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Over on Consumerist: an until-now happy customer of Ticketmaster who, when trying to find out details about a canceled event, finds that TM company TicketsNow disconnect the call everytime he mentions the word "refund".
I suppose the one piece of judgement shown by Britney Spears' lawyers is that they stopped short of reaching for the Nazis and merely suggested that Spears had been treated like a 'gulag victim' by the US courts:
In newly released court papers, Jon Eardley likened her plight to that of forced labourers in Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's literary masterpiece.
Mr Eardley was voicing his objections to the court-ordered conservatorship that currently governs the pop singer's life.
"It is worth noting that there has not even been a 'show trial' for Miss Spears," Mr Eardley said, according to the Los Angeles Times.
So, not only did last night's Comic Relief raise the sort of sums that only Fred Goodwin could dream of, but actually managed to be consistently entertaining throughout. Normally, by pub-chucking-out-time, they're scrabbling about to give you "another chance to see" stuff that had already played out earlier; this year, they had so much stuff they hadn't even got round to The Apprentice firing by midnight. Even the French and Saunders bit was funny, and that's something you've not been able to say for the best part of a decade and a half.
There was the puzzle of Patrick Kielty - did they call him up and offer him the chance to do a single link while David Tennant and Davina McCall were busy doing Mastermind, or did he just show up and they reckoned that "since you're here, you might as well..."?
What really detains us, though, is that strange edition of Top Of The Pops which filled the gap that normally would have had an episode of QI in. Incidentally, how do they think poor Huw Edwards feels, getting ready to read the news, hearing everyone on BBC One telling the massive audience to turn over and not watch him. I bet he has to wipe a little tear each time it happens.
Now, although it was coming from the Comic Relief studio and there were a couple of extra nods to the event - superimposing red noses on the chart rundown, for example - this was, to all intents and purposes, like Top Of The Pops had never been canceled. Even down to that Top Ten and having the number one act live in the studio. Sure, there was a bit of smudging the boundaries, but even the shoe-horning of Oasis and U2 was for their latest singles rather than, say, something that people might actually want to hear. It was all a little bizarre having, in the midst of 'very special episodes of', to get 'more or less a bog-standard edition of' a programme that doesn't even exist any more. If nothing else, it showed there's still an enormous amount of affection for the old warhorse both amongst bands and at the BBC.
Perhaps if someone could come up with a chart that actually reflected the new music scene, there might be a second life for the programme...
This year, Scotland is holding a huge series of homecoming events, which the Scottish parliament seems to think will underline how talented the nation is, but in effect just points up how many people can't wait to flee as soon as they get a bit of success.
Someone, though, forgot to invite Barbara Dickson:
She said: "Homecoming? I've never been asked to come home. I wasn't invited to participate in anything to do with launching that. I never even got an invitation to the opening of the parliament."
"In Scotland, it's vital that young folk are playing the fiddle and the box and that people sing. It keeps the music alive. The country needs its culture."
Boston Public Health Commission has carried out a snap survey of local teenagers' reactions to Chris Brown's attack on Rihanna. If the Commission had been hoping to release a positive-sounding press release about how far we've come in public attitudes to domestic violence, they would be disappointed:
“Somehow young people have gotten the message that this is just part of a relationship,” said anti-violence advocate Deborah Collins-Gousby.
Of the 200 Boston youths (ages 12 to 19) surveyed last month, 51 percent said Chris Brown was responsible for the incident, 46 percent said Rihanna was responsible and 52 percent said both were to blame; 52 percent said the media was treating Brown unfairly; 44 percent said fighting was a normal part of a relationship; and a “significant” number said “Rihanna was destroying Chris Brown’s career.” Women blamed Rihanna as much as men did.
GWR Bristol, part of the clumsy Global Radio behemoth, has been warned by Ofcom for not actually playing the music it promised to. Ofcom sampled the station and wasn't happy:
This Spot Sampling report arose after Ofcom received complaints that GWR FM is not delivering the music proposition set out in its Format, which is to play ‘contemporary and chart’ music.
After listening to three days of GWR FM’s music output, we found that the overall mix of music being aired by the station was too old for it to be consistent with the Format’s Character of Service.
GWR FM is not operating within its Format and a Yellow Card warning has been issued.
“GWR Bristol was asked to supply music logs to Ofcom by today, Friday 13 March. The requested information was supplied by yesterday, 12 March. Ofcom’s decision was made without reference to either the station, or by talking to its owners, Global Radio.
“This is an extraordinary way for a regulator to behave by issuing a judgement before a deadline has passed. We do not accept this finding, and are considering our position.”
This warning concerns GWR Bristol, but we received similar complaints about a number of Global stations and we advise the licensee to take this finding into account for programming across all its CHR stations. Ofcom has had conversations with the licensee about content on its CHR stations in the past.
So, yes, that carefully phrased wording of Jackson's swansong?. Gordon reveals the words "in London" did mean these are simply the last dates in London:
After testing the water in London at the O2 and being astonished by the unprecedented response, promoters will take his swan song around the world.
New York, Las Vegas, Mumbai and Paris are all likely venues, with Jacko ready to dominate the pop calendar for the next three years.
After the mad ticket rush yesterday, AEG Live promoter Randy Phillips said: “That wasn’t anticipated.
“We never thought it would be 50 shows and, frankly, based on the queues on Ticketmaster, plus the 300,000 registrants we still haven’t issued codes to, we could spend two years here."
I expected Jackomania, but this is off the scale.
Did you see the King Of Pop on tour in the 1980s or 1990s? Email me on biz@the-sun.co.uk and we might contact you for a bit of Jacko reminiscing.
Click here to enter your vote and help decide the set list for Michael Jackson's forthcoming concerts.
THE KAISER CHIEFS are not known for riotous laddish antics and I certainly wouldn’t have predicted this.
