RIAA targets another stream-ripping site, gets subpoenas to identify its operator
Stream-ripping remains the music industry's top piracy gripe, with the Recording Industry Association Of America now seeking to identify the people behind a website called Y2Mate, which enables the ripping of streams. In a bid to do just that, it has secured subpoenas against domain registrar NameCheap and internet services company Cloudflare.

The battle against stream-ripping - sites that allow users to grab permanent downloads of temporary streams - has been ongoing for a few years now, of course. The major stream-ripping operation YouTubeMP3 was forced offline in 2017 after the RIAA went legal, but there are plenty of other sites offering the same service. Record companies in multiple countries have been taking or threatening legal action against these sites, while in Australia the record industry is now seek web-blocks against stream-ripping platforms.

Most recently the RIAA went legal against the Russian operator of stream-ripping websites FLVTO.biz and 2conv.com. But a judge in Virginia subsequently ruled that he didn't have jurisdiction over those sites, because they are based in Russia and - while they have plenty of users in the US - they don't have any direct commercial relationships with said Americans.

But that hasn't stopped the record industry trade group from going after Y2Mate, which Torrentfreak reckons has become a significant player in the stream-ripping domain of late, currently attracting nearly 64 million visits each month.

Hence the subpoenas, secured in the US District Court for the District Of Columbia, which order both NameCheap and Cloudflare to hand over any information they have that would help the record labels identify the person or people running Y2Mate. The domain registrar is specifically requested to hand over a "name, physical address, IP address, telephone number, e-mail address, payment information, account updates and account history".

Those running stream-ripping sites usually argue that they are not, in fact, liable for copyright infringement, because they don't host any infringing content and their sites have legitimate as well as illegitimate uses. Because users might be stream-ripping their own content or the ripping of other people's audio might be 'fair use' under American law.

Torrentfreak reports that the owner of Y2Mate will also make those claims. Though similar arguments were presented by the operators of file-sharing services during the early stages of the battle against online piracy and generally they didn't stand up in court, especially in the absence of any filters that at least attempt to remove copyright infringing material.

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Apple sued over iTunes data sharing
Three iTunes users in the US have sued Apple over allegations it has broken privacy and data protection laws by sharing data relating to purchases on the download store with third parties. Leigh Wheaton, Jill Paul and Trevor Paul are seeking class action status for their litigation, which would allow other iTunes customers to seek damages if the lawsuit was successful in court.

The legal claim alleges that Apple sells, rents and transmits to third parties information about iTunes customers and the purchases they have made. This, the plaintiffs argue, conflicts with the tech giant's marketing communications around data privacy, which included a billboard in Las Vegas featuring the slogan "what happens on your iPhone stays on your iPhone".

The lawsuit then states: "The data Apple discloses includes the full names and home addresses of its customers, together with the genres and, in some cases, the specific titles of digitally-recorded music that its customers have purchased via the iTunes Store and then stored in their devices".

"Apple profits handsomely from its unauthorised sale, rental [and] transmission" of this data, the legal papers go on. "It does so at the expense of its customers' privacy and statutory rights because Apple does not notify let alone obtain the requisite written consent from its customers prior to disclosing their personal information".

In its privacy policy, Apple confirms that it collects 'non-personal information' about iTunes users and that the company reserves the right to use, transfer or disclose that data. However, at least some of the information the lawsuit claims is being collected and shared would not be classified as 'non-personal'.

Although the lawsuit was filed with the federal court in San Francisco, what damages would be available to class members if the litigation was successful would depend on where they live and what local state law says about privacy and data protection. The three named plaintiffs are from Rhode Island and Michigan. State laws in the former would provide damages of up to $250 per user, while in the latter they could be as high as $5000 per user.

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CISAC to discuss expanding EU safe harbour reform around the world
Song right collecting societies of the world will gather in Tokyo this week for the Annual General Assembly of CISAC, the global grouping of such rights organisations. And high on the agenda will be the recently passed European Copyright Directive, and how the music industry might seek similar safe harbour reform elsewhere in the world.

Pre-empting the discussions that are due to take place on Thursday, CISAC said yesterday that the safe harbour reforming article seventeen of the final version of the EU directive "enables fairer remuneration for creators when their works are used by digital platforms and clarifies that user-generated content services cannot benefit from misapplied 'safe harbour' protection". CISAC now wants to consider "the global expansion of [those] principles".

