The argument about whether the mechanical copyright (the copyright covering the actual sound recording) should be extended in the UK was always going to be resolved from a European Perspective, and the EU has now taken the lead and voted on the way forward. The European Parliament has voted on an extension to the current life of the copyright. 

However, the EU will still differ from the USA on a number of very important points. The most obvious is that the term is 70 years in the EU and not 95 as in the USA. Additionally, there are greater revenue sharing mechanisms in play revolving around a scheme where Labels pay 20% of the additional income gained (from the extra years) into a benevolent fund designed to support performers and sessions musicians. Similar to the USA there is also a clause which makes it mandatory that after 50 years the acts can renegotiate their record deals.

Although, this is clearly a step in the right direction, and does give more power back to the artists I still can’t see why they couldn’t have let the right to copy be handed over to the market place. There is still an argument that if a label can’t make good money from a copyright over 50 years, then the extra 25 won’t help, and if they DID make good money in the first 50, then why should they make more over another 25? And why 70 years and not 95? Why 70 and not 75, or 70 years after death as with publishing? These seem to be arbitrary numbers based on what people ‘feel’ is right. 

Im still a fan for it expiring after 50 years and then the music being sold in a competitive environment. Labels would pay good money to have their copies remastered, perhaps adding extra content so that way their version stood out from the artist’s own version who would be free to sell their copies. I see no downside to this and its more in line with where the industry is heading anyhow which is one defined by open access, low level ‘direct to artist income streams’ with less and less ‘labels’ involvement in the production. 

Are artists in the Long tail who produced their own music, did all the performing and singing going to have to pay 20% of any income derived to the benevolent fund after year 50 of the copyright, even if no one else was involved in the production or performances on the recordings? One wonders if this law is a last ditch effort of acts and labels, who are part of the ‘old industry’, to hold back the tide of change?

During May 7-9th 2009, London will be moving to the sounds from the City Showcase. This music festival will be taking place on various london streets and squares, mainly based in the West End. 

Even the Apple Store in Regents Street will be hosting gigs and special workshops related to the festival!

Get more info here

Hey Mr DJ, as Madonna once said, wanna put a record on? Or something like that anyway. DJs have been with us for some time and its become quite an art form. Loads of music lovers who are already musicians or who never got to grip with traditional music production have embraced this art form as way of making their mark on the creative process. 

The impact a DJ can have on a venue, due to the DJs taste in music and feel for the room is crucial to a venue or club’s success. Additionally once taken to a new level, completely new pieces of music can be born from the clever use of turntables and DJ equipment, from delays, samplers and the like.

Activision it seems loves DJing too. So much in fact, thats its next big music game, following Guitar Hero, will be DJ Hero! For me it makes total sense, more so than Guitar Hero. Over the last few years DJs have already been ‘mixing’ MP3s connected to controllers which didn’t actually have a record on them. You can even get a piece of hardware which takes the motions from a traditional set of decks and uses them to control MP3s.

Hence, there is no reason why the game can’t do everything these existing systems allow for the professionals. Except It will do more as its a game. It will be competitive, allow for Net play in some way and perhaps use the video and microphone elements of the consoles. However, what it will also mean from the perspective of the content owners, is that its a new download store. Thats right, if you have already bought music on Itunes, or Guitar Hero I bet youll need to buy it again in the new DJ format (mind you if you could use your OWN MP3s or Guitar Hero tracks that would be awesome). What would be available? Music videos I would imagine - it could actually reboot the market for music videos. In fact you could have a video mashup section too, which only worked with images.

Lastly, it would offer a much lower difficulty access level for wanna be DJs, and bring more people into music on a creative level, which cant be a bad thing. The new Nintendo DSi is already seeing this trend and embedding it into its design. The DS lite despite being a huge success, can’t play music (what can’t nowadays?!), so with the DSi upgrade Nintendo have implemented this missing feature. However, is it just another IPOD? No, Nintendo have also taken the DJ route. Its more of a creative tool than a ‘dumb’ player. Music can be slowed down, sped up and even have its pitch changed. Like Activision, Nintendo can see that people want to be able to do things with content, whether it be their own, or someone elses. 

So, it would seem we are now ALL going to become the DJ.

Wanna put a record on?