So, here we go, the final Week In Five of 2011, because this time next week we’ll have eaten far too many mince pies to be writing a CMU Daily. Talking of food, somehow today I’ve got to fit a Music Publishers Association Christmas lunch in around four publication deadlines, which should make for an interesting few hours. Do you think Team MPA will mind if I’m editing a podcast while eating all their food? Hmm, oh well, better get on with this then…

01: MegaUpload sued Universal. The file-sharing platform said the major had misused US copyright law to force a promotional video Team Mega had made off YouTube, because it was pissed off various artists signed to its labels could be seen bigging up the file transfer service at the same time the big music majors were accusing the Mega company of fuelling piracy. Universal said it was acting for artists featured in the video without their permission, but MegaUpload said it had signed agreements from all participating talent. The major then said it couldn’t be sued over the takedown notice it had issued over the video, because it had issued the notice according to a contractual agreement with YouTube, and not using the statutory system set out in the DMCA. CMU reports | Wired report

02: Madonna signed to Universal. The label will release the first album coming out via the singer’s partnership with Live Nation. The live music conglom has a multi-layered partnership with Madonna from a multi-million dollar 2007 deal, but Live Nation’s initial plans to have a division to handle things like record releases have long been dropped, so it’s been assumed for a while that the company would look to work in partnership with an existing record company on such things. It’s another big name signing for Universal, Madonna having previously worked with Warner on record releases. CMU report | BBC report

03: iTunes Match went live in the UK. The scan-and-match bit of Apple’s digital locker service, which distinguishes it from its Google and Amazon-owned rivals, had only been previously available in the US. There was some confusion as to whether the arrival of the functionality in the UK and elsewhere yesterday was a mistake, but seemingly not. It means that for 22 quid a year, users can access their MP3 collections via Apple’s servers from any net-connected device without actually having to upload any content. Elsewhere in digital news, iTunes launched in Latin America, Spotify revamped its personalised radio service, and Omnifone launched something new called Rara.com. CMU report | ZDnet report

04: The government announced a review of copyright laws. The wide-ranging review will look into the practicalities of putting recommendations made by the Hargreaves Review of intellectual property law into action. Much of it will focus on expanding fair use principles under UK copyright law. It will also consider introducing a private copy right in the UK. The record labels are OK with that, but want some sort of levy attached to digital music devices as in some other European countries where a private copy right already exists. Hargreaves proposed a private copy right with no such levy. CMU report | FT report

05: Warner complained about Sony dominance on the ‘X-Factor’ final shows. Four of the guest artists on the final two ‘X’ programmes were Sony-signed. Sony Music, of course, is co-producer of ‘X’ via its Syco division. Warner complained to OfCom, saying that ITV had failed to ensure Sony didn’t abuse its position as producer of the UK’s biggest music show. But Sony says that overall this series Universal has had more artists feature on ‘X’, that both EMI and Warner had three artists each, and of four Sony acts on the final shows, three were former ‘X’ contestants, making their appearances editorially justified. CMU report | Guardian report

And that is your lot. But do look out for the final CMU Weekly podcast of the year going online this weekend.

Chris Cooke
Business Editor, CMU

So, how the hell did it get to be almost halfway through December so quickly? There’s only one more of these Week In Five columns to go in 2012, and two weeks today we’ll be looking back at the whole year instead as we all break up for Christmas. And I haven’t even bought an advent calendar yet. Argh, so much to do. Better get on with all the Week In Five shenanigans extra quick then…

01: Edgar Bronfman Jr stepped down as Warner Music Chairman. The former CEO and key shareholder at the US music major will still have a seat on the board, but the announcement means Bronfman Jr will have little day to day influence over the music company he controlled from 2004 until earlier this year. New CEO Stephen Cooper was optimistic about the company’s future in a conference call with bond holders this week, despite revenues slipping in the last year, though rumours of a cost cutting restructure at the major continue to circulate. CMU reports | FT report

02: Ticketmaster US announced its class action credit plans. This relates to a class action lawsuit over delivery charges added to ticket sales in America over the last decade. Claimants argued that gig goers were misled into thinking delivery charges were just a cost of sale, when actually the ticketing giant made a profit on them. With things looking like they would go the claimants’ way in court, Ticketmaster reached a settlement earlier this year pledging to give anyone who paid misleading delivery charges $1.50 credits on up to seventeen future tickets. Although that multi-million dollar settlement is still to get final court approval, Tickemaster started contacting potentially affected customers about it this week. CMU report | Washington Post report

