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

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, first my plug of the week, our next CMU Training course on 29 Jun looks at the business models, artist deals and revenue streams that will drive the music industry in the future, so assuming you’re planning on being here in the future, you should come along! You can book your place right now at www.thecmuwebsite.com/training.

Second, useless fact of the week. And Extreme Tech reckons that Google’s recent Les Paul tributing ‘play me’ guitar-like Google Doodle cost the world £166 million in lost office-hours from the time the working population wasted playing with the nifty little digital toy. Still, time better spent, surely, than thinking of and then tweeting the name of the film that best describes your penis.

Third, my link of the week. Yes, even the Muppets are now mocking Bono, The Edge and the producers of the ill-fated ‘Spider-Man’ Broadway musical, which finally opened this week after a record breaking 180 preview performances. See the Muppets sketch here.

And finally, here it is, the five biggest news stories from the music business this week.

01: Pandora floated, one of the first digital firms to capitalise on growing City-boy interest in all things internet. 14.7 million shares were sold at $16 a piece. Given those shares amounted to just 9% of the company, that values Pandora at $2.56 billion, although that share price is already slipping. Although popular with its users, and one of the only digital music services to have lasted the distance, Pandora is yet to make a profit. CMU report | Bloomberg update

02: Spotify USA edged closer. It was widely reported this week that Universal Music had signed up to Spotify in the US, and that even hold outs Warner were not close to signing up, possibly because the popular streaming service has scaled back on its freemium service. A spokesman for Spotify indicated a summer launch Stateside was now likely, but it wouldn’t be this month. Team Spot have been promising an American launch for some time, but the US divisions of the major labels were initially hesitant about licensing it. CMU report | Billboard report

03: Report suggested a streamlining of BBC pop station management structures. Former commercial radio man John Myers had reviewed the operations of Radio 1, 2, 1Xtra and 6 and said that while they were all great stations, there was much scope for making cost savings without affecting output. In particular, he recommended having one controller and management team for all the Beeb’s pop stations, rather that one set of management for 1 and 1Xtra and another for 2 and 6music. He also said all the stations’ news operations should be merged. BBC Radio chief Tim Davie welcomed the report, though didn’t seem that keen to pursue many of its proposals. CMU report | Guardian report

04: LA Reid was linked to an Epic US role. The former Island Def Jam chief has been expected to follow his former boss Doug Morris to Sony Music ever since he announced his departure from the Universal division, especially as he is a judge on the Sony-owned ‘X-Factor USA’ TV show. The Hollywood Reporter has said Reid will head up a newly expanded Epic label division, which would also include the old Jive labels, including the one he co-founded in 1989, LaFace. CMU report | Hollywood Reporter report

05: PricewaterhouseCoopers was upbeat about the entertainment sector, but less so music. The accountants issued their annual report on the media and entertainment industries, and said they were seeing more growth than expected. So much so they predicted the wider sector would grow by 5.7% year on year over the next five years. Though they excluded the music business from this, which they said would start to grow again within the next five years, though not immediately, and more modestly. CMU report | New York Times report

And that’s your lot – don’t forget to look out for a new podcast with more week-in-view type shenanigans later today: www.thecmuwebsite.com/podcast

Chris Cooke
Business Editor, CMU

Sign up to the CMU Daily here.

So, what will the music business of the future look like? Well, I’ve not got enough space to tell you here, not least because Vigsy’s done a double tip this week, but I can tell you the three places you should go to for intelligent comment on what the future holds (if I do say so myself!).

First, don’t forget it’s the Ten In Ten debate at the Roundhouse tonight, discussing the results of that previously reported survey of music business types on what the music industry will look like in ten years time. A panel will be discussing the results including me, ie:music’s Tim Clark, PledgeMusic’s Richard Lyne, Helienne Lindvall, Andrew Missingham and Adam Ficek. More here.

Second, we have a CMU Training course on this very issue, where we discuss how music and artists can be monetised now and in the future, and investigate how this will be achieved, what future music companies will look like, and how artist deals might be structured. The next edition of this is next Wednesday, and we have a few places left. So why not sign up now? Details are at www.theCMUwebsite.com/training.

And finally – and you already knew this – we’ll be providing all sorts practical advice on how the ‘new music business’ will work – and is already working, for that matter – at The Great Escape convention in May. More on that next week, but get your delegate passes now at escapegreat.com.

Meanwhile, from the future to the very recent past.

