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US Department Of Justice to appeal 100% licensing agreement All you consent decree fans out there will remember that when the DoJ reviewed the regulations governing the collective licensing of song rights by American performing rights organisations BMI and ASCAP, it concluded earlier this year that both societies should be offering 100% licences. But the two societies, and pretty much every American songwriter and music publisher, insisted the government department had got it wrong, wrong, wrong. Under a BMI licence, 100% licensing would mean that a licensee would be able to use any song in the society's catalogue, even if BMI only controlled a slice of said song. Traditionally the licensee would need a separate licence from whichever entity or entities controlled the other slices of a co-owned work, which might be ASCAP or smaller American PROs SESAC or GMR. Under the 100% licensing system, BMI would receive all the royalties and would then need to pay the other societies their share. As soon as the DoJ confirmed its conclusion on this point, ASCAP said it would lobby Congress on the issue, while BMI took the matter to court. In September, at what was expected to be hearing to discuss the time tabling for that court case, the judge who oversees the BMI consent decree, Louis Stanton, reached an immediate surprise judgement, ruling in BMI's favour. The DoJ had got it wrong with all that 100% licensing nonsense, and BMI was perfectly entitled to operate the opposite system, aka fractional licensing. The DoJ's appeal means that Stanton's interpretation of BMI's consent decree will now be considered by the Second Circuit court. BMI said on Friday that the government agency's decision to appeal the ruling was "disappointing" but not a surprise. BMI boss Mike O'Neill added: "While we hoped the DoJ would accept Judge Stanton's decision, we are not surprised it chose to file an appeal". He went on: "It is unfortunate that the DoJ continues to fight for an interpretation of BMI's consent decree that is at odds with hundreds of thousands of songwriters and composers, the country's two largest performing rights organisations, numerous publishers and members of the music community, members of Congress, a US Governor, the US Copyright Office and, in Judge Stanton, a federal judge. We believe Judge Stanton's decision is correct and look forward to defending our position in the Court Of Appeals for the Second Circuit". Rival PRO ASCAP backs BMI on this issue, the assumption being that if a court rules in BMI's favour on 100% licensing, the same principle will have to be applied to its consent decree. Its CEO, Beth Matthews, said this weekend: "The Second Circuit's ruling in this case will affect the rights of more than a million American songwriters and composers, thousands of whom have expressed strong opposition to the DoJ's position, and we are hopeful the court will affirm Judge Stanton's decision". She concluded that "ASCAP looks forward to resolution of this matter as we continue to advocate for modernising the consent decrees for today's world". | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Ticket tout claims he has deals with venues for early access to tickets Canada-based Julien Lavallee made the claim to the Daily Record, denying accusations that he uses 'bots' to hoover up tickets to in demand events when they first go on sale. Rather, he says, he employs 20 staff to do the buying, while it was his deals with venues that meant he was able to place 350 tickets for Take That at the O2 Arena on sale before they were even made available to the general public earlier this year. He also blames the cost of these venue subscriptions for the high mark-up on the tickets he sells. "We have contracts with venues that allow us to buy certain allotments in exchange for a yearly fee, so we reduce their risk in case they can't attract the big acts", he told the Daily Record. "Even if we buy a ticket at £100, maybe, when you factor in our yearly contract paid to the venues, that ticket comes up to £160. So that guarantees us tickets but it also ups significantly the price we pay. Most outsiders never factor in those costs... We will always look like the bad guys". The all-important guaranteed ticket allocation "can come from the promoter, venue, etc, many sources", he added. The O2 Arena refused to say if it had any deal with Lavallee, but told the Record: "Annual membership of the O2's VIP Club allows small businesses, corporate clients and individuals the right to buy a limited number of tickets for shows of their choosing throughout the year. Within the terms and conditions of the VIP Club licence, the resale of tickets is not permitted". Glasgow's SSE Hydro, another venue where Lavallee has resold tickets to major shows, said that it "does not place any of its inventory on to the secondary ticketing market". Which is not quite the same as saying it doesn't work with other people who do. Lavallee was tracked down by the Daily Record after his company's details were added to