03: A scandal hit Dutch collecting society BUMA-STEMRA. Amusingly, it related to the unlicensed use of a piece of music by an anti-piracy organisation. Melchior Rietveldt wrote the piece, and turned to his collecting society for help when he discovered that the anti-piracy body he had written it for had used it on millions of DVDs, despite their contract not allowing for such a thing. But, Rietveldt claims, BUMA-STEMRA proved little help until one board member, Jochem Gerrits, got in touch. But he wanted a third of any royalties due on the track in return for offering his assistance. Gerrits demands for a kick back were recorded by a Dutch broadcaster, causing a bit of a scandal in the country’s music community. Gerrits claims his offers of help, and demands for a cut of the loot, have been misrepresented. CMU report |Torrentfreak report

04: 7Digital and Deezer announced expansions. The former had a seventh birthday party and announced a new partnership with Microsoft on the Windows phone and an expansion of operations in the US. The latter announced a plan for rapid growth worldwide, with confusing claims it would launch in more countries than exist on Planet Earth by next summer. 7Digital report | Deezer report

05: Radio 1 announced a specialist show rejig, the first major schedule change since Ben Cooper became Controller, and possibly a move to bring in some of that younger fresher blood people are always saying the Beeb’s youth station lacks. Skream, Benga, Friction, Charlie Sloth and Toddla T are all in, while Judge Jules, Gilles Peterson, Fabio & Grooverider and Kissy Sell Out are all, well, out. CMU report | Guardian comment

And that’s your lot. Until the podcast, coming to an internet near you soon – sign up atwww.theCMUwebsite.com/podcast.

Chris Cooke
Business Editor, CMU

So, I’m writing to you this week from a frosty corner of Cheshire, having headed North yesterday to take part in the recording of a special edition of the BBC Introducing show on Radio Lancashire. Put together in association with Creative Lancashire, it brought together artists and bloggers from across the region to discuss the role of grass roots music writers online in helping to nurture and promote local talent. It was a really good evening – with a few excellent acoustic spots from said local talent thrown in for good measure – and I’ll try my best to remind you when it appears on the iPlayer later this month. Meanwhile, let’s get on with the Week In Five shall we?

01: Universal’s Grooveshark lawsuit was published. The biggest of the music majors is suing the often controversial streaming service, claiming that while Grooveshark execs say it’s their users who are uploading Universal content onto their website (and therefore, as they also operate a content takedown system, they are protected from copyright claims under US law), in fact it’s the very same execs who have been posting many of the major’s tracks into the Grooveshark system. Universal’s legal papers were made public this week and, while we still have to take the major’s word for it regarding their central claim, the lawsuit does include emails from Grooveshark’s chairman, also an investor, admitting that the company’s plan is to skirt around copyright issues as long as they can, in the hope that they gain sufficient users and user data that the labels will be forced to do a deal. Not necessarily a smoking gun, but it confirms a lot of the fears of the label and artist communities. CMU report | C-Net report

02: Spotify added an apps channel. Whether it really warranted a much hyped big press announcement is debatable, but the arrival of third party apps within the Spotify player – properly bringing editorial and curated lists into the platform for the first time – was an interesting development. The Guardian, Pitchfork and Billboard are among the early app partners, though with an open API any third parties are invited to join the in-Spot app party. Though with no real way to monetise such apps – at least not yet – the only real benefit for third parties is reaching Spotify’s ten million users. Which will be less attractive the more crowded the Spotify app store becomes. Still, some of those initial free apps are rather cool. CMU report | Billboard report

03: Dizzee Rascal allied with Universal Music. Having worked with the Beggars Group’s XL Recordings on his first three albums, before going it totally alone on album four, the Rascal announced a deal with Universal earlier this week, technically a partnership with the rapper’s Dirtee Stank label. Universal’s Island Records will provide marketing and distribution services for the next Dizzee album, and work with other Dirtee Stank artists, in particular Katie Pepper. CMU report | NME report

04: Google extended its blocked autofill word list. This actually probably happened in the middle of last month, but came to wider attention via a report on Torrentfreak. Google previously promised content owners that they would stop suggesting to users – as they typed search terms into the Google search engine – alternative terms that would almost certainly lead to unlicensed content, such as the word ‘BitTorrent’ after an artist’s name. This list of blocked words has seemingly been extended to include the names, or variations thereof, of various popular file-sharing services including The Pirate Bay. Whether this extension was motivated by pressure being put on the web giant as it negotiated deals for its Google Music service with the big music companies isn’t known. CMU report | TorrentFreak report

05: The Napster-era ended in the US, in that the legit Napster service stopped trading in America following the company’s acquisition by rival digital music set up Rhapsody. Napster users in the US will now become Rhapsody users, and anyone going to Napster.com is now urged to sign up to the Rhapsody service, the streaming platform original set up by Real Networks. The Napster brand will seemingly remain outside the US for now, where Rhapsody never launched. CMU report | C-Net report

And that’s your lot, until later today when I finish editing out all the sniffs and coughs from this week’s CMU podcast (one day I’ll get rid of this cold) and stick it online at www.theCMUwebsite.com/podcast. This week’s guest drink is very green.

