had signed a deal with Metropolis Music Publishing.

• Tim Foxon from Help Musicians UK was “thrilled” to be working with PledgeMusic.

• Universal Music Publishing CEO Jody Gerson was “thrilled” to announce a new deal with Shaun Mendes. And Mendes’s manager Andrew Gertler was also “thrilled” about it too.

• Atlas Music Publishing’s Jennifer Blakeman said that “every department” at the company was “thrilled” to be working with Counting Crows.

• Iain Morris was “thrilled” to be joining Rdio.

• ICM Partners’ Steve Levine was “thrilled” that Rob Prinz and Nikki Wheeler were joining the company.

• Atlantic Records CEO Craig Kallman was “thrilled and gratified” by the response to ‘See You Again’ by Wiz Khalifa on Spotify.

• Live Nation’s Arthur Fogel was still “thrilled” that cash cow Madonna was back on tour.

• Red Bull Records Managing Director Greg Hammer was “thrilled” that “our patience and commitment to artist development has paid off” with AWOLNATION, after ‘Hollow Moon (Bad Wolf)’ went to number one on the Mediabase Alternative Chart.

• Singer-songwriter Tara Lee was “thrilled” to be working with BMG.

• Spotify’s Kevin Brown was “thrilled” that Ed Sheeran has racked up two billion streams on Spotify.

• 7digital CEO Simon Cole was “thrilled” that things were going well.

May

• AudioBoom CEO Amanda Brown was “thrilled” that its brand was being furthered by Triple J in Australia broadcasting Russell Brand’s podcast, which AudioBoom hosts.

• Alix Kram was “thrilled” to join Warner Music as WEA’s Vice President Of Global Brand Licensing.

• Jo Carter, Director of Nordoff Robbins was “thrilled” to be working with Pure Evil and the Isle Of Wight Festival.

• NMPA boss David Israelite was “thrilled” to agree terms with SoundCloud for its members’ content.

• Bobby Tanveer of Title Partner and Iridescent Entertainment was “thrilled” to partner with Life In Color and Privilege in Ibiza.

• Smalltown America was “thrilled” to sign Blacklisters.

• Sony/ATV Senior Creative Director Tyler Childs was “so thrilled” to be working with Walk The Moon. Walk The Moon’s manager Michael McDonald was “thrilled” that the band were working with Sony/ATV.

• Former Warner UK boss Christian Tattersfield was “thrilled” that his publishing company Good Soldier Songs was working with Kobalt.

• Deborah Hyacinth was “thrilled” with her new job at Universal Music.

• PPL Chair Fran Nevrkla was “genuinely thrilled” that Philip Pullman had agreed to speak at the organisation’s AGM.

• Open Garden CEO Micha Benoliel was “thrilled” to partner with Sunset and Disco Donnie Presents for Sunset Music Festival 2015.

• Sarah Boorman was “thrilled” to be joining Universal Music TV.

• Craig Ericson, President of Rise Records, was “thrilled” that BMG had bought the company.

• Viacom’s Michael Armstrong was “thrilled” that the BET Awards was back for another year.

• One-time major label exec Jason Flom was “thrilled” that his new company Lava was working with Kobalt.

• Downtown boss Justin Kalifowitz was “thrilled” that he’d bought Eagle-i.

• Michael Martin was “thrilled” to head up ASCAP’s Nashville Membership Office.

• Republic Records Executive Vice President Charlie Walk was “thrilled” to be part of Hailee Steinfel’s “musical journey”.

• Big Machine Label Group was “thrilled” to be working with PledgeMusic on ‘American Idol’ winner Nick Fradiani’s debut album.

• Councillor Alan Kerr, Deputy Leader of South Tyneside Council with responsibility for Culture and Leisure, was “thrilled” that ‘Carwash’ singer Gwen Dickey had agreed to play the South Tyneside Festival.

• Måns Zelmerlöw was “thrilled” to win the Eurovision Song Contest. As you would be.

• Nordoff Robbins CEO Julie Whelan was “thrilled” that Vevo had agreed to sponsor the Best Female Award at the O2 Silver Clef Lunch.

• Northern Pride Chari Mark Nichols was “thrilled” that a lot of acts from both the North of England and the rest of the UK would be performing at Newcastle Pride 2015.

• David Coverdale was “thrilled” on behalf of all members of Whitesnake about the response to their Deep Purple covers album, ‘The Purple Album’.

• Popshack CEO Conrad Withey was “thrilled and honoured” that CEO of MTV Networks International Bill Roedy had invested in the company.

• Living Bridges were “thrilled” with both how their latest album turned out and the work producer Jamie King did on it.

• ReverbNation Chief Creative Officer, Simon Perry was “thrilled” that its users were able to submit songs for use on the soundtrack of the new ‘Point Break’ remake.

• Great Escape Director Kat Morris was “thrilled” to announce a partnership with BIMM.

• Phil Collins was “thrilled” to be continuing his relationship with Warner Music.

• BBC exec Bob Shennan was “thrilled” that the BBC was going to broadcast stuff from loads of festivals over the summer.

