Spotify pulls Victory Records catalogue in mechanical royalties dispute
Recordings from US independent Victory Records have been pulled from Spotify in America over a dispute between the streaming service and the indie's sister music publishing business Another Victory. The dispute is basically over unpaid mechanical royalties, though is really about the complexities in the way streaming services are licensed, and specifically the extra complexities US copyright law forces on the whole process.

Streaming services exploit both song and recording copyrights, we know that, but they also exploit both the 'mechanical right' and the 'performing right' elements of both those rights. See, it's already complex and I'm only one sentence in. This is mainly an issue on the songs side, because in music publishing the mechanical rights and the performing rights are traditionally dealt with separately, and in some countries they are controlled by different entities.

But in the main, music publishers have tried to provide streaming services with licenses that cover both mechanical and performing rights. So in the UK, performing rights society PRS and mechanical rights society MCPS offer one joint licence. And where the big five publishers have licensed the mechanical rights they control directly, they have done so in partnership with the collecting societies that control the accompanying performing rights.

And then there is America, where performing rights are usually handled by collecting societies like BMI and ASCAP, but the mechanicals are handled by, well, who exactly? Mechanicals are covered by a compulsory license in the US, so streaming services don't need to get specific permission from the publisher, but they do need to pay them royalties. Though, with no central database of song copyright ownership, that's not quite as simple as it sounds. Both rights owners and digital services often use middle-men agencies to facilitate payments, but most people agree that the system is far from efficient.

Former Tunecore chief Jeff Price built a whole new business to try to help rights owners identify and chase the mechanical royalties they are due from streaming services, reckoning that there is an ever increasing pile of cash being lost to the inefficient system. And it's that company, Audiam, which is working for Another Victory, and which reckons mechanicals have not been paid on about 53 million Spotify streams.

The dispute between Victory and Spotify over the unpaid mechanicals has been brewing for a while, but seemingly came to a head when the streaming service proposed a direct deal with the indie's publishing business to cover mechanical payments in its songs catalogue. Victory said it was unable to sign this deal, not least because of its existing arrangement with Audiam.

According to the indie, it was then Spotify which decided to pull its tracks from the streaming service in the US, even though the dispute is over the company's songs repertoire. While there is some crossover between Victory's recordings and songs catalogues, there are recordings where song rights are controlled by other parties which are not subject to this particular mechanicals row. This, says Victory, proves that Spotify's "internal systems are inadequate".

On this week's developments, Victory - which, as a label, has a history of being more vocal than most when ever it has a disagreement with another party - said: "We could not sign [the contract] for a variety of reasons, most importantly, that it would put us in direct violation of our agreement with Audiam. Spotify knows we are in business with Audiam and were essentially asking us to breach/ignore that agreement. The issue of non-payment for songwriters and composers is a widespread problem and not exclusive to Victory Records' artists. We understand your frustration with not being able to listen to the music you enjoy".

The label concluded that "the bottom line is that artists and songwriters are not being paid and fans of Victory's artists cannot listen to the music. Thank you for your support and we remain hopeful that Spotify will do the right thing".

There has been speculation in the last 24 hours as to whether Spotify's decision to pull Victory's content is because of concerns over the legal ramifications of still streaming this music while the dispute rumbles on, or whether the streaming firm is playing hardball in trying to force the indie into doing the deal.

Spotify's US spokesman Jonathan Prince told the Wall Street Journal that neither Another Victory not Audiam had sent over sufficient data to substantiate their claims of unpaid royalties, and that "given that we don't have that information, we felt we had no choice but to temporarily take down their content until we can come to a resolution".

A lot of the problems here come back to the lack of a decent database of copyright ownership - ie the thing the music publishing sector's Global Repertoire Database project was trying to build before it collapsed last year. Such a database would make it easier for streaming services to identify who is owed what whenever a song is streamed, and to then make payments. It would also allow digital services to more accurately pull song catalogues where disputes occur, rather than having to pull the recordings catalogue that happens to be in common ownership instead.

Many in music publishing recognise this weakness, so are more diplomatic when discussing the unpaid mechanicals in the US streaming space, instead talking about all sides needing to collaborate to fix the problems. But since launching Audiam, Price has been less diplomatic, insisting that the streaming services are obliged under US copyright law to pay mechanical royalties, and it's their responsibility to do whatever it takes to make that happen. And in outspoken Victory Records boss Tony Brummel, he likely has an ally on that point.

For more on the complexities of digital licensing, don't forget to download the report we produced for the UK Music Managers Forum, 'Dissecting The Digital Dollar', it's totally free and available here.

