emi

Record Label Declares War on Twee Lip Syncing Bloggers

Maureen O'Connor · 12/17/09 01:56AM

Big Music is harshing hip, tech-savvy narcissists' mellows: Record label EMI is suing Vimeo for encouraging lip dubs, wherein flipcam-possessing twenty-somethings make video of themselves dancing around and lip-syncing to their iPods.

Jared Leto's Band Deserves More Money, Right?

Hamilton Nolan · 08/18/08 12:37PM

So here's the new way to get out of your record contract: just "repudiate" it! That's the sophisticated legal strategy employed by 30 Seconds To Mars, Jared Leto's group. His record label, EMI, responded to the band's novel move by suing them for $30 million. Free your mind from the shackles of commerce, EMI! On its website that won't allow you to turn off the god damn music, 30STM explained in a rambling fashion just why they decided to opt out: In California contracts can only last seven years? But they've had theirs for nine years? So they just quit it? No idea if this is legally sound or not.

$700k salary can't get Sony BMG a digital exec

Owen Thomas · 07/31/08 03:20PM

After EMI hired paisley-shirted IT exec Douglas Merrill away from Google to run the record label's digital business, other music groups have been on the hunt for a digital savior. Sony BMG, we hear, has been trying to fill an EVP position to run its digital music ventures. But after dangling a $700,000 salary in front of prospects for 8 months, its search firm, Korn/Ferry, still hasn't been able to fill the job. What this tells us: No one wants the job. One requirement: The candidate must "have a keen eye to find money on opportunities at hand." That graspingness is precisely why the record labels are so unpopular with musicians, their fans, and the the technologists creating the online tools through which people are increasingly stealing — sorry, "discovering" — music. The industry's in such a pathetic state, we thought we'd help Sony BMG and Korn/Ferry by airing the confidential job listing:

Trent Reznor is showing show business how it's done digitally

Jackson West · 06/09/08 07:00PM

Trent Reznor is busy demonstrating how a bankable artist can go independent, give away music for free, and still make a mint. Though he initially expressed concern over an album he produced for hip-hopper Saul Williams that was released as a "pay what you will" download, he's changed his mind and now considers it a success — mostly because Williams made more money even with only twenty percent of fans paying for the album than he ever did at a label. And maybe more importantly, far more people heard the music. As for Reznor? His own giveaway of his latest album did pretty well in the marketplace as well, with a limited-edition box set garnering $750,000 and half a million CDs sold. So what, exactly, is the problem with the music business? As usual, greedy labels.

What MySpace Music backers don't get: Recorded music is no longer a product, but advertising

Jackson West · 04/04/08 01:20PM

Shawn "Jay Z" Carter signing with LiveNation demonstrates that one of the most entrepreneurial artists of our generation has decided that the business of recording music is advertising. The No. 1 digital music retailer, iTunes, has understood this for some time — Apple sells iPods, and iTunes is a service to make it relatively cheap and easy to fill those iPods. Carter will be happy to make a little chump change from digital sales, but the MC knows the real money is in branded events and merchandise. What the labels call "piracy" is actually free distribution of promotional material, and such a model is not without precedent.

Qtrax spends $1 million to tout free online downloads — but record industry begs to differ

Nicholas Carlson · 01/28/08 03:20PM

Free P2P music service Qtrax launched at Cannes yesterday with the support of all four major labels: Warner, Universal, EMI and Sony BMG. Or so Qtrax claimed in its announcement, a star-laden extravaganza which reportedly cost $1 million. But Silicon Alley Insider reports that Warner, Universal, EMI, and Sony are only in negotiations with Qtrax and have not settled on final terms.

Downsizing EMI spends $50 million a year to destroy unsold CDs

Nicholas Carlson · 01/14/08 12:40PM

Record label EMI will lay off 2,000 and shift its focus toward digital music, private equity investor and company topper Guy Hands told the Financial Times. Hands said the music industry operates on fallacies with origins in "the phenomenon of the 1990s and the CD" and as a result, companies like EMI are hemorrhaging cash. EMI, for instance, spends $50 million a year destroying unsold CDs. Guess whose model Hands said the industry should follow to turn itself around?

Does EMI no longer believe in suing its customers?

Mary Jane Irwin · 11/29/07 07:19PM

Reuters is reporting that EMI, one of the world's four big music-label groups, wants to cut its funding to industry lobby groups, including the RIAA and the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry. EMI's "looking at ways to 'substantially' reduce the amount it pays trade groups," as a source puts it to the wire service. This is exactly the kick in the seat of its pants that the music industry needs.

Recording industry chief talks talk, but can he walk walk?

Mary Jane Irwin · 10/10/07 12:20PM

It's time for the recording industry to embrace digital music instead of focusing on CD sales and cell-phone gimmickry (the ringle?). So says Guy Hands, CEO of Terra Firma, the new private-equity owner of EMI. About time someone said it. Radiohead leading the charge into "free" music territory with the digital release of its new album for whatever consumers are willing to pay for it, and others are following suit. EMI and other record labels risk getting cut out of the equation. The music industry needs a new business model, nowish. One suggestion by Hands: Instead of granting big advances, they should offer to subsidize recording costs in exchange for a stake in earnings.

The Pirate Bay takes on corporate raiders

Mary Jane Irwin · 09/21/07 04:22PM

Amidst all the hubbub about MediaDefender — the file-sharing policing agency whose private email files were recently spewed across the Internet, revealing unsavory antipiracy plans — one particularly interesting tidbit has bubbled to the surface. The Pirate Bay, a major file-sharing site, says it now has proof from those files that the music and movie industries have been paying hackers to attack the site. It is now taking this information to the police and charging the Swedish arms of Fox, EMI Music, Universal, Paramount, Atari, Activision, Ubisoft and Sony with technical sabotage, denial-of-service attacks, hacking, and spamming.

Universal defends copyright, disses copy protection

Owen Thomas · 08/10/07 12:35PM

Just because you can do something doesn't make it right. On the one hand, Universal Music is dropping digital-rights management — what we used to call copy-protection software — from its online music library. On the other hand, it's suing online-video site Veoh for violating the same copyrights it's no longer protecting. A contradiction from Universal's earlier stance that iPods are full of "stolen music"? Not at all. The legitimate complaint people have had with DRM software is that it goes farther than U.S. copyright law does in restricting what people can do with music they've paid for. UMG is joining rival label EMI in selling music without the protection afforded by software code. But the rights enshrined in our legal code? They still remain in force. Copier beware.

EMI to break ranks on DRM?

Chris Mohney · 02/09/07 03:25PM

Rumors are flyin' that EMI, one of the "big four" record labels that use Apple's DRM copy protection to license their music through iTunes, may be dropping DRM requirements — possibly announcing as early as today. Supposedly, EMI had actually been negotiating this point for weeks, "[b]ut on Thursday, those negotiations slowed dramatically." That would no doubt be a result of massive, frantic pressure from the other labels after Steve Jobs's "Thoughts on Music" anti-DRM barnstorming. Speculation about the other labels caving is premature to say the least.Universal just forked out plenty of money to Microsoft for protected airplay on the Zune; Sony BMG is so fanatically anti-pirate that they got burned for invading users' own computers with copy-protection software; and Warner's Edgar Bronfman is already on record as calling Jobs's ideas "without logic or merit." EMI's in the worst shape of the big four, and so has the least to lose by dropping DRM. But its competitors are going to be leaning very hard on the struggling label in order to maintain that united front, at least in the short term.