Friday 29 December 2017, 15:26 | By

Film set amidst Bataclan attack put on hold

Business News Live Business Media

Bataclan

A TV movie set amidst the terrorist attacks that occurred in Paris on 13 Nov 2015 – which included the shooting at an Eagles Of Death Metal concert at the Bataclan venue where 89 people died – has been put on hold after 37,000 people signed a petition against the production.

As news of the film – called ‘Ce Soir-Là’ – first emerged, a petition was set up by Claire Peltier, whose partner was killed in the Bataclan shooting.

Addressing the President of French state-owned broadcaster France Télévisions, which was planning on airing the film on its France 2 channel, Peltier said in her petition that she was “scandalised that such a project could see the light of day so soon after this violent event”.

‘Ce Soir-Là’ – which translates as ‘That Night’ – seemingly centres on a fictional romance between a single mother and an Afghan man who meet on the night of the attacks as they rescue survivors.

A spokesperson for France 2 confirmed yesterday that it had now decided to postpone the project until its producers have had the opportunity to consult more widely with groups representing victims of the attacks.

The broadcaster added that no screening date had been set anyway, as the channel’s management are yet to see the finished product.

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Friday 29 December 2017, 14:55 | By

Bandcamp puts the spotlight on cassette revival with end-of-year stats

Business News Digital

Bandcamp

Direct-to-fan service Bandcamp has put out some end-of-year stats and has chosen to focus on the cassette revival that has been quietly occurring on its platform this year.

In a blog post published earlier this week, Bandcamp’s Ben Walker writes: “17,872 tapes were released on Bandcamp this year. That’s an average of almost 50 tapes per day or one every 29 minutes”. Looking into how many of those cassette releases actually resulted in sales, Walker then adds: “In 2017, artists sold 22.6 years of cassette-based audio on Bandcamp. That’s 17,076km of beautiful, crunchy tape”.

Earlier in his post, Walker concedes that he has focused on the surprising number of tape sales made on Bandcamp this year mainly because of his own passion for the format. He writes: “I started buying cassettes from Crash Symbols when I joined Bandcamp five years ago and never looked back. There’s a tape from Sub Pop sitting on my desk that arrived in a padded envelope as I was writing this very post. I love tapes”.

He goes on: “I assumed that everyone would eventually catch up with the trend, and that my friends would all be reinstalling tape decks in their cars by now. For some reason it’s taking longer than expected. So I thought it might be useful to bring everyone up to speed on the latest tape stats. If you’re a tape-lover, you can share this post and convert all your friends and family”.

Of course, many artists putting out cassette releases also allow fans to then access the music contained on said tape digitally. So just because a fan buys a cassette doesn’t necessarily mean they are listening to their favourites tunes on a cassette player. And, of course, even if the number of releases and sales is up, cassettes remain very much a niche format. A bit like with the vinyl revival. Only more so.

But still, for cassette fans, Bandcamp’s stats should provide just a little bit of end-of-year excitement. And for artists with the right kind of fanbase, this is another example of how you might be able to monetise the direct-to-fan relationship even when your fans are mainly consuming music via the streaming platforms.

Meanwhile, Bandcamp has made a slide show featuring some of the cassettes sold on its platform this year.

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Wednesday 27 December 2017, 14:14 | By

MCPS begins IMPEL spin-off

Business News Labels & Publishers

The UK’s Music Publishers Association has formally begun the process of spinning off its digital licensing entity IMPEL into a standalone business, with the formal name IMPEL Collective Management Limited.

IMPEL, which licenses digital rights across Europe on behalf of a number of independent music publishers, has to date operated as part of MCPS, the mechanical rights licensing body owned by the MPA.

The IMPEL scheme was created after the big five music publishers pulled their digital rights out of the collective licensing system so they could do direct multi-territory deals with download and streaming platforms. IMPEL allows the indies to license streaming services in a similar way.

As with the big five, IMPEL licenses these streaming services in partnership with PRS, because streaming platforms exploit both the mechanical and performing rights in songs, and while the publishers control the former, PRS actually controls the latter.

MPA chief Jane Dyball confirmed that IMPEL would become its own standalone entity earlier this year, stating that: “It is now no longer appropriate for a business which operates for a section of the MCPS membership – and, for that matter, MPA membership – and which has its own ambitions, to be part of the MPA group of companies. We are therefore undertaking a business separation process”.

Confirming last week that the digital rights of IMPEL-allied publishers would now be transferred to the new entity, the MPA said that, “the decision to separate the MCPS and IMPEL companies has been made to ensure that both companies can operate in a way that allows their separate strategies to become fully realised”.

MPA also confirmed that “under this new structure, IMPEL will become a collection society, subject to the requirements of transparency and efficiency set by the [European Union’s] Collective Rights Management directive”.

Commenting on this development, IMPEL Chair Simon Platz noted that, by representing music publishers in the digital domain on a multi-territory basis, IMPEL has become something of a song rights equivalent of the indie labels’ global digital rights agency Merlin.

Platz told reporters: “It is no secret that IMPEL has aspirations towards the success of Merlin and this is the next step on that mission. IMPEL is owned only by independent music publishers. We are a group of publishers totally wedded to independence and totally wedded to being stronger together”.

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Wednesday 27 December 2017, 14:07 | By

Deezer targets stream-rippers with GitHub takedown

Business News Digital Legal

Deezer

With stream-ripping having risen to the top of the music industry’s piracy gripe list of late, Deezer is busy battling with apps that operate under bastardised versions of its name and which allow you to grab permanent downloads of tracks, albums and entire playlists off the streaming service’s platform.

And according to Torrentfreak, to that end the digital firm recently issued a takedown notice against developer platform GitHub, complaining that a number of projects listed on the site featured tools that enable people to illegally download music from its servers.

Deezer’s takedown request listed specific projects that “make available a hacked version of our Deezer application or a method to unlawfully download the music catalogue of Deezer, in total violation of our rights and of the rights of our music licensors”.

It then requested that Github “immediately take down the projects corresponding to the URLs below”. GitHub promptly complied, seemingly removing listings on its site for tools like Deezloader, DeezerDownload, Deeze, Deezerio, Deezit and Deedown.

It’s not the first time Deezer has issued takedowns in a bid to restrict access to tools of this kind, some of which can also pull music off Spotify.

Usually that means targeting forums and such like which generally comply with takedown requests, though deleting links to the stream-ripping tools from those sites doesn’t stop said tools from being distributed elsewhere.

Which means Deezer, and the music industry at large, will continue to battle the stream-rippers in 2018. Though is stream-ripping actually the really piracy problem of the moment? Premium CMU subscribers can check out this CMU Trends article – ‘Online music piracy – past, present and future’ – to find out.

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Monday 25 December 2017, 06:00 | By

Setlist: Review Of The Music Business Year 2017 – Part One

And Finally Artist News Business News Digital Legal Live Business Setlist

Presents

CMU’s Andy Malt and Chris Cooke review key events in music and the music business from the last twelve months in the first of two Review Of The Year editions of Setlist. In this Christmas Day edition, all the key developments in the secondary ticketing debate and SoundCloud’s drama-filled year, plus we begin the countdown of the Top Ten And Finally Stories Of 2017. Setlist is sponsored by 7digital.

Subscribe to Setlist

Listen to Setlist and sign up to receive new episodes automatically each week through any of these services…

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Sunday 24 December 2017, 23:30 | By

Insights Blog: Top Ten CMU Insights 2017

Insights Blog

Dissecting The Digital Dollar

CMU Insights is the consulting side of CMU, providing training and consultancy to music companies and companies working with music.

We offer intelligence and advice on music rights, artist deals, the streaming business, direct-to-fan, ticketing, music PR, social media, and the wider business of music. Plus each year we train hundreds of music industry professionals through our seminars, masterclasses and in-house primer courses, and hundreds more with insight sessions and speed briefings at music conferences around the world.

Through all that work, we publish reports, guides, blog posts, white papers and presentations all of which help music business people better understand their industry. As 2017 comes to a close, here are ten of the things we’ve published this year that you might want to read, check out and download.

Looking ahead to 2018, we have another series of CMU Insights seminars kicking off in February at the London HQ of Lewis Silkin. You will find all the info here.

01: The ever-evolving streaming market
With the streaming market evolving and expanding all the time, the CMU Insights overview of the digital sector has changed quite a bit over the year too, as we’ve presented it as part of our seminars and masterclasses, and at an assortment of music conferences. Here is the most recent set of slides, which we presented as part of the British Council’s Selector Pro event in Kyiv earlier this month. It has a slight Ukrainian slant, but covers all the basics about the streaming market, digital licensing and getting started on YouTube.

02: Understanding digital licensing
For a little more detail on digital licensing, here are the slides from the CMU Insights speed briefing: ‘How Streaming Services Are Licensed’. We debuted our first speed briefings at Slush Music in Helsinki last month. These are concise sixty minute overviews of key music business topics, which we’ll be presenting at various music conferences around the world in 2018. Find out more here.

03: Key challenges for the streaming business
Staying with digital music, here is a post on the CMU Insights blog from back in March considering the top five challenges for the streaming sector, which we published ahead of digital-centric insight sessions at Tallinn Music Week, Canadian Music Week and The Great Escape. The post covers: converting freemium, digital pie, data, sustained licensing and transparency.

04: Transparency
Transparency was identified as one of the key issues in the streaming domain during phase two of the ‘Dissecting The Digital Dollar’ project we undertook for the Music Managers Forum in 2016. So much so, MMF commissioned us to produce a standalone guide on transparency, identifying the precise data and information artists and managers need from their labels, distributors, publishers and collecting societies, and the streaming platforms themselves. You can download the resulting ‘Transparency Guide’ for free here, plus check out the white paper we produced for MIDEM summarising the music community’s transparency debate to date.

05: Safe harbour
Of course another challenge in streaming is safe harbour, which has remained a big talking point this year as the music industry’s lobbyists sought to close the so called ‘value gap’. But what exactly is safe harbour all about? We ran sessions on safe harbour at both Spot+ and MIDEM this year, plus we have a speed briefing on the topic. And then there’s this post on the CMU Insights blog from back in April: ‘Safe Harbours In Five Steps’.

06: Key trends and developments in music piracy
But what about good old fashioned piracy? CMU Insights has a masterclass and a primer course that we run in house for music companies covering the industry’s long-running battle with online piracy. We also questioned Muso’s Andy Chatterley on the latest piracy trends at Slush Music last month, and premium subscribers can find out more about that in this new CMU Trends article, ‘Online Music Piracy – Past, Present And Future’. Plus here is a recent CMU Insights blog post on the big piracy developments of 2017.

07: MMF Deals Guide
We mentioned the ‘Transparency Guide’ we produced for MMF this year. Well, that wasn’t the only new guide to come out of phase three of the ‘Dissecting The Digital Dollar’ project. We also produced ‘The Deals Guide’, which identifies the ten label and distribution deals now available to artists. We will be discussing the evolving nature of label deals at Output 2018 in Belfast. Meanwhile, you can download the guide for free here.

