• Hardcore metal act The Warriors signed with Victory Records. (Decoy)
• North Carolina based hardcore metal band Bloodjinn have signed to Pluto Records (distributed by East West/Warner); Legal rep is Ben McLane, Esq.
• The Wall Street Journal drama critic, Terry Teachout, calls out Doug Morris, CEO, Universal Music Group, for short sighted paranoia when he claimed YouTube video-sharing Web site  “owes his conglomerate ‘tens of millions of dollars’ for allowing copyrighted music videos to be posted without permission.”
  Teachout backs up his dissing of Universal Music, by proclaiming Warner Music, “Universal’s smarter competitorâ€? because it was able to come to terms on a future “dealâ€? with YouTube. Teachout believes he has come up with a better business model: “Disseminating high-culture TV and radio programming for free via the Webâ€? because it is “among the simplest and most cost-effective ways to expand the audience for the fine arts.â€?
• Mindless violence for profit
  DVD Series ‘Ghetto Fights 2′ which features cameos by hip-hop artists 50 Cent and Method Man deliver the horrors of the streets showcasing pimp beatings, gang warfare, backyard brawls and female slug-outs caught on tape.

“I watch ‘Ghetto Brawls’ when I’m driving,” Method Man told GQ Magazine last summer when asked about his favorite viewing while in the car.  “It’s a DVD of people just having fights in the hood.”

Scenes include A shoeless, elderly drunk who is tormented by a group of thugs who laugh hysterically as they douse his head with antifreeze, drop his personal belongings into a storm sewer and knock him to his knees with a milk crate. In another scene, a young man is dragged from his parked car and beaten repeatedly outside a liquor store; his head stomped into the pavement until he loses consciousness. One of his attackers steals cash from his pocket as he lies lifeless in a parking lot.

Valerie Smith, a Toronto-based anti-violence crusader “For someone like Universal to be peddling this, that’s outrageous,” she said. “If you take the footage of the homeless person, that’s a crime. That’s assault. And this is most definitely going to encourage kids to videotape stuff like this and submit it.” “It’s like we’ve gone back to the gladiator age and we’re at the coliseum. We’re supposed to be becoming more civilized. Instead we’re kind of rocketing backward.”

Universal Music Canada and its partner, Navarre Canada, distribute Ghetto Fights and Wildest Street Brawls in this country.

• The new Killers record “Sam’s Town” is getting a beat down from critics. The once beloved critic band seems to be the most hated now. 

Rob Stringer who is the younger brother of Sir Howard Stringer, the chief executive officer of Sony  officially took the lead of the Sony U.S. label group - replacing Ienner, the longtime executive. Stringer, who had headed the company’s U.K. division, is said to be scrupulously going over the company’s personnel rolls looking for cuts.

Despite nearly 2,000 layoffs worldwide following the 2004 merger between Sony Music and Bertelsmann’s BMG, “The cost structure is still bloated,” said one source.

Another source said Stringer’s tinkering is about “undoing Don nie’s legacy and the structure he put in place.”

One area that is sure to be altered is Sony’s urban music division, which right now sits outside the division’s two main labels – Epic Records and Columbia Records – and has hit artists as Beyonce, Shakira, AC/DC and Jessica Simpson. 

Billionaire investor and dot-com veteran Mark Cuban had harsh words on Thursday for YouTube, saying only a “moron” would purchase the wildly popular start-up. Cuban, co-founder of HDNet and owner of the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks, also said YouTube would eventually be “sued into oblivion” because of copyright violations. “They are just breaking the law,” Cuban told a group of advertisers in New York. “The only reason it hasn’t been sued yet is because there is nobody with big money to sue.”

In other remarks, meanwhile, the often-controversial Cuban also told advertisers that the reach of YouTube is limited, particularly when it comes to user-generated videos.

“User-generated content is not going away,” he said. “But do you want your advertising dollars spent on a video of Aunt Jenny watching her niece tap dance?”

“Somebody puts up something really good and you get, what, 60,000 viewers?” Cuban added during the event at Advertising Week in New York.

YouTube now offers advertising through banner ads, promotions and sponsorships. It has said it plans to roll out a range of different advertising options over the coming year.