Chris Cooke
Business Editor, CMU

So hello there one and all, and welcome to Black Friday, America’s national day of shopping which Amazon is trying to inflict on the rest of us with its various “Black Friday Week” offers.

If we’re going to adopt one of America’s holidays personally I’d rather have Thanksgiving, I quite like eating excessive amounts of food, but absolutely hate shopping. And besides, ‘Black Friday’ was named because of the horrific congestion all those shoppers caused in American cities and malls. Who wants to adopt that?

But the good news is that there is no Black Friday in London, so there shouldn’t be any out of the ordinary congestion, which means there’s no excuse for not heading down to the main Topman store at Oxford Circus today for the mega-DJ-jam involving our very own Eddy Temple-Morris, and designed to raise awareness for CALM, an incredibly important charity designed to reduce the number of suicides among the young male population. If you can’t make it to Oxford Circus, do read Eddy’s column on the venture, and if you can, well do enjoy watching Eddy, Zane Lowe, Dan le Sac, Kissy Sell Out, Herve, the Loose Canons and many more going head to head in a DJ fashion.

But first, take a few moments to catch up on this week’s big music business stories…

01: Universal sued Grooveshark, again. Based on data it got access to as part of a previous legal dispute with Grooveshark, Universal says it has evidence that bosses at the often controversial streaming music service have themselves uploaded unlicensed content to the company’s web platform. Grooveshark is a Spotify-style set up that allows users to upload music to its catalogue, meaning it streams music from many more labels than the handful it has licensing agreements with. Owners of the service say they operate a DMCA takedown system for that unlicensed content, so are protected under US copyright law. But, Universal’s lawyers argue, that does not apply if Grooveshark staff are uploading the unlicensed material. The web firm said the major was deliberately misinterpreting the data it had handed over, but if Universal were to win this one, it would likely push for millions possibly billions in damages based on the statutory damages allowed in the US for copyright infringement. CMU reports |WSJ report

02: UK Music called on music types to contribute to live licensing review. The government is reviewing the 2003 Licensing Act which many in the live sector reckon has made it too hard to stage grass roots music events. The government’s consultation on the issue is actually considering proposals for cutting live entertainment red tape considerably more radical than those already set out in a private member’s bill on this issue, Lord Tim Clement-Jones’ Live Music Bill. Submissions to the review need to be in by 3 Dec, and UK Music called on anyone in the music space who supports these proposed changes to put that support in writing. CMU report | UK Music statement

03: European courts said ISPs couldn’t be forced to become the piracy police. In an ECJ ruling relating to a long running battle between Belgian collecting society Sabam and net firm Scarlet, the Euro judges said that forcing ISPs to monitor all traffic with a viewing to blocking the sharing of unlicensed content – which Sabam wanted Scarlet to do – would breach various bits of the EU’s Charter Of Fundamental Rights. Although a pain for Sabam, its arguable that the ruling doesn’t affect too many other efforts to force ISPs to assist in stopping illegal file-sharing, because other demands to this effect have been much more narrowly defined than by the Belgians. CMU report | PC World report

04: The Music Managers Forum backed a speech by EU Digital Commissioner Neelie Kroes which called for more reform to European copyright systems, including more collective licensing in the digital domain. Kroes also called for content owners and technology companies to collaborate on systems to better monitor copyright ownership and royalty distribution. MMF Chair Brian Message said: “Neelie Kroes summed up our views succinctly and with passion. Her final sentence – ‘let’s not wait for a financial crisis in the creative sector to happen to finally adopt the right tools to tackle it’ – says it all. We applaud her and wholeheartedly share her vision”. CMU report | Register report

05: CMU was confirmed as convention programmers of The Great Escape 2012. It may be a bit self indulgent to include this here, but yes, Team CMU will once again programme the convention side of Europe’s leading festival for new music next May, bringing together the very best minds from across the music, media and digital industries to share ideas, advice, case studies and opinions. Early bird tickets that get you into the whole convention plus priority access to the festival are just £120, get yours now! CMU report | TGE tickets

And that’s your lot till the CMU podcast this afternoon, see you for that later.

