Music Ally

Anyone concerned that British democracy might have become weakened in the light of the MPs’ expenses scandal should take comfort in the news that the Pirate Party UK has been registered at the Electoral Commission.

Following in the footsteps of its counterpart in Sweden – which managed to secure a seat in the European parliament with 7.1 percent of the vote, receiving more votes from under-30s than any other Swedish party – the Pirate Party UK says “it’s time for us to tell the world that we exist, to recruit members, raise funds and gear up to fight the General Election.”

Far be it from us to be political naysayers, but with no proportional representation in the UK it’s highly unlikely that the Pirate Party UK will be facing up against the Conservative or Labour Party any time soon. Perhaps they could make a bid for the London Assembly or even a council seat – though somehow we doubt that campaigns on copyright amendments and the right to share torrent links will excite local voters quite as much as crucial issues such as how often their dustbins are emptied.

O2 UK is dropping the price of 3G iPhones in May, according to trade website Mobile, offering the handset for free on its £35 and £45 monthly tariffs.

The move is reportedly to clear stock in time for the launch of a new iPhone model (or models) in June or July – although Mobile reports that rival UK operator Orange is in talks to stock it too.

In separate news, Apple has invited media to an event next Tuesday for the unveiling of the iPhone 3.0 software – the latest firmware update for the device. No news on what features will be in it, but the ability for apps to run in the background has been hotly tipped, which could be good news for music applications.

After yesterday’s fireworks in the row between YouTube and UK licensing body PRS for Music, it seems the bargaining has begun again – thankfully for the thousands of artists who risk seeing their videos removed from the video-sharing site.

PRS for Music has issued this statement:

“Talks between PRS for Music and Google took place today to discuss the licensing of YouTube following Google’s sudden decision to block premium video content on the service in the UK.

PRS for Music and Google are due to meet again over the next few days.”

The stakes are certainly high – the outcome of this particular licensing negotiation will have an impact on YouTube’s other discussions with rights-holders – and indeed, on the licensing landscape as a whole.

The danger is that after yesterday’s ill-tempered falling out, concern over seeming to lose face may become an unwanted extra complication to the already fraught negotiations.

The blogosphere is already buzzing with opinions and reactions to today’s announcement by YouTube that it’s pulling thousands of music videos from its UK site, due to a breakdown in negotiations with licensing body PRS for Music.

We’ve been all over the story, giving our opinion and republishing the statements made by both sides in the dispute. There’s no shortage of other opinions online though: we’ll be gathering them in this post, which we’ll update as the night and tomorrow morning roll on.

Mark Mulligan, Forrester Research (link)
“UK consumers needn’t worry too much. The music videos will be back. Once the grandstanding is over both parties will hit upon a compromise. Music video is too important to YouTube not to reach an agreement, just as YouTube is too important a revenue stream for PRS. Until they do UK music fans have plenty of alternatives, such as Daily Motion and of course file sharing networks. And there’s very strong reason why the labels, PRS and even YouTube don’t want YouTube’s loss to be Bit Torrent’s gain.”

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Want to get the full skinny on today’s licensing dispute between Google/YouTube and PRS for Music, which has led to thousands of music videos being removed from the site? Both sides have issued statements – YouTube via its blog and the PRS via a press statement. In the interests of fullness (and fairness), both are reproduced in full below the jump.

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Want more proof that the world of online licensing is rapidly becoming a farce? You got it! YouTube is to make thousands of music videos unavailable to UK internet users after failing to sign a new licensing deal with the Performing Rights Society (PRS).

Both sides are, naturally, blaming the other for the decision. PRS boss Steve Porter tells BBC News that he’s “outraged… shocked and disappointed” by the decision, which the PRS claims was made by YouTube without warning during negotiations between the two parties.

“Google has told us they are taking this step because they wish to pay significantly less than at present to the writers of the music on which their service relies, despite the massive increase in YouTube viewing,” says a PRS statement.

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Amazon has stealthily launched its MP3 Store in the UK this morning, with some major, major reductions on frontline albums. For example, Take That’s The Circus, which came out this week, is being sold for £3, as are the most recent albums from Kings Of Leon, Coldplay and Girls Aloud.

On an individual track basis, the store has variable pricing, with songs starting at 59p, but other categories for tracks costing 60p-69p, 70p-79p, and over 80p. Albums are more variable, although £6.49 appears to be one popular price point for new albums.

There’s some indie-sized holes in the catalogue at the time of writing – no Oasis apart from the spoken-word Wibbling Rivalry EP, no Arctic Monkeys, a single live track from Franz Ferdinand. Interestingly, the same artists that were missing from Nokia’s Comes With Music when it launched in the UK recently. It’s not like there are no indie artists on the store, but the lack of these big-name UK acts is something that Amazon will want to patch as soon as possible.

However, Amazon’s launch into the UK market is a big deal for the industry, and from our initial tests (our boss Paul Brindley just bought the Take That album) the user experience is very slick indeed, including one-click purchasing for existing Amazon customers.

The launch comes at a great time for digital, too. In the UK, high-street chain Woolworths (which recently went into administration) has 10% of the CD market, while its EUK distribution arm supplies CDs to the likes of Asda, Zavvi and Sainsbury’s. So just at the time when there’s a bottleneck in physical supply, Amazon is weighing into the UK digital market.

We think Apple knew this was coming too – it’s made a bunch of albums available for under £4 today in a limited price promotion, including the likes of Oasis and Fleet Foxes.

We wrote yesterday about reports that Playlouder has signed a deal with a UK ISP that will allow users to download music using peer-to-peer applications, with the ISP compensating the rightsholders. However, CEO Paul Hitchman has now labelled the reports “pure speculation” and said it has no announcement to (more…)

A report in The Register suggests that the UK may see its first `legal’ broadband subscriptions including file-sharing by the end of this year, with the UK government pressuring ISPs and the music industry to launch a P2P licensing system along the lines of South Korea. However, as far as we understand, this initiative is more about education – ISPs sending out `educational’ letters to users caught file-sharing, as Virgin Media is doing. The most telling sentence in The Reg’s piece is this: “No deals have been signed yet and significant details have yet to be addressed. These include the royalty share between mechanical, sound recording and publishing rights holders, and administration issues.” Sorting those by Christmas is optimistic, to say the least. We think labels are more likely to sign their own individual deals with specific ISPs rather than come up with a pan-industry Korean style approach. These ISP deals could materialise within a few weeks.

Amazon is finalising the plans for a global rollout of its MP3 store, with reports claiming that it’ll be launched in the UK by October, before transferring to other European countries. Like the US version, it’ll offer DRM-free MP3 tracks, and will seek to take on iTunes through pricing and exclusive content. (more…)