Music Business Times News

James Brown's body is 'missing from its crypt', alleges singer's daughter

Sat, 13 Mar 2010 04:31 GMT

James Brown's daughter has claimed the singer's body has gone missing from its crypt.
LaRhonda Pettit, 48, alleges the body of Brown, who died in December 2006 aged 73, is being hidden to prevent a full autopsy being carried out. Ms Pettit said the official cause of death, which was said to be a heart attack brought by pneumonia, is not the real reason behind the Godfather of Soul's passing...

Enhance Your Facebook Fan Page with RootMusic

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:33 GMT

RootMusic is a new web app that enables you to seamlessly enhance your Facebook Fan Page. For example, by adding the free, RootMusic BandPage tab to your existing Facebook Page, your fans can listen to your music while they comment, view photos or read about upcoming shows - not possible with standard Facebook Pages, as the music stops. You can also allow your fans to download songs for free, or integrate your band's twitter feed all within a nice looking layout which can be your default tab...

Cherry Lane Music Publishing Celebrates 50th Anniversary

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:28 GMT

Started in 1960 as a family business run by legendary arranger and record producer Milt Okun (Harry Belafonte; Peter, Paul and Mary; John Denver) from his apartment above the Cherry Lane Theater in New York's Greenwich Village, Cherry Lane currently boasts a roster of writers including the Black Eyed Peas, will I am, John Legend, David Cook, Warren Haynes and Jordin Sparks; the catalogs of Elvis Presley, Quincy Jones and John Denver; as well as film, television and brand partners including DreamWorks Pictures and Animation, Lionsgate, the Weinstein Company, Marvel Entertainment, NFL Films, World Wrestling Entertainment and Sanrio (Hello Kitty). With offices in New York, Los Angeles and Nashville, and represented in every territory around the globe, the company is truly an 'indie with a major's reach...

Gene Simmons Makes Good On Label Threat

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:25 GMT

Sixteen months after announcing the reformation of Simmons Records in partnership with Universal Music Canada, Kiss bassist Gene Simmons has finally inked a deal, signing Toronto rock band The Envy. The signing is a joint venture with Montreal-based Remedy Music, a division of Crystal Math Management, the company that has the likes of Metric and The Midway State on its roster...

UK Government panders to music industry in copyright debate

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:23 GMT

Controversial copyright proposals put forward by the House of Lords that will see certain web sites restricted are exactly the same terms that music industry lobbyists were campaigning for, leaked documents revealed today. Last week the House of Lords added a new amendment to the Digital Economy Bill, Amendment 120A, that will give copyright holders the power to pressure internet service providers (ISPs) into restricting certain web sites...

BBC plans spin-off stations to push digital radio after closure of 6 Music

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:21 GMT

The BBC is to reinvent its digital radio offering around brand extensions of its main five radio networks following the proposed closure of BBC 6 Music and the Asian Network. It is understood that the BBC plans to spend some of the money saved by closing the two stations on digital spin-offs and extensions to programmes already being broadcast on BBC Radio 1, Radio 2, Radio 3, Radio 4 and Radio 5 Live. The BBC spent $24m on content for 6 Music and the Asian Network in the year to the end of March 2009...

A new online music leader

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:17 GMT

Bigpond's prominence in the list will come as a shock to many, not because of its lack of expertise, but because Apples iTunes store is widely perceived to be the market leader.
BigPond music secured 14.39% of all Australian visits last week, followed by Australian bricks and mortar retailer JB Hi-Fi with 11.64%...

Who Are The Sugababes

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:15 GMT

The Sugababes. Everyone has heard of them, but who exactly are they? Do you think of the original three, Siobhan, Keisha and Mutya? Or the current three, Heidi, Amelle and Jade? The last of the founding three members, Keisha Buchanan, left the band in September 2009 leaving Heidi Range as the longest standing member having been in the band since 2001. The original members are now trying to assert their rights in the name and have made a joint application for a Community trade mark registration for Sugababes. If granted, the trade mark registration would give Siobhan, Keisha and Mutya the exclusive right to use and prevent anyone else from using the Sugababes name anywhere in the EU for specified goods...