Viral Campaigns are usually a waste of money

Cuban cautioned advertisers against investing heavily in so-called viral campaigns that are spread by users beyond their initial point of distribution on YouTube or other video sharing sites. But he touted opportunities to run commercials on high-definition television such as his HDNet network.

“What makes viral so special is it’s so hard to do. It’s so hard to plan. It’s hard to stand out,” he said, describing 99 percent of money advertisers spend on viral campaigns as “wasted.”

Point well taken. Advertising dollars spent on amateur videos? C’mon. The world is faced with enough mediocrity. Also, the new industry buzz word is “Viral Campaigns”.  I have received many calls from start ups that claim they can exploit artist videos through clever marketing techniques that will result in brand awareness and exponential sales. Viral Marketing is beneficial to mediocre artists. They need all the help they can get. They can sell a couple of CD’s and make Amazon money. Next……………………………

• EMI Group will sell historic Capitol Records tower. The company’s shares were down marginally on the London Stock Exchange
• Check out Kill The Alarm tonight 8:00PM at Arlenes Grocery.
• Geffen Said ‘Confident’ Of Los Angeles Times Purchase…
• Section 115 Reform Act is Withdrawn By Chris Castle

After a long and winding road that’s too much to go into here, the Section 115 Reform Act a/k/a SIRA (or the “Copyright Modernization Act� as it came to be called) has been withdrawn by Representative Lamar Smith.  Although there were some major warts that developed in the form of amendments to the bill, it’s a real shame that this issue couldn’t get resolved and another session of Congress will pass without songwriters getting paid monies that are accruing at all the online subscription services. CONTINUE READING

Warner Music who just struck a deal with YouTube yanked it’s videos from Yahoo Music according to the Wall Street Journal. According to reports Warner became concerned that Yahoo was not promoting its videos heavily enough. Earlier this month, Universal Music yanked its content from Fuse, a cable and internet outlet that mostly features music videos.

Unsigned John Vesely who adopted the name Secondhand Serenade is a singer songwriter that hails from Menlo Park, California. He is in the similar realm of Dashboard Confessional – American acoustic/electric guitar driven indie rock. His online following and numbers have surpassed most unknown artists on majors and indies. You can thank the self promotion tool Myspace. He is the #1 unsigned artist on myspace for months now, with over 9 million plays and he’s been in the top 100 alternative albums on itunes for months as well. Plus, he’s the number 1 selling artist on Tunecore, the digital distribution service and has a top 10 song on the Yahoo Launch’s adult alternative station. You can also find his song “Vulnerable” on the current itunes compilation “Back To School” on the Sk8ters list, along with AFI, New Found Glory and Simple Plan. Yes, he has accomplished more than many artists that signed 400k record contracts. What does this mean? It means some artists are better self promoters these days. For more information contact manager Chris Maltese. 
 

• Lime Wire turns the Table, Sue Record Companies
  Lime Wire now charges the record companies with colluding to create a monopoly over the digital distribution of copyrighted music.
• Warner Music Edgar Bronfman calls on EMI investors. He remains focused on the possibility of a deal with EMI.
•  Apple is waging war against companies that use the word “pod” in product and company names, arguing customers will be confused by what brand they are buying. The action has been fuelled by Podcast Ready company, which has developed software to allow podcasts to be delivered directly to digital music players.
• Barenaked Ladies who have gone indie has topped $970k in gross sales from “intellectual property” during the first week following the release of “Barenaked Ladies Are Me”.
  Netwerk’s Terry McBride has been working hard to lead the industry into a new era, one where it views the big picture of overall sales figures rather than the mypoic view of physical album sales alone.

McBride says, “Generating revenue, especially in the artist-run model, is about selling music in various mediums, selling concert tickets, licensing music to TV, ring tones, packed USB drives, etc. That is how success is measured, not by the physical album sales.”

Howard Stern sounds more like a politician than a shock rocker nowadays as he is trying to rebound from his floundering career.  Ad Age reports that Stern’s price tag for commercials on his Sirius Satellite Radio show has fallen to between $5-6,000. Oprah has no such problem. Oprah pointed out that now that she’s Oprah, she has “all these white people” working for her, and that in fact there’s only one black person on the staff. In fact the $55 million, three-year agreement with Oprah is being billed as the most successful channel launch in XM’s five-year history in terms of ad sales.