Led Zeppelin want legal costs covered in song-theft dispute
Lawyers for Led Zeppelin are seeking to have the band's legal costs covered in relation to last year's headline-grabbing song-theft lawsuit over 'Stairway To Heaven'.

As much previously reported, Led Zep were sued by the estate of songwriter Randy Wolfe - aka Randy California - which alleged that 'Stairway To Heaven' ripped off a Spirit song written by Wolfe.

Led Zeppelin ultimately defeated the litigation. Although the jury reckoned Led Zepp's Jimmy Page may have been exposed to Wolfe's song 'Taurus' before writing 'Stairway', it was decided the two songs weren't sufficiently similar to constitute copyright infringement.

The Wolfe Trust, led by Michael Skidmore and represented by lawyer Francis Malofiy, is appealing the decision, arguing that the jury was badly advised.

The appeal also takes issue with the fact that - with songs of this era - only the core composition as submitted in sheet music form with the Copyright Office is protected by copyright in the US, rather than all the composition elements of the original recording of the work. This meant the jury couldn't hear the original recorded version of 'Spirit' in court to compare it to the famous Led Zeppelin track. Malofiy reckons that is unfair.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, a legal rep for Led Zep and their publisher Warner/Chappell, Peter Anderson, has now filed a response to the appeal, in which he argues that "substantial evidence supports the jury's verdict", adding that "Skidmore's appeal has absolutely no merit". On the point of what, exactly, is protected by the US song copyright, he goes on: "Skidmore misreads statutes and cases to advocate against black-letter copyright law".

While seeking to have the original ruling in the 'Stairway' case upheld, Anderson does call on appeal judges to overturn one element of the original judgement, which was judge R Gary Klausner's decision not to force the Wolfe Trust to cover Led Zep and Warner/Chappell's legal costs.

Despite frequently seeming exasperated with Malofiy during the court proceedings, Klausner ruled that the Wolfe Trust's case was not frivolous and that the plaintiffs did not have "nefarious motives", and therefore shouldn't have to foot the other side's legal bill.

Anderson disagrees, arguing that it was unreasonable for Skidmore to pursue the legal action on "the shared presence of five pitches of the chromatic scale" when it's fundamentally true that "no one owns musical scales". The lawyer also points out that these were both old songs, and that Wolfe himself never took issue with 'Stairway To Heaven'.

It remains to be seen how the appeal judges respond.

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Reservoir acquires Century Media publishing catalogues
Reservoir has gone and bought itself the music publishing catalogues associated with metal label Century Media. That's over 9000 copyrights that have been amassed over the last 20 years. I know, I counted them. Every single one. I did not take that number directly out of a press release. I spent all night counting them. In French. I'm in France, see.

Century's publishing interests cover various rock genres, and include active contracts with some songwriters and involvement in their future work. Reservoir's SVP Of Creative And A&R, Spek, will now lead on the creative development of that roster of writers.

Confirming the deal, Reservoir COO Rell Lafargue said these words: "This acquisition of Century Media's publishing arms reaffirms our commitment to diversifying our music catalogue and expanding Reservoir's international offerings. We look forward to welcoming Century Media's songwriters into the Reservoir family".

Originally launched in Germany, the label side of Century Media was acquired by Sony Music in 2015, but that deal didn't include the publishing business.

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MelodyVR raises new finance, talks global ambitions
UK-based MelodyVR, which is dabbling with all things virtual reality in the music space, yesterday announced it had raised £5 million in new investment. That money will "fund global expansion and content strategy" and allow the firm "to extend its market leading position as a virtual reality music platform".

The new financing follows deals with both Universal Music and Warner Music, and other adventures in music VR. Says CEO Anthony Matchett: "The proceeds of our recent fundraise will be used to fuel the global expansion of our business, to reach more artists, more partners and in turn, more consumers".

He adds: "We'll be investing further capital into our original content as we seek to grow our vast library of once-in-a-lifetime experiences. We'll also be investing into additional resourcing and staff on a global basis, aiming to attract even more of the best talent in the UK, as well as through our US offices in Los Angeles, New York, Miami and Nashville, and in other music industry epicentres, worldwide".

