CMU Digest

CMU Digest 12.01.18: Agent of change, Facebook, Music Modernization Act, Lana Del Rey, 19 Recordings

By | Published on Friday 12 January 2018

Agent Of Change

The key stories from the last week in the music business…

The UK music community gathered in Westminster to support back bench MP John Spellar’s proposal that the agent of change principle be added to UK planning law. This would mean that property developers putting new residential buildings next to existing music venues would need to anticipate and address future noise issues. Although legislation proposed by back bench MPs doesn’t usually become law, Speller’s proposals have cross-party support, and could pressure government to act on this issue. [READ MORE]

Sony/ATV and Kobalt, plus American collecting societies SESAC and GMR, all announced licensing deals with Facebook. It follows negotiations between the social media firm and the music industry throughout 2017 to finally license the music contained in videos uploaded to Facebook’s platform. This week’s deals followed the Universal Music agreement announced just before Christmas. [READ MORE]

A plethora of music industry trade bodies in the America came together to back various copyright reforms being proposed in US Congress. Some of those reforms would primarily benefit record labels and recording artists, others music publishers and songwriters. The two sides of the music rights business were keen to show support for the other. Those reforms include the Music Modernization Act that seeks to set up a better system for the payment of mechanical royalties Stateside. [READ MORE]

Lana Del Rey seemed to say that she was being sued by Radiohead over plagiarism claims, though the band’s publisher denied that was so. Radiohead do, however, reckon that Del Rey’s 2017 track ‘Get Free’ borrows a chord progression from their 1992 hit ‘Creep’. Del Rey said that the band had been demanding 100% of the rights in her song, but publisher Warner/Chappell denied those claims too. [READ MORE]

It emerged that Sony Music had pretty much negotiated an out of court settlement with 19 Recordings, which represents a number of former ‘American Idol’ winners. The long-running lawsuit included various disputes over the way Sony pays royalties to the former Idols for the the records the major released. That includes the old debate about how digital income is classified, and whether a lower ‘sales’ royalty or higher ‘licence’ royalty should be paid. Had it got to court, the case would have given us further judicial oversight on that point, and specifically in relation to streaming. Past sales v licence lawsuits centred on downloads. [READ MORE]

The big deals from the last seven days in the music business…
• INgrooves bought Sovereign Music Services [INFO]
• Frontiers Music extended its partnership with The Orchard [INFO]
• Official Charts Company renewed its alliance with Kantar Millward Brown [INFO]
• CD Baby’s parent company AVL Digital Group acquired LA-based AudioMicro [INFO]
• The relaunched Payday Records announced some initial signings [INFO]
• MonoKrome signed ShaoDow [INFO]



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