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THE RIGHTS OF ARTISTS AND SONGWRITERS POST-ASSIGNMENT - PERFORMER AND MORAL RIGHTS Copyright provides creators with control over that which they create, but what happens when the creators themselves don't own the copyright in their work? Artists and songwriters who are no longer in control of their copyrights do still have some rights, sometimes by contract, and via performer and moral rights. With the latter in the news this week, CMU Trends considers what the law says about the rights of artists and songwriters after their copyrights have been assigned. [READ MORE] |
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THE VALUE OF MUSIC Rarely a week goes by in the music business news these days without at least one catalogue acquisition. But who - other than labels and publishers - is buying music rights, and why? Are there opportunities for individual artists and songwriters to do deals with professional investors? And how do you even value music rights? CMU Trends reviews the music rights market - past, present and future. [READ MORE] |
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MAKING MONEY FROM MUSIC MEDIA IN THE DIGITAL AGE While the challenges faced by the music industry since the mainstream adoption of the internet in the early 2000s have been widely documented, the music media has faced many of the same challenges too. CMU Trends reviews recent developments and trends in the music media business, and the ongoing challenges faced by media owners. [READ MORE] |
| TOP STORIES | Queensland Attorney-General advises consumers to "think twice" before using Viagogo READ IN THIS EMAIL | READ ON THE WEBSITE |
| LEGAL | Unfair dismissal claim filed after health facility treats Justin Bieber's bashed balls Katy Perry sued over toe injury at 2014 concert READ IN THIS EMAIL | READ ON THE WEBSITE |
| LABELS & PUBLISHERS | Goldman Sachs' latest prediction of a rosy future for streaming boosts major label valuations Sony/ATV launches new royalty reporting app for songwriters READ IN THIS EMAIL | READ ON THE WEBSITE |
| LIVE BUSINESS | Live Nation expands presence in Brazil with new hire READ IN THIS EMAIL | READ ON THE WEBSITE |
| MEDIA | Bauer brings The Hits back to local digital radio networks READ IN THIS EMAIL | READ ON THE WEBSITE |
| AND FINALLY... | Hackers post a naked Justin Bieber to Selena Gomez's Instagram READ IN THIS EMAIL | READ ON THE WEBSITE |
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NUCLEAR BLAST - PRESS OFFICER (LONDON) London office for well-established rock/metal label is looking for a dynamic and creative Press Officer to handle PR for it’s rapidly diversifying roster. The ideal candidate should have at least two years experience in a similar role with existing contacts within the rock/metal media. For more information and to apply click here. |
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9PR - JUNIOR ACCOUNT MANAGER (LONDON) 9PR are looking for a Junior Account Manager to work across print and online. Suitable candidates must have a demonstrable understanding of PR and ideally some music industry experience. This is an excellent opportunity within one of the UK’s leading music PR companies. For more information and to apply click here. |
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KILIMANJARO LIVE - BOX OFFICE MANAGERS (MANCHESTER) Kilimanjaro Live are looking for two experienced box office managers to work on a brand new family adventure in Manchester for a fixed term period, starting 25 Sep. There is the potential for the roles to be extended to include the London run following this period. For more information and to apply click here. |
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SJM CONCERTS - VIP MANAGER/CO-ORDINATOR (MANCHESTER) SJM offer exclusive VIP ticket packages across many of our major tours for artists such as Take That, One Direction, Little Mix and Coldplay which over the last year has amounted to over 60,000 packages. We are seeking a dynamic, self-motivated individual to successfully manage and develop our VIP department. For more information and to apply click here. |
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THE ORCHARD - SENIOR LABEL MANAGER (LONDON) The Orchard needs a Senior Label Manager who will be the first point of contact for a number of labels, artists and managers. Working with internal and external teams, you will craft, create and coordinate effective and bespoke campaigns, over a number of different projects and across different musical genres. For more information and to apply click here. |
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LEX RECORDS - DIGITAL MARKETING MANAGER (LONDON) Lex Records are looking for a full-time Digital Marketing Manager to work from our North London office. You would be working as part of the team to present our music to the public and helping to join up promo with sales. For more information and to apply click here. |
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THE DELTIC GROUP - SOCIAL MEDIA DEPARTMENT MANAGER (MILTON KEYNES) The Deltic Group are looking for a Social Media Department Manager to develop and shape the company's social media and marketing activity, working across 58 bars and clubs including well-known brands such as PRYZM, ATIK and Bar & Beyond. This is a newly created role and the successful candidate will have the opportunity to build a social media team. For more information and to apply click here. |
