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Songwriters get paid every time one of their songs is played on the radio; the Performance Rights Act (H.R. 4789) would do the same for the musicians who played on the recording. With income from CDs and download sales on the wane, they could use the money.
Under current law, musicians get a big fat zero when their music is played on AM and FM radio (they do get royalties from satellite radio, cable radio services, and other nonterrestrial broadcasters).
According to Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), the United States is one of the few industrialized countries (with the exception … Read more
Media giant Viacom plans to restrict the embedding of music videos from MTV Networks.
Justin Tormey, a staff member for MTVN developer services, announced in a blog posting Friday that starting next month, the company would no longer make video embeds available through MTV's API:
We've got a number of changes coming on the MTVN Content API. If you're currently using the API for your site or application please take note of the changes and the timeline.
First, we want to thank everyone for their involvement with the API. You've provided valuable feedback and insight through … Read more
Universal Music first floated the idea of Total Music in 2007 as a way to give customers an alternative to free MP3s available on file-trading networks and anonymous Internet sites.
At that time, the business model called for hardware manufacturers to pay some extra amount--perhaps $5 per month--and optionally pass this cost along to consumers. In return, consumers would get the right to download as much music as they wanted, for free, during a certain time period.
Nokia eventually launched a similar plan, Comes With Music, but Total Music (which became a joint venture between Universal and Sony Music) ran … Read more
The struggling music units of Sony Corp. and Bertelsmann AG merged in 2004 so that a combined company could better fend off illegal file sharing and shrinking CD sales.
The new recording company, named Sony BMG, was expected to wield the kind of resources that could challenge Universal Music Group as … Read more
In her latest report for PaidContent.org, author Lauren Rich Fine boils down the music industry's most important trends and milestones over the past 10 years. The report is entitled Playing A New Tune: The Music Industry's D-I-Y Era, and takes an unflinching look at the state of the music industry, the players involved, and the staggering amount of money and blind faith it takes to stay in the game.
Want to know if record labels still matter? Not sure if Apple saving or slaughtering the music industry? Should bands stop making records and transition entirely to Guitar … Read more
There was all sorts of buzz earlier this week about TV on the Radio's apparently abysmal performance on Saturday Night Live. If you like the band, as I happen to, you have to wonder what happened: their recordings are immaculate, and they have a solid live reputation.
Today, music blog Idolator performs an interesting experiment, embedding the band's performance of "Dancing Choose" on SNL directly above the same song performed on last night's edition of The Colbert Report. The difference is immediately noticeable.
So what the heck happened on SNL? Idolator jokes that they're … Read more
After a couple weeks of rumors reported by The Wall Street Journal and other outlets, it's finally happened: concert promoter and venue owner Live Nation and the nation's largest ticket seller, Ticketmaster, have merged in a deal worth approximately $2.5 billion.
Why is this important? Because the combined companies are, in my opinion, dangerously close to building a vertical monopoly. The new company, Live Nation Entertainment, will own concert venues, the ticketing system for those venues, and exclusive rights to certain major acts that play those venues. In other words, if you thought concert prices were high … Read more
LOS ANGELES--For anybody wondering why Microsoft and the top record labels continue to promote subscription music services, the answer was revealed Thursday.
David Ring, executive vice president of business development for Universal Music Group's digital arm, said at the EconMusic Conference that the recording industry simply can't sustain itself with download sales alone.
"If what we're trying to do is one-by-one downloads...that's not a business that can grow," Ring told conference attendees during panel discussion he participated in. "It won't be healthy for the industry."
Prior to Ring's statement, … Read more
Did you catch Bruce Springsteen's halftime performance on Sunday? Turns out, you were listening to The Boss sing to a prerecorded backing track.
According to this Chicago Tribune interview with Super Bowl pregame entertainment producer Hank Neuberger, only Springsteen's vocals were live (Jennifer Hudson and Faith Hill lip-synched).
As Neuberger correctly explains, it's impossible to set up a rock band for a live performance in five minutes and have anything approaching decent sound. Either you sing to a prerecorded backing track or you accept that millions of viewers are going to hear a crummy performance.
In fact, … Read more
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