Business News Week In Five

The music business week in five – 4 May 2012

By | Published on Friday 4 May 2012

Chris Cooke

So, here we are, less than a week away from The Great Escape!

As you will no doubt have seen, a whole load more announcements have been made this week about the CMU-programmed convention. Click here for an overview of this year’s programme, here for details about networking opportunities, and here to have your say on this year’s YMCA awards. And here if you don’t yet have a delegates pass. And then we’ll see you next week in Brighton – hurrah. Meanwhile, let’s recap the music business week just gone.

01: The English courts order The Pirate Bay be blocked.
Five ISPs were told to block their customers from accessing the file-sharing website at the start of the week after legal action by record label trade body the BPI. An injunction application against a sixth, BT, is still pending. Virgin Media has already instigated its block. Online there was much debate about how easy it is to circumvent such blocks and whether that made such injunctions foolish, or whether simply adding extra complications to the file-sharing process was in itself of value for those looking to protect copyrights. Meanwhile, the Bay said coverage of the blocks had resulted in a significant spike in traffic on its site. CMU report | Telegraph report

02: New stats showed that the indie sector increased its market share in 2011. Meanwhile, according to Music & Copyright, Universal, Sony and EMI all saw their respective shares of both the recordings and music publishing sectors slip slightly in the same year. Warner Music also enjoyed gains. The indie sector was collectively up 2% in the recorded music market, and 1.2% in publishing. CMU report | Music & Copyright report

03: ReDigi insisted it had the resources to fight its EMI lawsuit, after some reports noted that the firm’s original lawyer had said he planned to step back from the case, leading to speculation the tech start-up was running out of money. ReDigi offers an MP3 resale service which it claims is allowed under US copyright law. EMI says the company’s platform infringes copyrights. The judge hearing the case says the debate in court later this year should be interesting. But it will probably also be time-consuming, leading some to fear ReDigi wouldn’t be able to afford to fight the litigation. But, the tech firm this week said that, while it was changing lawyers (court approval pending), it remained well placed and financed to fight EMI in court. CMU report | Hypebot report

04: Rdio launched in the UK, albeit rather quietly. The US-based streaming platform has been expanding around the world for a few months, and speculation it would soon arrive here has been widespread for quite a few weeks. Elsewhere in the digital domain, Spotify launched an iPad app, We7 pushed out an enhanced mobile app, Deezer launched an API for app makers, and Mobile Roadie announced it was now offering digital solutions for content owners and brands wanting iPad apps or mobile websites. Rdio reportApps report

05: Amanda Palmer broke a Kickstarter record by raising $482,141 in fan-funding in just five days. She went to the crowd sourcing site looking to raise $100,000 in funding for a new record, book and tour, offering all sorts of goodies for pledgers. Palmer, already a leading player in the whole DIY, direct-to-fan, finance-by-pre-order thing, smashed her initial target in a few hours, making it the most successful music-based crowd-sourcing campaign via the US-based platform. Hurrah for Amanda. CMU report | THR report

And that’s your lot – though do look out for the CMU podcast going live over the weekend.

Chris Cooke
Business Editor, CMU



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