Well, thank God for ITV and its passion for good time keeping at non-sport related events, ensuring there was at least a tiny little bit of scandal to spice up the 2012 BRIT Awards. The UK record industry’s annual back slapping fest has become a rather slick affair in recent years, especially since its move east to The O2, which makes for a good live show if you’re there, but pretty lacklustre television. Perhaps I’m showing my age, but for me, unless a bum is wiggled, a political leader drenched, or a pissed up DJ offends a rock icon, well, British music hasn’t been truly celebrated. And dragging Blur on stage for the finale surely only reminded older viewers of those heady days of BRIT Awards chaos in the 1990s.

But, just as it looked like the newspapers were going to have to lead with “everyone we thought would win won”, or possibly “George Michael sufficiently not dead to present an award”, ITV handed The Sun and The Mirror their front pages as it insisted host James Corden cut off the undeniable star of the evening, double award winner and Britain’s biggest selling singer of the moment, Adele, as she tried to deliver her second acceptance speech. It seems that if ITV viewers don’t get their scheduled news fix at 10pm they are liable to riot (word has it that’s what happened last August), and while Damon Albarn’s inane rambling earlier in the evening had probably pushed everything behind schedule in the first place, that was no reason to cut the Blur end-of-show set, “so get that bloody Adkins woman off the stage would you, Corden?”

Adkins, presumably inspired by MIA, gave the cameras the finger (a “fuck off” to the show’s producers, she later clarified), providing the perfect photo for what was now everyone’s lead BRITS story. So much so, the PR machine was in action by midnight, with ITV telling reporters “the BRITs is a live event. Unfortunately the programme was over running and we had to move on. We would like to apologise to Adele for the interruption”.

A BRITs spokesman added: “We regret this happened and we send our deepest apologies to Adele that her big moment was cut short this evening due to the live show over-running. We don’t want this to undermine her incredible achievement in winning our night’s biggest award. It tops off what’s been an incredible year for her”.

So there you go, “ITV and BRIT bosses conspire with Mastercard to embarrass Britain’s favourite singing sensation”. Thank God for that, prior to Cut-Short-Speech-Gate I had literally nothing to say about this year’s BRITs. And look, now I’ve managed 448 words without even saying, here’s a full list of this year’s winners…

British Male Solo Artist: Ed Sheeran
British Female Solo Artist: Adele
British Breakthrough Act: Ed Sheeran
British Group: Coldplay
Critics’ Choice: Emeli Sandé
British Producer: Ethan Johns

British Single: One Direction – What Makes You Beautiful
British Album: Adele – 21

International Male Solo Artist: Bruno Mars
International Female: Rihanna
International Group: Foo Fighters
International Breakthrough Act: Lana Del Rey

Outstanding Contribution To Music: Blur

Watch the video below to see Adele explain why she raised her middle finger after her acceptance speech was cut off:

MegaUpload founder Kim ‘Dotcom’ Schmitz has finally been granted bail in New Zealand after a third attempt to get out of jail. As previously reported, Schmitz, one of four men arrested in New Zealand last month at the request of US authorities in relation to their involvement in the Mega empire, had previously been refused bail twice because of concerns he would flee the country for home nation Germany, where it would be much harder for America to extradite him.

But yesterday a New Zealand judge accepted the arguments put forward by Schmitz’s lawyer that, with all his client’s bank accounts frozen, the accused wouldn’t have the means to leave the country. Prosecutors had previously expressed concerns Schmitz still had access to other secret sources of cash, but Judge Nevin Dawson yesterday said there was no evidence that was the case.

He also noted that, while it might hard for the US to extradite Schmitz should he manage to get to Germany, he could still be prosecuted through the German courts, meaning a return to his home country wouldn’t necessarily ensure he was out of the reach of the law.

Dawson ruled: “Since [the original bail hearing], all known assets have been seized and are unavailable for Mr Dotcom’s use or disposal. [Meanwhile] no new assets or accounts of any significance have been revealed since his arrest. Mr Dotcom’s submission that he has not concealed any assets or bank accounts has largely been borne out”.

The terms of Schmitz’s bail have not been revealed, though other bailed former Mega execs have been banned from using the internet. Speaking outside the court, the Mega chief told reporters: “I am relieved to go home to see my family, my three little kids and my pregnant wife. And I hope you understand that that is all I want to say right now”.

As previously reported, the three other Mega executives arrested at the same time as Schmitz have already been bailed. All four, and three other men, one arrested in Europe and two still at large, are accused of copyright infringement, racketeering and money laundering in relation to the now defunct MegaUpload service, and other related websites.

Pan-European indie label trade body IMPALA yesterday confirmed once again that it will urge the European Commission to block Universal’s proposed acquisition of the EMI record labels, as the major formally submitted its proposals to the EC for consideration.

IMPALA first voiced its concerns about Universal’s plans, as well as Sony/ATV’s bid to buy the EMI publishing business, before even current EMI owner Citigroup announced its intent to sell to those bidders last November.

The indie trade body says the two deals, which will enable the two biggest music companies dwarf the biggest of the independents and even their last remaining major label rival Warner Music, will create a powerful duopoly, in which Universal and Sony – already business partners via the VEVO venture – will hold all the cards in both recorded music and music publishing.

Noting that Universal had now formally submitted its bid proposals to the European competition regulators, IMPALA’s Executive Chair Helen Smith said yesterday: “The clock has finally started ticking in Europe. Ultimately we expect this to lead to an outright rejection of both the Universal/EMI and Sony/EMI mergers. Keeping the online market as open as possible is essential for competition and for responding to piracy, as well as other market problems. Turning music into a two-horse race would hamper the natural development of the market and increase prices. No level of divestments or behavioural undertakings would prevent that from happening”.

As previously reported, Universal will argue that the music industry has moved on since the last time European competition regulators considered a major merger, and that therefore its latest acquisition should be approved, despite officials previously expressing concerns about even the firm’s current size the last time it expanded through a big takeover, ie the purchase of the BMG music publishing catalogues in 2007. The company will also likely argue that in the all important digital domain prices are determined by the big download platforms, mainly iTunes, and possibly that while piracy remains rampant price rises will always be limited to an extent by the availability of free illegal content.

But the independents are likely to dispute all those arguments. They will counter that the music rights sector has not changed as dramatically as Universal suggests, and that in the digital domain Apple’s market dominance will only decline as newer rivals and alternative digital platforms mature, making the download space more competitive, and increasing the power of mega-rights owners in any negotiations.

They might also point out that, while Apple may have set the original price point in the download space, the majors, led by Universal, were still able to pressure iTunes into introducing the variable pricing model they had always advocated, despite Apple’s initial insistence on a one-price-for-all model.

It will be interesting to see how the Commission responds. It yesterday confirmed that it had now received Universal’s proposals, and had set an interim deadline for phase one of its investigation of 23 Mar Interested parties, including IMPALA and Warner Music, who have also announced their intent to lobby against the EMI deals, will now be asked to fill out a questionnaire about Universal’s bid. Phase one could be extended to up to 35 days to allow that information to be gathered and considered.