Elsewhere in Spotify news, TechCrunch reckons that a couple of recent hires at the firm might mean Japanese and Indonesian launches are on the horizon. Though the company remains non-committal on specific plans to launch in those two key Asian markets, except to confirm that it aspires to operate in most Asian countries.

Max Hole steps down at Universal Music Group International's CEO
Max Hole has announced this morning that he is stepping down from his role as Chairman and CEO of Universal Music's international division with immediate effect.

Hole has been unwell since January, when he contracted the rare medical condition encephalitis, which has resulted in some memory loss. Although he is reportedly making progress towards recovery, it is not currently possible for him to return to work.

As previously reported, Hole was promoted to the role leading Universal Music's non-US activities in 2013, having previously been COO of the international business. The company's regional chiefs will now report directly to overall UMG CEO Lucian Grainge.

In a statement, Hole said: "I have loved working at Universal, the best record company in the world. Lucian is an extraordinary person, both an exceptional creative and business executive for whom I have great affection. We have known each other for a very, very long time and I'm so glad we remain friends".

He went on: "I love so many of my colleagues around the world that there are too many to name, but I'd like to mention my close friends Boyd Muir, Richard Constant, David Joseph, Frank Briegmann, Pascal Nègre, George Ash, Jesus Lopez and Andrew Kronfeld. Finally, there are our incredible artists, some I have been close to and some I have watched and loved from a distance. I wish our artists and Universal a hugely successful future".

Grainge added: "Max Hole is one of the most talented and accomplished executives to have ever worked in the music business, with an undying passion for music. He has been one of our industry's most effective champions, opening new markets and creating opportunities for artists and fans everywhere. Max's contributions to Universal will be forever a part of the fabric of this company and our industry, and he leaves with our deepest gratitude and respect".

Hole first joined Universal Music in 1998 as Senior Vice President, Marketing and A&R, though his career in the major label system began in 1982, when he joined Warner Music UK as A&R Manager. Prior to that, he had worked independently as a record producer and artist manager.

Small venues should seek more arts funding, says culture minister
Smaller music venues should apply for more arts funding to help keep their doors open, Culture Minister Ed Vaizey said at yesterday's Music Venue Day conference in London.

"A vibrant music venue which is breaking new acts has just as much right to be considered a cultural venue as a local or regional theatre", he said, according to the BBC. This follows the publication of figures by the Greater London Authority showing that 35% of small and medium-sized venues have closed in the capital alone since 2007.

London's Arts Council England rep Joyce Wilson agreed, telling venue owners in the room: "Not many of you do apply to the Arts Council. It's really hard to support you if you don't come and talk to us".

However, Music Venues Trust head Mark Davyd countered that there were reasons venues weren't applying for funding beyond simply being "shy", as Vaizey had suggested.

"What you're proposing isn't actually any help to us", he said. "We don't have time to fill in hours and hours of very rigorous paperwork. And if I did it, you wouldn't understand anyway. I want to put on a guy who's playing white noise through a trumpet for no apparent reason, other than the fact that it might annoy someone and it's just brilliant. It doesn't fit in what you've got".

He added that many of the problems facing venues were not rooted in funding actual events, but in maintaining the buildings and equipment that made them possible. "People are walking into these venues and they're thinking, 'Wow, live music smells a bit funny'. We need money to be put into infrastructure".

The GLA report, carried out by London mayor Boris Johnson's recently set up music venue task force, found that music venues are closing down at a rapid rate in the capital and presented six recommendations to reverse the trend.

The biggest were the creation of a "night mayor" to oversee London's night-time economy - Vaizey joked that he looked forward to "running to be a nightmare in future elections" - and the adoption of the 'agent of change' principle, which would make it the responsibility of property developers to ensure new residential buildings won't have sound issues with local venues.

The report also urges local authorities to relax business rates for grassroots venues, and update out of date planning and licensing laws - suggesting the setting up of "music zones" in certain areas to encourage live music events.

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Ent24 launches new GigAlert app
Online entertainment guide and ticketing hub Ents24 has launched a new iPhone app called GigAlert which, it says, "allows you to carry the UK's biggest gig guide in your pocket, track artists, venues and events and get access to tickets and presales".

The new app will carry details over 100,000 shows taking place in the UK, covering music, comedy, theatre and clubbing. The firm says that it will add around 10,000 new events each week and that priority access to tickets will be available to thousands of gigs and shows.

Commenting on the new app, which is one of a number of new products launched by Ents24 as it celebrates its fifteenth birthday, the firm's Head of Music Marketing, Adam Brooks, told CMU: "GigAlert is perhaps the most significant of this year's anniversary developments".

