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, hello there one and all. I hope you’re enjoying the revamped CMU Daily, and you’re following these links at the top of the bulletin through to theCMUwebsite.com, which is possibly quite a bit bigger than you realised! While you’re there, don’t forget to check out our CMU Training courses (there’s a training button right at the top), which kick off again in Shoreditch next week. But for now, let’s review the five big events in the music business in the last seven days, a week that was a bit dominated by copyright (as you’ll see when you download this afternoon’s CMU Weekly podcast!). But some other stuff happened too:

01: The European Union extended the sound recording copyright term. As expected, ministers from each EU member state rubber stamped proposals that will mean the copyright term for sound recordings will increase from the current 50 years to 70 years across Europe. Although much was made of the artists who will benefit, including aging session musicians who earn a cut of public performance royalties, in reality it is record companies who will get the biggest financial boost by having another 20 years of control over 1960s hits. Although much of the music industry spoke out in support of the move, some in the tech sector and those who advocate copyright reform in favour of users said the development was a disaster.  CMU report | Guardian report

02: The government announced another consultation on live licensing. Because you can’t have too many consultations. Though the live sector generally welcomed the move, which it is hoped will, once and for all, remove some of the red tape put in place by the 2003 Licensing Act, which many argue makes it too hard for pubs and smaller venues to stage live music, a fact that reduces the opportunities for grass roots musicians to play. The government’s consultation may inform or add to Lord Tim Clement-Jones’ Live Music Bill, which already addresses a number of these issues. CMU report | Stage report

03: ERA called for faster DEA implementation. The entertainment retailer’s trade body, meeting for its AGM this week, said the government is taking too long to implement the copyright section of the Digital Economy Act, which will result in warning letters being sent to suspected file-sharers and, ultimately, ‘technical measures’ being used against those who ignore the warnings. It is now unlikely the DEA’s graduated response system won’t go live until late 2012, a delay which, ERA argued, is contributing to a slump of millions in music and DVD sales in the UK. CMU report | Retail Gazette report

04: MOG and Rdio both announced that they will launch free-to-use streaming services in the US. Both currently offer only subscription-based offers, but are working on free-to-use options paid for by advertising and sponsorship. The US services now face competition from Spotify, which, of course, has an ad-funded freemium element used to upsell its subscriptions. MOG also implied that the opportunities that will be presented by Facebook Music – which will bring existing music platforms into the Facebook interface – were also motivating them to launch a free-to-use version.  CMU report | LA Times report

05: Beggars chief Martin Mills said that 360-degree record deals are a “lose/lose”, adding that, unlike some majors, Beggars wasn’t, in the main, interested in taking a cut of artists’ non-recordings based revenue. Speaking to CMU as he was presented the Industry Champion prize at the inaugural Artist & Manager Awards, Mills said: “I believe that 360-degree deals are a lose/lose. They mean you pay more than you should do for rights that aren’t within your skillset. Most of the time you just lose more money, and with the ones that work you end up with a resentful artist because you’re getting part of their income they think you don’t deserve. We’re good at releasing recorded music, and that’s what we do”. CMU interview

Chris Cooke
Business Editor, CMU

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Oh hello there, how the devil are you? I’ve not been here for while. That is to say, not in this slot on a Friday, I have been around writing business stories for the Daily though, albeit from a secret corner of a large hotel in Edinburgh for much of August. Because, as the more observant will know, I spend my summer at the world’s biggest cultural festival co-running the biggest review media there, which involves throwing myself into the worlds of comedy, cabaret, dance, musicals and theatre.

But, bar one stint chairing a panel at a rather good comedy industry conference in Greenwich yesterday, my brain is now fully focused back onto the good old music business. Who will buy EMI? Will copyright extension really go through this time? What are Vivendi’s ticketing ambitions, and will they ever be branded Universal? What are the chances of the government actually doing something about the Licensing Act? Whose idea was it to serve fish at the Mercury dinner? See, I’m on top of everything. And to prove it, here’s the bold return of your Week In Five.

01: It started to look like the EU really could extend the copyright term for sound recordings. The UK government already supports an extension, albeit to 70 years rather than the 95 years the record industry would like. But any extension needs to be EU-wide. The Hungarian presidency of the EU put term extension back on the agenda earlier this year, and this week it was discussed by the Committee Of Permanent Representatives who, insiders say, have drafted proposals that satisfy those member states previously opposed to longer copyrights for recordings. The industry will now wait with bated breath to see if the all-important Council Of Ministers rubber stamp those proposals next week. CMU report | FT report

02: Terra Firma sought information about Citigroup’s EMI grab. The private equity group and former EMI owners went to the High Court to request information from PricewaterhouseCoopers, the accountants who, back in February, helped Citigroup and senior execs at EMI wind up the holding company through which Terra Firma owned the music business, allowing Citi to take ownership of the music major as principal creditor. Terra Firma seem to think PWC were wrong to say they could not “support” EMI’s debt to Citi, and presumably want info about the accountant’s conclusions, possibly with a view to taking legal action over the way EMI was taken from them. CMU report | Sky News report

03: Vivendi bought See Tickets, the UK-based ticketing firm that originally span out of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s theatre business. That the Universal Music owners chose to enter the UK ticketing sector through acquisition was a bit of a surprise, though Vivendi had already bought into a ticketing business in home country France last year. CMU report | City AM report

04: Deezer won a copyright squabble with Universal. The French-based streaming music platform, currently launching in the UK for the first time, has been struggling to renegotiate its licensing terms with the world’s biggest record company. Universal asked the courts to force Deezer to remove their music from its streaming platform until a new licensing deal was agreed. But Deezer argued that the changes Universal wanted to make to a previous licensing deal ran contrary to an industry wide agreement supported by the French government and signed by various digital and music companies earlier this year, including Universal. The French courts agreed. CMU report | AFP report

05: PJ Harvey won the Mercury Music Prize. But how many more records did that help sell? Well, according to Music Week sales of winning album ‘Let England Shake’ are up more than six-fold, WHICH equals about 3335 units being sold. Which is good, it’s a great album. Adele, of course, while not winning the Mercury, this week went into chart history as the first artist to shift more than three million copies of an album in the UK in one calendar year. CMU report | Music Week report

And that’s it. There’ll be a slight new look round here from Monday, but Andy will tell you more about that later. Meanwhile, see you next week!