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THE DELTIC GROUP - SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGER (MILTON KEYNES) The Deltic Group are looking for Social Media Managers to manage, maintain and grow the company's social communities of circa 1.5 million 18-25-year olds. This is a new team of five that is being formed in order to deliver great content to inspire our social communities and deliver our social strategy. For more information and to apply click here. |
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NAME PR - PRESS ASSISTANT/ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE (LONDON) Name PR is looking to hire a Press Assistant/Account Executive. This is a fantastic opportunity for a bright individual with exceptional writing ability and a good grasp of the music business to work on some of the most interesting music issues and developments across the globe. For more information and to apply click here. |
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Digital Deals, Dollars And Trends - Explained! MASTERCLASS | Monday 18 September 2017, London | INFO This half day masterclass, presented by CMU MD and Business Editor Chris Cooke, will explain how digital music platforms are licensed and royalties distributed, as well as reviewing the digital market in 2017 and which services are leading in terms of users and revenue. |
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How The Music Business Works SEMINARS | from Monday 25 September 2017, London | INFO Our 'How The Music Business Works' programme consists of eight two-hour seminars which together cover: the various ways the music industry generates revenue, building and engaging a fanbase, the business partnerships artists form with music companies, and how the artist/label relationship is changing. |
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Enforcing Music Rights - Safe Harbours And Piracy MASTERCLASS | Monday 20 November 2017, London | INFO In this half day masterclass, CMU MD and Business Editor Chris Cooke will look at how the music industry enforces its copyrights, at the long-running battle with online music piracy, and at the controversy around the copyright safe harbour. |
Queensland Attorney-General advises consumers to "think twice" before using Viagogo
As the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission takes Viagogo to court over allegations the always controversial secondary ticketing site has made false or misleading representations, and engaged in misleading or deceptive conduct, two state governments in Australia have also spoken out about the ticket resale platform.
In Queensland, the state's Attorney-General and Minister For Justice Yvette D'Ath specifically advised consumers to "think twice" before buying tickets off the Viagogo site, reporting that the Queensland Office Of Fair Trading had received 43 complaints about the tickets site in the last year. The minister added that to date Viagogo had refused to engage with both Queensland's OFT and its own aggrieved customers.
The specific complaints against Viagogo being logged by consumer rights officials in Queensland are pretty familiar - including unclear and sky-high fees, and consumers being unaware that they are buying from a tout rather than an official seller of tickets to a show.
D'Ath said in a statement: "The number of complaints received and the failure of Viagogo to attempt to resolve them is very concerning. Viagogo's conduct to date shows they have little interest in resolving consumer complaints and are unwilling to act in good faith if something goes wrong".
The minister continued: "We expect overseas online businesses to operate in a transparent manner and deal promptly with legitimate consumer complaints. Until such time as Viagogo improves its business practices, I urge consumers to think twice before dealing with them".
D'Ath also reminded consumers about specific rules in Queensland regarding the resale of tickets for profit, including that "it is illegal to resell or buy resold tickets for more than 10% above face value for events at Queensland's major venues", and that the resale of tickets for next year's Commonwealth Games, which are being staged in the state, is not allowed.
Elsewhere, the Minister For Better Regulation in New South Wales, Matt Kean, has also spoken out against Viagogo, reporting that NSW Fair Trading had now made over 194 attempts to contact the ticket resale company, and that those communications "had gone vastly unanswered".
Kean told reporters: "Complaints to date have included delayed delivery, events being cancelled, heavily marked-up prices, hidden fees, and failure to provide refunds. With most complaints relating to two or more tickets, [NSW] Fair Trading has estimated around 600 consumers have been ripped off at a cost of almost $130,000".
Although very chatty in the early days of online ticket touting, Viagogo has employed a wall of silence for a number of years now, routinely ignoring angry customers and inquisitive politicians when they try to make contact. It remains to be seen how the company responds to the ACCC's legal action.
Meanwhile, as previously reported, the UK's FanFair Alliance recently published a guide to getting a refund from Viagogo, produced in partnership with Claire Turnham, who set up the Victims Of Viagogo group on Facebook after her own run-in with the site.