01: LA Reid left Island Def Jam, and Barry Weiss took his place, in the latest round of record industry musical chairs. Reid announced he was quitting his job at the top of the Universal division to become a judge on ‘X-Factor’, which has led to speculation he might now join that TV franchise’s owners Sony. Meanwhile, it was announced recent Universal recruit and former Sony man Weiss will take over as CEO of IDJ, as well as overseeing the major’s Universal Motown Republic division. In the UK, the boss of Sony division Epic, Nick Raphael, also announced he will move over to Universal later this year. CMU report | LA Times report

02: Hargreaves shared the BPI’s submission to his copyright review. The Prof reviewing copyright laws for the government is slowly publishing most of the 200 submissions he received from interested parties. This week that included the submission by record label trade body the BPI, which disputed Hargreaves’ key assertion that so called fair use provisions needed reviewing in order to ensure the growth of the digital content market. CMU report | Submissions website

03: HMV prepared a presentation for its bankers, as it tries to renegotiate the terms of its loan facility so as not to breach covenants. The presentation is expected to be delivered next week. Meanwhile HMV top dog Simon Fox told a Retail Week conference that, despite his firm’s recent woes, their money lenders remained supportive and he was confident new achievable loan terms could be agreed eventually. CMU report| FT report

04: Ticketmaster launched a new analytics business in the US, which will offer promoters who use their ticketing platform extensive stats about the people who buy their tickets. The move is almost certainly a response to a growing belief in the live sector that promoters should have more control over their ticket sales, and a better knowledge of their customers. CMU report | EU Ticket News report

05: The BBC Asian Network was saved, which was nice, even if bosses there are going to have to cut their costs considerably while also building audience. The Asian Network was set for the axe after the same strategic review published last year that also called for the closure of 6music. BBC 6 was saved last summer, and this week it was confirmed the Asian Network would also stay on air, albeit in a streamlined form. CMU report | Guardian report

And that’s your lot, though do look out for more week in view chatter on the CMU Weekly podcast this afternoon.

Chris Cooke
Business Editor, CMU

Sign up to the CMU Daily here.

So, at an FT conference in London this week Virgin Media’s music man Richard Wheeler discussed the challenge of (unsuccessfully) convincing music companies other than Universal to sign up to the proposal of an unlimited all-you-can-eat subscription-based MP3 download service. He also admitted that Virgin was now thinking of launching a music offer more akin to Spotify – so stream-based, with the option to store cached tracks within a player on mobiles – rather than the original unlimited MP3s plan.

So two debates to be had there, and we will be discussing both at The Great Escape in May. First, which digital music business models have the most potential, will one of them win out in the end, or can they co-exist? And second, is the current digital licensing approach fit for purpose, or should the industry be looking to license more digital businesses through collecting societies? We’ve got some great digital and music execs on board to discuss these issues – who we will be announcing very soon – but if you want to be part of the debate get yourself a Great Escape delegates ticket right now at escapegreat.com.

Meanwhile, what else happened this week?

01: Sony Music recruited Doug Morris for its soon to be vacant CEO position. The 72 year old record industry veteran and Universal Music Chairman will join Sony on 1 Jul, having negotiated an early departure from his current employer. Morris emerged as a contender for the Sony top job earlier this year, he seemingly not enjoying the back-seat role he took at Universal last year after giving up the CEO job there. CMU report | MTV report

02: HMV issued another profit warning, and admitted it is now unlikely to meet the financial performance terms of its £100 million+ bank loans. We already knew HMV was busy trying to renegotiate those terms, but this confirms that the next month is going to be very tense for the albeit profitable music and entertainment retailer. The fact that Chairman Robert Swannell quit this week will presumably only make it more so. Given the financial stresses, it seems more and more likely that HMV will accept shareholder Alexander Mamut’s offer to by Waterstones, despite past insistence the books bit of the group wasn’t for sale. CMU report | Telegraph report

03: A treasury minister said to expect an announcement on the mail-order CD VAT loophole in the next budget. James Sassoon told the House Of Lords that the government was reviewing the loophole that lets mail-order websites based in the Channel Islands sell goods under £18 without paying VAT, giving them a 20% advantage over mainland sellers. This has raised hopes among those who oppose the VAT dodge that Chancellor Georgie Osbourne will now stop it. Sassoon was responding to questions about the dodge raised by Tory Lord Ralph Lucas. CMU report

04: Warner Music’s owners were considering over ten bids to buy some or all of the music major. The bids have come in via Warner’s bankers Goldman Sachs. It is thought most bids are just for Warner’s publishing business Warner/Chappell. Selling just that bit of the Warner Music Group is also thought to be Warner CEO Edgar Bronfman Jr’s preferred option. He wants to use some of the money made to buy EMI’s record labels when they go up for sale later this year. CMU report | Hollywood Reporter report

05: IFPI announced an alliance with the City Of London police and credit card firms to fight rogue download sites. Moving forward, the global record industry trade body will alert to the City Of London authorities to websites they believe are selling digital music illegally. Credit card firms will then ask the banks providing those sites with payment services to demand to see their music licenses and, if there are none, to stop providing said services. The hope is this can hinder those rogue download sites based in places like Russia where it’s hard to pursue copyright litigation. CMU report | Zeropaid report

And that’s your lot. But do look out for our cuddly podcast where we’ll chat about some of these stories, and some more, for your listening pleasure. It’ll be online later today, so why not sign up now via iTunes.