In theory the Commission could rule on Universal’s bid, one way or another, at the end of the first phase of its investigation, though nobody, on either side of the argument, expects that to happen. Certainly if the Commission is in any mood to clear the merger, then it will need to consider a plethora of related issues, and that is unlikely to be achieved in 35 days.

Regulators will also likely remember how their initial approval of the SonyBMG merger in 2004 was overturned by the European courts because they hadn’t gone into enough detail in their initial investigation. Officials, therefore, will presumably be extra careful to ensure their ruling on this consolidation can’t be undone at a later stage on procedural grounds.

Assuming, therefore, that this investigation does go into phase two, that will add anything between two and four months to the proceedings, and there could be another month or two in between the two phases to allow interested parties to prepare more evidence. So, unless officials are in a mood to shock everyone, it seems likely no decision will actually be made this side of summer.

Sony/ATV is expected to submit its bid proposals to regulators any day now, and that investigation will then have the same initial timelines. As also previously reported, some reckon the investigation into that deal may be quicker, though it is likely the impact of a duopoly in music publishing on the collecting society system will be considered, and any consideration of the future of the collecting society system is rarely done quickly.

In related news, the New York Post yesterday claimed that Universal had provided guarantees to Citigroup regarding its EMI bid, so that if the merger fails at the regulatory hurdle in either the US or Europe the bankers won’t lose out. The arrangement means that if the deal falls through and Citigroup is forced to find a new bidder, and if the subsequent sale generates less than the $1.9 billion Universal offered for the EMI labels, then Universal will cover the difference.

Which would allow Warner Music owner Len Blavatnik to buy the EMI labels at the price he thought was fair (somewhat less than $1.9 billion), while also allowing Citigroup to recoup the bulk of the losses it made by backing Terra Firma’s EMI acquisition in 2007, all at Universal’s expense. Of course if Universal bosses have made such guarantees, that reaffirms just how confident they are that their merger plans will ultimately be approved. Time will tell, of course.

As the British record industry prepares for its big party at The O2 tonight, label chiefs were already celebrating yesterday after scoring a win in the first stage of their legal efforts to force ISPs in the UK to block access to The Pirate Bay.

As previously reported, record label trade body the BPI took aim at The Pirate Bay last year after the landmark ruling in the Newzbin case, in which a British judge, for the first time, ordered an internet service provider to block access to its customers to a file-sharing website, after the operators of that site tried to circumvent an earlier court ruling against them by moving their service outside the jurisdiction of the UK courts.

Following the precedent set in the Newzbin case, the BPI asked various British ISPs to voluntarily block access to The Pirate Bay. When the net firms refused the trade body went legal, and stage one of that litigation asked the question “is The Pirate Bay liable for the infringement it enables, even if the Pirate Bay servers themselves do not host any unlicensed music files?”

And the answer, in the words of High Court judge Ricky Arnold, is: “Yes, it fucking is, man, it fucking is”. Well, I am paraphrasing ever so slightly, but that’s basically what he meant.

If you’d prefer Arnold’s exact words, they went something like this: “In my judgment, the operators of [The Pirate Bay] do authorise its users’ infringing acts of copying and communication to the public. They go far beyond merely enabling or assisting. Despite their ability to do so, and despite the judicial findings that have been made against them, the operators of [The Pirate Bay] take no steps to prevent infringement. On the contrary … they actively encourage it and treat any attempts to prevent it (judicial or otherwise) with contempt. I [therefore] conclude that both users and the operators of [The Pirate Bay] infringe the copyrights of the claimants (and those they represent) in the UK”.

Welcoming that ruling, BPI boss Geoff Taylor told reporters: “The High Court today ruled that The Pirate Bay is illegal. The site defrauds musicians and causes huge damage to the music industry and wider creative industries. We will now proceed with our application to have the site blocked to protect the UK’s creative industries from further harm”.

Of course it’s no real surprise that The Pirate Bay has been labelled a copyright infringer by the UK courts, it having lost similar legal cases all across Europe (though it’s true the English law concept of ‘authorising infringement’ is less well tested when it comes to certain file-sharing services), and therefore phase two of this litigation will be more interesting, ie whether the Newzbin principle will be extended forcing ISPs to finally block access to the rogue file-sharing site. A ruling on that matter is now expected in June.

The Pirate Bay, of course, carries on regardless. More committed users of the file-sharing site will almost certainly be able to circumvent any blockades put in place by the ISPs, while the Bay’s previously reported move to listing magnet rather than BitTorrent files reduces the size of the site’s database significantly, enabling users to download and host their own copies of The Pirate Bay website.

And if all those alternatives fail, the filesharing community is already talking up ‘Tribler’, an alternative BitTorrent client that circumvents existing blocks and takedowns by bypassing the need to use a website entirely. So, file-sharing can continue – though, the big rights owners might argue, the pursuit of accessing and sharing illegal free content gets ever more geeky, and that should achieve their objectives of reducing piracy amongst mainstream consumers.

Universal’s takeover of the EMI record companies entered a new phase on Friday when the major submitted its acquisition proposals to the European Commission, where competition regulators will now consider whether to approve the deal.

The major remains confident it can win approval from European regulators, despite EC officials having previously expressed concerns about the further consolidation of the music industry, and amidst strong opposition to the latest merger deal from both the independent sector and rival Warner Music, which will be dwarfed by a combined Universal EMI.

Universal will argue that the music industry has moved on hugely since the last time the EC considered the sector with the mergers of the Sony and BMG record companies and Universal and BMG publishing catalogues in 2004 and 2007 respectively; and that in the increasingly crucial digital domain pricing is basically controlled by the market leader download stores (Apple and Amazon), the indies have proven their ability to compete via Merlin, and Universal has a good record of licensing new digital ventures (albeit at a price).

Officially Universal expects both US and European regulators to pass its EMI deal without remedies, though most outsiders reckon that the EC, if only to be seen to do something, will demand the combined EMI/Universal offloads some of its assets in order to win deal approval, maybe a sizable chunk of catalogue (such as the Virgin divisions) and perhaps the VEVO business, through which Universal arguably controls an important route to market for content owners. A few in the indie sector, meanwhile, remain optimistic the deal may be blocked outright.

Sony/ATV is expected to submit its papers to EU regulators regarding its bid for EMI Music Publishing any day now too. In theory the two EMI deals can be considered separately, and many think Sony’s acquisition might get approved faster, because the entertainment conglom only owns half of Sony/ATV, which in turn will not own EMI Music Publishing outright (the company is leading a consortium). That said, collecting societies, and to what extent European societies should compete, remains a hot topic for some EC officials, and such people are generally only concerned with the publishing sector’s collecting agencies, and if the Sony/ATV deal gets caught up in all that, months could be added to the regulatory process.

