With suspiciously good timing as the Digital Economy Bill is hurried along towards becoming law, the National Association of Recording Merchandisers has issued a white paper outlining their recommendations for the development and standardisation of deliverable media and information collection. Essentially aimed at people like us (digital music distributors, that is), record labels, online music stores, that sort of thing, not exactly light reading, but interesting if you want to keep an eye on the future of the digital music industry.
The document can be downloaded by handing over your email through the widget below (powered rather pleasingly by Topspin media)
The White Paper details historical information on standardization both within the music industry and in other industries, along with member-identified and prioritized issues surrounding identification and communications standards for music release metadata. It is intended to provide an understanding of the core issues currently undermining accurate and efficient delivery of music information and music. It also features recommendations regarding how NARM will work strategically address these topics.
The digital economy bill has been a fairly hot potato, with the legislation being criticised heavily by one or other group whatever is proposed, added or amended. Whatever shape the bill takes, it’s either going to limit the rights of the consumer (including you, me, everyone buying stuff on iTunes, and everyone ripping it off from the Pirate Bay) or of the content and service providers (record labels, software companies, ISP’s etc). With an extremely close election coming up, everyone in the House of Commons is walking on eggshells, hugging babies, being nice to small dogs that hump their leg etc. in case they lose a vote, and the last thing they want to do is offend anyone, or have any difficult bits of legislation to do in the beginning of a new Parliamentary term.
This being the case, the complex, much amended bill is now likely to be hustled through the usual process of open debate in the commons, with only minimal discussion and a directive being issued by the leaders of the political parties for their MP’s to vote it into law quickly, without too much ugly fuss, so they can get on with the process of smarming up to the voters, slagging each other off like schoolboys and making sure they can pay their nannies and keep the moat full of Cabernet Sauvignon next year.
The directives thus issued are enforced by party ‘Whips’ that go round and make sure that MP’s are doing what they’re told and not acting [heaven forfend] on the basis of their individual opinions, hence the title…
This whipping will not prevent any of the increasingly acrimonious public discussion outside the halls of Government: it just means that we’re going to be lumped with an improperly discussed and refined piece of law governing one of the most important and fastest growing sections of the UK economy. I’m voting Green, in case anyone wondered…
The story of’s EMI’s purchase, and the company’s subsequent struggles to maintain its debt is one that we’ve featured a fair bit, and now the speculation about their move to raise cash by licensing out their publishing division to another label is becoming clearer. According to an article in The Times they’ve been in talks with all three of the other major labels (UMG, Warner, Sony BMG) about taking over the exploitation of their catalogue for a five year period, for a sum in the neighbourhood of $400 million. This would essentially solve their cash flow problems (The Times thinks until about 2014), but would also mean that the major source of revenue had been taken out of the business.
Buying breathing space with a deal like this would give them time to make economies and find alternative sources of revenue without CitiBank breathing down their neck, but would probably also see one of their competitors releasing compilations like crazy, milking whatever they can out of the asset in their short license period. Doubtless EMI think this is a better solution than being thrown to the wolves that are gathering outside Brook Green – KKR, a private equity group, is in talks with Warner Music to launch a break-up bid for EMI.
Brit Award winners Florence and The Machine have released a new video for their track ‘Dog Days Are Over’, which is available for your viewing pleasure on their website. A strange mix of Barbarella and Jane Austen, seasoned with Monty Python animation and Ziggy Stardust makeup. The track is bearing up pretty well under the usual vampiric draining by pop radio stations that a Brit win usually entails – by the way, did anyone ever hear from that Speech Debelle girl again? I guess not all music awards are created equal… shame that talent needs so much money to swim against the tide of marketing.
They’ve not announced a specific date, but Business Week are carrying this story, in which Senior Vice President Paul Brown claims they’re in talks with various ISP’s, web hosting companies and mobile providers to co-ordinate service provision in the States before the year is out:
“We’re buying server space in random parts of the states and there are licensing discussions too,” Brown said “But they are going fine because we’re in a long-term partnership with the labels and publishers.”
They are also in discussions to port their smartphone app, that’s currently on Android and the iPhone onto the BlackBerry and Palm Inc. smartphones – a small but significant expansion of their customer appeal. Expansion into the USA will see a big jump in Spotify’s user numbers, which will necessitate improvement in their per-user revenue figures unless they are to start losing huge amounts of money. It’s for this reason that they have been restricting signups in Europe, so perhaps there’s a new model or a magic bullet, or perhaps they’re just bullish about the steady increase in their ad revenues being able to fully fund a free user by the time they’re ready to launch in the new territory.
