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Notice
regarding SESAC affiliated titles
Due
to the excessive license fees imposed by SESAC, CD TEX has elected not
renew the SESAC blanket license and will no longer offer previewing of
SESAC titles on the CD Tex website. However,
CD Tex will continue to deliver and make available all BMI, ASCAP, and
SESAC titles for download for Radio and the Music Industry, and will
continue to offer previews on all BMI and ASCAP titles. This
only affects SESAC titles, which represent 2% of the CD Tex content.
We hope
this can be resolved with SESAC at some future date.
Performance
rights organization SESAC and a group of local
TV stations have asked a New York federal judge
to move up a hearing that will likely mean the
end of a long-running antitrust dispute. The
problem, asserted the plaintiffs, was that SESAC
only offered "all-or-nothing blanket
licenses," meaning that to clear a mere few
songs meant ordering and paying for the entire
menu. SESAC was targeted because unlike ASCAP
and BMI, it is not beholden to a
conduct-regulating consent decree with the U.S.
Department of Justice. The complaint alleged
that SESAC took "full advantage" of
its freedoms.
A
couple of years ago I accidentally discovered on YouTube
that somebody had uploaded the trance remix of MUH! by
Matterhorn Project that I had made in the 90ies. It had
3.5 millions views! Before I could try to monetize my
music the uploader’s channel was removed by YouTube.
After
an ugly set of exchanges involving independent artist Zoë
Keating, Digital Music News, and YouTube last week, a
consortium of independent labels is now getting
involved. The European-based consortium, headed by
Impala, has drafted a ten-point action
plan in reaction to ‘resurfacing abuses‘
from YouTube.
Whether
or not music purchases are dead depends on your
definition of dead. But just know that music
purchases aren't dead. Most anything related to
purchasing had negative growth last year, the
exception being vinyl. Anything with the word
"streaming" had positive growth --
usually in mid-to-high double digits. In
aggregate, the numbers tell the familiar story
of a content-based industry in transition.
It
started with the Turtles suing SiriusXM, but now all of
the leading providers of streaming music are involved in
lawsuits concerning pre-1972 sound recordings. New
lawsuits have been filed against Apple’s Beat
Electronics, Sony Entertainment, Google, Rdio, Songza,
Slacker and Escape Media Group/Grooveshark.
A
new report
by Next Big Sound presents the state
of the music industry from a data point of view.
Aimed at brands -- the traditional music
industry can still find plenty of useful
information -- the web-based report uses
attractive charts and plain English to guide the
reader through music's impact across the
Internet.
The
entertainment press ended 2014 with several big
stories. Front pages covered Taylor
Swift’s decision to pull her songs from
Spotify. The story was accompanied by news
suggesting that 2015 might bring a re-evaluation
of free streaming or, at least, serious thoughts
about windowing music.
New
wholesale figures published by trade body ARIA
reveal the recorded music market contracted by
close to double-digits in 2014, though streaming
and vinyl did offer a glimmer of a brighter
future.
In
the past year, a slew of personalized
music sharing apps, which allow users to
directly send songs via text-based
messages have invaded the music/tech
space with the hope of changing how we
collectively listen to music on mobile
devices.
HFA
(Harry Fox Agency) is increasing their commission to 11.5
percent. The following letter was sent out by HFA to
clients (January 20th). A DMN source shared the letter,
stating that commission is currently 8.5 percent
This
study, published last month by the Association
of European Performers’ Organisations (AEPO-ARTIS),
goes into painstaking detail on the following aspects
of performers’ rights in Europe:
It
is still the very top of a brand new year! It is an ideal
time to set your goals. I see a marked difference between
artists who set finite goals and those who do not. Ask
yourself: Is this the year I want to make a difference for
my musical career? And if so – what difference and
how? Then it’s time to reach into that treasure chest -
your mind and formulate a KILLER PLAN for this year.
Acts
that have been out pounding the road through the
fall into the new year have received an unexpected
holiday gift, as decreases in prices at the pump
are saving the touring industry at large millions
of dollars over the past several months.
