Once again I have left it too long to update the blog. Apologies! I hope though that those regular users of MusicResearch.com have been downloading our podcasts (music industry news) which have been more regular. In fact we are due to record very soon!

So what has happened in the music industry since I last posted? In some ways its been a rather retro three months, and the trend looks to continue. Some of the main stories that have made it big include:

The death of Michael Jackson. Clearly a sad and historic moment. Some would argue that we had seen the best of his work, and that all that lay ahead of him was an opportunity to relive that history with him in London. However I think its too early to make that call. It well known that he was working on new material with a range of interesting artists and producers. His record label have said that it WILL be released. Clearly he will have the last word on his career after all, and we shall see if it was just Michael Jackson doing an impersonation of Michael Jackson or whether he was treading new ground. I hope it was the latter.

Meanwhile ironically, but in many ways to be expected, sales of his music have rocketed since the announcement of his passing. Download stores and streaming services have seen his material dominate audience choice. I can speak from my own example, in that one of the first things I did when hearing the news was to go to Vid Zone on my PS3 and choose Thriller. A classic.

Another retro slice of news was one we have mentioned before on this site. Beatles Rockband. The game has now been shown off to the general public and pre-orders are already being taken. I expect demand for this game to be terrific if its not priced too high. The young will use it as a vehicle to explore classic music that they might have heard in passing but never actually owned whilst it will take music games to a wide demographic reaching out to older people who remember the Beatles first, second or third time around (in terms of re-releases of their albums!). It might also fuel an increase in CD sales of the new remastered recordings.

The game really does look terrific and the music has been remastered from the original tapes especially for this release by Sir George Martin’s son. It was pushed heavily by Microsoft at E3, the large games convention in May, but itll be cross platform and I would expect the Wii version to do extremely well.

Lastly, some pretty uptodate news. Well its more rumour than news. Apple is expected to bring out new IPOD Touch technology in September. However alongside the new Itouch and Ipod devices it is believed they will launch their ‘take’ on the tablet format of computer. The tablet has existed for sometime now, so what can Apple do to change things? Well from a technology front, it might have 3G or even 4G tech built in. It will be very thin and probably have multi touch tech on the front like an Iphone.

However it will clearly also have some key content tie ins. One of these is ‘Cocktail’ which some are describing as Apple’s attempt to redefine the album and make a ‘package’ of content valuable again to the consumer. Content to be included would be ongoing video footage, behind the scenes and other extras, which clearly might be experienced better on a larger screen device such as this tablet. However Im inclined to think that even if that content IS included, its not exactly ground breaking. Certainly not enough to make it a reason to buy the device.

Perhaps Apple have looked at the music game market and the clever music making device which uses LEDs made by Yamaha (the TENORI-ON) and thought that the way to go is to make music interactive to the masses. I can see the Apple Tablet having a type of simplified Garage Band built in (software on a regular Apple Mac), and when you download the ‘album’ you also get the seperate instrument and vocal tracks. This in turn would allow consumers to either listen to the studio mix or make their own.

Along with Apple’s recent move into the gaming world via the Iphone and Itouch, this in many ways, would be a nice fusion of their history of wanting to be seen as the facilitators of creative production (hence Imovie, Garage Band, Idvd etc on macs) and being seen as an alternative form of ‘fun’ via their appstore.

Now we just have to wait a few weeks to find out….

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?

As rumored earlier today and then commented on us, todays press conference has confirmed that there will be a Beatles music game. However, as we predicted and commented on, it will NOT be a ROCK BAND game in itself.

The Beatles NEVER leverage their content across brands and hence this will be a standalone product which will only play Beatle Content.

What this means in practise is still to become clear. I’m sure the hardware out there will work, but as opposed to downloading new songs into the pre-existing game it will probably be a new piece of software offering its own portal to the Beatles Digital Store.

We’ll report more once it becomes clearer. This is a bold step for the parties involved in the Beatles IP. It’s a coup for EA games and MTV, the publisher and owners of Rock Band.

Read some more about it HERE

Its being reported by the Wall Street Journal and on various industry sites that the beatles are at last bringing their music to the world of the download. However the story is that its NOT with Apple’s own Itunes. According to the Wall Street journal its rumoured that a selection of songs will be availble to owners of EAs Rock Band 2 videogame. 

Regular listeners of our podcast Music Industry News will know we often talk about this product and Guitar Hero as proof that their is still a very valuable market out there, its just being leveraged in a different way. This would seem to be evidence of the transition. 

It should be pointed out that except for the Number 1 album the Beatles have NEVER had their music licensed onto compilations. Now this is not a compilation but in many ways it is a change of policy as it would be a situation where their music was sitting as part of another product. 

So would you buy Rock Band 2 just to play along with the Beatles?

Check out the story HERE