So much so, it seems unlikely either of these deals are going to speed over the regulatory hurdles, however optimistic Universal, Sony and EMI’s current owners Citigroup are that ultimately their proposals will get the nods they require. Meanwhile the US Federal Trade Commission is already underway with its investigation into the two EMI deals, and according to the FT officials there have just sent out a second call to the various parties for further information.

Whatever the outcome, expect some interesting exchanges between Universal, Sony, Warner and the indies in the coming months.

Some 1500 mourners attended an emotional, four hour (yes, that’s four hours long) funeral for Whitney Houston on Saturday, footage of which was streamed online, and syndicated by various news channels around the world. The service took place at the church in Newark where the late singer first sang in public, a week after her premature demise in an LA hotel.

Oprah Winfrey, Mariah Carey, Forest Whitaker, Jennifer Hudson, Roberta Flack and Chaka Khan were among the mourners at the service, which was presided over by Houston’s cousin Dionne Warwick. R Kelly, Alicia Keys and Stevie Wonder all sang, while Kevin Costner and record industry veteran Clive Davies were among those to deliver eulogies. A planned performance from Aretha Franklin did not go ahead, however, because the soul legend, and Houston’s godmother, was unable to attend due to ill health.

Houston’s ex-husband Bobby Brown was not officially part of the proceedings, and indeed didn’t even stick around to watch them. Despite reports he had been asked to stay away from the funeral, Brown did arrive, but left before the service began in a dispute over seating arrangements. It’s thought there were disagreements about the seating of Brown’s nine-man entourage, and the singer’s demands to sit near his and Whitney’s daughter Bobbi Kristina.

Yesterday, at a much more modest gathering, the singer was buried at the Fairview Cemetery in Westfield, New Jersey, alongside her father John. As previously reported, Houston was found dead in a bath tub in an LA hotel room ahead of last weekend’s Grammy Awards. The exact cause of her death is currently unknown, pending the result of toxicology tests.

It’s no secret that the record industry isn’t that impressed with Google’s progress in removing links to unlicensed content sources from the lists of websites that come up when you search for an artist’s name on the market leader search engine, despite the web giant having pledged to act on such things in 2010. The International Federation Of The Phonographic Industry issued a report expressing its disappointment with Google’s anti-piracy efforts late last year, and U2 manager Paul McGuinness told MIDEM last month “it amazes me that Google has not done the right thing”.

Now it looks like those continuing frustrations could lead to litigation, despite record label trade bodies continuing to negotiate with the web giant on piracy issues, and despite more significant efforts elsewhere in the Google empire to stop copyright infringers from using the firm’s publishing platforms and ad sale services.

But it’s the fact that the Google search engine still links to websites and file-sharing networks that deal primarily in illegal content that is angering the big rights owners the most, and legal experts have now been consulted regarding the possibility of forcing the web firm’s hand through the US courts on this issue, possibly via a copyright claim, or maybe an anti-trust action, Google execs being increasingly sensitive of allegations of anti-competitive behaviour of late.

While we don’t know how serious suggestions of going legal on this issue really are, we know it’s been considered because of a document circulated to a small group of record label chiefs by the IFPI which has been published by German newspaper Handelszeitung. According to Torrentfreak, the document says: “IFPI’s litigation team, in coordination with the [Recording Industry Association Of America], is continuing to negotiate with Google to obtain better anti-piracy cooperation in various areas. [But] Google continues to fail to prioritise legal music sites over illegal sites in search results, claiming that its algorithm for search results is based on the relevance of sites to consumers”.

On going the legal route on this issue, the document continues: “With a view to addressing this failure, IFPI obtained a highly confidential and preliminary legal opinion in July 2011 on the possibility of bringing a competition law complaint against Google for abuse of its dominant position, given the distortion of the market for legitimate online music that is likely to result from Google’s prioritising of illegal sites”.

It remains to be seen if the record industry’s ongoing grievances with Google really do go legal. It’s possible some label execs hope that the mere threat of messy litigation might persuade the web firm – which has its own ambitions to be a big time music provider of course, so needs to play ball to an extent despite its own market dominance – to step up its anti-piracy efforts in the one part of its operations where it seems least willing to comply with the rights owners’ demands, ie web search.

As expected, there was much criticism in the file-sharing community and beyond yesterday about the wording of an official notice posted by the UK’s Serious Organised Crime Agency at the former domain of music blog RnBXclusive.com, which had been closed down by the authorities amid allegations of copyright infringement and conspiracy to defraud the music industry.

As previously reported, not only did the message tell former RnBXclusive.com readers that the site had been shut down as part of a criminal investigation, it offered the stern warning that “if you have downloaded music using this website you may have committed a criminal offence which carries a maximum penalty of up to ten years imprisonment and an unlimited fine under UK law”. The warning was accompanied by a widget that showed the user’s IP address, and an additional message that amounted to saying “we know where you live”.

As noted yesterday, that warning is not really backed up by UK law, because while you could be sued by rights owners for downloading unlicensed content, a criminal prosecution is only likely if you operate a file-sharing service, or upload a significant amount of content to a file-sharing network, and even then a lengthy prison sentence would only be possible if it could be shown you were profiting from your infringement, ie you were running a commercial piracy operation.

In fact, so disconnected from the real law was SOCA’s statement, that some online commentators started to wonder if the message was a hoax, perhaps a joker had somehow managed to take over RnBXclusive.com’s domain after the UK police moved to shut the site down, and had posted an over the top warning to embarrass the authorities. (The slightly amateurish look of the police notice was also noted, though SOCA’s official website does look a bit like it was designed on a night school course, so that probably wasn’t relevant.)

Anyway, it turned out the statement was, indeed, the real deal. As criticism of the way the warning was worded started to spread yesterday, the crime agency took the message down and replaced it with a more simple “SOCA has taken control of this domain name”, though the government body insists that the more controversial statement was always intended to be temporary, presumably to shock and scare the 70,000 users apparently visiting the RnB downloads blog each day.

Commenting on the wider impact of its sudden swoop on RnBXclusive.com and the stern if misleading warning it posted on that domain for 36 hours, SOCA said in a statement yesterday: “Responses to the takedown have included action by three more [unlicensed] music sites. One has taken itself offline voluntarily, one claims to be considering taking itself offline, and another has posted a claim on its home page to now only be dealing in legal music files following the activity”.

The man arrested in relation to RnBXclusive.com has been bailed, and faces charges of conspiracy to defraud. It’s thought the site made money through ad sales, and the profits made on the back of the posting of unlicensed music files will be key to securing a conviction for fraud. It remains to be seen how the criminal prosecution spans out, though in the meantime SOCA hasn’t really aided the anti-piracy cause by opening itself – and the record industry, which many believe (rightly or wrongly) was involved in the SOCA investigation and warning notice – to accusations of deliberately misrepresenting to law to scare web users into submission.

