Music Business Times News

Pennsylvania court fules in favor of Drifters' manager

Mon, 13 Jul 2009 00:32 GMT

A former manager of 1950s doo-wop group the Drifters could be entitled to millions of dollars in damages from a New York City music promoter who presented different versions of the band at shows over the last three decades. The Third Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia ruled last week in favor of Faye Treadwell, who has fought a lengthy legal battle over the name of the group, which sang such classics as 'There Goes My Baby,' 'Up on the Roof', and 'Under the Boardwalk.'

Paul McCartney 'not devastated' over Michael Jackson will

Mon, 13 Jul 2009 00:14 GMT

Sir Paul McCartney has said he is not surprised that Michael Jackson didn't leave him the rights to the Beatles' back catalogue, saying he didn't believe 'for a second' that this would happen. Despite rumours that Jackson planned to bequeath his share of Sony/ATV publishing to McCartney, it was revealed last week that there was no such instruction in the will. 'Some time ago, the media came up with the idea that Michael Jackson was going to leave his share in the Beatles' songs to me in his will,' McCartney wrote on his website. '[It] was completely made up.'

The Fall Of Pirate Bay: Good or Bad?

Mon, 13 Jul 2009 00:07 GMT

For those that may not know me so well, for the sake of this post, know this. I'm a fervent pirate that has built an extensive music library solely off pirated music. In layman's terms, I downloaded all of my music library. But there are people out there, who want to make it a not-so-jolly life for a pirate like me. To bring home the point, let's use The Pirate Bay as an example. This is a site you have undoubtedly heard about if you've spent anytime torrenting. What's so great about The Pirate Bay (let's call it TPB for short)? For the most part it's their advocacy for the abolition of intellectual property among numerous other esoteric names that lawyers across the world have for copyright material. I wholeheartedly agree that the DMCA and RIAA should be permanently put out of commission, and its organizations...

BlackBerry to offer wireless music downloads to rival Apple and Nokia

Mon, 13 Jul 2009 00:03 GMT

There will be around six million songs available for users in the UK, USA, Canada, France, Italy, Germany and Spain. The application represents a push by Research in Motion, the Canadian company which makes BlackBerrys, to expand its mainly business customer base to include consumers who would normally opt for the Apple iPhone or the Nokia N97. Users will first have to download an application from BlackBerry's App World. The downloaded tracks will cost around 79 pence mostly not have copy protection software, meaning they can be shared between...

La Toya Jackson: 'Michael was murdered and I will nail his killers'

Sun, 12 Jul 2009 04:55 GMT

Michael Jackson's sister La Toya vows to prove the star's death was foul play. And the former Playboy model says: 'I KNOW who did it.' In an astonishing interview, La Toya, 53, reveals secret new facts about the superstar's sudden death, drugs found in his body, and a $2 million stash of cash and jewels that's gone missing...

Berkman Center Founder Denies RIAA Pretrial Shenanigans

Sun, 12 Jul 2009 02:45 GMT

Charles Nesson, the founder of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University, told a federal judge Thursday he has been abiding by court rules and orders in a file sharing case set for a July 27 trial. Nesson, who defended Daniel Ellsberg in the Pentagon Papers case, provided his response amid concerns from the judge presiding over the copyright infringement case that he has shown a blatant disregard...

Odd-couple lawyers aim to save Jammie Thomas

Sun, 12 Jul 2009 02:43 GMT

The elder member of Jammie Thomas-Rasset's legal team is a former U.S. Army Ranger. He doesn't say whether he's proud of that, but his voice does dawdle when he says the words 'special forces.' 'I like pain. I like fighting. I like conflict,' says Joe Sibley. 'Going to war was something I always wanted to do (but didn't). Later in life I discovered I was more capable of fighting and ending wars with my mind.' The younger member of Thomas-Rasset's legal team says, half kidding, that he spent his youth disappointing his parents, who wanted a career for him in medicine. Instead, he fecklessly pursued a Ph.D in economics at Stanford University, and then drifted into law school at Harvard. When he graduated, magna cum laude, Kiwi Camara was 19 years old.

Why Won't the RIAA Just Give Up?

Sun, 12 Jul 2009 02:35 GMT

It is hard to understand what possible good can come from the Recording Industry Association of America's continuing lawsuit against Jammie Thomas-Rasset. Earlier this year, the single mother was hit by a $1.92 millon judgment for sharing 1,072 copyrighted songs on a home computer on which the Kazaa file sharing software was running. She continues to appeal. With its announcement last December that the RIAA was abandoning mass lawsuits against individuals who may have illegally shared copyrighted songs online, the recording...

Pandora Secures $35 Million in Funding

Sun, 12 Jul 2009 02:32 GMT

It's been a good week for Pandora, the online radio station, with the recent updated licensing agreement between music representatives and online radio stations, which should give them a much better chance for survival. And now, perhaps not coincidently, Pandora has managed to secure another $35 million in funding ensuring a brighter future for a company that was on the brink of collapse...