Finding
concert information and tickets at Google is
getting easier. The search giant announced
code-based improvements to the ways official
ticket links, event listings, comedian events and
venue events are displayed in search results.
Multiple
GRAMMY®
Award winner Vince Gill
joined the CEOs of Frontier Communications, DISH
Network, and CoBank for a number of very
exciting announcements on behalf of America’s
Best Communities. “Rural communities feed
America, supply its energy, volunteer for the
military. They contribute out of proportion to
their size, and everybody in the country
benefits,” said Vince Gill, affirming his
support for America’s Best Communities and the
importance of investment and support to small
towns and rural communities.
Between
the Pono Music store's imminent arrival and Sony's
recently unveiled $1,200 Walkman redux, it seems
like the demand for high-definition audio has
skyrocketed. But the process that produces the
perfect balance of bass to vocals, mastering an
album or a track, seems to be going in the
opposite direction.
With
the right timing and a lot of luck, you just might
strike it really big in the music business. There
are literally hundreds of tips on making it in the
music business, and we all know how overwhelming
that can be. If you're wondering which ones you
should try to integrate into your daily life
starting today, these 15 basic guidelines are
all you really need to focus on right now to get
started. With the right timing and a lot of luck,
you just might strike it really big.
How
did Spotify get its most recent 2.5 million
subscribers? Free mobile listening, for the most
part.
The
leading subscription music streaming service
announced Monday it has 15 million subscribers to
go along with 60 million monthly listeners. An
industry source tells Billboard 80 percent of new
subscribers came from the free mobile.
19
year old, Andrew Watts, is a sophomore Management
Information Systems major (marketing minor) at the
University of Texas in Austin and penned an interesting
glimpse into the world of teenage (and college)
consumption (or lack thereof) of the biggest social
networks.
Are
hits enough to save radio? Leaders in the space --
Charlie Walk, Tom Poleman, Michael Martin, Steve
Blatter and Anya Grundmann -- sit down for a
roundtable on the topic with Billboard.
RIAA
and Nielsen data. Streaming includes audio and video
data from AOL, Beats, Cricket Wireless, Google Play,
MediaNet, Rdio, Rhapsody, Slacker, Spotify, Xbox Music,
YouTube, and VEVO. Downloads includes transactions
from iTunes, Amazon, and Beatport. Data is US-based;
one album download = 10 song downloads.
Facebook
just released new stats revealing that their shift to
take over the video sphere is working. Since June 2014,
Facebook video has averaged 1 billion views a day with
over 65% of the views worldwide happening on mobile. In
just one year the number of video posts per person has
increased 75% globally and 94% in the US.
The
chairman of the Federal Communications Commission,
Tom Wheeler, appears poised to propose new rules
that would classify Internet service providers as
public utilities in a move designed to ensure
everyone has the same access to free content
online.
Azoff
is trying to create the fourth US performing rights organization
(PRO) and has demanded that YouTube take down 20,000
songs in which he claims his company, Global
Music Rights (GMR), controls exclusive public performance
rights. But as pointed out in a prior article,
because of restrictions in ASCAP and BMI’s deals with
their writers and in their membership rules, it is subject
to question whether GMR has the rights that Azoff claims
it has.
2014
was a busy year for copyright policy on a number of
fronts, with the House Judiciary Committee, US Copyright
Office, and USPTO actively working on a broad range of
issues. What will 2015 bring?
Sony
says the new Walkman will be able to reproduce master
recordings. It can play digital audio files up to 192
kHz/24 bit. The Walkman can play MP3, WMA, AAC, FLAC, AIFF,
WAV, and ALAC. It comes with 128GB of memory and an SD
card slot. The Walkman can also connect to WiFi and the
battery lasts for 60 hours.
Twitter
has long been a proponent of native advertising, making
its money off promotions that look like a regular
part of the Twitter landscape (instead of, say, a banner
ad). People are accustomed to promoted accounts appearing
in their regular feed and promoted hashtags in the
trending topics section. But sticking brands in the
list of who a user actually follows is a departure
from the above examples.
