Music Industry

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Music Industry July 8, 2011

RIAA Accounting: How To Sell 1 Million Albums And Still Owe $500,000

The always excellent TechDirt has a breakdown and an embedded video from an entertainment lawyer about record label contracts.  RIAA Accounting: How To Sell 1 Million Albums And Still Owe $500,000 I knew about some of these line items, but “reserves” and “breakage”? We should all keep these numbers in mind the next time a label boss says he needs legislation allowing him to charge copyright violators with a crime and not merely a civil offense. When label bosses whine about how “no artist will want to make music if they can’t get paid”, ask that boss if his artists…

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Music Industry, Radio June 12, 2011

RIP Darryl Pandy

Darryl Pandy sang the vocals on one of the first “proper” house record most of us ever bought or heard. It was Farley jackmaster Funk’s “Love Can’t Turn Around”. It was the commercial hit version of the earlier JM Silk track “I Can’t Turn Around” (which itself was a version of an Isaac Hayes track). Sure it was an important track because it was one of the very first house tracks to bust out of the Chicago scene and become an international hit, but for me it was important for a couple of more personal reasons. It was the first…

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Music Industry, Music Technology May 10, 2011

Updated: Google Music Beta – Request your invite

My last post was about the Amazon Cloud Player. Now Google has done the same thing. I am waiting for my invite. The About Google Music page has links so you can request your invite too. (US only for the moment) The video below gives a quick tour. Features include a playlist maker. It will be interesting to see if Google can match the clever algorithms used by Pandora, iTunes and the rest. Early reports suggest that the service lets you store 20,000 songs. I cannot tell if that is a space cap or merely a “number of tracks” cap….

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IP, Music Industry April 13, 2011

The best report ever on media piracy (now with video)

Joe Karaganis, program director at the Social Science Research Council and vice president at the American Assembly discusses their report “Media Piracy in Emerging Economies.” And another good write up about it here http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2011/03/29/the-best-report-ever-on-media-piracy/

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Music Industry, remixes March 24, 2011

“The 30 Greatest Hip-Hop Demos”

Chairman Mao over at complex.com does a fine job of ferreting out some real gems. Some are rough as hell, as you’d expect, others are smoother. The thrill of discovery persists in all of ’em. Most of the demos have more than one track, so there’s the opportunity for some extended listening. There’s also the opportunity to marvel at the amount of talent which did not survive past the first few recordings… The 30 Greatest Hip-Hop Demos  | Complex.com.

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Music Industry, remixes January 29, 2011

The Streets – Cyberspace and Reds Mixtape

Cyberspace and Reds (Deluxe Edition) by The Streets Mike Skinner / The Streets has been on a tear recently. After a year of silence there’s been lots of activity on his blog, leading up to the release of the final Streets album, Computers & Blues. His site includes really interesting videos and other commentary. He’s also recently released a free mixtape – “Cyberspace and Reds”. It was originally released via the iTunes only app “Mike Scanner”, but in a very sensible concession to the majority of his fans who are, as he says, “not subjects of Steve Jobs”, he has…

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Music Industry January 12, 2011

Sign of the digital times: Sony shutting plant that used to make 18M CDs a month

Sony this week said it was shuttering one of its largest CD manufacturing plants – citing the impact of digital downloads and other economic issues. The plant, which is in Pitman, NJ and has been in operation for some 50 years, first producing vinyl records, will close on March 31 and about 300 people will lose their jobs.  The 500,000-square-foot warehouse began producing vinyl LPs in 1960 and moved to CD manufacturing in 1988. At its capacity, the plant was making 18 million CDs per month, according to its website. Sony shutting plant that used to make 18M CDs a month (Info…

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IP, Music Industry, Music Technology January 10, 2011

Shock! Major record label does the right thing! (.. or does it?)