June

• LoveLive CEO Richard Cohen was “thrilled to have [Rob Wells] on board”.

• SoundCloud CEO Alexander Ljung was “thrilled” about his new deal with Merlin.

• Halestorm frontwoman Lzzy Hale was “thrilled” to be coming to the UK on the Carnival Of Madness tour.

• Sony/ATV’s Guy Moot said that Gary Barlow has “thrilled” several generations.

• Pete Tong was “thrilled” to be releasing a mix in the ‘All Gone’ series.

• Kissy Sell Out was “thrilled” to be launching his ‘Kissy’s House Party’ radio show online.

• BMI Vice President Writer-Publisher Relations Atlanta Catherine Brewton was “thrilled” about Nile Rodgers getting a BMI Icon Award.

• Joe Frankland from PRS For Music Foundation was “thrilled” to be supporting the finalists of the Liverpool International Music Festival’s 2015 Academy programme.

• Warner/Chappell’s Jon Platt was “thrilled” to be working with MNEK.

• Conrad Withey, CEO of PopShack, was “thrilled” that Stewart Easterbrook had agreed to join the company’s board.

• The Lion And The Wolf, aka Thomas George, was “thrilled” about his upcoming UK tour.

• ATC Live Partner Alex Bruford was “thrilled” that Clementine Bunel and Cecile Communal were joining the company.

• Nickleback frontman Chad Kroeger was “definitely not thrilled” that he would not be able to sing for “many weeks” due to surgery to remove a cyst from his voicebox. I couldn’t comment on everybody else.

• Mike Krol was “beyond thrilled” that he had been signed by Merge Records.

• Graham Henderson, President of Music Canada, was “thrilled” that Canada’s sound recording copyright term had ben extended from 50 to 70 years.

• Seed Scientific CEO Adam Bly was “thrilled” to be working with Spotify following an acquisition by the streaming service.

• Cash Cash’s JP Makhlouf was thrilled to be heading out on tour with Tritonal.

• Universal Music’s Mike Tunnicliffe was “thrilled” about a partnership with Marriott International because “they share our determination to build progressive, creative, long-term relationships with brand partners”. Amen.

• Former AEG Live UK boss Rob Hallett was “thrilled” that Standon Calling was his new company Robomagic’s “first festival connection”.

• Island founder Chris Blackwell was “thrilled” that his Blue Mountain Music company had done a publishing administration deal with Kobalt.

• RED Distribution President Bob Morelli reckoned the company was “thrilled” to be in business with Jazz At Lincoln Center’s new Blue Engine Records label.

• Meredith Gardner was “thrilled” that she would get to work with Josh Kahn as they both joined Capitol Music Group.

• New York Senator Chuck Schumer was “thrilled” to be guest conductor of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir at Carnegie Hall.

July

• Meredith Gardners was “thrilled” to have been promoted with Josh Kahn to the joint role of Vice President of Digital Marketing & Product at Universal’s Capitol Music Group in the US.

• Pledge Music President Malcolm Dunbar was “thrilled and delighted” that his company was working on “one of the biggest albums of the year, by one of the most important UK bands of the last decade” – ie ‘Anthems For Doomed Youth’ by The Libertines.

• Datsik was “super thrilled” to be playing alongside the “epic bass squadron” that made up the rest of the Safe In Sound festival line-up.

• Singer-songwriter Judith Hill was “thrilled” to have been signed by Imagem.

• Reza Davoudi from artist management firm nineteen95 was “thrilled” that Losers had signed to BMG.

• Everything Everything’s Jeremy Pritchard said the band were “thrilled” to have met Kraftwerk’s Ralf Hütter backstage at last year’s T In The Park.

• Wye Oak’s Andy Stack was “thrilled” to be performing with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra.

• The BBC’s Andrew Scott was “thrilled” to be adding offline listening to the BBC iPlayer Radio app.

• Sam Taylor of dotFans was “thrilled” at the response the company had received halfway through its trademark priority period.

• The lawyer representing Marvin Gaye’s family against Pharrell Williams and Robin Thicke was “thrilled” for his clients and the jury in the case.

• Peter Herman was “thrilled to now co-produce The Nile Rodgers FreakOut! Festival®”.

• Pete Tong was “thrilled” to be teaming up with John Monkman on Hot Since 82 Ibiza 2015.

• Colin MacIntyre – aka Mull Historical Society – was “thrilled” to sign a publishing deal with Xtra Mile and BMG.

• Communion MD Jamie Emsell was “thrilled” to sign up to Universal’s artist services division Caroline International.

• Michelle Marks was “thrilled” to be Syco’s new Marketing Director.

• Beatport’s Greg Consiglio said the SFX owned company was “thrilled” about a new partnership with Spotify.

• Time Inc UK Group Advertising Director Romano Sidoli was “thrilled” that Austin, Texas had agreed to sponsor the NME Awards again.

• SB Management Steve Ambler said that he was “thrilled” that Oh Wonder, and specifically the half of the duo he represents, Josephine Vander Gucht, had signed to Imagem.

• Dermot McCormack, President of Video and AOL Studio, was thrilled by a nomination for AOL Originals at the Emmy Awards.