08: CMU Insights Journalist Survey
One of our conferences within The Great Escape this year put the focus on music media. And ahead of that, we undertook a new survey of music journalists in the UK, getting their thoughts on the state of their industry in 2017, and asking them how artists, labels and music PRs should be getting in touch. The results of this survey now form part of our popular music PR seminar, plus we unveiled the top line stats at TGE. And you can download the TGE slides here.

09: Getting your photos right
While we are in the music PR domain, here is a very popular post from the CMU Insights blog earlier this year on the importance of great photos in a music PR campaign. Get our top photo tips here.

10: A beginners guide to SEO
And finally, earlier this year the Alliance For Intellectual Property staged an event in London putting the spotlight on search engine optimisation: ie making sure your online activity, your artists and your tracks score highly on Google et al. CMU Insights provided a beginner’s guide to SEO as part of the proceedings, and you can download the slides from that here.

For more details on the CMU Insights seminars and masterclasses click here. For more information on our in-house training services click here.

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Sunday 24 December 2017, 21:05 | By

Approved: Favourite Artists Of 2017

CMU Approved

In the final five editions of the CMU Daily in 2017, Editor Andy Malt selected his five favourite artists from the last twelve months.

You can read more about each of them below, and while you do that check out this Spotify playlist of (nearly) all the music we approved in the CMU Daily in 2017.

Lorde

01: LORDE
Back in 2013, the sixteen year old Ella Yelich-O’Connor was hyped to what felt like the point of oblivion from the release of her debut single as Lorde onwards. It seemed unlikely that her debut album, ‘Pure Heroine’, could live up to all those expectations. Somehow though, Lorde rode the wave that she had been placed upon, came down without a wobble on the other side and strode off into the sunset. | MORE

Kelly Lee Owens

02: KELLY LEE OWENS
I always approach the debut album release of an artist whose early tracks I really liked with mixed feelings of excitement and trepidation. Excitement that they might deliver an album that truly makes good on that early promise. Trepidation that they only actually had a couple of really good tracks in them. | MORE

Jhene Aiko

03: JHENE AIKO
There’s been a trend in recent years towards longer albums, particularly in R&B and hip hop. Often this can feel like a cynical move. As if the artist is packing in as many different trendy production styles as possible to maximise potential airplay. Or maybe it’s some attempt to game chart rules for how streams are counted. | MORE

Kelela

04: KELELA
When Kelela released her hugely acclaimed mixtape – ‘Cut 4 Me’ – in 2013, it placed her high upon a wave of new artists shifting R&B into new places. Listening back to it now, compared to her 2017 debut album proper ‘Take Me Apart’, it’s remarkable how rough it sounds. Not that it wasn’t (and still isn’t) a slick, innovative piece of work, but ‘Take Me Apart’ is so meticulous, and takes her ideas so much further. | MORE

St Vincent

05: ST VINCENT
Listening back to Annie Clark’s first solo album as St Vincent – 2007’s ‘Marry Me’ – it’s amazing how much of a blueprint of the sound and character she has developed over the last decade is in there. But looking at it the other way around, I don’t think there’s anyone who would have predicted the route Clark’s career would have taken by 2017. | MORE

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Friday 22 December 2017, 16:16 | By

Approved: Playlist Of 2017

CMU Approved

Festival

There’s been a lot of great new music in 2017, as you’ll hear when you listen to this playlist of (almost) all the artists featured in the CMU Approved column this year. There are 166 tracks on the playlist, including our five artists of the year up top. Check it out on Spotify now.

Full tracklist (including those not available on Spotify):

• St Vincent – Los Ageless
• Kelela – Frontline
• Jhene Aiko – Jukai
• Kelly Lee Owens – Lucid
• Lorde – Green Light
• Ea Kaya – Remedy
• Qrion – Quick Turn
• Anna Burch – Tea-Soaked Letter
• Afrikan Boy – Wot It Do
Yullippe – Selfish&Anchor
• Laurie Anderson & Kronos Quartet – We Learn To Speak Yet Another Language
• Praa – Modelling Clay
• Lannds – Words
• EPROM – Drone Warfare
• Bitch Falcon – Of Heart
• Cosmo Sheldrake – Mind Of Rocks
• Parker – Doubles
• Thunder Jackson – Guilty Party
• Lia Lia – Yin Yang
• Utrecht – Live Underground
• 7Chariot – Ricochet
• Pitou – Problems
• Mai Lan – Blaze Up
• Anenon – Verso
• Alison Wonderland – Happy Place
• Sera Eke – Coup! Coup! Coup!
• Rhi – Cherry Glow
• VTCN Radio – Riddle Song
• Emma – Mindmaze
• Zilla – The Sleepwalker
• Molly – Glimpse
• Rolo Tomassi – Rituals
• Poppy Ackroyd – The Calm Before
• Better Lost Than Stupid – Alto
• Ggoolldd – The Way That I Feel
• Drahla – Silk Spirit
• Ghita – Mindfvck
• Mei – Steppin
• Young Juvenile Youth – Slapback
• Dagny – Love You Like That
• King – Only U
• Makemake – I’m The Form In The Way
House Of Tapes – Dark Lands
• Erin McCarley – Sexicon
• T Raumschmiere – Eterna
• Louiza – Leash On A Tiger
• Aris Kindt – Several Wolves
• Rocheman – Windmill
• Eera – Living
• Bassh – Go To
• Lucianblomkamp – Still No
• Lokane – Blocked feat Dai Burger
• Snapped Ankles – Hanging With The Moon
• Torres – Helen In The Woods
• Fran Lobo – War
• Liima – 1982
• Coucou Chloe – Flip U
• Intergalactic Lovers – River
• Art School Girlfriend – Bending Back
• Ellis May – Surrender
• Leah Kardos – Open
San Jua – Swirls In The Swimming Pool
• Zgto – Band Man
• Sephine Llo – First To Tarnish
• French For Rabbits – It Will Be Okay
• George Glew – Bury Me
• Bdy_Prts – Rooftops
• Wy – What Would I Ever Do
• Suzi Wu – Teenage Witch
Deadkebab & Psychics – Douche
• Tusks – Dissolve
• Grip Tight – Get To Know
• Ilk – Somer
• Rare Monk – Phosphorescence
• Lost Midas – Montecito
• James Yuill – Fire Breathing
• King Henry – Destiny (feat Ry X)
• Man Duo – What If It Falls
• Ayla – Shallow End
• Sega Bodega – Nivea
• Luna Shadows – Thorns
• Katie Von Schleicher – Sell It Back
• Esther Joy – Samgel
• Femme – Fire With Fire
• Ella Soto – Supermarket
• Kommode – Captain Of Your Sinking Ship
• Káryyn – Yajna
Frightened Rabbit – Fields Of Wheat
• Diamond Thug – Eclipsed
• Yoshimi – Mountain People
• Vivienxo – TTYN
• Susanne Sundfør – Undercover
• Violet Days – I’m A Dreamer
• Dauwd – Glass Jelly
• AlaskaAlaska – Bitter Winter
• Barbarossa – Griptide
• Washed Out – Get Lost
• Fishbach – Night Bird (Petit Monstre)
• Yungblud – King Charles
• Violet Skies – Island
• Sampa The Great – Paved With Gold
• Boxed In – Pushing On
• White Wine – Hurry Home
• Hanne Hukkelberg – The Whip
• Jun Kamoda – Blind Disco
• Jay Johnson – Midnight Men
• Femme En Fourrure – So Good At This (feat Vivienxo)
• Tove Styrke – Say My Name
• James Heather – Empire Sounds
• Archivist – Wild Hope
• Tim Linghaus – At The End All Is Black
• Pom Poko – Jazz Baby
• Pieces Of Juno – Black Acres
• Rinngs – Cutting The Cloth
• Elm – Concentrate
• PassCode – Bite The Bullet
• Erik Luebs – Red C
• Luwten – Indifference
• Pat Dam Smyth – Juliette
• Dark Sky – The Walker
• Young Yizzy – This Is Life
• Ellen Arkbro – Mountain Of Air
• Anneka – Life Force
• Oumou Sangaré – Yere Faga
• Aldous Harding – Imagining My Man
• Syd – Treading Water (All About Me)
• Jim Perkins – Junk Bonds
• Wrongtom Meets The Ragga Twins – Bacchanal
• Zoee – 1-2-1
• Charisma.com – Not Not Me
• Otoboke Beaver – Love Is Short
• Umoja – Take Me High
• Zombie-Chang – I Can’t Get To Sleep
• Julietta – Beach Break
• Ängie – Spun
• K Flay – High Enough
• Lylo – You Have Your Father’s Eyes
• Vukovi – La Di Da
• Perera Elsewhere – Something’s Up
• Born Stranger – Cheating Love
• Blanco White – El Búho
• Lxandra – Flicker
• Park Hotel – Gone As A Friend
• Aadae – River Of Tears
• Eivør – Into The Mist
• Stevie Parker – Without You
• Ulsect – Fall To Depravity
• Nnamdi Ogbonnaya – Hop Off
• Jakuzi – Koca Bir Saçmalık
• Poté – Egosurf (For All It’s Worth)
• Bing & Ruth – The How Of It Sped
• Blinding – Breath In
• All Them Witches – 3-5-7
• Fjer – Better
• White Kite – Swans
• Alexandra Savior – Mirage
• Yunomi – Sayonara Invader
• Cat – You Belong To Me
• Barbagallo – Longue La Nuit (Kevin Parker Remix)
• Half Waif – Severed Logic
• Tei Shi – Keep Running
• Rina Mushonga – Atalanta
Lady Leshurr – #Unleshed 2
• Meursault – Klopfgeist
• Freddie Dickson – Martim Moniz
• Fjaak – Wolves
• Griff Lynch – Don’t Count On Me
• JFDR – Airborne
• Pharmakon – Transmission
• Lomboy – South Pacific
• Dakota – Icon
• LLLL – From The New World
• Banana – Banana C

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Friday 22 December 2017, 15:44 | By

Universal signs licensing deal with Facebook

Business News Deals Digital Labels & Publishers Top Stories

Facebook

After a year of chatter about quite how Facebook would go about legitimising the music that swims around its platform, Universal Music has signed a multi-year licensing agreement with the social media giant, covering the use of its recording and publishing catalogues. So maybe Facebook isn’t going to take the music industry enemy number one position from YouTube after all. Not quite yet, anyway.

The new deal will also cover the appearance of Universal-owned music in videos on Facebook’s other social network Instagram and its virtual reality set-up Oculus. It will “serve as a foundation for a strategic partnership roadmap that will deliver new music-based experiences online”, the two companies reckon.

