Spotify ramping up London base with new R&D hub
Spotify is ramping up its London presence by launching a brand new research and development hub in the capital alongside its existing UK-based operations. And it will soon have a new base by the river for all this ramped-up activity. Exciting, isn't it? I mean, who doesn't love a bit of research and development? No one, that's who. All hail the research! Big up the developments! Don't get too distracted by the riverside views, though.

"London has made the decision of where to grow our next R&D hub an extremely easy one", says Spotify's VP Product Jason Richman. So well done London. Actually, I've lived here for 20 years, I could accept that praise on behalf of the city. Tell you what, I'll prepare a quote on London's behalf while Richman waffles on some more. Place your bets now: quite how "THRILLED" am I going to be about all this?

"It has a vibrant start-up community", continues Richman - 'it' being London remember - "and a wealth of great tech talent, making it the perfect location in which to build out our talented R&D team. London will be one of our major hubs where we'll house key investment areas including expansion of our subscription-commerce capabilities".

Imagine Spotify's "subscription-commerce capabilities" being expanded. And right here in London, before our very eyes. These are exciting times indeed. Now here comes my quote.

"London is the best place in the world for ambitious businesses looking to expand and our technology sector continues to go from strength to strength", says, erm, London mayor Sadiq Khan. Hang on, I thought I was going to speak for London. "Spotify is the latest in a long line of companies who realise that London simply cannot be beaten for innovation" he continues. Shut up Sadiq, I had this one covered. "We have a deep pool of tech talent and a complex business ecosystem that can't be replicated anywhere else". Booooring.

My quote would have been much better. But now - look - we're out of space. I can only apologise for this development and suggest you address your complaints to Sadiq Khan, City Hall, London. Let's just hope he doesn't fall into any deep pools of tech talent or get disappeared in some complex business ecosystem. Though if he keeps butting in with unnecessary quotes like this, neither of those things would come as a surprise.

BACK TO THE TOP OF THE BULLETIN

Glasgow's TRNSMT to extend to two weekends in 2018
The Glasgow-based TRNSMT festival, the sort-of but-not-quite replacement of T In The Park that launched earlier this year, will return across two weekends in 2018.

Similar to the London-based All Points East festival that is being launched by AEG next year, the 2018 edition of TRNSMT - which is produced by Live Nation's DF Concerts - will consist of a conventional three-day festival one weekend (29 Jun-1 Jul), and then some standalone shows at the same Glasgow Green site a week later (6+8 Jul).

DF Concerts boss Geoff Ellis told reporters: "After such a successful first year in 2017, we're absolutely delighted to extend the transmissions at TRNSMT Festival into two weekends to better the experience for the amazing TRNSMT fans next year".

Continuing, Ellis added: "We're bringing even more of the best artists from around the world to Glasgow Green and making sure Glasgow is the place to be this summer. The event is now established at the heart of the Scottish music calendar and we are looking forward to announcing the line-up for both weekends soon, as well as the additional festival aspects TRNSMT has to offer, so stay tuned!"

Backing the event, the leader of Glasgow City Council, Susan Aitken, remarked: "Cultural tourism is extremely important to us and a festival, held in the city's premier events space at Glasgow Green, will play a key role in bringing people to the city from all over Scotland and further afield. That is not only good news for the thousands of people who will enjoy the event; but for hundreds of city businesses in the tourism, leisure and hospitality sectors that support thousands of jobs".

--------------------------------------------------

Punk fans are most likely to be called Matt, says Ents 24
A punk fan is most likely to be called Matt, while your mate Tom probably likes electronic music, anyone called Chloe possibly digs hip hop, and Mike can't get enough of folk music. Oh, and classical fans are most likely to be called Margaret and metal-heads Dave.

These bold statements have come from live entertainment guide Ents24 and are based on it crunching a decade's worth of data gathered from its platform. Or in the words of Ents 24 itself: "These findings, while tongue-in-cheek, are derived from a vast wealth of data ... detailing millions of connections between fans, artists, venues, tickets and towns".