• Nervo were “thrilled to bits” that Kylie Minogue had asked to add guest vocals to one of their tracks.

• Liverpool Music Week’s Mike Deane was “thrilled” to announce Godspeed You! Black Emperor as headliners.

• St Paul Mayor Chris Coleman was “thrilled” that the Doomtree festival was coming to his town.

• The Beat’s Dave Wakeling was “thrilled” about all the stuff the band was doing.

• PRS for Music Foundation’s Executive Director Vanessa Reed was “thrilled” to be launching the next round of Beyond Borders funding.

• Uber’s Head Of Partnership was Marshall Osborne “thrilled” to be heading a partnership with Kygo. He added that the company was also “pumped”.

• Just So Festival Direct Sarah Bird was “absolutely thrilled” to receive the ID&C Grass Roots Festival Bursary.

• The Moon Kids was “really thrilled” to be releasing a single on the very first Global Release Day.

• Universal Music Publishing CEO Jody Gerson was “thrilled” that she had promoted Jessica Rivera. Rivera, if you were wondering, was “excited and grateful”.

• Universal Publishing Production Music’s Andrew Stannard was “thrilled” that The Horrors’ Tom Furse was going to create some music for the company.

• Samantha & Shauna from the Hang Fire Smokehouse were “thrilled and honoured” to be asked to host The Feast Collective at Bestival.

August

• Gabriella Ianni was “thrilled” about her new job at INgrooves.

• Emilie of Emilie & Ogden was “thrilled” that Taylor Swift had shared a video of the duo covering her song ‘Style’.

• Steve ‘N’ Seagulls were “thrilled” by their own audience.

• Kobalt boss Willard Ahdritz was “thrilled” about the company’s collecting society AMRA’s “unique ability to make direct deals with the leading streaming players who have a true global reach”. In this case (and the first case, for that matter) Apple Music.

• Bob Roback was “thrilled” to be joining the Isolation Network.

• Eddy Cue was “thrilled” with “the numbers” Apple Music had managed “so far”.

• Pluto TV CEO Tom Ryan was “thrilled” that Spotify’s Ken Parks had jumped ship to his company.

• Catalyst’s Al Hardiman was “thrilled” to be partnering with Warner Music on some biopics.

• Fiona Ross of clothes shop Evans was “thrilled” to be working with Jesse And The Bandits on its #StyleHasNoSize campaign.

• Rdio boss man Anthony Bay was “thrilled” to add 500 US radio stations to the streaming service.

• Boy George was “thrilled” to be a coach on ‘The Voice’.

• Syco Music’s Sonny Takhar was “thrilled” to have Tyler Brown as his new of Head Of A&R.

• Jonas Siljemark, President of Warner Music Nordics was “thrilled to be releasing music that fans clearly love”.

• Giles McNamee was “thrilled” that he had managed to keep London venue The Troubadour open.

• North East Festival Director John Adamson was “thrilled” that people would be able to go to the festival.

• Green Day were “thrilled” about switching from ASCAP to SESAC.

• Announcing the release of his latest album, Blues guitarist Walter Trout was “thrilled about this album, about my life and about my music”. Which is nice.

• Liverpool Music Week’s Mike Deane was “thrilled” to announce Richard Hawley as headliner.

• Breast cancer awareness charity CoppaFeel! was “thrilled that our favourite singer, Boob Ninja and all round legend Rae Morris” had involved the organisation in her new video.

• Alanis Morrissette was “thrilled” to “honour and reflect on” the songs on her debut album via a 20th anniversary release.

• Head of the Citi®/AAdvantage® portfolio at Citi Cards David Parkes was “thrilled” to partnerwith Imagine Dragons for an exclusive show for Citi®/AAdvantage® card members.

• Terry Jones was “thrilled” that Kylie Minogue had recorded a song to play over the end titles of his new film ‘Absolutely Anything’. Kylie said that as a child, Jones and the rest of Monty Python had “thrilled, baffled and entertained” her whole family.

• Reliant Music Ventures founder John Dexter was “thrilled” to be working with that Smash Mouth.

September

• The Weeknd was “thrilled” to being playing the Apple Music Festival.

• Harwell was “thrilled” about a new documentary all about him.

• Radio Academy chair Chris Burns was “thrilled” that a load of tip top radio people had been available to speak at the Radio Festival.

• Gary Gorman was “thrilled” to become Senior Vice President Alternative Promotions at Capitol Music Group.

• Jewellery designer Ian Barrett found it “thrilling” that musicians like Pink Floyd’s Syd Barrett with Sean Lennon, Andy Bell of Ride, Ben of MGMT and The Teardrop Explodes’ Julian Cope were all wearing his work.

• Canadian Music Week President Neill Dixon was “thrilled” that Cameron Wright was returning to the event as Vice President of Operations and Live Programming.

• Ant & Dec were “thrilled” to be hosting the BRIT Awards again.

• The Shires, like The Weeknd, were “thrilled” to be playing the Apple Music Festival.

• totallyradio.com producer Nats Spada was “thrilled” that a load of tip top radio people had been available to speak at Radio//Future Sounds.

