Ever wondered how Turntable.fm looked after their music licensing, well here is how they do it. Turntable.fm co-founder sat down with Techcrunch to talk about the basics of Turntable and how they are just focused on running their product only in the US.
Grooveshark has been having a little trouble signing the major records labels to their service. It seems that the majors try suing Grooveshark first and then sign a license deal with them later. Merlin is the latest major music company to sign with Grooveshark. Thus, this concludes the Merlin litigation against Grooveshark, always a nice starting point for a fruitful renegotiation.
It just seems like these major music companies are using litigation as a means to gain better terms in the negotiations.
Merlin chief Charles Caldas offered some words of caution against further funny business. “We wish Grooveshark all the best going forward and hope that this will be an important reminder to other music services looking to launch soon,” Caldas said.
I really think Merlin should stop with the heavy handed tactics or soon they will lose some of the labels within their walls!
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.
Previously here at RouteNote we have been pretty critical of the PRS and how they go about their business. However, today the PRS and YouTube have finally announced that they have come to an agreement on licensing.
Google has confirmed that the new deal is a lump sum just like the last one, thus paying an upfront amount but not a per stream minimum. It is about time that the PRS be a little more flexible on their approach to licensing, but I still wonder if Google had access to work out which artists are PRS registered and then based the lump sum around that. Songwriters and composers will be keen to hear the finer details of the deal though, in terms of what tracking will be used to equitably share out the cash.
The deal is backdated to 9th January when the previous deal expired, and runs until June 2012. Neither Google nor PRS for Music is saying how much the upfront payment is, naturally.
YouTube’s director of video partnerships Patrick Walker says that “We are dedicated to establishing and fostering relationships that make YouTube a place where existing fans and new audiences can discover their favourite content – whatever it might be. We are extremely pleased to have reached an agreement with PRS for Music and look forward to the return of premium music videos to YouTube in the UK where they will join a variety of other content to be enjoyed by our British users.”
