More asinine demands from ASCAP - Ringtones!

Not content with trying to get royalty payments from the 30 second song samples that many of us use to decide if a song is worth buying, now ASCAP (or should that be "ass cap") is suing American phone provider AT&T over ringtone revenue, according to Ars Technica.

Note that it's not the RIAA donning the dunce cap in this case!

The reason for the ASCAP lawsuit? Apparently everytime a ringtone goes off and someone wants to kill the phone owner for having the worst song on earth as a ringtone, that ringtone is a public performance and requires a royalty payment.

Just when you thought the barrel couldn't be scraped any further.

Now I really don't understand why it's only AT&T who are "at fault" here, but that's not really the point. The annoying 10 second loop of whatever "song" some 15 year old downloaded is a) not a public performance of any merit and b) not controlled by a phone company. Not unless they start making our phones ring... which would answer the question Deacon Blue once posed.

EFF's Fred von Lohman expands the crazy demands from ASCAP to a more natural conclusion, "if a ringtone constitutes a public performance, then so does playing the car radio when the windows are down."

It does look like the American legal system is siding with common sense on this as Verizon were recently cleared of any royalty wrong doings as well.


I guess ASCAP are going to have to continue to put their faith in whatever brainless moron is driving their current "new income" initiative. Maybe suing people who whistle for royalty payments?

Related articles by Zemanta

• Judge: ringtones aren't performances, so no royalties (arstechnica.com)
• ASCAP Wants To Be Paid When Your Phone Rings (textually.org)
• Music industry now wants to be paid public performance royalties for ringtones (inquisitr.com)
• Group Sues AT&T Over Ringtones Heard In Public (paidcontent.org)

Three and Spotify sign deal

In what can only be considered a fantastic move on behalf of both parties, Spotify and mobile operator 3 have announced a deal for 3 to distribute the music upstart's service on their network.

In a short, but sweet article on New Media Age, the first phone to benefit from this deal will be the HTC Hero, set to launch on the network before Christmas.

A few other news agencies are catching this story and adding their own take, but it's still not clear whether 3 will roll the £9.99 Spotify Premium price into the monthly tariff or if users will have to pay that on top.

Whatever the outcome, this will be good news for 3 customers, and for people who don't want to jump on the cult-wagon that is iPhone.

Bernard Sumner attacked by shark, long after jumping it

Bernard Sumner via last.fm

Looks like Bad Lieutenant's Bernard Sumner's not having a good time of it.

No sooner has he formed the third band to come from the ashes of Warsaw (the others being Joy Division and New Order) then he gets attacked while swimming on holiday... in Scotland.

According to Music-News.com, he "had a collision with a 30 ft shark. The boat nearly sank and there was a big imprint of a huge shark in the paint on its bottom."

All involved in the accident are said to be ok.

Sumner isn't the only musician to have had aquatic misadventures. Back in 1985 Duran Duran's Simon LeBon almost died while taking part in the round the world Whitbread race when his yacht capsized.

Satirical solution to deal with the music situation

With the current state of the music industry firmly divided into two camps - "free is good" and "free is bad" - CrunchGear has come up with a novel solution to the whole problem - ban music!

Spurred on by the music industry's increasingly asisine ideas (like charging royalties on 30 second samples), CrunchGear has said enough is enough and put their foot down.

Under their plan, anyone making music - even humming in the shower - will face punishment of death. Of course, this solution would free up loads of time, no more useless lawsuits, no more blogs like this espousing how much stupider the music industry can get, and no overpaid music stars being caught doing something that someone of their role model status shouldn't be doing.

It's a brazen suggestion to say the least, but I think the ideal solution is to get people into higher positions in the music industry who aren't retirement age and who's plan doesn't revolve around "make it how it used to be and we'll be fine".

As we know, it'll never be as it used to be again and that SHOULD be a good thing!

30 second royalties

The latest entry in the "most asinine way the music industry can prove it's not got a clue" was unveiled today.

Complaining that royalties from downloads aren't high enough the usual group of idiotic Americans are now pushing for a royalty payment on 30 second samples. Yeah, the same 30 second samples that might actually get you to want to part with money - i.e. the marketing tool musicians have to sway your interest from the sea of other music out there.

So, ASCAP, BMI, etc. want to charge royalties on these, and the likes of Amazon and iTunes are just going to close up the sample shop and go home. All of a sudden, the long tail buyers who aren't swayed are still going to stay unswayed and more music doesn't get purchased.... or a person turns to bittorrent or other p2p to be able to sample the wares before they buy.

