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TUESDAY 11 SEPTEMBER 2018 | COMPLETEMUSICUPDATE.COM | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
TODAY'S TOP STORY: The newly chatty Viagogo has responded to the call made by anti-touting campaigners to the effect that Google should stop taking the often controversial secondary ticketing platform's money. The ticket resale site frequently buys its way to the top of Google's search results, so that people searching for tickets to in-demand events will see the relevant page on the Viagogo site before any official primary sellers of tickets to those shows... [READ MORE] | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Viagogo hits back over anti-tout campaign's Google ads demand After an eventful week in the world of Viagogo last week, yesterday the All-Party Parliamentary Group On Ticket Abuse, the FanFair Alliance and the Society Of Ticket Agents & Retailers together wrote to Google urging it to stop doing business with the resale platform. Their letter noted the news that the Competition & Markets Authority is now suing Viagogo over alleged breaches of UK consumer rights law, and then cited Google's requirement that advertisers comply with local laws wherever they advertise. Referencing the web giant's advertising guidelines, the letter said: "These state clearly that advertisers are expected 'to comply with the local laws for any area that their ads target' and that Google will 'generally err on the side of caution in applying this policy because we don't want to allow content of questionable legality'". It then concluded: "We understand that Viagogo is a valuable client to Google, spending considerable sums each year on paid search advertising. However, we urge you to protect consumers who daily put their trust in Google, and act now to restrict Viagogo's ability to pay for prominence. We look forward to working with you to achieve these goals". Viagogo has operated a wall of silence strategy for years now, never publicly responding to its many critics, whether they be consumers, artists, promoters, politicians or regulators. But as of last week the company has started hitting back at criticism. Responding to yesterday's letter to Google, a spokesperson for the company told CMU: "It is legal to resell a ticket and all tickets on Viagogo are genuine. Viagogo is pleased to have reached resolution with the Advertising Standards Authority and welcomes the opportunity to do so with the Competition & Markets Authority through the legal process". They went on: "We respect the courts and the legal process and look forward to resolving this with the CMA in the interests of consumers - not the commercial interests of music promoters and other competitors". The ASA was one of three UK regulators to hit out at Viagogo in the last year, although it confirmed last week that the ticketing site had now addressed its concerns. The CMA, however, provided a list of the ways in which it believes Viagogo is not complying with consumer rights law, all of which were separate to the issues that the ASA had raised. Interestingly, now that the wall of silence has been taken down, Viagogo seems keen to present itself as a champion of the music fan, taking on anti-tout campaigners in the music industry. These people, it implies, must have some sort of hidden commercial agenda for wanting to restrict and regulate the resale of tickets for profit. It also seems to be adopting a strategy often employed by the touts themselves, which is to point out that plenty of people in the music industry have touted their own tickets for profit on the secondary market in recent years. Which they have. Although that's no reason not to better regulate the market and to ensure that consumers fully understand what they are buying and who they are buying it from. At least some of those secret touts within the music community would argue that they only went that route when regulation seemed unachievable, on the basis of "if you can't beat them join them". Which you may or may not believe, but once regulations are in place and being properly enforced, that will be an opportunity to check the authenticity of that excuse. Either way, when there is rampant ticket touting, the fans often lose out as much as anyone else. Which has actually made the anti-touting movement stand out from other music industry campaigns, like those seeking copyright reform, in that because fans are also negatively impacted by the status quo, it's much easier to get wider public support for reform. As we have seen, as things like the FanFair campaign have gained momentum. Viagogo's refusal to respond to angry customers and critical consumer rights groups in recent years also hinders its new bid to position itself as the champion of the music fan. However, the firm's decision to enter the battle and defend its corner is an interesting development. It remains to be seen if the company can placate the regulators and lawmakers who to date have found dealing with the secondary ticketing firm both frustrating and exhausting. Or maybe it only really needs to keep Google onside. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