Chris Cooke
Business Editor, CMU

So, Phonetics is the study of speech sounds. Yes, there are people out there who have dedicated their entire lives to gallantly studying all the many sounds (there are more than you’d think) that the human mouth is capable of producing.

If you choose to study Phonetics at university, which I did, briefly, you’ll probably find yourself on a Tuesday morning staring deeply into the mouth of a very old, very academic man, with at least some of his own teeth, as he shows you what shape the tongue makes in order to ‘articulate’ each sound. So, the ‘ooo’ and the ‘ahh’ and the ‘eee’. And the plosives, the ‘pah’ and ‘tah’ and ‘dah’. And let’s not forget the fricatives, the ‘sss’ and the ‘fff’ and the ‘zzz’.

I have to say, it was one of the least pleasant experiences of my entire academic career. As a general rule, I don’t like spit.

But Phonology, now here’s something more interesting and generally spit free. Phonologists look at how different languages select and organise the speech sounds available in order to allow speakers of those tongues to distinguish between words. So, how English employs the ‘tah’, ‘cah’ and ‘mmm’ sounds so that speakers can distinguish between the words ‘top’, ‘cop’ and ‘mop’.

No one language makes use of all the sounds the mouth can create. The International Phonetic Alphabet, a notation system for representing each speech sound in writing (because the 26 letters of the Roman alphabet simply aren’t enough), has 107 symbols to represent the main sounds. But then there are diacritics and other symbols that can be used if you want to be more precise, meaning there are actually many more speech sounds than even the basic IPA notates.

However, the English language makes use of far fewer. But how many exactly? Well, answering that question reveals what is for me the most interesting element of Phonology. Because if you ask “how many speech sounds are used in the English language”, well, it depends. Do you mean how many sounds do we use, or how many do we – as native English speakers – hear? Because the answer is different.

At least one text book I looked in says there are 44 ‘phonemes’ in English. And, the Collins English dictionary defines the term ‘phoneme’ as a “speech sound in any given language that serves to distinguish one word from another”. So, the ‘t’, ‘c’ and ‘m’ sounds mentioned above, which distinguish the words ‘top’, ‘cop’ and ‘mop’, would all be phonemes. So, let’s assume there are about 44 phonemes in English (I say “about” to allow for any academic debate on this issue to be accounted for).

But then, here’s the thing. One phoneme in English is ‘l’, which is fair enough. It’s the sound that distinguishes ‘lip’ from ‘dip’, and ‘pill’ from ‘pin’, that’s straight forward. Except say those words to yourself, but listen carefully and focus on what your tongue is doing. Say ‘lip’ and then ‘pill’. For many English speakers, the ‘l’ sound in those two words is quite different, and the tongue is behaving in a different way.

They are, in fact, different sounds. However, the first ‘l’ – often called the ‘clear l’ by Phonology fanatics – only ever appears at the start of a word, and the latter – often called the ominous sounding ‘dark l’ – only ever appears in the middle or at the end of words (actually, the rule varies slightly depending on accent, but they never appear in the same place within each variant of English). So our brains, as native English speakers, don’t distinguish between them, because those two sounds are never going to be used to distinguish between two words. We are happy to think of them both as the phoneme ‘l’.

The ‘clear l’ and the ‘dark l’ are called allophones. They are allophones which belong to the phoneme ‘l’. If you want to be allophonically precise (which is a term I just made up, but something you might want to aim for anyway), you’d probably put a little squiggle in the middle of the ‘l’ symbol (like in the picture above) if you wanted to show the dark variation, and then put that inside square brackets to show you’re talking about an allophone and not a phoneme. Many other phonemes have allophonic variations.

Of course, as is often wonderfully the case with spoken language, as native speakers this distinction really doesn’t matter. And even when different accents use different allophones in different places, although we might notice a slight difference in sound, because those allophones represent the same phoneme there’s never any confusion. So much so, when you point out the allophonic differences to non-Linguists, most native speakers are amazed they exist.

So there you have it. Phonology. No spit, and amazing.

If there’s one thing the interns on the current Taylor Bennett Foundation programme have discovered in their ten weeks of learning, it’s that a lot of people in PR are talking about social media a lot. But they’ve also discovered that across the industry different people are talking about social media in quite different ways.

So, given that they had already heard from some real experts in the field on how they are using social media in their PR work, I thought that when it came to my session with the interns on this subject I’d focus instead on why it is that different PR people are approaching the social media thing in different ways.

The reason for the differences is that social media – that is to say digital tools that make it easier to have a presence, to publish content and to communicate with contacts on the internet – throws up a number of different opportunities and challenges for those involved in managing a company’s communications and public relationships.