Talking up the deal, Facebook’s Head Of Music Business Development And Partnerships Tamara Hrivnak says: “There is a magnetic relationship between music and community building. We are excited to bring that to life on Facebook, Instagram, Oculus and Messenger in partnership with UMG. Music lovers, artists and writers will all be right at home as we open up creativity, connection and innovation through music and video”.

Universal’s EVP Digital Strategy Michael Nash adds: “Together, Facebook and UMG are creating a dynamic new model for collaboration between music companies and social platforms to advance the interests of recording artists and songwriters while enhancing the social experience of music for their fans”.

“This partnership is an important first step demonstrating that innovation and fair compensation for music creators are mutually reinforcing – they thrive together”, he goes on. “We look forward to Facebook becoming a significant contributor to a healthy ecosystem for music that will benefit artists, fans and all those who invest in bringing great music to the world”.

With Facebook having been negotiating with the big music companies for quite some time now, while concurrently beefing up its in house music licensing team, earlier this year it was reported that the social media firm was offering hundreds of millions of dollars in advances in order to try to get labels and publishers on board.

Facebook has long claimed safe harbour protection when it comes to the user-uploaded content on its platform that features other people’s music. The music industry – not too keen on that whole safe harbour thing at the moment – has become increasingly tetchy about this, as Facebook’s video ambitions have grown in recent years. Although with the music industry also in the midst of its battle with YouTube, some labels saw an opportunity in the rise of video on Facebook, if only a licensing deal could be agreed.

One of the reasons it’s thought big advances were on the table is that the role of music on Facebook – let alone Instagram and Oculus – is still evolving, and this isn’t a straight streaming service deal. Facebook wants time to work out how it will monetise music content on its platform and wants the music companies to experiment with it.

A big upfront cash boost always makes music companies more willing to experiment. Though advance-heavy deals create problems when it comes to working out how income is shared between labels and artists, and publishers and songwriters. Even straightforward streaming deals are too often shrouded in secrecy. More complex deals make it even harder for artists to work out how they share in the money.

Although, if this deal does kickstart new products and revenues in the streaming and social media spaces, then ultimately everyone could be a winner. Either way, the other majors and indie label repping Merlin, alongside the distributors and collecting societies, will need to agree their deals too for the big experiment to truly begin.

Meanwhile, with the music industry signing up to new deals with safe harbour dwelling sites like SoundCloud, YouTube and Facebook, perhaps there’ll be less shouting about the ‘value gap’ in the coming year. Maybe. If so, attention will likely to return to good old fashioned piracy, which has been busy evolving while everyone’s been focused on the user-upload sites. As we discuss in this new CMU Trends article.

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Friday 22 December 2017, 15:42 | By

Music Modernization Act seeks to fix America’s mechanical royalties mess

Business News Labels & Publishers Legal

US Congress

Yet more music-centric proposals aiming to reform US copyright law were unveiled in Washington yesterday, although this proposed new legislation has the support of both music owners and music users. Called the Music Modernization Act, the two Congressmen behind it – Doug Collins and Hakeem Jeffries – say that their proposals, if passed, would “bring music licensing its first meaningful update in almost 20 years”.

The most important element of the act is its proposed overhaul of the mechanical royalties system in the US. As much previously reported, unlike most other countries, there is no collecting society offering a blanket licence covering the so called ‘mechanical rights’ in songs, which are exploited whenever a song is copied. This means users of music must identify the owners of every song they copy, and make sure those owners receive the licensing paperwork and fixed royalty rate set out in American copyright law.

This has proven to be a nightmare for the streaming platforms, which concurrently exploit both the performing right and mechanical right elements of the song copyright. When labels pump new recordings into the streaming services, they don’t tell the digital platforms what songs are contained within the recordings, let alone who owns the songs.

The streaming firms hand over the performing right royalties to collecting societies like BMI and ASCAP, which then have to work out what songs have been used and who needs to be paid. But in order to pay the mechanicals, the streaming services must do that themselves. With no central database documenting music rights ownership, that’s proven to be a very tricky task indeed for platforms that have catalogues of tens of millions of tracks.

This all means that many song copyright owners haven’t received the paperwork or the royalties that they are due. That constitutes copyright infringement on the part of the streaming platforms, which have been on the receiving end of a barrage of multi-million dollar lawsuits. From the streaming firms’ perspective, that is untenable.

Although legally speaking this is technically a problem for the streaming firms to solve, many of those in the music community who are pro-streaming have acknowledged that the Spotifys of this world aren’t really to blame. After all, the mechanical royalties system in the US was woefully inefficient long before streaming became a thing. To that end, it’s in the music industry’s interest to find a better way of managing mechanical royalties.

Reform in this area will require an overhaul of the compulsory licence that governs mechanicals in the US though, which is what the Music Modernization Act sets out to do. In the words of Collins and Jeffries: “Under the Music Modernization Act, the digital services would fund a Mechanical Licensing Collective, and, in turn, be granted blanket mechanical licenses for interactive streaming or digital downloads of musical works”.

Although paid for by the digital services, this new collecting society would be run by music publishers and self-published songwriters. Why would the digital services bankroll a new organisation to be run by the music industry? Because, say the lawmakers, “the MLC would address the challenges digital services face today when attempting to match songwriters and publishers with recordings”.

The Digital Media Association, which counts Apple, Spotify, YouTube, Pandora, Amazon, Napster and Microsoft as members, is backing the proposals. Its CEO Chris Harrison said yesterday: “DiMA thanks Congressmen Collins and Jeffries for their work to reform an outdated and inefficient music licensing system that serves neither fans of music nor creators. We support the Music Modernization Act because it would create a blanket licence, which is critical to a modern licensing system and a great step forward”.

For publishers and songwriters, the proposed act offers more than just a more efficient mechanical royalties system. It would also change the way the statutory boards and courts that regulate collective licensing Stateside set the rates customers of music pay. That’s not only the proposed new society for mechanical rights, but also the big two societies representing the performing rights in songs, ie BMI and ASCAP.

Under the new proposals, the way judges are selected to consider the latter’s royalty rates would be changed and – more importantly – the criteria employed when setting rates would be altered. The music community has long felt that the Copyright Royalty Board and the rate courts in the US have too often ignored market realities when setting royalty rates. Which means that persuasive attorneys representing licensees have been able to talk rates down, when market analysis would arguably suggest rates should go up.

All of which makes the Music Modernization Act very attractive to the US music publishing and songwriter community. Certainly a plethora of organisations representing those people lined up to back the proposals yesterday, led by David Israelite of the National Music Publishers Association, who has been alluding to these plans for a while now. For him, this proposed legislation isn’t just a “great step forward”, it’s a “major step forward”.

He said yesterday: “The Music Modernization Act brings the laws that govern songwriters into the modern age. This legislation will lead to improved rates for songwriters and will streamline digital music companies’ ability to license music. While there is still more to do to free songwriters from oppressive government regulation, this is a major step forward”.

The NMPA also put its name to a joint statement alongside collecting societies BMI and ASCAP, plus Songwriters Of North America and Nashville Songwriters Association International. Together they declared that the Music Modernization Act represents “months of collaboration and compromise between the songwriting and tech industries”.

Noting that too many songwriters and music publishers have gone unpaid by steaming services under the current system, they went on: “This bill ends this practice by creating a private-sector system where money will no longer be lost to inefficiencies and lack of information. The bill also improves how mechanical royalty rates are calculated by introducing a willing-seller/willing-buyer standard”.

Continuing, they noted that: “On the performance rights side, the bill also replaces the current rate court system with the random assignment of judges used in most federal court cases, and allows the rate courts to review all relevant market evidence into the valuation of how songwriters are compensated”.

All in all: “We thank Congressmen Collins and Jeffries for their leadership in striking this balance that improves and modernises our outdated licensing system and gives songwriters the ability to be paid what they deserve across all platforms that use music, including the growing interactive streaming services”.

It remains to be seen how the Music Modernization Act now fairs in Washington, and whether any music users beyond those allied to the Digital Media Association try to throw a spanner in the works. This proposed legislation sits alongside other music-centric proposals in Congress, including those hoping to force AM/FM radio stations to pay royalties to artists and labels as well as songwriters and publishers, and moves to sort out the pre-1972 quirk in US copyright law.

Then there’s the Transparency In Music Licensing & Ownership Act proposed by Congressman Jim Sensenbrenner – and others – earlier this year. That also seeks to overcome some of the issues around digital licensing and the problems caused by the lack of a decent publicly accessible database of music rights ownership information.

However, while many in the music community agree that such a database should probably exist, most see that particular act – which has been very much backed by the tech sector – as being at best an impractical solution to the problem. And at worst, a deliberate attempt to make it ever harder for songwriters to enforce their rights. To that end, many in the music industry will be hoping that the new Music Modernization Act might render the Transparency In Music Licensing & Ownership Act redundant.

We shall see. But for now, here is the new act’s chief proposer, Doug Collins, with some closing words. “Songs reframe the world”, says he. “They show us reality as it is and as it could be. I introduced the Music Modernization Act to move music licensing law closer to where it should be. Today, the music industry is shackled to laws devised before streaming, and even basic recordings, existed – laws that penalise music creators and music lovers alike. Only by ushering music licensing into the twenty-first century can we promote artistry and its appreciation long into the future, and that’s exactly what we’re doing with the Music Modernization Act”.

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Friday 22 December 2017, 15:40 | By

American knock back of Canadian court’s global IP injunction made permanent 

Business News Digital Legal

Google

The US District Court For The Northern District Of California has confirmed that Google is not obliged to delist an IP infringing website from its search engine across the US on the say so of a Canadian court.

As previously reported, earlier this year the music industry welcomed a ruling in Canada’s Supreme Court that related to a long-running battle between two tech companies. It all began as a dispute between tech firm Equustek and its rival Datalink. The former accused the latter of infringing its IP rights.

As Equustek’s legal action got underway, Datalink moved itself outside the jurisdiction of the Canadian courts. So Equustek instead sought to have Google delist its rival’s website, so that consumers would find it harder to access the IP-infringing products. But for that delisting to work, Equustek argued, it needed to be global. And the Canadian courts agreed.

Although this wasn’t a music case, the music industry welcomed the ruling, it too having faced the challenge of dealing with copyright infringing websites that, when facing legal action, move themselves to countries where IP rights are hard to enforce. Music companies also reckoned that, to truly work, things like web-blocking and search engine de-listing needed to happen on a global basis.

However, Google argued, the Canadian courts had no power to force a de-listing outside of Canada. Because in the US, for example, such an order might contravene the First Amendment of the American constitution or Section 230 of America’s Communications Decency Act. The Canadian Supreme Court said such concerns were “theoretical” rather than real, and so passed its global injunction anyway.

