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Business News Week In Five
The music business week in five – 13 Apr 2012
By Chris Cooke | Published on Friday 13 April 2012
So, I was at the Wide Days conference in Edinburgh yesterday, which was very fun indeed. And the guys on the tech-focused panel I moderated provided some very interesting ideas and insights, for websites and apps, but also quirky physical products. The cut-out-and-make cardboard headphones that worked were a particular favourite. But what else happened in music this week?
01: MAMA managers made new plans. Following news last week that some key execs were departing HMV’s MAMA Group as the flagging retailer goes through the motions of selling the company, it emerged this week that two managers affiliated to the firm’s SuperVision management agency were resurrecting their own company, Trust Management, that had basically merged with the MAMA unit back in 2008. Meanwhile Record Of The Day reported that two other MAMA managers, James Sandom and Cerne Canning, were jumping ship to rival Red Light. CMU report
02: One Direction were sued over their name in the US. Another band called One Direction said they had the name first, had filed a trademark application in America first, and that Sony and Syco had acted unreasonably by launching their ‘X-Factor’ boyband Stateside without first dealing with the name clash. Actually it looks like the American One Direction are getting extra YouTube plays and iTunes downloads because of the confusion, but they want the British popsters to change their name and pay them damages. Expect an out of court settlement. CMU report | The Sun report
03: The Mega data debate continued. Lawyers for MegaUpload have formally asked the US courts to let them take responsibility for the currently out of reach data stored on the rogue file-transfer site’s old servers. It wants to get access to it partly to get evidence for the Mega team’s defence, and partly to give former Mega customers access to any legitimate data they had stored on the company’s cloud-storage platform. The company which owns those servers are keen to wipe the data as soon as possible to free up its hardware. Prosecutors have told the hosting firm to just do it, but various other parties want access to the former Mega files first. A judge is expected to decide what should happen later today. CMU Timeline | BBC report
04: There was more criticism of Grooveshark. First the publisher of Digital Music News hit out at the allegedly heavy handed way Grooveshark is pursuing legal action against the industry website in a bid to identify an anonymous commentator who made allegations against the streaming platform. The comment is referenced in Universal Music’s latest lawsuit against Grooveshark. Then the boss of TuneCore, which represents self-releasing artists in the digital domain, hit out at the streaming company, accusing them of “knowingly and willingly using a legal loophole to steal from artists and songwriters”. CMU Timeline | DMN post | TuneCore post
05: Spotify launched an embeddable playlist widget. It means media and bloggers can embed a pretty widget showing playlists they’ve set up in Spotify. Though when a reader presses play, it just fires up the Spotify player. And if they don’t have a Spotify account, they’ll need to register with both Facebook and Spotify to get access. Still, an interesting development that could help the streaming service sign up yet more new members, first to its freemium option, and then maybe to its premium services. CMU report | Telegraph report
And that’s your lot people. See you next week.
Chris Cooke
Business Editor, CMU
