The Turtles lose pre-1972 battle in Florida
The big pre-1972 royalty question has been answered in Florida, and one time Turtles Flo & Eddie won't be getting any royalties when their 1960s hits get played on the radio there, whether that's terrestrial, satellite or online radio. The state's Supreme Court has ruled that there is no performing right as part of the sound recording copyright under Florida law.

As much previously reported, US-wide federal copyright law is weird - by global standards - in that it doesn't provide a general performing right as part of the sound recording copyright, just a much narrower digital performing right.

This means that when records get played on AM/FM radio, the station doesn't need to pay any royalties to the artist or the label (just the songwriter and the publisher for use of the accompanying song). The digital performing right applies to satellite and online radio services - including personalised radio platforms like Pandora - meaning that those platforms need to pay royalties to artists and labels, as well as songwriters and publishers.

However, US-wide federal copyright law only applies to recordings released since 1972. Older recordings still in copyright are protected by state laws, most of which are somewhat vague as to whether or not a general performing right apply. Though these mainly older state-level copyright rules certainly don't make any distinction between terrestrial and digital radio.

What we do know is that AM/FM radio has never paid recording royalties on golden oldies either. So, with no specific mention of digital services in the state-level laws, the likes of Pandora and satellite broadcaster Sirius XM decided that while they had to pay royalties to artists and labels on post-1972 catalogue, that wasn't the case for older tracks.

Many in the music community weren't impressed with that conclusion however. And to that end Flo & Eddie, former members of 1960s group The Turtles, went legal in three states: California, New York and Florida.

They argued that, actually, there was a general performing right for sound recordings under those state's copyright regimes, even though no one had ever previously enforced it. Therefore the fact digital services weren't mentioned in state laws was irrelevant, Pandora and Sirius still owned them money.

In something of a dramatic move, in 2014 the courts in California sided with Flo & Eddie on this point. And then, for a time, so did the courts in New York.

This sparked a flurry of legal wrangling and out-of-court negotiations, with both Pandora and Sirius reaching settlements over golden oldie royalties with the majors. Sirius also reached a deal with Flo & Eddie, though subject to various outstanding court cases on the issue, especially in New York and Florida.

It's the latter that reached a resolution yesterday, with the state's Supreme Court concurring with an earlier ruling that said there is no performing right for sound recordings under Florida's copyright laws.

Judge Charles Canady wrote in the Supreme Court's ruling on this question: "Flo & Eddie essentially asks this court to recognise an unworkable common law right in pre-1972 sound recordings that is broader than any right ever previously recognised in any sound recording. Doing so would require this court to, among other things, ignore the lengthy and well-documented history of this topic - something we decline to do".

The judgement went on: "Florida common law has never previously recognised an exclusive right of public performance for sound recordings. To recognise such a right for the first time today would be an inherently legislative task. Such a decision would have an immediate impact on consumers beyond Florida's borders and would affect numerous stakeholders who are not parties to this suit".

As previously reported, late last year appeal judges in New York overturned an earlier ruling suggesting there was a performing right under that state's copyright law.

That decision was made mainly on the basis that it would be silly to suggest there had been a performing right lingering in the state's copyright regime all these years that no artist or label had ever thought to enforce. Because if there was a general performing right for sound recordings at a state level, AM/FM stations should have been paying royalties on pre-1972 tracks too.

With Florida's ultimate ruling now in, all eyes are now back on California, the state where it was originally declared the sound recording copyright did come with some performing rights. The issue has been bounced up to Supreme Court there too via litigation involving Pandora.

If the top court now decides there isn't a performing right in California after all, that will throw up all sorts of questions about the settlements previously reached on this issue. Meanwhile, if the Californian Supreme Court does endorse the lower court ruling, that will mean performing right royalties are due on sound recordings in one American state but not others, which is rather unsatisfactory, and possibly even unconstitutional.

Of course, concurrent to all this are ongoing lobbying efforts by the music industry in Washington to [a] apply federal copyright rules like the digital performing right to all copyright-protected recordings, not just those released since 1972, and [b] to get a general performing right added to federal copyright law, so that AM/FM radio would have to start paying royalties to artist and labels on all the tracks they play.