Talking of global expansion, which you were - well, Anthony was - MelodyVR recently appointed Ben Samuels, most recently with direct-to-fan thing Bkstg, to be its President and General Manager for North America. Meanwhile Nikki Lambert, who joined the start-up last year, has also been promoted to Chief Marketing Officer, with new marketing efforts planned in both Europe and the US.

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CMU@TGE 2017: Tackling Addiction In The Music Community - Jon Stewart
Look out for more reports throughout June on key sessions that took place at the CMU Insights conferences at The Great Escape last month. Today, we look at another of the sessions on addiction in the music community, and our interview with former Sleeper guitarist turned academic Jon Stewart.

Stewart became an alcoholic during the Britpop heyday of the 1990s and eventually found help through Alcoholics Anonymous. He then left that movement after fourteen years, now working to promote non-spiritual recovery alternatives, and is currently working on a PhD and book on this subject.

Speaking during the CMU Insights Drugs Conference, Stewart began by discussing the attitude to drugs within the Britpop community of the 1990s and where his problems with addiction began.

"During the 90s, there was certainly this idea of romanticising drugs", he said. "My first highly addictive illegal substance was given to me by somebody at my record company, who'd just spent loads of money on my band and as a form of celebration went, 'Here, have some of this stuff. This'll make for a good night'. Where else would you do that? Where would you buy a house, and then re-route a local river underneath it? You just wouldn't do that, would you?"

"In some ways, they were more innocent times", he continued. "There was no meaningful guidance at all. Because people [in the industry] didn't really know what to do. At the time, people knew about Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous and those other groups, but no one would really direct you to those, you had to find them yourself. And it would be extremely uncool to go and do that. That's changed now, which is good".

Explaining how he ended up in AA himself, Stewart said: "The thing that led me to seek help was the same thing that leads any alcoholic or addict to seek help. It's that you're broken in your core. I went to a meeting and got help, I met a lot of nice people, some of whom had had much much bigger records than I had ever had with Sleeper. You know, we had one platinum album, at my first AA meeting there was a guy there who had seven. So that was pretty impressive. I realised I was no longer special and different. And that saved my life".

With AA he eventually got sober, and also found God through the spiritual side of the organisation. Becoming something of an evangelist for the group - an "AA Taliban", as he described it - Stewart attended meetings for fourteen years before deciding to leave, after questioning his faith and becoming and Atheist again.

"After fourteen years, I started to feel like I was in what seemed to be a cult", he said. "Of course AA is not a cult, I want to be very clear about that. But it uses methods that parallel with the 'thought reform' methods that have been studied by sociologists. And they work, so AA uses that for good outcomes. I had a fairly spiritual sponsor who encouraged me to pray, so I did it and I had a spiritual experience as the result of working the twelve steps of Alcoholics Anonymous. Which is the point".

"I stopped going to AA meetings and started attending some CBT [Cognitive-Behavioural Therapy] groups instead, which were similar, but also different in some ways", he continued. "I wanted a different kind of recovery based on real world experiences. So while I'm very supportive of AA - I really believe in it - but at the same time the narrative is that a lot of people leave it and move on and I wanted to understand that phenomenon".

As part of his attempt to understand more about all of this, he wrote a blog post, which he has continued to expand upon as this has become a topic of more formal research. "I didn't realise how much knowledge of addiction and our brain chemicals has changed [since AA started in 1930]", he said. "You don't hear about that in meetings, because you just talk about the twelve steps. You can't openly promote or endorse other organisations".

Moving on to what other help there is now available to music people tackling addiction, he said: "If you're in any way a person of faith, or a spiritual person, just go to AA. It's a wonderful place to go. If you're a naturalist, who doesn't believe in that, you need to look for other things, because AA's a spiritual programme. And the first thing is this growing tenet of Atheist AA, which was birthed formally in Toronto about five years ago when the local intergroup tried to ban the meetings because they took God out of the twelve steps. God's mentioned about five times in the twelve steps".