Which opportunities and challenges are most important will depend on what kind of companies you are communicating for, what kind of stakeholders you have relationships with, and whether digital channels are at the heart of or on the periphery of your work.

Though even for those PRs whose day-to-day work is far removed from all things digital, some of these threats and opportunities will still be relevant, and ever increasingly so, which is why our TBF interns are finding more and more of the communicators they meet are now talking about social media, and the urgency with which companies need to embrace the opportunities and deal with the challenges, even if a Facebook campaign or daily Twitter chat isn’t relevant.

I group the various social media opportunities and challenges into eight types.

1. Social media as media.
Thanks to social media platforms, anyone can become journalist, editor and publisher, and while blogging has been around for over a decade, never has the blogosphere been so prolific or influential. Meanwhile, via Twitter especially, celebrities have inadvertently become influential commentators. If you’re in the business of online media relations, at what point do you treat bloggers as media? And do you service them in the same way as other online journalists

2. Social media as a channel to journalists.
Even if you’re primarily working with print media, social media, and especially Twitter, are increasingly important. Journalists and editors are, in the main, prolific tweeters, and following and interacted with hacks online is an increasingly good way of building those all important media relationships, as well as keeping up to speed on what reporters, commentators and columnists are focusing on and writing about.

3. Social media as a channel to consumers.
For some brands social media is already a primary channel for talking to customers – with both Twitter and Facebook utlised in this way. This is pretty straight forward if you have a web-savvy consumer base. The challenges, though, are in who should control the Twitter feed and Facebook page – PR, marketing, customer relations? – and what are the rules the employees doing the tweets and Facebook updates should follow?

4. Social media as a channel to other stakeholders.
What other stakeholders can be, or demand to be, communicated to via social media. The political community are increasingly prolific online, though perhaps they see this as a forum for talking to their constituents and not those in public affairs? And what about the investment community? Research suggests this audience is currently less influenced than most by tweets, Facebook alerts and blogs, but is that likely to change?

5. Social media as a consumer recruitment tool.
This is where it gets interesting. Will a social media presence alone recruit new consumers? The realistic answer is “probably not”. But that’s not to say social media can’t be really powerful here. First, for some products and audiences uber-targeted Facebook ads can work, though that’s for your colleagues in advertising. On the PR side, where social media can come into its own is that it can help you encourage and enable your existing customers to become brand ambassadors, giving you more control over that all important word-of-mouth marketing we’ve all spoken about for years. How? Well, that’s a content challenge, not a technical one, and perhaps I’ll return to that topic one day – or you can come on my social media course and I’ll tell you!

6. Social media as a forum for dealing with complaints.
Yes, good use of social media is about listening as well as talking. One more for customer relations than traditional PR perhaps, but some companies are doing great things monitoring complaints being aired on social networks and – where feasible – dealing with those complaints there and then without actually being asked for help by the customer. When it happens, there’s still enough novelty to this kind of customer service that the complainer often immediately becomes a brand ambassador. Though, for big companies with big customer bases, there are clearly resource issues here, especially if customers come to expect automatic and immediate responses whenever they complain online.

7. Social media as a forum for monitoring opinion and response.
Similar to six, though perhaps more relevant to those in corporate comms rather than complaints. Can we use social media to spot trends, to lean about attitudes and opinions to us and our competitors, and to spot potential issues or crises in their early stages? And if so, how can use this information for commercial benefit? And how do we learn to ignore the continuous hum of constant but non-dangerous online hate that big and/or controversial companies and brands will find when they go online, without losing the ability to spot real issues? And what are the ethics of listening in this way? This is probably the area where most is still to be learned.

8. Social media as the enemy.
Another challenge for the corporate comms team. Social media is great in the way it equips companies with powerful, easy-to-use and often free communication tools, enabling them to reach a global audience immediately. But, of course, the same tools are open to everyone, giving pressure groups and single-issue-campaigners a more level playing field when it comes to the tools to speak to large and influential audiences. It’s one of the greatest things about social media, but for companies it can be terrifying. What’s your policy on these groups, do you interact, and if so when and how? Again, lots to be learned, though every time a company goes through a major crisis – and faces a new group of increasingly loud and influential social-media-enabled online critics – we learn some more.

So, lots of food for thought. No wonder so many people are keen to talk to our interns about social media, and no wonder those conversations vary so much!

We use a company called Constant Contact to manage the CMU bulletin mailings, and recently it revamped its platform so that every time I login it tells me how awesome I am. It’s cheesy and very American (the company’s based in Massachusetts) yet every time I see it I can’t stop my deluded inner self from smiling and saying “yes, you’re right, I am awesome”. This despite the fact I know this compliment automatically appears for every single Constant Contact customer when they log in, and that last month the login message screen was used to share trivia facts about pumpkins.