So, plenty still to come on all this. Though, for the time being, a legal rep for Sirius has unsurprisingly welcomed this week's ruling in Florida. Says lawyer David Gersten: "Justice Canady did a superb job of addressing everything. As I suspected, the district court judge, Judge Gayles, got it right. I think it really settles the issue in the state of Florida. It gets in line certainly with New York. It's just a good, common-sense opinion".

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Model sues Cardi B over mixtape artwork
Cardi B is reportedly being sued by a model who features on the cover of her latest mixtape, 'Gansta Bitch Music Vol 1', appearing to perform oral sex on the rapper.

Although Kevin Brophy's face cannot be seen in the image, he says that his distinctive back tattoos confirm that it is him in the foreground of the picture. According to TMZ, Brophy did not model for the artwork, and only became aware of it when a friend told him that they'd seen him "cunnilinging this rapper called Cardi B".

He adds that there was further confirmation that it was his back superimposed onto the shot of Cardi B - not to mention embarrassment - when his young son saw the image and wanted to know "what Daddy was doing". The boy just won't drop it, according to the report.

Brody says that he has had his tattoo of a tiger fighting a snake for over ten years, but has never met Cardi B or anyone on her team. In a lawsuit, he is suing the rapper and her management for $5 million.

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Music For Nations signs Bury Tomorrow and Blanket
Sony Music's metal label Music For Nations has announced two new signings, in the form of post-rock band Blanket and metalcore act Bury Tomorrow. Under their deal, Blanket will record their debut album for the label, while Bury Tomorrow are getting to work on their fifth.

"To sign to a label as important and influential as Music For Nations seemed like an unobtainable dream for us", says Blanket's Bobby Pook. "This is something that we've all wanted since we started playing music. The team at the label share our vision and aspirations of what we want this band to be. We're putting our all into this record and we are excited to show it to the world".

Meanwhile Bury Tomorrow's Daniel Winter-Bates adds: "We are really excited to form a new partnership with Sony and Music For Nations. After ten years as a band, we've found a team that are on our page. The enthusiasm, knowledge and direction they've shown, made it a no brainer to move forward with this partnership".

Music For Nations boss Julie Weir says: "It's an exciting time for MFN - with a powerful chunk of heavy heritage behind us, we are looking to the future with a broad stable of new and talented artists that excite us both as fans and industry. We are looking forward to getting our teeth into the global plans for both Blanket and Bury Tomorrow".

As previously reported, Music For Nations was revived as a reissues label in 2015, before being made a frontline operation again, with Visible Noise founder Weir in charge, in April last year.

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Spotify ripping up video strategy and starting again
Spotify's new video boss Courtney Holt is ripping it all up and starting again, according to Bloomberg. The former MTV and MySpace exec has reportedly cancelled all existing video-based programmes being made for the streaming firm - including some yet to be published - in order to write a whole new video strategy, at least the company's third.

Spotify has been attempting to get some video content off the ground for some time, with little success, despite some high profile collaborations. Original content is a way for Spotify to distinguish itself from rival streaming platforms - which all have a very similar catalogue of tracks on offer - and could also ultimately reduce the streaming platform's royalty obligations, if more users spend more time consuming audio or video the service itself owns.

Video is obviously attractive, as it's where lots of consumer attention and advertising money has been moving of late. We all know that video has been a priority at Facebook for a while, as it vies with Google's YouTube to be the premiere destination for video content online.

To date, Spotify has tried both licensing video content in from other sources and making its own original shows, but nothing has really grabbed the attention of its users. That may be because Spotify subscribers primarily expect and want audio from the service. Though there has also arguably been a lack of promotion within the Spotify platform itself for its video offerings. Many avid users are probably still unaware of Spotify's video section - and even more so the podcasts section, which also sits under Holt's remit.

Charged with the task of finally making video a thing on Spotify, Bloomberg's sources say that Holt is considering "the creation of a new format, code-named Spotlight, that combines audio, images and video". Recent rumours about the streaming firm's video strategy also suggested original content being created around the company's more successful playlist brands.

It remains to be seen how much support Holt gets from his new employer, both in terms of resource and profile within the Spotify app.

Though with Wall Street taking an ever bigger interest in the company as it plans to list on the New York Stock Exchange, content that could reduce royalty obligations, provide market differentiation, and possibly get big brands interested too, will likely go down well with the investment community. Providing some people tune in.