On Wednesday I’m told some of the Leeds lads were spotted on a boys’ night out at a seedy London strip club where punters splash out £20 per dance on strippers.
How charming the Revlon cosmetics company is. In a bid to try and push its grease-and-water concoctions a little ahead in the market, they're carrying out a survey which appears to be trying to test if the whole Rihanna-being-beaten-up story has harmed their rivals, Cover Girl:
[Their online survey] then questions people if they are aware of the person in the commercial (without saying Rihanna's name), if they've heard about her in the news lately, if they have an opinion about the person and if they feel the person is "an appropriate spokesperson" for the product.
Yesterday, Trent Reznor was less-than-flattering about Chris Cornell's new album.
Cornell wasn't going to take that lolling about like a barely-coherent buffoon. Or at least he'd try not to not to, shooting this back:
“What do you think Jesus would twitter,” Cornell asks. ” ‘Let he who is without sin cast the first stone’ or ‘Has anyone seen Judas? He was here a minute ago.’ ”
Go on: guess whose side Feargal has come out on in the battle between YouTube and the PRS?
Why, yes, the plucky little PRS:
Sharkey accused Google, which owns YouTube, of blocking the videos in order to force the PRS to lower its price.
Sharkey said Google was a "large company thinking they're in a position to bully around a little society that represents 60,000 songwriters".
"Quite frankly I'd hoped that by this point in the week Google would have reflected on the mistake they'd made and were willing to move away from the position they'd taken," Sharkey said.
"But quite clearly they're still in the mood to bully our songwriters, our musicians, and that's not acceptable."
Sharkey also charged Google with attempting to "hold them hostage and demand that they start to underwrite their business model".
"That is totally inappropriate and in fact mildly offensive," he said.
Surely, with CNN's website calling on Gennaro Castaldo's knowledge-synapse, it can now only be a matter of days until he is fully deployed as Wolf Blitzer's Situation Room's very own Global Tune Expert.
It's the phenomenon of a washed-out old corpse booking a big London tent for fifty nights that has brought CNN to Castaldo's door. What does all this Jackson activity mean?
Gennaro Castaldo, spokesman for UK music retailer HMV, said Jackson was already reaping the benefits of hosting the concerts.
"Sales of Michael's albums are starting to show a discernible increase, albeit from a relatively low sales base at this early stage. However, if demand is picking up now, imagine what it will be like in July, when Michael actually kicks off his live performances."
Castaldo said sales of his "King Of Pop" album released in August had increased four-fold, while sales of "Thriller" had nearly doubled.
The 3AM Girls surprise the world with something that almost smacks of reporting. Although, to be honest, getting Andy Burrows to withdraw his soft statement on leaving Razorlight probably took little more work than tapping him on the shoulder and pressing play and record:
Speaking for the first time about the rift, Andy tells us: "It was hell. I'm so glad I'm out of it.
"I hated being in the band. Johnny and I didn't get on. Now I've got my freedom.
"He never wanted people to know that we both wrote songs and I couldn't be in control. I'm happy again. Don't get me wrong - I had some fond memories. We achieved some great things together and had amazing experiences. But now at least I'm happy.
"I'm drumming for We Are Scientists, working on my own material and doing stuff for other bands."
More forthcoming-record-news-excitement: SubPop are re-releasing Enter The Vaselines in May, in a luxury double-CD package. Which can sometime mean a disc full of old rubbish, but this being The Vaselines, has got a pretty delicious sounding listing:
1. Son of A Gun (demo)
2. Rosary Job (demo)
3. Red Poppy (demo)
4. Son of A Gun (live in Bristol)
5. Rosary Job (live in Bristol)
6. Red Poppy (live in Bristol)
7. Rory Rides Me Raw (live in Bristol)
8. You Think You’re a Man (live in Bristol)
9. Dying for It (live in London)
10. Monsterpussy (live in London)
11. Let’s Get Ugly (live in London)
12. Molly’s Lips (live in London)
13. The Day I Was a Horse (live in London)
14. The Day I Was A Horse (Again) (live in London)
15. Sex Sux (Amen) (live in London)
16. I Didn’t Know I Loved You (‘Til I Saw You Rock ‘n’ Roll) (live in London)
17. Teenage Superstars (live in London)
There's a pre-release gig at the Forum on March 28th as well.
After a refit - basically burning the Zavvi sign and slapping a picture of a dog up in its place - the old Virgin Megastore in Croydon reopens as an HMV. Gennaro Castaldo, director of the thoughts department at HMV, is delighted:
Gennaro Castaldo, chief press officer at HMV, said that although the stores were within a short distance of each other he was confident they could both thrive and develop their own identities.
Mr Castaldo added: "Croydon is such a large shopping area with a large flow of people coming in."
Hey, journalists? Got a column to fill, and a deadline to meet? Why not think of the most buzzed-over female celebrity of the moment and write a column claiming she's going to be the next Bond girl?
Here's an example of that in action: Freida Pinto, out of Slumdog Millionaire. She's popular right now, and so clearly, she's bound to be the next Bond girl. Right, Gordon?
SLUMDOG Millionaire beauty FREIDA PINTO could become the new Bond girl — after being invited to a screen test for the next spy adventure.
Freida could follow in the footsteps of Bond babes such as Plenty O’Toole in 1971 classic Diamonds Are Forever.
Diamonds Are Freida
It's been eight years, give or take, since Miss Kittin and The Hacker's first album, First Album. Now, they're back with album number two, Two.
They're celebrating by giving stuff away - both K and H have made mp3 mixtapes up, and - at least for the time being - there's this video of Suspicious Minds. Yes, yes, a Presley cover. But, oh, what a Presley cover:
Two is out on May 19th.
MTV Brazil is encouraging safer sex by running an advertising campaign which seems to imply that whoever you have sex with will have had sex with Mick Jagger at some point, or words to that effect.