Hell, in the old world model the buying of music was based around sampling the goods. All the old record shops had listening booths where you could listen before you buy. When CDs became the norm, you'd routinely find banks of CD players down your local HMV where you could skim through a disc before buying it.

Did royalties ever get paid on these? Of course not, as the purchase you made would negate that.

As Mashable rightly point out, this is nothing more than sheer greed!

As they point out, "since when did it become smart business to spend time and money actively preventing your potential customers from finding out if they want to give you money or not? It’s unfortunate that in the shift to a digital media ecosystem licensing agencies are getting squeezed, but some of these tactics reek of desperation."

At least it's not the record labels proving they're idiots this time, merely the royalty collecting agencies trying to justify their existence in a world of ever slimming royalty payments.

It's all a moot point anyway, as the smaller acts - the ones these agencies are there to protect - are usually the first to get shafted anyway. This way you sample some Madonna track before you buy and she gets a double payday. Nice for the small guy.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Music publishers: iTunes not paying fair share (news.cnet.com)
• Music Industry Wants Royalties From iTunes 30 Second Samples [Bad Ideas] (gizmodo.com)
• How Performing Rights Groups Funnel Money To Top Acts And Ignore Smaller Acts (techdirt.com)

New Order's recycled labour of love

Image via Wikipedia

New Order's manager Rob Gretton (RIP) had a wonderful idea a couple of years back - release all the Factory-era new order singles on CD in a whopping great boxset. Call it "Recycle" and it'll be awesome. The powers that be instead released a boxset called "Retro" and it was just ok (especially if you got the limited edition 5th disc!)

Fast forward a few years and Warner re-issue the New Order Factory-era albums on CD with bonus discs full of "great stuff". However, a few fans in the know, audio technology-wise, realised how badly Warner screwed up yet another batch of releases by their favourite band and decided to take action.

Thus, the fan-led Recycle project was born. Basically it's an mp3 blog featuring the original idea of Gretton's "Recycle" project - the 22 Factory released singles in all their glory. There's also a Flickr photostream of sleeves you can print off and fold correctly to give you the entire experience that Warner has denied you.

Popping over to the blog, you get a real understanding of how much blood, sweat, and tears can go into a project if you really really care - something no record label does much of these days any more. Reading the liner notes for each of the releases on the blog, you get an understanding that this isn't just a case of copying tracks from a 12" or CD, the guys putting this project together are METICULOUS to a fault. The latest "hiccup" related to not being able to find the correct mix of Bizarre Love Triangle. This put the whole project on hold while VINYL copies flung themselves around the world, ready to be ripped, cleaned up and edited by the guys putting the project together.

If you're a New Order fan, you owe it to yourself to check out what these guys are doing. It's awesome when you find people who know what they're doing and put it to good use.

My hat is off to them.

Saint Etienne debut goes into Beta!

The news today is the long awaited Richard X re-imaging of Saint Etienne's debut album "Foxbase Alpha" is nearly upon us. Through an email from the band, we now know a few more details.

Come next month, fans can finally hear the fruits of this anticipated union. According to Saint Etienner Bob Stanley's email, "using original masters, adding cellos, electrix, choirs, and the spirit of Brian Cant [Richard X] has created something really special - spruced-up yet reverential, it is essentially a 2009 up-date of 'Foxbase Alpha', given a shot of vodka and a loving caress."

There are two snippets on the band's Myspace page which sound just dynamite!

The limited edition version of "Foxbase Beta", released in a limited (numbered) run of 3,000 will be available for pre-order from the band's website later from 21 September. This release will also include "Foxbase Extra", three unreleased tracks from the "Foxbase Alpha" sessions that didn't make it onto the recent Deluxe Edition reissue.

To fill room on the second CD, "there will also be a 'directors' commentary' on the bonus disc. Informative, yes. Pithy, quite possibly."

An un-numbered single disc version will be available at gigs and Rough Trade shops, as well as digitally through iTunes (so there's hope it'll get to Spotify as well!).

Before the release of "Foxbase Beta", a limited (200 copies only) 4 track 12" will be released, featuring further Richard X mixes of "Only Love Can Break Your Heart" (extended and instrumental), the Foxbase Beta version of "Girl VII" and Air France's mix of "Spring".

It's nice to see in a time of downturn in both the economy and the music industry, there's still awesome news coming out that puts a nice spring in your step!