SoundCloud launches Discover Weekly rival "Today, we're making it easier than ever to discover what's next in music", the digital music firm announced on its blog yesterday, "with our new personalised playlist, SoundCloud Weekly. Updated every Monday, SoundCloud Weekly is an algorithmically-based playlist that looks at the music you've listened to, liked, reposted and shared, and then makes recommendations on what you may like to hear next". Elsewhere in the blog post, it mused: "With 180 million tracks and millions of artists to discover, sometimes SoundCloud can feel like a very big place to explore. We know many of you love the thrill of the hunt - going down a musical rabbit hole and uncovering new tracks and artists to love. But sometimes, you may want great music delivered to you auto-magically with no searching required". SoundCloud, you may remember, is still in the midst of its mission to reinvent itself as a more conventional steaming service of the Spotify model, with its ad-funded and premium packages. Its USP remains the size of its catalogue, which is significantly larger than that of Spotify et al thanks to years of user-uploads. Hence all that bragging in its blog post about the 180 million tracks SoundCloud users have access to. Of course, despite ultimately signing deals with much of the music industry to enable monetisation through advertising and subscription sales, the user-upload element of SoundCloud still relies on the pesky copyright safe harbour that the music community is lobbying so hard to reform in Europe just now. And while those licensing deals meant the music industry stopped publicly griping about SoundCloud's use of safe harbour protection, it is still a safe harbour dwelling service. In its review of the new personalised playlist set-up, The Verge focuses on how one track included in its reporter's SoundCloud Weekly selection is a user-uploaded mash-up that is likely not licensed by the relevant rights owners. Now, said rights owners might have chosen to allow the mash-up to remain online via SoundCloud's content management system, or equally they may be ignorant of its presence on the platform. Either way, if those rights owners would rather the mash-up not be available, under safe harbour rules it's their responsibility to request it be removed. The aim of the much lobbied for safe harbour reform in Europe is to shift some or all of that responsibility onto the digital services. Quite how that can be achieved without affecting too much the social media and other digital channels so many people now rely on everyday has been of much debate. And the tech lobby insists that the proposals currently before the European Parliament will have unintended consequences in that domain. Something the music industry denies. However, one argument says that - while safe harbour protection should perhaps be available to tech companies which provide tools that allow people to upload and share content - maybe those companies' liabilities should increase if and when they aggregate and re-distribute that content. Like, I don't know, through some sort of personalised playlist service. So while a tech firm can still plead 'safe harbour' when its users upload unlicensed music to their profiles, that excuse isn't available once the company starts curating that unlicensed content itself. Just a thought. But hey, personalised curation has come to SoundCloud! Bring on the robots and let's discover ourselves some damn fine music. Prerequisite licences not necessarily included. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
CMU Insights to explain how digital dollars are paid at upcoming conferences Based on the 'Dissecting The Digital Dollar' research project CMU Insights undertook for the UK Music Managers Forum, this speed briefing explains how streaming services are licensed and how digital royalties are calculated and paid each month. The streaming business is complex, but the speed briefing breaks it all down into ten easy-to-grasp steps. Says CMU Insights MD Chris Cooke, who delivers the speed briefing: "As the streaming market comes of age, there are lots of debates to be had about the business model behind it all, and the way monies are generated and shared out. But properly participating in that debate requires understanding the current model. That's why MMF commissioned us to produce the 'Digital Dollar' reports: so its members could have an informed opinion". "Understanding the model requires knowing a little bit about copyright law, and record contracts, and publishing contracts, and collective licensing", he goes on. "The 'Digital Dollar' book goes into all that in some detail, but the speed briefing is a punchy introduction to how it all works that ensures you know the basics". The 'How Streaming Services Are Licensed' speed briefing takes place at the Vil Vil Vest festival in Bergen, Norway on Thursday at 11am; at the all-new Pivotal conference in Birmingham on Friday at 1.45pm; and as part of the training programme at the Reeperbahn festival in Hamburg, Germany on Saturday 22 Sep at 11am. For more information about the CMU Insights speed briefings, including how you can host one, click here. For more information on the 'Digital Dollar' project and book click here. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Queen film to premiere at Wembley (Arena) Chris Green, MD of film studio Fox UK, says: "We're delighted to be at The SSE Arena, Wembley giving Queen fans the chance to share in what is going to be a fantastic event. The venue is perfect for showcasing the show-stopping performances in the film". I thought we agreed it was adequate, not perfect. Anyway, speaking of 'Live Aid', which in a very roundabout sort of way we were, even if you didn't notice, it was announced last week that audio tracks from the band's performance at the charity show will be released as part of the film's soundtrack album. It'll be the first time they've been commercially available. That soundtrack album will be out on 19 Oct, ahead of the film's release on 26 Oct. The premiere will take place on 23 Oct. Tickets for the Wembley Arena screening will go on sale to the general public (not all 6200 of them being given away to celebs, crew and hangers on) at 9am tomorrow morning. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Kurt Vile announces new album, UK tour "For a while I was terrified of flying, so [whenever I flew somewhere] I would be listening to whatever country songs I was obsessed with", says Vile of the inspiration for the album. "I'd have George Jones blasting in my ears. Or, I would be reading something about country music. Or, I would start writing songs in that flash of being afraid, being swallowed by life. I'm up there on a plane drinking wine because like everybody else I'm afraid to die". The album will be released on 12 Oct. New single, 'Bassackwards', is out now. Watch the video here. Tour dates is another thing that there will be. Here's a whole list of them: 5 Nov: Brighton, Concorde 2 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