It's kind of like rock family trees, but with "shagged" replacing "drummed for version #3 of the band".
I'm not quite sure the chain manages to prove that all sex is, in effect, a circle jerk for Jagger - Eminem shagged Geri Halliwell? Johnny Thunders shagged the hole (sic) world? Something very odd about someone having sex with a tree that became the bed on which David Bowie shagged Mick Jagger?
The message is "always use condoms", although if you are going to have sex with a tree, be aware that condoms can't save you from splinters, even if they can help prevent unplanned saplings.
You'd have thought that if you wanted to shut Chris Martin up about the environment, you'd ask him about his SUV or private plane. Not if youre Noel Gallagher, though:
"He said: 'Why do you think it's cool not to care?' and I said, 'Well, I don't think it's cool, I don't think I'm being cool.'
"I actually couldn't give a fuck about what's going on outside my family: me, my missus, my two kids and my mam, and her parents... that's it, for me.
"Other than that, it's not my problem, but that's not to say you shouldn't care about it!
"Each to their own and I'm glad there's people like that. But I just like to look after my own."
... live in the forest... forage for food... he's not just showing off like a teenage kid affecting not to be bovvered, no...
I'm not entirely sure this isn't a story that has been doing the rounds for a while, but Aretha Franklin's inauguration hat is selling by the bucketload. Which is appropriate, since it looked it a little like a bucket, only with a big bow on.
The hat that is being sold isn't actually the same hat, because like the Mastermind chair they didn't want to turn it into a commercial item. But the designer Luke Song has made a hat quite a lot like Aretha's, which seems to be a questionable workaround - "it would be tacky to sell hats that were like Aretha's, so we'll only sells hates that are a bit like Aretha's instead." It neither preserves the uniqueness of the actual hat, nor satisfies the desires of those who wish to own one.
Michael Jackson has stretched his planned dates at the Millennium Dome to a cash sapping fifty nights, spread over several months.
Fifty gigs? I know Jacko is strapped for cash, but isn't this just looking needy?
Apart from any other consideration, those people who bought tickets yesterday spent hours wrestling Ticketmaster in the belief they were buying a pass to some of Michael Jackson's farewell shows. Now, it turns out that he's going to be doing more after them than he's played in about two decades.
And - in order for him to get some proper rest between songs - the run doesn't end until Janaury 2010. That's longer than most West End musicals manage. Sure, the first couple of dates might seem a bit special, but by next Winter "Michael Jackson playing a gig" is going to become such a commonplace it's going to be on a par with Gordon Brown trying to put on a brave face as economic indicators hang a "twinned with Harare" sign outside the Bank Of England.
One other thing: there's been a lot of suggestion (especially with the This is IT branding) that what's being offered is Jackson's swansong.
“Michael is said to be ‘thrilled’ by the response and wanted as many fans to share the experience with him as possible,” the Website adds. “This will be the last chance to see the King of Pop in London, this really is it!”
Not only are we pinching James P's email, but we've even lifted his headline for the news that Zoe Griffin has quit the Sunday Mirror:
No word on where she's going; Maybe to pursue a career in an area of the media where there's less chance of being physically assaulted by an Osbourne. Which I think leaves 'Speaking Clock' and 'Putting Up the Small-Ad Postcards in Somerfield'.
... and all because Chris Cornell's album is rotten:
“You know that feeling you get when somebody embarrasses themselves so badly YOU feel uncomfortable? Heard Chris Cornell's record? Jesus.”
Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal revealed how Britney Spears and Neil Diamond appeared to be scalping their own tickets.
Today, sister paper The Times reveals that Michael Jackson has been doing the same thing - or, at least, the promoter of his shows:
The Times understands that outside the official sale of the tickets, AEG Live approached secondary ticketing companies — which allow people to resell tickets to sporting and music events — offering to provide them directly with between 500 and 1,000 tickets for each performance.
It is thought that AEG Live offered the tickets on the understanding that they were sold at about £500 each, with 80 per cent of the revenue returning to AEG Live and the secondary ticketing company taking the remaining 20 per cent.
Last night tickets for seats closest to the stage were on sale on Viagogo for thousands of pounds. Other seats in prime locations seemed to be on sale at surprisingly uniform rates, with many priced at £418 and £659.
AEG Live did not deny its links to Viagogo. The company previously said in a statement: “In an effort to ensure fans are able to purchase premium tickets and exchange tickets directly with other fans, AEG Live has entered into an agreement with Viagogo. The online site allows people to buy and sell live event tickets in a safe and guaranteed way.”
Here's more warm memories about to be squished up in the liquidiser of quick cash shakedowns: Heathers - The Musical:
The readings saw "Veronica Mars" star Kristen Bell playing the lead
The film offered many over-top-moments as well as choice lines, something Fickman is eager to bring out musically.
" 'I love my dead gay son," [Developer Andy] Fickman quoted. "If you can get that into a song, then that is just perfect."
Interesting noises coming from the meeting of the Featured Artists Coalition.
First, that it's a body which is determined to not be seen as a Trades Union. It's keen to stress it doesn't want to usurp the Musician's Union:
Writing on Comment is Free, Billy Bragg [...] stresses that the FAC is not a "pop stars" union, as the Musicians Union already fulfils that role, but "a campaigning organisation that seeks to achieve fair remuneration in exchange for widespread access".
Bragg told The Independent that most of the artists had voted against supporting any move towards criminally prosecuting ordinary members of the public for illegally downloaded music.
Bragg was speaking as a key member of the coalition, which was set up to give a collective voice to artists who want to fight for their rights in the digital world. It is pushing for a fairer deal for musicians at a time when they can use the internet to forge direct links with their fans. "What I said at the meeting was that the record industry in Britain is still going down the road of criminalising our audience for downloading illegal MP3s," he said.
"If we follow the music industry down that road, we will be doing nothing more than being part of a protectionist effort. It's like trying to put toothpaste back in the tube.