But when Google took the matter to a Californian court last month, the judge there sided with the web giant, passing a preliminary injunction preventing Canada’s Supreme Court from forcing Google to de-list a website on its American search engine. And according to Bloomberg, earlier this month the US courts granted Google a permanent injunction on this issue. Basically bringing the matter to a close, in the US at least.

Though neither Equustek nor the Canadian judiciary took part in the US court hearings, so it’s not really clear whether they accept that this dispute is actually now resolved.

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Friday 22 December 2017, 15:38 | By

Court dismisses posthumous child abuse claim against Michael Jackson

Business News Legal

Michael Jackson

A court has dismissed a sexual harassment claim made posthumously against Michael Jackson. This is the second such ruling made against the case.

As previously reported, choreographer Wade Robson launched his legal action in 2013, alleging that Jackson had sexually abused him over a seven year period from his early teens.

Legal reps for the Jackson Estate hit back at the allegations, noting that Robson had testified for the defence in the singer’s 2005 criminal trial over other child abuse claims – at which Jackson was acquitted – taking to the witness stand to deny he had ever been molested by Jackson and criticising other witnesses who said he had.

Robson had also paid tribute to Jackson at the time of his death in 2009. But the accuser’s legal rep said – when he later went legal – that psychological damage caused by the abuse had prevented her client from accepting he had been molested by the singer as a child until more recently.

In 2015, the Jackson estate itself was dropped as a defendant – a court then ruling that Robson had left it too late to go legal. He was, a judge said, four years past the statute of limitations, having failed to pursue a legal case before he turned 26.

However, Robson continued on with his legal claim, seeking damages from two companies controlled by the estate, MJJ Productions and MJJ Ventures. It is these claims that have now been dismissed on the same grounds after the companies requested a summary judgement.

According to the Hollywood Reporter, judge Mitchell Beckloff said: “There is no dispute plaintiff brought this action well after his 26th birthday. Today plaintiff is 35 years old; he was 30 years old when he filed this action … Plaintiff filed his action four years too late, and his action is barred by the statute of limitations”.

The judge also argued that Jackson’s companies could not be held liable for the actions of their owner. Although, he noted, there would be an exception – both to the liability of the companies and the cut-off for the statute of limitations – if either company was aware of unlawful sexual conduct by an employee and failed to take action. However, there was no evidence that this was the case, said the judge.

“Here defendants’ relationship with Michael Jackson did not result in the exposure of plaintiff to the alleged sexual abuse”, said Beckloff. “These facts distinguish this case from those where the sexual abuse suffered was directly related to the inherent relationship between the perpetrator and the entity such as teacher/school, scout master/scouting organisation, priest/church or coach/youth sports organisation”.

In a statement to THR, the Jackson estate said that it “believes the court made the correct decision”. Attorney Howard Weitzman added: “In my opinion Mr Robson’s allegations, made 20+ years after they supposedly occurred and years after Mr Robson testified twice under oath – including in front of a jury – that Michael Jackson had never done anything wrong to him, were always about the money rather than a search for the truth”.

Robson, meanwhile, indicated that he intends to appeal the latest ruling, saying: “I respect but disagree with the court’s ruling and will be challenging it through the appellate courts. I am determined to see this case through to a determination on the factual merits by a jury of twelve”.

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Friday 22 December 2017, 15:37 | By

Beats will get its monster legal bill paid for by Monster

Business News Legal

Beats by Dre

A jury in the US has decided that $7.9 million was a perfectly reasonable price for Beats to pay its lawyers when defending itself against fraud claims made by a former business partner. And therefore that former business partner should put its hand in its pocket and pay those legal bills.

As previously reported, the now Apple-owned Beats collaborated with a company called Monster when it was first developing its ‘stick-a-by-Dre-label-on-the-side-and-hike-up-the-price’ headphones business. But the partnership ended in something of a messy divorce in 2012. And after Apple bought the Beats business for $3 billion in 2014, Monster and its founder Noel Lee sued.

The lawsuit made allegations about Beats’ previous share sale to phone maker HTC and the impact it had had on its deal with Monster. It also accused Beats management of misleading Lee about their future plans, so that he sold his stake in the Beats company in 2013 at much less than he would have got for his shares had he held on to them until the Apple deal the following year.

However, in a summary judgment last year the judge hearing the case concluded that Beats’ actions were allowed under its contracts with Monster and Lee, while also noting that both had entered into deals with the Beats business as “sophisticated investors”.

Having basically won, Beats then pushed for Monster to cover its legal costs in relation to the case, asking the judge to rule on what sum its former partner should pay. But Monster successfully persuaded an appeal court that that matter should go before a jury.

Not that doing that has helped much. Both sides have been in court recently arguing over what Monster should now pay. According to Law360, Beats said its legal costs came to $7.9 million and that Monster should pay the full amount. Legal reps for Monster argued that that figure was too high, that Beat’s legal reps in the original case had spent too much time on the lawsuit, and that their expert reckoned about $2 million should be cut from the bill.

The law firm that originally represented Monster also argued that it spent about a third of the time on the case that Beats’ lawyers said they’d worked. Though the Beats side pointed out that, had Monster won the billion dollar damages it was seeking, its lawyers were set to pocket 20% of that figure.

Concluding, Beats’ attorney Nick Hanna said: “Beats and the individuals who were sued fought to clear their name. They fought to tell the world they did not commit fraud. That fight was expensive, and Monster and Lee caused every single penny of that expense”.

Having heard the various arguments, the jury quickly ruled in the favour of Beats. It remains to be seen what move Monster makes next.

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Friday 22 December 2017, 15:35 | By

Australian politicians raise concerns about sexual misconduct in the music industry

Business News Industry People Labels & Publishers

ARIA

The Australian Recording Industry Association has been contacted by politicians in the country, concerned about reports of sexual misconduct in the music business.

In a letter to the trade body, Minister For Jobs And Innovation Michaelia Cash and Minister For Communications And The Arts Mitch Fifield both expressed concern over “recent allegations of misconduct, harassment and assault in the media, entertainment and arts industries”. In its own letter to its members – obtained by The Music Network – ARIA said that the politicians had been seeking assurances that “every effort is being made by ARIA members to ensure safe workplace cultures with robust policies and procedures to deal with instances of misconduct and harassment”.

Although it’s not stated exactly what prompted the MPs to get in touch with ARIA, the letter follows the recent launch of the #meNOmore campaign. Backed by over 300 women working in the Australian music business, the campaign calls for change to industry’s corporate culture, which is seen as tolerating sexual harassment and abuse.

In its letter to members, ARIA said: “ARIA is committed to ensuring that our working environment is safe for everyone, and will work with its stakeholders and the broader music community to promote a music industry that is safe, diverse and non-discriminatory”.

Adding that it had an “expectation that the majority of its members will already have well established procedures and policies in place”, it noted various resources highlighted by the two ministers that “may be useful for a review of existing policies and practices, or their development”.

ARIA also offered further information and assistance to member organisations in relation to sexual harassment and assault, although it was not clear about what that would entail.

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Friday 22 December 2017, 15:32 | By

Radio Caroline returns to the airwaves

Business News Media

Radio Caroline

Legendary pirate station Radio Caroline this morning returned to analogue radio, broadcasting on a frequency formerly used by the BBC World Service. It’s all legit now though, the station’s pirating days are long behind it.

The original offshore pirate station’s appearance on medium wave frequency 648kHz is the conclusion of a long campaign, started with an early day motion in Parliament by Tracey Crouch MP in 2010.

Broadcasting online for more than a decade now, the station has had various temporary licences on the more conventional airwaves, and for the last couple of years a regular weekend spot on the Isle Of Man’s Manx Radio. However, this is the first time it’s been permanently available on AM since its pirate days came to an end in the early 90s.

Currently operating on a local licence, allowing it to broadcast to Suffolk and North Essex, Radio Caroline boss Peter Moore noted the “ironic twist” of the station being given a former BBC frequency – Radio 1 having been launched in 1967 in direct response to the popularity of pirate stations.

“The unlikely return of Caroline to regular radio opens the latest chapter in its extraordinary 53 year history”, Moore told the BBC. “Caroline was the first of many pirate stations to broadcast from ships and abandoned wartime forts off the British coast, opening at Easter 1964”.

He added that, while technically it’s only available in Suffolk and Essex, it can be heard in other areas too, saying that “test transmissions have reached further afield and it can be received along much of the East Coast”.

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Friday 22 December 2017, 15:27 | By

The Oasis reunion is off (not that it was ever on)

Artist News

Liam Gallagher

When Liam Gallagher tweeted earlier this week that things were “all good again” between him and his brother Noel, a lot of people took this to mean an Oasis reunion was now on the cards. I assumed they were all joking, but apparently bookies started slashing the odds on such a thing occurring. Well, sorry to break your tiny hearts, but it ain’t happening.

Apparently oblivious to the stir he’d caused, Liam expressed surprise about it all when asked what was going on by Australian newspaper The Age. There is no reunion. It turns out he and Noel haven’t even spoken directly. That things are “all good again” was an assumption on Liam’s part.

“I got a little thing through the door from his management team and so I think there’s been a bit of a reach out and a bit of a truce”, he said. “It’s all good – season of goodwill and all that, you know?”

Asked if an Oasis reunion was now a done deal, he replied: “God no, no. Oasis isn’t getting back together, not at all. I’m doing my thing, he’s doing his thing and that is the end of it. It’s still the same – it’s just that I’ve called a truce on it and he’s called a truce on it and no more slagging”.

Noel did apparently tell the Daily Star earlier this week that the NME giving his brother the Godlike Genius prize at next year’s NME Awards was like giving “the third choice goalkeeper a medal just for being there”. Maybe he said that before the truce was officially on though.

So, sorry to disappoint you. Tell you want, here’s that video of Liam making tea to cheer you up;

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Friday 22 December 2017, 15:25 | By

One Liners: The Streets, Cardi B, Kendrick Lamar, more

Artist News One Liners Releases

Mike Skinner

Other notable announcements and developments today…

• Squarepusher has provided some music for new Super Nintendo game cartridge compatible console, Super Nt. Here, for example, the console’s start up sound.

• The Streets have released two new tracks, ‘Burn Bridges’ and ‘Sometimes I Hate My Friends More Than My Enemies’.

• Cardi B has released ‘Bartier Cardi’, the follow-up to her hit ‘Bodak Yellow’, featuring 21 Savage.

• Cassie has released new Kaytranada-produced track ‘Don’t Play It Safe’, a clip of which was first heard in her short film earlier this year.

• Kendrick Lamar has released the video for ‘Love’, taken from his ‘Damn’ album.

• Avicii has released the video for ‘You Be Love’, featuring Billy Raffoul, taken from the producer’s ‘Avīci; EP, which was released in August.

• SZA has released the video for ‘The Weekend’, taken from her 2017 album ‘CTRL’.

• Cupcakke has announced that she will release her new album, ‘Ephorize’, on 5 Jan.