• Sister Sledge were “thrilled” to perform for the Pope on his visit to their hometown of Philadelphia.

• Music Canada Live Executive Director Erin Benjamin was “thrilled” to be working with Canadian Music Week.

• Adrian Karvinen was “thrilled” to join Three Six Zero Group.

• James Morrison was “thrilled” to be on the line-up for One Big Night For Children In Need.

• Cuffe & Taylor director Peter Taylor was “thrilled” to be promoting another Rod Stewart tour.

• Somethin Else was “thrilled” to announce a “multi-platform collaboration [that] will work across a daily updated blog site, social media, Channel 4 platforms and linear TV”.

• Freeze Big Air Festival Director Andrew Topham was “thrilled” to have booked Nile Rodgers and Chic, even though there can’t be many festivals left that they haven’t now played.

• Warner Music Group CEO Steve Cooper was “thrilled” that Nonesuch Records President Bob Hurwitz was staying on at the label in some capacity, even if he’d decided to step away from its day-to-day running.

• Help Musicians UK’s Talent Programme Manager Tim Foxon was “thrilled” that artists were applying for money from the Emerging Artists Fund.

• Razor & Tie’s Cliff Chenfeld and Craig Balsam were jointly “thrilled” about their new alliance with Concord Bicycle Music.

October

• Björk was “thrilled” that Bloom had agreed to remix her track ‘Black Lake’.

• Crowdmix founder Ian Roberts found the arrival of Rob Wells at the company “thrilling”.

• Larry Mattera was “thrilled” to be joining Warner Bros Records.

• Frontwoman of Iron Maiden tribute act The Iron Maidens thought the prospect of playing in London, the city where Iron Maiden formed, was “thrilling”.

• Jon Platt was “thrilled” to succeed Cameron Strang as Warner/Chappell’s CEO.

• CEO of The Mascot Group, Ed Van Zijl reckoned that “the whole Mascot Label Group team” without exception was “thrilled” that Black Stone Cherry had agreed to sign a record deal with the company.

• Sony/ATV VP International David Ventura said the company was “thrilled” about signing Kygo. He then said it a second time shortly afterward, just in case anyone forgot.

• Amazing CEO Paul Campbell was “thrilled” about signing Boy Jumps Ship to Amazing Record Co.

• Michael Bolton was “thrilled” to be touring the UK.

• Tori Kelly was “thrilled” about the surprises she had up her sleeve for her performance at the MTV EMAs.

• Electric Jukebox CEO Rob Lewis was “thrilled” to be working with 7digital on his hilarious new product.

• Ella Eyre was “so thrilled” that she’d been asked back to perform at the MOBOs.

• Tiesto was “thrilled” to have remixed Faithless for their 20th anniversary compilation.

• Funeral For A Friend frontman Matthew Davies-Kreye said the band were “so thrilled” to have Shai Hulud supporting them on their farewell tour.

• Sony/ATV UK MD Guy Moot was “thrilled” that Sia had extended her publishing deal with the company.

• Line Music CEO Jun Masuda was “thrilled” to be working with Omnifone’s licensing team.

• Marc Carey, European Marketing Director at Hard Rock International was “thrilled” to have Pixie Lott playing the London branch of the Hard Rock Cafe.

• Canadian Music Week’s Neill Dixon was “thrilled” that Andy Kim is to be inducted into the Canadian Music Industry Hall of Fame.

• Jody Gerson was “absolutely thrilled” that Luke McGrellis Had been appointed Universal Music Publishing Group’s Vice President Creative.

• Graham Norton was “thrilled” to be involved in that ‘Adele At The BBC’ thing.

• Trevor Nelson was “thrilled” to be involved in the new Notting Hill Academy Of Music.

• Artist manager Sarah Stennett was “thrilled” to launch First Access Entertainment with Access Industries. She was particularly looking forward to “leveraging the synergies across our respective businesses”.

• Cuffe & Taylor director Peter Taylor was “thrilled” to sign a deal with Scarborough Borough Council to present all concerts at the Scarborough Open Air Theatre for the next five years.

• Artist Legacy Group CEO Ashley Austin was “thrilled” about a new joint venture with Sony Music.

• Danny Bryant was “really thrilled” that Walter Trout had agreed to play on one of his tracks.

• Inigo Zabala, President of Warner Music Latin America, was “thrilled” about a strategic partnership with Romanian record label Roton Music.

November

• Mark Sutherland was “thrilled” to become editor of Music Week.

• Masked Ball organiser Kelvin Batt was “thrilled” about how successful the recent Halloween event had been.

• Sony/ATV CEO Marty Bandier was “thrilled” that Fetty Wap had signed to the company.

• Carly Paoli was “thrilled” to have performed at a show for EMMA for PEACE.

• NME’s editor-in-chief was “thrilled” that The Maccabees had performed at the launch party for the NME Awards 2016 with Austin, Texas.

• Canadian Music Week’s Neill Dixon was “thrilled” that André Menard And Alain Simard are to be inducted into the Canadian Music Industry Hall of Fame.

• Sony/ATV UK President Guy Moot was “thrilled” to have signed WSTRN.