With no public memorial event planned for anytime soon, it’s been announced that Whitney Houston’s funeral service will be televised, meaning that fans will be able to mourn with the singer’s friends and family, albeit from afar.

It was announced earlier this week that the funeral service for the late pop star, due to take place this Saturday a week after her premature death, would be a private occasion to be held at the New Hope Baptist Church in Newark, where a young Houston first sang in public. However, yesterday representatives for the Houston family said that the event would now be made available to TV networks and streamed on the internet at livestream.com/aplive, possibly amid fears that fans looking to mourn, and with no official public memorial to attend, would flock to the Newark church.

About 1500 people will attend the funeral service in person, including various singers and music industry execs, while it’s thought Aretha Franklin will sing and gospel singer and pastor Marvin Winans will deliver the eulogy. There have been media reports that Bobby Brown has been asked to stay away from the service, with some blaming Houston’s ex-husband for the drug problems that dogged the latter part of her life, though said reports are almost certainly not true, because even if some of the singer’s family do resent Brown, they are unlikely to stop him from supporting the couple’s daughter on such a traumatic day.

Franklin, who was Houston’s godmother of course, has written a tribute to the late singer for People magazine in which she urges people to “remember the hits” and “forget the misses”. Recalling the first time Houston’s mother brought Whitney to a studio where Franklin was recording, the queen of soul writes: “I thought ‘what a cute, darling little red-headed girl!’ From then on, I watched her growth and development as an artist. It became apparent that she was the signalling of a younger generation coming in and a role model for many young vocal aspirants – a rose who came into full bloom. It wasn’t just the hits: Whitney knew how to be a star, and she was one of the brightest stars in the universe”.

Noting the personal problems that haunted Houston’s later life, Franklin said that her goddaughter’s worldwide fame was “perhaps too much, too soon”, while adding: “Let us all applaud and remember Whitney for the beautiful, giving and caring young lady and talented artist she was, the great music and performances. Remember the hits. Forget the misses. A true superstar has gone on, flown away on the wings of love”.

A private funeral for Whitney Houston will take place this Saturday in the singer’s hometown of Newark at the modest Baptist church where she first sang in public. It will be an invite-only occasion, though a separate public memorial service at a later date has not been ruled out.

Funeral Director Carolyn Whigham said that Houston’s family thanked the singer’s fans for their prayers and condolences, but that they had requested a private funeral service. Whigham: “It was the family’s decision. They have shared her for 30-some years with the city, with the state, with the world. This is their time now for their farewell to their daughter and mother”.

As previously reported, Houston’s body was flown from LA to New Jersey on Monday, being driven from Teterboro airport to Newark in a gold-coloured hearse. Fans were already gathering outside and leaving floral tributes at the city’s New Hope Baptist Church even before it had been announced as the venue for the private funeral.

Elsewhere in Houston news, online sales of the late singer’s work have continued to boom since her death. According to the Official Charts Company, 20 Houston songs should be in the UK Top 200 this weekend, seven in the Top 40, with her cover of Dolly Parton’s ‘I Will Always Love You’ likely to chart highest.

The singer’s two compilation albums are also both currently in the top five on iTunes UK, while in the US ‘Whitney: The Greatest Hits’ entered the Billboard Top 200 at number six yesterday having shifted 64,000 copies, despite there only being one full day between the singer’s death and the American chart week ending.

Back in the UK, Sony Music has issued a short statement regarding the revelation that the wholesale prices of Whitney’s greatest hits albums were increased shortly after her death this weekend, only to be dropped again later on Sunday. As previously reported, just hours after the singer’s premature demise the price for Whitney’s ‘Ultimate Collection’ rose on iTunes UK from £4.99 to £7.99. It turns out the singer’s other hits album, the more extensive ‘Whitney: The Greatest Hits’, also went up in price temporarily, from £7.99 to £9.99.

It’s been confirmed that the price rises only occurred in the UK, the wholesale price being increased only by Sony’s British division. Needless to say, the price hike – even though it was, as it turns out, only temporary – does not reflect well on the major, making it look like the label, which is set to benefit the most from Houston’s death anyway in terms of new record sales, was trying to cash in even more.

A source previously told The Guardian that a Sony exec, when checking what Whitney albums were stocked on iTunes after her death, noticed her compilations had previously been logged with Apple at the wrong price, and therefore the price rise was simply rectifying a previous error. Whether there is any truth in that we don’t know, but Sony didn’t rely on that excuse in its official apology.

It said yesterday: “Whitney Houston product was mistakenly mispriced on the UK iTunes store on Sunday. When discovered, the mistake was immediately corrected. We apologise for any offense caused”.

The error – described as an “internal mistake due to an employee error” by a Sony insider to Billboard – only affected UK music stores, though there is some confusion as to whether the price hike was limited to iTunes, or whether Amazon and possibly HMV were also informed of the price change.

While last weekend’s Grammys (watched by their biggest TV audience since the 1980s) were dominated by all the Whitney celebrating, Adele’s mega-wins, and Nicki Minaj’s “what the fuck?” performance, there were other conversations going on around the peripheries also.

The decision by Grammy chiefs to cut some awards from the proceedings this year continued to cause some mild controversy, though it was another decision by the awards’ bosses that was pissing off some others among America’s music community: the decision to allow R&B wife-beater Chris Brown back ontheir stage just three years after he delivered one of the more memorable Grammy weekend performances, beating his pop star girlfriend unconscious in the street.

While some (and Brown’s always dedicated fan base especially) would say the R&B star has ‘done his time’ as it were (180 hours of community service) for beating Rihanna senseless, and that the world should therefore forgive and forget, others are concerned that no one has really forgotten, and therefore giving the singer a star billing at the Grammy awards show sends out a dangerous message.

After all, Brown’s criminal assault on his girlfriend three years ago will always be closely linked to the Grammy Awards, and the singer is still serving the five years of probation the US courts felt were required for his crime. Did the Grammy booking not say to the world, some wondered, “don’t worry about beating your girlfriend unconscious at our party, sell a few records and give it three years, and we’ll make you guest of honour”?

Sasha Pasulka perhaps best summarised that viewpoint in a piece for Zooey Deschanel’s HelloGiggles website titled ‘I’m not okay with Chris Brown performing at the Grammys and I’m not sure why you are’. She was unsurprisingly unimpressed with Grammy producer Ken Ehrlich justifying booking Brown by saying: “I think people deserve a second chance, you know. If you’ll note, he has not been on the Grammys for the past few years [actually, two] and it may have taken us a while to kind of get over the fact that we were the victim of what happened”.

After stating the obvious flaws with Ehrlich’s statement, Pasulka notes: “We – the grown-up influencers in this country, the people with platforms and with educations and with power – are allowing a clear message to be sent to women: We will easily forgive a person who victimises you. We are able to look beyond the fact that you were treated as less than human, that a bigger, stronger person decided to resolve a conflict with you through violence. We know it happened, but it’s just not that big of a deal to us”.