The data crunching has been done by the company's Ents24 Labs unit, which has just developed a thing called the 'event affinity engine' that tries to predict what kinds of events someone might be interested in based on where they live, their favourite bands and - why the hell not? - even what their name is. People can now play with this 'event affinity engine' via the Smart Gift Finder that Ents24 has just launched.

Says the company's Mark Wood: "In addition to our comprehensive events database, we have a wealth of historical user data here at Ents24. The goal of our new Labs initiative is to dig into and analyse that data with novel methods and cutting-edge tech, and then pass on the insights we gain to our customers and industry partners".

On the Smart Gift Finder tool, the firm's Adam Brooks adds: "Generalised gift guides that treat 'mums', 'dads', 'kids' etc as homogenous groups are blunt and ineffective tools, and so we were intent on reinventing them. In addition, we know that people favour experiences over products when buying and receiving gifts, but also that buying the right ticket for somebody else is not always an easy process".

BACK TO THE TOP OF THE BULLETIN

Uncut editor to move to Mojo
Bauer Media announced earlier this week that it has headhunted the current editor of Uncut - published by its rival Time Inc - to head up its own monthly music title Mojo. John Mulvey will join the mag next year after thirteen years with Uncut.

He basically takes over from Phil Alexander, who spent a long time leading all things Mojo, in later years as part of a wider remit working on various music titles at Bauer. Back in August, Alexander announced he was joining Wasted Talent, to help expand the independent magazine publisher's rock media operations which centre on Kerrang, the rock weekly the company acquired from Bauer earlier this year.

Commenting on his new job at Mojo, Mulvey said: "I'm really proud to have been offered the best job in British music journalism, and to be joining such a gifted and long-established team. For the last three decades, Mojo has been the essential read for serious music fans all over the world, a place of wisdom, insight and discovery that understands why great old records should always be cherished, and how great new records are being made every year. It'll be an honour to uphold Mojo's traditions and values and to lead it into the future".

His new boss at Bauer, Patrick Horton, added: "I'm delighted that John is joining Mojo. His track record in quality music journalism and in creating great products for music fans has been proven over many years. John will be joining the world's best music magazine at a pivotal moment as we develop and extend it to reach new audiences. I look forward to welcoming him into the Mojo team".

--------------------------------------------------

BBC to air performances from this year's Eden Sessions
Hurrah, the BBC has decided to air some coverage from someone else's music event, rather than pretending it's a promoter as well as broadcaster and putting on its own stupid festivals in a bid to fuck everything up for the music community it's meant to support.

It's the Eden Sessions that has secured some BBC love. The broadcaster is airing three performances that were staged as part of the Eden Sessions programme at the Eden Project in Cornwall earlier this year.

The first features Van Morrison and will air on BBC Four tonight at midnight, with sets by Madness and Bastille to follow in the coming weeks. Though don't worry about the late time slot, they'll all be available on the iPlayer too.

Says Eden's Marketing Director Rita Broe: "It's brilliant to give fans a chance to re-live these gigs and bring the Eden Sessions to a wider audience thanks to BBC Music. Van Morrison, Madness and Bastille were three massive highlights of an incredibly strong year for our summer shows".

BACK TO THE TOP OF THE BULLETIN

Lil Peep dies
US rapper Lil Peep has died, aged 21, from an apparent drug overdose. In the hours before his death, he posted a series of videos and photos to Instagram discussing the drugs he had taken, which included Xanax and mushrooms, while in some cases he seemed to swallow unidentified pills as he was recording.

Lil Peep made a name for himself via a series of mixtapes before releasing his debut album, 'Come Over When You're Sober (Part One)', in August this year. In his emotional lyrics he candidly discussed drug use and depression.

His manager Chase Ortega confirmed the news of the rapper's death, while tweeting: "I've been expecting this call for a year. Mother fuck".

Meanwhile, Sarah Stennett of First Access Entertainment, who had worked with Peep, said in a statement: "I am shocked and heartbroken. I do not believe Peep wanted to die, this is so tragic. He had big goals and dreams for the future which he had shared with me, his team, his family and his friends. He was highly intelligent, hugely creative, massively charismatic, gentle and charming. He had huge ambition and his career was flourishing".

