• Sting Says Today’s Rock is a Bore
  Sting said contemporary rock music is so stagnant that he prefers to sing 16th century English ballads. Rock music has come to a standstill — it’s not going forward any more, it only bores me,” Die Zeit quoted Sting as saying.

Today’s rock music a bore. You think?

• KOAR recently talked about 90’s grunge band Sponge that wrote new songs and looking for a partner. Sponge is now confirmed on the “Rock Never Stops” tour that features headliners Motley Crue. For more information email lawyer Dan Friedman.
  Check out the tracks Fame and Glory and No DOA on Sunday.
• Labels Profited Directly from YouTube Buy – Will Artists See the Money?
  The New York Times reports that YouTube gave each label an equity stake that just hours later was valued at up to $50 million from the Google acquisition. Three of the four major music companies — Vivendi’s Universal Music Group, Sony and Bertelsmann’s jointly owned Sony BMG Music Entertainment, and the Warner Music Group — each quietly negotiated to take small stakes in YouTube as part of video- and music-licensing deals they struck shortly before the sale, people involved in the talks said yesterday.
• Labels Market to Illegal Music Fans.
  A video clip from Jay-Z’s live concert in June at Radio City Music Hall is popping up on all sorts of illicit music-sharing hotspots. But Jay-Z isn’t upset.
  In a tactic little known outside the music industry, record labels have hired outside companies to plant “decoy,” or fake, files on the sites. (One such company, ArtistDirect Inc.’s MediaDefender, says it has deployed decoys for as many as 30 of the top 100 Billboard songs at any given time.) Audioslave, Ice Cube, Yellowcard and other music groups have used decoy files for their own version of viral marketing.
• Yoko Ono sued music company EMI Group PLC and a subsidiary for $10 million Wednesday, claiming she was cheated out of royalties due from the sale of music recordings by her late husband, John Lennon.