Although the arguable scandal of Brown’s Grammy booking and two performances on the night didn’t get much media coverage, some did express their concerns or outrage via Twitter, among them country star Miranda Lambert, who knows a thing or two about the impact domestic violence has on its victims, her parents running a shelter for abused women. She tweeted: “Chris Brown twice? I don’t get it. He beat on a girl… Not cool that we act like that didn’t happen”.

The Twitter criticism didn’t go unnoticed by Brown himself, who didn’t seem so happy that some in the Grammy audience were still focusing on his Rihanna beating escapades rather than his lacklustre pop songs. So much so, the singer seemingly took to Twitter himself to respond, though said tweets were later removed, possibly because the R&B star calmed down, or possibly because the same advisors who told Brown to big up the “remorse thing” when his assault case went to court, told him to play down the “gloating thing” now that the American pop establishment has reappointed him as its approved bad boy.

Seemingly there were several tweets, though only one was grabbed by Mashable before its deletion – it reading: “HATE ALL U WANT BECUZ I GOT A GRAMMY NOW! That’s the ultimate fuck off! I’m back so watch my back as I walk away from all this negativity”. So that’s nice. On the upside, I don’t think he smashed any windows this time.

Whitney Houston’s body is now at a funeral home in her hometown of Newark in New Jersey, after being released to the family yesterday. As previously reported, an autopsy of the late singer, who died on Saturday, was inconclusive, pending the results of toxicology tests.

Police again confirmed yesterday that Houston’s death was not being treated as a homicide, but did not comment on what may have caused the singer’s premature demise. Giving a little detail about the discovery of Houston’s body – she was found underwater in her bath tub by her staff, who called hotel security, who in turn called paramedics, none of whom could revive the star – they added that so far it wasn’t clear what circumstances actually led to the singer’s death.

Of course there has been much speculation that drugs may have been involved in someway, with most speculators preferring some kind of theory involving the singer falling into a deep drug-induced sleep in her bath, and then slipping and drowning, though that theory is based wholly on supposition and not evidence. Police wouldn’t comment on that theory, and the coroner, while revealing prescription drugs where near by when Houston died, noted that “you probably have just as many prescription bottles in your medicine cabinet”.

Houston’s body was flown from California to New Jersey yesterday, being driven in a gold hearse from Teterboro airport to Newark. The city’s New Hope Baptist Church, where Houston first began singing in public, has become a mini-shrine to the pop star, with the BBC reporting that fans and mourners have left flowers, balloons and candles outside the building. It is thought her family are planning a public memorial service, though details of that so far remain sketchy.

Elsewhere, Houston’s long-term record label Sony Music was yesterday accused of attempting to cash in on the singer’s premature death when it was revealed that the major raised the wholesale price of the digital version of the singer’s ‘Ultimate Collection’ compilation around twelve hours after she was pronounced dead.

While it’s not clear where within the Sony Music empire the price hike was initiated, it had an immediate effect on the price of the album within the iTunes store in the UK, with the published price jumping from £4.99 to £7.99. Apple subsequently revised the price of the record – currently at number two in the iTunes chart – back to £4.99 later on Sunday, though it’s not clear if Apple or Sony are taking the hit on that.

Neither company has so far commented on the matter, though a source told The Guardian that the price hike occurred when, after the news of Houston’s death broke, someone at Sony reviewed what stock was available via iTunes and noticed the price for ‘The Ultimate Collection’ had been set too low, and therefore corrected that error. Which may well be true, though hiking the price of what was likely to be the most popular Whitney record on iTunes amongst those more casual fans rushing to download her music in the wake of her death is clearly going to look bad.

Opponents to the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement got a boost yesterday when the President of the European Parliament, who chairs debates within the European legislature and represents the interests of the parliament within the wider European Union, said he had reservations about the global intellectual property agreement.

As previously reported, ACTA, which took years of negotiations to write, has been subject to increased opposition in recent weeks, despite it being signed by many participating countries last year. High profile protests against anti-piracy proposals SOPA and PIPA in the US helped rally opposition to ACTA, especially in Europe, where the agreement was only signed last month.

Although much of this opposition is coming after the fact – the European Union and most of its member states have already signed the treaty – the agreement is yet to be approved by the European Parliament. Meanwhile, with opposition to ACTA becoming increasingly vocal, politicians in those European countries which did not sign up last month, are now expressing concerns about the agreement.

Plus ministers in some of those European states that did sign are also expressing more caution, with the Polish government – which ignored protests there last month and went ahead and signed ACTA – now saying it is planning a public consultation before making any changes to the country’s IP laws to ensure the terms of the agreement are met.

European Parliament President, German MEP Martin Schulz, told a TV network in his home country that he didn’t think ACTA was “good in its current form”, adding that the need to appropriately balance the interests of copyright owners and individual net users is “inadequately anchored in this agreement”.

The chief of the UK Pirate Party, Loz Kaye, has welcomed rising concern in European political circles with regards ACTA, telling the BBC: “One of the things that’s very interesting is that now the ACTA agreement is coming under fire from all sides. It’s becoming clear that European citizens are very concerned about this agreement. It’s hard to find anyone who is standing up for it right now”. Of course the UK government is still standing up for ACTA, telling reporters this weekend that the agreement provided an “international standard for tackling large-scale infringements”.

As previously reported, supporters of the Agreement insist it doesn’t introduce any new IP laws into Europe, with the principles of ACTA already ingrained in European law. And it does seem that most of the complaints raised by ACTA opponents are either misleading (ie not really in the agreement, and rely on a ‘thin end of the wedge’ arguments) or are about rules or practices that already exist, generally without controversy, in UK law, either explicitly in statute or via judicial precedent.

But nevertheless, the anti-ACTA movement does seem to be gaining real momentum in Europe, and especially Eastern Europe, which could ensure a rocky ride for the Agreement when the European Parliament discussed it in June.

As LA celebrated Grammy weekend, the American pop community went into mourning as it was confirmed Whitney Houston had died on Saturday afternoon in a Beverly Hills hotel room, she was 48. Despite being one of the US’s biggest music stars throughout the 1980s and 1990s, the latter part of her life had been dominated by personal problems, including the breakdown of her marriage to fellow 80s pop star Bobby Brown, and her battle with drug addiction.

The Assistant Chief Coroner for LA County, Ed Winter, yesterday confirmed that an autopsy had taken place, but that the findings were inconclusive pending further test results. He confirmed that the singer’s body had been found in the bath tub in the hotel room where she was staying, but refused to comment on press speculation that she had drowned after succumbing to drugs or alcohol. Winter told reporters: “I’m not going to comment on any of the meds or prescriptions that were obtained”.

On Sunday, Houston and Brown’s daughter Bobbi Kristina was also taken to hospital, seemingly suffering from anxiety following the previous day’s trauma, but it’s not thought her condition was serious. Meanwhile Brown, who was divorced from Houston in 2007, reportedly cancelled a planned concert in Nashville to return to LA to be with his daughter. He issued a short statement to the press requesting privacy for his family, saying: “I am deeply saddened at the passing of my ex-wife, Whitney Houston. At this time, we ask for privacy, especially for my daughter, Bobbi Kristina. I appreciate all of the condolences that have been directed towards my family and I at this most difficult time”.