Brandy dumped by record label, management

Sun, 12 Jul 2009 02:30 GMT

Brandy's ongoing bad luck has struck again - she has been dropped by her record label and management in the same week. The R+B star is still recovering from her part in a 2006 car crash, which claimed the life of a fellow motorist and led to her pulling out of a judging role on hit U.S. TV talent show America's Got Talent. And now her career has hit a new low after the failure of her recent comeback album Human.

A Shroud of Thoughts: A History of Music Videos Part III

Sun, 12 Jul 2009 02:27 GMT

After the heyday immediately following Hollywood's adoption of sound, the number of musical shorts declined from the Thirties into Forties. While musical shorts made for the big screen were less common in the Forties than they had been in the Thirties, there would be well over a thousand musical shorts made for the Panoram visual jukebox, the famous Soundies. Unfortunately, by the late Forties the Soundies would be history, while the advent of network broadcast television in the United States would send movie short subjects of any kind into a sharp decline. This did not mean the end of musical shorts...

Why The New Webcasting Rates Are A Death Sentence For Webcasters

Sun, 12 Jul 2009 02:25 GMT

When the announcement came out this week that webcasters had somehow 'come to an agreement' with SoundExchange over webcasts, what was unbelievable was that many presented this as a 'victory' for webcasters. Hell, even SoundExchange made public statements about how it was disappointed by the rates, but it was an 'experiment.' But when you looked at the actual numbers, this made no sense. The rates are ridiculously high when compared to royalty rates for traditional radio or satellite radio. Michael Robertson breaks down the numbers and explains away the myths of this deal. It will almost certainly bankrupt nearly every webcaster out there. Robertson focuses on the big webcasters, and points out that the 25% royalty rate promoted by the press isn't accurate at all, and for a company like Pandora the real rate will be north of 40% of revenue - which is not even close to sustainable...

RIAA Tenenbaum move ‘rank gamesmanship’

Sun, 12 Jul 2009 02:22 GMT

In the Boston, Massachusetts case SONY BMG Music Entertainment v Tenenbaum, the Court had ordered the RIAA to produce certain revenue information, which would be relevant to a determination of the ‘fair use’ defense. But the RIAA has now moved for a protective order to keep the information secret. This motion is a sham and I sincerely hope Judge Nancy Gertner denies it. It’s ludicrous for 4 competitors to be jointly moving...

Death and taxes: Big IRS bill looms for Michael Jackson estate

Sat, 11 Jul 2009 00:55 GMT

The Tax Man is in the mirror for the estate of the late King of Pop. Creditors and heirs of Michael Jackson hoping for a cut of his musical empire will have to line up with the Internal Revenue Service, which could lay claim to $80 million or more in federal estate taxes. To settle his tax bill, the executors of his estate may have to sell or borrow against lucrative but hard-to-value assets or ask the IRS for a multi-year extension. That could allow the estate to pay the tab over time with earnings from Jackson's...

Court Vacates Minimum Royalty Fees For Music Webcasters

Sat, 11 Jul 2009 00:45 GMT

A federal appeals court Friday handed a partial victory to Internet radio, vacating a $500 minimum fee per station for webcasters who broadcast recorded music but leaving intact other royalty rates. Commercial webcasters, under the leadership of the Digital Media Association, argued that the $500 minimum fee was unreasonable because it wasn't capped at a certain level. The fee could seriously endanger the existence of companies like Pandora Media or Live365, where users create their own individual stations or playlists. According to the court, some commercial Internet radio business models 'might be deemed to contain thousands or tens of thousands of 'channels,' making the combined fees prohibitively expensive.' The Digital Media Association also counts Microsoft, Motorola, and Amazon.com, among its members.

L.A. official: Promoter should pay Jackson memorial

Sat, 11 Jul 2009 00:41 GMT

A city council member on Thursday called on AEG Live to pay some of the estimated $1.4 million cost for policing Michael Jackson’s memorial service at the Staples Center. Dennis Zine told Fox 11 that the city’s taxpayers 'are getting ripped off' because the owner-operator of the Staples Center profited by charging media up to $50,000 to use risers outside the venue. AEG President Tim Leiweke had said Zine was out of line for asking AEG to pay for policing because it helped solicit donors for the Los Angeles Lakers’ NBA victory parade last month. Jackson’s concert promoter, AEG Live, said that it paid for the memorial itself along with the Jackson estate, but did not mention the cost of...

Soul Train vaults opened for DVD deal

Sat, 11 Jul 2009 00:39 GMT

Fans of television's long-running 'Soul Train' will now have the chance to purchase DVDs of the pioneering dance show. Soul Train Holdings has partnered with Direct Holdings Americas Inc., granting the latter the domestic home video and worldwide clip licensing rights to the 'Soul Train' library. During its 35-year run, 'Soul Train' evolved into a mainstream cultural institution that played host to such R&B and pop icons as Al Green, Marvin Gaye, Aretha Franklin, Stevie Wonder, The Jackson 5, Prince, Elton John, Whitney Houston, Justin Timberlake and Beyonce. All told, the 'Soul Train' library houses more than 1,100 hours of archival footage. The show's last new episodes aired in 2006. Direct Holdings' Time Life brand will produce and distribute DVDs of vintage 'Soul Train' pisodes and launch a comprehensive marketing campaign to license show clips worldwide...

