June, 2016

Department Of Justice To Deny Consent Decree Amendment 

The U.S. Department of Justice struck a major blow Wednesday to U.S. music publishers and performing rights organizations.

A nearly two-year process to amend the consent decree so that music publishers would have the right to withdraw digital licensing from the blanket licenses offered by ASCAP and BMI — the two performing rights organizations operating under a DOJ consent decree since 1941 — has ended with no changes to the consent degree, much to the chagrin of major publishers like Sony/ATV, Universal Music Publishing Group and BMG.

Source: Department Of Justice To Deny Consent Decree Amendment | Billboard

Kobalt’s AWAL joins forces with Music Glue for independent artists 

Kobalt’s digital music services platform, AWAL has signed a partnership with Music Glue, the direct-to-fan platform for selling tickets, music, merchandise, experiences and more. Both companies say they will ‘explore ways in which they can continue adding value to artists they work with by building out supplemental services for clients’.

“Our goal at Kobalt is always to provide our clients with services they need in the most transparent way,” said Richard Sanders, President of Kobalt.

Source: Kobalt’s AWAL joins forces with Music Glue for independent artists – Music Business Worldwide

Paris Bookstore La Librairie des PUF Commits to Print-on-Demand

The new Les PUF store, La Librairie des PUF, certainly makes a stylish addition to an already highly literary quarter. It’s not far from the Place de la Sorbonne, the city’s historic seat of academia. And it’s just round the corner from some of the city’s most prestigious bookshops: the Librairie Philosphique J. Vrin, Editions de Boccard, Bonnefoi’s Livres Anciens and Albert Blanchard’s Librairie Scientifique and Technique.

On opening the door, however, it’s immediately apparent that this is not quite the “bookstore without books” that some have suggested it is.

Source: Paris Bookstore La Librairie des PUF Commits to Print-on-Demand

IBM Opens Blockchain Garage in New York City

IBM has announced the opening of a new office for blockchain coders in a New York City neighborhood better known for its art galleries and boutique stores than for computer programmers.

Headquartered in the SoHo offices of Galvanize, the workspace is the latest of IBM’s Bluemix Garages, physical workshopping destinations that provide a venue for its technology consulting services.

Source: IBM Opens Blockchain Garage in New York City – CoinDesk

Presidential Candidate Hillary Clinton Pledges Support for Blockchain 

Presumptive US presidential nominee Hillary Clinton has thrown her support behind blockchain tech applications in the public sector.

Clinton, who is expected to receive the presidential nomination from the US Democratic Party next month, released a broad technology and innovation agenda yesterday in which her campaign argued that US public policy should include work with blockchain.

Source: Presidential Candidate Hillary Clinton Pledges Support for Blockchain – CoinDesk

Industry Out of Harmony With YouTube on Tracking of Copyrighted Music 

At the core of the dispute is the Content ID system that YouTube built nine years ago in an attempt to turn videos uploaded by users into a business opportunity for copyright owners, while boosting its own advertising revenues. YouTube says Content ID works nearly perfectly to help record labels protect their music and make money from it, and keeps getting smarter.

But many in the music industry say the system isn’t automatically identifying many of their recordings when users have altered or combined them—or occasionally for no apparent reason at all. Furthermore, labels charge that Content ID doesn’t scan the YouTube channels managed by major TV networks and smaller networks such as Fullscreen and AwesomenessTV, many of which feature amateurs covering popular songs.

Source: Industry Out of Harmony With YouTube on Tracking of Copyrighted Music – WSJ

Wagging Music Publishing’s Long Tail

Bill ColitreLast week’s announcement that the U.S. Copyright Office had successfully accepted a bulk submission of notices of intent (NOIs) for compulsory mechanical licenses in electronic form marked a major milestone, both for the Office and for Music Reports Inc., which delivered the NOIs on behalf of music streaming service Guvera.

Music Reports has been working with the Copyright Office for more than a decade as part of the Office’s fitful, and at times halfhearted, effort to upgrade the creaky, pre-digital process for submitting and accessing music publishing information to at least 20th century standards if not quite 21st. Last week’s successful test run on the Office’s new, electronic submission system, involving about 100 tracks, is believed to be the first such hand-off.

“We’re now ready to start doing this at scale. It’s a big, big step,” Music Report’s VP and general counsel Bill Colitre told RightsTech.com.

But it was only one step toward solving what Colitre says is a much bigger problem: the vast and fast-growing amount of music being released on digital platforms today for which publishing information is not available, if it was ever collected in the first place.

Google Partners With LyricFind To Deliver More Lyrics In Search, Administer Rights 

LyricFind_logoGoogle Search and Google Play Music are diving more deeply into song lyrics via a deal with LyricFind. Lyrics as an add-on  have been getting attention lately.  Apple Music is adding them.  Spotify offered lyrics and recently dropped them, but insists their coming back.

Google has  partnered with LyricFind to expand its lyric offerings. Adding lyrics from over 4,000 publishers to Google’s search results and within Google Play Music, LyricFind now provides licensing for lyrics displayed in Google’s search results as well as in the music app.

Source: Google Partners With LyricFind To Deliver More Lyrics In Search, Administer Rights – hypebot

Spotify IPO Watch: Brexit’s Bubble Bursting Bang 

Hanging over a Spotify IPO is the $1 billion in convertible debt that the company recently borrowed from Goldman Sachs, Dragoneer Investment Group, and Texas Pacific Group (TPG is also a Pandora lender, coincidentally–if you believe in coincidences).  Let’s assume that loan is in dollars.

If you take into account the loan’s 5% interest rate and the value of the warrant coverage in the deal, Spotify is essentially paying credit card interest on $1 billion (that 5% rate escalates 1% every six months until it reaches 10%, or Spotify registers an IPO).

Source: Spotify IPO Watch: Brexit’s Bubble Bursting Bang – Artist Rights Watch

U.S. Copyright Office Clears Path for Digital Compulsory Licenses 

Until recently, NOIs had to be filed manually, by paper and under a prohibitive pricing structure. So if you started a service and had the publishing data for say 5 million songs, but did not have the information for another 500,000 songs, the service would need to file NOIs, saying it is licensing and using those songs with the Copyright Office. That process would cost $75 to register for the filing of all those songs, and $2 a song, or about $1 million. Also, the NOI for each song would need to be filed individually, although they could all be batch delivered to the Copyright Office.

But about two months ago, the Copyright Office revamped the way it is willing to accept NOIs and changed its pricing structure. Now, NOIs can be filed on excel spreadsheets, with something like 20 columns of relevant data needed to be completed for each song. This electronic filing still requires an upfront fee of $75 but it now only costs 10 cents a track. So now, filing NOIs for 500,00 songs will only cost $50,075, instead of $1.000075 million.

Source: U.S. Copyright Office Clears Path for Digital Compulsory Licenses | Billboard

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