STUFF BY ME WEEK-ENDING 19 DEC 2009

If I'm being honest, when news that a Facebook Group had been set up to try and get Rage Against The Machine's 'Killing In The Name' to the Christmas number one spot, instead of the predictable schmaltzy cover version that the 'X-Factory' would otherwise stick there, I was a little cynical.

First, the music business journalist in me couldn't resist the temptation to look up who owned the recording and publishing rights in the RATM track, especially as I vaguely recalled that the politicised shouty rockers were signed to a major record company. Of course, as everyone and their mother has since also remarked, the band were signed to Sony Music, the entertainment conglom which has a stake in Simon Cowell's Syco label, and therefore releases the music of all the 'X-Factor' winners. What has been less reported is that Sony's publisher - Sony/ATV - also own the publishing rights in the song.

While the people behind the 'RATM for Xmas number one' campaign had picked the track for the right reasons - they were huge fans of the band, and wanted to champion a track that was perversely un-Christmassy, and as far from Planet Cowell as it was possible to be - the fact that the 'X-Factor' chief's business partners would benefit from the latest anti-X campaign was a little ironic. More so if you remembered that the same campaign last year - which unsuccessfully tried to get Jeff Buckley's undeniably superior (to X winner Alexandra Burke's) version of 'Hallelujah' to the festive top spot - also inadvertently championed a song both released and published by Sony. Cowell is already single handedly propping up Sony Music UK, and now, for two year's running, he's managed to even channel his haters into boosting the fortunes of his key business partners.

The second reason for my cynicism was that I wasn't convinced these guys would really be able to successfully take the X-machine on, given the telly talent show had been bigger than ever this year. If the Jeff B campaign couldn't do it, why did these guys think they had a chance?

But in even posing that question I forgot two things. First, Cowell had picked a truly rubbish song for the 'X-Factor' winner this year (you might not have liked Burke's version of 'Hallelujah', but it's still a great song). And second, social networking has totally changed in the last twelve months.

As we note in this week's CMU Review Of 2009, social networking really came of age this year, mainly thanks to Twitter. I'd been signed up to Friends Reunited, MySpace, YouTube, Linked-In and Facebook for years, but it's only since I got round to using Twitter in late 2008 that I have actually started to truly 'socially network'. To correspond with, take leads from and try to influence hundreds of people, many of whom I've never met but who, through one means or another, I have managed to connect with via Twitter. The tweet machine has linked up Facebook, the MySpace music player, the YouTube video platform and the previously unnavigable blogosphere, and created a gossip/tip/rage network that can make a news story (or chart campaign) global in minutes.

And that network has become rather powerful. We saw that power go into effect a number of times this year: when New Zealand clumsily made the three-strikes anti-piracy system law, when the American Republican Party started dissing the NHS, when the Sunday Express published that unforgivable article intruding into the lives of the Dunblane survivors, when Jan Moir wrote a trashy column making various accusations against the very recently deceased and yet-to-be-buried Stephen Gately, and when the surely evil Carter Ruck legal firm tried to stop the Guardian reporting on questions being raised in parliament about one of their shady clients.

These Twitter-led outrages - with their YouTube, Facebook and bloggy spin-offs - have, in many cases, led to rapid retractions, apologies and rethinks. Whether that's automatically a good thing I don't know - I do share some of the reservations raised by the Guardian's Roy Greenslade here. But when you're part of a Twitter outrage - as I was in the cases of Express/Dublane, Moir/Gately and Carter Ruck - it can be truly exhilarating to have your own 140 characters of rage, and then to watch hundreds more do likewise, and then subsequently see the retraction/apology/rethink come your way the next day. And despite the concerns Greenslade raises, I think there is more good than bad in these socially-networked mini-campaigns. I wonder if it would have been so easy for Blair to ignore us anti-war ranters back in 2001, had the Twitter-age internet existed. After all, we had the facts on our side, what we needed was a better platform to communicate them.

Meanwhile, the commercial power of the Twitterati has probably been best illustrated in two scenarios involving Simon Cowell, ironically one going in his favour - the phenomenon that was Susan Boyle - and one against - the aforementioned 'Rage v X' campaign. Though given the fact his business partners Sony benefited from both, you might say that the 'X-Factor' man, despite not seeming to totally 'get' the internet himself, has been one of the biggest commercial benefactors of the new era of social networking that came into being this year.

The fact neither he nor Sony orchestrated either of those campaigns makes you wonder what could be achieved if a company could master how to manufacture a social networking explosion. Though, perhaps, to truly succeed, these chaotic organic social network frenzies need to be just that - ie no company could ever pull this sort of thing off, on this sort of level. They can only wait around and hope a big social networking phenomenon comes their way (one of the positive ones, obviously). For those with anti-establishment leanings, who nevertheless contributed some pennies to Sony this week by getting caught up in the RATM campaign, at least that might be some compensation.