his listings on StubHub. However, these details were apparently removed after the newspaper began asking questions. The tout was initially challenged about whether or not he used bots to secure large numbers of tickets as the government investigates whether such technology breaches the Computer Misuse Act. Commenting on Lavallee's claims to be in cahoots with the venues, the Campaign Manager of anti-touting organisation the FairFair Alliance, Adam Webb says: "Music fans will be horrified to hear this. This investigation offers a rare insight into the murky world of professionalised online ticket touting". "As well as the 350 tickets listed for four Take That shows, Lavallee had similar volumes for The Weeknd, as well as Craig David, Phil Collins, Kaiser Chiefs and many others", Webb continues. "Here was a guy based thousands of miles away, hoovering up hundreds if not thousands of tickets for UK events, and then reselling them at a profit back to British fans. Because of a complete lack of transparency in the resale market, we don't know if Julien Lavallee is a one-off rogue trader or the tip of a much bigger iceberg". Elsewhere in touting news, Bay City Rollers bassist Alan Longmuir has taken it upon himself to confront a tout who had bought up tickets for his band's upcoming tour with The Osmonds, David Essex and Showaddywaddy. Longmuir handed previously exposed professional tout Andrew Newman a letter last week, detailing his issues with the ticket reseller's business. "I had a feeling you might not speak to me face to face, so I thought I'd write "Our band, like many others, have been exploited and swindled by lawyers, managers and records companies for years", he continued. "And now it has come to our attention that you are taking almost 50% extra from the face value of our tickets. On behalf of our band, I'd like to invite you to pack it in and stop being a parasite. Your greed is wrecking the industry. Get a real job". Longmuir told The Daily Record: "I wanted to look him in the eye and tell him he is a parasite. We have been ripped off for our entire careers and we can't even get a fair deal on a nostalgia tour, which we are all looking forward to. Andrew Newman produces nothing yet he is making millions off the music industry without ever playing a note as far as I'm aware. And it's the fans who are the main ones to suffer, which is a disgrace". As previously reported, Parliament's Culture, Media And Sport Select Committee will consider how current rules on secondary ticketing are being enforced and if new legislation may be required at a meeting tomorrow. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Amazon Music Unlimited launches in the UK As previously reported, unlike Amazon's existing streaming music service within its Prime package, which only offers access to a couple of million tracks, Amazon Music Unlimited is more in line with Spotify and Apple Music, boasting around 40 million tunes. At a basic level, Amazon Music Unlimited operates at the same price point as its rivals in the streaming music market - so £9.99 a month for the UK (which, despite the recent slump in the good old pound, still means Brits pay more for streams than the Americans, who pay $9.99). However, Amazon Music UnLimited also offers other options. Prime customers can sign up for £7.99 a month, which is a more upfront expression of the discounts applied by other streaming services when they are bundled with other products like mobile accounts. But more importantly, Amazon Music Unlimited also offers a bargain-basement £3.99 a month option for those only seeking to stream at home, and willing to do so only via Amazon's proprietary Echo wi-fi speaker system. Amazon's relatively speedy UK launch of Music Unlimited makes sense, given this could be a good Christmas for sales of the popular Echo device, and it's beneficial for both Amazon and the music industry to be trying to upsell a streaming subscription at the same time. And with the economy Echo Dot only £49.99, that means Amazon can offer consumers a fun little interactive device and a year of music for under £100. The arrival of Amazon's streaming music offer will put pressure on start-up Electric Jukebox, which also offers a cheaper subscription streaming option locked to one home-listening device, in that case the TV. Although the celebrity-backed Electric Jukebox claims to be easier to set up - and is promising an ad-funded free option for those who don't want to pay for streams beyond one year - it is generally offering less than the Amazon product at a similar price point, and without the marketing platform of its bigger rival. -------------------------------------------------- Spotify says new version of desktop app deals with data dump bug The issue has been discussed on various message boards and was reported on by tech site Ars Technica last week. It seems the Spotify desktop app has been writing large amounts of 'junk' data to users' hard disks, probably for months now. Ars Technica wrote on Friday: "For almost five months - possibly longer - the Spotify music