American Idol + Ellen Degeneres = FAIL

Well everyone, It was announced this week that Ellen would be the new American Idol judge replacing Paula Abdul.  No matter how you feel about Paula, it is hard to even infer that Ellen has 1/10th the musical prowess of her predecessor.  This coupled with the news I just received of Ellen's utter disrespect for music and the makers of music through her show's refusal to pay royalties on the music "featured" on her show tells me that she no more belongs on AI than I do as the King of England.

According to Digital Music News, All four majors have now filed suit demanding that royalties be paid.  The show's producers have denied royalties to the copyright owners because they "did not roll that way."   This pathetic disregard for music, music makers, and copyright law proves to me that she has no place anywhere near this industry.

Her appointment as a judge on American Idol proves to me that the show's producers are catering to the lowest common denominator,  looking for the popular vote and continuing to dumb down this show until it falls into the oblivion.  Let's face it, it has been going down ever since season 1 and with this move it will continue to do so.  No offense is meant to Ellen, as I do find her funny enough however she would be better suited alongside "The Hoff" on America's got talent...  save the music judging for musicians.

Okay I'm Done.  Happy Weekend Everyone.

PS: Sorry about my laziness in posting lately... my cup overfloweth.

Royalty Free Music VS Classical Cues

(This is a Simul-post from ClassicalCues.blogspot.com a music licensing blog that I contribute to.) I happened to stumble upon a fantastic blog post today while looking at my Google Alert updates. The post comes from a blog called MediaMusicNow. This is the blog of a British entrepreneur named Lee Pritchard who started a royalty-free music company which goes by the same name. The reason I make it a point to bring attention to this blog is the great simplicity in which Lee explains the licensing process. Starting with the conventional old-school major label model and moving to his own royalty free model, he explains much of the intracacies in very easy to read graphs and visuals that help even the most un-initiated get a feeling for the processes involved.

From the 3 main aspects of licensing

3_way_pie

To the "old" standard of music licensing

mainstream

Normally I am not an outspoken fan of royalty-free music as many companies in the sphere have (in my own opinion) de-valued recorded music - at least commercial recorded music. (I believe the phrase “Royalty-Free Music” is a bit of an oxymoron) Many of their buyout plans and bargain basement pricing make it nearly impossible for a label to compete and it just tends to make life a bit more difficult for folks like myself who represent a record label. The only saving grace for a record label is to rest assured that the superb quality of your recordings will out-weigh the discount of having picked your music up from a royalty free music library. Even with my internal feelings about the concept of royalty free music, I am able to find quite a few comparisons in the usage of Classical music for licensing projects and these royalty free one-stops. I would say approximately 85% of the deals I do involve music that is in the public domain, thus removing the publisher from the equation. At that point, I am basically serving as a one-stop licensing solution much as MediaMusicNow and the other companies in that part of the business. One-stop shopping and quick turnaround on deals is one of the things we pride ourselves on and no-doubt this is something that is important to filmmakers and other professionals on a tight production time line.

I urge anyone wishing to learn more about the process of music licensing, copyright and the music industry to check out Lee’s blog as it is chalked-full of great information. Heck, I even urge you to license some music from him for your next project as long as it isn’t Classical music . For that, you of course know to look here!

10 Most Creative People in Music?

Fast Company just announced their 100 Most Creative People in Business, and subsequently their 10 Most Creative People in Music lists for this year. Many of the names on the music list are recognizable and some might even be deserving this recognition, but come on... Soulja Boy as the #1 most creative person in the industry simply because he is a shameless self-promoter and used Myspace and YouTube to promote his "Superman Dance" and ultimately launch a career. Ridiculous! There are no doubt some folks on the list (read: Tim Westergren, Alex Patsavas, and Gregg Gillis (Girltalk) who no-doubt deserve to be there, but I think they are stretching it a bit with Soulja Boy and Pharrell. Creativity in the music business means coming up with new ideas. Changing the way people think and changing consumer and fan habits. Shameless self-promotion is a great thing and these folks are rewarded for all of their hard work in album sales, sold out concerts and endorsement deals. It does not, however qualify as creativity and I don't think it should be rewarded as such.

Therefore- I am generating my own addendum to this list. People/groups/companies who really and truly ARE creative. Who have ACTUALLY pushed the envelope. Added to this list should be (in no particular order):

Gerd Leonhard Radiohead Spotify Slacker Jim Griffin

I am sure I missed a few, but these at least round out that list and make up for the idiocy of adding Hip Hop stars to a list of industry creative powerhouses.

Yo Ho, Yo Ho a Pirate's Life for me (not really)

AAARGH! So just in case you have been under a rock for the last 5 days, the ruling is in... the founders of Pirate Bay have been found guilty in a Swedish court of law.  They have all been sentenced to one year in prison and will have to pay approximately $3 Million in damages (after the appeals process- if the ruling stands).

So what now?

The facilitators have been stopped, but what does that mean for all of the users (Pirates) populating Pirate Bay?  What does this mean for the bay?  Will it suddenly dry up?  No.  In a word... No.  This really means nothing.  The Swedish courts have placed their finger in the dyke... they have stopped the spillage for a moment, but the flood waters will remain.  The Pirate Bay remains active... servers housed safely outside of Sweden... and the pirates sail on.

There is a lot of debate going on over whether the founders of TPB were injustly convicted... whether the ISPs should be held responsible as well.  I think there are a lot of people at fault here including all named previously and in some way, I would love to see them held responsible.  However, I am a realist.  I understand that the times are changing and our industry needs to find better ways of making a living (outside of suing).  Ultimately,  the results of the pending appeals will leave a legacy of rulings that will affect the way our courts view file sharing for years to come.  The next few years will no doubt be an interesting lot...  time will tell.

As a sideline to this story, there has been a recent study stating that "pirates" are 10 times more likely to buy online music than law-abiding non-pirates.  The number of participants in the study was rather small (less than2000), but I find it quite interesting and wonder if this is in fact the way it is... according to the comments below the story- the pirates doubt it as well.