Music Business/Management DB

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Although the major record labels look more lenient towards individual peer-to-peer (P2P) infringers than before, the labels case against Jamie Thomas-Rasset just won't quit. Thomas-Rasset was accused for downloading and "sharing" 24 songs over KaZaa network. The judge socked her with $220,000 in statutory damages against the labels, but the judge later determined that his decision was based on insufficient proofs.

Once waging $80,000 per song, the judge offered the labels a choice in their second trial: accept a reduced award of just $2,250 per song or show up for the third trial that would be held on November 2nd. Thomas-Rasset will not likely be able to contest what the jury in the last two trials determined of her deed. However, whether the damage was really done to the record labels by Thomas-Rasset is still debatable among many--attorneys, related workers and witnesses, and even judges.

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U.S. digital music sales are on the threshold of a long-anticipated milestone: surpassing physical sales, at least on a unit basis. The combined number of U.S. sales of albums and track-equivalent albums (or TEA, where 10 digital tracks equal an album) totaled 307.1 million units throughout the first three quarters of 2010. The sales of digital tracks and albums accounted for 48.2% of the total, while sales of physical albums only made up 51.8%, according to Nielson SoundScan.

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A survey conducted by research company Vision Critical has highlighted the potential impact of portable-digital-music playback on in-car radio listening.
UK recorded-music market remains stronger than US counterpart in 1H10. The survey found that broadcast radio remains by far the most common media used in the car in all three countries, followed by CDs or audiocassettes. In addition, a survey showed that more than half of respondents who spend at least 15 minutes a day in their cars expressed interest in new technologies that would provide access to online music-radio services or on-demand playlists of music, news talk, and entertainment in the car.

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American Youth Study: 2010, published by US outfit Edison Research, showed that 20% of 12 to 24-year-olds in the US said they listened to online radio service Pandora in the previous month, surpassing 11% of AM/FM online stream users, and 8% of other online radio. It also found that 13% of the same age demographic listened to the service in the past week. A survey conducted by Jacobs Media in the US concluded that Pandora was the most popular online music-radio service, accounting for 37% of online radio listeners, and more than half of Pandora listeners thought it was better than most commercial music-radio stations.

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Trends for Royalties, a report recently published by the international association of authors' societies, CISAC, has said that total collections by 154 of its members increased 2.5% in 2090, to €7.2 billion (US$10.04 billion). The growth covered the decline in 2008, returning global collections to the record level achieved in 2007.

CISAC members' collection growth by region in 2009 is as follows: 4.9% in Africa, 11.3% in Asia Pacific, 0.7% in Europe, 7.7% in Latin America and Caribbean, 1.6% in North America, and 2.5% global-wisely. 154 societies that consist CISAC consist of: 63.0% from Europe, 19.1% from North America, 14.0% from Asia Pacific, 3.4% from Latin AMerica and Caribbean, and 0.5% from Africa. CISAC members' collections by type of rights are as follows: 64.8% performing, 18.1% mechanical, 2.8% private-copying, 2.5% reprography, 2.2% digital and multimedia, and 9.7% of other types.

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UK trade association, the BPI, and the Official Charts Company (UCC) showed that more than 50 million digital albums have been sold in the UK since the OCC began tracking digital sales in April 2006. The constitution of digital sales among all albums sold jumped from less than 2.0% in 2006 to 19.6% in the first 38 weeks of the year, with download sales expected to top 20 million for the full year.

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New figures published by Informa Telecoms & Media show that the number of smartphone users is expected to grow rapidly in the coming year and will exceed 1 billion by end-2013 and 1.4 billion by end-2015. The latter figure would be equal to 29.6% of all mobile handsets, up from 12.6% at end-2010. The growth is expected to be driven by the competition between top-tier manufacturers, such as Google, RIM, Apple and Microsoft. Informa expected that Android will become the most popular brand in the mobile-operating-system market, while Symbian, which currently leads the market, will lose the share of smartphone users significantly, from 53% in 2009 to 32% in 2015.

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Although unsigned artists have always had difficulties to attract investment, especially since the beginning of the global financial crisis, the fan-funded model of backing an artist or band has continued to result in innovative ways of funding them. Websites such as Kickstarter, Slicethepie, PledgeMusic, KissKissBankBank, WebCeleb, etc. have directed music fans to independent musicians. Through such websites, music fans may finance artists of their interest via purchasing their works or by investing into artists and their projects, while they may also be able to receive some monetary rewards. As interestingly innovative and efficient as it seems, the system also contains some risks; fan funding may be inadequate to cover all the outgoings of the service. The fall of Sellaband.com serves as a good warning to mere praise of the system.

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A survey by Informa Telecoms & Media found that full tracks have become the most common type of mobile music offering from mobile operators, surpassing even ring tones. The 38.0% of the share of music services were full tracks, while ring tones took only 31.0%. Operators have been marketing full tracks more than their old music services, such as ring tones, although they might still feature in product portfolio. Moreover, this reflects the stagnant or declining statues of the ring-tone business, especially in new mobile markets, where the ring-tone download demands have been dented by user-generated ring tones, BLuetooth piracy and PCMS scams.

However, the download figures were worse for full tracks than for ring tones. Since modern cell phones were capable with MP3 formatted songs, which were the more bandwidth-intensive than the traditional 3GP formatted ones, users were more likely to be downloading full tracks from iTunes, Spotify, and other over-the-top players than from mobile operators.

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The 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals in the US has ruled that the method used by a lower court to calculate the royalty rate paid by online service providers Yahoo and Real Networks to ASCAP was incorrect. The court ruled that the 2.5 rate set by the New York Federal District Court in 2008 was both unreasonable and imprecise, and requested the lower court to use a more practicable method of calculating the rate. The appeals court disproved the reasonability of the method that used a "music-use-adjustment factor" (MUAF) and the calculation method of the rate as well.

However, the appeals court ruled that a download did not constitute a public performance and should not incur a public-performance fee.