She continued: "I have spoken to his mother and she asked me to convey that she is very, very proud of him and everything he was able to achieve in his short life. She is truly grateful to the fans and the people who have supported and loved him".

As news of his death spread, various other artists paid tribute. Diplo said that the rapper "had so much more to do", while Marshmello added that he was "the nicest person". Post Malone called him "a great friend" and said that his "music changed the world".

BACK TO THE TOP OF THE BULLETIN

Mariah Carey Christmas film coming to Amazon Prime
Amazon has announced a deal to secure the exclusive rights to stream a new animated short film based on Mariah Carey's festive classic 'All I Want For Christmas Is You'. The film is narrated by Carey, who also serves as its executive producer.

"I am THRILLED to have Amazon Prime Video as the exclusive streaming home of 'Mariah Carey's All I Want for Christmas Is You'", says Carey, sticking to the film's official full title even though it means referring to herself in the third person. "Amazon already brings my music to fans around the world, and now I am excited to share my holiday film with Amazon customers".

The film, based on a children's book of the same name, is available now to Amazon Prime members in the US and Canada.

Meanwhile, Carey has announced that the initial dates of her 2017 Christmas tour - which was due to begin in Canada tonight - have been cancelled, as she's developed a respiratory infection. Yeah, I always get ill at Christmas too.

In a statement, Carey said: "Just in time for the holiday gift-giving season, it seems I've received a present of my own; a lovely upper respiratory infection after last week's flu. You know there is nothing I love more than celebrating the holidays with my festive Christmas show, but I have to take my doctor's orders and rest until he says I can sing on stage".

BACK TO THE TOP OF THE BULLETIN

Sonar Festival celebrates 25th anniversary by inviting aliens to 50th
Spain's Sonar Festival celebrates its 25th anniversary next year. To mark the occasion, it's sending music from artists including Jean-Michel Jarre, Autechre, Holly Herndon and Nina Kraviz into space. If the project goes to plan, aliens could then deliver a response in time for the festival's 50th edition.

In partnership with METI International, an organisation that specialises in sending messages out to possible extra-terrestrials, the 'Sonar Calling GJ273b' project will take place in two parts, with a total of 33 pieces of music, each ten seconds in length - being transmitted to Luyten's Star, the closest star to Earth with a known potentially habitable exoplanet.

Luyten's Star is twelve light years away from us, possibly giving aliens time to receive, digest and return their own message within 25 years.

Eighteen pieces of music were transmitted from a base in Tromsø, Norway last month. These included a piece based on 'Close Encounters Of The Third Kind' by Jean-Michael Jarre, a tutorial in making a hit record by The Black Madonna, a take on the dual meaning of 'mir' in Russian (peace and world) by Nina Kraviz, and a cry to "please save us" from Laurel Halo.

A further fifteen pieces of music will be broadcast next April, three of which are yet to be chosen from public submissions.

Is this all such a good idea though? Are we opening ourselves up to alien attack by making them aware of our presence? Worry not, says the Sonar Calling website. Humanity's various transmissions, from radio to airport radars, have been leaking into space for 100 years. Those broadcasts have reached far further than these new ones already. If there is intelligent life out there, they've left us alone so far.

Of course, Modeselektor's recording of a car engine may be what finally tips them over the edge into making us shut the fuck up through some sort of 'Independence Day' style invasion. We'll just have to wait and see.

Find out more about the project, and submit your own music to be considered for space transmission, here. You can watch a short film about the project here too.

BACK TO THE TOP OF THE BULLETIN

Björk, Emeli Sande, Wiley, more

Other notable announcements and developments today...

• Björk has previewed a bit of a new song called 'Losss' on a "flute and air themed" mix she made for Mixmag.

•  Noel Gallagher's released another of those new songs he keeps insisting on puttingout. Here's 'It's A Beautiful World'.

• Emeli Sande and Giggs have released the video for their new single 'Higher', taken from her new EP 'Kingdom Coming'.