streaming app has been assaulting users' storage devices with enough data to potentially take years off their expected lifespans. Reports of tens or in some cases hundreds of gigabytes being written in an hour aren't uncommon, and occasionally the recorded amounts are measured in terabytes. The overload happens even when Spotify is idle and isn't storing any songs locally". The article said that the site's team had been able to replicate the problem on their own machines, while quoting one tech-savvy user of the streaming service as saying: "This is a major bug that currently affects thousands of users. If for example, Castrol Oil lowered your engine's life expectancy by five to ten years, I imagine most users would want to know, and that fact should be reported on". Spotify subsequently stated that the latest version of its desktop app had dealt with the data dump issue, telling reporters: "We've seen some questions in our community around the amount of written data using the Spotify client on desktop. These have been reviewed and any potential concerns have now been addressed in version 1.0.42, currently rolling out to all users". So, desktop Spotify streamers, that's an update to welcome I'd say. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Eagles Of Death Metal frontman denies being turned away from Bataclan As previously reported, Sting's performance re-opened the venue, with proceeds from tickets sales going to charities set up in the wake of the attacks on Paris in November last year. Eagles Of Death Metal were, of course, performing when gunmen entered the Bataclan during those attacks, going on to kill 89 people inside. Hughes sparked controversy earlier this year when he said that fewer people would have died if everyone in the audience had been armed, before alleging that security guards at the venue had been involved with the attack. Speaking to reporters at the weekend, Bataclan boss Jules Frutos said that Hughes and his manager Marc Pollack had been turned away from the show due to these comments. "They tried to enter the venue and they are persona non grata", he told the Press Association. "They are not welcome after what he said about the security. Even if [Hughes] came back on what he said. I mean, this man is just sick. That's all". He went on to say that he felt that Eagles Of Death Metal had used the attack to get "promotion" for themselves, adding that they have shown "no respect for the victims". Meanwhile, speaking to Agence France-Presse, he said: "They came, I threw them out - there are things you can't forgive. [Hughes] makes these incredibly false declarations every two months. It is madness, accusing our security of being complicit with the terrorists... Enough. Zero. This has to stop". However, speaking to Billboard, Pollack denies that he and Hughes had attempted to get into the Bataclan show, despite being in Paris this weekend, before criticising the venue's management. "This day is not about Jesse Hughes or Eagles Of Death Metal", he said. "In fact, Jesse is in Paris to share in remembering the tragic events of a year ago with his friends, family and fans. This is about recalling the tragic loss of life that happened right in front of his eyes during his show, and this coward Jules Frutos feels the need to soil his own club's re-opening by spreading false tales to the press, and tainting a wonderful opportunity that could've been used to spread peace and love, to further spread mean spirited words of hate. Jesse never even tried entering the club for Sting's show tonight". Sting's performance on Saturday began with a minute's silence, the musician saying beforehand in French: "We've got two important things to do tonight. First, to remember and honour those who lost their lives in the attacks a year ago. And then to celebrate the life and the music of this historic venue. We shall not forget them". -------------------------------------------------- Leon Russell dies Best known as a pianist, though he also played guitar and bass, Russell performed on The Beach Boys' 'California Girls', produced and played on recording sessions for the likes of Bob Dylan, Frank Sinatra, Tina Turner and the Rolling Stones, and toured with artists including Edgar Winter, Willie Nelson and Elton John. He had successes with his own recordings, in particular 'Tight Rope' and 'Lady Blue' in the 1970s and, in amongst other achievements in a varied and accomplished career, wrote Joe Cocker's 'Delta Lady' and, in 1969, put together Cocker's 'Mad Dogs And Englishmen' tour, which spawned a documentary film and a hit album. Confirming his passing, his wife, Jan Bridges, said last night: "We thank everyone for their thoughts and prayers during this very, very difficult time. My husband passed in his sleep in our Nashville home. He was recovering from heart surgery in July and looked forward to getting back on the road in January. We appreciate everyone's love and support". Elton John, who also released a collaborative album with Russell, called 'The Union', in 2010, was among those paying tribute online yesterday, writing