And that means people like me. Because, despite my initial cynicism, once the battle was underway to stop Cowell from having his fifth Christmas number one, I really did get caught up in it. My enthusiasm probably peaked in the hours after I downloaded my copy of 'Killing In The Name' on Monday night, but I was still rooting for RATM to beat Joe X when the two records' sales figures got rather close yesterday morning, and I couldn't resist a quiet "whoop" when the Christmas chart reached CMU HQ late this afternoon.

I trust and quietly hope Joe X will have a successful pop career in 2010. And I've no real desire to see the Cowell empire fall - in some ways I admire the guy. But I'm glad RATM have the Christmas number one this year, and I definitely enjoyed being on the Twitter-Facebook-induced ride that got it there.

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STUFF I DID THIS WEEK
I had the pleasure of having lunch with the FT's Mrs Moneypenny this week, the only person I know (as far as I'm aware) who, having put the roast in the oven on a Sunday morning, then flies to the other side of her home county for a drink at one of her favourite coffee shops.

And when I say 'flies' I don't mean 'hurries', I mean gets in a small private plane and actually flies herself there. Except on this occasion a big bad cloud got in the way and, apparently, Mrs M's not had enough pilot training to tackle such things (yet). Going under the cloud might involve flying the plane through the sewers (should the cloud be doubling up as fog), while going over it might involve extending the trip for coffee to Holland, if it turned out to be a very large cloud.

So poor Mrs M had to turn back and have coffee back in her own kitchen, where the day had begun. Never mind, that's still a whole lot more exciting than my usual Sunday mornings, which normally involve a slightly later commute than normal to the UnLtd HQ in Shoreditch, and then maybe one episode of 'Family Guy' via the net before motivating myself to write another two pages of my dissertation.

Anyway, I thought I'd mention this here because there is a new Mrs Moneypenny book out, a collection of the FT columns from the last year. I'm sharing my (free) copy with my family this Christmas, so feel I ought to plug it a bit so someone else reading this might buy a copy to compensate. Details here.

Actually, I've just thought of someone else I know who might fly himself half way across the country for a cup of coffee on a whim. Though I didn't have lunch with him this week. And he hasn't got a book to promote. So, sorry James, no plug for you.

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STUFF I WROTE THIS WEEK
A round up of some of the news stories and articles I wrote for UnLimited's media in the last seven days...

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RAGE AGAINST THE X STUFF...
This is CMU's coverage of the Rage Against The Machine v 'X-Factor' chart battle, some written by me, some by CMU Editor Andy Malt, some a sort of joint effort. We got a bit completist on this story this week!

Monday update

Tuesday update

Wednesday update

Thursday update

Friday/Saturday updates

Sunday update

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MUSIC BUSINESS STUFF...

Terra Firma sue Citigroup over their EMI acquisition [CMU Daily 14/12/09]

Sources deny Terra Firma's Citigroup claims over EMI takeover [CMU Daily 15/12/09]

Kasabian do publishing deal with Sony [CMU Daily 15/12/09]

BMG Rights opens doors in US [CMU Daily 15/12/09]

MAMA Group profits up up up [CMU Daily 16/12/09]

Syco appoint US A&R man [CMU Daily 16/12/09]

Could AEG be hit by disappointing BEP ticket sales? [CMU Daily 16/12/09]

Anti-LiveMaster campaigners launch TicketDisaster website [CMU Daily 17/12/09]

Borders could be gone by next week [CMU Daily 17/12/09]

EMI buy LoudClothing [CMU Daily 17/12/09]

Chrysalis doing well - praise be to Jacko [CMU Daily 18/12/09]

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COPYRIGHT STUFF...

Blues label sues Google and Microsoft [CMU Daily 14/12/09]

US VP holds IP protection conference - though some key stakeholders not invited [CMU Daily 17/12/09]

Media monitors take NLA to copyright tribunal [Creative Business News-Blog 17/12/09]

New Zealand government publishes revamped three-strikes system [CMU Daily 18/12/09]

EMI sue Vimeo [CMU Daily 18/12/09]

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DIGITAL STUFF...

Unsigned Snocap users lose out from MySpace's Imeem acquisition [CMU Daily 15/12/09]

Warner partner with CrowdSurge to add tickets to sell-through [CMU Daily 15/12/09]

Guvera set to launch next week [CMU Daily 16/12/09]

MySpace partner with Tunecore [CMU Daily 16/12/09]

YouTube might enter the subscription domain [CMU Daily 17/12/09]

Pandora doing well [CMU Daily 18/12/09]

DMN publish digital hold outs list [CMU Daily 18/12/09]

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POP COURTS STUFF...

Apple countersue Nokia [CMU Daily 14/12/09]

Martial arts event subject to DMX lawsuit cancelled [CMU Daily 14/12/09]

Jacko estate attorneys want to be paid [CMU Daily 16/12/09]

Brooks sues hospital [CMU Daily 18/12/09]

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GENERAL MUSIC STUFF...