• Check out our weekly Spotify playlist of new music featured in the CMU Daily – updated every Friday.

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Friday 22 December 2017, 15:20 | By

Beef Of The Week #386: Beefs Of The Year 2017

And Finally Artist News Beef Of The Week

Cow

It’s nearly Christmas and no one is arguing anymore. Not even the Gallagher brothers. There will be no fighting now until the new year. Or at least until Christmas morning.

So, with that in mind, in this week’s Beef Of The Week column we’re instead going to look back at our top five musical showdowns of 2017.

So, here we are, in reverse order…

5. Falling House v Left Shark
In 2015, Katy Perry gave us Left Shark. Left Shark was a happy reminder of the brightly coloured times we were then living in, where even things that didn’t go to plan were entertaining. Just getting up there and giving it a go was good enough. The 2017 sequel was Falling House. Falling House was a similar reminder of the times we were living in. Everything was awful and looked like it was probably painful. That dancer dressed as a house fell hard off the BRIT Awards stage, as giant skeleton effigies of Theresa May and Donald Trump pranced around for a room of drunken music industry executives.

4. Wu-Tang Clan v Woof-Tang Clan
It wasn’t all awful in 2017, though. It was, after all, the year that we discovered a dog walking business in New York called Woof-Tang Clan. Of course, it did come to our attention because it was being sued by the Wu-Tang Clan. RZA wasn’t happy that the dog-related business was trying to trademark its name. It’s still not clear if that means the producer is hoping to set up his own dog walking company. We can only hope.

3. B.o.B v Science
B.o.B has been insisting for some time now that the Earth is flat. He’s absolutely convinced of it, no matter what evidence he is presented with. This year, he decided that he would get some evidence of his own, announcing plans to launch “multiple weather balloons and satellites into space for experimental exploration”. Ignoring the fact that the science behind satellites only works if the Earth is round, he set up a crowdfunding campaign to raise $100,000 to get his project (literally) off the ground. Someone pointed out this wasn’t enough to launch anything into space, so he upped it to $1 million. Still not enough, but that hardly matters, as three months later he’s raised less than $7000.

2. Russia v Ukraine
The dispute between Russia and Ukraine over the ownership of Crimea is a very serious diplomatic situation. Still, it was hard not to be at least slightly amused when that quarrel spilled over into Eurovision. Russia was already angry about Ukraine’s 2016 Eurovision winning song ‘1944’, which it claimed was about the Crimea dispute. As a result, Russia was expected to boycott the 2017 Kiev-hosted contest. However, at the last minute, it put forward Julia Samoilova as its entrant. Ukraine responded by saying that it would arrest her if she travelled to Kiev. After much wrangling, Russia was told Samoilova could appear via satellite (not B.o.B’s), at which point the country pulled out. Of Eurovision, not Crimea.

1. Bob Dylan v Literature
Amazingly, this has now managed to be our favourite beef of two consecutive years. As you’ll remember, Bob Dylan was named the winner of the 2016 Nobel Prize in Literature. Due to grumpiness on his part, he initially failed to acknowledge the award, then refused to turn up to collect it. Eventually he did pick it up, but in secret. And there was still the matter of the speech he needed to give in order to claim his prize money. Shortly before the deadline for that, he turned one in, both in written and audio form. Then, in possibly the greatest surprise twist of all time, it turned out he’d plagiarised parts of the speech he’d written for an award recognising his great contributions to literature. And from a ‘Moby Dick’ study guide no less.

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Friday 22 December 2017, 13:54 | By

Approved 2017: St Vincent

CMU Approved

St Vincent

Every day this week we’ve been looking at the last twelve months for one of our favourite artists of 2017. Finally today, St Vincent…

Listening back to Annie Clark’s first solo album as St Vincent – 2007’s ‘Marry Me’ – it’s amazing how much of a blueprint of the sound and character she has developed over the last decade is in there. But looking at it the other way around, I don’t think there’s anyone who would have predicted the route Clark’s career would have taken by 2017.

As Clark’s visual and sonic styles have become ever bolder over the years, this year seemed to bring together a perfect combination of confidence, vision and budget so to create one of 2017’s most memorable album releases, ‘Masseduction’.

Clark’s work has always been concurrently intimate and unknowable. In promoting her latest album, she took this to new levels. She announced it via brightly coloured mock press conferences. Some interviewers found themselves locked in a brightly coloured room listening to stock answers played on her iPhone if they asked the wrong questions.

Though, those who asked the right ones were rewarded with a friendly openness, despite a tendency to always bat away any theories about what – or who – her lyrics might be about. Either way, the key things that often come across when Clark does the promo circuit are an arch sense of humour and a thoughtfulness about what she is doing.

Such bold moves to promote an album require a bold album at the end of them, and ‘Masseduction’ is certainly that. It features her songwriting at its most striking, whether on the jittery ‘Pills’ or sentimental ballad ‘New York’.

There’s an aloofness to much of it still, offset by her characteristic guitar playing and lyrics that often come off as intensely personal. She plays like an untouchable rockstar, but there’s an intimacy to much of the talk of sex, drugs and sadness in her lyrics.

“How can anybody have you and lose you and not lose their minds too?” she asks on ‘Los Ageless’, a line so perfectly imbued with joy and pain that the song barely needs any more words. “I tried to write you a love song, but it came out a lament”, she repeats as the final notes of the song ring out.

Meanwhile, on ‘New York’, that wry humour creeps in. She refers to the person she longs for as a “motherfucker” because she found it funny, she revealed on the Song Exploder podcast (although it became a disappointing and less poignant “other sucker” in TV performances). Dodging any suggestion that the song might be solely about one person, she goes on to explain that it’s an ode to many people, including David Bowie, and the city of New York itself.

If the future of Annie Clark’s career was unpredictable a decade ago, it seems more so now. ‘Masseduction’ feels like the realisation of an idea long in development. But it wouldn’t be surprising if it turns out to be a stepping stone on the way to something else. Though, that said, nor would I be surprised if next time she returns in an entirely new form. The waiting for a new St Vincent record is almost as exciting as receiving it.

Watch the video for ‘Los Ageless’ here:

Listen to (almost) ever artist featured in the CMU Approved column in 2017 on this Spotify playlist.

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Friday 22 December 2017, 13:51 | By

Vigsy’s Festive Tips

Club Tip CMU Approved

Lasers, mate

So the festive season is upon us, and there’s so much choice on offer for those of you looking for a good party in London. Boxing Day sees a fair few clubs back in action to help your dance off the turkey, and there’s a whole plethora of great New Year’s Eve parties to choose from. Here are a few picks.

Backto95 Boxing Day Special at The Scala
Backto95 returns with its fifteenth Boxing Day Special at the Scala, ready to take you right back to 1995 with Norris Windross, Pioneer, Jason Kaye, DJ Fen, Ray Hurley, Andy B and more. They’ll be raising money for Great Ormond Street Hospital too.

Tuesday 26 Dec, 275 Pentonville Rd, Kings Cross, London, N1 9NL, 10pm-6am, £22. More info here.

Rogue Boxing Day Special at Brixton Jamm
Keeping it D&B, Rogue takes over Boxing Day at Brixton Jamm for a second year. There’ll be some big names in attendance, Slimzee doing a hardcore set, plus Kenny Ken & The Ragga Twins, Ray Keith, Brockie, Ashattack and more.

Tuesday 26 Dec, 261 Brixton Rd, London, SW9 6LH, 10pm-5am, £20. More info here.

Egg Boxing Day Special
Egg will be putting on its traditional Boxing Day event too, which this year sees Waze & Odyssey, Mark Fanciulli and Ellie Cocks getting in on the action.

Tuesday 26 Dec, 200 York Way, London, N7 9AX, 11pm-6am, £10-20. More info here.

New Year’s Eve at Ghost Notes
New Peckham venue Ghost Notes has done a grand job putting together its first NYE party, bringing in Quantic and Alex Nut to spin into 2018.

Sunday 31 Dec, Ghost Notes, Peckham Levels, 95a Rye Lane, London, SE15 4ST, 9pm-4am, £12.50. More info here.

BBE New Year’s Eve Party at Institute Of Light
BBE will be taking over Hackney’s Institute Of Light, with label co-founder Peter Adarkwah joining a bill that also includes Kiri R2, 4 To The Floor DJs and Jake Holloway. There’s a free CD for all and a winter barbecue if you arrive before 10pm.

Sunday 31 Dec, The Institute Of Light, 376 Helmsley Place, London, E8 3SB, 6pm-3am, Free. More info here.

Good Times x Up On The Roof NYE at The Prince Of Wales
Over at The Prince Of Wales in Brixton, Norman Jay will be turning in a four hour set, which will span the midnight boundary into the new year. Also on the bill are Ricky Morrison, Rob Alldritt, Richie Cox, Linden C, Richie Fingers and Kenny Charles, with a silent disco on the roof.

Sunday 31 Dec, The Prince Of Wales, 467-469 Brixton Road, London, SW9 8HH, 8pm-5am, £30-35. More info here.

Glamorous London NYE at Bosco Lounge
If you fancy something a bit more upmarket, check out the Bosco Lounge, where Danny Rampling will be heading up the party in this swanky Surbiton hotel.

Sunday 31 Dec, Bosco Lounge, 9 St Mark’s Hill, Surbiton, KT6 4LQ, 7pm-2am, £20-30. More info here.

Breakin Science NYE at Coronet Theatre
Get your D&B fix at the Coronet with Breakin Science, who are bringing in a huge list of the genre’s royalty. Dillinja, Grooverider, Logan D, Voltage, Brockie, Nicky Blackmarket, Heist, Nu Elementz, Ruffstuff and Uncle Dugs are all among those on board.

Sunday 31 Dec, Coronet Theatre, 28 New Kent Road, London, SE1 6TJ, 8pm-6am, £35-40. More info here.

Hospitality, The Blast & Metropolis Present at Printworks
And finally, giving you a chance to keep the party going further into the new year, Printworks has an event kicking off at lunchtime on the 1st. Noisia top the bill, with the likes of Caspa, DJ Zinc, London Elektricity, Mumdance and Slipmatt all geared up.

Monday 1 Jan, Printworks, Surrey Quays Road, London, SE16 7PJ, 1pm-10pm, £40. More info here.

Phew! I’m exhausted. Merry Christmas to one and all, and a very happy new year.

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Friday 22 December 2017, 10:42 | By

Trends: Online music piracy – past, present and future

CMU Trends

The music industry has been much less vocal about piracy in recent years, with the sector’s lobbyists more likely to speak out about the so called ‘safe harbour’ and the otherwise legit websites exploiting what many in the music community see as a loophole in copyright law.

That doesn’t mean piracy went away though. And as the majors slowly start to sign new deals with safe harbour dwellers like SoundCloud, YouTube and even Facebook, perhaps music piracy will become a much bigger talking point again in the next few years.

