This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.
Business News Week In Five
CMU Digest – 14 Dec 2012
By Chris Cooke | Published on Friday 14 December 2012
The five biggest stories in the music business this week…
01: HMV admitted it was set to break loan covenants in January. The flagging retailer is currently in talks with its money-lenders in a bid to renegotiate the terms of its £176.1 million of debts. The admission came alongside confirmation that sales were down again at the entertainment retail firm. All of which means January could be make or break for the HMV Group, again, depending on just how gloomy Christmas sales figures turn out to be. The Telegraph reported that the major labels and DVD companies, keen to see HMV survive, were now providing credit of up to £40 million to the retailer in a bid to help it capitalise on the potential of the Christmas market. Covenant report | Major credit report
02: The BPI prepared to sue Pirate Party UK over its Pirate Bay proxy. The record industry trade body wants the courts to force the political organisation to stop helping web-users circumvent the blocks put in place by all the major British internet service providers against the controversial file-sharing platform. The Pirate Party says web-blocks constitute censorship, and has asked supporters to donate funds so it can fight any attempt by the BPI to force it to stop operating its web-block-dodging proxy. CMU report | Pirate Party report
03: Trent Reznor confirmed he was involved in a new streaming service. As expected, a new digital music offer is part of the NIN man’s previously reported alliance with Dr Dre and Jimmy Iovine’s company Beats, which acquired MOG back in July. It’s assumed the streaming set up Reznor is helping to develop, working name Daisy, will utilise the MOG platform. Reznor said his service would have better recommendation and discovery. CMU report | Guardian report
04: Dropbox bought Audiogalaxy, the one-time file-sharing company that of late has been operating a cross between a digital locker and a streaming music service – users can stream their MP3 collections to any net-connected device, though the actual music files stay on their own PC, rather than sitting on the Audiogalaxy platform. Quite what Dropbox wants with its new acquisition isn’t clear, though presumably the popular file-transfer and storage service has ambitions to launch a music-focused product. CMU report | PC World report
05: Last.fm cut back its free streaming services, so that in the UK, US and Germany the digital platform’s interactive radio streams will only be for free via the web, while accessing the service via a desktop app – as with mobile apps – will only be available to paying subscribers. In many other countries the streaming element that has always been at the heart of Last.fm will be removed completely, even to paying users. The news came as the ten year old digital player prepared to leave its Shoreditch HQ to start working from the London base of parent company CBS. CMU report | TNW report
This week on CMU was all about our Artists Of The Year 2012, in which we celebrated the wonderments in music that fell into our collective ears from Ty Segall, Trippple Nippples, Frank Ocean, Julia Holter and Azealia Banks. There’ll be five more Artists Of The Year announced next week too. But none of that stopped us from approving great new music from Saint Etienne, Chairlift, Anna Meredith and Slim Twig.
