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Business News
The ten most-read news stories on the CMU site in February 2014
By Andy Malt | Published on Monday 3 March 2014
Last month’s top ten most-read news stories are pretty much exclusively focussed on the business side of music, with many going into great detail on their subjects. Though topping the list is a throwaway story written to round off a recent edition of the CMU Daily. With hindsight, we might have realised that the sarcasm intended in the headline might not come across so clearly once it was posted on the website and started appearing in Google. Still, at least we know for certain that One Direction aren’t splitting up.
Anyway, on with more newsy news, and next in our list is a report on William Morris Endeavor’s Global Head Of Music Marc Geiger’s keynote speech at MIDEM, in which he predicted that the music industry could grow to bring in $100 billion a year, if only it were more willing to embrace streaming wholeheartedly.
A sizeable chunk of the stories in the top ten were law-related this month, with the highest amount of interest being in the news that HMRC is cracking down on music companies which fail to pay their interns the minimum wage (or anything at all), with an initial round of letters going out to 35 music companies back in early February.
Meanwhile, Warner Music was trying to settle with heritage artists over digital royalty payments, Survivor were suing Sony Music over the same, and Sony in turn was trying to stop companies from selling mixes for cheerleaders using unlicensed music.
As well as that lot, all three major labels were clubbing together to accuse Grooveshark of tampering with evidence in their long running lawsuit against the streaming service, and the Australian government was considering ways to curb piracy through the ever popular graduated response system and court approved web-blocks.
Getting away from legal news again, we had a report on the BRIT Awards that pretty well explained the controversy surrounding the event and its lead sponsor MasterCard’s social media demands of journalists, and rounding the whole list off was a report on Island Records’ new crowdfunding initiative with Indiegogo.
Meanwhile, popular features this month were largely dominated by Festival Line-Up Update columns. The V 2014 line-up proved most popular, with our programme for CMU:DIY at Roundhouse Rising 2014 and a Beef Of The Week on the music industry’s increased battle with YouTube getting in ahead of Bestival and Bonnaroo updates.
The top ten most-read news stories in full:
01: Big One Direction news
02: William Morris Endeavor’s Geiger predicts $100 billion music industry
03: HMRC targets music firms in unpaid internship crackdown
04: Australian government considering three-strikes and web-blocking
05: Warner Music launches website to explain proposed digital royalty settlement
06: Survivor join the digital royalty fight
07: The customary BRITs report, then
08: Sony Music goes after the cheerleaders (well, their mix makers)
09: Labels accuse Grooveshark of evidence tampering
10: Island Records launches crowdfunding site with Indiegogo
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