The Roots Branch Out

Sat, 11 Jul 2009 00:33 GMT

When The Roots agreed to back Jimmy Fallon, who took over Late Night from Conan O'Brien in March, some of their fans couldn't imagine the band filling the Paul Shaffer role of laughing at whatever the host said. Industry observers, meanwhile, wondered if The Roots would forgo the lucrative business of touring in an era when few bands survive on album sales alone. But for the members of The Roots, the show is a chance to craft a...

Rumors about Jackson, Beatles catalog untrue, McCartney says

Sat, 11 Jul 2009 00:31 GMT

The story of the Beatles song catalog is long and tangled. At the time McCartney and writing partner John Lennon wrote their songs, they retained only a portion of the rights in the publishing company created by the Beatles' manager, Brian Epstein, and London music publisher Dick James. (The company was called Northern Songs, a nod to the Beatles' Liverpudlian roots.) The company went public in 1965....

Smaller web radio stations not happy with royalty deal

Sat, 11 Jul 2009 00:28 GMT

While this week’s negotiated deal for online radio royalty payments may have saved Pandora, smaller stations may not come off as well. The chairman of one network has complained a minimum $25,000 annual fee could make many stations financially unviable. Under the deal with music industry representative Soundcast, which is expected to get Congressional approval soon, stations which bring in less than $1.25 million a year are exempt from paying per-song royalties. Instead they pay a proportion of their revenues...

Orange to Make Web, Mobile Music Store DRM-Free

Sat, 11 Jul 2009 00:26 GMT

France Telecom's Orange said on Friday that it will do away with digital rights management (DRM) restrictions on the music sold from its Orange Music Store. The catalog will feature over 700,000 tracks from Universal Music, EMI and independent labels. The company will also introduce tiered pricing at the store, with downloads to be available from $1.28.

Congressman Asks Justice Department to Block Live Nation/Ticketmaster Merger

Sat, 11 Jul 2009 00:23 GMT

The proposed merger between live music titans Live Nation and Ticketmaster is a horrible idea, according to Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-New Jersey), because it would give the combined company an unfair competitive advantage in the music marketplace while driving ticket prices even higher than they already are. 'This merger violates both horizontal and vertical anti-trust principles, and will undoubtedly lead to higher ticket prices for the average fan,' wrote Pascrell. 'Under the proposed merger, the combined company would have control over nearly...

The webcasting deal: What took so long?

Fri, 10 Jul 2009 00:22 GMT

How high were the webcasting royalties set by a federal copyright board more than two years ago? So high that the bacon-saving discount announced Tuesday for 'pureplay' webcasters will still require large ones to pay at least 25% of their revenues to SoundExchange, the agency that represents labels and performing artists. The deal calls for a minimum annual fee of $25,000 - not exactly chump change. Nevertheless, the rates imposed by the Copyright Royalty Board would almost certainly have been a death warrant - they were the equivalent of 70%, 100%, or even more of some webcasters’ total revenues. Those percentages seem outrageous, but consider this: The royalty set by the CRB for 2009 amounted to 2.7 cents per listener per hour of music streamed. The fact that such a fee would amount to 70% or more of a webcaster's income shows how little these companies have been able to generate from advertisers. The picture has actually worsened for webcasters this year as advertisers...

Premier League's failure to register copyrights in US limits YouTube claim

Fri, 10 Jul 2009 00:17 GMT

A New York lawyer involved in the case has said that if the ruling stands, overseas companies will be forced to register their copyrights in the US to protect their options in future litigation. They must do so within three months of a work being published. The Football Association Premier League, which is behind the English Premiership, filed its lawsuit against YouTube and parent company Google in 2007. It argues that YouTube is profiting from a knowing violation of its copyrights in the league and in footage of games in that league, a claim that YouTube denies. The claim is a class action lawsuit on behalf of the Premier League and music publisher Bourne Co and 'all others similarly situated', according to the court filing. It says that Google and YouTube should be denied the 'safe harbor' protection of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DCMA).

Building A Better Hit Machine

Fri, 10 Jul 2009 00:10 GMT

It's the kind of story that keeps thousands of young musicians from quitting every year. Chicago nobodies Mick Schultz and Jeremih Felton cut a hip-hop tune called 'Birthday Sex,' on a home computer in September 2008, pushed on MySpace and got the attention of a local radio station. Soon it caught on in the Miami night club scene and spread to national radio. Now, 650,000 digital downloads and 660,000 ringtones later, Felton, 21, aka 'Jeremih,' signed with Def Jam records and Schultz, 19, is building his own production company after landing a deal with Universal music publishing. A solid six-figure paycheck under his belt, Schultz says, 'It's shocking how fast things moved in the past year....