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Pharrell invests in ROLI, becomes Chief Creative Officer
You know how there was that trend a few years ago for giving celebrities snazzy job titles at companies, even though they were definitely never going to do any work there? Well, entirely conversely to that, Pharrell Williams has been named Chief Creative Officer at British music tech start-up ROLI.

ROLI make a load of super fucking cool digital instruments that I can neither afford nor really play, but still want to own more than anything. Williams can both afford and play them, and has now become an investor in the company, as well as taking on the PR-friendly job title.

"Music touches all of us, and for a long time I've been passionate about finding ways to share the power of music with more people", says Williams. "When I met Roland [Lamb, company founder] and ROLI, I immediately felt we were working towards exactly the same goals, and so I'm super excited that we're kicking off this partnership".

The first part of that partnership - beyond the money and the job title - is a new collection of sounds from Williams' hit 'Happy', which can be used on ROLI's instruments and its 'Noise' app. Find out more here.

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Fever Ray releases surprise new album, Plunge
Fever Ray, aka The Knife's Karin Dreijer, has announced her second album, the follow-up to her 2009 debut. When's it out? Right now, mate. Right now. No, really. I know. I know! You wait eight years for an album and suddenly it's just there. It's all very exciting.

Dreijer released new single 'To The Moon And Back' earlier this week, which was quite enough excitement to be getting on with. But then, yesterday, came the news out of the blue that a whole album was now available. I think we should all have a sit down. And once you are sitting down, the new album announcement comes accompanied by a fairly long statement, so you can read that too...

"The decision to fall is harder than the fall itself. It is a joy to meet you. I don't know how to feel about that. But already my repetitions are beginning. Do I confuse itch and ache? Here's this helpful quiz to discover which it is, dedicated to a global team of heartbroken self-diagnosers that stretches from the threadbare social democracies in the north to the liberated markets in the west".

"The object of the song is love and the subject of the song is loss, or object and subject are genetically alike. This is how it sounds, the excavated voice, the archaeological dig one thousand or eight years into the future, when the bodies preserved in this auditory mud have become exemplary of their time and can no longer hurt or help each other. Then I will know how to love you and be loved by you".

"The song, the lover, is interested in objectifying itself, herself. The lover objectifies herself as music. The song is a prosthesis that extends like a limb into the gut and pulls out the half-digested heart, it's kind of gothic and kind of a shame. I learn gratefully in music that the decision to fall is harder than the fall itself, the anticipation of falling; I'm embarrassed by gravity is what I mean by 'I put on weight'".

"The parent and the lover momentarily blurring, then some kind of travel sickness, and later I am home without remembering what happened. It used to bother me that violence is as intimate as love, but I see that you have resolved that problem by dissolving the two each into the other. Whatever is important to hide must be important. Whatever is important to forget".

"Listen! I'm looking for a girl who stands ten feet tall and has teeth like razors; I'm looking for a girl who could play the bored receptionist in the lobby of the afterlife, crossing the river of forgetting every morning and evening and back into the world of the living, where I will wait with flowers and an assortment of adult toys. Could this be you?"

"I'm looking for a girl to affirm my reality, or cancel it. Me: I am beautifully dressed. I am a reflective surface. I am the president. Welcome to my body, my building, the border. The escalators only go up. You get down again by throwing yourself off the roof. And the song's refrain there to catch you if you're lucky".

"Listen! Sex is work, love is work, work is sex, work is love, the magical conversion of 'is' given impossible power by its delivery in music. We have travelled together these minutes and years now and I am hopeful that we have finally solved this complicated problem of how to become... Even now at my age, preserved as an example in this perfect slab of ice, can you believe I am still waiting to become real? I had a plan for how sex or at least some kind of heartfelt physical intensity could save us but I threw it off the roof along with the body and it fell into the silence that limns the edge of the song".

"Inside the architecture of repetition that constitutes both a song and a life, taken objectively and not subjectively, there are resonances, assurances, bonds and securities. Sex and music stand guard over a shared silence under the noise, either because there is nothing or too much to say. It is still possible to negotiate between pain and pleasure, on the vanishing edges of pain and of pleasure, as if cutting a deal, the best deal, a beautiful deal. There are no simple binaries, and I don't only mean gender, that's old news; I mean that I am radiating and obsessed with the daydream hurt that I imagine your voice alone could cause me, now that I live in its zone, and I am too far gone to distinguish between sharpness and softness".