But what kind of music piracy? CMU Trends reviews developments in online music piracy from the rise of Napster to the new services gaining momentum today.

THE RISE OF ONLINE PIRACY
Music piracy is hardly a new phenomenon. When the UK’s Music Publishers Association was launched in 1881 – long before the emergence of the record industry – the key thing that first brought together competing music publishers around one table was a common desire to tackle the pesky phenomenon of unlicensed sheet music copying.

A century later, in the 1980s, the mantra of a by then fully established record industry was that “home taping is killing music”. For what it’s worth, it didn’t.

However, by the late 1990s the biggest music piracy concern was online. While the music industry was frequently accused of being too slow to recognise the opportunities presented by the rise of the World Wide Web, it was pretty quick to spot the threats.

The emergence of affordable tape-to-tape cassette recorders in the 1980s had further facilitated the aforementioned home-taping phenomenon: where one person legitimately buys an album on cassette, but then illegitimately makes illegal copies of said album onto blank tapes to distribute to friends and family.

The rise of the compact disc made home-taped music much less attractive, while the healthy profit margin on the CD meant a cash-rich record industry was much less likely to worry about all the home-taping that did, nevertheless, continue to occur.

The addition of CD burning functionality to mainstream personal computers – allowing a much superior CD equivalent of home-taping – would have been a cause of great concern, had P2P file-sharing not already been on the horizon by that point.

Although P2P file-sharing was, in essence, the digital equivalent of home-taping, the music industry rightly feared online piracy more. At least home-taping was a time-consuming activity, and the copies made on a tape-to-tape cassette player were never great. And while CD burning had overcome some of those issues, you still had to physically place the illegal copy into another person’s hand.

With P2P file-sharing it was really quick and easy to make the copies. Those copies were of a good quality, and that quality would only improve as internet speeds got faster and higher quality MP3 files could be shared. Crucially, rather than handing out illegally made copies in the playground or workplace, file-sharers could distribute unlicensed music to millions of people across the globe, especially once special P2P file-sharing software, like that provided by Napster and Grokster, started to emerged.

THE BATTLE AGAINST FILE-SHARING
So began the music industry’s long-running battle with P2P file-sharing. From a copyright perspective, when someone makes and distributes a copy of a song or track without permission, that is copyright infringement. The law says that you should sue the infringer for damages. If the infringer infringes on an industrial level and on a commercial basis, there may be a case for criminal proceedings, but the starting point, usually, is that the copyright owner sues the copyright infringer.

The problem with home-taping, CD burning and file-sharing, is that millions of people participate in this kind of piracy. Most of those people infringe copyright for fun rather than profit, and are likely of limited financial means. So even if you can identify the infringer, which is tricky; and even if you could sue millions of people, which you can’t; you only really want to sue rich people, otherwise – even if you win in court – you’re unlikely to see a decent level of damages to make your litigation worthwhile.

So what to do as P2P file-sharing made illegal copying easier and more global? In the early 2000s various measures were proposed.

At this point most music being shared online originated on a CD: could you put software on the disc to stop tracks being ripped or shared? Yes you could. But this might stop the CD from working on a computer, ie the very device on which increasing numbers of consumers want to play their music. Plus anyone with a bit of tech savvy can quickly work out how to circumvent that software, and rip and share your tracks anyway.

Could you sue a few file-sharers, get a load of press around that legal action, and thus provide a deterrent that would stop other file-sharers? Well, you could try. Even though identifying individual file-sharers likely requires legal action against the ISPs before you even get to sue the actual person doing the file-sharing. And even if you do successfully sue a few file-sharers, will that really deter everyone else?

The US record industry went on to sue thousands of people and no one seemed particularly deterred there. Instead the record industry, now busy suing young music fans of limited means, got itself a terrible reputation as a money-grabbing anti-consumer corporate machine, providing file-sharers with a perceived (if dubious) ethical justification for why they were stealing so much music in the first place.

What about the makers of the software; ie the P2P file-sharing clients which were facilitating the file-sharing process? They too were corporate entities, they were much easier to find, and in many cases the people and companies behind that technology – or at least their financial backers – had money to fund decent damages.

A decade of litigation against software companies like Napster, Grokster, Kazaa and LimeWire ensued. Suing those companies required some test cases to set some legal precedents. Were these software makers even liable for copyright infringement? After all, they never actually hosted, copied or distributed any of the unlicensed music, their technology simple connected two individual’s PCs across the internet, so that those two individuals could do the hosting, the copying and the distributing.

Every country has its own copyright regime of course, and quite what each set of copyright law says about file-sharing differs around the world. In some countries it was initially debatable whether even the file-sharers were infringing copyright. As for whether or not the software makers were also liable would depend on the reach of the principle variously known as secondary, contributory or authorising infringement.

This is the principle found in many copyright systems that says that someone who facilitates an infringement may be liable for said infringement, as well as the actual infringer. So, if I own a market and knowingly allow a bootleg CD seller to sell their bootleg CDs, I might also be liable for the bootlegger’s copyright infringement. And I own a market, so I’m presumably worth suing.

Whether or not the makers of P2P file-sharing software were liable for this kind of infringement was initially debatable. The software makers insisted they were not. And they pointed to unsuccessful efforts in the 1980s to hold the makers of tape-to-tape cassette and video recorders liable for contributory infringement.

Those efforts had failed because the makers of the cassette and video recorders successfully argued that their technology had both legitimate and illegitimate uses (because a person could be making copies of their own audio or video), and that once the cassette or video recorder had been sold, the manufacturer of the device had no control over how it was used. The P2P software makers argued that their technology also had legitimate uses, and that they couldn’t control how their software was employed.

For a time, those arguments weren’t entirely dismissed by the courts. Although ultimately, in most jurisdictions, it was eventually ruled that – actually – unlike the maker of a cassette or video recorder, a P2P software maker could control how their technology was used, at least to an extent.

After all, the software maker continued to be directly linked to the users of its technology over the internet, and could monitor how its software was used, or install filters to try to limit the sharing of copyright material without licence. The fact that the P2P software makers didn’t do any of those things made them liable for contributory infringement. And so, slowly but surely, mega-bucks damages were won by the record labels and the P2P networks started to fall down.

Except, as any one P2P software makers went out of business, there was always a new player on the market ready to take its place. Indeed, usually the new P2P service had already taken over before the old service was killed off. And while big business may have been put off investing in the file-sharing game by all this messy litigation, you didn’t need big investment to get a new file-sharing network off the ground.

Meanwhile, file-sharing had evolved. The emergence of BitTorrent technology made file-sharing faster, and resulted in a shift from people using software like Kazaa and LimeWire, over to using BitTorrent-specific search engines like The Pirate Bay and Kickass Torrents. So litigation then followed against the new P2P service providers.

By this point the music industry usually won whenever its cases got to court, but new services continued to pop up, while some – most notably The Pirate Bay – continued to operate despite losing a flurry of lawsuits.

While all this was going on, a whole new wave of file-sharing was occurring where, rather than two file-sharers directly connecting their PCs peer-to-peer, one file-sharer would upload their music collection to a digital locker, share links to that music on a forum, and the other file-sharer would click on those links and download. And so legal action began against the digital lockers and the forum owners.

The digital lockers were actually hosting the copyright infringing material, so – unlike Kazaa and LimeWire – couldn’t use the “but we don’t touch the infringing content” defence. But by this point the tech sector was realising the power of the aforementioned safe harbours that had been inserted into copyright or e-commerce laws in the 1990s.

Providing they had so called ‘takedown systems’ via which copyright owners could demand infringing material be removed, the digital lockers argued they couldn’t be held financially liable for the copyright infringing content they’d been hosting all this time. And, in the main, they were right.

THREE-STRIKES, WEB-BLOCKS AND TAKEDOWN
By the late 2000s precedents had been set in most key jurisdictions that the makers of file-sharing software and the operators of file-sharing hubs and forums were likely liable for contributory infringement, or similar. And a plethora of file-sharing operations had gone offline as a result.

But, as we’ve seen, new file-sharing operations continued to emerge and the file-sharing phenomenon continued. Meanwhile, even though copyright owners were now more confident of victory when they sued file-sharing companies, that didn’t stop that litigation from being costly and time-consuming. All the more so when file-sharing sites deliberately based themselves in less copyright friendly jurisdictions.

To that end, the music industry started to look for other options for fighting online piracy. The two tactics most commonly discussed were three-strikes and web-blocking. The former was a simplified version of the sue-the-fans litigation that the record industry, especially in the US, had tried in the early days of file-sharing. The latter was a simplified version of suing the providers of file-sharing services.

Three-strikes – or ‘graduated response’ – is a system whereby internet service providers send out increasingly stern letters to suspected file-sharers. If the file-sharers ignore those letters, ultimately some sort of sanction occurs, which might be a lawsuit, or a restriction of internet speed, or a suspension or disconnection of internet access.

ISPs never like being forced to police how their customers use the internet. Although in some countries, most notably the US, internet firms did voluntary sign up to an albeit lo-fi version of graduated response. In other countries, most notably France, new anti-piracy laws forced ISPs to participate in this process.

In the UK, the 2010 Digital Economy Act also obliged the net firms to participate in a graduated response system. Though the ISPs managed to put off that participation for years, and only recently did lukewarm warning notes start getting sent out to suspected file-sharers. Which is not what the music industry had anticipated when it successfully negotiated three-strikes into the DEA in 2010.

In the main, web-blocking has been adopted in favour of three-strikes. This is the system whereby a court orders internet service providers to block their customers from accessing specific copyright infringing websites.

In some countries, like the UK, courts have decided they have the power to issue such orders under existing copyright laws. In other countries, like Australia, a bespoke new web-blocking system has been introduced by lawmakers.

Although web-blocks are usually controversial when first introduced in any one country – local ISPs usually moan loudly about copyright owners “censoring the internet” – once web-blocking is up and running the blockades are usually installed without much bother. Indeed, in some countries some internet companies have even started to advocate web-blocking as the most effective anti-piracy tactic.

Web-blocking is an anti-piracy measure of limited effect, given that it is relatively easy for web-users to circumvent the blockades, usually via a simple Google search. Copyright owners recognise this, but feel anything that puts hurdles in the way of piracy sites is a worthwhile endeavour. Although they concurrently wish Google et al would do much more to ensure their search engines aren’t quite so helpful for those looking to access an officially web-blocked site.

But what about those websites that routinely host or link to copyright infringing content but which plead safe harbour protection? Well, assuming the safe harbour defence would stand up in court, the only option left for copyright owners is to push the safe harbour dwelling websites’ takedown systems to the max. Some music companies do just that, issuing a stack of takedown notices against such sites every single day.

Indeed, for some copyright owners, takedown issuing is now just a routine part of rights management, and companies have developed technology to help with the process. Not every takedown system is the same, and so – on top of everything else – the music industry’s lobbyists have had to find time to call for safe harbour regulations to be revised so as to better define what a compliant takedown system should look like.

