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Business News Week In Five
CMU Digest – 12 Jul 2013
By Chris Cooke | Published on Friday 12 July 2013
The five biggest stories in the music business this week…
01: France amended its three-strikes law. Following the recommendations in a recent report on the country’s controversial anti-piracy measures, the French government published a decree removing the net disconnection deterrent from strike three. File-sharers who fail to heed warnings about their copyright infringing will instead be fined up to 1500 euros. Only one person has ever been hit with temporary net disconnection under the French anti-piracy system. CMU report | Guardian report
02: Tesco was confirmed as the second biggest entertainment retailer in the UK, in the latest market share stats from research firm Kantar Worldpanel. The downsizing of HMV following its administration earlier this year meant the specialist entertainment seller slipped from second to fifth biggest. Amazon benefited most from HMV’s woes, seeing market share increase to 23.4% in the last quarter, while Tesco is now the second biggest entertainment retailer, with a 13.2% share. The continued growth of digital means iTunes is now in third place. CMU report | BBC report
03: Rebecca Ferguson settled with Modest! The former ‘X-Factor’ finalist fell out with the management firm, which used to have the contract to represent all the finalists from the talent show, last year. She dissed the Modest! team on Twitter, while they sued the singer when she tried to pull out of her contract. Despite tensions being high between the two sides, an out of court settlement deal has been struck, with both parties complementing the other last week. CMU report | Digital Spy report
04: UK Music launched its Skills Academy. The initiative, launched in Westminster on Tuesday, aims to help young people who aspire to work in music develop the rights skills for a successful career, partly by promoting the concept of paid apprenticeships to both employers and young talent. UK Music also confirmed that it was opening its fifteenth rehearsal space for young musicians thanks to support from the Beggars Group. Those spaces will also be promoted by the Skills Academy. Academy report | Rehearsal space report
05: Beats was talking to the tel cos, while vKontakte was talking to the majors. Dr Dre and Jimmy Iovine’s company Beats is developing a streaming music service, and this week it was reported to be talking to various US telecom firms, including AT&T, about them bundling the new platform when it launches later this year. Meanwhile Russian social network vKontakte, which is now (finally) removing unlicensed music content from its platform following a court ruling and moves to step up copyright law in Russia, is reportedly talking to the major labels about how it can allow music sharing across its network on a legal basis. Beats report | vKontakte report
On the CMU this week, we pre-empted this weekend’s launch of the BBC Proms by talking to its boss (and Radio 3 chief) Roger Wright, and this Saturday’s Independent Label Market by chatting to The Vinyl Factory’s Sean Bidder about them pressing a series of special records for the event. Our playlist came from Anna Von Hausswolff, and we approved of Annie, Little Daylight, Ariel Pink & Jorge Elbrecht, and Truls.
