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MONDAY 21 AUGUST 2017 | COMPLETEMUSICUPDATE.COM | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
TODAY'S TOP STORY: The Recording Industry Association Of America took to the internets on Friday to bounce back some arguments at YouTube's music chief - your main man Lyor Cohen - after he tried to paint a rosy picture of the role the Google-owned video platform is playing in the digital future of the music business... [READ MORE] | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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RIAA hits back at Lyor Cohen's "safe harbours are a distraction" blog post YouTube, of course, has been the music industry's enemy number one for sometime now, with the copyright safe harbour the video platform exploits topping the piracy gripe list of record companies and music publishers, ahead of actual music piracy. As much previously discussed, the music industry argues that YouTube exploits the safe harbour to force music rights owners into much more preferential deals than those enjoyed by the likes of Spotify and Apple Music. Even though, as a provider of free music streams, YouTube arguably competes head on with the specialist music streaming platforms. To that end the music industry wants safe harbour rules rewritten, so services like YouTube no longer enjoy protection. And while that's not going to happen Stateside anytime soon, despite a specific US Copyright Office review of the safe harbour, in Europe copyright law is being revised with digital matters in mind and the music industry hopes to get workable safe harbour reform into the new European Copyright Directive. But the whole safe harbour hoo haa is a big fat distraction, Cohen wrote in his previously reported blog post last week. What the music business should really be focusing on is the money it could earn from the growth of the YouTube Red subscription service, the potential to share in ever increasing amounts of YouTube advertising money, and all the new marketing tools Cohen's team are working on providing to artists and labels. It seemed unlikely that the blog-tastic musings of record industry veteran Cohen were likely to do much to placate the YouTube-haters amongst his former colleagues, and the RIAA confirmed that was the case by return mail. "We are pleased that Lyor Cohen says he is making it his mission to direct some of YouTube's revenues back to the music creators who drive its success", the trade group's boss man Cary Sherman wrote on Friday. "His optimism is encouraging. But to be honest, we've heard pretty much the same claims and arguments from YouTube before. So while Lyor's heart may be in the right place, the numbers and YouTube's actions tell a different story". The problem? Sherman charges that: "Google's YouTube is the world's biggest on-demand music service, with more than 1.5 billion logged-in monthly users. But it exploits a 'safe harbour' in the law that was never intended for it, to avoid paying music creators fairly. This not only hurts musicians, it also jeopardises music's fragile recovery and gives YouTube an unfair competitive advantage that harms the digital marketplace and innovation". Expanding on his claim that the copyright safe harbour was never intended for services like YouTube, Sherman then uses one of Cohen's own arguments against him. The YouTube music chief bragged about how his platform's users often found music to listen to via the recommendations the service provides, proof of the role the Google site plays in music discovery. But that's also proof, Sherman reckons, that YouTube is a far way from the kind of passive intermediary internet service that the safe harbour was designed to benefit. Writes Sherman: "The safe harbour was intended to protect passive internet platforms with no knowledge of what its users are doing, not active music distributors like YouTube. As Lyor acknowledges in his blog, 'the majority of music...is coming from recommendations, rather than people searching for what they want to listen to'". The RIAA boss then disputes Cohen's figures. "About 400 digital services have been licensed around the world, many with ad-supported features", he says, responding to Cohen's claims about YouTube's payout on free streams. "Comparatively, YouTube pays music creators far less than those services on both a per-stream and per-user basis, and nowhere near the $3 per thousand streams in the US that Lyor claims". He goes on: "Last year's actual payout per 1000 streams was closer to half that amount, according to industry data and Nielsen and BuzzAngle estimates, and seven times less than Spotify, which also is both an ad-supported and subscription service". Noting Cohen's argument that the averaging out of income across territories can skew the figures somewhat, so that they look less impressive, Sherman continues: "Lyor points to 'developing markets' outside the US to explain why YouTube isn't paying enough [over all]. But YouTube's monetisation in developed countries, such as some of the biggest markets in Europe, is nothing to brag about". Cohen added that confusion over what rates are actually being paid by different digital services in different markets was down to the general lack of transparency in the streaming market. That excuse - aimed at artists more than labels - capitalises on what is something of an Achilles heel for the secretive major record companies that the RIAA represents: ie their continued unwillingness to let artists and managers see the inner workings of the streaming business so to better explain the royalties they receive. But it's Google that needs to be more transparent, Sherman reckons. "YouTube likes to talk a good game, but it won't even make public its subscriber figures", he argues. "And it continues to underreport the number of music streams played on its service, let alone substantiate any of its many different claims about payments to music creators. In fact, every time they're challenged on this point, Google and YouTube simply change their claims yet again". So, to conclude, Cohen - brought in by Google to try and build bridges to the many YouTube-dissers and safe harbour reformers in the music industry - still has plenty of bridge