Slowly but surely some progress has been made in this domain, although even with the best takedown systems the onus is still on the rights owner to spot and request the removal of infringing content, a fact many rights owners resent, even as they issue another flurry of official takedown notices.

STREAM-RIPPING AND BEYOND
As we noted at the start, in more recent years the music industry has been somewhat less vocal on piracy issues. This is partly because legitimate digital music services – in particular subscription streaming – have started to boom and helped take the record industry back into growth after fifteen years of decline. It’s partly because individual rights owners have become much more focused on takedown issuing. It’s partly because of the battle with safe harbour dwelling user-upload sites like YouTube.

However, piracy continues, and just like the legitimate digital music market, it also continues to evolve: from P2P clients to BitTorrent hubs to digital locker linking and so on to stream-ripping. It’s the latter that the music industry’s anti-piracy police have been most focused on of late, with the stream-ripping phenomenon even getting the occasional name-check alongside the customary safe harbour griping.

Stream-ripping allows users to turn a temporary stream into a permanent download, meaning music fans seeking free MP3s no longer need to share files with other fans, they can simply find the track they like on a site like YouTube, run the YouTube link through a streaming-ripping engine, and an MP3 file will quickly start to download. It’s not just YouTube people stream-rip from, although it is a key source for the stream-rippers, as the name of the most famous stream-ripping site – YouTube-mp3 – suggests.

With stream-ripping now high up on the music industry’s anti-piracy agenda, the US record industry began legal proceedings against YouTube-mp3 last year, successfully forcing the service offline in September. However, as with the P2P file-sharing networks of old, as any one stream-ripping service is sued off the internet, there are others eager to take its place. As YouTube-mp3 went offline this autumn, sites like theyoutubemp3.com and mp3juices.cc saw an immediate boost in user numbers. Hence the music companies now looking to lawmakers for help in tackling this latest form of online piracy.

Is stream-ripping already yesterday’s preferred piracy option though? Muso is a London-based company that provides tools for copyright owners to monitor the illegal distribution of their content and issue takedown notices to safe harbour compliant platforms. It also monitors piracy across the entire internet on a daily basis and is constantly looking for the latest trends. Last month its CEO Andy Chatterley shared some of those insights at the Slush Music conference in Helsinki.

He told the Slush Music audience: “In 2016, we tracked 191 billion global visits to piracy platforms, of which 34 billion were related to music. As you can see, piracy remains significant. And remember, those are ‘visits’ – each visit might result in the user accessing an individual track, or a full album, or an entire back catalogue”.

Though, he added, the direction of piracy traffic is constantly evolving. While it’s true that stream-ripping has become increasingly significant in recent years, the big growth in the piracy domain today is actually illegal streaming services that pull in content off the file-sharing networks and then present it to users via a Spotify-type experience.

Chatterley: “While 23% of music piracy last year was stream-ripping, our figures show that 40.3% took place on illegal streaming services – platforms like MusicPleer and myzuka.club. Which means that audience behaviour in piracy is mimicking audience behaviour in the legitimate digital music market, ie we are seeing a shift from downloads to streams, and from ownership to access”.

The likes of MusicPleer and myzuka.club are yet to garner much attention within the music industry. Though as more deals are done with the safe harbour dwelling platforms – and if Spotify et al start to see their sign-up rates slow down – it’s these services which might come to dominate the piracy conversation in the years ahead. And while Chatterley notes that none of these illegal streaming platforms are as yet as user-friendly as a legit service like Spotify, they are constantly developing. And becoming more mobile.

“Another way in which piracy is mimicking the legitimate market is the shift to mobile”, says Chatterley. “Last year we saw daily global visits to piracy sites via the user’s computer decline while mobile usage increased. There was an upswing of 66% to mobile devices by December 2016, and this is a trend that we are expecting to see continue”.

Such is the growth of illegal streaming services, it may be that the music industry’s old piracy foes that are based around unlicensed downloads go into terminal decline on their own accord. After all, there is a generation coming through for whom the concept of owning music is alien.

True, this generation wants ‘offline’ listening, and that requires a download, but these fans aren’t aiming to gather an MP3 collection of their own. Which will make BitTorrent file-sharing, digital locker link clicking and all that stream-ripping seem very old fashioned indeed.

So, the battle against music piracy enters yet another new phase, in which the reach of current copyright laws will need to be tested once again and new anti-piracy rules may need to be lobbied for. Of course, if the streaming boom goes on, and the record industry continues to grow, the piracy problem may feel less pressing. Just like the CD boom stopped everyone worrying about home taping.

Anti-piracy efforts will continue, but not because anyone is foolish enough to believe piracy will ever be stopped. More because rights owners continue to believe that – at the same time as making legit music services as magnificent as possible – it’s important to make accessing illegal platforms as terribly tedious as it can be.

Meanwhile, Chatterley reckons there is another reason for keeping an eye on the piracy platforms. Because in amongst all that illegal distribution of content across the internet is yet more valuable data.

“A big part of the Muso service is content protection and, with piracy as prevalent as ever, it’s important rights owners continue being active in this space”, he says.

“But”, he adds, “we also believe there is a massive opportunity in understanding the behaviour of the piracy audience and analysing the data we can pull out of the piracy platforms – on a title level, a genre level and a country level – so to provide ever better business intelligence. Using this data, alongside other sales data, you get to see a bigger picture of music consumption and audience behaviour. Muso’s data platforms enables right-holders and other interested parties to do just that, to see the bigger picture”.

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Friday 22 December 2017, 09:00 | By

CMU Digest 22.12.17: Universal, Stop2018, agent of change, BMI, Rolling Stone

CMU Digest

YouTube

The key stories from the last seven days in the music business…

Universal announced deals with both YouTube and Facebook. The mega-major put a positive spin on its new deal with YouTube, saying that it would give it more control over its content on the platform and better royalties. It’s thought the new arrangement will also see Universal participate in YouTube’s planned standalone music service. Meanwhile the music firm’s first ever licensing arrangement with Facebook was “unprecedented”, it said, and would “facilitate deeper engagement between artists and fans”. [READ MORE]

A group of UK music executives launched a new campaign in a bid to stop sexual harassment and abuse in the music business, after sharing their own experiences on the BBC’s ‘Victory Derbyshire Show’. Echoing calls made by women working in the Swedish and Australian music industries, the founders of the Stop2018 campaign said that active measures should now be introduced to ensure “that bullying, misogyny, sexual harassment, assault and rape in the music industry stops”. [READ MORE]

An appeals court sided with US collecting society BMI on the 100% licensing debate. The US Department Of Justice last year told collecting societies BMI and ASCAP that they must operate a so called 100% licensing system, so that when a song is co-written by a BMI member and an ASCAP member, either society is obliged to offer a licence covering 100% of the song. Under the current fractional licensing system, a licensee would need licences from both societies. BMI argues that the consent decree that regulates its operations does not enforce 100% licensing, and this week an appeals court backed a lower court’s ruling endorsing that viewpoint. [READ MORE]

The Music Venue Trust ramped up its agent of change campaign, as John Spellar MP prepares to propose the insertion of the principle into UK planning law in a speech in Parliament next month. Agent of change would mean that property developers who put new residential buildings next to existing venues would be responsible for ensuring the new building is sufficiently sound-proofed. [READ MORE]

The owner of Variety took a controlling stake in Rolling Stone magazine. The legendary music mag’s founder Jann Wenner announced earlier this year that he was looking to sell the 51% of the title he still controlled. He will continue to run the publication under its new owner Penske Media Corporation, which will also continue to collaborate with BandLab Technologies, the Singapore-based business that bought the other 49% of Rolling Stone last year. [READ MORE]

The big deals from the last seven days in the music business…
• Universal bought Stiff Records and ZTT [INFO]
• Bytedance completed is acquisition of Musical.ly [INFO]
• MixCloud signed up to use Gracenote’s music ID technology [INFO]
• Black Diamond allied with Kobalt on its new publishing venture [INFO]
• BMG signed a deal with Steven Spielberg’s film company Amblin Partners [INFO]
• US publisher Pulse signed a sub-publishing deal with CTM in Europe [INFO]
• Warner/Chappell signed Birdy [INFO]

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Thursday 21 December 2017, 12:01 | By

Association For Electronic Music launches helpline for victims of sexual harassment and abuse

Business News Industry People Top Stories

Association For Electronic Music

The Association For Electronic Music has launched a new support service for people who experience sexual harassment and abuse within the electronic music industry. Set up in partnership with Health Assured, the new service will offer advice and guidance to those who call a dedicated phone line.

“Since its formation, AFEM has championed equality and inclusion as vital foundations of our industry and we unequivocally condemn sexual abuse and harassment of any kind”, says AFEM CEO Mark Lawrence. “To step forward as a victim of abuse or harassment takes immense courage and we will support all who need help and guidance”.

As previously reported, there has been increased focus on the prevalence of sexual misconduct in the music industry in the wake of the Harvey Weinstein scandal in Hollywood. Various men at differing levels of the industry have been named as serial abusers, while many more have been discussed anonymously, exposing the breadth of sexism and misogyny that still exists in the business.

Last month, nearly 2000 women in the Swedish music industry called for change to the music sector’s current corporate culture, a call then echoed by over 300 women working in the Australian industry. Then this week, in the UK, a new campaign called Stop2018 was launched aiming to “end the toxic culture of silence around the issue”, and setting out a number of measures that will help begin that process.

While these campaigns are undoubtedly important and highlight the absolute need for wholesale change in the industry, AFEM’s new helpline will provide immediate support to those affected by the issues raised.

Speaking about the helpline, Radio 1 presenter B Traits comments: “Without exception, every woman I know has either been the victim of sexual harassment or supported their closest friend through the aftermath. The most difficult thing to do is speak up and report it. If you are someone who has suffered from sexual harassment, I encourage you to call this safe and confidential helpline so that you can begin to heal and those who assault and harass can face the consequences of their actions”.

You can speak confidentially to specially trained staff now by calling 0800 030 5182.

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Thursday 21 December 2017, 11:59 | By

Now Nelly is sued over rape allegation

Artist News Legal

Nelly

The woman who recently accused Nelly of rape is now suing the rapper. This follows the confirmation that prosecutors are no longer pursuing the case and Nelly’s subsequent announcement that he planned to sue his accuser for defamation.

As previously reported, Nelly was arrested in connection to the rape allegations in October. He strongly denied the allegations from the off, while a legal representative of the alleged victim subsequently told reporters that her client no longer wished to participate in the criminal investigation because “she believes the system is going to fail her”.

In new legal papers filed as part of the accuser’s civil action, seen by TMZ, more details about the alleged incident are provided. It’s claimed that the alleged victim worked at a club in Auburn, Washington where Nelly had been performing. She was invited by the musician to an after party, but was taken to his tour bus. Once on the bus, it is alleged, Nelly began masturbating, before having sex with the accuser against her will.

