So here we go again, another Friday for you, this one sitting in the middle of the music business’s Winter awards season. The Grammys dominated the American industry’s collective minds last weekend – albeit with Whitney Houston’s sudden death packaged in with it this time (though even Houston’s mentor and close friend Clive Davis went ahead with his pre-Grammy party, four floors down from the bathroom where the singer had literally just died, proving even the passing of one of US pop’s biggest ever stars can’t stop the Grammy machine). Here in the UK we have the somewhat smaller but as such much less tedious BRITS to come next week, while the Music Producers Guild Awards kept everyone in a gong-based frame of mind last night. Good times. But what else has been happening in music of late?

01: SOCA took rnbxclusive.com offline. The UK’s Serious Organised Crime Agency claimed that the music blog was providing access to hundreds of unlicensed music files, and profiting by selling advertising. Not only did they seize the site’s domain and take it offline, they also arrested the man who ran it on charges of conspiracy to defraud. Though what stood out the most was the warning SOCA posted in the website’s place, telling users that downloading unlicensed music files from a site like rnbxclusive.com could result in arrest and ten years in jail. Which isn’t true, but nevertheless possibly taught thousands of the site’s former users to be more careful where they download music from. The stern and somewhat misleading message was removed after 36 hours. CMU reports | Wired report

02: EMI was pulled into the digital royalties dispute by Kenny Rodgers. The country star sued the record company over various royalty issues, though perhaps most important was his claim the major was incorrectly classifying download revenue as record sales rather than licensing income. Rodgers, like many heritage artists, contractually gets a bigger share of the latter than the former. The country singer is the latest in a number of artists with pre-internet record contracts to sue on this issue, meaning Universal, Warner and EMI now all face litigation in this domain. Sony previously successfully fought off similar lawsuits from the Allman Brothers and Cheap Trick, though the new lawsuits hope to prevail based on the precedent set in the more recent FBT Productions v Universal case. CMU report | Hollywood Reporter report

03: Sony apologised for a temporary post-death price hike on Whitney Houston albums. The major’s UK division increased the digital wholesale price of Houston’s two hits compilations in the hours after the singer’s sudden death last Saturday, resulting in a £2-3 increase on iTunes. The originally prices were restored later on Sunday, but not before the seemingly opportunistic price rise had been noticed. Sony subsequently said the price increase had been a mistake, pointed out the error was quickly rectified, and added “we apologise for any offence caused”. CMU reports | Telegraph report

04: MySpace announced its user-base was up, citing its revamped music player and integration with Twitter and Facebook as being behind the flagging social network’s improved stats since December. Newish owners Specific Media said they’d had a million new sign-ups since the new player went live, adding that this was the start of a new era for the web platform, which had been in decline for years prior to the more recent user boost. CMU report | Register report

05: Ticketweb investigated a database hack. Customers signed up to the Ticketmaster UK operated grass roots ticketing service received dodgy phishing emails via the Ticketweb platform last weekend. It’s not clear how spammers managed to access emails on the Ticketweb system, though Ticketmaster said it had taken “immediate action to close the vulnerability”. The hackers had not gained access to credit card information via the Ticketweb database, though the phishing email they sent out did request such information, and the ticketing firm said that if anyone had provided credit card numbers to the spammers they should inform their card provider asap. CMU report | Inquirer report

And that’s your lot. There is no CMU Weekly Podcast this week, with Andy being at by:Larm in Oslo, but you can check out last week’s edition – if you haven’t done so already – at www.theCMUwebsite.com/podcast.

Chris Cooke
Business Editor, CMU

Well, what a chilly week that was, wasn’t it? But a busy one in the world of music, and here at CMU. And the busy-ness is set to continue, round here anyway, as our ever popular CMU Training courses loop round once again, meaning it’s our course on music promotions next Wednesday – everything you need to know about the music media, how to use newspapers, magazines, radio and TV to promote your artists, releases and events, and how to use social media too. We have a small number of places still available, so why not join us? Meanwhile, here’s your week in five.

