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

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

Well, what a busy week that was. If you’d wanted to, you could have spent pretty much the entire seven days sitting in a music-related awards ceremonies, what with that big MTV bash in Belfast last weekend, the Music Industry Trust celebrating all things Jools Holland on Monday, then the Music Video Awards, the Student Radio Awards, the Classic Rock Awards and last night’s inaugural AIM Independent Music Awards. Frankly, with that little lot, if you didn’t get an award this week you weren’t trying.

Aside from all the gong giving, there was a Conrad Murray verdict (guilty, man, guilty), the never-ending EMI sale saga, and loads of music and digital types announcing partnerships, planning takeovers and/or making wild predictions. Good times.

Unfortunately I got a bit distracted from all this on Tuesday while researching a Justin Bieber story for you – somehow I stumbled across an interview the pop teen gave where he bigged up a crazy Asteroids-meets-typing-exam web-game which I’ve been playing ever since. Yes, my life has become dominated by a silly computer game recommended by Justin Bieber. Oh well, at least I wasn’t too distracted to notice this lot happening:

01: EMI wasn’t sold. But talks between current owners Citigroup and Universal regards the EMI record labels resumed and as of last night things were looking promising – the big issue of pension liabilities has seemingly been addressed. An announcement could be imminent, and this morning Sky News went as far as to say that the deal would be announced later today. Though some insiders are still airing caution, possibly aware that Warner’s talks got pretty close to a deal two weeks ago, only to fall through at the last minute. Sony/ATV are currently favourite to get EMI’s publishing business, though BMG are still in the running. Meanwhile indie label body IMPALA confirmed this week that it would lobby against any Universal and/or Sony deal with regards EMI. CMU reports | Sky report

02: LVCR was axed. The government announced it would end the tax relief system that has, for years, allowed mail-order firms based on the Channel Islands, including Play.com, The Hut, HMV.com and the supermarkets, to sell CDs without charging VAT, giving them a 20% advantage over mainland retailers. Independent traders who have campaigned on this issue for years were jubilant. Though the end of LVCR, which will kick in next April, only applies to the Channel Islands, and there are fears most mail-order giants will move to other non-EU countries where the VAT relief on imports will remain, for the time being at least. CMU report | Channel Online explanation

03: Warner announced a big exec rejig. The revamp was led by worldwide recorded music CEO Lyor Cohen, whose control over the Warner Music labels has increased since Access Industries took ownership earlier this year, and overall Warner CEO Edgar Bronfman Jr took the backseat role of Chairman. More global units were created, but the big news was that the European management team was being phased out, with country divisions in Europe reporting directly into the global top team. As part of this, Warner Europe boss John Reid announced he would leave the major. CMU report | MusicWeek report

04: The BPI called on BT to block access to The Pirate Bay. Leading a coalition of content industry trade bodies, the record label organisation asked BT to stop its internet customers from accessing the rogue file-sharing site, citing the recent ruling in the MPA v BT case, in which the tel co was forced to block access to the Newzbin file-sharing service. BPI hopes that BT may put the block in place voluntarily, rather than forcing the content firms to go the injunction route. It might happen, BT is apparently trying to get its own digital music service off the ground, so may be more willing to play ball than before. CMU report | ZDNet report

05: ‘X-Factor’ confirmed it was withdrawing its Rhythmix trademark application. The girl group on the telly talent show named Rhythmix changed their moniker (eventually) after being told that name was already used by a music education charity which feared its fund-raising efforts would be hindered if Team X trademarked the name in the music space. But despite the name change, the Rhythmix charity revealed this week that the ‘X-Factor’ trademark application hadn’t been withdrawn. Though after some more uproar, the telly show’s bosses promised it would be asap. CMU report | Guardian report

And that’s your lot, until podcast time later this afternoon. Meanwhile, enjoy all the ones this day promises to deliver.

Chris Cooke
Business Editor, CMU

So tonight, just before midnight, I shall put a rucksack containing a month’s worth of clothes on my back (believe me, there is no time for doing laundry in August) and board a train at Euston Station heading north for that place called Scotland. Yes, August is upon us, which means it is time for another Edinburgh Festival, the biggest god damn cultural party on the planet, where well over 2500 shows, concerts, performances, talks and debates will take place, most of them during the three weeks between 5 and 29 Aug. As you probably know by now, in my secret other life I co-edit the biggest review media at this festival, ThreeWeeks, making August the busiest month of my year. For much of the next four weeks you will be able to find me over at www.ThreeWeeks.co.uk.