"Artists should own their own rights and they should decide when their music should be used for free, or when they should have payment."
In the first batch of weak ads marking the rebranding of Norwich Union to Snickers, Ringo Starr was featured, muttering that it was only by changing his name that he was able to unleash the power of fame. Or words to that effect. "Would any of this have happened", he asked, "if I was still Richard Starkey?"
In the new batch of even weaker ads, Ringo pops up, looking grim-faced, insisting that he doesn't want to be called by his stage name.
Eh? So he rebranded successfully to Ringo, and yet doesn't want to be known as Ringo, believing that his actual name is still Richard Starkey? So if his name is Richard, then his question in the original advert, 'would this have happened if I was called Richard' would be answered 'yes, because I am.'
And if he's Richard sometimes, and Ringo at others, isn't the message from this that you can be flexible with your name according to circumstances? And doesn't that mean that, actually, Norwich Union could still be Norwich Union when it's drumming for the Beatles, and Aviva when it's at home?
Or... did nobody really think the adverts through at all?
It's not just another staging post on the road to DRM-free music, but also a further blow to Windows Media Audio and Microsoft's attempts to lock in its unlovely format as music encoder of choice: Vodaphone is swapping from DRMed WMA files to unlocked mp3s for its mobile music store.
And in an even more surprising example of getting it right, if you've previously bought a DRMed song from the shop, you can swap it for a proper one, for free.
The irony, of course, is that if the original track didn't have DRM, you wouldn't be able to swap them. But then you wouldn't need to.
Panting breathlessly, the Mirror's Tom Bryant announces an exclusive:
The Daily Mirror has seen the setlist the King of Pop has handed to AEG Live, who run London’s O2 Arena where he will play a residency in July.
Billie Jean
- This has one of the best base lines I've ever heard in my life.
Wanna be startin' somethin
- Excellent opening of the classic Thriller album. Wicked choice.
Rock with you
- Slow funky classic that rates among his best.
The way you make me feel
- Best intro to a Jacko song (apart from Thriller!) Top one Michael.
Don't stop till you get enough
- The ultimate disco anthem. I can never get enough of this one.
I just can't stop loving you
- One for the ladies and romantics in the audience
Human Nature
- One of Thriller's slower moments but well worth including in the list
Smooth criminal
- One of my favourite Jacko videos and songs too
Girlfriend
- Very much a filler from Off The Wall. Not for me.
Man in the Mirror
- Loving it when the gospel kicks in. Lets hope he gets a full choir involved.
Beat it
- What an incredible guitar solo by Eddie Van Halen. Get him over to the UK!
One day in your life
- Early Jackson that was a bigger hit here than in the UK. Good one to get in.
Heal the World
- Michael's one-man Band Aid.
Remember the time
- Not his finest hour but will appeal to some I reckon.
You are not alone
- Written for Jacko by R Kelly but don't let that put you off. Still a popular one to have.
Thriller
- Possibly the best group dance routine ever. Let's see if he can do it all on stage again in the summer
Given that the Sun suggested he was an irredeemable, drug-addled reprobate, and that the paper hunted him for sport not so long back, the appearance of a large, fawning interview with Doherty in today's Bizarre column is either a heartwarming piece of rapprochement, or a puzzling embrace of monster and tormentor.
Naturally, Gordon's not going to fawn over Doherty without stressing how all that stuff you might have thought about him (because you read it in Gordon's pages) is wrong:
KATE MOSS’s controversial ex has said he is happy being single — and has pledged to keep his distance from women.
He said: “I’ve come into my own head a little bit really, being a bit more honest and open, rather than hiding in a crack pipe or wherever and just not turning up most of the time.”
Pete insists he is now off the drugs — but I will need a bit more convincing.
He combines popular culture with big philosophical ideas
such as this comparison of himself with Del Boy from Only Fools And Horses.
Pete concluded: “It’s like Trotters Independent Traders.
“For years they got by on three wheels and a lot of the fun was in the dream and scheme and the scrapes and near misses.
“But really and truly all Del ever wanted was actually to achieve something secretly, you know?”
This time next year, Pete...but not if the three wheels fall off again.
Something to remember the next time you see artists and promoters getting upset about people flogging tickets on at inflated prices: some artists are doing the scalping themselves:
Less than a minute after tickets for last August's Neil Diamond concerts at New York's Madison Square Garden went on sale, more than 100 seats were available for hundreds of dollars more than their normal face value on premium-ticket site TicketExchange.com. The seller? Neil Diamond.
Ticket reselling -- also known as scalping -- is an estimated $3 billion-a-year business in which professional brokers buy seats with the hope of flipping them to the public at a hefty markup.
In the case of the Neil Diamond concerts, however, the source of the higher-priced tickets was the singer, working with Ticketmaster Entertainment Inc., which owns TicketExchange, and concert promoter AEG Live. Ticketmaster's former and current chief executives, one of whom is Mr. Diamond's personal manager, have acknowledged the arrangement, as has a person familiar with AEG Live, which is owned by Denver-based Anschutz Corp.
Tickets for a March 27 Britney Spears concert at Mellon Arena in Pittsburgh were priced earlier this week at $39.50 to $125 apiece on Ticketmaster.com. But some of those same classes of seats were being offered at the same time through the "TicketExchange Marketplace" for as much as $1,188.60. The link to the Marketplace page was marked, "Browse premium seats plus tickets posted by fans."
Ms. Spears' spokeswoman declined to comment.
The ticket listings are offered in small batches, each at a price, such as $1,164.01, that mimics prices set via online auctions. After inquiries from The Wall Street Journal, the "tickets posted by fans" message was removed from the TicketExchange Web site. Prices also fell, narrowing the gap between Ticketmaster and TicketExchange Marketplace.
Coming in just over a month: Love In The Time Of Recession, the new Durutii Column album.
