Thursday 30 July 2009, 12:15 | By CMU Editorial

ALSO play London tonight

Gigs & Festivals

LA-based band ALSO – who we’ve formed one of those ‘feel like you’ve known them for years’ relationships with via some random emailing of late – are in the UK for a short tour of this fair isle. They tell us that they find gigs in Britain by far the most rewarding, so here’s a chance to confirm their confidence in the credibility of the average UK music fan, while also getting a glimpse of their rather fine music, so far proudly self-released and available via iTunes, CD Baby and Amazon (links from the website below). They play London town tonight, with some regional gigs still to come next week. Check them out…

30 Jul: London, The Hope And Anchor
2 Aug: Kidderminster, Tap House
3 Aug: Watford, The Horns

www.alsomusic.com

Machine Head to return to UK Sonispere line-up?

Artist News Gigs & Festivals

Following that spat with Sonisphere promoters Kilimanjaro, which lead to them cancelling their appearance at the UK finale of the Sonisphere touring festival, it seems that Machine Head have changed their minds. Thrash Hits noted on Sunday that ‘Special Guests’ had been added to the second day’s line-up underneath Limp Bizkit, and claimed to have been told by a “very well-placed source” that the band were back on the bill. Now Blabbermouth say that they have also been informed by a “very reliable source” that Machine Head will be appearing at Sonisphere this Sunday.

In case you’ve not been following this story, let’s have a quick recap. Machine Head announced that they were cancelling their appearance at the UK leg of the touring festival after Limp Bizkit were added to the line-up above them. In a statement, the band said: “In a turn of events that has left us absolutely baffled, the promoter of the UK Sonisphere festival recently placed, unbeknownst to us, Limp Bizkit in our third slot on the festival. Seeing as the running order was a significant part of the negotiation and agreement between us and the promoter, and the fact that we had been advertised in that slot since the festival’s announcement, you can imagine our surprise when we were ‘told’ that we would now be playing in the fourth slot, under Limp Bizkit, and bizarrely, it was actually expected that we would quietly move down the bill without issue. We will not”.

The band did, however, honour the bookings with the other Sonisphere events around mainland Europe, which put them in a good position to continue talks with the festival’s organisers. As we reported yesterday, when guitarist Phil Demmel collapsed on stage in Finland last week, bassist Adam Duce told the crowd “I wanna thank everyone for coming out and supporting Sonisphere and supporting Machine Head”, which would suggest they were on better terms than they were three weeks ago.

Everyone’s down on collecting societies

Business News Labels & Publishers Legal

Everyone hates the collecting societies today. The public prosecutor in Belgium has accused the country’s publishing collecting society, SABAM, of failing to properly distribute royalty revenues back to their members – ie the content owners – and the society and five of its executives are now likely to be charged with forgery and abuse of confidence.

The prosecutor is reportedly set to pounce after a three year investigation into the society’s financial procedures which, according to Billboard, showed up “deficient organisation and structure, hazy distribution and a lack of internal controls”. It’s not clear if some are accused of actually using the shambles to act fraudulently, or whether the case is more about failure to fulfil some sort of fiduciary duty.

The society’s spokesman, Thierry Dachelet, played down the pending prosecution, stressing that SABAM had assisted the country’s justice department in its investigations, and that considerable restructuring had already begun.

Billboard quote Dachelet thus: “We haven’t yet received an official notice from the prosecutor’s office and I prefer not to comment on the prosecutor’s accusations while we are not aware of any details. [But, while] human mistakes cannot be ignored, is this fraud? A hearing in chambers will decide whether this case will be ruled in court”.Elsewhere in the word of European collecting societies, the German publishing royalty body GEMA is the subject of a petition posted on the website of the lower house of the German parliament, the Bundestag. 106,000 people have already signed it.

The petition precedes a planned investigation into the operations of the collecting society this Autumn, which will look into allegations that GEMA breached the country’s copyright laws, and even acted unconstitutionally. It looks likely one political party in the Bundestag, the CDU/CSU, will propose new laws to impose restrictions on GEMA which, the political types say, would protect the interests of both the collecting society’s members and those who licence the songs the body represents.

