Label:Life

The global music industry is fighting a determined war on piracy, suing thousands of persistent violators from teachers to managing directors, its trade association said on Saturday.

John Kennedy, chairman and chief executive of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, said: “None of this makes us feel wonderful.”

“Anyone who claims you’re going to win the war on piracy is a very foolish person. But if you don’t fight the war, it gets worse,” he told the music industry annual conference, Midem, in the French city of Cannes. [more @ www.silicon.com]

The theme song isn’t quite “Happy Days are Here Again,” but almost. Music industry veterans, after several years of worrying about how illegal Internet downloads could threaten their business, are humming a decidedly upbeat tune these days.

While questions remain about how to best deliver hits by U2 or arias by Luciano Pavarotti to music fans, one of the industry’s top conferences opened Saturday in this Riviera resort amid new signs that online downloads could become a moneymaker after all.

The optimism at the Midem conference is a sharp turnaround from a year earlier, before music publishers mounted a high-profile crackdown against piracy and online music sales soared. [more @ www.abcnews.go.com]

The recorded music industry may be emerging from the gloomiest period in its history. US disc sales have picked up for the first time in more than four years, and the global market for legal downloads is up by a factor of 10 from a year ago.

Through December 26, 2004, album sales in the US totaled 665.5 million units, a gain of 1.4% over 2003, according to figures compiled by research firm Nielsen SoundScan. [more @ www.stereophile.com]

After taking the photographic world by storm, mobile phones are set to revolutionise how we listen to and enjoy music on the move.

With today’s latest models, users can download whole music tracks, enjoy video clips and games and even keep up with news and sports highlights.

The potentially huge money-making mobile opportunities are likely to gladden the hearts of officials from the world’s struggling music industry, who are gathered here for the annual MIDEM music trade fair that ends Thursday. [more @ www.expatica.com]

After taking the world by storm with its video games, manga cartoons and cars, Japan now wants to its get music better known around the globe.

And where better to try and grab the attention of the music industry’s movers and shakers than MIDEM, the hugely influential music trade fair that is currently being held here in the glitzy French Rivera resort of Cannes.

This year, the Japanese government has stepped in to help boost the profile of the country’s music industry at the MIDEM, which runs from January 23-27. [more @ www.expatica.com]

Ericsson is leading the way in the mobile media market as a business partner and matchmaker between the music industry and mobile operators. Ericsson enables this by developing attractive mobile music and video services for consumers.

MIDEM 2005, the leading international music market, is the venue of choice to unlock the full mobile media potential.

Visitors to the Ericsson stand at MIDEM will experience M-USE, the mobile music service developed by Ericsson in cooperation with the music industry. M-USE delivers to consumers personalized mobile music content such as music-clips, ring-tones, artist pictures, full length songs, video-clips, recommendations, music news and much more. [more @ www.phonecontent.com]

A statistician could have a field day with the conflicting data in music sales. In the UK, offline album sales were 237 million in the year to September 2003. The corresponding figures in 1993 were 150 million, and in 1978, 107 million.

Although 2003 sales were helped by the supermarkets getting into CD sales with heavy discounting, the figures hardly point to the death of the sale of the physical CD. No less a figure than the former CEO of the Motion Picture Association of America, Jack Valenti, has said that the music industry will be dead within four years, yet legal online downloads have been boosting music sales.

Into this picture of great uncertainty has come mobile music. A year ago, talk among the record labels was of whether this was an opportunity or a threat. There was also a real sense of whether this was really important to them. Many in the music industry can remember getting excited about the mobile channel in the past, only to find that the demand just wasn’t there.

The thinking has now changed – mobile music is clearly an opportunity but the jury is still out on just how big it is. [There follows a good synopsis of the current ins and outs of the mobile medium. -Ed] [more @ www.thefeature.com]

If the sale of 6 million iPod-like players last year is music to the ears of the flagging record industry, then the forecast sale of 600 million mobile phones this year is a veritable “1812 Overture,” complete with cannons and fireworks.

But the business is stalled in a land-grab of commercial interests, with cellphone carriers, handset makers, musicians, record labels and other copyright holders fighting over control of the customer and how big their piece of the mobile music pie should be. [more @ www.iht.com]

Following the massive success of the Cardiff Tsunami Relief concert on Saturday, a host of Scottish acts, including Franz Ferdinand and Idlewild, are staging a live fundraiser of their own.

The Concert For Tsunami Relief will see some of the greatest Scottish artists descend upon the SECC in Glasgow, on Saturday February 19 for a one-off show to raise money for the Disasters Emergency Committee
(DEC) reports Virtual Festivals. [more @ www.xfm.co.uk]

There will be a significantly upgraded British presence at this year’s South By Southwest festival in Austin, Texas, which takes place March 17-21.

A U.K. new talent showcase will be sponsored by BBC Radio 2 and its digital station, 6 Music, in conjunction with the British Phonographic Industry. A second showcase will be aired in the United Kingdom by MTV2.

The Radio 2/6 Music showcase is set for March 18 at Buffalo Billiards and will be headlined by Embrace. The bill will also feature Dogs Die In Hot Cars, Go! Team, James Blunt, Tom Baxter and Amy Smith. [more @ www.billboard.com]