Not that that means I’ll be taking my eye off the music business, so don’t think you can get away with doing anything drastic while I’m not looking, like introducing an affordable blanket licence for digital start ups, getting rid of rip off booking fees on gig tickets, or accepting the introduction of a private copy right without compensation. August is no time for doing things that are sensible. There will be no Week In Five for the next few weeks, but we’ll still be keeping you up to date with all the developments in the music business as and when they happen. You just watch them go and sell EMI just as I’m on one of my crucial Edinburgh deadlines. I can see myself now, proof reading from that little BBC studio next to the Scottish parliament while trying to sound intelligent about the demise/continuation/rosy future (delete as applicable) of the last remaining British major record company.

Anyway, enough of the future, let’s look back at the week just gone.

01: The industry paid tribute to Amy Winehouse. While not strictly business news, the sudden and untimely death of one of British music’s greatest 21st century vocalists last weekend was probably the one story that occupied the minds of most people in the music industry this week. Aside from the general mourning by those close to the singer, and Twitter-tributing from everyone else, some questioned whether the music business could and should do more to help those young artists who battle with addiction, given elements of how the music world operates – the fact many artist’s lives lack formal structures, coupled with the sudden easy access to both money and drugs that pop stars get as they become successful – arguably contribute to the problem. Others speculated on whether there were any unreleased Winehouse gems that could make up a third posthumous album, while the singer’s existing catalogue worked its way back up the charts, a sad reminder that death remains a great marketing tool for selling music. CMU reports | AP article on Forbes

02: BT was ordered to block access to the Newzbin2 website. Although the court order was the result of legal action taken by the movie industry, and Newzbin2 mainly provides access to unlicensed movie content, it was a significant ruling for all content industries, because it possibly opens the door for any kind of copyright owner to go to court to ask for an injunction to force net firms to block access to any website that exists primarily to enable or simplify copyright infringement. Although not unprecedented elsewhere in the world, this was the first such web-blocking injunction issued on the grounds of copyright infringement in the UK. Content owners will welcome this development, but many in the net community see it as the first step towards widespread censorship of the web. CMU report | ZDNet blog post

03: It was confirmed that vinyl sales were up 55%. Although overall old fashioned records are very much a niche product, and while one record release in particular (Radiohead’s ‘King Of Limbs’) accounted for a big chunk of the uplift, ERA and the Official Charts Company confirmed this week that sales of vinyl for the first half of 2011 were up 55% on 2010, to 168,296 units. Perhaps more interesting is that music fans seem willing to pay over double the price for vinyl compared to CD or digital, meaning the classic record format is now definitely a premium product. CMU report

04: Placido Domingo became IFPI chair. The global record industry trade body hasn’t had a celebrity Chairman before, and presumably the opera star has been handed the top job in a bid to open political doors, and to give a more friendly face to the often anonymous looking major record company system, as they lobby for tighter laws for protecting copyright online. CMU report | Bloomberg report

05: EMI bids started to come in. Current owner Citigroup distributed company information to serious bidders earlier this month, and asked for offers to be in by the start of August. According to the New York Post, BMG has already submitted its bid, while Warner Music is expected to have an offer in before the week was out. Pretty much all the parties who previously bid against Access Industries to buy the Warner music company earlier this year are expected to bid again, so a combination of existing music firms and equity groups. CMU report | Billboard report

And that’s your lot! For a month. I look forward to returning to the top slot here in your CMU Daily once September is upon us. See you then.

Chris Cooke
Business Editor, CMU

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You’re probably aware that the music industry – and especially the record business – has been struggling in recent years. Certainly the big profits that were generated by the big album releases of the 1990s are a thing of the past. Many in the traditional record companies will tell you their recent misfortune began the day the original Napster went online. So what they will make of one of the co-founders of the original P2P phenomenon predicting their industry is about to go through a revival is anyone’s guess.

Though he first gained fame as one of the creators of Napster, Sean Parker made his millions through his early days involvement in Facebook – he’s the guy played by Justin Timberlake in ‘The Social Network’. More recently he’s been an advisor to the European streaming music sensation that is Spotify, and he was even more recently involved in one of the bids to buy US music major Warner Music (albeit one of the unsuccessful ones).

But this week, at a conference in Paris, he predicted that the industry some would say he helped ruin is about to recover, as digital music services – like the Spotify business he is involved in – come of age.

Says Sean: “I think that there is a pretty dramatic change in the way music is monetised that is on the cusp of happening. Back catalogues of record labels are going to become extremely valuable. In the last ten years we have presided over the greatest destruction in value in the history of the music industry. Assuming we can stabilise things and restore growth, it shouldn’t be that difficult to preside over the greatest increase in value in the history of the recorded music industry”.

Record label execs may still harbour a grudge against Parker over Napster and all that followed it, but on this occasion they’ll hope he’s got it right.

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We haven’t done one of these in a while, what with all these Friday holidays we’ve been having of late. But look, here we go again. This time next week, of course, we’ll be half way through this year’s Great Escape, which is very very very exciting. Our programme for 2011 is complete, and, though we do say so ourselves, is looking really rather good.

