Label:Life

For the past three years, bad news about the music industry has been as steady as a synthesized drumbeat. But a turnaround that began quietly last autumn has become unmistakable with the success of Norah Jones’s new album, “Feels Like Home.” The CD, which recently sold more than a million copies in its first week in stores, helped extend a nearly consistent five-month string of industry growth, as measured by weekly sales compared with year-earlier periods. So why are so few people in the music world ready to celebrate an industry comeback?

The past four or five months has turned the predictive ability of all of us on its head,” said Michael Nathanson, an analyst with the firm Sanford C. Bernstein. “I think people are holding their breath.”[more @ www.iht.com]

Napster, the one-time illicit file-swapping website converted to a legitimate digital music service, said on Monday it had sold over five million downloaded songs since relaunching last October.

The service acquired by the music software firm Roxio also said it has attracted hundreds of millions of web users and signed up some 1.5 million members.

The company said that based on these figures, it would generate at least 20 million dollars in music sales in its first year.

“This important milestone is a testament to the quality of the Napster experience and the strength and continuity of our senior management team, which is comprised of nearly all the same music industry professionals that have led the company for years,” said Chris Gorog, Napster’s chief executive. [more @ www.iafrica.com]

It was a breakthrough deal that would have put the Napster kitty on millions of Hewlett-Packard computers.
But in the days leading up to Napster’s relaunch in late October, HP suddenly — and without explanation — returned Napster’s $250,000 check and canceled the agreement to install a link to Napster’s online music service on its computers. Worse, in January HP announced a surprise partnership with Napster rival Apple Computer to feature the iTunes Music store on HP computers and sell Hewlett-Packard branded iPod music players.

Neither HP nor Napster’s parent company, Roxio, would comment on the soured deal, whose details were confirmed by sources familiar with the agreement. But its collapse was one of several setbacks since the reintroduction of Napster, the pioneering song-swapping renegade, as a paid music service.

Napster is losing money, and top executives have left the company, including its president, chief financial officer, vice president of programming and head of corporate communications as well a key board member.[more @ www.seattletimes.com]

Trading conditions are improving for Britain’s music industry, which has struck a positive chord with City investors.

Music publisher EMI is seen as the most likely beneficiary of any pick-up and that was being reflected in the share price today, as it nudged towards a four-year high of 270p with a rise of 1 1/2p to 265 1/4p, after touching 268p.

Broker UBS has raised its 12-month target from 261p to 347p and repeated its buy rating. The broker now believes it has sufficient evidence that the music industry is recovering, leaving its medium-term forecast looking conservative.

It has revised its numbers for revenue growth from 1.9% to almost 3% for recorded music, and from 2.2% to 3.8% for music publishing, during the years from 2006 to 2013.[more @ www.thisislondon.co.uk]

The UK record industry has reached an out-of-court settlement with Play.com, an online music seller.
The British Phonographic Industry (BPI) said it had agreed a deal with the online retailer that stopped it selling CDs sourced from outside of Europe.

In a similar case last month involving UK copyright law, the BPI settled with internet music retailer CD-Wow!

That forced CD-Wow! to raise its prices by £2 per disc, although the BPI said it had since reinstated its old prices.[more @ www.news.bbc.co.uk]

The recording industry sued 531 more computer users Tuesday it said were illegally distributing songs over the Internet in what has become a routine reminder that college students, teenagers, and others can face expensive lawsuits for swapping music online.
The Recording Industry Association of America filed the latest complaints against “John Doe” defendants in lawsuits in Atlanta; Philadelphia; Orlando, Fla.; and Trenton, N.J. It said the defendants were customers of one of five Internet providers based in those cities.

The RIAA’s president, Cary Sherman, said illegal downloads continue hurting new, legitimate Internet services for selling music. “We are sending a clear message that downloading or ‘sharing’ music from a peer-to-peer network without authorization is illegal, it can have consequences and it undermines the creative future of music itself,” Sherman said in a statement.[more @ www.informationweek.com]

It’s probably not the first time that record company executives have been likened to Al Capone, but this time a judge might have to agree or disagree.

A New Jersey woman, one of the hundreds of people accused of copyright infringement by the Recording Industry Association of America, has countersued the big record labels, charging them with extortion and violations of the federal antiracketeering act.

Through her attorneys, Michele Scimeca contends that by suing file-swappers for copyright infringement, and then offering to settle instead of pursuing a case where liability could reach into the hundreds of thousands of dollars, the RIAA is violating the same laws that are more typically applied to gangsters and organized crime.

“This scare tactic has caused a vast amount of settlements from individuals who feared fighting such a large institution and feel victim to these actions and felt forced to provide funds to settle these actions instead of fighting,” Scimeca’s attorney, Bart Lombardo, wrote in documents filed with a New Jersey federal court. “These types of scare tactics are not permissible and amount to extortion.” [more @ www.news.com]

Janet Jackson’s Super Bowl flash lasted less than three seconds, but the impact continues to ripple through Viacom, the media giant that broadcast the game. Congress, the Federal Communications Commission, right-wing radio commentators and outraged citizens are calling for stricter decency standards—and the artists and executives who make a living from edgy music, performances and videos are in retreat.

MTV in particular, which produced the Super Bowl halftime show, is in the midst of a wide-scale re-evaluation of its musical, news and dramatic content. Within a week of the game, MTV—no stranger to criticism, most recently in response to the Britney Spears-Madonna kiss at the Video Music Awards—bumped seven music videos out of prime time. One of the videos was singled out for political content: Incubus’ “Megalomaniac” included clips of Hitler and people drinking oil. [more @ www.rollingstone.com]

SRS Labs, Inc., a leading provider of innovative audio, voice and semiconductor technology solutions, today announced that the company will be demonstrating its WOW XT™ for Mobile technology solution at the world’s leading GSM conference, the 3GSM World Congress, in Cannes, France from February 23 to 26. The GSM mobile system (Global System for Mobile Communications) is the world’s leading wireless communications platform capturing, according to the GSM World Association, 72 percent of the world’s digital wireless market and 70 percent of the world’s total wireless market with over 980 million global subscribers.

“Explosive growth in mobilemedia, and specifically GSM smart phones, is being driven by the demand for video and audio qualities to match the experience consumers already enjoy from other electronic devices such as MP3 players,” said Joanna Skrdlant, director of product marketing for SRS Labs. “Our audio enhancement technologies help handset makers deliver dramatically improved audio and voice experiences over any embedded mobile device, giving them a substantial competitive advantage in this rapidly growing global market.” [more @ www.prnewswire.com]

Kazaa owner Sharman Networks will have to wait until next week to hear if the Australian federal court will suspend legal action brought against it by the Aussie music industry.

Judge Murray Rutledge Wilcox adjourned a hearing due to take place this past Friday in order to allow the parties to make further submissions this week, the peer-to-peer software company said.

Music Industry Piracy Investigations (MIPI), an organisation sponsored by the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA), opened proceedings against Kazaa on 10 February. It claims the company is guilty of aiding and abetting copyright infringement.

At the earlier hearing, Kazaa’s lawyers asked Judge Wilcox to suspend the case pending the outcome of a similar hearing being held in the US Court of Appeals. The latter case pitches the US movie and music industries against P2P services Grokster and Morpheus.[more @ www.theregister.co.uk]