The campaign against GEMA has seemingly stemmed from criticism of it made by the MD of a cultural centre in Sonthofen, Bavaria. Monkia Bestle says the body is unfair in its treatment of smaller concert promoters in Germany, telling reporters: “Over many years, concert promoters and artists have become so frustrated that we plan to set up a self-help group to monitor GEMA”.

Yahoo and Microsoft ally

Business News Deals Digital

So, an alliance between Yahoo! and Microsoft has finally been confirmed. The two companies have been discussing possible partnerships for ages now of course, including, at one point, the previously reported discussions for Microsoft to completely acquire Yahoo!

The ten year deal that has been done is somewhat less far reaching. It will see Yahoo! use Microsoft’s recently rebranded Bing search engine on its sites, rather than its own search whatnot, while Yahoo’s advertising division will handle search-related ad sales for both company’s online operations.

The deal will be subject to regulatory approval, and it’s thought Google may object, though they will still dominate in the search sector. While Bing will have 35% of the US search market once it is installed on the Yahoo! platform, Google still have a 65% market share.

Microsoft and Yahoo! are sure to argue that by boosting Bing’s prominence though this alliance, they are making the web search sector more rather than less competitive.

New Bebo chief appointed

Business News Digital Industry People

Stephane Panier, previously Chief Operating Office of AOL-owned social networking flim flam Bebo, is about to becoming Head Of Global Operations. That might sound like a pretty similar job, but apparently it’s a promotion. I think it basically puts him in charge – he will report directly to Jon Brod in parent company AOL Ventures.

Prior to Bebo, Painer worked at Google. In his new job he will be charged with the task of turning round Bebo’s fortunes – like MySpace it’s been flagging a little of late amid new competition from Twitter and a newly buoyant Facebook. An expansion of Bebo’s media and content based services may also be on the cards.

Confirming the promotion, Brod said this: “Stephane is a proven strategist and operator with executive experience from some of the world’s leading brands and businesses. He is the ideal leader to build on Bebo’s existing successes, to chart a course for its future and to execute against that vision”.

Apple’s bold app claim approved

Business News Digital Marketing & PR

Apple has managed to convince the UK’s Advertising Standards Authority that it was right to say “There’s an app for just about anything – only on the iPhone” in an ad for its mobile phone device.

The ASA received complaints about the claim, because, the complainants said, the Google G1 phone via T Mobile also has an apps store. But Apple argued that its app store “provided users with a unique experience unmatched by any other application marketplace, including the Android Market”.

The ASA concurred, ruling that: “Because Apple had shown there were far more applications available for the iPhone than the G1 phone, and user experience of the iPhone and the App Store was distinct from its competitor, we concluded that the claim ‘only on the iPhone’ was justified and not misleading”. So that’s nice.

Brown gets boost thanks to wedding video

Artist News Business News

OK, here is a message for all of you working in sync rights. Stop bugging those ad agencies for money, and start lobbying couples planning weddings. A couple who staged an innovative dance sequence at the start of their wedding, soundtracked by disgraced R&B thugster Chris Brown, have caused a resurgence in sales of the song used – ‘Forever’.

A video of the routine (which has the sort of terrible dancing you’d expect from a wedding, though normally not during the service itself) has become a YouTube hit, and the owners of Brown’s song, Sony’s Jive division, are earning both via YouTube directly, who will pay a royalty each time the video is streamed, and from a surge in iTunes sales of the year old song, which went back to number four in the iTunes chart at one point after the video got 12 million views.

YouTube content partnerships man Jordan Hoffner brought up the wedding video phenomenon at a digital media conference in LA this week, pointing out how their new audio recognition and click-and-buy functions helped Sony monetise the latest YouTube video hit, so to make money out of the least palatable of their pop stars (post Rihanna beating).

You can watch the video here.

