Jay-Z disputes claims of unpaid fees over Tidal acquisition
Jay-Z has reportedly hit out at two Swedish companies which advised on his 2015 acquisition of the streaming music business that became Tidal. He says that their claims fees remain unpaid are untrue, and that they didn't do everything they were meant to do anyway.

Yes, it's another Tidal legal squabble. I'm thinking of pitching a Tidal Legal Squabble sticker album to Panini. You'd buy that, right? "Collect all six billion stickers" it would say on the cover. Then there'd only be room for 60 stickers inside. Allegedly. There'd be stickers to collect of all of Prince's heirs, split into Tidal lovers and Tidal haters. Though I reckon that the photo of Kanye typing "never, never, never" into Twitter would be the hardest sticker to find.

Anyway, this legal squabble is between Jay-Z and two Swedish companies - Roschier and SEB - which, according to gossip site The Blast, reckon they are still respectively owed $294,000 and $304,383 for their work on the rapper's acquisition of WiMP.

As you might remember, when Jay-Z decided that what the world needed was a rapper-controlled artist-friendly streaming firm, rather than just setting one up from scratch, he bought Norwegian digital music start-up WiMP. It had already launched the Tidal brand in English-speaking markets where WiMP was a terrible name to operate under.

Roschier and SEB seemingly offered legal and financial advice on that purchase, subsequently invoicing for their time. They say that Jay-Z's company paid some of their fees back in 2015, but that the balances of their invoices remain unpaid. To that end they went legal back in May seeking the allegedly unpaid monies.

According to The Blast, Jay-Z has now responded to that legal action stating that the two companies "performed certain services for which they have been paid". The extra fees they both now claim they are due, the response reportedly reckons, were actually the result of the two firms' "own culpable conduct in overbilling" the rapper's business.

And, just in case you're feeling sorry for the legal and money dudes at Roschier and SEB, Jay-Zs response apparently adds that the two companies did not "perform under the contracts they now seek to enforce".

With all that in mind, Jay-Z's company S Carter Enterprises has requested that the judge dismiss his former advisors' cases entirely. Just imagine that request in sticker form! It's a winner.

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Gamers debate copyright claims as labels issue takedowns against Twitch
As the campaigning continues in Brussels over the European Copyright Directive and the increased liabilities it may create for user-upload sites, there has been a flurry of chatter about the record industry issuing takedowns against Twitch. That being the rather popular Amazon-owned video-game-focused streaming platform.

The chatter began after a small number of gamers who stream all their gaming shenanigans on the platform started reporting last week that they were getting copyright alerts from Twitch.

Each alert said that a takedown request had been issued against the gamer's channel by the International Federation Of The Phonographic Industry because uncleared music appeared in their videos. As a result of the takedown, issued under US law, offending content would be removed from the gamer's archive and their access to the entire platform was restricted for 24 hours.

One Twitch streamer called Josh Allen then posted on Twitter: "Just clearing up some misinformation: Twitch isn't banning people for streaming music, they're responding to a DMCA takedown notice issued by @IFPI_org. Twitch has no choice in the matter; they are legally obligated to do this when issued a DMCA notice".

Those tweets have resulted in plenty of debate on Reddit since last weekend on the ins and outs, and pros and cons, and rights and wrongs, of the record industry seeking to block uncleared music from appearing on a platform like Twitch, where the music is generally very much in the background.

Quite when and why IFPI decided to start issuing takedowns against Twitch isn't clear. Of course record companies and their trade bodies now routinely issued a flood of takedowns every day against user-upload sites where music appears without licence.

Although many gamers would argue that background music in their live gaming streams is very much a periphery part of their content, some in the music industry might argue it nevertheless plays its part in the overall experience. And if both Twitch and its partners - ie the gamers who stream - are earning a share of ad income, maybe the music makers should be too.

It remains to be seen if the label-led takedowns against Twitch channels become more frequent and - if so - if Amazon would look for some sort of licensing deal to overcome the issue. Or maybe the gamers on Twitch will just follow the lead of many YouTubers and start playing their games with only music from one-stop-licence library music firm Epidemic Sound in the background. That way they can pay a nominal licence fee upfront and not have to worry about any label-instigated 24 hour lock outs.