"Then there's a thing called SMART Recovery, which is CBT-based and also has meetings, which is growing", he went on. "There are a few things that are impeding its growth, one of which is that you don't talk about SMART Recovery if you go to AA. Also, if you watch the soap operas and the movies, all the directors and screenwriters and actors, they're all sober in AA. And AA is a great drama. When will somebody in a soap opera or a movie get sober in SMART Recovery, where you sit around and do Cognitive Behavioural Therapy? It's nowhere near as dramatic, but it's really effective. And if you're an atheist and you're turned off by the God stuff, it's a good place to go".

Finally, Stewart discussed another option called The Sinclair Method. "It's even more controversial, but has a maybe 75-80% success rate", he said. "AA's success rate is very difficult to judge, because everyone's anonymous and every case is different, but it seems to be maybe 25%. Well, with the Sinclair Method, you don't need to go to meetings, you don't need to pray, and you take a medication that means you can keep drinking".

"I think it's a tragedy that Amy Winehouse drank herself to death and probably never heard anyone say, 'you could try the Sinclair Method'", he continued. "And the Sinclair Method has been in existence for 20 years. It's a very effective programme".

"You don't even need to be abstinent to get there", he added. "You take a pill an hour before you drink and it cuts off the massive surge in happy chemicals, and it allows people to control [their drinking]. And the other thing about it is that 25% of the people who take it become abstinent. So you could find abstinence through a programme that is not a programme of abstinence. About the same number of people who use the Sinclair Method find abstinence as go to AA".

Stewart discussed other reasons why these other methods are not so well known, in addition to them not being portrayed in dramas. In part, he said, "it's because of the way AA's set up - a singleness of purpose that has allowed it to survive for 80 years. Think about what an incredible achievement that is. But that singleness of purpose has also meant that other newer forms of therapy and help that are so desperately needed haven't really had the airtime that they deserve".

GPs also generally aren't aware of all or any of the options beyond AA, and sometimes not even AA itself. "If you're lucky your GP will suggest AA", he said. "The Sinclair Method is approved by NICE, and GPs still don't know about it. It's government approved".

However, he said he was positive about the future of recovery, concluding: "The truth is, there's never ever been a better time to get sober or seek help. And if you're in a band, or managing a band where somebody has a problem, there's never been a better time to find help. And you can multitask, you can do all of them. You can do AA, you can do SMART Recovery, you can do the Sinclair Method, and nobody can tell you that you can't. It's a very positive time in that respect".

Read Stewart's blog on recovery here. And check out all the reports and resources CMU has published around this year's CMU Insights @ The Great Escape conferences here.

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MIA releases new track ahead of Meltdown, speakers confirmed for CMU sessions
M.I.A. has released a new track, 'Goals', ahead of the start of her Meltdown festival at London's Southbank Centre, which kicks off tomorrow. The song, she says, is "dedicated to my hardcore fans. Thank you for your unfaltering dedication and support. You have given me a sliver of hope in humanity. Stay strong. Reality winnerz".

Meltdown will run from 9-18 Jun. Don't forget that CMU will be hosting a trio of panel discussions this Saturday, with topics chosen by M.I.A. Full information on who will be joining the debates on the power of sound, music and politics, and the impact of AI and big data on music consumption and music making is now online here.

Over the afternoon we will hear from Dr Dawn Rose from the University Of Hertfordshire, Rob Wood from Music Concierge, Ebenezer 'Slix' Ayerh from the Ruff Sqwad Arts Foundation, Jessica Straker from the Grime 4 Corbyn campaign, Tshepo Mokoena from Noisey, Brittney Bean from Tracks2, Ed Newton-Rex from Jukedeck and Dr Mick Grierson from Goldsmiths College. Admission is free.

And now, here's 'Goals'.

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Nadine Shah battles Yes Men on politically-charged new single
Nadina Shah has released a new single, 'Yes Men'. The track is taken from her new album, 'Holiday Destination', which is due for release on 25 Aug.