Krissi Murison named new NME editor

Media

Krissi Murison has been named the eleventh (and first female) editor of the NME. She will take over from Conor McNicholas, who is soon to depart the music magazine after six years as editor to take up the same position at BBC Top Gear magazine. Announcing his replacement via Twitter, he said “She’s brilliant. I’m delighted”.

Murison previously worked at the NME for six years, starting in a work experience position in 2003 and working her way up to deputy editor, before leaving in February to become musical director of Nylon magazine in New York. She has also written for The Guardian, The Observer and The Sunday Times.

Murison said of her appointment: “Editor of NME has to be up there as one of the all-time dream jobs – and certainly the only one I’d ever consider coming back to a British ‘summer’ for. There’s a lot of work to do, but I am beyond excited to be at the helm of what has always been my favourite magazine in the world”.

The magazine’s publishing editor Paul Cheal added: “There was an enormous amount of interest in this position and we interviewed some very strong internal and external candidates. However, I’m delighted that we’ve managed to lure Krissi back from New York to become the eleventh editor of the NME”.

She is expected to officially take up her new role in mid-September.

OfCom make more London licences available to community radio

Media

Media regulator OfCom has confirmed it is making extra FM frequencies available to community radio groups in and around Greater London, mainly reusing those FM frequencies handed back by commercial radio companies who couldn’t make any money out of them (people in Lewisham probably more keen to tune into bigger London pop stations than one just for the people of Lewisham). The new frequencies now available for community groups are in Thamesmead, High Wycombe, Amersham and the aforementioned Lewisham.

David Byrne don’t like U2

And Finally

First the people of Dublin, now David Byrne. Is there anyone left who still likes U2 (other than the BBC)?

The former Talking Heads frontman has criticised U2’s extravagant and costly tours, which do little for their carbon footprint, or the hungry people of Africa who Bono is always telling us we should be giving our money too. Plus, they have a massive stage, which, as those previously mentioned Dubliners found out at the weekend, can take a rather long time to noisily take down over night.

But anyway, I’ve digressed a little. Here is what Byrne said: “Those stadium shows may possibly be the most extravagant and expensive (production-wise) ever: $40 million to build the stage and, having done the math, we estimate 200 semi trucks crisscrossing Europe for the duration. It could be professional envy speaking here, but it sure looks like, well, overkill, and just a wee bit out of balance given all the starving people in Africa and all. Or maybe it’s the fact that we were booted off our ‘Letterman’ spot so U2 could keep their exclusive week long run that’s making me less than charitable? Take your pick, but thanks guys!”

Manson threatens journalists

And Finally

You know how we told you Marilyn Manson was really a zebra called Phil in a pretty unconvincing hat? Well, scratch that. Because Manson has threatened to take on any journalist who writes an untruth about him or his band. I think he was getting angry after LA Weekly alleged he was addicted to cocaine.

Blogging, Manson ranted: “I can, but do not need to defend myself and the absurd accusations that the average press has clinged onto. If we need a nude photo of me to prove that I am far different than the soon-to-be-murdered-in-their-home press has decided to fabricate, that is easy. But if one more ‘journalist’ makes a cavalier statement about me and my band, I will personally or with my fans help, greet them at their home and discover just how much they believe in their freedom of speech. I dare you all to write one more thing that you won’t say to my face. Because I will make you say it. In that manner. That is a threat”.

Well, zebras are notorious for having short tempters.

Twitter is what?

And Finally

Twitter is “gay”… “Twitter this shit, motherfucker”. Or so said David Cameron when asked about the popular micro-blogging service on the Absolute Radio breakfast show yesterday. Oh no, hang on. He said “twat” didn’t he. No, it was Kid Rock who said the other stuff.

Asked about the Twitter phenomenon by Rolling Stone, Rock said: “It’s gay. If one more person asks me if I have a Twitter, I’m going to tell them, ‘Twitter this shit, motherfucker’. I don’t have anything to say, and what I have to say is not that relevant. Anything that is relevant, I’m going to bottle it up and then squeeze it onto a record somewhere”.

