Business News

The ten most-read news stories on completemusicupdate.com in November 2013

By | Published on Monday 2 December 2013

The Beatles

The Beatles made a strong showing in our most-read news stories for November 2013.

The Fab Four top the list thanks to a report on research that showed that they are the band whose music appears most frequently on file-sharing sites that comply with takedown notices. This would suggest that no one is currently managing the removal of the band’s music from these sites. The other nine acts on the list are also successful heritage artists, though The Beatles had more than 100,000 files available illegally than their nearest competitor, Fleetwood Mac.

Lower down the most-read stories list is an article published in January about re-issue labels capitalising on The Beatles’ first single, ‘Love Me Do’, falling out of copyright. The surge in traffic on that article occurred as the sound recording copyright in the UK finally extended from 50 to 70 years on 1 Nov – though the extension is not being applied retrospectively so tracks like ‘Love Me Do’ will not go back into copyright.

We are going back to takedown notices though. The Beatles may not be issuing any, but there are plenty going around – and at number six in our list, after issuing its 50 millionth takedown notice to Google alone, the BPI again called on search engine giant to do more about online piracy.

Aside from Google removing links to illegally uploaded music from its search engine, the key to combating piracy is surely offering legitimate services that are better and more convenient. The boom in streaming services is doing just that, but some would argue that the price points of your Spotifys et al are still off-putting for some people. One service offering cheaper entry points is Bloom.fm, which passed 500,000 users this month, news of which is also in our most-read list.

If it’s not piracy and streaming royalties getting artists’ backs up, it’s big media companies telling them that they can’t afford to pay them to use their music, but that they will offer ‘great exposure’. And third in our most-read list this month is a report on musician Whitey taking a TV production company to task over this.

Elsewhere in the top ten this month, there’s a late entry at number two in the form of Conrad Murray’s oversharing about his relationship with Michael Jackson (which has drawn legal threats from the Jackson estate), plus reports on rumours that MKS had been dropped (they hadn’t), the final release from the Jonas Brothers, and Paul Heaton’s response to finding out that David Cameron is a fan of his former band, The Housemartins.

Our most popular features this month were an interview with audio engineer Bob Katz about his claims that iTunes Radio is ending the ‘loudness war’, a glut of Beef Of The Week columns starring James Arthur, Huey Morgan and Lily Allen, plus an Approved column on New Zealand brother-sister duo Broods.

The top ten most-read news stories in full:

01: The Beatles top most-pirated list
02: Conrad Murray “held Michael Jackson’s penis every night”, again denies causing singer’s death
03: Whitey hits out at media firms playing the ‘we have no budget’ card
04: Polydor reportedly drops MKS
05: Re-issue labels capitalise on Love Me Do going public domain, as IPO begins consultation on copyright extension
06: As it issues its 50 millionth takedown request, BPI calls on Google to do more about piracy
07: Bloom.fm reaches half a million users
08: Copyright Extension specifics announced
09: Paul Heaton reiterates David Cameron pub ban
10: Jonas Brothers to bow out with last mini-album

You can receive all our news stories, job ads and features in a handy email every weekday with the CMU Daily. Sign up for free here.



READ MORE ABOUT: | | | | | | | | | | | |