He added: "We were keen to ensure that common frustrations with live entertainment and gig-related apps were solved pre-launch: so GigAlert works on and offline, with or without logging in, and whilst it integrates with a user's iTunes and Spotify libraries, it leaves the decision of which artists to track to the user rather than tracking legions of artists automatically".

More at ents24.com/GigAlert

eMusic sold again
So eMusic has been sold. You remember eMusic, right? You know, eMusic. "Give me an 'e'" they used to chant. "There ain't no music like the eMusic" they used to sing. "Eeeeeee, I love me music" they used to say. "eMusic, eMusic, ra ra ra" they used to cheer. "Shit, it's eMusic!" they used to shout. Do you remember all those old TV ads for eMusic. No, me neither. Perhaps if they'd had some one of you would actually remember eMusic.

Anyway, eMusic has been sold to a company called TriPlay. Those with memories will recall that eMusic was one of the very first download platforms, which enjoyed some success for a time as a subscription-based download service with a focus on indie label content backed up by original editorial. Then, in a bid to extend its audience, it signed up the majors. But to secure Universal it had to alter its business model. Or fuck up its business model, to be precise. In 2013 it merged with an ebook company and then last year dropped the major label content, returning back to its roots.

TriPlay has its own digital locker service and music store called MyMusicCloud which - the company's CEO says - is also focused on "advanced indie music lovers". The main hope seems to be that, by integrating eMusic with its music store, it will be able to offer users of its digital locker app more competitively priced downloads. The 'club' model employed by eMusic enabled cheaper per-download prices, because users were basically bulk-buying.

TriPlay CEO Tamir Koch told Billboard: "Technologically [eMusic is] bringing nothing [to Triplay], but they have the ability, with their label relations, to offer songs at a 25 50% discount over what our users were paying previously".

Terms of the deal are not known, though eMusic's team are expected to stay on as part of the revamped business.

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Damian Marley becomes Tidal backer
Damian Marley is the latest artist to join Tidal's team of celebrity owners, though no word yet as to whether or not this is something he'll be able to remember in the morning.

Marley's involvement in the streaming set-up was announced at Tidal X 1020, that big bash in New York designed to celebrate the firm now having over a million people tuned in to its streaming content goodness. Marley was late addition to the bill of the event, to match his late addition to the list of Tidal shareholders.

He joins the likes of Beyonce, Rihanna, Kanye West, Jack White, Arcade Fire, Usher, Nicki Minaj, Coldplay, Alicia Keys, Calvin Harris, Daft Punk, Deadmau5, Jason Aldean, J Cole, Madonna, Lil Wayne and, of course, Jay-Z, as a c'leb backer of the company.

City AM first UK newspaper to block the ad-blockers
London business freesheet City AM has become the first UK newspaper to try to stop readers using ad-blockers from accessing its website.

Ad-blocking software - which filters out the ad content when you access a website - is nothing new of course, though it has been bothering media owners more of late, partly as online advertising income becomes ever more important, and partly because of increased use of such technology. There has also been much discussion about the ad-blocking tools becoming more prevalent on mobile devices.

City AM's new experiment targets users of the Firefox browser on desktop machines. If ad-blocking software is detected, articles will be blurred out and readers will see a message that says: "We are having trouble showing you adverts on this page, which may be a result of ad blocker software being installed on your device. As City AM relies on advertising to fund its journalism, please disable any ad-blockers from running on cityam.com to see the rest of this content". There will then be a help page explaining how to turn off the blocks.

The business paper follows the lead of German publisher Axel Springer which is now banning readers who are detected using ad-blockers from the website of its Bild paper. It's also thought that Trinity Mirror is considering similar action on its websites over here.

Commenting on the experiment in blocking the ad-blockerers, Martin Ashplant, City AM's Digital Director, told The Guardian: "We are of the view that City AM produces quality content which people value. As an ad-funded organisation, the ability to serve adverts around this content is crucial to us continuing to provide it for free to our users. We hope that by making it clear to people that ad blocking hurts our ability to do this they will choose to turn ad blockers off on cityam.com, even if they decide to continue using them elsewhere".

It's thought that, for most publications, only a small minority of readers are currently actively blocking the ads, though this number is increasing. Media owners presumably hope that restricting content access to people used ad-blockers will limit this growth, even if ad-blocking software evolves to avoid detection. Though newspaper and magazine publishers could also help by ensuring they don't fill every web page with so many ad widgets that content takes forever to load.

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New editor at The Wire
Eclectic music magazine The Wire, the independently-owned title that continues to put the spotlight on alternative, underground and non-mainstream music, has a new editor in the form of Derek Walmsley.