01: BTjunkie shut down. The operators of the BitTorrent search service said they feared being targeted by the sort of criminal action aimed at MegaUpload and The Pirate Bay. The bosses of the Mega companies are awaiting extradition to the US to face criminal charges that could result in up to 20 years in jail (five of them for copyright crimes), while the Swedish Supreme Court recently refused to hear an appeal from the founders of The Pirate Bay, who now face eight to twelve months in prison. Torrentfreak reported that other file-sharing sites were also considering altering how they work or shutting down completely now that they faced possible criminal charges rather than just civil litigation, though some others – including Gary Fung from the infamous isoHunt – remain resolved to stay online. CMU report |TorrentFreak report

02: The US courts refused a summary judgement on EMI v ReDigi, the MP3 resale site that says its technology is protected by the First Sale Doctrine (allowing the resale of CDs) under US copyright law. EMI argues that ReDigi just enables copyright infringement. The major label wanted a summary judgement ordering ReDigi to remove any EMI content from its platform, but the US judge hearing the case said the issues surrounding this dispute are complicated and the relevant law untested, and so EMI’s claim should be fully considered in court. ReDigi spun that ruling as a victory, though it does mean a long and expensive legal battle is now looming for the digital start up. CMU report | C-Net report

03: The RIAA hit out at the anti-SOPA protests. The chief of the US record industry’s trade body, Cary Sherman, said in an op-ed piece for the New York Times that Wikipedia and Google misled the public in their campaign against new anti-piracy laws in America. Said legislative proposals, SOPA and PIPA, are now on hold. Sherman said the tech companies were wrong to say measures to block access to copyright infringing websites amounted to dangerous censorship of the internet, and that claims that, under SOPA/PIPA, the onus would be on user-generated content sites to police all content uploaded just wasn’t true. While “no legislation is perfect”, he said, most of the arguments that won public and then political support for the anti-SOPA movement were misleading. Elsewhere in anti-piracy news, opposition to the global intellectual property agreement ACTA started to grow, especially in Europe. CMU report |New York Times piece

04: Amazon was declared a bigger entertainment retailer than HMV. The declaring was done by WPP-owned research company Kantor, which claimed the web seller had a 22.3% share of the UK’s CD, DVD and gaming market in the run up to Christmas, putting it ahead of HMV – with a 17.5% share – for the first time. HMV argued that that headline stat was misleading because it was still ahead when it came to CD and DVD sales, though as the retailer has been trying to tell us for years that it is now about all kinds of entertainment and not just music, it seems disingenuous to then suggest gaming should be taken out of the picture in order to help the flagging firm retain its market leader status. CMU report | NME report

05: Digital royalty disputes continued. First Sister Sledge sued Warner Music claiming the major was underpaying them on digital sales of their records by treating downloads as record sales rather than licensing income. This brings Warner into the legal debate over whether download revenue should be classified as record sales or licensing income with pre-internet record contracts that pay a bigger royalty to artists for the latter. Universal is already fighting a number of lawsuits in this domain after losing one case on this issue with early career Eminem collaborators FBT Productions. Elsewhere, US indie publisher Songs Music Publishing accused VEVO of not paying independent publishers the royalties they are due, by licensing all rights via the major record companies, which then use pre-YouTube no-royalty-on-promo clauses in the contracts of artists who write their own songs to avoid paying the publisher their share. A licensing issue that only affects US publishers, Songs Music said this was unfair, and VEVO and their major label partners (and owners) should do something about it. Sister Sledge story | VEVO story

And that, people, is your lot for now. Though for more chatter on BTjunkie and ReDigi, plus some musings on Black Sabbath and Madonna, do check out the CMU Weekly podcast later today atwww.theCMUwebsite.com/podcast.

Chris Cooke
Business Editor, CMU

So, it’s February already. I’m still not sure how that happened. It all means May is getting closer, and this year’s Great Escape is all starting to fall into place, which is rather exciting. We’ve already announced a well sized handful of radio themed sessions on the convention side, including John Kennedy in conversation with Jon Hillcock, timed to coincide with Xfm’s 20 years on the air. There’s much more still to come, but in the meantime this week the first batch of festival announcements landed, and do check out our little playlist featuring ten of the acts set to play. And then go buy your delegates passes for May, it would be great to see you all there. But back to business, let’s review the week in five.