construction work ahead of him Sherman adds: "It's long past time that the safe harbours - enacted 20 years ago, in the days of dial-up internet, and before it was ever imagined that users could upload 400 hours of video to YouTube every minute - must be clarified to apply to passive and not active intermediaries". "To be clearÂ, he goes on, "we believe safe harbours should be preserved - and Google/YouTube claims that we're trying to eliminate them is nothing but a red herring. But if safe harbours are to drive innovation and fair competition in today's digital environment, they must be applied as originally intended, not as they are exploited by YouTube for its own competitive advantage". | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Eminem-esque legal battle results in new dispute between library music firms As previously reported, in 2014 New Zealand's ruling political party used a piece of library music called 'Eminem-esque' in an election campaign ad. It sounded really rather like Eminem track 'Lose Yourself', so much so the rapper's publishing company sued for copyright infringement. When the dispute got to court earlier this year, the politicians insisted that they had properly licensed the Eminem-esque 'Eminem-esque' track off a production music company called Beatbox. Though legal reps for Slim Shady pointed to emails between people working for the National Party which discussed the similarities between their ad track and 'Lose Yourself', and that they risked being accused of ripping off the rapper's music. Those emails, the Eminem company argued in the New Zealand courts, showed that the politicians knew they'd be infringing the 'Lose Yourself' song copyright in their commercial, even if a production music firm had provided them with a convincing looking licence to use the track. We still await the judge's conclusion on that case. Meanwhile, the there mentioned Beatbox has launched its own litigation against another production music company which, it seems, provided it with 'Eminem-esque'. Beatbox wants that other music library outfit to cover legal costs it has incurred in relation to the dispute between Eminem and the National Party. Australia-based Beatbox seemingly represents various catalogues owned by US firm Spider Cues Music Library in its home market and, according to The Hollywood Reporter, that includes bloody 'Eminem-esque'. Beatbox says that when it entered into a sub-publishing deal with Spider Cues, its then new business partner insisted its catalogues were "exclusive and original works". It also alleges that Spider Cues failed to alert its Aussie ally to the fact that it "knew or had reason to know that [some of its] tracks allegedly potentially infringed the rights of third parties". Spider Cues is yet to respond to those allegations, but Beatbox - for its part - says it is facing legal bills of $320,367, and that it wants its American buddies to cover those costs. -------------------------------------------------- Australian film industry launches new anti-piracy campaign as latest web-blocks go through As previously reported, Australia was relatively late to the web-block party, where copyright owners get injunctions ordering internet service providers to block access to websites that can be proven in court to be liable for rampant copyright infringement - either directly or by facilitating the infringement of others. Australian law-makers passed a new law in 2015 allowing web-blocking in the country, and the first blockade was then instigated late last year, with old favourite The Pirate Bay among the initial batch of blocked outfits. A subsequent injunction then targeted various sites informally linked to the now defunct KickassTorrents, which had had the cheek to fall offline entirely in the time it took for that particular web-block application to go through the motions The two new sets of blockades were requested by telly firm Foxtel and movie maker Village Roadshow, and cover websites like EZTV and Gomovies. The latest web-blocks were welcomed by film industry group Creative Content Australia, which also announced a big new consumer-facing anti-piracy campaign to coincide with the judgements. The organisation's chair Graham Burke told reporters: "Site-blocking has been very effectively implemented around the world and proven to reduce the theft of screen content as well as increase the use of legal sites. The thieves who run pirate sites contribute nothing to Australia - they employ no-one and pay no taxes here. Of the enormous profits they earn, not one cent goes back to the original creators of the content". Meanwhile the group's Executive Director, Lori Flekser, commented on the new anti-piracy campaign, adding that: "We are proud to bring this new campaign to Australians. Consumers, often unwittingly, bear significant costs of illegal streaming - not only will they suffer from diminishing investment in the content they love to consume, but pirate sites are amongst the most hazardous places on the internet". | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
CD Baby encourages its community to keep an eye out for hate bands The distribution firm's statement followed the previously reported news that Spotify had removed music from its servers by acts that have been categorised as racist "hate bands" by US civil rights advocacy group the Southern Poverty Law Center. Spotify acted after Digital Music News reported on the hate bands whose music was available via the streaming service in the wake of recent news events Stateside. Spotify said that it "takes immediate action to remove any such material as soon as it has been brought to our attention", though added that it relied to an extent of its label and distributor partners to filter out tracks of this kind. Which means companies like CD Baby. Though - as a DIY distributor open to any self-releasing artist - there is only so much CD Baby itself can do to filter tracks that flow through its channels, hence the message urging community members to get in touch if they see music on its platform that causes concern. Maddux added: "Our practice has been to encourage our community to let us know if there is content available on our site that violates our guidelines. Reports of hate-promoting music are taken very seriously and we are making every effort to flag and vet tracks of concern. In the event we find content in violation of guidelines, we will take it down". CD Baby also confirmed it is distributing the previously reported album 'Philia: Artists Rise Against Islamophobia', which features tracks from the likes of Mac DeMarco, Heems, Fruit Bats and former Walkmen vocalist Hamilton Leithauser, and which was released on Friday. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