Tributes poured in for Houston in the wake of her death, via social media and more traditional routes, though most eyes fell on the main Grammy Awards event where the great and the good of the American music industry were amassing. Host LL Cool J began the formal tributes at the Grammys by telling the awards show’s audience “we’ve had a death in our family and so at least for me … the only thing that feels right is to begin with a prayer for a woman we loved, for our fallen sister, Whitney Houston”. Numerous other musicians paid tribute during the evening, while Jennifer Hudson performed a musical tribute with a piano-ballad version of ‘I Will Always Love You’.

The previous night, just hours after Houston’s death, the annual pre-Grammy dinner hosted by Clive Davis, the record industry veteran who launched the singer’s career, took place in the same hotel where she had died (indeed, it’s thought Houston was scheduled to play at the event). A long time friend of the singer, Davis told his guests: “I am personally devastated by the loss of someone who has meant so much to me. She was full of life, looking forward to tonight. She loved music and she loved this night that celebrated music. Whitney was a beautiful person and she had a talent beyond compare. She graced this stage … so many times. So, simply put: Whitney would have wanted the music to go on”.

Meanwhile Tony Bennett, while paying tribute to Houston, called on the US government to legalise drugs, so that drug addiction could be treated as an illness rather than a crime, making it easier for victims to get help. Remembering how, after first hearing Houston sing in the 1980s, he had called Davis to say “you finally found the greatest singer I’ve ever heard in my life”, he touched on the problems Whitney had faced in her later life. According to the Hollywood Reporter, Bennett concluded: “First it was Michael Jackson, then Amy Winehouse, now, the magnificent Whitney Houston. I’d like every person in this room to campaign to legalise drugs. Let’s legalise drugs like they did in Amsterdam, [then] no one’s hiding or sneaking around corners to get it. They go to a doctor”.

As is customary in the iTunes-era, news of Houston’s death had an immediate boost on her record sales, with two hits collections currently at numbers two and three in the iTunes albums chart, and a smattering of singles appearing in that countdown also. Sony Music now owns the Arista label that released Houston’s work, meaning that, two and half years after Michael Jackson’s death, the Sony record company could again be benefiting from the premature passing of a 1980s pop icon.

It is thought Sony execs will this week meet to decide if and how to capitalise on Houston’s death, with a 2010 remastered version of the singer’s debut album likely to be remarketed, though, of course, capitalising too blatantly on Whitney’s premature demise could backfire. Particularly as, unlike Jackson, Houston did not have any direct control over her recordings, meaning her estate will earn only a standard royalty from any boost in sales and Sony will benefit much more richly (and Universal, for that matter, given Reuters reports that it acquired the publishing in some of the singer’s biggest hits from songwriter Michael Masser).

Sony’s film company may also step up the marketing around ‘Sparkle’, a remake of the 1970s film of the same name in which Houston was a key player, as both a producer and co-star. Two new Houston recordings appear in the film, including a duet with the movie’s main star Jordin Sparks. Sony’s RCA will release the soundtrack to the film, which is scheduled for an August release.

Read our obituary here

Protests took place across Europe this weekend against the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, the previously reported global treaty that aims to harmonise some key elements of intellectual property law around the world.

As also previously reported, while ACTA has been controversial in some quarters since it was first conceived a few years back, in part because of the secrecy that shrouded some of the negotiations, opposition has become more vocal in recent weeks following the anti-SOPA/PIPA protests in the US, despite many countries having already signed up to agreement.

Those who oppose ACTA cite the main argument that appeared during the anti-SOPA protests, that the agreement will introduce draconian new copyright-enforcing laws that will hinder freedom of expression on the net. Though supporters of the Agreement in Europe argue that, unlike SOPA, which would have introduced new web-blocking measures in the US to combat piracy, ACTA won’t have any noticeable impact on copyright law in Europe, because European copyright systems already adhere to all the requirements set out in the treaty.

Although in theory a day of global protests, most of the anti-ACTA events took place in Europe, with marches in Germany, Poland, the Netherlands, Estonia and Bulgaria perhaps most high profile. In the UK there was a smaller protest of about 200 people, according to the BBC, in London, though other protests did also take place in Glasgow and Nottingham.

The US, Australia, Canada, Japan, Morocco, New Zealand, Singapore and South Korea all signed the Agreement last year, while the EU and most EU member states added their signatures last month. Though not all EU countries have signed up and some, in particular Slovakia and Germany, have now expressed reservations about signing the agreement without further consideration, while the Czech Republic, who did sign last month, are also said to be reconsidering their involvement in the treaty.

Among those protesting against ACTA in the UK this weekend were the Open Rights Group and The Pirate Party. Jim Killock from the former told the BBC: “Three member states in Europe are now looking like they don’t want to sign. That shows that politicians are only really starting to look at this now. All of a sudden, the whole thing is breaking down”.

However, the British government remained committed to the Agreement this weekend, with IP Minister Judith Wilcox telling reporters: “It was important for the UK to be a signatory of ACTA as it will set an international standard for tackling large-scale infringements of [intellectual property rights], through the creation of common enforcement standards and more effective international cooperation. During the negotiations, we continually pushed for greater transparency as we believed that this would have led to a better understanding of the agreement by the public”.

Although the EU has signed ACTA, the Agreement is still to be approved by the European Parliament, providing those who oppose the treaty with a target date for their protests. The European Parliament is to discuss the IP agreement in June.

New anti-piracy laws in Spain have hit a setback after the country’s Supreme Court last week agreed to hear an appeal by the Association Of Web Users who claim the so called Sinde Law is unconstitutional.

Spanish copyright laws have been criticised for over a decade after various courts there ruled that the file-sharing of unlicensed content was not illegal, hindering civil legal action even against those who provide software or web services that enable copyright infringement. Under pressure from other countries, and especially the US, Spanish politicians passed the Sinde Law, to crack down on online piracy.

Unlike in the UK and France, where new anti-piracy laws target those who actually access illegal content sources via three-strikes style systems, in Spain web-blocking was prioritised, making it easier for rights owners to force copyright infringing websites offline. Somewhat ironically, the measures in the Sinde Law, which was lobbied for by the US government, have parallels with the SOPA and PIPA proposals in America itself, which politicians there have now rejected (albeit probably only for the time being).

The Association Of Web Users says that the Sinde Law, which allows a government body to issue orders to internet service providers to block access to copyright infringing websites, is unconstitutional because only a court should be able to force a website offline.

Similar claims were successfully made against the Hadopi laws in France (in that case that only a court should be able to suspend an individual file-sharer’s internet connection), though the government there got around that constitutional challenge by adding a judicial stage to their new anti-piracy system, whereby a judge considers and approves any action orders. Presumably Spanish officials could add a similar extra stage to their web-blocking system if the country’s Supreme Court sides with the AOWU.

