Bandwidth Hogs: Time Warner Cable began a trial of “Internet metering†in a Texas city asking customers to select a monthly plan and pay surcharges when they exceed their bandwidth limit. AT&T is now considering a priced based on data volume. “The idea is that people who use the network more heavily should pay more, the way they do for water, electricity, or, in many cases, cellphone minutes.”
Recommended Show: San Francisco’s Magic Bullets kick off a short West Coast tour back in Seattle June 17 at Tractor Tavern with Beestings and Sweet Dominiques. The band will then be heading East for gigs including Pianos (August 6 and 7) and the NAMU Festival (August 9). Management is Rob Wells and legal is Chris Castle.
Sirius and XM Deal Almost Done: A key U.S. regulator expressed support for the 16-month-old deal, driving up both companies’ shares. FCC Chairman Kevin Martin said he would support the transaction, with the companies agreeing to a series of conditions.
Recommended Listening: Still Young by Shirock
Myspace Gets A Facelift: Myspace will be launching a redesign of its site this week. The first phase of the project, internally called “MySpace 2.0,†will launch on Wednesday June 18. “The changes affect five major areas of the service: homepage, navigation, profile editor, search and the MySpaceTV Flash player.” You can see some screenshots here.
Rolling Past EMI: It looks like The Rolling Stones are ending their long relationship with EMI and will sign a new deal with Live Nation.
New Survey/ The War On Piracy: The largest academic survey of young people’s music ownership has found that teenagers and students have an average of more than 800 illegally copied songs each on their digital music players. “On average every iPod or digital music player contained 842 illegally copied songs”.
Guy’s World: We suggest you read the lengthly article titled ‘EMI’s New Boss Sees Cracks in Music World‘.
Rollez Stonez: Rolling Stone senior editor Austin Scaggs is starting a “Perez Hilton-esque” music blog for the magazine next month according to Gawker. Look at me, “I’m Famous”….
The Bad Music Movement…..
Since the dawn of popular music, there was always movement; a constant “progressing†in a fashion that defined each movement as an era. Generally speaking, these eras could be viewed in five to ten year spans. The musical difference (musical difference meaning the general sound of the recordings and artistic message) was obvious from 1950 to 1960, 1960 to 1970, 1970 to 1980, etc. But something peculiar happened towards the tail end of the 90s: It appears that since then there hasn’t been much progressing. So in 15-20 years from now how will we define the signature sound of the 2000s? Probably something like “the era of hyper-compressed, way too distorted, ear fatiguing music that is now classic because the music today in 2020 is so much worse. Haha, I really hope not, but certainly a song coming out today doesn’t have a sonic fingerprint that, say, couldn’t be heard in 2001. Indeed there has been great music in the past 8-10 years, but we all know that something has changed. There is a reminiscing in the air- passionate music lovers; people of all walks of life longing for a time when they could buy great CDs- new releases- every week remember those days? For those who say that there is just as much great music today, well then they also have to admit one of two things along with that theory:
a) This multitude of great music is not getting out to the masses anymore, or
b) The masses don’t t like great music anymore
The term masses is not to be taken with a negative connotation; I’m speaking of your average music lover, your everyday passionate listener. I guess they are gone because this tremendous amount of great, inspiring music is going unnoticed. The more likely scenario is that great music has greatly diminished.
All right, so if that’s the case there must be a reason, or perhaps several reasons all coming together to create the perfect storm for the invading bad music movement. I’m not saying there is anyone specific to blame, it is simply a cultural shift. I don’t claim to have any solutions but without trying to be too cynical, I would have to say that musical movements the way we once knew them could very well be part of our human history. Music will go on just fine and I’m sure plenty of great bands and artists will emerge in the future, however their relevancy on a pop culture scale will most likely be very limited (except for the very few). Let’s hope that’s not the case.
I have heard several people who are of the opinion that music and creativity has maxed out because there is only so much you can do and it’s all been done. Is music like a natural resource? Can it be depleted? If so, can it grow back? If it can, we need to start some music cultivation farms (oh wait, they used to be called major labels). But seriously, I do think it is harder to be original today than it was in the 70s or 80s. Also, great acts almost always take many years to develop and in today’s culture of people only wanting to be famous, the object of creativity has dramatically shifted. The mentality is more in the form of let’s just throw it down quick so we can go get famous.
The modern digital age has enabled bad music to be mass-produced very quickly and the wannabe famous artists in the basement are flooding the airwaves. Great art is a long labor of love that few people have the time for these days. Add to that the fact that there are fewer live venues for budding artists than ever before. Many of the great acts we’ve come to know in the past honed their craft by gauging the reaction of real people. They could see the faces of the audience when they tried out their new material. If your audience were falling asleep during that new song, maybe you would think twice about ever recording it. Bands and artists are at a huge disadvantage who cannot perform live or don’t have venues to do so. Instead of playing their instruments they’re at home playing with their computer mouse.