You can check the full schedule on The Great Escape website, or check out a digital version of the actual convention programme, or download it as a PDF. Do check it out and, if you’re already booked and coming, start planning your three days with us, or if you’ve not yet made the plunge and bought your delegates pass, then get to escapegreat.com and get your ticket. And I look forward to seeing you all next week. Meanwhile, here’s our week in five.

01: Warner got very close to selling itself to Russian Len Blavatnik. It’s widely expected that the Warner Music board will announce who they are selling their company to later today, and that the lucky bidder will be Blavatnik, who already has a minority share of the firm, and who is expected to pay $3 billion to get ownership outright. Assuming that announcement does come today, and that there are no hitches as the takeover goes through the motions, it will bring to an end four months of speculation about the US music firm’s future, since its current owners announced their intent to sell at the start of the year. It’s thought Blavatnik will keep Edgar Bronfman Jr in the top job and that the two men could now mount a bid to buy EMI and merge it with Warner. CMU reports | Telegraph report

02: Spotify revamped its free service. Having put limitations in place last weekend so that free users only get ten hours of listening a month, and can only listen to any one track five times, Spotify basically relaunched its freemium platform as an MP3 store with super-duper preview listening this week. They are revamping their existing MP3 download service, bring it to the fore, and have made it easier for users to sync music they buy via the Spotify player to their iPod. Many spun this as Spotify taking on iTunes, though more likely it is an attempt to stay connected to those existing freemium users who can’t be persuaded to upgrade to a premium account, and who have just lost their unlimited listening service. In other Spot news, word has it a Spotify/Virgin Media alliance is imminent. CMU report | The Guardian report

03: The final LimeWire court case kicked off, though not much happened. With a US judge ruling LimeWire was liable for copyright infringement last year, the labels are now seeking billions in damages. The only real developments this week were that the judge confirmed LimeWire founder Mark Gorton could be held personally liable for those damages, and that one of LimeWire’s expert witnesses won’t be allowed to make some sweeping statements about the link between file-sharing and slumping record sales (or, rather, in his opinion, the lack of a link). CMU report | Independent feature

04: EMI Publishing took digital rights away from ASCAP. It means that EMI will licence the performing rights in its April Music catalogue in the US directly to digital services rather than via the collecting society. EMI say it’s about unifying all the digital rights that exist in the April Music songs with one in-house team to simplify the licensing process. Though many would argue that moving away from the collecting society system in digital – which much of the publishing sector has previously embraced – is actually a backwards step. CMU report | Paid Content report

05: Baidu started beta testing a music service. The often controversial Chinese search engine recently announced its intent to launch a legit music venture, and according to reports that service will go live this month, and will be a free ad-funded MP3 download platform – the sort of thing music companies wouldn’t licence in the West, but which they’ll support in China, where even nominal royalties are an improvement. CMU report | CNET report

And that’s your lot – see you on the podcast this afternoon.

Chris Cooke
Business Editor, CMU

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Well, hello there, and it’s been another rather busy week here at CMU HQ, what with the wonderful Great Escape getting ever closer, the latest series of CMU Training courses underway, early starts at the Beeb to discuss HMV, and, in Andy’s case, some Standon Calling battle of the bands judging to be getting on with. And next week will likely be even busier, if only because we have to squeeze everything into four days.

There’ll still be some time for another CMU Training course though, on Wednesday, when we will be telling you all and everything you need to know about promoting music through print, online, broadcast and social media. It’s a packed day, but is always very well received, and it’ll cost you just £95 to come along. Check all the info and book via theCMUwebsite.com/training.

Meanwhile, here’s your week in five…

01: Warner’s owners decided to sell to one buyer. The closing date for the second round of bidding to buy some or all of Warner Music was last Friday. Although the majority of the bidders made offers for either the Warner Chappell publishing company or the Warner record labels, on Tuesday the music major’s board decided to only consider those bids that sought the company in its entirety. It is thought at least four parties made such a bid, but only three are now in the running. CMU report | WSJ report

02: And so did Citigroup re EMI. The US bank, which is expected to sell their big music asset later this year, has reportedly given assurances to EMI top man Roger Faxon that they intend to sell the company to one buyer as a going concern, rather than splitting the firm up. This is good news for Faxon [a] because it makes it more likely he’ll still have a job after any sale and [b] it might mean his grand plan to more closely integrate EMI’s publishing and recordings businesses might have a chance to come to fruition. CMU report | The Guardian report

03: The labels considered helping out HMV, by offering more favourable credit terms on back catalogue CDs, so the retailer has to pay a lot less upfront on such stock, which can sit in their stores for some time. Any such renegotiation of terms could cut between £10m and £15m off HMV’s capital requirements. It’s thought the new terms are HMV’s idea. The labels have previously gone on record as saying they’ll do whatever they can to help HMV tackle its current cash flow woes, though whether they’ll go this far to help remains to be seen. HMV need to bring in some quick cash and/or cost savings to meet the terms of their bank loans. CMU report | Telegraph report