Unfair dismissal claim filed after health facility treats Justin Bieber's bashed balls
Justin Bieber's aching balls are back in court. Actually, I'm not sure Bieber's balls have ever been in court before. And they're not really in court this time either. Though his testicles are involved in a new legal claim for unfair dismissal that has been filed in New York.
This all relates to an incident back in May when Bieber made an emergency visit to a facility run by Northwell Health in Long Island after he injured his testicles playing football (proper football mind, none of that American football nonsense). It all turned out fine though, for Bieber at least, whose balls are all good.
However, it didn't turn out so fine for an employee at the Northwell Health facility called Kelly Lombardo, who was fired for allegedly accessing the pop star's medical files. She wasn't providing any treatment to Bieber, but was accused of sneaking at look at his medical documents in order to see whether there was any truth in a rumour that the pop boy had actually be in the building to be tested for a sexually transmitted disease.
Lombardo denies the allegations saying that, while she was aware of the STD rumour, she didn't believe that that was why Bieber visited Northwell Health, and either way she didn't attempt to access his files. Lombardo then says that when she told her bosses all of this, they implied to her that, because she was a "young female", she must have been curious as to why the pop star had visited her place of work.
The sacked employee has now filed a wrongful-termination claim with the New York Division Of Human Rights. Meanwhile her legal rep, David H Rosenberg, told the New York Post: "My client never accessed Mr Bieber's medical file. She was falsely accused of doing so on account of her gender".
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Katy Perry sued over toe injury at 2014 concert
A stage-hand is suing Katy Perry and Live Nation over allegations that she lost a toe after being injured working on the singer's Prismatic World Tour in 2014.
Christina Fish claims that she was working on the tour when it visited Raleigh in North Carolina that year. It was there that, after being asked to help move some staging, her toe was injured after said staging rolled over her foot.
In her legal claim, Fish says that although she could feel her shoe fill with blood as a result of the injury, she was only offered ice by her colleagues, with no one calling an ambulance. She therefore had to get a friend to take her to the emergency room. Her injured toe subsequently became gangrenous and eventually had to be amputated.
Fish is seeking damages for the injury, the impact it had on her life, and the emotional distress it caused. A number of stage productions companies are listed as defendants alongside show promoter Live Nation and Perry herself.
Goldman Sachs' latest prediction of a rosy future for streaming boosts major label valuations
The bankers at Goldman Sachs are optimistic about the potential of the streaming music market, even if you're not. Analysts at the bank have been monitoring the streaming sector via their 'Music In The Air' series of reports, and they now reckon that annual worldwide revenues from music streaming could be up to $28 billion by 2030, based on estimates that 847 million people could be paying to stream music by then.
The business model currently being employed by the likes of Spotify and Apple Music requires massive scale in order for those services to become profitable. By which we mean significant numbers of paying subscribers, premium rather than ad-funded free streaming being where most of the money is generated. But Goldman Sachs seems to be of the opinion that the streaming market can continue to grow sufficiently - more than eight-fold in terms of paying users - to allow such scale.
That optimistic level of growth would also be great news for the music rights companies too, of course, and most notably the two major global players Universal Music and Sony Music. Both have had their valuations increased by Goldman Sachs based on the latest streaming music forecasts - to approximately $23.5 billion and $19.5 billion respectively.
Though, of course, while it's true that the music right firms see the majority of the money that is generated by streaming, the income seen by the likes of Universal and Sony has to be shared with artists and songwriters.
More of the streaming money goes to the label side of the business, and under traditional record deals the label keeps the majority of that income. Though the growth of the label services sector and possible new investment options for artists may force even the majors to offer even new talent more favourable terms in the future.
Meanwhile lobbying is ongoing - within the industry and the political community - to review the legacy deals of heritage artists where the labels get to keep the vast majority of the money based on contracts written before anyone considered how much easier it would be to exploit catalogue in the streaming age.
That, plus continued uncertainties about the reach of the contract termination right under US copyright law, could all hit the bottom line of the majors, even if and as streaming income continues to boom.
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Sony/ATV launches new royalty reporting app for songwriters
Sony/ATV is the latest music publisher to be feeling all appy about the way it shares royalty information with its songwriters, with the music publishing major launching a new Android and iOS app via which to access its royalty portal SCORE.
Many music publishers and collecting societies have been busy in recent years trying to ensure their writers have better, more timely and easier-to-access data about how their song rights are generating income as part of a phenomenon historians call The Kobalt Effect.