Chris Cooke
Business Editor, CMU

Sign up to the CMU Daily here.

So, it was BRITs week this week which, as usual, meant increased exposure for the UK music industry in the mainstream media, which is part of the reason for the big awards bash existing in the first place of course, so job done.

Though interestingly this year, alongside all the articles on the big winners and celebrity turns, there were more articles than usual – I think – pondering the state of the music business. With the doom and gloom surrounding both EMI and HMV so much in the news at the moment, and the hangover of last year’s Digital Economy Act still rumbling on, that’s probably no surprise. Most of those articles seemed to focus on the ongoing piracy debate and the potential of Spotify-style streaming services to put everything right again.

Both are valid issues, and we’ll be dedicating some time to both of them during The Great Escape convention in May. Though for me there are two bigger issues – how can the music industry maximise all of its many potential revenue streams, and how to can ensure that more of those revenue streams pump cash into new talent, rather than relying on just the profits of dwindling record sales.

The good news is that, whereas with piracy and the potential of streaming music, where in many ways it’s too soon to tell how things will turn out, with regards new revenue streams and investment models people are already reinventing the wheel, meaning come May we’ll be able to get some real practical insights and tips into new approaches of developing and monetising new music.

I’m particularly excited in this regard about three of our panellists. Artist manager David Bianchi will be talking about working with investment vehicle Power Amp on Carl Barat’s latest solo work. Cooking Vinyl boss Martin Goldschmidt will run us through how he is reinventing the label/artist relationship. And we’ll have Alan Pell from BMG UK, giving us an insight into possibly the most interesting of the major players in music right now. To hear from these guys, and a load more who we’ll be introducing here in the coming weeks, you need to get yourself a Great Escape delegates pass. It’s just £125 if you buy now from www.escapegreat.com.

Meanwhile, let’s talk a bit more about those awards…

01: The Grammys and BRITS took place, making it a busy week for music industry awards. The main Grammys show got its biggest TV audience in eleven years, though that was probably all the Beliebers tuning in to see their idol win the Best New Artist prize, which he didn’t, so there’ll probably be a mass boycott next year. The all new BRITS show saw its TV audience slide, it transpiring that while Tinie Tempah, Take That and Adele are all pretty cool, it’s much more fun to watch a misguided reality show about Gypsies. At both the Grammys and the BRITS, Arcade Fire got the long-awaited recognition they so rightly deserve, albeit for what is possibly their weakest album to date. Not that the pop fans approved, as this great website shows: whoisarcadefire.tumblr.com. BRITS report | Grammys report

02: There was lots of news in the streaming music domain, as BRITS chief and Universal Music UK boss David Joseph told The Guardian that it was the potential of cloud-based digital services that gave him renewed hope that the record industry can recover. Last night various media reported that EMI have now definitely joined Sony in signing up for a US version of Spotify. Meanwhile Sony’s own streaming service, Music Unlimited power by Qriocity, went live in the US, Australia and New Zealand this week. Elsewhere, long-standing American streaming platform Pandora prepared to float on Nasdaq in a share sale likely to raise $100 million. Pandora report | Qriocity report

03: Apple launched its new app subscription system. It means that anyone providing a subscription-based service via an app on the iPhone or iPad can now charge regular subscription fees via Apple’s app store, rather than requiring their own transactions system. Which is lovely. Except use of Apple’s payment platform will be compulsory for all subscription-based apps (albeit in addition to any existing independent payment systems) and the IT giant will take a 30% commission. Streaming music services with such apps were not impressed. Google, meanwhile, announced the launch of a similar platform which will only charge a 10% commission. CMU report | Mark Mulligan blog

04: There were more reports about a Warner Music sale. Rumour had it that Goldman Sachs, which is currently reviewing all options regarding the US music major, had spoken to over twenty parties interested in buying some or all of the Warner Music empire. The Daily Mail even speculated that one of those interested parties may be Terra Firma’s Guy Hands, who, the paper thought, might be interested in engineering the long awaited EMI/Warner merger. CMU report | Daily Mail report

05: Nick Gatfield joined Sony Music, as President of the major’s UK music division. But why does Sony UK need the former EMI A&R chief to sit between CEO Ged Doherty and the top execs of each of the Sony UK labels? Well, Beehive City reckoned that Doherty would be investing an increasing amount of his time in Simon Cowell’s Syco division – Sony UK’s biggest single earner – which has been without a CEO since December, hence the need for Gatfield to take over some of his duties with the rest of the business. CMU report | Beehive City report

And that’s your week in five. Look out for more retrospective musings in the CMU Weekly bulletin and podcast later today. Hoopla.