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PRS announces deal with music data platform Auddly
UK collecting society PRS For Music yesterday announced it had signed a long-term licensing agreement with Auddly, the start-up business that has developed a platform that makes it easier for artists and songwriters to ensure that accurate data is pumped into the system each time they create some new music.

The lack of a decent one-stop global database documenting what songs are contained in what recordings, and who wrote and published those songs, and who recorded and released those records, has caused all sorts of issues over the years. More so as music consumption has switched from CDs to downloads and onto streams.

Various collecting societies, rights owners and start-ups are trying to tackle the problem of legacy music data. But Auddly - led by producer and songwriter Niclas Molinder and backed by Max Martin and ABBA's Björn Ulvaeus - recognised that there were also challenges around new works. Often the only people who really know who created a song and performed on a track are the artists, who aren't necessarily very good at documenting who was involved and what was agreed in terms of how copyrights are being split.

The Auddly platform helps with that process. And under the new agreement, from next year PRS members will have access to a new Auddly-powered tool which, the two organisations say, will "enable earlier registration of more accurate and authoritative data, and in turn help PRS to improve the speed and accuracy of royalty distributions made to its members".

We know for certain that at least one PRS member is very excited about the new arrangement. That being Ulvaeus himself, who said yesterday: "When I joined PRS For Music a few years ago, long before Auddly, I did so because I had the feeling that PRS were at the forefront of collecting societies. They seemed flexible and willing to adapt to future technologies and - as I am a bit of a tech geek - I like that. Well, I was right!"

On the new deal, he added: "I'm immensely grateful to PRS for sharing our vision. We share the goal to help songwriters get quick and fair payments, and get credits whenever and wherever their songs are played. Now's the time for the world to realise that no one in the music industry is more important than us songwriters! It all starts with a song!"

Speaking for PRS itself, the society's boss man Robert Ashcroft added: "Björn Ulvaeus is one of the industry's leading visionaries. With today's trillions of individual streams on the internet, early and authoritative song registration are vital if songwriters and composers are to be properly paid for their creative works. In founding and developing Auddly together with Niclas, Björn has made a massive contribution to all other songwriters, to add to his own legendary career as a creator himself. I would like to thank him, on behalf of all PRS members, for his vision and for his determination in developing Auddly".

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Sony launches new label, Since 93
Sony Music UK has announced the launch of a new label called Since 93. Aimed at developing new artists, the company will be headed up by Glyn Aikins and Riki Bleau.

"Glyn and Riki have a great knack for discovering and nurturing artists who have defined the musical landscape in recent years", says Sony Music UK CEO Jason Iley. "They are bringing to Sony Music their ambition, enthusiasm and a clear vision for the Since 93 label, that will see them continue to set the agenda. I'm delighted to be working alongside them".

Artists signed by Aikins during his career include Emeli Sande, So Solid Crew, Roll Depp, Lethal Bizzle and Naughty Boy. Bleau, meanwhile, also claims Naughty Boy and Emeli Sande, who he signed to their first publishing deals, as well as Labrinth and Sam Smith.

"You can't imagine what it means to join the Sony family to realise a long held ambition and vision", says Aikins. "Jason Iley and [President of RCA Records and Ministry Of Sound] David Dollimore have been tremendous with their support and partnership, making Sony the perfect place for Since 93 Records. I'm delighted to work with Riki Bleau, a long term colleague and friend. With Since 93 we're building a label uniquely placed in British culture with a truly global outlook".

Bleau adds: "Having sat with David and Jason it was clear I'd be given the freedom and support to make Since 93 Records into a global powerhouse. To work with Glyn Aikins, who I've shared so much success with, is a blessing. We want to be up there with the greats of the past creating a label of the future".

Since 93 launches with rappers Fredo, Loski and Aitch on its roster.

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Ed Sheeran helps 10,000 fans seek refunds from Viagogo
Ed Sheeran's tour promoter Kilimanjaro Live says that it helped around 10,000 fans seek refunds from Viagogo at the musician's recent UK dates.

Sheeran and his team, of course, went to great lengths on this tour to try to stop fans from paying marked up prices for tickets on secondary ticketing sites. That included a commitment to cancel any tickets they knew to have been touted.

So strong was that commitment, most secondary sites agreed not to list tickets for his shows. Although, obviously, pesky Viagogo refused to comply. Which meant lots of tickets were sold via the platform, most of which Team Sheeran spotted and cancelled.

