Victory Records Respond to Piracy

From the site:

At Victory we give away a lot of free music to help expose our artists. Unfortunately, there are some individuals that do things that are illegal, upsetting and sometimes offensive to them. Dead To Fall, Farewell To Freeway, Secret Lives of the Freemasons and Across Five Aprils have asked us to make a news post about one such person. He could have easily embedded VictorStream (which was mentioned to him) on his blog to share music and video but chose to continue to do otherwise. He has been asked nicely by the bands to take down their material. When he refused we had no choice but to defend our artists’ wishes by having a more official “take down” letter sent.

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RIAA Talks About Network Filters

Civilization vs. Savagery

The central concern of Lord of the Flies is the conflict between two competing impulses that exist within all human beings: the instinct to live by rules, act peacefully, follow moral commands, and value the good of the group against the instinct to gratify one’s immediate desires, act violently to obtain supremacy over others, and enforce one’s will. This conflict might be expressed in a number of ways: civilization vs. savagery, order vs. chaos, reason vs. impulse, law vs. anarchy, or the broader heading of good vs. evil.

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Verizon Rejects Hollywood’s Call to Aid Piracy Fight

From NYT:

More often than not companies in similar positions have similar views. But when Hollywood asked the two big phone companies to help with its fight against piracy, they responded in opposite ways. AT&T is talking about developing a system that would identify and block illicitly copied material being sent over its broadband network.

Verizon, however, opposes the concept.

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China Companies Sued Over Music Piracy

From BBC:

The trade body representing the global record industry has launched piracy lawsuits against China's biggest internet companies.

Firms targeted in the legal action include Baidu, China's largest Internet business, and Yahoo China, in which US giant Yahoo has a 44% stake.

The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry says the firms offer direct links to pirated music.

It estimates that 99% of all music files in China are pirated.

As a result, the trade body says the annual legal music market in China accounts for just $76m (£38m).

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Yacht Rock Episode 9: Runnin with the Devil

Pirate Bay Founders Busted, May See Jail Time

From Reuters:

Four men linked to the popular file-sharing site Pirate Bay were charged by a Swedish prosecutor on Thursday with conspiracy to break copyright law and being an accessory.

The site was created in 2003 by a Swedish anti-copyright group but was soon taken over by individuals. It helps surfers swap mostly copyright-protected music, movie and game files.

Pirate Bay co-founders Fredrik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm, spokesman Peter Sunde and Carl Lundstrom, who is reported to have helped fund one of the world's most visited Web sites, could face up to two years in jail if convicted.

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For Which Team is Lefsetz Cheerleading?

Cayocosta

There is no way to compete with free, and the proof is that no one has been able to figure out how to do so in the last decade - and there's been plenty of incentive in the form of boatloads of money waiting for whoever could put it together.

Yet, Mr. Platitudes continues with the straw man argument that the majors need to find a solution to music piracy that accommodates the pirates.

Lefsetz's allegiance is obviously with the tech crowd as he is clearly a spokesperson for their goals with regard to IP content - a shill for the geeks.

Have a look at this recent statement from his blog regarding ISP filtering:

DO NOT FOLLOW PAUL MCGUINNESS! DO NOT WASTE ANOTHER DECADE IN A FUTILE ATTEMPT TO GO BACK TO THE NINETIES! ACCEPT REALITY AND DEAL WITH IT!

This is a guy that appears quite desperate here.

(Lefsetz also goes out of his way to unnecessarily trash U2 and McGuinness; as well, he again resorts to utilizing hackneyed pro-piracy rhetoric throughout the post. Talk about going back to the nineties - he himself should accept "reality" and knock off this aged and condescending populism.)

Lefsetz - now clearly - is not only anti-label, but anti-artist and anti-music.

U2 Manager: ISPs Should Cutoff Pirates, Artists Mistreated

From BBC:

The manager of rock band U2 has urged internet service providers (ISPs) to help end illegal music downloads, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Paul McGuinness called for policies on disconnecting those who acquired tracks illegally, using a speech in France to urge governments to take action.

McGuinness told the Midem conference in Cannes that it was time for artists to stand up against what he called the "shoddy, careless and downright dishonest way they have been treated in the digital age".