Q&A: The Twilight Sad

Artist Interviews

Formed in 2003 by James Graham (vocals), Andy MacFarlane, (guitar), Craig Orzel (bass) and Mark Devine (drums), The Twilight Sad began by creating half-hour pieces of music with tape loops and toy instruments before moving towards a more traditional songwriting style. They released their debut album, ‘Fourteen Autumns And Fifteen Winters’, in 2007 to widespread acclaim and gained yet more fans through live shows with the likes of Mogwai, The Smashing Pumpkins, Battles, Beirut and Frightened Rabbit. ‘I Became A Prostitute’, the first single from their second album, ‘Forget The Night Ahead’, is set for release on 3 Aug, with the album following on 21 Sep. To celebrate the single release, the band will play live at The Lexington in London on 5 Aug. We spoke to Andy MacFarlane to find out more.

Q1 How did you start out making music?
I grew up with Devine and James playing in cover bands because it was the only way we could get into pubs when we were under age. A few years later I met Orzel and we all got together making noise in a studio for a year or so, wrote four songs, and got signed on our third gig. It seemed really easy but we were pretty lucky.

Q2 What inspired your latest album?
Lyrically the album’s inspired by some experiences that have happened over the past year or so, that aren’t the happiest of things, and musically we wanted just to develop and move on from the first record.

Q3 What process do you go through in creating a track?
I’ll work out some ideas in my house and record some rough versions, email them over to James and try to give an idea of how I imagine the song to pan out. He’ll write some lyrics and then all of us will go up to the studio and piece some kind of arrangement, which ends up changing a ton of times for a few weeks afterwards.

Q4 Which artists influence your work?
No one in particular. I’m always trying to find new music and films to listen to and watch, which will have some kind of influence, but I couldn’t say any specific people.

Q5 What would you say to someone experiencing your music for the first time?
Thanking you much very for listening.

Q6 What are your ambitions for your latest album, and for the future?
My ambition for the latest album was just to make something that was a step forward from the first, and I think we’ve achieved that. For the future I’d like to be able to keep on touring and recording for as long as I’m allowed to really.

MORE>> www.thetwilightsad.co.uk

Approved: Geggy Tah (SNAP Of The Day)

CMU Approved

Word of mouth is still the most effective, unusual and unexpected way of finding new music, and it’s how I discovered Portland’s Geggy Tah, having been sent a YouTube clip of a young girl hoola-hooping to their track ‘Holly Oak’. Digging deeper revealed that they were signed to Luaka Bop, which is David Byrne’s world music label and boasts talent including Shuggie Otis and Nouvelle Vague. I’m not really interested in either of those acts, but being a huge fan of Byrne’s work I will investigate further anything on his label, so dug even deeper on Geggy Tah. And their track ‘Whoever You Are’ isn’t a bad ditty, either, despite being tarnished by the rap monologue around two and a half minutes in. Take a listen at the link below, where you’ll also find the aforementioned YouTube video handily embedded.

www.myspace.com/geggytah

“The internet was not Joel’s fault”: Tenenbaum case update

Another helping of Jacko news

Jacksons v AEG Timeline Top Stories

Back to Jacko, and the feds have searched both the home and office of Michael Jackson’s personal physician who remains at the top of the agenda of those investigating the circumstances around the late king of pop’s death.

As previously reported, while the results of toxicology tests are still pending, most involved in the case now seem certain Jackson died from a cardiac arrest brought on by the use of a powerful anaesthetic, probably propofol, administered by Dr Conrad Murray about twelve hours before the singer’s death.

The raid on Murray’s home was reportedly designed to find any hidden files relating to Michael Jackson’s health, including any that had been filed under fake names. Murray was apparently present at the time of the search and complied with investigators.

Although police have confirmed Murray is of great interest to them, they have shied away from calling him a suspect. Assuming the doc didn’t give Jackson an overdose of propofol, whether deliberately or by accident, then it’s debatable whether the physician could be held liable for the singer’s death.