01: The Pirate Bay founders were refused a Supreme Court hearing. Two founders and a key funder of the rogue file-sharing site were hoping to appeal for a second time their convictions for copyright crimes, handed down by the Swedish courts in 2009 and upheld on first appeal in 2010. But this week Sweden’s Supreme Court said it wouldn’t hear the case, meaning the prison sentences and damages ordered in the earlier hearings stand. It remains to be seen if the jail terms are now enforced, and also whether the final ruling in the Swedish Pirate Bay case – the most prominent of all the legal actions against TPB – has any impact on the operations of the file-sharing search service, which continues to operate despite numerous court rulings against it around the world. CMU report | Inquirer report

02: No one was certain what would happen to the legit Mega data. When the US authorities took the MegaUpload file-storage and transfer service offline last month on the grounds it was primarily used for copyright infringement, they also cut off the platform to legitimate customers, who used the Mega service to store or share their own content files. While it’s not clear exactly how many people were affected in this way, concern grew this week that said data might be deleted, now Mega cannot afford to pay the two server firms which hosted its online operations, its bank accounts being frozen. Mega’s lawyer said he’d negotiated a two week reprieve from the server firms, and one of them then stated it had no intent to delete the files at all in the short term. The Electronic Frontier Foundation is now looking into ways to reconnect legit Mega users with their data (and may as yet go legal on the matter), the US authorities having seemingly washed their hands of the problem, and the content industries who lobbied for action to be taken against the Mega companies being very quiet about the issue. CMU reports | Ars Technica reports

03: Paul McGuinness and Edgar Bronfman Jr hit out at Google. U2 manager McGuinness, speaking at MIDEM, was critical of Google for backing Wikipedia’s protest against new anti-piracy rules in the US, and for not doing enough to stop illegal sources of music appearing in search results, noting “it amazes me that Google has not done the right thing”. Outgoing Warner Music chief Edgar Bronfman Jr was speaking at a conference in California, and said Google still couldn’t decide whether or not it wanted to be a content platform, and that affected its dealings with content creators. Though both McGuinness and Bronfman said the industry should continue to try and persuade Google chiefs of the commercial value to their own business of playing ball on copyright issues. McGuinness report | Bronfman report

04: Outgoing Warner chief said the company would oppose the EMI sale. He spoke out about Universal’s plans to buy the EMI record companies at the same Californian conference. Bronfman’s Warner, of course, was outbid for the EMI labels by Universal Music. He confirmed Warner would now oppose Universal’s takeover in both the US and Europe, where competition regulators must approve the sale. The outgoing Chairman, who will still have a seat on the Warner board, mused on Universal’s EMI bid: “I think it’s dangerous, I think it’s problematic and I think it’s got to be stopped. It does strike me as hubris, particularly for Universal to think it’s going to be easy to buy EMI, and frankly to think they can buy EMI at all”. CMU report | Billboard analysis

05: Facebook announced IPO. Not strictly a music business development, but very interesting all the same, the social networking giant is looking to raise $5 billion by selling a portion of the company via one of the New York stock exchanges. Papers filed with America’s SEC confirming the IPO plans revealed Facebook made a billion dollars in profits last year. Elsewhere in social networking, one time Facebook rival Bebo went offline, leading to speculation the once buzzy social media platform had finally gone out of business, but it turned out to be technical problems, or, in the words of a Bebo spokesman, a “technical clusterfuck”. CMU report | Telegraph report

And that’s your lot, until CMU Podcast time – sign up so that lands in your iTunes later, ready for some audio fun.

Chris Cooke
Business Editor, CMU

Right, another busy, busy week in music then. But before we get to that, forgive me for doing two quick plugs.

First up, don’t forget we made our first convention announcementfor this year’s Great Escape this week, which you can catch up on here. We’ve got loads more to tell you about this year’s TGE in the coming weeks, so why not get your tickets now?

Second plug, we have a few places left on our next CMU Training course, which is a real cracker – throwing a spotlight on the whole business of monetising music, with a look at how the industry, artist deals and record companies are changing. Book your tickets here.

But now, this week’s five big music business stories.

01: The aftershocks of the Mega attack were felt. After the US authorities shut down MegaUpload and related sites last week, this week four of the firm’s execs, arrested in New Zealand, applied for bail while they wait to be extradited to America. Larger than life founder Kim Schmitz was denied bail, the judge ruling there was a genuine risk the accused could flee back to his home country of Germany, where extradition would be harder. That despite the US authorities freezing his bank accounts and seizing his passport.