The Spanish Supreme Court last week confirmed it will consider the AOWU’s claim, while also issuing an injunction that basically stops the Spanish government from putting the anti-piracy system set out in the Sinde Law live pending their hearing, though ministers can appeal that element at any point before the end of the month.

Oh, Charlotte Church, what a superstar. Of all the celebrities that have been pursuing civil actions against News International over allegations journalists or investigators working for the now defunct News Of The World illegally hacked into their voicemails, only Church’s case looks likely to go to court any time soon, after a barrage of out of court settlements were confirmed this week.

With the criminal investigation into phone hacking moving along at the speed of a number 73 bus on the Euston Road in rush hour, and the government’s Leveson Inquiry on the issue so widely defined it’s likely to achieve nothing, many have been hoping one of the civil actions in relation to the scandal would actually get a full court hearing.

But with News International handing there lawyers a multi-million pound pot of cash to buy off the litigious phone hacked celebrities and members of the public one by one (before the newspaper firm had even got round to admitting phone hacking was rife at its former Sunday tabloid), it seemed increasingly likely that the circumstances around the hacking scandal would never be exposed in the civil courts.

Even those c’lebs who insisted they were suing on a point of principle eventually took News International’s dirty cash. Perhaps believing that the criminal justice and political systems now had the scandal covered, since the whole thing blew up big time last July, and maybe nervous about the private lives they were trying so hard to protect being aired in court, not the mention the legal bills that would be run up in the short term, perhaps it’s understandable that even the more angry celebrities would take the easy way out.

But while a string of outstanding celebrity lawsuits were settled this week, legal reps for Charlotte Church and her parents have so far stood fast, and while that might be hardline negotiating tactics for a bigger pay out, you get the sense the Church family just want to see News International in court.

It’s unclear whether the damages any court hearing will deliver will exceed the sums of money the newspaper firm is paying out voluntarily – as some of those settlements have been in the hundreds of thousands, probably not – but a court hearing will likely further tarnish the reputation of News International and, more importantly, it’s parent company News Corp, the Murdoch family which control it, and all the news organisations within that empire.

Certainly News International’s lawyers, having no out of court settlement with the Church family, tried every argument they could this week to have a court hearing delayed, but judge Geoffrey Vos was having none of it, telling the defendants “we’re ready for trial”. Preliminary hearings should begin later this month.

Church is one of the surprisingly few music types to have been pulled into the phone hacking scandal, and to give evidence to the government’s Leveson Inquiry into press ethics, launched after the long simmering hacking story finally blew up last July, resulting in the dramatic closure of the tabloid at the heart of the scandal.

Church’s motivation to hit back at the tabloid press that first hailed her as a child star, and then relished in dishing the dirt on the Church family as her fame grew, is particularly admirable, her key concerns being a string of stories about her parents’ private lives that had a devastating effect on her mother’s mental health. The singer reckons no less than 33 such stories in the News Of The World were based on illegal newsgathering.

News International now has mere weeks to persuade the Church family to settle before the court proceedings begin. Assuming it does go to court, a story which has only involved the music community on the peripheries so far, will become very much a pop courts affair.

Church isn’t the only phone hacked celebrity still negotiating with News International. A handful of the first batch of phone hacking lawsuits are also yet to be settled, but technical issues mean they aren’t ready for court. Meanwhile a whole load of new lawsuits – 50 in recent weeks, including one from James Blunt – have been filed, as the Metropolitan Police slowly alert other individuals seemingly hacked by the News Of The World. Several hundred more people could as yet file legal proceedings.

The majority of those cases will likely be settled out of court, though the conclusion of the Church case – should it be heard in court – would become highly relevant. While high profile litigants are rumoured to have received pay offs of hundreds of thousands from News International – and it’s likely that’s the sort of sum being offered to Church – the majority of lawsuits are being settled for tens of thousands. But if Church was to get six figures from the courts, that could set a precedent that would potentially multiply the cost of settlements for NI by ten.

As we wait to see if the Church case is the one that finally brings this whole scandal to court, the Leveson Inquiry rumbles on with its all-star list of celebrities, editors and journalists giving evidence. CMU Business Editor Chris Cooke recently gave his take on the Inquiry so far on PR website esPResso at this URL.

Warner Music’s CEO Stephen Cooper has confirmed that his company will oppose Universal’s bid to buy EMI in an earnings call with analysts.

The newish Warner chief, put in place last year by newish owner Access Industries, confirmed statements made by his predecessor Edgar Bronfman Jr, who said, on his last day as Warner Music’s Chairman last month, that the major would fight both Universal’s latest expansion bid and Sony/ATV’s plans to buy EMI Publishing “tooth and nail”.

Warner, of course, also wanted to buy the EMI record labels but was outbid by its bigger rival. Both the Universal and Sony/ATV deals are subject to regulator approval in the US and Europe, and Warner will lobby with the independent sector against approval being given.

Although Warner is now in private ownership, Cooper is still briefing City types on the music firm’s financial performance for complicated bond-type reasons. He revealed that the major’s revenues for the final quarter of 2011 were pretty much on par with the same period in 2010, which is considered good going in the context of the modern record industry. Core operating costs were down, though an increase in interet costs since the Access acquisition and the £3 million Warner spent unsuccessfully bidding for EMI meant overall losses were up.

Digital revenues being up 17% helped Warner slightly increase its revenues year on year but, Cooper said, he feared for the future of the emerging digital music sector if Universal gets the EMI labels and Sony/ATV the EMI music publishing catalogues, making the two biggest music companies in the world even bigger. According to CBS News, Cooper said that would “significantly impair” Warner’s ability to compete, and would harm “consumers, industry employees, recording artists, songwriters … and our emerging digital services”.

It’s expected that Universal and Sony/ATV’s EMI bids will get the hardest time from European regulators, and the bidders’ filings on that side are expected to be submitted imminently. It will be interesting to see what form Warner’s opposition takes as the regulators go through the motions.

The boss of the Recording Industry Association Of America has lashed out at Wikipedia and its allies with a retrospective response in the New York Times to last month’s day of protests against the proposed anti-piracy bills then being considered in US Congress, both of which are now off the agenda and will need some serious re-editing to satisfy newly nervous congressmen desperate to avoid having any link to policy that causes popular websites to cut some or all of their services for 24 hours.

Arguably SOPA and PIPA were already derailed before the Wiki protest, as concern over both became increasingly vocal late last year, and as even the Obama administration came out in opposition to elements of the anti-piracy bills. But the decision by Wikipedia boss Jimmy Wales to take the English language edition of his online encyclopaedia offline for 24 hours in a very public protest against the two bits of legislation certainly ensured there was no way either bills could proceed in their current form.

