PRS confirms over-payment email to members is genuine
PRS For Music has confirmed that an email alerting some of the UK collecting society's members that they have been overpaid is genuine.

Live royalties paid out to some PRS members last week that had been collected under the Gigs And Clubs scheme were too high, resulting in an email going out to affected members requesting that the overpayment be returned. Some members then questioned if the email was real, concerned that it could be a scam.

PRS represents the performing rights of its members' songs and collects whenever those rights are exploited, including from live performances of said works. The society then passes the collected royalties onto its members each quarter.

It's not known why royalties linked to the Gigs And Clubs Scheme - which covers small shows in grassroots venues - were miscalculated on the latest distribution run, in some cases paying out sums ten times higher than intended.

PRS members who also work for the society are believed to have spotted the error at the last minute, after noticing over-payments on their own accounts. It was too late to stop the royalty distribution from going out, so emails were sent out to affected members to coincide with payments arriving in their bank accounts.

The apologetic email told affected members that an error had resulted in overpayment and then requested that the sum that had been overpaid be returned. A number of PRS members took to social media to question whether the email was genuine or if it was scam designed to defraud money out of grassroots songwriters. The society's verified Twitter account stated numerous times "we can confirm that we did email you yesterday".

PRS has subsequently confirmed to CMU that the emails about over-payments are genuine. A spokesperson said: "We recently highlighted an issue to a small number of our members regarding the calculation of their live performance royalties, taking immediate steps to inform them as soon as we were able to. Unfortunately, the discovery of the issue happened at a point in our distribution process where we were unable to recall it. Our membership team were in contact with the affected members to explain the situation ahead of royalties arriving in their accounts, and we are sincerely sorry for and regret the inconvenience this has caused them".

Meanwhile Vick Bain, CEO of the British Academy Of Songwriters, Composers and Authors, said to CMU about the error: "This is a pain for writers and I would be disappointed if this error had affected me personally. PRS For Music technically have one job to do, and that is to make timely and accurate royalty payments to its members. However we live in an imperfect world and sometimes mistakes happen, especially given the sheer complexity of the job PRS increasingly have to do".

She goes on: "How they go about communicating with members when such occurrences happen is critical. The letters that went out to the affected writers requested that they transfer the money back to PRS, which they are perfectly entitled to do - it is in their membership rules that they can reclaim monies given in error. However these letters appear to have caused suspicion because nowadays anyone asking for money and giving bank account details makes people immediately think it is a scam".

Bain concludes: "I hope PRS can reassure writers this has been a genuine error and resolve this issue with the writers concerned quickly and compassionately. And then they need to build up trust again in ensuring and delivering to the high standards demanded of them".

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Record industry's MegaUpload litigation postponed yet again
Lawsuits being pursued by the US record and movie industries against long defunct file-transfer website MegaUpload will remain on ice following another court ruling postponing the civil action because of delays in the concurrent criminal proceedings.

MegaUpload was shutdown by the US authorities on copyright grounds all the way back in 2012. Six years on prosecutors in America are still trying to extradite the company's founder Kim Dotcom and some of his former colleagues from New Zealand to face criminal charges in the US.

Courts in New Zealand have given the go ahead for said extradition, though Dotcom et al are yet to exhaust all their routes of appeal. Dotcom himself recently declared the extradition attempt "over" after New Zealand's Human Rights Tribunal ruled that the country's government was wrong to refuse to hand over various documents requested by the MegaUpload chief in 2015.

The Recording Industry Association Of America and the Motion Picture Association Of America both sued MegaUpload for copyright infringement back in 2014. The civil cases were put on temporary hold by the courts because they might interfere with the criminal case against Dotcom and his gang.

That temporary hold has now been extended on multiple occasions, and earlier this month the litigation was again pushed back by another six months.

The record and movie companies previously expressed concerns that all these delays might mean that evidence central to the case - ie servers formally used by MegaUpload that have been gathering dust for six years now - would become inaccessible. But an agreement was reached on how those servers might be backed up, meaning there is now less concern about the civil action being pushed back yet again.