• A Perfect Circle have released the video for new track 'The Doomed'.

• Sofi Tukker have released new track 'Energia'.

• Screaming Females have released the video for new single 'Deeply'. Their new album, 'All At Once', is out on 23 Feb.

• Japanese bands Lovebites and FEMM will co-headline The Underworld in Camden on 27 Nov. You have to go, it will be awesome. Both acts have material out on JPU Records.

• Wiley has announced new UK tour dates for February, in addition to his Brixton Academy show at the beginning of March. Tickets are on sale now.

• Ben Folds has announced UK and Ireland tour dates for next May, which will see him perform solo. Tickets go on sale on 24 Nov.

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

BACK TO THE TOP OF THE BULLETIN

Beef Of The Week #381: Brian May v Barbara
Brian May, I am told, is a very nice man. And I'm sure he is. I've never personally met him though. So what I know of him these days, mainly, is that he's prone to a bit of a moan. And moans that are occasionally slightly ill-judged at that.

Not always, of course. Last year he complained on his blog about the tyranny of leaf blowers in Kensington, used by the council to (badly, he noted) clear the roads around his home. In 2015, he complained about the same council allowing so many of his neighbours to build "anti-social mega-basements", turning the area, he said, into a "hellhole". Both of those moans, while a little ranty, are about issues where I have sympathy with May.

And there's also his long-running campaigning for animal rights, particularly the protection of badgers, which he's often pushed forward with some humour. Like that time he turned an internet meme into a pop song.

Though in June this year, he had a rant on his blog about the redesign of British Airways' first class seating, which made it more difficult to look out of the window.

"I hate it", he wrote. "It costs an arm and a leg to travel this way and I feel that we no longer get our money's worth. In the old days you sat right next to the window and the view was wide and spectacular. Now they sit you about three feet from the window and so low down all you can see from your seat is a small patch of sky. It's boring - frustrating".

I get that if you fly a lot and can afford it, going first class is nice. And as someone who prefers to sit by the window on planes, I do understand why he'd rather be able to see out. Though ranting about rejigs in first class in a "who's with me?" style, when the vast majority of those reading have to tolerate much more cramp conditions - with or without a view - whenever they fly, does drift somewhat into the misjudged zone.

But this isn't a Beef Of The Recent Past column, so I should probably start getting to the point. So, here goes. Brian May is a big advocate of copyright. He thinks copyright is just great. And that the world would be a much better place if everyone would respect it more.

Back in 2012, he joined the motley crew of Andrew Lloyd-Webber, Elton John, Simon Cowell, Roger Daltrey, Pete Townshend, Robert Plant, Professor Green, Tinie Tempah and his mate Roger Taylor in writing to then Prime Minister David Cameron to ask that he better enforce copyright laws.

His own blog also contains plenty of copyright notices. Including one at the top of each page declaring that you should not reproduce anything from said website without express permission. Do you know, I didn't get his permission to reproduce any of those quotes above. Though I'm going to cite the news reporting copyright exception. Because yes, the Beef Of The Week is definitely news.

Though, by quoting copyright technicalities, that does make me a bit like Donald Trump. Last year May moaned about the then US presidential hopeful using a Queen song at one of his rallies. But Trump can play whatever he likes at his rallies providing the venue has the relevant blanket licences from the US collecting societies. That's possibly ethically wrong, given the political context, but it's what copyright law says.

Whatever, my point is, Brian May really gets the hump when people use his stuff without expressly asking him first. Which made it seem slightly hypocritical when he got all angry this week after someone else objected to him using their stuff.

This all began when May got a takedown notice on Instagram after he posted someone else's photo without permission. What followed was probably a good advert for not going near the internet when you're pissed off about something.

May had posted a photo to his Instagram account and then overnight the apparent owner of said photo had reported the posting as copyright infringement. May's account had been disabled as a result, and it had taken him 45 minutes to resolve the matter and get it up and running again. Which, whoever is in the right or wrong here, is going to be annoying. And this was the point at which he decided to address the matter publicly.