Chris Cooke
Business Editor, CMU

Sign up to the CMU Daily here.

So, what a doomy gloomy week, hey? First HMV’s debt-related challenges spilled over into the mainstream news agenda again, and then we got a Digital Music Report from IFPI full of depressing statistics and some tough talking about the need for governments to step up their anti-piracy initiatives, just as our government’s three-strike-style plans hit the time consuming hurdle of a judicial review. And all this amid fears in some quarters that the upcoming Hargreaves Review of UK copyright law will favour the tech industry over traditional content creators. Shall we just all slit our wrists now and be done with it. It would save me having to edit up the first ever CMU podcast.

But you know, I remain optimistic about the future of the music business, and not only because I’ve just drunk a can of Pepsi before eating breakfast. As we’ve said before, while copyrights should be defended where they can, the real challenge for the music industry isn’t some uber-anti-piracy initiative, but working out a system where all bands can maximise all their revenue streams – whether they by IP, performance or fan relationship-based – and whereby a slice of the profits from all those revenue generators (rather than just one) is pumped back into new talent. And as I’ve also said before, out there entrepreneurial managers, label owners and artists are starting to do just that, and we plan to have a bunch of them telling all at The Great Escape in May, which allows me to plug one again that you can get early bird tickets for a mere £80 at escapegreat.com.

This time next week I should be able to give you details about some of the bands you’ll get to see if you do join us in Brighton in May, so look out for that. Meanwhile, back to now and all the doom and gloom of the last seven days. Actually, I’ve managed to find some good news from the last week as well, see if you can work out which is which.

01: Some of HMV’s suppliers lost their credit insurance as concerns grew about the retailer’s ability to meet its loan covenants. That could mean distributors refusing to supply HMV with stock, because should any bills go unpaid said suppliers aren’t insured for lost revenue. But with HMV, the only major player entertainment retailer left on the high street, that’s not likely to happen, and, indeed, the big cheeses of the UK record industry (majors and indies) wrote to The Times yesterday to confirm they would continue to supply and support the HMV Group. CMU reports | Independent report

02: Sony and Universal closed the release window. This means that as soon as new singles are played on the radio, they will be made available by digital music stores and streaming music services. Some have argued that it is during the lag between songs appearing on radio and being made available on iTunes et al that lots of young music fans download tracks from illegal sources. Certainly it gives said illegal downloaders a good excuse – “but I want it now and I can’t buy it legally”. The majors like the release window because it allows them to build hype to maximise first week sales and ensure a higher chart position. But Sony and Universal this week accepted it was an out-of-date marketing approach in the digital age. Pressure is now on EMI and Warner to follow suit. CMU reports | Popjustice report

03: It was widely rumoured Sony US had signed up to Spotify. The New York Post said a deal was “days away” last weekend, and then various news media, including the Wall Street Journal, started citing insider sources as saying a deal had been done. It would be Spotify’s first deal with a US record company, execs from which are nervous about the impact the free element of the streaming music platform might have on rival pay-to-use services already live in the US. Of course, Spotify will need more than just one major in place to launch Stateside. CMU report | C-Net report

04: Google supported MP3tunes in its EMI litigation. It was revealed the web giant had submitted a paper to the court hearing the EMI v MP3tunes case speaking in the latter’s favour. MP3tunes is a digital music locker service, similar to that Google is believed to be developing. The EMI lawsuit will test whether, when digital storage companies allow users to upload their MP3 collections to a server and then stream them to any net-connected device, if a licence from the content owners is required. EMI say yes, MP3tunes say no. Presumably Google would quite like a judicial “no” on this issue also. CMU report | P2pnet report

05: Comes With Music closed as We7 expanded. Nokia announced it was shutting its all-you-can-eat download service in all but six of the 33 territories where it had launched. Comes With Music may have offered unlimited downloads but, outside of China, the tracks came with DRM locking them to the device they were downloaded to, making the service rather unattractive to consumers. On the upside for the digital music market, though, UK-based We7 did its first bit of international expansion, launching its streaming and personalised radio service over dere in Ireland. CMU report on Comes With Music | CMU report on We7

And that’s it. Do look out for the all-new CMU Weekly with extra podcast coming your way this afternoon. Sign up or check it out here: www.theCMUwebsite.com/weekly

Chris Cooke
Business Editor, CMU

Sign up to the CMU Daily here.