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Business News Week In Five
The music business week in five – Friday 14 Jan 2011
By Chris Cooke | Published on Friday 14 January 2011
So, welcome to 2011. Yes, I know, Christmas and New Year all seems like it happened months ago now, but this is my first Week In Five of the year so I’m giving you new year salutations whether you like it or not. And do you know what? I’m very excited about 2011, for at least two reasons (a third being all the great new artists and albums on the release schedules).
The first reason is that I genuinely believe 2011 could be a turning point after a decade of turmoil for the music (and especially record) industry, as some of the innovative new approaches to developing, funding and monetising new music, that have been quietly emerging from certain quarters over the last couple of years, start to gain momentum.
The second reason is that in May we’ll be getting some of the key people behind those new approaches onstage in Brighton to talk about, dissect and share their experiences of the ‘new music business’, at the Team CMU programmed Great Escape convention. I’m going to use this slot at the top of Friday’s CMU Daily to keep you up to date with Great Escape sessions and events as and when we confirm them. But for now, all I can say is that I hope you can all join us there, and to do so head over to escapegreat.com where early bird delegate tickets are just £80.
Meanwhile, back to the music business of the last seven days.
01. Terra Firma filed an appeal in their legal fight against Citigroup over EMI. Last year a New York jury was unconvinced by equity group Terra Firma’s claim they were tricked into buying EMI in 2007 by Citigroup, who, they alleged, provided misleading information about other bidders. Terra Firma’s appeal challenges some technical aspects of last year’s trial. Meanwhile speculation remains rampant that Terra Firma will soon hand over EMI to Citigroup, to whom the label owes three billion, and that the bank will then sell it. Though a Terra Firma spokesman insisted nothing will happen until at least March. CMU report | Telegraph report
02. The US Supreme Court refused to block a new hearing for the download price-fixing case. The major record companies are accused of colluding to fix the price of music downloads, breaking US anti-trust laws. A judge previously dismissed the case, known as Starr v Sony, but an appeals court has said that dismissal was wrong and the allegations should be considered anew. Record industry reps hoped that Supreme Court judges would overrule that appeal court decision, but this week they refused to get involved, meaning Starr v Sony will now have to be reconsidered afresh. CMU report | Guardian report
03. The Canadian majors agreed to pay $47.5 million into the country’s songwriting community, as part of a settlement to a class action lawsuit launched by the estate of late jazz man Chet Baker. The majors were accused of being deliberately sloppy in sorting out the mechanical rights on compilation albums, ie getting a licence from the publisher who owns the publishing rights in any songs featured. This, the Baker estate lawsuit claimed, meant there were 300,000 works that had featured on Canadian compilation releases on ‘pending lists’ where publisher and songwriter royalties had not been sorted. The labels also promised to overhaul their mechanical licensing processes as part of the settlement. CMU report | Montreal Gazette report
04. UK industry reps met to discuss their submission to the Hargreaves review. This is the latest government-instigated review of intellectual property laws. Some in the industry fear Professor Hargreaves may be hostile to the traditional copyright industries or, at least, by prioritising a review of the UK’s fair dealing laws (ie users rights), might propose changes that would be detrimental to copyright owners. That said, Music Week reports that Feargal Sharkey, whose UK Music will spearhead the music industry’s submission, is confident the music biz can successfully argue its case. CMU report | Music Week report
05: MySpace announced 500 job cuts, just under half of their total workforce. The cuts had been rumoured over the Christmas break. CEO Mike Jones said the cuts were needed because the web company had changed its business model last year. Many reckon the cuts are really pre-empting a sale of the struggling firm, and owners News Corp this week confirmed it plans to sell, merge or spin-off the web company. CMU report | Register report
Chris Cooke
Business Editor, CMU