Zimbalam's Digital Music Distribution Service Launches in North America

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:13 GMT

Zimbalam, the largest digital music distribution and marketing network, today announced the launch of the US version of its distribution network. Zimbalam, owned by independent music distributor and service provider Believe Digital, provides artists with access to 25 of the most popular music stores such as iTunes and Spotify and unprecedented global reach through several hundred additional stores worldwide. Zimbalam delivers transparency and marketing control to artists with real-time daily sales data, CRM tools such...

Pirate Bay Court Appeal Set For Just After General Election

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:11 GMT

The four individuals convicted in The Pirate Bay trial have a preliminary date for their appeals. Fredrik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm, Peter Sunde and Carl Lundstrom will head to the Court of Appeal on 28 September. This date is already being claimed as politically motivated, falling as it does just after Sweden's parliamentary elections...

Pink Floyd wins battle with EMI over online sales

Thu, 11 Mar 2010 15:14 GMT

Album lovers may rejoice a little at last: a British court says Pink Floyd, purveyor of iTunes-unfriendly concept records, cannot be unbundled. The High Court ruled Thursday that record label EMI can't sell Pink Floyd tracks individually without the band's permission. A judge said that the band's contract applied both to physical albums and Internet sales. Experts said the ruling offers another brick in the wall supporting artists' control of their own work — and a boost for music fans dismayed by the power of online music retailers to slice...

Management Secrets of the Grateful Dead

Thu, 11 Mar 2010 01:25 GMT

Fans of the Grateful Dead are big believers in serendipity. So a certain knowing approval greeted the news last year that the band would be donating its copious archive—four decades' worth of commercial recordings and videotapes, press clippings, stage sets, business records, and a mountain of correspondence encompassing everything from elaborately decorated fan letters to a thank-you note for a fund-raising performance handwritten on White House stationery by President Barack Obama — to the University of California at Santa Cruz. Santa Cruz was understood...

Giant inflatable pig used in recording studios' Washington war with broadcasters

Thu, 11 Mar 2010 01:22 GMT

A handful of otherwise unnoticeable protestors outside the headquarters of the National Association of Broadcasters erected an 18-foot inflatable pig, bearing the message, 'Fair Pay for Musicians.' The pig has become the mascot of the MusicFirst Coalition, the performers' rights agency that collects and distributes royalties. For the last few years, MusicFirst has campaigned extensively against the decades-old exemption of terrestrial radio broadcasters (as opposed to Internet radio) from paying performers' royalties. Stations continue to pay royalties to rights holders, which in the end, include many of the recording industry institutions also represented by MusicFirst...

RIAA v. NAB: 'Pork Barreling' Takes On New Meaning

Thu, 11 Mar 2010 01:17 GMT

The performance rights battle between the radio and recording industries has always been ugly. But now, things are just getting ridiculous, and further from the core issue at hand. The prime participants of folly are the RIAA, the recording-focused musicFirst Coalition, and the NAB (National Association of Broadcasters), a group now fighting over things like sausage, pork, and pigs. What? The sophomoric face-off has been ongoing, though a pig-focused advertising and awareness campaign by musicFirst is accelerating...

Pandora Joins IPO Rumor Party

Thu, 11 Mar 2010 01:13 GMT

If you're not one of the supposedly 48 million people who listen to and explore some of the 700,000 songs on Pandora, probably the last time you tuned into the company was in July 2009. That's when the Oakland, Calif.-based company. which develops music recommendation technology and provides other music-streaming services, raised $35 million in funding, led by Greylock Partners. Pandora, f.k.a. Savage Beast, has now raised about $65 million from Crosslink Capital, DBL Investors, Hearst Corp., Labrador Ventures, Selby Venture...