Some may argue the administration of a drug like propofol seemingly as a cure for insomnia is in itself reckless, and that there might therefore be grounds for manslaughter. But given the singer allegedly received the drug on a regular basis, and at his insistence, others would air caution about transferring liability to Murray for Jackson’s demise.

Elsewhere in Jacko news, Katherine Jackson yesterday asked the courts for the power to press the administrators of her son’s estate for more information about the state of his affairs, but the judge hearing the application did not comply. As previously reported, Michael Jackson’s mother is taking legal action to try and get herself named as a trustee on her late son’s estate alongside the two administrators named in the singer’s will, John Branca and John McClain.

There is a hearing on that matter next week, and the Jackson camp said they needed more information from the existing administrators to help them prepare. They wanted the court to order Branca and McClain to give interviews to Mrs Jackson’s attorneys, and to force the two men to hand over some key documents about Jackson’s affairs. But Judge Mitchell Beckloff refused to consider the application before next week’s hearing, which essentially amounts to him declining the Jackson clan’s request.

Culture Committee chair criticises government’s licensing review

Sneaky man claims Empire sound as his own

Movie studios launch new Pirate Bay litigation, Rosso walks from Bay purchase plans

Legal

The movie industry has launched new litigation against The Pirate Bay who seem – unsurprisingly – a little pissed off that, despite the content industry scoring an historic win against the BitTorrent tracker in the Swedish courts earlier this year, the file-sharing enabling website is still operating.

As previously reported, while the Swedish courts ruled the Bay’s founders and funder – Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, Peter Sunde and Fredrik Neij, and Carl Lundström – were guilty of contributory copyright infringement, sentencing them each to a year in jail and ordering them to pay massive damages to the content industries, none of the four has done any jail time or handed over any money. The Pirate Bay, meanwhile, operates as normal, and is now, as also previously reported, subject to a $7.8 million takeover by Swedish IT company Global Gaming Factory. Whatever you think about the Swedish court’s ruling on this issue, and the logic of the record industry suing the rogue file-sharing service to start with, you can understand why the victorious content owners are getting a bit pissed off.

Speaking for the studios who have launched the new legal action, which includes Columbia Pictures, Disney Enterprises and Universal Studios, lawyer Monique Wadsted told the AFP: “We have filed a complaint against The Pirate Bay because they have not stopped their activities after they were sentenced to prison”.

A spokeswoman for the Motion Picture Association Of America added: “The Pirate Bay continues to facilitate the wholesale illegal infringement of film and television works in an organised and commercial manner despite the criminal conviction handed down by Stockholm District Court. The studios have simply applied to the Court to require the three operators and the ISP hosting the Web site and trackers to cease this infringement”.

Of course there have been various attempts in recent years to physically close down the Bay, one going as far as to seize their servers. But it has to be said, whatever you think about TPB and the people behind it, they’re pretty resilient when it comes to moves to shut them down. It remains to be seen whether this lot have any more success in closing the Bay than those that have tried previously.

Talking of The Pirate Bay, news over night that former Grokster boss Wayne Rosso is no longer working for the aforementioned GGF in relation to their Bay acquisition, despite only joining them less than a month ago. Wayne Rosso had been brought in my GGF to try and turn The Pirate Bay legit, by doing deals with the record companies. The all new Bay hoped to pay rights holders via advertising revenues and money raised by selling on the spare network capacity of P2P users to internet and media firms. Or something like that.

But barely a week after talking up GGF’s plans in media interviews, Rosso has quit, telling CNET the ambitions of the IT firm and its boss Hans Pandeya to launch a legit Pirate Bay are unrealistic, adding that he now doubts Pandeya has the money in place to buy the BitTorrent tracking business in the first place.

Rosso: “I and my colleagues have very strong doubts that the funding is in place. And there are other issues regarding Mr Pandeya’s credibility that trouble us greatly”. The former Grokster man added that he is yet to be paid for his work for GGF.