She says that she attempted to persuade him to stop, in part by insisting that he needed to use a condom, but that he ignored her pleas and continued to assault her. After the assault she began screaming that she wanted to get off the bus, at which point one of Nelly’s entourage pushed her off the vehicle. The rapper then allegedly threw a $100 bill at the woman, before taunting her from the bus while she attempted to call a taxi.

After this, she also called the police who arrested Nelly. His legal rep subsequently issued a strong statement of denial accusing his client’s accuser of being “motivated by greed and vindictiveness”. The alleged victim then requested that the police investigation be called off because of the process she had endured since reporting the alleged crime, with her lawyer writing at the time: “We do not live in a society where a 21 year old college student can feel safe enough to pursue criminal charges against a celebrity for an alleged rape”.

Like Nelly himself, his accuser is also suing for defamation – in addition to seeking damages in relation to the alleged assault itself – because of the statement he put out that she was “motivated by greed and vindictiveness”. On launching his defamation action last week, Nelly’s attorney said “Nelly has suffered very real damage to his reputation”, adding that he was now suing “as the first step in restoring his reputation”.

Responding to the news that Nelly was now being sued by his accuser, the same attorney told TMZ: “It comes as no surprise that [his accuser] filed a lawsuit against Nelly seeking money after we announced our intention to hold her accountable. We always believed her accusation was motivated by greed”.

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Thursday 21 December 2017, 11:57 | By

Agent of change campaign steps up ahead of Parliamentary proposal

Business News Legal Live Business

Houses Of Parliament

John Spellar MP’s ‘ten minute rule’ bill attempting to have the agent of change principle introduced into UK planning law will be read in Parliament on 10 Jan, it has been confirmed.

As previously reported, Spellar announced plans to introduce the bill last month, using rules that guarantee backbenchers up to ten minutes to debate proposed legislation in Parliament. The agent of change principle puts the onus of property developers to protect new residential buildings from noise coming from existing venues. Bills introduced into Parliament this way rarely become law, so various MPs and campaign groups have been putting on the pressure on the political and music communities to support the changes.

That includes the Music Venue Trust, whose Strategic Director Beverley Whitrick says of the current situation: “At the moment, UK law says that whoever is making a nuisance is always responsible for that nuisance. If a noise exists, you can deliberately move next to it and demand it be turned off and UK law will support you”

She goes on: “You can build balsa wood huts next door to a music venue and simply wait for your residents to complain and the venue will have to pay all the costs to reduce their noise. This is unfair and unreasonable. John Spellar’s bill will stop it, and that’s why we are reaching out across the music industry, cultural sector and politics to ask Parliament to act and make agent of change the law”.

Among the artists speaking out is ska musician Rhoda Dakar, who adds: “Grassroots music venues and clubs are the lifeblood of an industry in which we, as a nation, punch far above our weight. Our cultural capital is a precious commodity that, once frittered away, could not be replicated. Moving into an area because of what it offers, then colluding in its destruction, is an exercise in absurdity. Agent of change would draw a line under this. It is vital this becomes law!”

As well as lobbying politicians itself, the Music Venue Trust is also calling on the public to support a change in the law on social media and by directly contacting their MPs. Find out more about its Agent Of Change Now campaign here.

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Thursday 21 December 2017, 11:56 | By

Boomtown releases drug awareness documentary

Business News Live Business

Boomtown 2017

The Boomtown festival is continuing its campaign on drug awareness with the release of a new short documentary on the subject. The film looks at various drug issues, and the steps taken at this year’s festival to improve safety.

As previously reported, Boomtown was one of a number of festivals this year to offer free drug testing, via not for profit organisation The Loop, so that festival-goers could find out what drugs they had specifically acquired. The event agreed to increased security on site in order to be allowed to have the drug testing service in place, and also dedicated a section of its website to raising awareness of current dangerous drug trends at festivals.

Among those to appear in the new documentary are director of The Loop Fiona Measham, Chill Welfare’s Katy MacLeod, Ed Morrow from Royal Society Of Public Health, musician Beans On Toast, and the family of Ellie Rowe, who died after taking ketamine at the 2013 edition of Boomtown.

Activities such as this to raise awareness are extremely important right now, says Measham: “In the UK drug related deaths are at their highest rates on record, ever. This isn’t just a problem for Boomtown or just for festivals, this is the situation right across the country”.

Meanwhile Boomtown Creative Director Lak Mitchell says of initiatives like those implemented at the festival this year: “It feels like a huge evolution in the festival world, all of a sudden things are stepping up and we’re progressing. We’d like to use the festival platform to introduce these new harm reduction services and ways of bringing public safety and education towards drugs [to the forefront]”.

Services provided by The Loop and Chill Welfare contributed to a 25% reduction of drug-related cases at Boomtown medical facilities this year. Watch the film here:

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Thursday 21 December 2017, 11:54 | By

Mixcloud to use Gracenote’s music identification system

Business News Deals Digital

Mixcloud

Mixcloud has announced a partnership with music data firm Gracenote to employ its song recognition technology in order to get better at reporting music usage on its platform.

The streaming set-up for mixes, radio shows and podcasts will use the Gracenote MusicID system to more accurately identify music contained in the more than twelve million DJ mixes, radio programmes and podcasts in its archive, in order to report better to the collecting societies and rightsholders that it pays royalties to.

“We’re living in a world where user-generated content is growing exponentially, but most traditional catalogue streaming services are not focusing on this enormous area”, says Mixcloud co-founder Nico Perez. “At Mixcloud, we’ve invested a lot of energy in the technology around user-generated content to properly identify and pay the creators what they’re owed, and we’re THRILLED to add Gracenote as a new partner to help solve this difficult problem”.

Gracenote’s Brian Hamilton adds: “Mixcloud has emerged as the destination for both established and emerging radio presenters and DJs to present their shows and mixes to fans around the world. Being a platform that focuses on helping curators breakout and find new audiences, Mixcloud recognises the importance of being able to connect royalty payments to the proper rightsholders and we are confident that Gracenote MusicID can help them address this important issue”.

Already used by a number of digital music services, Gracenote MusicID claims to be able to identify over 200 million songs.

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Thursday 21 December 2017, 11:52 | By

Bytedance completes Musical.ly acquisition, launches creator fund

Business News Deals Digital

Musical.ly

Musically-orientated social network Musical.ly is now officially part of Beijing-based Bytedance, the latter having announced it was buying the former last month. And to celebrate Musical.ly is launching a $50 million fund to “support global users in honing their creative talents and content creation efforts”. Good times.

Confirming his company’s acquisition of the also China-based Musical.ly, the boss of Bytedance, Yiming Zhang, said yesterday: “We are delighted to formally welcome musical.ly to the Bytedance family. We are excited to leverage the great synergy between the two companies and explore opportunities to bring an even better content experience to our global users”.

He added: “We are impressed by the passion of the user community, whose creativity, humour, and expression of their interests through short videos has made musical.ly a powerful and engaging platform. Bytedance’s leading AI technology and strength in Asian markets will help accelerate this app’s innovation in mobile video creation and provide the opportunity for content creators and brands to engage with new markets”.

The all-new Musical.ly Creator Fund will invest in various education and training programmes – and “community enrichment” initiatives (whatever ever they are) – in order to support all the people lip syncing and doing other creative stuff along to musical snippets via the Musical.ly app.

Says Musical.ly co-founder Alex Zhu: “Our vision is to inspire the world to create, and we’re excited to offer our users the ability to express their creativity, advance their talents, and even make a living on musical.ly”.

He goes on: “From everyday creators to established influencers, our users make musical.ly a dynamic and entertaining video community for millions of people around the world. The musical.ly Creator Fund illustrates our commitment to supporting the growth and development of our creators and expanding the opportunities available to the creator community, both inside and beyond the app”.

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Thursday 21 December 2017, 11:51 | By

Variety owner buys Rolling Stone

Business News Deals Media

Rolling Stone

The owner of entertainment industry title Variety has bought a controlling stake in Rolling Stone magazine. Jay Penske’s Penske Media Corporation, which bought Variety in 2012, will acquire the 51% of the Rolling Stone company still owned by its founder Jann Wenner.

As previously reported, Wenner Media, facing the same challenges as most traditional magazine owners in the digital age, last year sold a 49% stake in the title to Singapore-based company BandLab Technologies.

It then sold two other titles it also owned to help pay off some long-term debts, before indicating in September that it was now considering bids for the other 51% of the business.

Wenner and his son Gus will continue to oversee the operations of Rolling Stone, the former as Editorial Director and the latter as President. A new Editor In Chief will also be appointed.

The Wenners are spinning the sale as a major investment in Rolling Stone that will enable it to evolve and expand. Certainly, for his part, Penske says he is committed to the music title for the longhaul, stating that: “Like all of our investments, our holding period is a very long time. It’s forever”.

Gus Wenner added: “Rolling Stone’s past, present and future is in great storytelling and that’s where we want to put our investment. Jay has shown repeatedly that he has a deep belief in investing in content and investing in the product. This will allow us to do that in a way we haven’t been able to do over the last couple of years”.

BandLab will seemingly remain a partner in the Rolling Stone business, and PMC says it has already met with the Singapore company’s founder to discuss the nature of that partnership.

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Thursday 21 December 2017, 11:49 | By

Lady Gaga confirms Las Vegas residency

Artist News Gigs & Festivals

Lady Gaga

Lady Gaga has confirmed plans to embark on one of those Las Vegas residencies that all the kids like. Kicking off at the MGM Park Theater, the shows will commence in December 2018 and run for two years.

“It’s the land of Elvis, Tony Bennett and Frank Sinatra, the Rat Pack, Elton John, Judy Garland and Liza Minnelli”, the musician declared earlier this week. “It has been a life-long dream of mine to play Las Vegas”.

She went on: “I am humbled to be a part of a historical line-up of performers, and to have the honour of creating a new show unlike anything Vegas has ever seen before. I’ll tell you exactly what I told my MGM and Park Theater partners – you can count on this performer always for one thing… I’ll leave my heart on the stage every single night. Thank you to my fans for always believing in me. Meet me in Las Vegas baby, we did it!”

Attempting to match Gaga’s overblown enthusiasm, MGM Resorts International President Bill Hornbuckle adds: “Our announcement today of Lady Gaga joining an amazing line-up of talent at Park Theater is monumental for Lady Gaga fans, MGM Resorts and the Park MGM brand”.

He goes on: “We have all been wowed by Lady Gaga’s raw talent, but the passion, commitment and creativity she is prepared to bring to this engagement will truly be transformational… Las Vegas, get ready to become the entertainment capital of the universe”.

That bit about the universe at the end was good, but I think Gaga ultimately won in the OTT stakes there. Dates for the performances are due to be announced early next year.

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