Well, didn’t January go quickly? Whoosh! It went. Whooooooosh! But not so quickly that no one came to the CMU website, which is good news for us and, specifically, this article. Because if no one had been on the site at all then I would be writing this introduction for nothing.
Drawing the most readers in January was news of Kickass Torrents being hit by a DDoS attack, while The Pirate Bay had yet another domain name blocked. Both remain up and running now though, just in case you thought that was the end of all that. Ticketmaster, meanwhile, was defending having Adele tickets listed on its resale sites, when it was well aware that the singer’s team was going to great lengths to ensure buyers of resold tickets don’t get into her shows. Before you look at the full top ten, let’s just take a quick look at the five most popular features of January 2016. Top of that list is a look at the five key digital challenges for the music industry over the next twelve months. Then there’s the return of our look at those most thrilled in the previous twelve months. There’s also a new PJ Harvey track, Adele and Ed Sheeran going head to head, and our David Bowie tribute edition of the CMU Podcast. The top ten most-read news stories in full: 01: Kickass hit by DDoS, as latest Pirate Bay domain is blocked 02: The Pirate Bay shifts again to an alternative domain 03: Ticketmaster defends the Adele tickets on its secondary sites 04: Live356 to close because of SoundExchange rate changes 05: No David Bowie autobiography, though key the key to his life story may lie in massive personal archives 06: David Lowery’s lawyer says Spotify’s ‘bad data’ line is “the worst excuse in the world” 07: US Copyright Office announces review of safe harbours 08: J-pop ‘no dating’ clauses ruled unconstitutional 09: Metallica license logo to tribute act for $1, waive fee 10: The love/hate relationship continues as PRS renews its deal with YouTube You can receive all our news stories, job ads and features in a handy email every weekday with the CMU Daily. Sign up for free here.