However, keen not to have too many upset fans being turned away at the door, Kilimanjaro had a system in place whereby people showing up with cancelled touted tickets were sold replacements at face value. They were also given a letter stating that their touted ticket had been rejected. That should enable them to get a full refund from Viagogo, which promises a "100% guarantee" to refund monies if tickets don't get a buyer into a show.

Sheeran wasn't the first artist to implement this kind of anti-touting policy, although it's probably not been done at quite this scale before. At Wembley Stadium there were six 'Victim Of Viagogo' box office windows dealing with cancelled tickets. And during Sheeran's four night run in Cardiff, Kilimanjaro boss Stuart Galbraith tells the BBC that his team processed queries from nearly 2000 Viagogo customers, some of whom had paid thousands of pounds to touts through the site.

While Viagogo has not commented on the Sheeran tour specifically, its website states that it believes the practice of promoters cancelling resold tickets to be "highly unfair ... unenforceable, and illegal". Although the UK's Consumer Rights Act is pretty clear that a touted ticket can be cancelled providing "a term of the original contract for the sale of the ticket provided for its cancellation if it was offered for resale by that buyer".

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BBC launches new app aggregating its audio output
Your good mates over there at the BBC yesterday unveiled a new app called BBC Sounds. It's basically an evolution of the existing BBC RadioPlayer app, but with more personalisation, and an experience perhaps more akin to an on-demand music service.

BBC Sounds aggregates the Corporation's radio stations and programmes, as well as music output like sessions and mixes, plus all the BBC-made podcasts, and presents them all in one place. There are recommendations, the option to subscribe to programmes or podcasts, and mood-based as well as genre categories.

In a blog post announcing the new app - which is available from the Apple, Google and Amazon app stores - the head of BBC iPlayer and BBC Sounds, Dan Taylor-Watt, writes: "Over the past year or so we've talked a lot about how we need to reinvent the BBC for a new generation".

He goes on: "Every user's experience of BBC Sounds will be unique as it's designed to learn from your listening habits, providing one-tap access to the latest episodes of your favourite BBC podcasts and radio shows and introducing you to new audio you wouldn't otherwise have discovered from the 80,000 - yes, really! - hours available".

So, do you think that means 'sounds' is going to become the new catch-all term to refer to audio content, whether radio, podcast or music-based? On the off chance it is, don't forget to tap into these CMU 'sounds'.

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The Joy Formidable bear new album
The Joy Formidable have announced that they will release their new album, 'Aaarth', in the autumn. Along with this news, they've also released new single 'The Wrong Side'.

"With life not always being that kind, you can either go down a really dark hole or you can smear yourself with colour and reverie and try to forget", says vocalist and guitarist Ritzy Bryan. "That's what we did with 'Aaarth'; we threw ourselves into this beautiful vivacious collage of experimentation, real meets unreal, and stopped giving a fuck about things that didn't matter, and started caring more about the things that are worth your time".

She continues: "'Aaarth' marks a transformative, near-psychedelic rebirth that channels long-held anger, soundtracking a chaotic global period of injustice and division, setting it against a deeply poignant backdrop of personal experiences and healing. Although the album came into being as the band travelled the globe and recorded in their mobile recording studio, the music intertwines the whispering hills of Wales with the otherworldly rainbow canyons of the Utah/Arizona border.

"We've definitely made a colourful, mystical collage with this record, partly because of our surroundings", she adds. "Those multi-coloured sunsets and the primeval elements of nature in the Southwest - it's emboldened our imaginations in the songwriting and the production".

"I love stories and seeing symbolism and meaning change with different cultures and interpretations" she goes on. "I see it in my lyrics, a lot of the imagery plays on being ambivalent because I'm often expressing a lot of things at once. That's true of the title; it falls somewhere between a scream, an exaltation, a play on words, and then this motif of the bear - 'arth' in Welsh - that spiritually represents strength, wisdom and healing".

The album will be out on 28 Sep, and the band will play a handful of UK shows in August before heading off to support Foo Fighters in the US in September.

Listen to 'The Wrong Side' here.

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Tove Styrke announces first UK headline tour
Tove Styrke has announced her first UK headline tour this autumn. The run of dates follows a show at The Borderline in London earlier this month.