"Baby, I hope one of us will hypnotise the other. Then the one less hypnotised will kill the other. The after everyone is dead and we establish the scene, the next beginning, ending, beginning, ending. A pattern can only last its own forever and the song on repeat follows me around the city. The heart is the bloodiest organ and its rhythmic pacing and growling troubles the perception like movement at the edge of the vision mistaken for a creature. It is too early to fall in love, but all of history has happened and now there seems to be only the remainder to be arranged and rearranged. 'We waited far too long'. It's OK, everyone is here now".

I think that should have cleared up any questions you might have had. There's going to be a tour in 2018 too.

In the unlikely event you aren't already listening to the new album, titled 'Plunge', here's the video for 'To The Moon And Back'.

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MØ releases surprise new EP, When I Was Young
Well, it's just a surprise release bonanza today, isn't it? First Fever Ray, now MØ has released a new EP out of nowhere. So that's two. How many would constitute a bonanza? Let's just say that's enough.

MØ announced new EP 'When I Was Young', alongside a track of the same name as her new single, last night. The release is her first new collection of songs since 2014 debut album 'No Mythologies To Follow'.

Speaking about the new EP, MØ says: "Making the EP has been such a nice flashback experience because I forgot about the little things; how you put the songs together, the lyrics, the song titles and the artwork. Just being in the bubble of that energy is so fucking awesome. It's so amazing to be able to create a universe".

She goes on: "These years have been a learning process about what's important, and that's what this EP reflects. These songs were chosen instinctively, and by a gut feeling really, but they're all about both looking back and forward".

Here's the title track, 'When I Was Young'.

MØ has also announced UK and Ireland tour dates for next year, tickets for which are on sale now:

26 Mar: Dublin, Olympia Theatre
27 Mar: Belfast, Mandela Hall
28 Mar: Manchester, Ritz
30 Mar: Birmingham, Institute
31 Mar: Glasgow, ABC
4 Apr: London, Brixton Academy
5 Apr: Norwich, UEA
7 Apr: Bristol, Academy

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Dream Wife announce debut album
Dream Wife have announced that they will release their eponymous debut album on 26 Jan through Lucky Number.

Speaking about their name, and the name of the album, the band say: "It's a commentary on the objectification of women; the 1950s American Dream stereotype package. Having the dream house, the dream car and the dream wife. We want to flip the script on that. Women aren't objects; we don't just fit into one mould".

They go on: "At the start, we joked around calling each other our wives, but by supporting one another, celebrating achievements together and finding strength in female solidarity we're reclaiming the concept of a 'wife'. Being in a band is a marriage in itself".

Along with the announcement, the trio have released new single, 'Let's Make Out'. Have a listen to that here.

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Kerrang, Noel Gallagher, Taylor Swift, more

Other notable announcements and developments today...

• Sam Coare has been named the new editor of Kerrang. Having had various roles at the magazine over the last five years, Coare has been acting editor since the departure of James McMahon at the end of August.

• Noel Gallagher and those High Flying Birds of his have released a new single, 'Fort Knox'. The track is the opener of upcoming new album, 'Who Built The Moon?'

• Taylor Swift is just releasing new songs all over the place at the moment. Here's new single '...Ready For It?'

• Sam Smith has released new single 'Burning', which is apparently his favourite song on new album 'The Thrill Of It All'.

• First Aid Kit have announced that they will release new album, 'Ruins', on 19 Jan. They've also released a new song, it's a shame. I mean they've also released a new song, 'It's A Shame'.

• Teleman have released another track off their upcoming 'Fünf' EP. Produced by Oli Bayston of Boxed In, this is 'Repeater'.

• Shopping have announced that they will release their new album, 'The Official Body, on 19 Jan. Here's new single, 'The Hype'.

• Back on the solo trail, Gary Barlow has announced now that he will play the Eden Sessions at the Eden Project in Cornwall next year. His show will take place on 6 Jun.

• Check out our weekly Spotify playlist of new music featured in the CMU Daily - updated every Friday.