• Just So Festival Director Rowan Hoban was “thrilled” to partner with Attitude Is Everything.

• Big New Year CEO Jordan Gross was “thrilled” to be working with Sixth Media.

• Darcey Bussell was “absolutely thrilled” with the success of her ballet music compilation.

• Nina Condron of Horus Music was “thrilled” to be sponsoring Independent Label Week.

• Serious Director (ie Director of Serious, though I’m sure he’s very serious about it) John Cumming was “thrilled” to announce Take Five Edition XI at the London Jazz Festival.

• Paradise Lost spokesperson Jason Newman was “thrilled” that the festival was going to bring tourists to Jamaica.

• Steve Hackett was “thrilled” to be playing the Stone Free Festival.

• Film producer Mike Lerner was “thrilled” to be working with director Yoni Gal and Steel Pulse’s David Hinds on a crowdfunding campaign to complete a documentary about the band.

• Deezer UK & Ireland MD Christian Harris was “thrilled” that Three customers would get access to the streaming service as part of a new partnership.

• Kem was “thrilled” to be working with Kobalt.

• President of STX Entertainment Sophie Watts was “thrilled” to sign a new publishing agreement with Universal Music Publishing Group.

• Charlotte Gunn was “thrilled” to become the new NME Digital Editor. “This is the brand that got me into music”, she said. Good old brands.

• Nina Mistry-Stevens, Senior Account Director at Globe, Universal Music UK’s creative & commercial partnerships division, was “thrilled” to support the WWF through some thing with Will Young.

• BBC Worldwide music man Salim Mukaddam was “thrilled” to be involved in that ‘Adele At The BBC’ thing.

• Warner Music Group CEO Steve Cooper was “thrilled” that David Bither was taking over the role of Nonesuch Records President from Bob Hurwitz who had decided to step away from its day-to-day running.

• Elton John said Island was “so thrilled” to have signed him.

• YouTube star Kurt Hugo Schneider was “thrilled” to be working with Sony Music on a new YouTube thing.

• ITV Director Of Television Peter Fincham was “thrilled” that ‘The Voice’ was shifting over to his company from the BBC.

• Machine Management founder Iain Watt was “thrilled” that Sophie Bloggs was joining the company.

• Kobalt’s Senior VP of Creative, Whitney Daane, was both “excited” and “thrilled” to have signed a worldwide administration agreement with veteran country music hit writer Bob DiPiero.

• Field Day founder Tom Baker was “thrilled” about PJ Harvey headlining the festival next year.

• Xtra Mile MD Charlie Caplowe was “thrilled” to sign Ducking Punches.

• Cuffe & Taylor director Peter Taylor was “thrilled” to have booked Will Young for Symphony At The Tower next year.

• Amazon Tickets General Manager Geraldine Wilson was “thrilled” that Florence And The Machine and Kendrick Lamar will be playing the British Summer Time festival next year.

• Huka Entertainment Founder AJ Niland was “thrilled” that Evan Harrison would be taking over from him as CEO.

December

• Norman Perry, President of Perryscope Productions, was “amazed and thrilled” at the speed with which the company had “been able to secure top notch licensing partners to develop a fresh new line of AC/DC branded services and merchandise”.

• Paul Kahn was “thrilled” to be named Executive Vice President & Chief Financial Officer at Warner/Chappell Music.

• Sony/ATV Senior Vice-President Creative Jennifer Knoepfle said the company was “thrilled” to be extending its deal with Jack Antonoff.

• Recording Academy CEO Neil Portnow was “thrilled” to give people a taste of Music’s Biggest Night® through the ‘2016 Grammy® Nominees’ compilation.

• Universal Music Group CEO Lucian Grainge was “thrilled” to recognise “the leadership and contributions of women across the music business” along with Billboard, which had just given Universal Music Publishing CEO Jody Gershon Executive Of The Year at its Women In Music Awards.

• Melvin Benn was “thrilled” to announced Red Hot Chili Peppers as headliners at next year’s Reading and Leeds festivals.

• Cuffe & Taylor director Peter Taylor was “absolutely thrilled” to be announcing some acts on the line-up of next year’s Lytham Festival.

• Katie Vinten was “thrilled and honoured” to be promoted to the role of Co-Head Of A&R, US (excluding Nashville), along with Ryan Press. He was “thankful”.

• K-Klass was “thrilled and excited” to be doing a Cream Classics show with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra at Liverpool’s Anglican Cathedral.

• RAC’s Andre Allen Anjos was “thrilled” to be nominated for a Grammy in the Best Remixed Recording, Non-Classical category.

• Pandora CEO Brian McAndrews reckoned the streaming service was “thrilled” to do a direct licensing deal with Warner/Chappell.

• Demi Lovato was “thrilled” to do deals with Universal Music Publishing for her music and her label, Safehouse Records.

• Twitter UK’s Head of Entertainment Partnerships Georgina Parnell was “thrilled” to have Vevo as a partner on the UK launch of Twitter’s new Moments feature.

• Cuffe & Taylor director Peter Taylor was “thrilled” to be promoting an Aled Jones tour.