In the US, Mega’s legal reps dropped their lawsuit against Universal Music over the major’s request to Google that they remove the file-transfer’s company’s ‘Mega Song’ from YouTube last year. Perhaps they thought they’d better focus on the criminal proceedings. Online some of Mega’s US competitors cut back their services to avoid being likewise accused of enabling copyright infringement.

The RIAA speculated the Mega shut down could lead to a tangible increase in the usage of legitimate digital music services, though Torrentfreak said Mega competitors that hadn’t cut back their services in response to last week’s arrests were enjoying the biggest flurry of new customers. CMU reports

02: HMV announced new supplier deals. While the terms of the new deals with the big music companies and movie studios are not known, they likely put more risk onto the CD and DVD producing companies – certainly the new deals persuaded the struggling retailer’s banks to lighten up the covenant terms associated with their £180 million debts, assuring short term survival. The big music and movie companies desperately want to see HMV succeed, it being the last big CD and DVD seller on the high street. The suppliers were also allocated 2.5% of HMV’s equity as part of the new arrangements. CMU report | Telegraph report

03: The Live Music Bill was passed by the Commons. This happened last week, but after Friday’s CMU Daily went out. With minutes to spare, the House Of Commons approved Lord Tim Clement-Jones’ private member’s bill to relax the bureaucracy involved in staging small scale gigs. Many in grass roots music community say new rules introduced by the 2003 Licensing Act resulted in many pubs and such like ending their live music nights. It’s hoped the Live Music Bill will remove the blocks to such gigs, meaning more opportunities for grass roots artists to play. The Lords will now quickly consider some final amendments before the Bill becomes law. Hurrah. CMU report | NME report

04: IFPI published its Digital Music Report. A quick summary of the record label trade body’s review of the digital year: digital music is doing very well thank you very much, but only because governments and courts are cracking down on piracy, so much more of that please Mr Minister and Mr Judge. Single downloads, digital albums and subscription services all saw growth in 2011, with digital revenues for the global record industry up about 8%. It seems that the growth of Spotify style services is not having an overall negative impact on iTunes-style platforms as some have feared. Universals’ digital chief Rob Wells, present at the launch of the report, said people who claimed Spotify negatively impact iTunes sales were nutters anyway. Well, those weren’t his exact words, but it’s what he meant. CMU report |IFPI report as PDF

05: Beyond Oblivion filed for bankruptcy. We knew the ambitious plan for a global all-you-can-eat free download service, funded by charging a fee to hardware manufacturers for the software that enabled it all, was defunct, Team Boinc calling it a day over Christmas. But the formal application for bankruptcy protection came this week, revealing the company has over $100 million in debts, with Warner and Sony its biggest creditors. Quite how it ran up such big debts without ever going live isn’t clear. CMU report | Register report

And that is your lot people. Have a lovely Friday.

Chris Cooke
Business Editor, CMU

Well, what a very busy week this has been – all that SOPA action in the US spilling over into the UK as Wikipedia went dark, the campaign against the EMI sale gaining some momentum, The Big Chill being cancelled for 2012, and more developments from Planet Grooveshark. And then, just as we thought we were done for the week, the US announced it’d shut down MegaUpload and arrested its bosses for criminal copyright infringement.

All things considered, I’d better get on with the Week In Five with no delay…

01: A global spotlight fell on US anti-piracy proposals as Wikipedia went on strike. The online encyclopaedia blocked access to its English language edition for 24 hours in protest at two pieces of legislation being considered by US Congress – SOPA and PIPA – both of which would introduce a system by which copyright owners could force ISPs and search engines to block access to copyright infringing websites. Opponents say the acts would result in censorship of the internet, and many US-based tech firms and websites supported Wiki’s protest, leading to some key political sponsors of SOPA and PIPA withdrawing their support. A rethink of the anti-piracy proposals is now likely. CMU report | Billboard report

02: MegaUpload was taken offline by US authorities. The file-transfer and video sharing service has been pissing off the US music and movie industries for some time now, they accusing the site’s owners of committing copyright infringement on a vast scale to create a multi-million dollar business. Last night it was announced the American authorities were beginning criminal action against key execs at the Mega company, and that they had got court approval to shut down Mega operations at the Virginian centre where many of its servers were stored. Four Mega execs, including co-founder Kim Schmitz, were arrested in New Zealand and will now likely be extradited to the US, where they face infringement, racketeering and money laundering charges that could result in 20 year jail sentences. CMU report | BBC report