04: Copyright extension was back on the agenda in Europe, according to reports. The European record industry is desperate to have the copyright term on sound recordings extended from the current 50 years, but has so far not persuaded all the institutions of the European Union who have the power to make such a thing happen. Copyright extension was last discussed in Brussels in 2009, but this week it was reported that the current Hungarian presidency of the EU hope to get it back on the agenda this Spring. There were also reports that Denmark, who previously opposed extension, had changed their viewpoint on the issue. CMU report | Techdirt report

05: Spotify announced freemium cut backs, presumably to keep licensing costs down and/or placate label execs, especially in the US, who fear free streaming services that are too good will stop arguably more commercially viable subscription services from ever getting off the ground. From May free users of Spotify will be limited (immediately or eventually, depending on account type) to ten hours listening a month and only five plays of any one song. CMU report | Spotify blog

And that’s your lot. There’ll be no CMU Daily next Friday, or the week after, what with all that hot cross bun eating and tedious knot tying going on, so there won’t be a Week In Five for a few weeks. But your CMU Weekly podcast won’t be affected by all this bank holiday nonsense, so sign up for that and you’ll still your weekly digest of all things music business.

Chris Cooke
Business Editor, CMU

Sign up to the CMU Daily here.

So, I can confirm today’s CMU Daily is 100% April Fools joke free. Well, unless our newsgathering team accidentally picked up someone else’s and opted to report it as fact. Frankly we’ve been far too busy to be making up stories this year; so busy in fact we weren’t 100% certain the Daily would be out before midday anyway. And look, it isn’t. So that worked out well.

Part of that busy-ness has been down to the fact that last night saw the official launch of The Great Escape 2011 at the Irish Embassy in London town, and we’ve been very busy pulling together the final strands of what is set to be one freaking good conference, if we do say ourselves, which we do. As of Monday I’m going to be introducing a different Great Escape session each day here in the Daily, so probably don’t need to say much more now other than what a great venue for our launch the Irish Embassy made.

Also keeping me busy is the crash course in the music business I’m about to deliver to the music community here in Norwich. I say “here in Norwich”, because I’m writing this here week in five in that very city. Shortly I’ll be going on the hunt for wi-fi, which if not successful might mean this Daily not only misses the midday April Fools deadline, but misses the first of April entirely. On the off chance that’s not the case, here’s your week in five…

01: Amazon launched a licence-free music-based digital locker. It came as quite a surprise because everyone had been too busy gossiping about Apple and Google’s ambitions in the digital locker space to notice Amazon getting such an offer ready. The currently US-focused Amazon locker lets users store MP3s on a remote server, and access them through a cuddly player via more or less any net connected device. It’s the cloud player element that sets these sorts of music locker services apart from the many other digital locker platforms on the market (which can be used for storing music). There is much debate as to whether technology companies running music lockers need licences from the record labels. Amazon thinks not, and therefore involved no content owners in the new locker launch. CMU report

02: There were gloomy revenue figures galore. The IFPI revealed that the record industry saw its revenues slump $1.45 billion last year, mainly because of poor trading in the music business’s two biggest markets, the US and Japan. But that was pretty much the same the previous year too. More interesting were PRS’s figures which revealed that the amount of monies it collected on behalf of songwriters and publishers dropped slightly year on year for the first time ever. The slump in record sale revenue – of which publishers and songwriters get a small cut – was to blame, of course, though in previous years other areas of PRS licensing have compensated for record sale declines. Seemingly no more. CMU report

03: HMV admitted it was considering selling off Waterstones, as well as its Canadian business, in a bid to placate its bankers as it struggles to meet the terms of its bank loans. A sale of the Waterstones book shops has long been tipped as an easy way for the entertainment retailer to address its debt issues, though previously top man HMV has resisted calls for a sell off. Despite admitting at least one unit of the entertainment company was now likely to be offloaded, HMV stressed that nothing was set in stone as yet and that a full sale of the whole group would not happen. CMU report

04: Bluebeat.com settled with EMI for a million. The US digital music service sold low price MP3s, including The Beatles catalogue, without a license from any record companies. The service’s owner had some crazy excuse to do with him re-simulating the tracks so that copyright no longer applied. But when EMI sued a US judge quickly threw the defence, leading to this week’s million dollar settlement. CMU report

05: Live Nation bid for Warner, sort of out of nowhere, or so said the Wall Street Journal. The seventh serious bidder for some or all of Warner Music – it’s reported the live firm wants the record labels – if it was to be successful it’s assumed competition regulators would get involved. WSJ report

Right, best go and give this talk.

Chris Cooke
Business Editor, CMU

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