• Lissie was “absolutely thrilled” to be playing next year’s Isle Of Wight Festival (even though she said “this year” in her quote).

• BBC Radio 1 and 1Xtra’s Head Of Programmes Rhys Hughes was “thrilled” to have Nina Kraviz, Oliver Heldens, Kode9 and Dub Phizix & Strategy joining the line-up for Radio 1’s Residency in January.

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Tuesday 22 December 2015, 10:59 | By

Downtown Music Publishing does direct deal with Pandora

Business News Deals Digital Labels & Publishers

Downtown Music

If there is one thing you can say about 2015, it’s that direct deals with Pandora were definitely in vogue in the US music publishing community. In fact, anyone showing up at the American music publishers’ annual Christmas cheese and wine bash without a direct deal with Pandora was laughed out of the room.

No one was laughing at Downtown Music Publishing though, which has just inked a direct deal with the personalised radio service. It follows fellow indie Songs Music Publishing and major publishers Sony/ATV and Warner/Chappell in signing a Pandora agreement.

BMG, of course, went direct with the digital firm last year, way before everyone else. And to think, it was BMG being laughed at during last Christmas’s cheese and wine bash. “You did a direct deal with Pandora”, the other publishing fellows guffawed. “You big fat suckers you”. But not this year, oh no. This year BMG got to be all smug about everything, and had first dibs on the gorgonzola. It was quite the party.

Now I think about it, I hope the US music publishers don’t actually have a cheese and wine bash each Christmas, otherwise this little story I’m telling might turn out to be libellous. Anyway, just know this: Pandora used to license all of its song rights via the collective licensing system; but collective licensing rules Stateside are up for review and that may not be possible by this time next year; so Pandora is pre-empting the change by doing direct deals already.

Now here’s Downtown CEO Justin Kalifowitz with a quote: “This agreement with Pandora is a milestone in our on-going mission to deliver equitable, accurate and timely payments for our songwriters. It also serves as a reminder that songwriter royalties are best negotiated in a free market. We’re looking forward to working more closely with Pandora in optimising this agreement and know that, in the words of Cy Coleman, the best is yet to come!”

The best is yet to come? That’s going to be quite the cheese tray at the 2016 bash then.

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Tuesday 22 December 2015, 10:57 | By

Warner Music invests in Instrumental

Business News Deals Labels & Publishers

Instrumental

Warner Music has just invested a load of cash into Instrumental, the company formerly known as PopShack. So that’s nice. For the company formerly known as PopShack.

Instrumental is an artist discovery and development business that focuses on new acts emerging through that social media thing they have now. The start-up already had an alliance with Warner via its CEO, former Warner exec Conrad Withey.

Under the new deal, the mini-major will provide financial backing and also collaborate with Instrumental on various things, like A&R, artist development, YouTube channel management, release promotion, brand and content partnerships. Oh, and Warner will also get first dibs on acts signed up to Instrumental’s new artist management division, Instrumental Artists.

Confirming the new arrangement, Withey said this: “This is an extremely exciting development for the business. The investment and partnership gives artists joining Instrumental the confidence that we can help them go from social stars to the top of the charts. Warner Music is a company I know well and the whole team at Instrumental are excited about the potential of this partnership in the UK and around the world to unlock value for artists and brands”.

Warner Music UK CEO Max Lousada, who will join the board of Instrumental as a non-executive director, added: “We want to be where creators are and we want to be where fans are. The multi-channel network space is somewhere those communities are connecting in rapidly growing numbers, so this investment opens up a number of exciting opportunities for us both creatively and commercially”.

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Tuesday 22 December 2015, 10:54 | By

Murray Chalmers PR inks integrated comms deal with Elton John company

Business News Marketing & PR

Elton John

Music PR firm Murray Chalmers PR last week announced a new deal with Elton John’s Rocket Entertainment Group, which will see the agency take on responsibility for “the integrated communication needs of the organisation”, which will include providing comms support to John himself.

Confirming the new deal, as well as the recent promotion of staffer Sarah Henderson to the role of director at his company, Chalmers told reporters: “Working with Rocket Entertainment Group and Elton John is a big personal thrill for me, and confirms my view that we have one of the best artist rosters in the business. I’m also incredibly happy that Sarah Henderson is now a director of the company – she and I have worked very closely over the last few years to build MCPR into what it is today. Onwards!”

Meanwhile, speaking from John’s side of the table, Rocket Entertainment CEO David Furnish said: “With an artist of Elton’s stature and the sheer depth of his back catalogue, it’s extremely challenging to break through the diverse clutter of communications that now exist to make fans aware that he’s still creating brilliant new music. Relying solely on traditional press just doesn’t sell records these days. We moved our business over to Murray Chalmers as his talents embrace the multitude of ways in which music fans consume and get their information about music today”.

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Tuesday 22 December 2015, 10:52 | By

Toni Tambourine joins Neighbourhood PR

Business News Marketing & PR

Neighbourhood PR

Neighbourhood PR has appointed Toni Tambourine, most recently Head Of Press at Listen Up, an Associate Partner of the company. He will be the London point of contact for the Newcastle Upon Tyne-based company.