03: The campaign against Universal’s EMI acquisition gained momentum. The UK Association Of Independent Music urged its members to contact their MPs to stress that they oppose Citigroup’s intent to sell the EMI record companies to Universal Music, and the EMI publishing catalogues to a consortium led by Sony/ATV. The deals will have a damaging effect on the wider music industry, the indie trade body claims. The campaign came as Warner Music – the third major, which will be dwarfed by its main competitors as a result of the EMI deals – hired the services of a US legal firm that specialises in anti-trust lobbying, leading to speculation they too may oppose the Universal and Sony deals as American and European competition regulators consider them. CMU report | Legal Times report

04: There were Big festival finales and cancellations. First, organisers of the Big Day Out touring festival in Australia announced that the New Zealand date of the venture, the 2012 edition of which is happening right now, will be the last in the country. From 2013 the Big Day Out will only take place in Australian cities because disappointing ticket sales have made the New Zealand version unviable. Meanwhile in the UK, Festival Republic announced The Big Chill would not happen this year, blaming the Olympics which will clash with the festival’s August dates. CMU Big Chill report | CMU Big Day Out report

05: Grooveshark hit back, in face of lawsuits from all four major labels. First it launched an HTML5 web app making its streaming platform available to smartphone users, their traditional apps for the iPhone and Android phones having been removed from the Apple and Google app stores after complaints from the big music companies. Then it sent legal papers to Digital Music News to try to identify the anonymous reader who left a comment on the DMN site accusing Grooveshark bosses of copyright infringement, a comment being used in Universal’s lawsuit against the web firm. And finally it dissed German collecting society GEMA, saying it was having to cut off their service in Germany because of the society’s unreasonable royalty demands. GEMA denies having had any negotiations with the Groovesharkers. CMU reports

And that’s your lot, people! Have a good day.

Chris Cooke
Business Editor, CMU

So hello there everybody, how’s your 2012 going so far? Have you joined in with the “whatever happened to guitar bands”debate yet this week? Or the “why the hell didn’t these acts get any BRIT nods” discussion? Or the latest chapter in the “streaming services, blah” saga, perhaps wondering why the new single from the officially reformed (again) Roth-fronted Van Halen isn’t on Spotify in the US? So much to talk about already this year, and it’s not even my Dad’s birthday yet. Though it is this Sunday. Happy Birthday, Dad. Must remember to post a card. But first, this…

01: HMV released gloomy Christmas sales figures. Sales for the all important Christmas period were down 8.2%, and this time there was no snow to blame it on. Though the positive-out-of-a-negative story spinners at the entertainment retail group pointed out sales declines in the run up to Christmas were less than sales declines in the run up to the run up to Christmas. Oh, and headphones are selling very well thank you very much. The short term plan is to raise some cash by selling live division MAMA, and there’s seemingly lots of interest – AEG, Live Nation, Warner, Sony and various equity types have been tipped as buyers. What happens to HMV once the profitable MAMA is sold off is anyone’s guess. The positive-out-of-a-negative story spinners could be busy in 2012. CMU report | Guardian report

02: The record industry sued Ireland. The four majors in the country reckon the Irish government isn’t doing enough to help them combat piracy, and that means they are failing to fulfil obligations under European law. Or something like that. Weirdly the lawsuit comes just a couple of weeks before Irish ministers are expected to publish proposals for new anti-piracy laws, probably a high speed injunction system to help copyright owners have access to infringing websites blocked. Presumably label chiefs expect those proposals to be delayed or unsatisfactory, given they are pre-empting the announcement with legal action. CMU report | Active Politic blog post

03: EMI sued ReDigi, the MP3 resale website that insists it is on the right side of US copyright law because it allows the resale of CDs, and so should allow users to sell on their digital music. Apparently the ReDigi system checks the authenticity of tracks for sale, and deletes them from the seller’s computer after they are sold. The record industry is not convinced and, believing copyright law to actually be its side, EMI led the charge this week by filing litigation against the American digital firm. CMU report | New York Times report

