Music Ally

Live music was worth more in the UK last year than recorded music, according to figures calculated by Will Page, Chief Economist at PRS for Music. He announced his calculations at the International Live Music Conference on Saturday.

Readers of the Music Ally Report may well remember a guest article ‘Is The Future Live?’ in issue 181, in November 2007, when Page posed the question of when the revenues generated by the live music sector would overtake that of recorded.

At ILMC this weekend, Page announced that the “changing of the guard” has now taken place. Scaling up PRS tariff data, and factoring in VAT and a Booking Fee, he’s calculated live to be worth a record £904m in 2008. That overtakes the BPI trade value of the music business of £896m, published in their January newsletter.

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The criminal trial of the founders of Swedish P2P site The Pirate Bay kicked off yesterday, with reports that the labels are seeking more than $13 million in damages from the company. Those founders are continuing their policy of turning the case into a ’spectrial’ – with some of them Twittering from the dock during the first day. “How the hell did they think this was going to be something else than EPIC FAIL for the prosecution? We’re winning so hard.” being one example. However, while TPB may win the PR war (among its online supporters at least), the fact remains that its founders could face a jail term if convicted – so the trial is deadly serious.
Source: Ars Technica – http://tinyurl.com/aa2mxw