"Creators' rights are a fundamental human right and I believe in them passionately", CISAC President Jean-Michel Jarre added. "Yet, as history has shown, the advance of technology has created a never-ending struggle to keep the laws updated to each new era. In Europe we have seen the culmination of a four year effort to secure laws that will give creators a better deal when their works are used on digital networks. Now it is time for the global 'ripple effect', as we take this message to the rest of the world".

Some of the other key conversations due to take place at this week's annual general meeting will focus on more internal matters for CISAC. That includes efforts to speed up the issuing of new International Standard Musical Work Codes, the unique identifier that is required to identify and process payments for each individual song.

Also on the agenda will be the widely documented issues at Spanish collecting society SGAE. That includes a proposal on the table that it be temporarily excluded from CISAC for failing to deal with governance problems and outrage among the global music publishing community over how it distributes some key revenues.

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WME owner confirms IPO plans
The owner of the WME booking agency, Endeavor, has formally confirmed its intention to IPO on the New York Stock Exchange, filing the required paperwork last week with the US Securities & Exchange Commission.

Endeavor owns a range of media, event and talent companies and operates across the wider entertainment business. Talent agency William Morris Endeavor is one of its most famous subsidiaries. In its SEC paperwork, the wider Endeavor group reveals it generated revenues of $3.61 billion last year with net income of $231.3 million.

Other stat brags in the SEC filing include that, in 2018, the company "represented more Academy Award and Grammy winners than any other talent agency ... arranged various elements of more than 300 television series that premiered across broadcast, cable and streaming channels, represented over 60% of headliners of the major music festivals in the US, and managed seven of the ten highest paid models according to Forbes".

In a letter explaining the rationale for the IPO, Endeavor CEO Ari Emanuel wrote: "As the entertainment industry moves toward a closed ecosystem model with less transparency, our clients and businesses need more insight, resources and solutions than ever before. We believe being a public company will only further accelerate our ability to look around corners and open up new categories and opportunities for those in the Endeavor network".

The company is yet to disclose how much money it hopes to raise via the stock market listing, though insiders reckon it could seek to secure $500 million with a valuation for the business of over $6 billion.

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We Are FSTVL apologises for queues, This Is Tomorrow cancels Foals mid-set
Organisers of the We Are FSTVL event in Upminster, East London this weekend have apologised after people were stuck queuing in high temperatures for several hours while trying to gain access to the festival on Saturday. The queues were reportedly due to the event running out of wristbands and ultimately led to people breaking through the barriers and forcing their way onto its Damyns Hall Aerodrome site.

After an initial apology on Saturday and promises that things would be improved for the festival's second day, organisers issued a second statement on Sunday, saying: "We always strive to deliver our customers a great event each year. This year that wasn't the case for everyone on Saturday and that pains us immensely. Whilst we managed to rectify the issue and finish on a high on Sunday, we accept queuing times on Saturday were unacceptable".

People who had been queuing reported that others in the crowd had passed out due to dehydration or had been injured in the later stampede. Though in a statement to the BBC, the Metropolitan Police said on Saturday: "Officers are at the location and working alongside organisers and London Ambulance Service. We are not aware of any serious injury".

Elsewhere in festival health and safety news, at Newcastle's This Is Tomorrow Festival this weekend, Friday's headline set by Foals was cut short due to safety concerns.

"Due to safety concerns with the front of stage barrier This Is Tomorrow Festival management made the decision to call an early finish to Foals set", the event tweeted. "This is entirely to protect the safety of crowds".

The band also tweeted: "Newcastle, we're so gutted the show had to be pulled this evening. You were an amazing crowd and we were loving every second but it was deemed unsafe to continue".

After this, the rest of the Newcastle event went ahead as planned, although many who had attended the first day were left angry at only seeing Foals perform half a show.

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Snapchat in licensing talks with the majors
Snapchat is reportedly in talks with all three majors about securing wide-ranging licences to allow the social network to more proactively help users put music into their videos. The licensing talks, first reported on last week by the Wall Street Journal, confirm that plenty of opportunities remain in the worlds of micro-licensing and user-generated content.

YouTube, of course, has long provided a platform via which the music industry can generate extra income when random people post non-commercial videos featuring existing recordings and songs. Though because YouTube was also a quasi (and then actual) streaming music platform, the huge revenue potential of user-generated content for music rights owners often got lost in the wider debate and shouting about the Google site.