But Pandeya says he remains committed to his Bay plans, telling reporters: “Everything is going to plan. We have plenty of investors that are interested in this and Wayne is just one of our many consultants… he might have been too impatient. We pay everyone we do business with”.

Qtrax sued by Oracle

Legal

More from the world of P2P, though this time sort of legit P2P service Qtrax. The digital music company is being sued for $2 million by software firm Oracle for copyright infringement and breach of contract. Basically it seems Qtrax have defaulted on a $1.8 million bill to pay for technologies licenced to the P2P company by Oracle.

The lawsuit throws new doubt on the future of Qtrax, one of a number of start ups who have promised to launch a fully licensed P2P file-sharing network that satisfies both file-sharers and content owners, only to quietly disappear off the radar eighteen months later.

To be fair, Qtrax did actually launch a service of sorts (lots of other legit P2P businesses never got that far) though the company itself has admitted to problems with that service, and that those problems have delayed to the firm’s expansion plans.

Qtrax’s CEO Allan Klepfisz recently wrote in a company blog post: “We’ve tried hard but the truth is that if total efficiency is the goal, we’ve failed. I’ve failed. We have had several iterations of the software. We chucked out the earlier ones and built something that is unparalleled, we believe, in its functionality… We’ve also been inefficient in going through two sets of expensive licenses with the music industry. We threw out the first set. They were too restrictive”.

Culture minister launches Young Creative Entrepreneur Awards

Awards

The government’s culture man Ben Bradshaw launched the UK Young Creative Entrepreneur Awards for 2009/10 earlier this week. These are awards for entrepreneurs who are both young and creative, or that’s what I’ve been told. Eight awards are given out, one in each of eight different creative disciplines, one of which is music. Launching the scheme for this year, Bradshaw said this: “The creative industries are one of the UK’s success stories and we are known worldwide for the strength of our creative talent. Therefore it’s only right that we celebrate our young creative entrepreneurs and give them an opportunity to gain further experience and knowledge at an international level. The creative industries are worth £57.3bn to our economy annually, and we need to do all we can to foster the emerging talent of the future to make sure this success continues to grow”.

UK Music Video Awards to return in October

Awards

Organisers of the UK Music Video Awards, which launched last year, have announced their 2009 gong distribution bash will take place on 13 Oct at the Odeon West End on London’s Leicester Square. So that’s nice. There’ll be info on it all at www.ukmva.com I reckon.

No Age announce new EP

Releases

Noise pop duo No Age have announced that they will release a new EP, entitled ‘Losing Feeling’, as a piece of vinyl or some downloads on 5 Oct via Sub Pop. The release follows their acclaimed second album ‘Nouns’, which was released via the same label last year.

Tracks contained within it have been assigned these names:

Losing Feeling
Genie
Aim At The Airport
You’re A Target

James Ford on new Monkeys

Releases

James Ford says people will be “shocked” by the new Arctic Monkeys album, which he, of course, has produced. Speaking to Gigwise, the Simian Mobile Disco man says of the new Monkeys long player, out next month: “[It’s] a lot slower, deeper and desert-like. [There’s] really great lyrics and melodies, [but] I think anyone who only liked the first album might be a bit shocked. They’re trying to be an interesting and creative band and move things forward and they’re a talented enough band to achieve that”.

New track from former Panickers

Releases

The two members of Panic At The Disco who quit the band earlier this month have formed a new band, to be called The Young Veins, and they’ve already posted a new track online. How lovely. You can hear it on their MySpace – myspace.com/theyoungveins

Good Charlotte man writing autobiography

Artist News

Good Charlotte frontman Joel Madden has revealed that he is currently working on the first of what will surely be many volumes of his autobiography. Although he admits he’s going to have to work hard to make it of any interest to anyone at all. Something like that, anyway.