Though it is starting to feel like the concept of illegally sharing music and movie files over the internet might feel very old fashioned indeed by the time these cases ever get to court.

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Collage's Uptown Funk song-theft litigation dismissed
One of the lawsuits in relation to Bruno Mars and Mark Ronson track 'Uptown Funk' has been dismissed at the request of all parties.

An American electro-funk band called Collage sued Mars and Ronson in 2016, claiming that 2014 hit 'Uptown Funk' ripped off their 1983 single 'Young Girls'. Only one member of Collage is still alive, Larry White, though the estates of his two former bandmates were also listed as plaintiffs on the action.

They weren't the first musicians of old to accuse 'Uptown Funk' of ripping off their work. The Gap Band were added as co-writers on the record because of its similarities to their 1979 hit 'Oops Up Side Your Head', and others have gone legal with song-theft claims seeking co-write credits and a share of all those lovely royalties.

But the Collage litigation is at an end. It's not known what was agreed between the respective parties, although Law 360 reports that both sides will cover their respective legal costs.

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Do we still need AM radio? Absolutely! Though not absolutely
UK media regulator OfCom reckons that the Great British Public are not yet ready to give up the fizz pop sound of AM radio. But 166,000 members of the Great British Public can probably do without Absolute Radio on the medium wave dial even though they don't live in a part of the country where they can tune in via super-duper DAB digital radio.

Absolute Radio owner Bauer requested permission to reduce the reach of the rock station on the AM frequency from 90% of the country to 85%, arguing that achieving 90% reach was no longer 'reasonably practicable', and that if it had to continue to meet that obligation it might bail on having Absolute on AM entirely.

OfCom opened a consultation on the matter. While some submissions to that consultation disagreed with Bauer's argument, according to Radio Today, another said the media firm wasn't going far enough, should indeed abandon AM entirely and fully focus instead on expanding DAB reach.

However, OfCom said that while there has been a steady shift over to digital radio - whether via DAB or a TV or internet platform - plenty of people still relied on old fashioned radio signals, so that AM services should be kept alive for now. Though it did give the go ahead for Bauer to turn off some Absolute transmitters and reduce the power of others.

There remains much debate, of course, over when traditional radio frequencies should be turned off to force a total switchover of radio listening to digital channels. However, that debate tends to focus more on FM than AM. The BBC's top radio man Bob Shennan recently told a conference that the country wasn't yet ready for such a move, reckoning "we need to do more in the UK before we consider a switchover".

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CMU@TGE Top Questions: Which music technologies will shape the next decade in music?
With The Great Escape now just a month away, over the next fortnight we'll be considering ten questions that will be answered during the three CMU Insights conferences that are set to take place there this year: The Education Conference (16 May), The AI Conference (17 May) and The China Conference (18 May). Today: Which music technologies will shape the next decade in music?

The history of the music industry is basically a story about how a sequence of new technologies respectively transformed the way music is made, performed, recorded, distributed and consumed. Each new chapter begins as a new technology takes hold and kickstarts a revolution. Although each time that happens, we know that another equally revolutionary technology isn't far way.

Each innovation results in a new chapter. And those new chapters seem to come along with increased frequency as the years go by. However, not every technological innovation results in a revolution. One of the challenges for the music industry is working out which new technologies will take hold and are therefore worth investing in.

That's a challenge we'll be tackling at our AI Conference at The Great Escape this year. AI, AR, VR, blockchain and beyond, which of these technologies will really shape the next chapter in the music industry's history? We'll be putting that question to Imogen Heap from Mycelia, Dan Fowler from JAAK, Sammy Andrews from Deviate, Andrew Parsons from Ticketmaster UK, Manan Vohra from 7digital and Stef Pascual from Crown Talent.

Although, of course, as the name suggests, the real focus on the day will be those technologies that loosely gather under the banner of 'artificial intelligence'. For something that has been getting a lot of attention of late - in academic, media, corporate, political and cultural circles - it's actually quite hard to define what AI really is. No one is really sure how to define 'intelligence', let alone 'artificial intelligence'.

