The Future of Music Coalition, an artists’ rights group, is accusing Clear Channel Communications of forcing musicians to give up their digital copyrights in order to get the airplay that the broadcaster is required to give under the payola consent decree.
The Coalition claims that Clear Channel is forcing independent musicians to sign a contract that gives up the artists’ right to a performance fee when their music is broadcast over the Web.
This is outrageous,” Coalition Executive Director Jenny Toomey said, according to the Hollywood Reporter, Esq. “This is like the fox getting caught in the henhouse a second time and arguing that he shouldn’t get in trouble because he was leaving the hens alone. He was just eating all their eggs.”
Clear Channel tells a different story:
Michele Clarke, according to the Reporter. “The artists are in complete control of their musical work. They control whether they just want it considered for broadcast over the air, whether they want it considered for streaming online, whether they want it to be available for download or all three, and (most importantly) they have the right to terminate their license at any time upon notice to us.”
In March, the Copyright Royalty Board voted to increase the rates that Webcasters must pay each time a song is played, and the stiff increase has been a hot button issue among Webcasters ever since. (FMQB)
 
Music file-sharing service Qtrax is about to hit the market with catalogs of all the 4 major record labels. Not only that, Qtrax will be traded publicly under a shell company called Flooring Zone.
Qtrax will have access to between 20 million and 30 million copyrighted songs at launch in October. Some sources claim that Qtrax could be considered a legitimate threat to Apple’s iTunes, which only features 5 million songs, but also a better economic proposition as well (record labels collect about 70 cents on each iTunes sale).
Qtrax has the support of the four major record labels – EMI, SonyBMG, Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group
More than 5 billion songs were swapped on peer-to-peer sites last year while CD sales, the industry’s core revenue-producing product, continue to decline, dropping about 20 percent this year alone. According to a recent report from Jupiter Research, things are only going to get worse.
“Consumers clearly aren’t willing to pay for music, but advertisers are the one group that still will,” said Brilliant Technologies CEO Allan Klepfisz, who added that Internet advertising is growing at a 30 percent clip per year. (NY Post)
Qtrax’s initial revenue projections range from a low of $20 million to a high of $175 million. Record labels will get an equal split of advertising revenue in addition to the royalty fees it collects from Qtrax.
 
According to research from the NPD Group, Apple iTunes is now the third largest music retailer in the country in any format, digital or physical. Based on first quarter figures, Wal-Mart is the biggest single music retailer with 15.8% of the market, Best Buy second at 13.8% and iTunes third at 9.8%.
Bon Jovi 80’s Rock Star Crosses Over to the Other Side….
According to sources Bon Jovi’s country record Lost Highway could move 230K first week. Bon Jovi successfuly crossed over to country, a true mega star. How did he do it? It was a graceful entrance not a forceful entrance. In fact, pick up his last record ‘Have a Nice Day’, and you will hear the country roots.
Last year, his band became the first rock group to top Billboard magazine’s country singles chart, teaming with Jennifer Nettles of country duo Sugarland for Who Says You Can’t Go Home Universal Music Group Nashville chairman Luke Lewis, whose division is promoting the new Bon Jovi project to country radio, sees the potential for artists coming in from other genres.
Jon has a better shot than most,” he says. “A lot of his fans have gravitated over to country (as they get older). We’re trying to reach those folks, then build some incremental audience for him.” (USA Today)
Linkin Park’s new release Minutes to Midnight went platinum within 4 weeks.
Spank Rock a hip-hop/funk/electro group originally from Baltimore recently completed a four album deal with Downtown Records (Gnarls Barkley)
Music Producer David Bendeth speaks out on Kerrang and NME, we couldn’t agree more….
These rags kill me. They have been around longer than me and its really funny watching them try to be cool. They enlist all these semi astute writers who have all these lame records in their collection. Their main goal in life is to get every fact wrong and twist the truth into something that might seem plausable for the scenesters.
I mean how can you take a name like KERRANG seriously in 2007? I mean its fucking Iron Maiden trying to be hip, lets call it what it is. And reading Paramore’s review in NME was even a bigger Joke. I read this rag when I was a kid. Looks like they hired a bunch of teenagers from Canvey Island to write the reviews. They called Paramore EMO like 5 times..EMO???? WTF?? EMO?
Not even people from Utah call it EMO anymore! They use words like Angst and Emotional. Spare me please.
Now I know they are not crazy for my “slick” production work..thats ok. I mean it hasnt hurt me one bit on the radio , not even in England next week where the mid chart on Paramore is #30. It is blatantly obvious to me that these longhaired metalheads like shit sounding records. They like vibey records, you know the Strokes, stuff that sounds like it was recorded in your mums bathroom. Kids recording with a computer and keyboard through a 1957 mic. These guys kill me, they wouldnt know a good sounding record if Rod re recorded Every Picture tells a story.
Oh WELL, enough of the rant. Thank god for kids, at least they can sniff this crap out. And dont forget UK press, when the US bands cough, you catch a cold.
AHEM!!
KKKKK 5 K’s for this one Dave
David Bendeth is an A list music producer who has produced many acts you hear today including Breaking Benjamin, Red Jump Suit Apparatus, Hawthorne Heights and the most recent Paramore. Bendeth has long history in the music biz. He was also the VP of A&R at RCA where he signed Vertical Horizon, Crash Test Dummies and discovered KD Lang.
KOAR frequently visits Bendeth at his newly owned studio “House of Loud” in NJ and our discussions usually evolve around music shop.
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