“Neighbourhood PR is an extremely well respected agency in the industry that is home to some of the most innovative and creative artists around”, says Tambourine. “Neil Bainbridge is a hard working, well connected, young and innovative director who has a clear view of how he wants the business to develop. Together we will be a formidable team”.

That very Neil Bainbridge, founder of the company, adds: “[Toni is] someone that I’ve personally admired for over a decade, both in work and as a friend; I’ve always been able to turn to him for trusted and valued advice. I’m confident that Toni’s fantastic, well nurtured network of contacts and vast experience across all manners of artists will add significant strength to the team and what I feel is one of the best rosters of electronic acts”.

“His position as Associate Partner creates huge scope in our international campaigns, solidifies Neighbourhood’s ethos and continues to drive the company upwards”, he continues. “He wears great hats, loves coffee and has impeccable taste in music”.

Gotta love a good hat. Neighbourhood’s label clients include !K7, Monkeytown, Fabric, Sony Music, Kobalt and Warner Music.

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Tuesday 22 December 2015, 10:50 | By

Madonna won’t be silenced, even by her own people

Artist News Gigs & Festivals

Madonna

Madonna has hit out at those who try to silence her. Specifically those who try to silence her by cutting off the power at her shows. And even more specifically, those who try to silence her by cutting off the power at her shows in Glasgow.

The singer was performing in the city on Sunday night, and after another late start, found the power to the stage shut off before she’d decided that she’d finished singing. And so she led an a capella singalong in the dark to close her performance.

She then posted on Instagram yesterday: “We don’t stop till it’s over Glasgow! Don’t try to silence the Queen”.

By the Queen, she means herself, not the Queen, despite the capitalisation. But who was silencing her? It certainly sounds like the venue shut her down after she went on too long, doesn’t it? But a spokesperson for the Hydro Arena told the BBC: “Madonna finished her agreed set and then chose to come on for another song. By that stage, all the power and control equipment had already been disconnected by her own production engineers. I would stress that this was not a venue decision”.

Earlier this month, at a show in Manchester, Madonna referred to fans who were annoyed that she’d been an hour late on stage due to technical problems as “diva bitches”.

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Tuesday 22 December 2015, 10:49 | By

Björk launches virtual reality iPhone app

Artist News Digital Releases

Björk

Björk has launched her 360° virtual reality film for her song ‘Stonemilker’ as an app for iOS users. Filmed in Iceland by director Andrew Thomas Huang, the video was originally released on YouTube earlier this year.

Says the musician of the video: “This came about as a spontaneous fruit of mine and Andrew Huang’s collaboration. We found ourselves in Iceland one day with nothing to do and a 360 camera lying about. We discussed its potential for intimacy and Andrew then suggested we take it to the beach where the song was written. It immediately rang true for me as that location has a beautiful 360° panoramic view which matches the cyclical fugue like movement in the song. If the song has a shape it is sort of like a circle that just goes on forever”.

Andrew Thomas Huang adds: “We captured ‘Stonemilker’ in November on the westernmost tip of Reykjavik, an island called Grótta on the Seltjarnarnes peninsula, which is the very site by the lighthouse where she wrote the song and recorded much of Vulnicura. After arriving in Iceland with a variety of camera gear and open minds, and after my in-depth conversations with Björk at her home about the circular nature of the song, we spontaneously decided to shoot a performance of ‘Stonemilker’ on the beach where it was written, using the 360° Vrse.works camera with the intent of capturing an intimate performance for virtual reality in the round”.

“Because of the all-seeing nature of this camera” he continues, “my whole crew and I ducked behind boulders, leaving Bjork alone with the camera, not knowing what we would be ultimately capturing. All I remember is staring at the pearlescent purple seashells beneath my feet throughout the takes listening to her strings reverberating against the wet tidepool rocks, popping my head up occasionally to steal glances of Björk in her duet with the camera”.

You can download the app, and view the video in either ‘magic window’ mode or in full VR with a headset.

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Tuesday 22 December 2015, 10:47 | By

CMU’s One Liners: Christmas number one, BMG, TFI Friday, more

Artist News Business News Deals Industry People Labels & Publishers Media One Liners Releases

BMG

Other notable announcements and developments today…

• BMG has expanded its production music business by acquiring Beds & Beats, which provides music beds for the UK radio sector. BMG UK boss Alexi Cory-Smith is “delighted” with the deal, which will also bring Beds & Beats founder Dave Bethell to the music rights firm.

• Molly Neuman, who has been Interim President of the American Association Of Independent Music since Rich Bengloff stood down from the top job there earlier this year, has confirmed she is not staying in the role long-term, and will instead become Head Of Music for Kickstarter. A new A2IM President will be confirmed shortly.

• ‘TFI Friday’ has been let off by Ofcom with a slapped wrist after actor Nicholas Hoult swore on the revived show before the 9pm watershed. Hoult had been told not to swear and was not someone known for doing so in interviews, said Channel 4. Also, Chris Evans apologised immediately and it was only eight minutes before the watershed. All of which means they’ve all been let off.