Either way, if you’re an indie musician, sign up with RouteNote and we’ll get your music on Spotify for you ahead of their expansion.
MGMT’s new album, Congratualtions found it’s way onto the file sharing ecosphere over the weekend, so in a striking move to make the best of a bad situation, Columbia and MGMT decided to put the whole thing up to stream for free on the band’s website:
Hey everybody, the album leaked, and we wanted you to be able to hear it from us. We wanted to offer it as a free download but that didn’t make sense to anyone but us.
Which is a pretty cool way of going about things, if you ask us. Bound to generate interest in the band and their music, and more of a gift to their fans than a capitulation to the pirates. Music has changed so drastically that bands are having to combat leaks and pirates in new ways, and we really hope this strategy pays off for the band. Go visit the site, get a t-shirt, buy the album in legit music stores, and stream it on Spotify, and let’s make sure they get their dues.
Stefani Germanotta, aka Lady Gaga is both suing and being sued by her ex-producer and ex-boyfriend Rob Fusari. Fusari, who has had two songs with other artists hit the top spot in the Billboard top 100, claims that he was instrumental in the creation of LG’s persona, sound, style and everything that has come together to make her so successful. There’s no doubt that he is partly responsible for the development of the Gaga entity, as he’s already been paid over $600,000 for the part he played, but he’s looking for a lot more: 20% of royalties (plays, sales, etc) and 15% of merchandising revenue (!!!). He’s got a contract that he’s putting under the court’s collective nose, but “The above described arrangement was structured in such a way as to mask its true purpose – to provide to the Defendants unlawful compensation for their services as unlicensed employment agents,” according to Germanotta’s attorneys.
Ex-lovers’ tiff or business-world backstabbing? The stakes are high in either case, as Lusari’s career and a huge chunk of revenue are riding on the outcome of the case. It all reminds me a bit of that Human League song… *sings* “You were working as a waitress in a cocktail bar…”
Guy Hands and his team at the high flying venture capital firm Terra Firma have been chewing sour grapes ever since their purchase of recording giant EMI for £2.4 billion. They have been in court with their lenders Citibank over bad advice during the sale of the label, and have been practically walking on water to meet the huge cash demand of the interest payments on their gigantic loan (although they stopped short of selling off the Abbey Rd. Studios to get a cash fix). Now they are again scrabbling around to find £120 million to plug a covenant breach on the same loan, and a deal is in the offing from WMG to buy the still-profitable music publishing arm of EMI, an asset it’s been coveting over the garden fence for decades. Any bid for the £1.2 billion publishing arm is probably going to be made after EMI have cleared or defaulted on their next interest payment, in the first case, making an offer to EMI and Terra Firma, and in the second, talking to their creditor Citi if the company goes into receivership.
A tour supporting their new album ‘Plastic Beach’ means that the Camden Roundhouse will play host to Damon & Co.’s 2D extravaganza on the 29th and 30th of April, in a show featuring Damon Albarn, The Clash’s Mick Jones and Paul Simonon, Mos Def, Gruff Rhys, Shaun Ryder, Bobby Womack, The National Orchestra For Arabic Music, Bashy, De La Soul, Kano and Little Dragon, along with new animation and artwork by Jamie Hewlett. The gigs will be the band’s first full UK performance since Demon Days Live at the Manchester Opera House in 2005.
Tickets are £45, but don’t grab your credit card just yet, they’re not on sale to the public until 9am on Friday 26th March, although you can sign up to be a Roundhouse member and get hold of some early bird tix. They will also be available at this time from www.livenation.co.uk and www.roundhouse.org.uk (all tickets subject to a booking fee). Subscribers to the Gorillaz fan club will have access to an exclusive limited ticket pre sale from 7.30am on Tuesday [ www.gorillaz.com/g-club - membership from £24.99].
You can also play a strange little point-and-click adventure game on the band’s website by clicking here. It’s clunky, but who knows, you might win something?
A small selection of songs (mostly inspired by the fact that Weezer have a new album out and ‘Hash Pipe’ was an awesome track for this sort of thing), that probably show the average age of the people in the RouteNote office, but should none the less help you rock the last few hours of your week. Happy head-nodding…