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Beef Of The Week #378: You v Oasis puns
I think one of the top ten worst things about social media - possibly even higher up than birthdays on Facebook and the existence of Twitter - is the trend for law enforcers to attempt to engage humorously with the public online.

The only time I ever want to engage with the police on social media is when I need to know why a helicopter is hovering over my house in the middle of the night and how long it might take to go the fuck away. But every local police HQ in the country now has to have its own Twitter and Facebook accounts where they attempt to make the public feel safer through the medium of jokes and chit chat.

This is how, last Sunday, Swindon North Police came to post on Facebook: "You know it's going to be one of those shifts when you get a report of 'a Noel Gallagher lookalike swigging from a bottle of White Lightning and licking windows!'"

Does the public at large really need to know this? Why are our tax quids not being spent on ensuring that the windows of Swindon are cheap cider-soaked spit free, rather than on maintaining a social media presence? The Swindon cops didn't even follow their post up to say whether or not the man had been apprehended. This is no public service, it's just fear mongering about Noel Gallagher lookalikes.

How, though, do we know that it was a lookalike and not the actual Noel Gallagher? Might he have been drunkenly stalking the streets of Swindon? He's got a new album to promote, after all. No, I know that it wasn't the real Noel Gallagher, of course, because he said so on social fucking media.

After word got to him about the all-important Swindon police Facebook update via a local media report, Gallagher posted on Instagram: "Nowt to do with me mate. I'm still away on holiday".

By "holiday", he means he's on tour in South America. That's not a holiday, it's work. He'll get nowhere with that lax attitude.

Still, in treating the jaunt like a holiday, it does mean we get some holiday snaps from Noel, proving that he's definitely not in Swindon. Here he is in Colombia doing... look, I don't know what's happening in this picture, but it's in Colombia and that's what's important. And here he is flying a plane over Sao Paolo.

"But Andrew", I here you say. "This column is supposed to focus on music-based disputes. What exactly is the beef here? Is it Noel versus the lookalike? Or the police versus Noel? Or is there, in fact, no real beef to report on, which is why you contrived one between yourself and the police right at the beginning?"

Well, first of all, don't call me Andrew. You're not my mum. Unless you happen to be the one avid reader of this column who is my mum. In which case, Mother, please stop interrupting me when I'm trying to work.

Second of all, yes, I did open this article with an argumentative tone in order to distract you from the fact that I just saw a thing that made me laugh that I wanted to write about, even though it doesn't really fit with the remit of Beef Of The Week. Whatever, you try writing nearly 400 of these things and see how stringently you end up holding to the rules.

Anyway, I haven't even got to the end yet. You haven't had the big reveal. I'm about to throw in a major plot twist. There is a beef after all, you see. And that beef is: All Of You versus Wiltshire Police.

That's right, Swindon North Police apparently now too busy attempting to track down the window licker - possibly following a lead that the offender was actually an Aphex Twin fan - it fell to someone at the main Wiltshire Police office to come up with a statement when Metro came knocking.

"We received reports of a man resembling Noel Gallagher in Swindon at around 5.30pm yesterday who appeared to be under the influence of alcohol and was licking windows - not a Wonderwall and he may have been Half The World Away", they sniggered.

"It's believed he was with another person causing a general nuisance", they went on. "The incident was nowhere near the Oasis, but in the town centre, near the Wyvern Theatre. If anyone heard or saw anything suspicious in the area, please Don't Look Back In Anger but contact us on 101".

I mean, the state of that. There's an Oasis Leisure Centre in Swindon, by the way. Jokes are always better when they require local knowledge, don't you think?

See, you're enraged now, aren't you? Not only do we get jokey chit chat on the socials, the police pile on the pop puns even when talking to proper old school media. That's really got your goat. And I totally manipulated you into that situation.

This is like the end of 'Seven', isn't it? Except, instead of a head in a box, I gave you a load of bad Oasis puns on a screen. I am Keyser Söze. No wait, wrong film. It doesn't matter, the main thing is that I am now recognised as a master of mind control. Good, I'm glad we're all agreed on that.

Speaking of Aphex Twin and 'Windowlicker' - which you were - that track soundtracks a new road safety advert that came out this week. That doesn't really fit in with any of this either, but it's nice to finish with a video.

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