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CMU Digest
CMU Digest 14.11.16: Cox Communications, Songkick, Mandy Jiroux, Omnifone, KickassTorrents, Electric Jukebox
By Chris Cooke | Published on Monday 14 November 2016
The key stories from the last seven days in the music business…
Cox Communications filed its appeal in the safe harbours case it lost last year.The US ISP was ordered to pay $25 million to BMG for failing to tackle repeat copyright infringers amongst is customer base. In its appeal, Cox questions its obligations under US safe harbour laws to act against suspected infringers simply based on allegations presented by rights owners, rather than a court order. It also argues that the ruling in the BMG case sets a dangerous precedent. [READ MORE]
Songkick announced an alliance with Shazam, which will see gig listings from the former’s database added to track searches on the latter’s app. It adds a new element to Shazam’s music discovery service, while opening up Songkick to a new audience of millions of music fans. [READ MORE]
Lawyers for YouTuber Mandy Jiroux hit back at the lawsuit that alleges she reworked Blind Melon song ‘No Rain’ as ‘Insane’ without the required permission from the rock band. As a rework, ‘Insane’ isn’t covered by the compulsory licence for cover versions in the US. However, Jiroux’s management insist that they got permission from the band to release the rework of their song, though a number of ambiguous emails could be at the heart of the case. [READ MORE]
Apple confirmed it hired a number of former Omnifone staff after the latter company went into administration earlier this year. TechCrunch noted that around sixteen ex-Omnifoners now listed Apple as their employer on their Linked-In profiles. The news came admist rumours Apple also bought some technology off the defunct firm, which provided white label digital music services and owned various patents and a pretty decent music rights database. [READ MORE]
The US government responded to a bid to have the criminal case against the alleged KickassTorrents owner dismissed. Lawyers working for Artem Vaulin argue that file-sharing platform Kickass can only be held liable for ‘secondary’ or ‘contributory’ infringement, which isn’t a criminal offence under US law. But United States Attorney Zachary Fardon countered in a filing this week that when it comes to the charge of “conspiracy to commit copyright infringement”, the distinction between ‘direct’ and ‘secondary’ infringement is irrelevant. [READ MORE]
Electric Jukebox finally went live in the UK, a year after being originally unveiled. The latest digital music venture from the founders of Omnifone and Rara.com, Electric Jukebox is a small device that provides music streams through a TV set. Its pitch is that its really simple to set up and, once up and running, is cheaper that Spotify et al, with an annual subscription of £52. There are parallels with Amazon’s new streaming service – ie cheaper streams locked to a single device – though Amazon’s Echo device also offers other functionality at a similar price point. [READ MORE]
The big deals from the last seven days in the music business…
• Key Production and Modo merged [INFO]
• Cooking Vinyl Australia and Epitaph Records announced a partnership [INFO]
• Management firm Faction Entertainment allied with Kobalt [INFO]
• Kings Of Leon signed a new deal with US collecting society SESAC [INFO]
• Sony/ATV announced a bunch of new neighbouring rights signees [INFO]