First track on the record is In Memory Of Anthony, a tribute to the late Mr. Wilson:
He always encouraged me to follow my instincts. And that's still how I work. All the new songs are a very true reflection of my life and that's all I want any album to be."
It's not so much that it reflects well on Chris Brown that he has withdrawn his name from consideration for the Kids' Choice awards, as it reflects awfully on Nickelodeon. The kids' TV network has handed the moral high ground to a man who doesn't deserve it which leaves them looking a bit shabby.
Yesterday, of course, Nikelodeon were busily suggesting that the prize was based on the music alone:
"Like all our KCA nominees, was nominated by kids several months ago based on his body of work as a performer, and the kids who vote will ultimately decide who wins in the category," Dan Martinsen, Nickelodeon spokesman, told the Associated Press.
Nickelodeon television network issued its own statement Wednesday.
"We agree with and respect his decision, and are looking forward to presenting a great event for our audience," it said.
Sweeping The Nation doesn't know what's going on here:
HI THERE! Welcome to the internet-based mouthpiece of several UK based bands who double up as AWESOME PALS TOGETHER. DON'T TAKE DRUGS BECAUSE YOU'LL GET IN TROUBLE.
* DANANANANAYKROYD
* LOS CAMPESINOS!
* SKY LARKIN
Perhaps unsurprisingly, artists are getting nervous about the PRS-Google dispute.
Beth Orton has come out in favour of royalties:
"Certain people can’t just make money from gigs, can they?" she told BBC 6music.
She added: "You should get money from recording, because record deals are different now as well, so it would make sense that revenue has to come from somewhere. It's been lovely for me because I've had the last two years to just concentrate on my little girl.
"That's been from working really hard for 10 years and then being able to live off the back of what I've done when those little royalty cheques come in."
"Our [the Featured Artists Coalition] target is not the music fan but the businesses that are making huge profits by exploiting artistic content for which they pay little or nothing at all."
Apple have just launched a new iPod Shuffle - it's even tinier than the last, and will announce songs in a crisp, clear voice to make up for the lack of a screen. It might be wise to teach it to yell "over here", too, what it with it being so small.
Oh, and the hard drive is four times the size of the second generation models.
Together, at last: Glasvegas and Reverend and The Makers, as the latter remixes the former's Go Square Go and RCRD LBL serve it up as a free mp3.
Michele Boldrin and David K. Levine of Washington University have just published a book, Against Intellectual Monopoly, which suggests that far from driving a knowledge-based economy, copyright (and patent law) actually drags the economy down:
"From a public policy view, we'd ideally like to eliminate patent and copyright laws altogether," says Levine, John H. Biggs Distinguished Professor of Economics. "There's plenty of protection for inventors and plenty of protection and opportunities to make money for creators. It's not that we see this as some sort of charitable act that people are going to invent and create things without earning money. Evidence shows very strongly there are lots of ways to make money without patents and copyright."
Levine and Boldrin point to students being sued for 'pirating' music on the internet and AIDS patients in Africa dying because they cannot afford expensive drugs produced by patent holders as examples of the failure of the current system. Boldrin, the Joseph Gibson Hoyt Distinguished Professor in Arts & Sciences and Chair of the economics department says, "Intellectual property is in fact an intellectual monopoly that hinders rather than helps the competitive free market regime that has delivered wealth and innovation to our doorsteps."
In Brazil, you already need a licence in order to pursue a trade as a journalist or radio announcer. Now, there are plans to introduce a licence for DJs as well. There's also plans to introduce a quota which will insist that any event which has DJ involvement will have to feature 70% Brazilian, licensed DJs. (Or two locals to every Pete Tong, in other words.)
Lost in the vagueness of the legislation is some sort of quality threshold which would need to be passed in order to get your papers. The idea of the state acting as some sort of guarantor of quality for someone playing records might seem laughable - but the next time you find yourself at a wedding, you might find yourself being a little jealous of the Brazilians and their minimum standards.
With the world, or at least the very small section of it interested in Michael Jackson, busy swearing at Ticketmaster, Gordon brings news of the plans:
MICHAEL JACKSON’s London comeback is going ahead with a little help from rock Lord ROD STEWART.
The FACES frontman is renting Jacko his swish Essex mansion as the weird one stages his ten-show residency at The O2 in July.
Don't stop 'til you get Rod's gaff
[AEG boss] Phillips said: “He wants to use some technical effects that have never been seen before.”
He is planning to emulate illusionist DAVID BLAINE and FLOAT over the stage.
2 become 1 in love split
Let's ask Twitterfall, shall we?
tbush: Bugger! Frantically trying to get Michael Jackson tickets via the O2 customer site and the site is down. Not cool!
tkei: Wife is trying to buy tickets to see Michael Jackson in concert and the servers have crashed. No surprises there really.
Boborato: Here we go once again for Michael Jackson's tickets... stucked on "Your wait time is approximately 15 minutes or more"...
patrick: Wow after 30 minutes in line for Michael Jackson, the website updated.... now approx 14 minutes wait time :)
monodot: Dumped out of the queue for Michael Jackson tickets after half an hour with a "could not complete your request" msg. Try again....
DanAYC: has bagged 4 tickets for Michael Jackson at the o2 arena, cant get back to sleep! WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWHHHHHHHHHHHHHHOOOOOOOO HHHHHHHHOOOOOOOOOOO
Nearly twenty years since Smooth Noodle Maps, Devo are in the studio, making a new album.
Ross The Boss Friedman has been patiently explaining how the internet is collaborating with journalists to somehow stop him sending his son to college:
Okay, so two weeks before my record was to be released on AFM in Germany, it was available online in Russia. By thieves. So anyone who wanted could just go there and get it. This happens to every single group that tries to release a record and puts out promo copies to journalists that probably for 15-100 euros sends it off to a friend in Russia or wherever. Then it is illegally downloaded. So what happens is the artists get fucked in the ass. The record company gets fucked in the ass and will eventually have to close its doors and not sign anymore groups. So the scene gets destroyed. The record company gets destroyed. The artist can't make any money from his work. They have to just go on touring and selling merchandise. Eventually the whole scene will just evaporate.