Entertainment trade bodies like the RIAA had invested an awful lot of time into getting SOPA and PIPA to the point they were at when things began to untangle late last year, and so are understandably pissed off that political support for their anti-piracy proposals, which included a fast-track system for securing injunctions to force copyright infringing websites offline, were pushed off the Congressional agenda quite so quickly. And RIAA CEO Cary Sherman reckons the way Wikipedia, Google et al achieved that feat was, frankly, undemocratic.

Now, some would argue that the blocking of legislation drafted by a very small group of people, as a result of the protests of an awful lot of people, was actually highly democratic. But, Sherman argues, the ‘awful lot of people’ were only protesting because of misinformation delivered to them by Wikipedia, Google and their friends, despite said web firms presenting themselves as the trustworthy good guys, the defenders of neutrality on the internet. It wasn’t democracy but “demagoguery” the RIAA boss says (big word there, I know. Fortunately Wikipedia is online today, so you can look it up).

The real problem, Sherman continues, was the C word: Censorship. Any efforts to stop people from publishing copyright infringing content on the internet would result in widespread censorship of the web, the anti-SOPA/PIPA brigade at least implied (some blatantly stated it), which makes it unsurprising that so many members of the public signed petitions and forwarded the protest emails the anti lobby had provided to their political representatives. But, Sherman argues, the censorship argument is bollocks. Well, he didn’t use those words, but it’s what he meant.

Sherman: “Since when is it censorship to shut down an operation that an American court, upon a thorough review of evidence, has determined to be illegal? When the police close down a store fencing stolen goods, it isn’t censorship, but when those stolen goods are fenced online, it is? Wikipedia, Google and others manufactured controversy by unfairly equating SOPA with censorship”.

There were other “hyperbolic mistruths” too, he adds, for starters: “They also argued misleadingly that the bills would have required websites to ‘monitor’ what their users upload, conveniently ignoring provisions like the ‘No Duty To Monitor’ section”.

Sherman insists that prior to the protests most congressmen had been convinced by the economic and ethical cases for cracking down on online piracy, after months of researching the impact copyright infringement was having on the entertainment sector and those who work in it, and that while “no legislation is perfect”, SOPA and PIPA were not the dangerous freedom of speech denying bills that many have claimed in recent weeks.

And, he says, “when Wikipedia and Google purport to be neutral sources of information, but then exploit their stature to present information that is not only not neutral but affirmatively incomplete and misleading, they are duping their users into accepting as truth what are merely self-serving political declarations”.

The tone of Sherman’s article isn’t going to win over any new friends in the anti-SOPA/PIPA community, and the claim that the US news networks – which support the anti-piracy measures – decided not to fight Wiki et al head on because they “draw a line between news and editorial” and would never “present editorial opinion as fact” damages his credibility somewhat (has he never seen Fox News?).

But, nevertheless, a lot of Sherman’s points in the piece will find favour across the music industry, even among some of those in the independent community who aren’t especially good friends of the major label trade body. And while a fair few industry types and artists, both in the US and beyond, were themselves concerned about some aspects of SOPA and PIPA, many of them are also uneasy with some of the claims made by the wider anti brigade, in particular the implication that any kind of crack down on piracy whatsoever has to automatically result in censorship of the internet.

Though, even if you agree with Sherman wholeheartedly that Wiki, Google and their friends were guilty of distributing considerable misinformation in the run up to their big day of protest, it is worth wondering why the public at large is so willing to trust the word of the big tech companies (most of which – though obviously not Wikipedia itself – are as ruthlessly profit driven as any other commercial etity), while the word of the big music companies and film studios is frequently treated with suspicion and contempt, despite these companies being behind many of the artists, shows, movies and cultural phenomena that provide so much joy to the world.

Arguably the major labels and RIAA are at least partly to blame for this fact, firstly because of poor decision making by senior execs when the web first started to really take off a decade ago, and secondly because those companies and their trade bodies continue to operate a corporate PR strategy from 1994 – focusing all their efforts on schmoozing a few key political decision makers and influential financial and political journalists.

It’s ironic that while, when it comes to consumer-facing marketing, the music industry has led the way in using social media, when it comes to engaging the world at large on other issues, to win trust and support in wider public debates, the music industry’s activity is almost zero. Which is a big part of why the tech giants win the public, if not always the political debate on piracy issues.

So, food for thought. And here’s Sherman’s piece as an appetiser.

“Oh, VEVO, where will you go”, as they say down my way. The Sony/Universal owned video site has been accused of unfair play in the US by Matt Pincus, the boss of indie publisher Songs Music Publishing. In a piece for US website The Wrap, Pincus claims VEVO is failing to pay royalties to independent music publishers, despite recently boasting $150 million in revenues last year, and of having paid $100 million over to rights owners in its first two years in business.

The fault actually lies with the major record companies, though as the two biggest majors own VEVO that’s not necessarily much of an excuse for the music video website. Pincus says that, in the US, when Sony, Universal and EMI licence VEVO their video catalogues, they pledge to cover any publishing royalties, saving the video site from having to get licences direct from the publishers or their collecting societies.

But, Pincus claims, the majors then exercise clauses in their artist contracts that allow them to sidestep any royalties due on songs written by the artists themselves when used in videos for promotional purposes. This is called the Controlled Composition Clause, and was designed to ensure labels didn’t have to pay an additional royalty to their artists’ publishers every time they used music videos to promote record releases, presumably on the basis that the publisher also benefited if the promo led to record sales.

However, those clauses should not apply now that music videos are a direct revenue stream for rights owners rather than merely a marketing tool to aid record sales, says Pincus, especially as video sites like YouTube and VEVO arguably compete head on with audio-only streaming services like Spotify, which are licensed directly by the publishers or their collecting agencies.

The Songs Music chief notes that indie publishers in the US, via their trade body, recently agreed licensing terms with YouTube over the use of their songs in user generated content, but he points out that agreement doesn’t cover VEVO which, although utilising YouTube technology, and getting much of its traffic via its YouTube partnership, licences content directly from its parent companies and EMI.

Presumably the major publishers are also losing out if VEVO and its major label partners are indeed using the Controlled Composition Clause in this way, though, as Pincus remarks, as the major publishers are also major labels, it’s less of a problem for them. The exception, of cause, being Warner Chappell, as Warner Music is neither a shareholder in VEVO nor do its labels provide videos, so the soon to be mini-major has no direct income from the video service, even if songs in its publishing catalogue are used.

Pincus concludes: “Are record companies to blame for relying on shoddy language to withhold royalties, or is it VEVO’s responsibility to ensure that the songwriters that helped it pull in $150 million this year share in their success? Whatever the case, this issue of fairness must be addressed”.

VEVO is yet to respond. Meanwhile, Pincus’s polemic can be found here.

It’s worth noting none of this applies to the UK, where VEVO licences the publishing side via collecting society PRS For Music, so doesn’t rely on the record companies to pay the songwriters and publishers, and therefore can’t utilise any contractual terms to not do so.