He told Kerrang!: “[My autobiography] would be about, mostly, the big changes in my life: kids, relationships, moving to LA, the big life changes that I’ve gone through. I’m lightly working on one, but I don’t want to put a book out there if it’s not actually meaningful. I’m not going to go there unless I can deliver. If I put a book out, I want it to be something that matters to me. It has to be real, you can’t just put a book out, to put a book out”.

Despite these non-committal comments, Madden’s book is expected to be published next year.

David Byrne to play The Roundhouse

Gigs & Festivals

When I say David Byrne is going to play The Roundhouse, I don’t mean he’s going to get up and strum a guitar a bit, I mean he’s actually going to play The Roundhouse as a musical instrument. No, I don’t really understand it either.

The former Talking Heads frontman has apparently devised a way to draw sound from the building by attaching various mechanical devices to its beams, pillars and pipes, which can then be channelled into a keyboard that can be played by visitors.

The ‘Playing The Building’ sound installation has already been staged at the Battery Maritime Building in New York and the Färgfabriken building in Stockholm. It comes to the Grade II listed London venue between 8-31 Aug.

U2 tour nearly delayed by pissed off Dubliners

Gigs & Festivals

Locals near Dublin’s Croke Park nearly stopped U2 from going to Sweden, though not at the insistence of the Swedes, as you might assume.

Residents near the Dublin stadium were rather pissed off about the U2 shows that took place there last weekend. Though it wasn’t so much the band’s loud musical playing that bothered the locals, nor Bono’s tedious and often flawed ‘save the poor’ ramblings, but the fact the band’s crew dismantled the shows’ rather ambitious stage set up overnight. Rather loudly.

So pissed off were the Dubliners, in fact, they formed a picket line outside the gates through which the band’s trucks needed to get in order to pick up all the ‘360 Degree Tour’ set to take it to Sweden ready for shows planned for there next weekend.

For a time it looked like the picket line might seriously delay U2’s tour crew and jeopardise the Swedish dates, though someone seemingly managed to placate the locals enough to get them out of the trucks’ way. Perhaps they told them Bono had said the overnight staff clanking would save some African children from poverty and disease.

Big Green Gathering fans offered ticket swaps

Business News Gigs & Festivals Live Business

People who had bought tickets for the cancelled Big Green Gathering have been offered ticket swaps for next month’s Big Chill or next year’s Sunrise festivals. Some speakers who were to give talks at BGG will also now appear at The Big Chill.

Big Green Gathering tickets will be accepted, along with an additional £20, at the Big Chill’s gate. For full details, go to www.big-green-gathering.com

IFPI file complaint over Russian collecting society

Media

The boss of the International Federation Of The Phonographic Industry, John Kennedy, has sent a letter to Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin expressing concern that a Russian collecting society is collecting royalties for labels represented by the IFPI, even though the society doesn’t have deals in place with those labels.

Presumably there’s a concern the collecting society has dodgy motives and won’t pass royalties back on to actual rights holders, or will dish out licenses at rates not agreed to by the record companies (when rouge Russian download service AllofMP3.com was big news, it was often reported it was actually licenced, but through some dodgy Russian collecting society that allowed them to sell DRM-free music at a fraction of the usual cost).

The collecting society causing concern is a privately owned operation called VOIS. The IFPI is appealing to Putin because a copyright law introduced in Russia last year regulated collecting societies, and societies now have to be accredited by the country’s government. VOIS is not, it seems, accredited. It remains to be seen in the Russians will investigate VOIS on Kennedy’s behalf.

A spokesman for the society denied the IFPI’s claims, telling Russian business paper Kommersant: “We only collect royalties for rights holders we have direct agreement with”.

But the boss of a rival Russian collecting society told Billboard: “There are questions about transparency of operations of VOIS. For instance, it collects royalties from Russian RailWays [on music played on the stations and trains operated by the state-run company], but it is not clear, what rights holders actually receive from them”.

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Wednesday 29 July 2009, 11:54 | By CMU Editorial

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Wednesday 29 July 2009, 11:51 | By CMU Editorial

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