It's been a few years since there's been much evidence of the Britannia Music Club advertising in British magazines; now, it's American counterpart, the BMG music service, is closing.
This is one of those 'buy one full price, get a squillion CDs free' deals that used the offer to lure you in, before announcing that you'd be stuck having to buy at least one record a month for the rest of your natural life; fail to choose a record, and you'd be sent the "club choice". Which would usually be rubbish.
It's hard to see what could possibly have gone wrong. Although Rolling Stone has an idea:
At one point in the service’s history, BMG offered “10 CDs for the price of half,” meaning you could get 10 albums just for buying one-half priced CD, and that’s it. The total math, after shipping charges, came out to roughly $27 for 10 CDs. Thus, we pretended on the subscription forms that our suburban home was an apartment complex, created a ton of aliases and signed up for the service over 25 times, raking in 250 CDs in the process. It ate up a lot of stamps responding “Not Interested” to each month’s spotlight release mailers, but in the long run it was worth it. Share your fond memories of the music service in the comments.
It appears that Nickelodeon, the kid's TV channel, have decided to keep Chris Brown in the nominations for a Kids' Choice Award, and no amount of being accused of beating up his partner is going to change that:
"Like all our KCA nominees, was nominated by kids several months ago based on his body of work as a performer, and the kids who vote will ultimately decide who wins in the category," Dan Martinsen, Nickelodeon spokesman, told the Associated Press.
Much, much more scattering of reaction from around the world to Google's decision to pull music videos off YouTube.
First up, Helienne Lindvall called for us to think about the songwriters:
[A]s a songwriter myself, I can tell you that most songwriters haven't seen any income from YouTube at all, since a music video has to be viewed hundreds of thousands of time, to take it over the required threshold where you even get a payment. I've been told that videos by Coldplay and similar acts would make a couple of hundred pounds, at most, for getting millions of hits on a single video.
Another point that Google has failed to address is that a large part of the content they have or plan to take down is music written by people who are not covered by the PRS.
Google wants the PRS to give them a list of who they represent and what songs and then Google will pay those composers if they get enough hits. The PRS want Google to give them the data of all that is being streamed on their site, and then they'll tell Google which songs are covered by the PRS.
The PRS has been in negotiations with sites like MySpace for years and never blocked them from using music while the negotiations are ongoing. My guess is that Google are trying to force PRS's hand by taking down all this content and trying to portray them as greedy and backwards thinking. A shrewd move, as they've gagged the collection society from revealing the real facts and details of the, no doubt, paltry deal that is on offer.
"We have to find commercially workable rates otherwise illegal services will win and take over," he said.
MySpace UK and other sites are struggling to renegotiate their own licences with PRS, which pays royalties to artists.
One source close to the negotiations said that the launch of MySpace UK's comprehensive music service later this year could be thrown into jeopardy unless it secured an economically viable licence with PRS.
"A lot of service providers are negotiating and renewing licences with PRS right now, but the rates are widely known to be uneconomical," said the source. "Nobody could run an online business on those terms."
Hey, you - yes, you. You're hearing all that stuff about how disappointing the sales of the U2 album is, right? Well, it's not true. Or, at least, that's what Paul McGuinness, manager, would have you believe:
"The first week, we think it'll be very close to half a million, a little under," Paul McGuinness told Reuters, following a U2 radio broadcast at a Hollywood record label.
[...]
McGuinness, who has steered U2 for almost 31 years, said the sales decline was "a sign of the times" amid the recording industry's decadelong decline.
"And what people in this country don't realize is that the American industry is collapsing at a far quicker rate than in the rest of the world. In Europe, sales of physical material are holding up far better. They're in decline, but not as rapidly as in America."
Expectations are high for [Faryl Smith's] self-titled debut. The record has led the pre-sale charts on Amazon.co.uk and 80,000 copies have been shipped to retailers in advance of going on sale — more than U2's latest album.
Having had a quick look through the rulebook, the European Broadcasting Union have decided to ask Georgia to rethink the Putin pisstake it had entered for this year's Eurovision.
We Don't Wanna Put In was judged to be political, and thus falling out the remit of the contest. If Georgia don't, literally, change their tune, they won't be allowed to take part.
In Russia, however, the population at large is more upset by the decision to invite a Ukranian to represent the mighty bear. Adding insult to injury, Anastasia Prikhodko has previously competed as a Ukranian and failed to make it past the heats. Maybe they swapped her for some gas or something; whatever the reason, the Russians are upset:
Inevitably, some Russians are upset at the Eurovision results. "A Ukrainian song will represent Russia in Eurovision!" complained Yana Rudkovskaya, producer of last year's winning Russian entry. "It's very strange. It's a shock. I fear we won't even make it into the top 10," she told newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda.
The producer for Valeriya, the losing finalist, was equally critical. "How can someone who lost ... in Ukraine, represent Russia?" snorted Yusif Prigozhin. "It's a disgrace."
This morning, the 3AMies bring intelligence from New York:
CAN U2 get any [sic]
10/03/2009
Can U2 get any bigger?
New York mayor Michael Bloomberg yesterday temporarily renamed a block-long stretch of Manhattan's West 53rd Street in honour of the Irish rockers' new album.
We kid you not, the street will now be called U2 Way for a whole week.
U2 way over the top if you ask us...
Let's take this news from Hampton police unquestioningly, at face value. After all, the Daily Press has:
HAMPTON - Police confiscated $1.2 million worth of illegal drugs and more than $68,000 in cash from concertgoers arrested over three nights of Phish shows.