Facebook finally getting around to securing music licences - but with ambitions much more focused on user-generated content rather than official music videos - helped put the spotlight back on the opportunities on that side of the digital music market. And concurrent moves in the UGC space to more actively facilitate - rather than just allow - the inclusion of pop songs in user videos has arguably made it more important for platforms to engage with music companies, rather than just relying on the pesky copyright safe harbour.

SnapChat has likely decided that licences from the majors are now required as it seeks to better compete with Facebook and Instagram, which have been busy adding more music functionality of late, partly as a result of those licensing deals, and partly to take on newer player TikTok and the Musical.ly app it absorbed.

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DEALS

One Media IP has acquired the writer's share in a number of songs by country songwriter Cole Taylor for $260,000, including the hits 'Sippin On Fire', performed by Florida Georgia Line, and 'Home Alone Tonight', performed by Luke Bryan.

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APPOINTMENTS

Universal's Verve Label Group has promoted Jamie Krents to Executive Vice President and Dahlia Ambach Caplin to SVP A&R. "Jamie is the heart and soul of Verve", says group CEO Dickon Stainer. While "Dahlia is a force of nature".

Downtown Music has promoted Roberto Neri to EVP UK and Head Of European Business Development. He joined Downtown in 2015 when it acquired Eagle-i Music.

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RELEASES

Will Young has released new single 'My Love', taken from his upcoming new album 'Lexicon'. He's also touring in October.

Alexisonfire have released new single 'Complicit'. "'Complicit' is about recognising the unfair advantages that we are afforded as white, heterosexual males", says George Pettit of the track. "It's about rejecting regressionist ideas of racism, misogyny and hetero supremacy. It's about accepting that there is no freedom and no future in a world that is not inclusive".

Banks has released the video for her latest single, 'Gimme'.

Fujiya & Miyagi have released new track 'Gammon'. "It's hard to ignore the split in opinion in the UK so I thought we should address it", says the band's David Best. "I know nobody would listen to Fujiya & Miyagi for our political insight but morally I felt I wanted it to be known where I stood. It's easy to over simplify the reasons why people want to leave the EU. Being a racist is definitely one of them though. I also wanted to poke fun at the other side of the argument and their sense of entitlement".

Ionnalee has released new single 'Remember The Future'. The track is taken from her new album of the same name, out this Friday.

Yizzy has released the video for new single 'Deh Suh'.

Thandii have released new single 'Honey'. Their new EP, 'Serious Town', is out on 5 Jul.

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

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Tyler, The Creator bids farewell to Theresa May
In these days of political collapse, climate disaster and Nigel fucking Farage, the news can be a pretty depressing place to drift into. And as everything gets more and more complicated, trying to even remotely stay up to date with what's going on can take up hours out of your daily schedule.

What we need is someone who can cut through the noise and the nonsense to get to the really important information in any one news story. Thankfully, we have Tyler, The Creator, who tweeted last week: "Theresa gone, I'm back".

Such efficiency of words, of the sort we've come to expect from the man who wrote the immortal line, "my bitch suck dick like she suck dick". The tweet was, of course, a reference to Theresa May coming to the end of her three year resignation tour, just as Tyler ended his four year failed attempt to tour the UK. Which is to say, Theresa has resigned and Tyler is allowed to gig in this United Kingdom once again after a visa ban was finally lifted.

The connection is relevant, of course, because it was Theresa May who decided that the rapper should not be allowed to enter the UK in 2015, due to the content of some of his lyrics. Not so much the one above, more those like another line from the same track, "by the way, we do punch bitches".

May's decision came several years after Tyler had started performing such lines in the UK, and - he argued - quite a long time after he'd stopped saying that sort of thing and moved on to a more palatable style. While Tyler does, of course, sometimes court controversy, May's visa ban may well have been part of the then Home Secretary's life-long dream of ensuring that only people born in Oxfordshire are allowed to set foot on UK soil.

After she finally moves out of Downing Street on 7 Jun, May will have more time on her hands. Perhaps she could attend one of Tyler, The Creator's upcoming UK shows in September. Maybe they could even meet backstage, so he could argue why he believes barring him from the country was unfair, and she could try to get him to support her Brexit deal, as I'm sure she'll be doing with everyone she meets for many years to come.

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