Label:Life

Brussels, 31 May 2006 – Remuneration systems for private copying allow performers and other rightholders to receive remuneration as fair compensation for the reproduction by individuals of their recordings for their private and non-commercial use.

At a time when private copying on CDs, DVDs, computers’ hard disks or digital music players is becoming a soaring and massively used practice, and while this remuneration system has already proven useful and beneficial to all parties, the European Commission recently questioned the system publicly and expressed its will to bring significant changes or even to put an end to it. Any limitation of the existing scheme would harm the sector instead of accompanying its development. (more…)

At a time when digital media is turning music programming into a commodity, Westwood One has announced that it is farming out the operations, sales and programming for its eight 24/7 music formats to Excelsior Radio Networks, a division of Dial-Global Communications. Beginning August 1, Excelsior will assume the affiliate sales and programming for Westwood’s eight nationally-distributed turnkey music formats and take over all aspects of the formats, including advertising sales effective Jan. 1, 2007.

Although terms were not disclosed, sources say Westwood is guaranteed certain financial proceeds for five years.

More@billboardradiomonitor

It was a dark and stormy night, and in a cave in what is now southern France, Neanderthals were singing, dancing and tapping on stalagmites with their fingernails to pass the time.

Did this Ice-Age rave-up happen, perhaps 50,000 to 100,000 years ago, on a cold night in the Pleistocene Epoch? Or is it purely a figment of the imagination of Steven Mithen, professor of early prehistory at the University of Reading in England?

More@washingtonpost

Ted Cohen, one of the first music industry executives to embrace digital distribution, is leaving EMI Group today to start a consulting practice — as what was once a geeky niche has matured into a flourishing online business for record labels.

Cohen, 56, is credited with recognizing in 1999 that the renegade Napster file-sharing service didn’t represent the death of the business but a new way to sell music. As EMI’s senior vice president of digital development, Cohen pushed the company to the vanguard of new technology.

More@latimes

Music available for downloading onto mobile phones is a lifeline for the shrinking global music industry and critical to wireless providers with an urgent need to recoup investment in their networks. Worldwide revenue from sales of mobile music is projected to increase from $434 million in 2005 to $7.7 billion by 2010, in a new eMarketer report. While sales of music in digital form will comprise 35% of the overall music industry revenue by 2010, sales of music onto mobile phones will make up 65% of that digital slice of the music pie.

[Judging from the losses at Vodafone this week, they’ll be looking to this harder than ever now… – ed]

More@cellular-news

Pandora the slick new music discovery engine has been hacked allowing music to be downloaded instead of streamed to the user. Will the RIAA allow Pandora to continue with it leaking music to the massess?

More@stuff

Hip Hop Congress will be holding its 5th annual conference in Boulder, Co from Thursday June 22nd to Sunday, June 25th. The Hip Hop Congress National Conference is a yearly gathering of Hip Hop Congress chapters, artists and members throughout the country. Hip Hop Congress is a 501©(3) Non-Profit organization and international grassroots network whose mission is to unite, educate, and empower individuals. We utilize Hip Hop to inspire civic action and cultural creativity within the community. Hip Hop Congress has 30 chapters throughout the country and works with artists, organizers, promoters and a host of other institutions and organizations. Hip Hop Congress is involved in education, culture, politics, social justice and industry. (more…)

Tens of thousands of people line up for cattle calls all over the USA, hoping to be chosen for a chance at a one-million dollar recording contract. But only one will take home the big prize. What about the others? Will they go back home to Anywhere, USA with their tail between their legs, never to be heard from again? Or will they take control of their own career and propel themselves to the top without Simon, Paula, or Randy’s help? (more…)

Sting plans to release a new album in October—a disc full of 16th century music performed on the lute. According to his Web site, the as-yet untitled set will be issued on the classical label Deutsche Grammophon.

“It’s a strange record, a delightful record and I think people will be intrigued by it,” Sting says in a video interview on his site. “The album is voice and lute, there are a few four part harmonies that I sing and it’s all music from the 16th century.”

More@cnn

PARIS — All is not well in the French world of digital music, as Nicolas Paitre, a salesman at one of Paris’ largest electronics stores, hears from customers every day.

Filing into Surcouf, a glitzy French electronics chain where Paitre specializes in digital-music gadgets, they have the same bewildered looks and exasperated queries:

I can download digital songs from one company, but I can’t play them on another company’s machine?

More@seatlletimes