04: The Marley estate settled with Universal, while Sugar Hill Gang sued. The Marley estate, like an increasing number of heritage artists, disputed the cut of digital royalties Universal was paying it. Though this dispute was more complicated than other digital royalty disputes because of seemingly conflicting terms in the same record contract. Anyway, it was all settled out of court this week. Meanwhile the Sugar Hill Gang, and the estate of Sugar Hill Records founder Sylvia Robinson, launched a lawsuit claiming Universal – who now own the Sugar Hill catalogue – were failed to report and pay royalties. It’s the latest in a number of lawsuits relating to Sugar Hill’s output. Marley story | Sugar Hill story

05: Twitter announced partnerships, MySpace launched some second screening action. Twitter’s partnerships with Echo Nest and Gracenote will make it easier for music services to access and display tweets from verified artist accounts, so they could pop up on streaming music services while an act’s music plays. Meanwhile MySpace’s new owners – including Justin Timberlake – used the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas to announce their big plan, a platform that will allow live chat between online friends about content being viewed on the digital platform – so, second screening basically, albeit via one screen. At launch the content/discussions will all be music based. It probably won’t work. Twitter story | MySpace story

And that’s your lot, until the first CMU Weekly Podcast of 2012, going live later today. Sign up now atwww.theCMUwebsite.com/podcast.

Chris Cooke
Business Editor, CMU

So that was Christmas. Did you enjoy it? It all seems an awfully long time ago now, doesn’t it? In fact, I’m starting to suspect it never actually happened. But I can confirm some shit did go down in the music business in the two weeks since the CMU Daily last popped up in your inbox, and in case you’ve taken your eye off the ball over the festive break, here’s the five biggest things that occured.

01: Beyond Oblivion bit the dust, before even launching. The ambitious and well financed digital start-up, which hoped to combine a scan-and-match locker with an all-you-can-eat download offer and personalised radio platform, funded by a one-off charge attached to the software than enabled it all, or any device with the technology pre-installed, announced it was shutting down last weekend. The New York-based digital firm had already started scaling down its operations after the already delayed spring 2012 launch date started to look less and less likely. The challenge for Beyond Oblivion, or Boinc as it was to be known, was persuading both labels to license the all-you-can-eat offer, and tech firms to bundle the technology. It’s thought there were problems on both sides. CMU report | FT report

02: EMI joined the Grooveshark litigation party, because, well, why not? Universal, Sony and Warner are already suing the controversial streaming platform over allegations that Grooveshark staff, as well as users, routinely upload unlicensed music to the platform. EMI has a licensing deal in place with the digital firm, and is suing for breach of contract in relation to that deal, claiming it is owed royalties and data from the company. Grooveshark said the lawsuit was a contractual dispute it hoped to clear up in the near future. CMU report | New York Times report

03: Peter Frampton joined the digital royalties squabble, because, well, why not? The British musician reckons he should be earning a higher royalty on the digital sales of his Universal-owned catalogue because they should be treated as licensing rather than record sales income, which would pay out a higher share to the artist under his pre-internet record contract. Frampton joins Rob Zombie, Chuck D and the estate of Rick James in suing Universal over digital royalties. They all hope a ruling in a similar dispute over digital revenue between Universal and Eminem producers FBT Productions, which went in the producers’ favour, will provide a precedent that will force labels to reclassify their digital revenues. Universal’s lawyers insist no such general precedent has been set. BBC report

04: Bidding began for the MAMA Group. HMV confirmed it was considering selling its live division last month, and it’s thought at least two equity groups and AEG Live have expressed an interest in acquiring the venue owner and festival promoter. MAMA co-founder and current CEO Dean James is also expected to attempt a management buy out. HMV needs the cash to reduce its debts, and faces a tricky month, with figures due to be released next week expected to show another decline in sales during the all-important pre-Christmas quarter. CMU report | FT report

05: The BPI confirmed record sales were down overall in the UK last year, despite another record breaking year for singles sales, and significant growth in digital album sales. CD sales continued to slump though, meaning the overall recorded music market was down. Though some have pointed out the BPI/Official Charts Company data does not include revenue from streaming services, or other revenue streams labels may now have a share of via 360 degree style deals with artists. Nevertheless, the BPI called on government to get its arse into gear over the as-yet-un-actioned provisions of the Digital Economy Act designed to combat illegal file-sharing. CMU report | Music Ally commentary

And that’s your lot. Except to say a big bold Happy New Year one and all.

Chris Cooke
Business Editor, CMU

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