From the press release: The American people, through the nation’s library, will receive a post-holiday gift of vintage sound recordings from one of the world’s largest recording companies. The Library of Congress and the Universal Music Group (UMG) announced today the donation of more than 200,000 historic master recordings—many long out-of-print or never released—to the Library’s Recorded Sound Section, which has more than 3 million sound recordings in its collections.    Universal Music Group Donates Recordings to Library – The Library Today Library of Congress. Note, though, that Universal retains the commercial rights and the copyright.  So it seems as though…

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Music Industry, Music Technology September 18, 2010

How we discover new music today

We Twitter-follow someone we already like. They follow someone they like and then R(e)T(weet) something he says: We follow the link in the tweet and get to: http://www.collapseboard.com/song-of-the-day-177-agent-ribbons Where we learn about a new band we’ve not heard before. And we get to hear them on videos we’d not seen before. We learn that there is a CD from 2006 (now apparently out of print) and that there will be a new CD forthcoming on October 12, 2010 And finally find out the they are playing a show in NYC September 19th, a day we cannot go…

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Music Industry, Music Technology September 10, 2010

Guess What, Court Says You Might Not Own That Record You Bought

Wired.com’s excellent Threat Level blog has a post called Guess What, You Don’t Own That Software You Bought. It’s all about the federal appeals court saying today that software makers can use shrink-wrap and click-wrap licenses to forbid the transfer or resale of their wares, an apparent gutting of the so-called first-sale doctrine. How might this apply to records? We already know that you do not own songs you “buy” from iTunes, you merely own a license to play them. What if a record company decided to include a note on every record and CD saying that your purchase of…

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Music Industry, remixes, video September 10, 2010

One of Pooplist’s own is very busy (Oh, and gets played on Mary Anne Hobbs’ last show!)

Praveen Sharma (a PoOP contributor in ’01 and ’03) is hard working man. His many projects include PercussionLab and Sepalcure The former has many interesting electronic music based mixes from around the world. The latter has a 4 track EP on Hotflush Recordings which will interest fans of Joy Orbison, Flying Lotus, Hudson Mohawke and Larry Heard. And in a coup whose import is difficult to overstate, Sepalcure had a dubplate played on Mary Anne Hobbs’ last Radio 1 show. She’s such a fan that she’s included a song of theirs on soundtrack for the new Daren Aronofsky film Go…

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Music Industry September 9, 2010

Matador 21st Anniversary Box – 6 CDs, book (+ poker chips?!)

A little while ago we highlighted the Ninja Tune XX box. Now it’s the turn of Matador Records. Not quite as elaborate as the NT box but pretty hefty nonetheless. And what’s with the poker chips? Is it so fans have something to use at the Matador 21 in Las Vegas celebration, October 1 – 3. Full details and tracklist at the Matador Order page Here are the basics: Various Artists Matador At 21 A LIMITED EDITION 6-CD LINEN-COVERED BOX SET with 36 custom poker chips in 3 values, an 85-page perfect bound book with history of the label, photos,…

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Music Industry August 28, 2010

Another reason to dislike Apple

As though it were not enough for us to have to suffer through Apple and their fanboi’s constant over-hyping of their over-priced, over-rated, under-performing hardware and their smut-hating, prudish and censorious App store tendencies, we now have to deal with people telling us that their “record has been released on iTunes” Yes, I admit it, I am a dinosaur. I think that if I “buy” something I “own” it. BUT, do I really “own” something if I cannot sell it to someone else? And if I cannot sell it, did I really “buy” it to begin with? It’s because of…

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Music Industry, remixes, WTF? July 6, 2010

Ninja Tune XX – What a beast! Now *that’s* the way to celebrate your 20th!

Ninja Tune, the label founded by Coldcut, is turning 20 years old. The Ninja Tune XX boxset is a beast.   You’ve got wo days left to pre-order it at $130.00 Hit the link for the truly frightening details (6 CDs, 6 7″s, stickers, hardback, etc. etc.) and here’s the remarkable track lineup: Tracklists: * = New + Exclusive CD1 * Two Fingers ‘Fools’ * * Roots Manuva ‘It’s On’ * * Toddla T ‘Want U Now’ (feat. Ms Dynamite) * * Dorian Concept ‘Her Tears Taste Like Pears’ * * Zomby ‘The Forest’ * * Offshore ‘Jen At The Station’ * * Emika…