But I guess we all like being complimented from time to time, so before we get into the messy business of reviewing the week in music, can I just say how awesome you all are? Actually, research has shown* that CMU Daily readers are particularly awesome people. The same research also showed that the rest of the music business is split into two groups – the uninformed-but-awesome and the non-awesome. The latter group we’re not interested in, but the former bunch should join our party, so why not help them out by sending them to our sign-up page – www.theCMUwebsite.com/subscribe – which we’ve just revamped, so they can become CMU subscribers?

Look at that, I’ve turned a cheesy fake compliment into a plug. Very American indeed**. And now, let’s talk about some American bankers, American geeks and American lawyers.

01: EMI was sold. Those Wall Street dudes at the Citibank handed over the EMI record companies to Universal and the EMI publishing catalogues to a Sony-led consortium, making the two biggest music companies in the world even bigger. The indie label community will fight the takeovers in Brussels, IMPALA saying it expects the deals to be “blocked outright” by European competition regulators, while Martin Mills of the Beggars Group – one of a number of UK indie sector leaders who spoke to Music Week about the EMI sale – said the Universal deal in particular “looks like breathtaking corporate arrogance”. Meanwhile, if the deal does go through, The Guardian’s Helienne Lindvall, having been signed to BMG Publishing when it was swallowed up by Universal in 2007, reckons the takeover will be good news for the big artists, but terrible news for the smaller acts. Music Week speaks to indie leaders | Helienne Lindvall predicts the outcomes | CMU asks questions

02: Google Music launched in the US. After months, no years, of speculation, the geeks at Google (their words) finally got around to launching a proper music service, with downloads, recommendations, exclusive content, social networking gubbins and mobile integration. The Google Music service expands on the digital locker set-up that has been in beta for several months now, and also links in to the Google+ social network and Google’s Android platform. All but Warner Music are on board content wise. There’s nothing all that new about any of the services Google will offer, though the Artist Hub that allows self-releasing artists to join the party, and the social networking and mobile integration, are all interesting. CMU report | Techcrunch report

03: Other digital launches happened. Though the big Google announcement dominated the digital headlines, Apple also launched its scan and match service this week, again in the US only. It means users of the iTunes digital locker can transfer their music collection to the Apple servers without actually having to actually transfer anything. In the UK, Blackberry put its music service live. It’s all linked in to the Blackberry social network and involves picking your 50 favourite tunes and sharing them with your friends, or something like that, I think you have to be a JJB Sports-looting teenager to fully understand how it works. iTunes report | Blackberry report

04: The stream v download debate gained momentum, as dance distributor STHoldings announced 238 of the labels it represents were pulling their content from subscription services like Spotify because they felt being on the streaming channels damaged download sales, and the royalties the streaming platforms paid out in return was insufficient. Cue a huge online debate over whether or not it makes sense for artists and labels to participate in Spotify-type services. It’s likely streaming platforms do make more sense financially for artists with bigger and/or younger fanbases, or artists in control of all their affairs who can afford to consider the bigger picture. One size will never fit all, of course, though personally I’d want my music to be in as many places as possible. CMU report | Wired report

05: The Danes called for a Grooveshark block, while the Americans hit out at ReDigi. Danish anti-piracy body RettighedsAlliancen is looking for a court order forcing the country’s ISPs to block access to controversial streaming service Grooveshark, which is licensed by a minority of labels, but carries user-uploaded content from the majority. Groovesharker, of course, claims it is protected by America’s DMCA laws. Whether that will wash in Denmark remains to be seen. Meanwhile back in the US the Recording Industry Association Of America sent a cease and desist letter to MP3 resale site ReDigi. No surprise there. ReDigi still claims it is protected by US copyright law. Grooveshark report | ReDigi report

And that’s your lot, people, until the CMU podcast this afternoon.

Chris Cooke
Business Editor, CMU

* Made-up research, but that’s the best kind.
** Apologies to any American readers, I hope this doesn’t offend you, I’m sure it won’t, because I know you’re too awesome to be offended.

If, like me, you write about the music business every day, for years now you’ve been speculating about the future of the British major music company EMI and about the prospect of Google launching an iTunes-competing download store. And this week both stories sort of reached a conclusion.

As you no doubt saw, last weekend the current owners of EMI – the bank Citigroup – announced it was selling the music firm. This announcement had been a long time coming, Citigroup repossessed the music major off its previous owners at the start of the year and admitted almost straight away that it would look to sell the company on at some point, and it had been talking to possible buyers for several months. As expected, Citi split the company into two in order to sell it, selling the bit of EMI that makes and sells records to Universal Music, and the bit that manages and monetises the copyrights in songs to a consortium led by Sony.

