GrindEFX

Donald Passman’s seventh edition of his book “All You Need to Know About the Music Business” is available in bookstores today.

Along with the material from the previous editions – the music industry structure, building a team, understanding copyright and publishing, and literally everything else you need to know about the music business – this new edition adds the latest developments from the rapidly changing music business, including:

* The new 360 model of record deals, wherein record companies share in nonrecord revenue

* The Copyright Royalty Board’s latest decisions regarding online transmissions

* The developing customs on new technologies such as streaming on demand, ringtones, and digital downloads

* Updates on recording and publishing deals, as well as film music

I don’t know what else to say about this book that hasn’t already been said. If you’re even thinking about pursuing music as more than just a hobby, you need this book. If you only get one book about the music business, this is the book to get.

Rather than writing a review, I think it suffices to list the thesaurus entries for “definitive.” This book is: absolute, authoritative, clear-cut, complete, conclusive, exhaustive, precise, and reliable.

Despite the lack of success music subscription services have had, entrepreneurs seem to be lining up to have shot at it. We’re hearing about new subscription services every week, and none of them have a USP. They all seem to have the same business model – pay a high monthly fee for a very limited access to music.

The latest company to try their hand at it is satellite television company Sky. Sky’s plan is to charge £7.99 a month for unlimited streaming and 1 album download (or 10 songs) – downloading more songs will cost extra.

Details on the new service are sketchy, some sources say they have partnered with Universal, while others say they have struck deals with all the majors and a number of indie labels.

Read more…

On September 8th, Apple unveiled its latest ‘innovation’ to help prop up the recorded music industry – the iTunes LP. For only seven bucks more than a regular digital album, you can get some pretty pictures and liner notes. Facepalm!

But the story doesn’t end there.

Last week, Brian McKinney of Chocolate Lab Records told Gizmodo that Apple was charging record labels $10,000 in production costs to release an album in the iTunes LP format – and indie record labels need not apply. Apple later denied that allegation and said it is working on releasing the specs for the LP format and making them available to all, indie and major labels alike.

Regardless of the outcome of this “he said she said” tempest, it amplifies the silliness of the iTunes LP format itself.

Several web developers have dissected the format to find that it is essentially HTML, Javascript, CSS, and multimedia content – a website. For a little more than the cost of an actual physical CD, you get to save files to your hard drive that largely mirror content you can find online, from the artist’s website itself to Wikipedia, YouTube, and others. Read more…

On October 10, 2009 Mariah Carey will make “history”. Well, “history” according to Def Jam and Global Digital Entertainment.

Here’s the details, Mariah Carey recently linked up with Global Digital Entertainment which is, you guessed it, a digital entertainment company. This Saturday GDE will be launching iviago.com, which is, well, let me get to the point.

On October 10, 2009 a concert simply titled “Mariah Carey: Live in Las Vegas” will be the first concert simulcasted to a great number of digital and mobile devices. The only way to see this concert is by texting Mariah @ 313131 for a virtual concert ticket which cost 9.99. (7.99 if you pre-order).

“Fans from all over the world can now share the excitement of a live concert, wherever, whenever, and on whatever digital device they chose,”  - Steve Bartels President and COO of Island Def Jam Music Group.

Read more…

Radio station to offer web streaming is not news. Web site to offer radio programming is.

CBS Interactive Music Group recently announced that it will begin offering music programming from Last.fm on HD radio stations in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and San Francisco beginning October 5th. The stations will effectively hand the broadcasting reins over to the crowd-sourced, music discovery site – bringing listeners “an eclectic mix of music aggregated and influenced by the service’s user-generated weekly charts, combined with live performances and interviews from the Last.fm studios in New York, and event updates.”

According to CBS, this is the “first time a music website has been transformed into its own broadcast entity.”

How to tune in?

Read more…

The Apple event took place yesterday after weeks of anticipation and among the big announcements; a new and improved iTunes 9 (surprise surprise), a new, cheaper iPod Touch line, a new iPod Nano equipped with a video camera and microphone (don’t look at me), increased storage and price cut for iPod classics and a “genius” function for the iPhone and iPod touch that creates playlists based on your history.

But what you all really want to know about is the not-so-top-secret “Cocktail” project. Well, I can reveal that Apple has launched a new digital album format called iTunes LP.

The iTunes LP is pretty much as we expected. It’s a digital album with extra features such as music videos, artwork, liner notes, lyrics, photo albums, bonus tracks etc.

Read more…

Forrester Research recently released a report that lays out a “radical vision” to “save the music industry from the current Media Meltdown it finds itself in.”

While the actual report is only available to Forrester customers, the company’s blog reveals that the plan involves broad “music release windows,” similar to the chart on the right. “Premium” content is released first, followed by a “mainstream” release at a later time, and eventually wide dissemination to free and “feels like free” services.

Judging by comments on the Forrester blog and elsewhere, many scoff at the idea of regaining content scarcity through this staggered release approach. “What about pre-release leaks?” they ask. True, the industry has increasingly bumped up release dates of albums – Jay-Z’s latest came out three days early today – in part to combat the problem of early copies leaking onto the internet. But it’s important to keep in mind that large swaths of music listeners are not running around downloading leaked copies of albums off torrent sites.

Read more…

In March YouTube banned thousands of music videos in the U.K. after a dispute over licensing fees with PRS for Music. It took 6 months but it looks like PRS have given in and music videos will return to YouTube in the next couple of days.

Instead of a per-stream fee, YouTube will pay PRS for Music a lump sum backdated to January and lasting until 2010. The sum of money has not been disclosed.

PRS seem to be happy with the new deal. A spokeswoman for the Performing Rights Society told BBC News; “it is a lump sum deal which seems to work for YouTube’s business model and offers recompense for our 60,000 members. We can be friends again.”

Read more…

After five years as the Executive VP at Warner Music Group, Kevin Liles has announced he is leaving the company.

Liles joined WMG in 2004 after leaving the role of President at Def Jam and Executive VP at Island Def Jam Music Group. He began his career as an intern at Def Jam in 1991, he was named President in 1998 at 30 years of age. Liles played a big part in the success of artists such as Jay-Z, Ja Rule, DMX, Kanye West, T.I. and LL Cool J.

Kevin also published a book in 2006; Make It Happen: The Hip-Hop Generation Guide to Success.

“In the past couple weeks I’ve made one of the most important decisions of my life,” Liles said in a statement, “to depart the Warner Music Group in order to focus more on new entrepreneurial endeavors in talent management, entertainment media, and my personal philanthropic and political passions.”

According to a written statement Liles will remain in a consulting role at WMG.

After waiting nearly a year for Nokia to launch its “Comes with Music” service, it appears North America will have to wait a little while longer. A spokeswoman for Nokia told Reuters that there isn’t any dates planned for the launch of this service.

“We’ve actually not given a firm time-frame yet for when it will be launched in North America. Our priority is on creating and delivering an optimal experience as we roll this service out in each market,” as told by a spokeswoman for Nokia.

Nokia’s “Comes with Music” service was launched last October in Britain, and so far, nine different countries. Unfortunately for Nokia, the results of these launches have been less then stellar. This is probably the reason the launch for the U.S. was temporarily postponed, since the U.S. is the world largest music market.

“Comes with Music” currently (in other countries) offer unlimited downloads of Music from all the major labels and some independents. The price of this all you can eat music service is built into the subscription plans or the price of the phone itself. Music can be downloaded to the phone or even downloaded to the consumer’s computer and be kept after their phone plan has expired.