Chris Cooke
Business Editor, CMU

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I went to a debate on copyright last week. In Scotland. And a Scottish lawyer said something interesting. But why is this relevant to you, the (probably) American music fan?

Well, what he said was this. “Isn’t it interesting that an industry that has been able to sell us Cheryl Cole and Susan Boyle and all those other ‘Idol’ and ‘X-Factor’ stars, and which persuades millions of people to part with their hard earned cash to buy all sorts of things linked to those celebrities, has failed to persuade a large part of the population that they should pay for digital content”.

That lawyer – his name was Paul Carlyle and he sits on the Law Society Of Scotland’s Intellectual Property committee – was expressing concern that, while the entertainment industry has, in the main, in the US and much of Europe, persuaded politicians of the importance of protecting copyright online, often resulting in new rules to crackdown on piracy, he’s not convinced the record companies and film studios have won the public debate. And it’s much harder to enforce laws, he argued, if the majority of the population don’t believe in them.

Of course there have been various efforts by the music and film industries to communicate the positive side of copyright over the years, some moderately successful, most awful, some counter-productive. But I think the Scottish attorney is right. As the content industries start to win the debate in political circles (and to be fair, when it comes to Congress, there’s still some way to go), they should turn their attention once again to engaging with the public on this.

Music makers and music sellers need to try and find more engaging ways to communicate why, actually, copyright and exciting new music go hand in hand. And why, therefore, copyrights are worth protecting, And why, therefore, people should be willing to pay a fair price to access digital content.

This might be better achieved if artists and labels were to team up with those big players in the digital world who have a vested interest in the longterm success of the copyright system. There were a lot of articles written about Apple boss Steve Jobs’ many achievements when it was announced he was standing down as the IT firm’s CEO last month, but surely one of his greatest feats was doing what labels in the main have failed to do: persuading people to pay for digital music.

The mantra of the music industry in the early days of P2P file-sharing was that it was “impossible to compete with free”, yet in iTunes Apple did and continues to do just that, despite illegal file-sharing being pretty much as big as it ever was. Not only that, but many people, myself included, buy music from iTunes even when we know that Amazon are probably selling it cheaper. These are clearly people the artist and label community need on their side when trying to sell the positive side of copyright.

The other people the music community should involve is you, the committed full-on music fan (which is why, in case you wondered, this IS all relevant to yourselves). If you’re a fan of great new music, and you see great new bands you love struggling to launch their careers because of a flagging record industry, you are more likely to support the music community’s case as to why copyrights are worth protecting. But as music consumers you also have the other perspective, and can let artists and labels know what the queries that puzzle and annoy the man on the street really are. The industry needs that knowledge before it can successfully enter the public debate.

So let’s take up the mission set by a Scottish lawyer, follow the lead of a Californian geek, tap into the insights of the average Inside Track reader, and then get out their and win the public as well as the political debate on copyright, and why it can be a very good thing indeed.

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I took part in a big debate on music copyright last month. Usually these things focus on illegal file-sharing and whether it can be stopped. But the audience at this event was made up mainly of artists, producers and promoters involved in hip hop, so the debate went in a very different direction – the topic of the day was sampling.

If, as an artist, you want to release a cover version of an existing song, you have to pay whoever wrote that song a royalty fee for the privilege. However, that songwriter cannot stop you from releasing a basic cover version, and the sum of money you pay is set by the law, it’s a standard rate.

However, if you are a hip hop producer and you sample a hook or riff or drum beat from another song, not only do you need to pay a royalty fee for the privilege – actually to two people, whoever wrote the original track, and the record company who released the recording you’re sampling – but both those people can refuse to give you permission to sample their track at all. They can also demand whatever money they like, assuming they are willing to walk away from the deal if you refuse to pay.

As you can imagine, if you make sample-heavy music, and then you or a label decide to release it, the negotiations and paperwork that are required to make the release legal are immense. When you hear rappers complaining that they handed over their new album to their record company months ago and are still waiting for it to be released, that may well be because some poor person at the label is having to secure permission for all the samples without going over budget.

Some reckon that samples should work like cover versions. The owners of the original track should not be allowed to block the use of their music in someone else’s work, and the royalties paid should be standard rates governed by law. Certainly quite a few frustrated producers and hip hop label owners at my copyright debate felt so.

But the discussion was not all one-sided. One only slightly scary songwriter demanded to know why he should give up the right to decide whether his songs are chopped up, messed around with and presented in a totally different form, a form he might find offensive. Such was the passion of this particular speaker many on the other side of the room were silenced, until the debate was over I’m sure, when they presumably started complaining again about how the rules on sampling stop exciting new producers from releasing great new hip hop tracks.

I’m afraid I sort of sit on the fence on this one, though possibly leaning slightly to the samplers’ side of the debate, despite that scary songwriter. But it’s an interesting part of the wider copyright debate, because it pits artists against artists, rather than the music industry versus file-sharers or ISPs. It’s a debate that could be solved within the music community. What do you think? Let me know.

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