The split, and the fact both sides were bought by existing major players in music, while not a surprise, is important, because it means EMI basically ceases to exist as soon as these deals go though. The EMI name might still be used, but there will not be an EMI company. At eighty years young, and with an earlier history that went as far back as the 19th Century, I can’t be the only one who finds that a little sad. Even more so for a British music fan like myself – because while EMI was actually created by Americans working in London, and for its final year was owned by an American bank, it always felt like the British record company, with its heart in London and its most famous signings coming from the UK.

So, the end of an era indeed. Another era – albeit a much shorter one – also ended this week when Google launched their own download store. The arrival of ‘gTunes’ has been rumoured on and off for years, and there have been a number of big announcements from Google in the past that we expected would announce a Google MP3 platform, but until yesterday we were always left disappointed.

To be honest, there was a little disappointment too when Google finally did launch its big music service, because while it looks pretty slick, it doesn’t really do anything you can’t get from another music platform. Having waited this long, I think we all thought something really special would be announced. Though the Artist Hub, which allows self-releasing artists to capitalise on the new venture is interesting, and will definitely be worth checking out if you’re an artist doing the DIY thing.

So two eras at an end for music business journalists like me. Though another era seems to have only just begun. There has been increased chatter among some artists and smaller labels of late about Spotify-style services, to the effect that artists who put their music on such streaming platforms are seeing their iTunes-style download sales decline, and that the money they receive from Spotify et al is nominal, and goes nowhere near covering the loss in other digital revenue.

It started off with a few isolated artist blog posts. Then a few indie labels started withdrawing their content from the streaming channels. Then big artists like Coldplay and Tom Waits chose not to put their new albums on Spotify, and it was speculated that was to protect other download sales. And then this week a British dance music distributor announced over 200 of its labels would be boycotting the streaming platforms moving forward, kicking off all kinds of online debate in both the US and Europe.

I won’t get into this actual debate just now – except to say their are arguments on both sides – but with tweets and blog posts appearing on this issue all the time, there’s certainly plenty for us music business writers to report on still, even if the big “what will happen to EMI?” and “when will Google launch a music service” sagas are at an end.

So, when someone asks you what you do for a living, what do you tell them? Do you work in PR or public relations or publicity or corporate communications or stakeholder relations or reputation management?

All of these terms could be used to describe what is basically a PR job, ie it involves managing relationships between a company and one or more of its stakeholders. And across the PR industry different people and agencies employ different words to describe what they do.

Why is this? Well, partly it’s history. Different parts of the industry developed independently from each other and, by the time people started grouping all these constituent parts together as the “PR industry”, different names for each strand were already established.

But it’s also partly because some strands of the industry just don’t like the term “PR”. Some see PR as being too closely aligned to media relations work, as if the ‘P’ stood for “press”, so if they manage relationships with stakeholders outside the media they feel the PR term is inappropriate.

Others, especially at the more corporate end of the sector, feel “PR” has become too associated with the celebrity, publicity stunt and parties end of the industry, and that it doesn’t represent the work they do briefing analysts, engaging employees, initiating corporate social responsibility programmes or helping CEO’s build a reputation for thought leadership.

So, what terms do these people use instead? Well, it depends on which stakeholders they work with, but often they use the ‘communication’ word, either on its own or as part of the term ‘corporate communications’. Though this leads to everyone outside the industry, and quite a few on the inside, asking “what’s the difference between PR and corporate comms, is the former a branch of the latter, or the latter a branch of the former, or are they different, or are they the same thing?”

Part of me likes the communications word, and I’ve used it myself in the past to describe non-media-focused PR projects I’ve working on. But when PR people describe themselves primarily as communicators it can cause confusion. Because PR professionals are not the only people working in or for a company who are involved in communication – sales, complaints, marketing and advertising are all involved in comms as well, and so are those who manage communication technology. So just calling yourself a communications person is confusing.

Plus, and somewhat ironically, the closer you get to the corporate end of PR – where the comms term is more commonly used – it’s actually less appropriate, because these PR people are often involved in a whole lot more than just communications – they are managing key relationships, influencing a company’s entire operations from the point of view of managing reputation, and responding to events in the wider world, sometimes as decision makers as well as communicators. To be frank, the term public relations – which many of these people shun – is wholly more appropriate for them.