There were 194 concertgoers and others in the area of Hampton Coliseum charged with various misdemeanor and felony offenses — mostly possessing, using and selling drugs. Some faced multiple counts, for a total of 245 charges in all.
There's quite a few people suggesting that the government should come up with a way of helping the record companies in their hour of need. Mostly, those people are from the music industry.
TechRadar has been talking to Andrew Dubber, who entertainingly trots through the arguments against changing the law, and slapping taxes on broadband, and generally allowing Guy Hands to dictate what's going to happen.
Dubber is part of New Music Strategies and (deep breath) Arts and Humanities Research Council Knowledge Transfer Fellow in Online Music and Radio Innovation and a Senior Lecturer in the Music Industries at Birmingham City University. So he knows what he's talking about:
One of those things is that the record companies aren't the music industry. "The music industry is a vast, diverse ecology with lots of different people doing different stuff, but the record companies have managed to persuade the mainstream media to call them the music industry - which is a bit like the lions demanding to be called the zoo," he laughs.
Dubber describes how, in 2006, he asked Universal Music - one of the world's biggest record labels - how much of their music was currently available for sale. The answer? Two percent. Ninety-eight percent of Universal's music was locked in a vault somewhere.
Things have improved in the last few years thanks to iTunes, but the amount of music available is still the tip of an iceberg. "There's no incentive for them to release it, because it's not popular enough to be commercially viable - and because there's no danger of them losing the rights to it, why bother hurrying? If it was out there and in the public domain, they could say, look, here it is. Use it, listen to it, love it, sample it, rework it, do what you like. But it's a massive store of our cultural heritage [that] is just locked away because it's commercially expedient for it not to be released."
TMZ just can't believe it:
He's only a member of the biggest band like, ever, so how the hell can Paul McCartney walk around Paris and not have a single soul look his way -- let alone approach him for an autograph?
But, as with the pressure on Ruth’s bra, something had to give.
A source said: “Alex and Ruth are big characters and the fireworks were spectacular when they finally went off."
It’s pretty clear to me what’s going on here.
Ruth is struggling to handle Alex’s success. Alex is beginning to enjoy the trappings of her fame and Ruth is slipping towards z-list obscurity, which will boil inside her like a dodgy curry.
Alex is probably beginning to wonder why she was ever pals with the singing Spaniard.
MIGHTY BOOSH star NOEL FIELDING is poised to take his party pals KASABIAN on a journey through time and space for their next single — after agreeing to ‘Boosh up’ the band for their new video.
Aided and abetted by his art college mate DAVE BROWN — BOLLO the DJing ape in the cult BBC show — Fielding is already creating a surreal world for SERGE PIZZORNO, TOM MEIGHAN et al.
He is even tinkering with groundbreaking 3-D effects — which sounds perfect for the Leicester lads’ tunes.
Metallica had to disappoint their Swedish fanbase (a group you'd assume has learned to live with disappointment) after James Hetfield was rushed to hospital with a belly ache.
The 16,000 fans who had trooped out to the Ericsson Globe Arena in Stockholm were sent away:
"As you can clearly see, one of the members of Metallica isn't with us up here on stage tonight," Lars Ulrich told [the crowd]. "Unfortunately, I have to let you know that James has had a really, really bad day and he's on his way to the hospital right now."
Rajdeep Singh Ramgotra has been charged with copyright offences after "Canada's largest piracy raid":
The RCMP raided the Pembina Highway offices of Audiomaxxx the morning of March 5, 2008, where police seized about 100,000 pirated CDs and DVDs that were labelled and ready for shipment.
the operation was burning over 11,000 discs a day, then distributing them in Canada, Europe, Central America and the Carribean.
Well, thank you, PRS: An unrealistically high demand for royalties on videos shown on YouTube in the UK means that music videos are about to vanish from British PCs:
YouTube said today that after the expiry of its former deal, PRS had proposed new payment terms that would be financially prohibitive for the site and would require YouTube to pay out more than it makes from the ads next each video.
It also said that PRS would not agree to identify which artists and songs are covered by which licence, something essential for YouTube's content ID system to identify and reimburse rights holders for each song that is viewed.
"We value the creativity of musicians and song writers and have worked hard with rights-holders to generate significant online revenue for them and to respect copyright," said Google in a statement.
"But PRS is now asking us to pay many, many times more for our license than before. The costs are simply prohibitive for us - under PRS's proposed terms we would lose significant amounts of money with every playback."
PRS said in a statement that it is "outraged on behalf of consumers and songwriters that Google has chosen to close down access to music videos on YouTube in the UK".
PRS insists that Google has made this move because it wants to reduce the amount it pays in royalties, despite an increase in viewer numbers.
Yesterday, you'll recall, The Edge was announcing that we'd never have seen anything like the summer U2 tour. But wouldn't got into details.
If only there was a gobby, couldn't-keep-a-secret-in-a-ziploc-bag, member of U2 who might spill the beans.
Hang on, who's that at the door?
Why, it's Mr. Bono. Hello, Mr. Bono, how goes the preparations for the 'seriously, we just want to hear Sunday Bloody Sunday' tour?
"I don't know if we're supposed to say this,
... but we have ... a way of playing outdoors like no one's ever played."
"Every tour you've ever been to outdoors, you just see a big stack of speakers on the left, a big stack of speakers on the right and then this little stage."
Anyone you've ever seen outdoors [always sets up that same way], and why is that?"
"The engineering is the way it is, 'cause unlike being at Madison Square Garden or an indoor venue, you can't hang things. We've sorted this out. We have some magic, and we've got some beautiful objects we're going to take around the world, and we're inside that object. We're hanging from that object, and it frees up those seats behind the stage. They may be the best seats."
Last week, The Independent - the freesheet you get in the Toby Carvery - carried a story which suggested Dave Rowntree would quit Blur after the reunion dates, the better to carry on his legal career.