To get a better understanding of what we mean by AI - especially from a cultural perspective - we'll kickstart our AI Conference with some expert insights from two people who have given this matter some academic consideration: Maggie Boden from Sussex University and Marcus O'Dair from Middlesex University.

For the purposes of The AI Conference we will be mainly interested in how big data, algorithms and machine learning are being used for the purposes of recognising audio, recommending events, automating conversations and actually composing and editing video and music.

We reckon that all the technologies we'll feature along the way will shape the next decade in music - from the way music is monitored, to the way music is marketed, and even the way music is made.

The AI Conference takes place on Thursday 17 May - more info here.

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A$AP Rocky wants to work with Morrissey
A$AP Rocky says that he's "experimenting in a more calculated way" on his new music, and as part of that he'd like to work with Morrissey. So at least one person still wants to.

"I might have to fuck with Morrissey on some Smiths shit. Make some emo, real, retro-infusion, motherfuckin 2018 shit, man", the rapper says on Complex's new YouTube show 'Open Late'.

Discussing his non-Morrissey-featuring new material, he goes on: "I wanna take a different approach and challenge the viewer who's tired of hearing the same old shit. This shit is cliche at this point. I'm trying to test my viewers and listeners to see if they ready to grow with me".

He concludes: "This is going to be an amazing fucking album. I'm going to hopefully change a lot of people's lives again, and hopefully people will make better music, and inspire me to make even better music".

Watch the interview here.

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Huey Lewis cancels shows due to hearing loss
Huey Lewis has cancelled all upcoming tour dates for this year after suddenly losing his hearing. He is thought to have inner ear disorder Meniere's disease.

In a statement, Lewis explained: "Two and a half months ago, just before a show in Dallas, I lost most of my hearing. Although I can still hear a little, one on one, and on the phone, I can't hear music well enough to sing. The lower frequencies distort violently making it impossible to find pitch".

"The doctors believe I have Meniere's disease and have agreed that I can't perform until I improve", he continues. "Therefore the only prudent thing to do is to cancel all future shows. Needless to say, I feel horrible about this, and wish to sincerely apologise to all the fans who've already bought tickets and were planning to come see us. I'm going to concentrate on getting better, and hope that one day soon I'll be able to perform again".

Huey Lewis And The News had various tour dates and festival shows scheduled for this year. They already cancelled one show in Florida last month due to then undisclosed "medical problems".

Lewis is currently working on a new stage musical using songs by Huey Lewis And The News, called 'Heart Of Rock N Roll'.

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Kayne West working on book of philosophy
Kanye West is writing a book of philosophy. It mainly seems to be his thoughts on why humans like photographs.

"I'm writing a philosophy book right now called 'Break The Simulation'", he says in a new interview with The Hollywood Reporter. "I've got a concept about photographs - and I'm on the fence about photographs - about human beings being obsessed with photographs, because it takes you out of the now and transports you into the past or transports you into the future"

He waffles on: "It can be used to document, but a lot of times it overtakes [people]. People dwell too much in the memories. People always wanna hear the history of something, which is important, but I think there's too much of an importance put on history".

Of course, if you're going to talk about the human obsession with photographs, talk of West's wife Kim Kardashian can't be far away, she being someone whose life (or a version of it) is laid bare on reality TV and Instagram. Don't worry, he's thought about this. "Even with my wife, I see her as a representation, as a Marie Antoinette of our time", he says.

I expect the book will be mainly pronouncements like that. The book's not been published yet, if it ever will be. There are plenty of profound statements in the interview to enjoy though. Like, did you know that he'd like to make wetter shoes?

"At Adidas, I have Yeezy, but it's a namesake brand. It's my nickname", he says of his fashion work. "We do these sneakers that sell out and we get, 'Oh, this is the number one brand on Women's Wear Daily'. And I don't wish to be number one anymore, I wish to be water. I wish to be closer to UNICEF or something where I can take the information that I have and help as many people as possible, not to just shove it into a brand".

Read the full interview here.

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