"After the seriously otherworldly experience we had at The Borderline in London two weeks ago it feels like such a rush to announce that not only will I be back playing in London again, but also a couple of other cities around the UK", she says. "It's been three years since I was supporting Years & Years in the UK where I had such an amazing time and finally I get to see you guys again - on my very first UK headline tour! Can't wait to sing, dance, hang and sway with you. It's gonna be a party!"

As she announced the tour, the lyric video for new single 'On The Low' also went live.

Here are the tour dates:

28 Oct: Bristol, The Fleece
29 Oct: Manchester, Night & Day Café
30 Oct: Brighton, Patterns
1 Nov: Birmingham, Institute 3
2 Nov: London, Heaven

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Pivotal, Chaka Khan, Paramore, more

Other notable announcements and developments today...

• Get a daily news summary, our latest job ads and more via our Messenger bot. Click here to get started.

• A new music conference is launching in Birmingham in September called Pivotal. It has evolved out of the regular MMF-backed Birmingham Tribes networking meetings and also involves the Birmingham Music Coalition, a new organisation that will officially launch at the conference. CMU Insights will be among the companies leading sessions. More details at pivotalmusic.co.uk

• Chaka Khan has teamed up with producer Switch for new single 'Like Sugar'. The track is the first release on Switch's own Diary Records, which will also put out Khan's upcoming new album. Here's the video for the track.

• Paramore have released the video for 'Caught In The Middle', from their latest album 'After Laughter'.

• Young Fathers have released the video for 'Holy Ghost' from their 'Cocoa Sugar' album.

• Mitski has released the video for new single 'Nobody'. Her new album, 'Be The Cowboy', is due out on 17 Aug.

• Popcaan has released two new tracks, 'Wine For Me' and 'Firm And Strong'. His new album, 'Forever', is out on 20 Jul.

• With Glastonbury 2019 now a year away, it's time to start guessing who might headline the festival. Madonna, reckons the Sun. Meanwhile, according to Betway, betting types are putting their money on Led Zeppelin and Fleetwood Mac. Imagine if that was the actual line up. Christ.

• Pearl Jam have rescheduled their postponed London show at the O2 Arena for 17 Jul. The original gig was cancelled after frontman Eddie Vedder "completely lost his voice". All tickets for the original show will remain valid for the new date.

• Coheed And Cambria have announced that they will tour the UK in October, finishing up at the Roundhouse in London on 16 Oct. Their new album, 'The Unheavenly Creatures', is due out on 5 Oct.

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

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Anti-racism event to coincide with Morrissey show in Manchester
Former Haçienda DJ Dave Haslam has announced a free party for lapsed Morrissey fans. The One Nation Under A Groove all-dayer will coincide with the former Smiths frontman's second show at Manchester's Castlefield Bowl next month. Raising money for Love Music Hate Racism, the event is a "response to Morrissey's divisive views, and his support for the far right".

Morrissey has, of course, come in for a great deal of criticism for comments he has made in interviews in recent years, and ever more so of late.

Although he has dismissed many of these as the media twisting his words, he has also said some unsavoury things in more 'friendly' outlets, including on his own website. Recently, in an interview with a fan site, he expressed solidarity with jailed EDL founder Tommy Robinson and support for a far right political party.

"Morrissey hasn't lived in [Manchester] for 30 years", says Haslam on the event's Facebook page. "He lives abroad in tax exile and has now joined the ranks of various right-wing politicians, tax exiles, tabloids, and media hate-slingers seeking to divide our community".

"Manchester is our home, it's a city built on immigration, a city with an amazing legacy of great bands and wonderful clubs", he continues. "How do we counter the hate? Let the music do the talking; by throwing a free party, a celebratory all-dayer of beautifully diverse soul-filled, hope-filled music".

On the line up for the event are Haslam himself, Greg Thorpe, Ifran Rainy, Chad Jackson, Katbrownsugar, Abigail Ward, The Orielles and more.

Earlier this week, former Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr said that he felt no loyalty to his former bandmate and denounced Morrissey's political views. "I don't feel the need to stick by anyone unless I agree with what they're saying", he told Channel 4 News. "Of course I disagree with what he's saying. I don't think that's really a surprise that I would disagree with what Morrissey's saying. I think everyone would expect that I disagree".

One Nation Under A Groove is set to take place at Revolution on Manchester's Deansgate Lock's on 8 Jul from 3pm to midnight. Haslam also notes that "Morrissey fans on their way to or back from his concert are more than welcome".

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