As part of a number of editorial changes at the publication, Joseph Stannard and Emily Bick both become Deputy Editors, the former with a focus on new music releases, and the latter on events and books. Former editor Chris Bohn, meanwhile, becomes Editor In Chief.

Confirming his new role, Walmsley told CMU: "The Wire has been one of the most exciting and radical music magazines in the world since the early 1980s. Our brand new editorial team comprises veteran Wire contributor and promoter of the Outer Church club night Joseph Stannard, and Emily Bick, a music writer, web and technology specialist, and sometime media and cultural studies lecturer. They'll all be working closely with our existing online team Daisy Hyde and Sophia Ignatidou to bring our print magazine and website harmoniously together for the future".

He goes on: "Our new team brings together a wealth of eclectic music expertise and the kind of under-the-radar knowledge The Wire is internationally reputed for, as well as a fresh burst of energy. And former editors Chris Bohn and Tony Herrington are still part of the team as Editor In Chief and Publisher respectively, reflecting The Wire's distinguished history in UK music media".

The day the music died (but not Liam Payne, he's not actually dead)
One Direction were forced to cancel a show in Belfast last night after Liam Payne was taken "suddenly ill". "Suddenly" mind, not "seriously", so worry a little, but not too much.

Fans were already in their seats when the announcement was made that the show could not go ahead, resulting in some booing and plenty of weeping, apparently. So there's your show right there. Though fans have been told to hang on to their tickets pending an announcement. Let's hope they didn't tear them up in rage or weep them into a pulp.

Publicist Simon Jones tweeted: "Unfortunately One Direction have had to cancel tonight's concert in Belfast. Liam has been taken suddenly ill, and the concert will sadly not be taking place. Fans have been asked to hold on to their tickets and there will be a further statement tomorrow. The band apologise to their fans and wish Liam well as soon as possible".

The three not ill members of One Direction all subsequently took to the tweets to apologise for the very last minute cancellation. Why not see if you can guess which apology was tweeted by which 1D member - Harry, Louis and Niall.

"Deepest apologies to everyone at the show tonight in Belfast. Very disappointed, but unfortunately these things happen. We're very sorry".

"We're so so sorry for what happened tonight, it was out of our control! Lots of love to Liam and thank you for being so understanding!"

"So sorry we have had to cancel tonight guys. Unfortunately these things happen... Thank you to all who came down tonight!"

Answers at the bottom of today's CMU Daily.

Dee Snider, Blur, The Weeknd, more

Other notable announcements and developments today...

• Dee Snider off of Twisted Sister, last seen in these parts being nice to Donald Trump, has done a deal with Universal Music Publishing Group, which has acquired his Snidest Music catalogue. The major previously administered the songs in North America.

• Blur are to release a documentary about the creation of 'The Magic Whip', their first album for sixteen years. 'New World Towers' will be out on 2 Dec. Here's the trailer.

• The Weeknd has released a video for a remix of his track 'The Hills' , featuring Eminem. It's one of those 360º videos that people think are good now, for some reason.

• Little Mix have announced that Nathan Sykes, formerly off of The Wanted, will support them on their UK tour. So that's nice. For him.

• Black Sabbath and Iron Maiden have now both been confirmed as headliners for next year's edition of Every Metal Festival Ever. Sorry, I mean the Download Festival. Black Sabbath's set will be part of their 'Final Ever And We Really Promise That We Mean It Tour'. Sorry, I mean 'The End' tour.

Pete Waterman planning orchestral reworks of hits pop production classics
Pete Waterman - everyone's favourite Hit Man (anyone?) - is planning an album of orchestral reworks of songs he has produced over the years, it was revealed earlier this week. So, that's a thing.

Inspired by reworks of his hits at an 'evening with' type event at the Royal Festival Hall earlier this year, the orchestral album will follow a more conventional compilation of singles produced by Waterman and his former co-horts Mike Stock and Matt Aitken, which is out next month.

Waterman is still working out what songs will appear on the orchestral record, though he reckons that less well known Kylie track 'Turn It Into Love', which appeared on her debut album, will be among the reworks. "Even though it was a B-side on Kylie's first album, it had a life of its own", Waterman told Attitude. "And it was a massive hit in Japan and was covered by a girl band out there".

But what Jason Donovan, Sinitta and Big Fun B-sides will make it on the record? That's the big question we're all asking today, people. Though the correct answer, of course, is "who gives a fuck?" Which, by an extraordinary coincidence, is also the answer to the One Direction quiz we set you earlier in this here CMU Daily.