on Twitter: "My darling Leon Russell passed away last night. He was a mentor, inspiration and so kind to me. I loved him and always will". -------------------------------------------------- Enter Shikari are aiming to go "bigger" on next album "I've been writing for the last few months, so it's an organisational period really of getting stuff together," the band's Rou Reynolds told NME of the new material that is currently in development. "I can't really not write or have down time. Even if I'm on holiday there'll be something going on. We'll be recording in January, February time, so we've got a few months to get everything prepared". Recent surprise single 'Hoodwinker' is not a sign of things to come, apparently, with the band's new songwriting more influenced by their recent experience of playing arenas. Continues Reynolds: "When you go into a venue that size and it's a big empty room you can bring in stuff and make the whole space your own, make it an environment, and that's something we've never really shied away from. We're edging towards [something] more sort of, not theatrical, but bigger. Something more grandiose than punk I suppose". "So yeah", he goes on. "I think that gave us a taste of what we can sort of be, and grow into hopefully. I think that's the only thing that we're thinking of at the moment, just kind of, as we're writing, trying to figure out not a complete direction change or departure but just trying to make things sound bigger. It's always the classic cliché of, the heavier bits are going to be heavier, the melodies are going to be more melodious". You can't beat a classic cliché, hey, Reynolds? Not least because I'm not sure a new cliché is actually a cliché. But what I do know for certain is that Enter Shikari will play the Slam Dunk Festival next May, hopefully with those new "bigger" songs completed and ready to be played. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
The Flaming Lips announce new album Oczy Mlody As well as putting physical versions of the album on pre-sale through their website, the band are also selling a seven-inch single featuring their cover of David Bowie's 'Space Oddity' and another track, 'Jest (There Is...)', neither of which appear on the LP. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
John Legend, Giogio Moroder, Michael Kiwanuka, more Other notable announcements and developments today... Â John Legend has released the video for new single 'Love Me Now'. His new album, 'Darkness And Light' is out on 2 Dec. Â Giorgio Moroder has released new single 'Good For Me', featuring Karen Harding. Â Michael Kiwanuka has shared the video for new single, 'One More Night'. Â Mica Levi has scored new Natalie Portman movie 'Jackie', a biopic of Jackie Kennedy. From it, this is 'Children'. Â Highasakite have announced that they will release a new acoustic EP on 2 Dec. From it, this is their acoustic version of 'Samurai Swords'. Â The Barbican will host 'The Can Project' on 7 Apr next year, a new work by Can founder Irmin Schmidt and Gregor Schwellenbach performed by the London Symphony Orchestra. Â The nominees for this year's Dice Live Award are out. Bonzai, Pumarosa, Loyle Carner, and Nadia Rose are up for the prize, which will be announced at the Artist And Manager Awards on 24 Nov. Â Music Week presented its Women In Music awards on Friday. Were there winners? Oh boy, yes, there were winners. Here are some winners. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Bruce Springsteen rescued by bikers Members of the Freehold American Legion were returning from a Veterans Day event when they noticed the stranded rockstar. They attempted to get his bike started again, but were unable, so Springsteen, who grew up in Freehold, New Jersey, jumped on the back of one of the group's bikes and they all shot off to a nearby bar to await further assistance. "Bikers gotta stick together", the group's Dan Barkalow told The Guardian. "I stopped to see if he needed help, and it was Bruce. We sat there [in the bar] and shot the breeze for a half hour, 45 minutes till his ride showed up. Nice guy, real down to earth. Just talked about motorcycles and his old Freehold days". Although not a former soldier himself, Springsteen is reportedly eligible to officially join the Freehold American Legion because his father is a veteran. Though he might need to get his bike working again first. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Send ALL press releases to musicnews@unlimitedmedia.co.uk - this is checked daily by the whole editorial team meaning your release will definitely get to the right person. For details of the training and consultancy services offered by CMU Insights click here - Andy and Chris are also available to provide music business comment, just email them direct. To promote your company or advertise jobs or services to the entire UK music industry via the CMU bulletin or website contact Sam on 020 7099 9060 or email ads@unlimitedmedia.co.uk | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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