"How RUDE", he wrote in a new Instagram post. "I'm usually very careful to credit anyone whose photos I post - but in this case, at the end of the day, I must have forgotten".

He went on: "Rather than write to me and say, 'Dear Brian, you seem to have forgotten to credit me on this picture', this person - Barbara Kremer is her name - reported me to Instagram and they not only took the picture down but disabled my whole account until I'd dealt with the issue - which took about 45 minutes of my time that I could not afford because the link refused to work on my phone".

The photo in question appears to have been taken by a fan from the audience at a Queen show. As far as I can tell, the woman in question is not a professional photographer, just a private individual, so naming her in this rant does seem like a bit of a shitty thing to do, as it could be seen as him calling on his fanbase to bully Barbara further. Something he might have thought about had he not written his rant while still in a rage. He wasn't finished taking her to task, either.

"What an incredibly unfriendly act from you, Barbara", he said. "You not only took my picture and are evidently exploiting my image - and making money off me without so much as a 'by your leave' - but you actually stop me using a picture of myself! What a crazy world we live in these days. All I can say is that if you feel you were 'violated', I feel pretty violated myself. To the point where if I ever discover that you are at one of our concerts in future, look out, because, logically, I will be tempted to have you thrown out".

There is zero evidence that Barbara has ever made, or attempted to make, any money out of this photograph, as far as I can tell. Just because she doesn't want other people posting her photos, doesn't mean she's on the make. Just as simply appearing in a photo doesn't automatically give you the right to do whatever you want with it.

May also started off his diatribe, of course, by saying that he had simply forgotten to credit the photographer in this case, as if the credit would have put him in the clear.

However, credits, while nice - and arguably obliged under the moral rights of copyright law - do not replace the need to ask for someone's permission before using their creative work. He could have stamped Barbara's name all over the photo, but she would still have been within her rights to issue a takedown notice.

The thing May and his pop star buddies were particularly pushing for in that letter to David Cameron back in 2012 was for his government to implement certain elements of the 2010 Digital Economy Act. In particular, systems for dealing with online copyright infringement.

"Competition in the creative sector is in talent and innovation, not labour costs or raw materials", they said. "We can realise this potential only if we have a strong domestic copyright framework, so that UK creative industries can earn a fair return on their huge investments creating original content. Illegal activity online must be pushed to the margins. This will benefit consumers, giving confidence they are buying safely online from legal websites".

You'd think, therefore, May would be excited to see a copyright notification system in action for himself. Such systems aren't perfect - hence all the safe harbour shouting of late - but at least here was a system via which a copyright owner, like Barbara, could protect her content online if and when it was used without licence. Hurrah for the system!

Though, not long after his Barbara rant, May was back complaining that he'd found an account on Instagram pretending to be him and using his photos without permission. "I've asked the owner of the site to desist but got no response", he wrote. "And so far we don't seem to have been able to get Instagram to take action".

Indeed, that account is still there now, so perhaps the system doesn't work after all. Boo. Barbara's been in touch too, and it seems the system worked a little too well for her.

"I just heard from the lady, Barbara, who took the photo of me", says May. "Now I can see that it's a whole catalogue of misunderstandings and slight misjudgements all round. Which added up to a big mess. Her message was delightful - and honest and bravely apologetic. I have to say I sincerely regret my part in it too, and I have told her so".

Either way, whatever we think about copyright systems, I think we can reaffirm our previous statement: don't post things on social media while you're angry.

He continues: "I think there are lessons to be learned from the whole thing, and I'm hoping that Barbara and I can take a moment and together come up with some strategies for other people who find themselves in this situation (and there must be many) - to try to clear the way for better understanding in future. I've certainly learned some lessons already".

Concluding, and possibly noting that his naming of Barbara had resulted in a bit of bullying, he said: "Please let's ALL hold out a hand to Barbara. We can explain later, but she never intended things to happen the way they did".

So that's all worked out just fine then. Maybe Barbara will even allow Brian to re-post her photo of him now. And May's plane issue seems to have been fixed too. He appears to have switched to private jets. Such a sensible move - who's with me?

BACK TO THE TOP OF THE BULLETIN