With many artists often on the move, those efforts have increasingly focused on allowing writers to access royalty information via mobile devices. Sony/ATV says that its new SCORE app "means the company's songwriters and their representatives can obtain real-time access to their current royalty account and historic earnings whenever and wherever they are and in superlative detail".
Sony/ATV boss dude Marty Bandier said about the new app yesterday: "At Sony/ATV we are committed to providing our songwriters and their teams with an unrivalled level of transparency and service, which includes giving them access to the most highly-detailed royalty information available. The launch of the SCORE app is an important next step in us delivering on that promise and now means our writers can obtain an unsurpassed insight into their historic and current period earnings with one simple click".
Live Nation expands presence in Brazil with new hire
Live Nation has announced a new hire that sees the live giant further expand its presence in the Latin American market, and in particular Brazil.
Alexandre Faria is a veteran of the Brazilian live entertainment business, having been booking shows in the country, and elsewhere in South America, for over two decades, most recently for T4F Entretenimento.
He now becomes SVP Talent Buying for Live Nation in Brazil, based out of Sao Paulo and reporting into Bruce Moran, Live Nation's President Of Latin America.
Confirming the hire, Moran said: "Cities throughout Brazil are becoming key tour stops as more global artists visit their fans in Latin America. The knowledge, relationships and passion Alexandre Faria displays for promotions makes him a great asset to Live Nation as we continue to expand concert offerings to meet growing demand across Brazil".
Meanwhile Faria himself added: "I'm excited to join the Live Nation Latin America team during a time with so much opportunity and development. Together, we will bring the people of Brazil and Latin America standout performances from international artists as well as local talent".
International acts due in Brazil on Live Nation tours this autumn include U2, John Mayer, Coldplay and Bruno Mars.
Bauer brings The Hits back to local digital radio networks
Do you remember how, in 2015, Bauer Media took its The Hits radio station off the local DAB digital networks, instead using those DAB slots to launch 'channel 3' versions of its regional radio brands?
It meant we got stations like Radio City 3 in Liverpool, accompanying Bauer's other local stations in Merseyside, Radio City 1 and Radio City 2. The 'two' branded versions of Bauer's local stations were aimed at an older audience, while the 'three' branded versions were skewed towards younger listeners.
Well, forget I explained all that, because the 'channel three' stations are being shut down so that The Hits can return to the DAB network.
Why? Well, explains Bauer's Graham Bryce to RadioToday: "We're constantly evolving our business - this change allows us to reflect the needs of our audience and remain competitive, delivering outstanding, engaging and relevant content as a single stream across the UK".
Yeah, whatever you say Graham. It means that from this coming Friday the following stations will go in favour of The Hits brand: Clyde 3 in Glasgow, Forth 3 in Edinburgh, Hallam 3 in Sheffield, Key 3 in Manchester, Metro 3 in Newcastle, MFR 3 in Inverness, Aire 3 in Leeds, City 3 in Liverpool, Rock FM 3 in Preston, Tay 3 in Dundee, TFM 3 in Durham and Viking 3 in Hull.
Hackers post a naked Justin Bieber to Selena Gomez's Instagram
Selena Gomez admitted earlier this year that, since becoming the most followed celeb on Instagram, she has basically stepped back from photo sharing platform and now has an assistant managing the account.
Presumably said assistant had a fun Monday this week, given that was the day hackers successfully hacked their way into the actress/singer's Instragram profile and posted naked photos of her ex-boyfriend Justin Bieber.
The naked snaps weren't new. They were the full frontal pap shots first published in 2015 showing Bieber wandering around naked during a holiday in Bora Bora. The pop boy said at the time "I feel super violated". Though he added that it was "hilarious" that his own father had used the publication of the photos to positively critique his dick on Twitter.
The caption provided by the hackers under the photo on Gomez's Instagram profile was somewhat less complimentary. Though it did then direct people to another page on the social network adding "we run da scene", heavily implying a hack had occurred, and that neither Gomez nor her Instagram assistant had actually decided that now was the perfect time to dig out some old naked photographs of her ex-boyfriend and share them with the world at large.
Instead, the star's Instagrammer-in-chief quickly disabled the account, removed the Bieber cock shots, changed the password, and got back to the business of entertaining Gomez's 125 million Instagram followers with bland photos of fully clothed individuals. And so life can continue as normal.
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