• The Hennepin County Medical Examiner’s Office ruled last week that Scott Weiland died from an accidental drugs overdose, after finding a mix of cocaine, alcohol and ecstasy in his system. The former Stone Temple Pilots frontman was found dead on his tour bus earlier this month.

• Justin Bieber’s ‘Love Yourself’ last night nudged ahead of the Lewisham & Greenwich NHS Choir’s ‘A Bridge Over You’ in the modest dash for Christmas number one. I think that means that JB and his fans don’t believe in universal healthcare for all. And he seemed so nice.

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Tuesday 22 December 2015, 10:44 | By

Lenny Kravitz accused of illegal dentistry in the Bahamas

And Finally Artist News

Lenny Kravitz

Lenny Kravitz has been accused of practising illegal dentistry in the Bahamas. Or at least running a dental clinic without the necessary paperwork. I should make it clear that there is no evidence that he was pulling teeth himself. Even if his music might sometimes make it feel that way.

A temporary free clinic in Gregory Town on the island of Eleuthera, set up by the musician’s Let Love Rule Foundation, was shut down by police and immigration officials on Monday, after Kravitz failed to provide proper documentation for the four day initiative.

According to The Eleutheran Newspaper, a police report stated that officers had raided the clinic following a tip off that “a group of persons [were] operating an illegal clinic at the Catholic Hall in Gregory Town”.

Kravitz himself was apparently on site, the report continuing: “While there [police] spoke with Mr Lenny Kravitz who reported that he was hosting the free clinic through his Let Love Rule Foundation in conjunction with the GLO Good Foundation. Mr Kravitz was not able to produce documentation authorising the event, as a result he was informed that he was in breach of the Immigration and Public Health Acts and was instructed to cease all operations until proper authorisation was obtained”.

The newspaper reports that among the people being treated at the time, one was having dentures fitted and another was undergoing root canal surgery. It’s not clear if these procedures were completed. “This could have been handled much more diplomatically… and was so embarrassing”, said one patient.

It is expected that the clinic will re-open in the new year, once proper paperwork has been obtained.

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Monday 21 December 2015, 11:09 | By

CMU Approved in 2015 playlist

CMU Approved CMU Playlists

Grimes

Christmas is coming and the goose is getting fat, but not as fat as this playlist I’ve just stuffed with eleven hours of excellent music.

Yes, we’re taking a break from writing about new music over the festive period, which gives you plenty of time to catch up with all the acts we included in the CMU Approved column in 2015. Pretty much all of them are featured, with just the odd track here and there that’s no yet on Spotify.

Nestled within are names you’ll recognise, alongside others which are less familiar or who you just forgot about. And, of course, there are our five favourite acts of 2015, revealed over the course of last week. Plus right at the end you’ll find the two best songs released in 2015. But I suggest you switch on shuffle, hit play and let each track hit you at random. It’s all good. All of it. You will not dislike one thing.

Get listening here:

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Monday 21 December 2015, 11:01 | By

SFX bondholders want a Live Nation acquisition for Christmas

Business News Live Business Top Stories

SFX

SFX’s money-lenders are busy hoping that Live Nation will acquire the flagging EDM powerhouse, according to Reuters.

As much previously reported, this has been a tricky year for the dance festival operator and Beatport owner, after founder Robert FX Sillerman twice aborted plans to buy up all the shares he doesn’t currently control and take the firm back into private ownership.

The insecurity those plans created, coupled with some disappointing financials, has resulted in the firm’s share price tanking. As a result its debt pile of around $300 million is now nearly ten times the market cap valuation of the company, ie the total value of all shares issued, which currently stands at $32.63 million.

SFX recently confirmed it had asked its bankers to investigate a possible restructuring of its debts. Then it was rumoured that Cream founder James Barton – currently a Live Nation executive – was in talks to join the company, possibly replacing Sillerman as CEO. Certainly the consensus is that shareholders and money-lenders no longer trust the SFX founder to run the company.

Another option, it seems, is for Barton’s current employer to take control of SFX, which would be history repeating itself, given that media giant Clear Channel bought Sillerman’s original SFX venue business back in the day, subsequently spinning that venture off as a standalone company, aka Live Nation.

It is thought that the live entertainment giant was among the companies to express an interest in SFX’s assets when the latter’s directors were accepting bids earlier this year. Though, given the EDM firm’s liabilities, Live Nation is seemingly in no major rush to complete any deal, preferring to wait and see what the bankers can do with SFX’s debts.

But, says Reuters, for SFX’s bondholders, a Live Nation acquisition would be the best possible option, because they could get their money back – and a profit – as part of any complete takeover of the EDM firm. Though, if Live Nation were to pick off SFX’s most successful festival brands and buy them individually instead, bondholders might be deprived their pay day.

Live Nation has been boosting its EDM credentials in recent years, not least by acquiring Barton’s Cream business, and an SFX buy would make it a dominant force in the dance music sector. Though, given the US-led EDM bubble arguably burst this year, it remains to be seen just how much Live Nation would be willing to pay. Buying a few slices of SFX, and avoiding the EDM firm’s debt liabilities, would likely be attractive.

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