Surprisingly, Rowntree saw the report and has issued a response:
"I want to set the record straight following the bizarre and inaccurate piece in The Independent," he wrote on Forums.blur.co.uk. "As anyone who follows the band will know, we all have interests outside Blur.
"I am currently at law school, about to sit the exams for the first part of my training as a solicitor. I am fitting my studies around our preparation for the shows in the summer.
"I have one more year of academic training to complete, but if we decide to do more as Blur, I will obviously continue to fit my studies around the band and not the other way round. Whatever else I do, first and foremost I am a musician."
There's something pleasing that Lita Roza, who had a number one with How Much is That Doggy In The Window, has left the bulk of her estate to animal charities.
[Related: Lita Roza obituary]
A new, occasional series lazily cutting-and-pasting Tweets like that's actually blogging ("highlighting some quality Twitter action you might have missed"):
is amused by how many bands/industry types I recognised in the queue for visas at the american embassy this morning, sxsw innit! Kx
It's hard to remember why we're meant to even be aware of, much less worried about, the Danity Kane split. Thank god we've got some top-level insight into the whole affair from, erm, the Pussycat Dolls:
"We are sisters," PCD's Ashley Roberts said. "And there's moments where no matter who you are, you're going through personal things, as well as things in your career, and so sometimes your head's not in the right place or you're emotional about something, and we have times where we're going through stuff, as every human being does, but we try to not take it personally and to communicate. And about Danity Kane, it's a sad thing that they did fall apart.
"You know, a couple of years ago, we were hanging out with U2, and I made friends with the Edge, and I talked to him like, 'Wow, you guys get along so well, and you're so successful,' and one of the things he sad was that envy is evil, and to make sure you understand your place in the group and understand that everyone has their own spot in the group. It fits like a puzzle," Doll Jessica Sutta said. "We've managed to have a lot of respect for each other, because we've built a sisterhood, and we love each other, and we know that when we're onstage, each one is as important as the next. You know? Nicole is our lead singer, we support her as she supports us ... we make it work."
Ofcom has considered the complaints generated by the last season of the X Factor, including these:
1. they experienced problems getting through when attempting to vote and thus, they believed, some of the results were unfair. The highest volume of complaints of this nature related to editions broadcast on 1 and 8 November 2008, on which contestants Austin Drage and Laura White were eliminated respectively;
2. the number they dialled did not correspond with the message advising which contestant a vote had been recorded for;
3. during one particular recap of the voting numbers broadcast on 18 October 2008, the telephone number allocated to contestant Ruth Lorenzo was incorrect and as such, she may not have received all of the votes intended for her; and
4. contestant Diana Vickers was unable to perform in the contest on 8 November owing to illness and therefore automatically went through to the subsequent week. Some complainants thought this was unfair on the other contestants.
In its response, the broadcaster included several examples of complainants who had contacted them claiming the automated message advising of their vote did not match the telephone number they had dialled. However, it transpired they had either misdialled or used the number allocated to the same contestant the previous week. (The contestants’ identifying final phone digits change from week to week.)
Ofcom is not responsible for the design of ‘reality’ or talent shows. We will intervene in circumstances only where we consider viewers to have been misled or otherwise improperly disadvantaged.
You might remember yesterday that Gennaro Castaldo was busily trying to talk up underwhelming sales for No Line On The Horizon:
"It's doing pretty well, both in Ireland and the UK, at what is traditionally a relatively quiet time of year for music retail," says Gennaro Castaldo, HMV spokesperson. "The key thing about this album is that it will sell consistently throughout the year, especially when the band start performing live in the summer."
"Sales of No Line On The Horizon have exceeded our already high expectations, and the album has sold exceptionally well on all its formats and across all channels – in store, online and via downloads."
HMV spokesman Gennaro Castaldo
"U2 are one of the very few bands who can reach beyond their core fan base to connect with a much wider audience – both through their music and their personality, and their achievement in matching the Rolling Stones' record of 10 number one UK albums reaffirms their iconic status as the world's biggest Rock group."
Phew, that was lucky, eh, James Walsh? Starsailor have effectively swerved the risk of playing Glastonbury:
STARSAILOR’s JAMES WALSH is pleased his band won’t be playing.
The singer says the huge stars the festival attracts makes it harder for smaller acts to get noticed.
James says: “Glasto is about headliners. Smaller acts often don’t even get a mention.”
Cheryl said: “It has been, without question, the single most mentally and physically challenging experience of my life.”
An eyecatching headline from the New York Daily News, eager to continue running the Rihanna-Brown story round the block some more:
Experts tell Chris Brown to sing 'sorry' song for Rihanna to save career
Davia Temin, CEO of Temin and Co.
"Come up with a soulful song about what happened," said Davia Temin, CEO of Temin and Co. "I would use my fame to say, 'Look we are all human and make terrible mistakes.'"
The idea, said Temin, "is to embrace the thing that hurt you the most and turn it into something positive."
If Brown "were a company," said Temin, "I would say, 'Start a foundation on nonviolent resolution to family squabbles.'"
Brown, who is just 19, sings for a living, and he needs to understand that "coming back is possible," she said.
"You can come back from pretty much anything," said Temin. "Our country loves people who come back from the brink."
"The first thing he has to do is apologize again, sincerely," Temin said. "He needs to say, 'Look, I am so sorry any of this happened, that's not who I want to be. I take my role as a role model very seriously.'"
Marilyn Puder-York, a psychologist
"The fact that she [Rihanna] is standing by his side is significant," she said. "That she went back to him takes him off the hook a little."
Puder-York quickly added, "It does not excuse what happened."
"But for the public, it raises the question, 'Who am I to condemn him if the person he is accused of victimizing is not condemning him?'" she said.
His handlers have denied a Chicago Sun-Times report that they have launched a career-saving campaign dubbed "Project Mea Culpa."