The 1975 announce 2019 live dates These are them: 9 Jan: Belfast, SSE Arena | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Warner, Richard Ashcroft, Billie Marten, more Other notable announcements and developments today... Â Warner Music in Australia has announced a new alliance with Inertia Music - the independent label services business bought by [PIAS] last year - which will see the two companies collaborate on physical distribution. This new coalition on music distribution will go by the catchy name of the Music Distribution Coalition. Â Richard Ashcroft has released the video for new single 'Surprised By The Joy'. His new album, 'Natural Rebel', is out on 19 Oct. Â Billie Marten has released new single 'Mice'. "I felt sort of empty and lacking a lot of purpose", she says of her mood when she wrote the song. "'Mice' came out of that sentiment, which is why the drums are so lethargic and lazy. The chorus though, reflects how last year I didn't know who to 'imitate'. It seemed there was only good and bad people in black and white; I was the anomaly in the middle. Then I went walking and sat on a dead man's bench and wrote the last verse". Â Courtney Marie Andrews has released new single 'Heart And Soul'. She's set to play UK shows in December, including one at Union Chapel in London on 3 Dec. Â Holy Child have released new single 'Hundred Thousand Hearts'. "'Hundred Thousand Hearts' is about how nothing else matters except love", says the duo's Liz Nistico. "The world will eventually end, and I hope when my residual energy is floating past the constellations it holds some semblance of the love I have in my life". Â LCMDF have released new single 'Thank God I Didn't Get To Know You At All'. Their new album, 'Sad Bangers', is out on 21 Sep. They're set to play a London show at The Lexington on 15 Oct. Â Maribou State have announced that they will play Brixton Academy on 9 Mar next year. This will be their biggest headline show so far, following tour dates next month that will culminate at the Roundhouse on 18 Oct. Â Check out our weekly Spotify playlist of new music featured in the CMU Daily - updated every Friday. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Nicki Minaj addresses Cardi B altercation on Beats 1 Both attended the Harper's Bazaar Icons event on Saturday, where Cardi B approached Minaj, apparently angry about comments she believed the rival rapper had made about her recently born child. Cardi B was escorted out of the party shortly afterwards with a bump on her head, reportedly received after Minaj threw a shoe at her. Cardi B quickly posted a statement on Instagram saying that she had "let a lot of shit slide". However, she went on, albeit without actually naming Minaj, "when you mention my child, you choose to like comments about me as a mother, make comments about my abilities to take care of my daughter, [that] is when all bets are off". On her Beats 1 show, Minaj denied that she had said any of those things, claiming that the baby dissing allegations had been invented by Cardi B's publicist. She then said that this weekend's incident had been "mortifying and humiliating" and had played out "in front of upper-echelon people who have their lives together". Referring to herself by her real name, she went on: "Let me go on record saying I would never talk about anyone's child or parenting. I don't give a shit and it's so crazy to me that people always need to make Onika the bad guy. Onika Tanya Maraj will never speak ill of anyone's child. I am not a clown. What is clown shit, is telling [a lie] to the world for doing dumb shit. You knew when that footage came out you would look dumb so your publicist hurried up and put out a statement". Of course, Minaj did recently claim that Travis Scot had used his baby, Stormi, to sell tickets for his tour, and in doing so shifted more records, denying her the American number one spot for her new album. She also said on an earlier Beats 1 appearance, "I know that you guys are saying me and baby Stormi have beef. Yes we do". Last night, Minaj went on to accuse Cardi B of sleeping with DJs to get her records played, saying "she's built her career off of sympathy and payola". The supposed feud between the two rappers has been the subject of speculation for some time. Throughout, it's generally either been shrugged off by both artists as a fabrication, or said to have been settled after misunderstandings were cleared up. And yet, rumours of the feuding continue, rumours now enhanced by last weekend's events. Although that was the first time they've actually come to blows. In other news, Minaj has just released the video for 'Barbie Dreams' from her latest album, 'Queen'. On the track, she lists all the male rappers she wouldn't sleep with, turning many of them into Muppet-like puppets for the video, which you can see here. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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