Business News Week In Five

The music business week in five – 23 Sep 2011

By | Published on Friday 23 September 2011

Chris Cooke

Hello there. So, have you all voted in AIM’s new Independent Music Awards? And this applies to all of you, because three of the gongs at the inaugural awards bash from the indie label trade body are open to public vote – Indie Champion, Best Live Act and Best Independent Festival. I’m not sure why we’ve not mentioned it before, but look, we’re mentioning it now, and you’ve still got a week to vote. The shortlists have been drawn up already, so you just need to go and put a tick next the media bod, band and festival you rate the most. Hurrah. More info here. But before you click that, read this – your lovingly crafted Week In Five.

01: Facebook announced some shit at their big F8 event in San Francisco. What the social networking giant has done in the background to change the way users can learn about what their friends are doing, reading, consuming and listening to, and the potential for users to share in those experiences at the click of a button and chat about them through the social network, is possibly very interesting. Though what it actually means for existing users of content services plugged in to the new look Facebook, including Spotify, is possibly less exciting in the short term. Though it will likely turn those existing users into better, and basically unknowing, brand advocates. CMU report | Guardian report

02: Spotify defended its record for paying artists. The streaming music service was in jubilant mood, having been made a top booking at Facebook’s aforementioned F8 conference, and with the two million paying subscriber landmark having been passed. But there was more chatter online as to whether artists were getting a fair deal, partly after self-releasing indie-folk outfit Uniform Motion posted a blog comparing what they earned from different mail-order, download and streaming music services. Spotify said it was wrong to compare the per-stream rate it pays with what an artist earned from an iTunes download. Uniform Motion subsequently agreed, but said their frustration was that the link between what a customer pays and what an artist earns is much clearer with the Apple service. Spotify’s business model is obviously more complicated, but many grass roots artists wonder whether it needs to be shadowed in quite so much secrecy. Does the secrecy mean Spotify and their major label partners are ripping off the little guy? CMU report | Uniform Motion blog

03: Universal and Live Nation formed a JV. The two music congloms will launch an artist services agency specialising in brand partnerships and online fan engagement and sales platforms. The new company will be led by Live Nation’s Front Line management business. Universal hopes to bring artists – whether those managed by its management companies, or those signed to its labels – to the table. The scale of the partnership probably isn’t as big as some suggested, though many in the independent sector fear any collaboration between these two powerhouses of the wider music industry. CMU report | LA Times report

04: Play.com was sold for £25 million. The Jersey-based mailer-order firm, which enjoyed a 14.3% share of the UK record sales market last year according to Music Week, was sold to Japanese online retail company Rakuten. The sale comes as Play.com and competitors The Hut Group face the prospect of the UK government ending the Channel Islands tax loophole that has allowed them to sell CDs and DVDs by mail-order without charging VAT. CMU report | FT report

05: Joel Tenenbaum’s damages payment was restored to $675,000. The famous America file-sharer, who, when sued by the RIAA for file-sharing, let the case go to court, was ordered to pay six figure damages by a jury in 2009. The judge hearing the case, Nancy Gertner, subsequently cut that to $67,500 on constitutional grounds the following year. The RIAA appealed, and the appeals court this week restored the damages to $675,000, albeit because it believed Gertner had not followed the right procedure in cutting the damages payment. CMU report | Ars Technica

And that’s you’re lot. For more Facebook bitching – I mean, insightful analysis of Facebook Music – check out today’s CMU Weekly podcast, online this afternoon at www.completemusicupdate.com/podcast/

Chris Cooke
Business Editor, CMU



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