"Any time is a relevant one to release a piece of work that deals with the subject matter that 'Yes Men' does", says Shah of the song. "But this week, these upcoming days towards what could be the most important election this country has had in decades, it seems so pertinent to the point that it's violently vibrating with its own life".

She continues: "Yes Men are the people that sell the lies and convince us that their enemy is our enemy, they're the people who hide in plain sight behind bold typefaces on the covers of mainstream media outlets, the ones that would make us believe that the hand in power which is perpetually slapping you in the face is the hand that will someday pull us from a chasm of its own creation".

"There is a war going on but it's not the one the Yes Men will have us believe", she concludes. "The real war is the divisive untruths that the Yes Men push into our homes with their aim being for us to tear ourselves apart simply to protect their own top dollar arses".

Don't forget to vote today. Here's 'Yes Men'.

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Ionnalee releases new Com Truise collaboration
Ionnalee of Iamamiwhoami has released a new single, 'Not Human', a collaboration with Com Truise.

"Ionnalee is me, with a history stretching further back than iamamiwhoami, continuing my progress past it", Lee says of her latest project. "I collaborated mostly with myself and pushed through from co-producer to producer, experimenting with the mixing of organic and electronic genres, moods, soundscapes and beats, putting my voice in focus".

"It's about making music for the passion of it and releasing my work as it's intended to be received", she continues. "It's less money, but there are no boundaries, no deadlines and no censorship. I want to be able to look back on my full body of work in the larger perspective and know that it was made with pure intentions".

Watch the video for 'Not Human' here.

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J Hus announces UK tour dates
J Hus has announced that he will be touring the UK in November this year, following on from the recent release of his debut album 'Common Sense'.

Here are the dates:

1 Nov: Bristol, Academy
3 Nov: Leicester, Academy
4 Nov: Bournemouth, Academy
9 Nov: Birmingham, Academy
10 Nov: Manchester, Academy
11 Nov: Norwich, UEA
14 Nov: Nottingham, Rock City
15 Nov: London, Brixton Academy

Here's the video for the album's title track.

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PJ Harvey, Plan B, TLC, more

Other notable announcements and developments today...

• PJ Harvey and Egyptian musician Ramy Essam have released a new single, 'The Camp'. The release will raise funds to aid displaced children in the Lebanese Bekaa Valley.

• Plan B is back with a new single, 'In The Name Of Man'. Here's a 'making of' clip for the video too.

• TLC have released new single, 'Way Back', featuring Snoop Dogg. The album from whence it came will be released on 30 Jun.

• Mogwai have released the video for new single, 'Coolverine'.

• Ariel Pink has released a new single, 'Another Weekend'.

• Anna Of The North has announced that she will release her debut album, 'Lovers', on 8 Sep. Here's the title track. She'll also play Omeara in London on 26 Sep.

• Pat Dam Smyth has released the video for his recently CMU approved new single, 'Juliette'.

• Dream Wife have announced that they will be touring the UK in October. They've also put out a live video of 'Somebody' so you have an idea of what to expect.

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St Vincent turns agony aunt on Rookie podcast
Annie Clark, aka St Vincent, appears on the latest edition of Rookie magazine's podcast, offering up advice for teenagers worried about their levels of confidence.

Speaking in the 'Ask A Grown' section of the show, Clark answers a question from a listener who has been struggling with their confidence after recently moving to a new country.

"My uncle gave me advice when I was fifteen and also very shy and anxious. One thing that really helped me was to know that no one's looking at you, and no one cares, because everyone is obsessed with themselves. So that's one thing, to know that other people are feeling the same way as you".

She continued: "I think the 'faking it til you make it' thing is very real. If you don't have confidence, pretend to be a person who does, and eventually, you will have confidence because you'll see the fruits of your reaching out to people. But mainly no one's looking at you and no one cares, because they're all thinking of themselves".

Listen to the episode in full, which also features an interview with actor Condola Rashad, here.

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