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Vivendi Chief: Music Industry Doom Exaggerated

From Reuters:

Vivendi Chief Executive Jean-Bernard Levy has no plans to spin off the music unit Universal and he said on Saturday he believed the gloom surrounding the industry had been over done.

Speaking at the annual Midem conference, Levy said the music industry was going through a huge transition at the moment, with new business models for mobile and Internet services appearing all the time.

But he predicted there would still be a viable market for physical products like CDs for many years to come and he said the industry's future lay, as always, in spotting the right creative talent.

"I think altogether today there is an exaggeration in the industry," he told the conference. "Of course it is not doing that well, but look at us, we have flat revenues, a good two digit margins and it's not as dark as what many people describe."

"Back in 2003 the numbers didn't look very good," he said "(But) as a shareholder of Universal, I have seen the numbers go up quite sharply. We had in '03 a 3 percent operating margin business and we have today a 12 percent operating margin business.

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IFPI: Governments Should Force ISPs to Fight Music Piracy

From CNN:

Speaking to Dow Jones Newswires IFPI CEO John Kennedy, said that piracy was still was still a major problem for the music industry. "For every music track downloaded legally, 20 are downloaded illegally," he said.

Thursday the IFPI renewed calls for governments to intervene to force internet service providers, or ISPs, to play a bigger role against digital music piracy, which has contributed to the decline in music sales and has prompted a wave of lawsuits by the industry against unauthorized downloaders.

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From Telegraph:

Music Pirates 'Should Be Banned From Internet'

Warner Music Acquires French Tour Company Camus

From Reuters:

The French division of Warner Music Group has acquired one of the country's leading tour production and promotion companies, Jean-Claude Camus Productions, for an undisclosed fee.

Camus Productions, which has staged concerts in France for international acts such as Madonna, Michael Jackson and the Rolling Stones, will remain largely autonomous and will continue to be led by Jean-Claude Camus.

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More Hack Journalism Courtesy Chicago Tribune

Cayocosta

Amazing that virtually no one in journalism is willing to stand up and support artists and the industry against piracy.

Greg Kot of Chicago Tribune writes:

In the last few years, the music industry has combated tumbling revenue by suing costumers (sic), decimating artist rosters and laying off thousands of employees.

Tumbling revenue is employed here as a euphemism for piracy; and as usual, customers is used to describe music pirates.

But in the last few days, one important segment of the music industry actually came up with a rescue strategy that didn’t smack of panic, malice or desperation.

The Songwriters Association of Canada is proposing a $5-a-month licensing fee on every wireless and Internet account in the country, in exchange for unlimited access to all recorded music.

Bad idea and I'm not about to waste my time explaining why, as no one ever bothers to explain the opposite when proffering such nostrums.

Personally, I think it's a terrible idea to ask everyone to pay for those that refuse to; however, the industry and its artists have no other choice. Writing about the looting that is occurring but blaming the providers for it while obfuscating its immorality and direct consequences - for fear of alienating those engaged - is simply reprehensible.

EMI, Warner Bid for Chrysalis

From AP:

LONDON (AP) -- EMI Group, which recently outlined a painful restructuring plan, has made a bid for independent music label Chrysalis Group PLC, a newspaper reported Friday.The report in The Times also said that Warner Chappell, the publishing arm of Warner Music Group Corp., had also made an offer.

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Cost of Piracy

Cayocosta

Guy Dixon, in his article Music: A New Era of Selling Out for Globe and Mail takes a shot at EMI for seeking corporate sponsorship to help underwrite the development of its artists:

Guy Hands, who is now chairman of EMI after his London-based investment Terra Firma bought the company and its many sublabels ranging from Virgin to Parlophone last year, said yesterday that artists may be in for a new era of selling out, with his suggestion that bands could be sponsored like British sports teams: "Football teams have very distinct corporate sponsorship. Why shouldn't some of the leading bands have the same sort of relationships?" the Financial Times quoted Hands as saying.

Unfortunately - and as usual - nowhere is it mentioned that piracy has contributed greatly to this development, as well as the loss of thousands of jobs and the cratering of record company valuations.

Mr. Dixon writes as though these things are occurring in a vacuum.

With regard to fans being jaded; perhaps artists are becoming a little fed up with the notion of playing minstrels to an audience consisting in large part of spoiled brats that hold them in contempt and consider their work worthless.