Does it matter, though, if some PR people call themselves ‘PR specialists’, others ‘corporate communicators’, and others still one of the plethora of other terms available? Well, in some ways yes. In my mind the wider PR industry lacks cohesion, and the wider public are confused as to what exactly it is that PR and comms people do. And that can be a problem when trying to recruit the best young talent, when trying to convince a CFO of the ROI of your work, when trying to persuade CEOs of the need for structural changes to meet reputation challenges, and when trying to explain to your Great Aunt Mavis what exactly it is you do for a living.

Given that PR people don’t seem to be able to agree on any of the plethora of terms currently available to describe what they do, how about something totally new? I’m proposing 3R – the new name for the people who help companies manage their relationships, reputation and responses to world events. Nobody else currently uses it, it can’t be confused with another discipline, and it should satisfy all ends of the industry. Yeah, you’re right, it will never catch on. Oh well, perhaps I’ll set up my own PR company and use it for that instead.

Well, what a busy week that was. If you’d wanted to, you could have spent pretty much the entire seven days sitting in a music-related awards ceremonies, what with that big MTV bash in Belfast last weekend, the Music Industry Trust celebrating all things Jools Holland on Monday, then the Music Video Awards, the Student Radio Awards, the Classic Rock Awards and last night’s inaugural AIM Independent Music Awards. Frankly, with that little lot, if you didn’t get an award this week you weren’t trying.

Aside from all the gong giving, there was a Conrad Murray verdict (guilty, man, guilty), the never-ending EMI sale saga, and loads of music and digital types announcing partnerships, planning takeovers and/or making wild predictions. Good times.

Unfortunately I got a bit distracted from all this on Tuesday while researching a Justin Bieber story for you – somehow I stumbled across an interview the pop teen gave where he bigged up a crazy Asteroids-meets-typing-exam web-game which I’ve been playing ever since. Yes, my life has become dominated by a silly computer game recommended by Justin Bieber. Oh well, at least I wasn’t too distracted to notice this lot happening:

01: EMI wasn’t sold. But talks between current owners Citigroup and Universal regards the EMI record labels resumed and as of last night things were looking promising – the big issue of pension liabilities has seemingly been addressed. An announcement could be imminent, and this morning Sky News went as far as to say that the deal would be announced later today. Though some insiders are still airing caution, possibly aware that Warner’s talks got pretty close to a deal two weeks ago, only to fall through at the last minute. Sony/ATV are currently favourite to get EMI’s publishing business, though BMG are still in the running. Meanwhile indie label body IMPALA confirmed this week that it would lobby against any Universal and/or Sony deal with regards EMI. CMU reports | Sky report

02: LVCR was axed. The government announced it would end the tax relief system that has, for years, allowed mail-order firms based on the Channel Islands, including Play.com, The Hut, HMV.com and the supermarkets, to sell CDs without charging VAT, giving them a 20% advantage over mainland retailers. Independent traders who have campaigned on this issue for years were jubilant. Though the end of LVCR, which will kick in next April, only applies to the Channel Islands, and there are fears most mail-order giants will move to other non-EU countries where the VAT relief on imports will remain, for the time being at least. CMU report | Channel Online explanation

03: Warner announced a big exec rejig. The revamp was led by worldwide recorded music CEO Lyor Cohen, whose control over the Warner Music labels has increased since Access Industries took ownership earlier this year, and overall Warner CEO Edgar Bronfman Jr took the backseat role of Chairman. More global units were created, but the big news was that the European management team was being phased out, with country divisions in Europe reporting directly into the global top team. As part of this, Warner Europe boss John Reid announced he would leave the major. CMU report | MusicWeek report

04: The BPI called on BT to block access to The Pirate Bay. Leading a coalition of content industry trade bodies, the record label organisation asked BT to stop its internet customers from accessing the rogue file-sharing site, citing the recent ruling in the MPA v BT case, in which the tel co was forced to block access to the Newzbin file-sharing service. BPI hopes that BT may put the block in place voluntarily, rather than forcing the content firms to go the injunction route. It might happen, BT is apparently trying to get its own digital music service off the ground, so may be more willing to play ball than before. CMU report | ZDNet report

05: ‘X-Factor’ confirmed it was withdrawing its Rhythmix trademark application. The girl group on the telly talent show named Rhythmix changed their moniker (eventually) after being told that name was already used by a music education charity which feared its fund-raising efforts would be hindered if Team X trademarked the name in the music space. But despite the name change, the Rhythmix charity revealed this week that the ‘X-Factor’ trademark application hadn’t been withdrawn. Though after some more uproar, the telly show’s bosses promised it would be asap. CMU report | Guardian report

And that’s your lot, until podcast time later this afternoon. Meanwhile, enjoy all the ones this day promises to deliver.

Chris Cooke
Business Editor, CMU