Tickle Me To #1: The track “Typical†by Tickle Me Pink is currently #1 on the FMQB Specialty Chart. ‘Typical’ also went to #1 at KTCL in Denver which became one of the best reacting songs that the station witnessed.
Buzzing: Artist/writer named Ryan Gillmor just finished showcasing for labels and publishers. He just had his song “In this Moment” sung by David Archuleta on the American Idol Finale show and his song “Hey” was chosen as the theme to the Fox Television series “Unhitched”. For more information contact
Bennett Kaufman.
You Oughta Know: VH1 has named Thriving Ivory as the networks newest “You Oughta Know” artist and was chosen on Radio 92.9 in Boston as their featured staff pick. Remember folks, this will be the summer song…
Recommended Listening: We are still listening to The Hoodies new track Electric Choir.
Motley Screwed: Motley Crue is now sueing their second manager Burt Stein for taking money and making backroom deals without their permission in order to cash in on the band’s popularity. Last year the band sued another manager for same thing. What are you guys thinking?
Signings: The Drama Club signed to One Eleven/WMG label. The Drama Club stand among the top “draws†in their region and have become increasingly more popular after continuous regional touring and being a promotional machine for themselves. Listen to the track November.
In an effort to reshape the music industry, Live Nation has been making wide-ranging but expensive deals with older artists such as Madonna and Jay-Z.
Live Nation has pledged millions of dollars to these artists in return for the rights of release of recordings, promoting the concerts, and selling merchandise.
After spending $120 Million for the material girl and $150 million for Jay Z — Live Nation CEO Michael Rapino does not want to enter into new deals until the deals that are already in place show to be fruitful. Of course, this is the million dollar question — is the material girl and Jay Z worth it?
Apparently the company’s chairman, concert promoter Michael Cohl (pictured) likes to spend. Unlike Michael Rapino, Cohl wants to quickly strike deals with as many as 15 more artists creating shockwaves within the company.
According to sources the dispute lead to a full-blown feud a Mr. Cohl threatening to leave Beverly Hills, Calif.-based Live Nation. Sources now say Michael Rapino and Cohl are talking about future strategy.
Live Nation’s stock price has fallen more than 44% since its first big deal with Madonna.
Insiders claim that Live Nation is entering into HIGH RISK deals because profit margins in concert promotion are thin and a bad tour could undercut the overall value of a package deal. Michael Cohl who is largest individual shareholder has been pushing the strategy’s limits says the Wall Street Journal.
C’mon, just give Cohl the credit card…
Back in the day it was much easier being an artist because there weren’t forces working against you. It’s important to remain creative and somewhat ignore these outside issues because we believe greatness will rise to the top. On the flip side, artists today should be a bit more educated. Its not exciting talking about copyright laws and it can be a bit boring, but there is a dark reality that exists in this universe that we must face. It’s another reality working against independent artists…
Orphan works are basically works whose copyright owners cannot be located. ‘The term “Orphan Works” is really a dangerously misleading phrase’.
The reality is that for independent artists, the majority of your published works may well become Orphan Works. Even if you registered your songs or tracks at the Copyright Office, there is no mechanism for identifying you or your photograph or for locating you through those records, if the user does not know your name.
Under the proposed legislation, a person who wants to use a copyrighted work is required to make only a “good faith, reasonably diligent search” to locate the copyright owner. If, after making such a search, the user is unable to locate the copyright owner, he/she/it gets an almost free license to use the work. If the copyright owner never comes forward, the user gets to use the work for free. Even if the copyright owner discovers the use and demands payment, the MOST the copyright owner can get is “reasonable compensation,” i.e. a reasonable license fee for the use actually made.
Wait, it gets worse: If the copyright owner discovers the use and demands payment, “where the infringement is performed without any purpose of direct or indirect commercial advantage, such as through the sale of copies or phonorecords of the infringed work, and the infringer ceases the infringement expeditiously after receiving notice of the claim for infringement, no award of monetary relief shall be made.”
The fact that the potential compensation is so low presents a fatal impediment to collection: if you discover one of your works being used and demand only your reasonable licensing fee, but the person refuses to pay, you cannot afford to sue to collect the minimal amount to which you are entitled. Without the possibility of an award of attorneys’ fees or statutory damages, no lawyer would take your case; and if he or she did, you would end up paying far more legal fees than you could possibly collect.
The bottom line is that, even if you have done everything right, including registering your photographs immediately at the Copyright Office, every photograph that you publish may be up for grabs if it doesn’t have a published credit. Yes, people have to contact publishers to try to identify and locate you, but if that doesn’t produce your name and/or contact information for any reason, they may be entitled to a free, or almost free, pass. (ASMP)
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