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CMU Digest
CMU Digest 20.06.16: ATP, safe harbours, Merlin, YouTube, Apple Music, AIF
By Chris Cooke | Published on Monday 20 June 2016
The key stories from the last seven days in the music business…
The ATP live business went into administration, with management there confirming that they were finally shutting down their tour and festival promotions company for good. It followed a number of artists due to play the upcoming ATP Iceland festival bailing on the event when contractual obligations were not met. That festival is cancelled while other upcoming gigs will be taken over by other promoters. [READ MORE]
US tel-co RCN went to court for clarification on its responsibilities for stopping piracy on its networks under America’s safe harbour rules, claiming BMG and its anti-piracy agency Rights Corp were making unreasonable demands. Meanwhile, in a long-running legal battle between Capitol Records and Vimeo, an appeals court said that the safe harbours of federal law in the US should also apply to sound recordings that pre-date 1972, even though they are protected by state copyright law. [READ MORE]
Indie label-repping digital rights agency Merlin released the results of its latest membership survey, confirming that it’s labels’ streaming revenues were up 73% year-on-year in the period up to March 2016 to $232 million. 62% of surveyed labels say that digital now accounts for more than 50% of their business, while 46% said the same about streaming. [READ MORE]
The music industry continued to put pressure on YouTube, with Trent Reznor accusing the site of being built on the back of “stolen content”, while Nikki Sixx and his band Sixx:AM continued with their war of words against the video platform by sending an open letter to Google chief Larry Page. YouTube said that artists were “being heard”, but again stressed the $3 billion+ it has paid out to the music industry to date. [READ MORE]
Apple unveiled its expected revamp of streaming music service Apple Music at its Worldwide Developers Conference. Revealing that the service now had over 15 million subscribers, Apple said the streaming app had been “redesigned from the ground up”, bringing more popular features to the fore, and trying to make the whole thing more intuitive. [READ MORE]
As UK collecting society PRS continues to review what it charges concerts and festivals for the rights to stage performances of the songs it represents, the Association Of Independent Festivals warned that a price hike would result in indie fests going under. AIF also argued that festivals should be treated differently to tours, acknowledging their high production costs and the fact they often feature non-music content in their programmes. [READ MORE]
The big deals from the last seven days in the music business…
• Twitter confirmed it had invested in SoundCloud [INFO]
• Nuclear Blast signed Opeth [INFO]
• Nuclear Blast signed In Flames [INFO]
• Sony/Columbia extended its deal with The Vaccines [INFO]