More MEGS money dished out to UK acts going global If you don't know what MEGS is, you really ought to read this report from the CMU Insights Export Conference at The Great Escape back in May, which tells you everything you need to know. A further £213,000 has been dished out in this latest round of the funding scheme that seeks to support UK artists looking to grow their fanbase and boost their revenue streams in new markets overseas. Damn, I just told you what MEGS is in a sentence. You should still go read that CMU@TGE report. I mean, I dug out the link and everything. Look, here's another brilliant MEGS-related CMU@TGE article. "MEGS is making a real difference by offering practical support to smaller music companies and their diverse range of artists who have the talent but not always the means to develop their potential in key overseas markets", says the BPI's Chris Tams. Doing the maths on how much support MEGS has now provided since its launch, he went on: "It's great news that over 150 mainly indie-signed UK acts have benefitted from more than £2 million in funding to date, boosting British music exports in the process". And here it is everybody, the list of the latest MEGS recipients, organised especially for all you fans of alphabetical ordering: Ags Connolly, Amber Run, Blaenavon, Boston Manor, Bruno Major, Dan Croll, Django Django, Dream Wife, Ibibio Sound Machine, Johnny Flynn & The Sussex Wit, Mount Kimbie, Roddy Woomble, The XCERTS, This is the Kit, Will Joseph Cook. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
BBC announces Harry Styles telly special The one-time One Directioner will sing songs from his debut solo album, and chit chat about life in 1D, life not in 1D, and his side career playing bit parts in harrowing war movies. On the other side of the chit chat will be his best bud Nick Grimshaw, so don't expect any questions of substance, but then that's not really the point of these feel good shows is it? The special is going to be recorded Up North in Manchester because, you might remember, Harry Styles grew up Up North in the Cheshire town of Holmes Chapel. Which you might not consider to be properly Up North, but you can fuck off. You get Granada telly there and that's all that matters. Except when you're making your telly special for the BBC, I suppose. But still, Granada telly equals Up North. Anyway, what was I talking about? Oh yes, the telly special with that Harry Styles that will be recorded on 30 Aug and aired in November. Want a vacuous quote from Grimshaw? Here it is! "Harry is a great performer and full of so many wonderful stories about his extraordinary career, which he'll be sharing with us, I can't wait for this show!" | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Architects frontman pauses gig to hit out at groper According to NME, Sam Carter told his audience "I've been going over in my fucking mind whether I should say something about what I saw in that last song. And, do you know what, I am going to fucking say it". He went on: "I saw a girl, a woman, crowdsurfing over here and I'm not going to point the fucking piece of shit out that did it, but I saw you fucking grab at her boob. I saw it. It is fucking disgusting and there is no fucking place for that shit". Carter then added: "It is not your fucking body and you do not fucking grab at someone. Not at my fucking show. So if you feel like doing that again, walk out there and fuck off and don't come back". Before resuming his set, he concluded: "Let's keep this going, let's keep this a safe place for fucking everybody, and let's have a fucking good time". Carter's comments come as increased attention is given to the sexual harassment and assault that is routinely suffered by female music fans at gigs and festivals. Initiatives like Girls Against and the Association Of Independent Festival's Safer Spaces campaign have put the spotlight on the problem, the latter promoting the simple three part message: "zero tolerance to sexual assault", "hands off unless consent" and "don't be a bystander". | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Gene Simmons doesn't regret trying to trademark 'devil horns' gesture Well, shortly after all that was reported - and after most of the rock and metal community had told him to fuck the fuck off, most inwardly, some outwardly - he withdrew his trademark application. At the time American trademark law expert Ronald Adams wrote in Forbes: "Although images or stylised drawings of hand gestures can function and be registered as trademarks either by themselves or as part of a design mark, hand gestures in and of themselves cannot function as trademarks. And, even if they could, there would be no practical way to enforce the trademark against others (often referred to as 'policing the mark')". But Simmons would like you to know that [a] he could have trademarked the devil horns gesture if he'd wanted to, [b] he doesn't regret filing his original application to do so, and [c] he owns all sorts of trademarks you'd be surprised about. Speaking to Canadian newspaper the Windsor Star, Simmons said in a recent interview about the recent trademark application and the resulting outrage: "I regret nothing. Wake up every morning and let your conscience be your guide". "Did you know I own the money bag logo?" he went on. "The dollar sign with the bag of money. I own all kinds of things. I own 'motion pictures' as a trademark. Anyone who thinks that's silly... the silliest thing I've ever done is wear more makeup and higher heels than your mommy. People said, 'You can't do that'. Actually, bitch - I can. I can do anything I want to do". So that's you told. Bitch. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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