Buju Banton in prison over drug charges [CMU Daily 14/12/09]

Brown seemingly tweets about poor record sale frustration [CMU Daily 14/12/09]

Lil Wayne's house stinks of dope, shocker [CMU Daily 14/12/09]

Pink pissed with the royals [CMU Daily 14/12/09]

Rose issues statement stating no statement [CMU Daily 15/12/09]

Brown's album well stocked, just not very good [CMU Daily 15/12/09]

Abba and The Stooges into the Hall Of Fame [CMU Daily 16/12/09]

Beatles and Eminem biggest US sellers in the 2000s [CMU Daily 16/12/09]

Oscar best song shortlist revealed [CMU Daily 18/12/09]

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MEDIA STUFF...

UTV man calls for parliamentary debate of digital switchover plans [CMU Daily 15/12/09]

US radio giant may apply for chapter 11 protection [CMU Daily 15/12/09]

Robbie for X-Factor panel? [CMU Daily 15/12/09]

C4 and TalkTalk join Canvas [CMU Daily 17/12/09]

Cowell tops telly chart of the year [CMU Daily 17/12/09]

Fuller launches yet another wannabe format [CMU Daily 17/12/09]

Xfm swap breakfast and drive [CMU Daily 17/12/09]

UTV shut down Preston station [CMU Daily 17/12/09]

Evans covers for George's "fucking" [CMU Daily 17/12/09]

Jonathan Ross may take 50% pay cut [CMU Daily 18/12/09]

Ben Folds is the new Simon Cowell [CMU Daily 18/12/09]

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COMMENTING ON OTHER PEOPLE'S STUFF...
And finally, a reply I wrote to this opinion piece on YouTube and music licensing and whatnot from the Telegraph...

Three quick quick points.

First, YouTube could NOT legally host music videos without a licence from the record companies, certainly not in the US or Europe.

What the DMCA safe harbour clause (or at least the Universal v Veoh interpretation of it) says is that Google/YouTube are not liable for infringement if they temporarily and unknowingly host a music video without the copyright owner's permission, PROVIDING they take the video down as soon as they are made aware of it. They must also have a system in place to accept take-down notices from copyright owners. YouTube have such a system for any music where they do not have all the appropriate licences.

Second, yes, record companies and music publishers (the latter normally via their collecting societies) totally over price their content. Then again, the Googles of this world tend to vastly under-value all content.

Because Google generate most of their web traffic by providing free internet services (email, document sharing, IM, search etc), the costs of which are nominal after set up, they can charge bargain basement ad rates. It's a good business model.

But once you get into the business of content creation there are large ongoing costs, and the cheap ads model fails. A TV network - which YouTube is trying to be once it starts carrying more than user-generated content - spends the majority of its revenue on content creation (a risky business, as half that content probably won't find a sizable audience). Google traditionally spends relatively little on content.

We all know the record industry screwed up on all things internet in the first half of this decade, but they are slowly getting better (and licensing more user-friendly services and slashing their prices as we go). There's still much to be done, yes. But, to be honest with you, in the same way few music, movie and TV firms really "get" the web, few web firms really "get" content. It's a step learning curve on both sides, and both have been finding that curve slippy. But they're getting there. Slowly.

Third, yes, most major bands make a lot more money out of performing live (and merchandise and brand partnerships) than they do out of the sale of their recordings.

New bands, however, traditionally do not. They rely on record companies to invest some cash (sometimes hundreds of thousands) to launch their careers, to get to the point where there is money to be made out of touring, merchandise and sponsorship. The record company traditionally only takes a cut of recording revenue in return for this investment. So a record company seeing a music video they own selling tickets for a gig doesn't help them recoup on their investment (and, it's worth noting, that whereas music videos were once entirely promotional, increasingly they are a revenue stream).

More fool them for not including a cut of gig revenues in their original artist contract, you might say. You'd be right to say that. But that is changing too. Basically, most new bands need cash investment from somewhere at the start of their careers, and investors will want to secure their investment on future copyrights and/or revenues. An interesting trend in the music industry to watch out for is who the investors of the future will be, and what they will secure their investments on. You can watch this trend in my daily music business bulletin - www.theCMUwebsite.com/daily

But in the meantime, it's no help to a record company to be told that if they give away their content their artists (but not them) will get a live revenues boost. It's also worth noting that as record sales slump, revenues from licensing content to TV, the internet and (outside the US) radio become increasingly important to record labels.

Actually, that wasn't quick at all, was it? Just to say, I'm not here as a rep of the record industry. I've been as critical of their approach to the internet as anyone of the last 10 years. They screwed a lot up. They still screw a lot up. But they are getting much better. And the web firms screw lots of things up to.

And Amen to that. Happy holidays.