PRS for Music Releases New Online Music Licence

PRS for Music, a royalty collecting group based in the UK, has released details about their newest Joint Online Licence (JOL), which has been published online at Prsformusic.com (pdf). The current JOL expires on June 30, and the new deal covers rates charged for download services and subscriptions.

For a download, the rate remains unchanged from the previous JOL at 8 percent of gross revenue. But streaming rates for services like Last.fm will be online later this month, and are of greater importance, given the rising popularity of music that is listenable for free. Spotify, Myspace, and probably Google are just some of the companies that will be affected by the forthcoming “music on demand” rates. Continue reading...

Read More...

Summary only...

Think Indie Digital Music Store Launched Today

The Coalition Of Independent Music Stores’ (CIMS) launched today a digital download web site, ThinkIndie.com. The digital store allows you to listen to tracks for free before purchase, and provides high quality mp3s of indie labels like Yep Rock Records and Park The Van Records. The individual songs are priced at $1.11, and album downloads are generally $9.99, which makes the service competitive with major digital outlets like iTunes and Amazon. Read more...

Read More...

Summary only...

Swine Flu Cancels Shows in Mexico, Gets Its Own Song

The Swine Flu outbreak has prompted the Mexican government to issued advisories against all public events in Mexico City and other parts of the country. Live music performances are being postponed in response to schools being closed nationwide until May 6. Ticketmaster’s Mexican web site listed concerts of Alejandro Fernandez, Marco Antonio Solís, Los Lobos and Alejandra Guzman as cancelled, and Mexican acts Los Temerarios, K-Paz de la Sierra and Pancho Barraza have been rescheduled to take place in Anaheim, California.

The repercussions are numerous, but for Stephan Zielinski of San Francisco, California, the Swine Flu has inspired a musical composition. He assigned a different instrument to each of the categories of amino acids that constitute the virus’ genome, and created a melody by giving notes to the individual amino acids. Listen to the track, after the jump...

Read More...

Summary only...

Deerhoof Releases Free Studio Recordings

New, Improved, LIVE is a multimedia series launched by New, Improved Recording and TheBayBridged.com. Every month, they invite a popular indie band to their studio in Oakland, California, and record an exclusive live session. Then they release all recorded material online for free in high-quality mp3s, videos, photos, and interviews.

The first edition features Bay Area indie group Deerhoof, which recorded a cover of “Let’s Dance The Jet” from the 1967 film The Day the Fish Came Out, along with three other songs from past albums Milk Man, and Holdypaws. The studio is top notch, so the sound is of the highest quality. View footage...

Read More...

Summary only...

Study: Indie Music Only Gets 10 Percent of Radio Airplay

The Future of Music Coalition (FMC) has conducted a study called “Same Old Song” to determine the amount of independent music played on terrestrial radio. It turns out that from 2005 to 2008, indie music received only slightly more than 10 percent of traditional commercial radio airplay, with major label artists securing 78 to 82 percent. The results are somewhat expected, but grossly unfair, as indie music accounts for 30 percent of total music sales in the US. Read more...

Read More...

Summary only...

Warner Music Issues Takedown On Copyright Presentation

Techdirt reports that Warner Music has issued a takedown notice for one of Larry Lessig’s videos. The video is a presentation given by Lessig at the OFC Conference in San Diego, CA, and Warner claims that it violates their copyright. Lessig is known to be a defender of fair use, and is a founder of Stanford’s Fair Use Project, so Warner is essentially picking a fight with the Professor of Law. Continue reading...

Read More...

Summary only...

Homegrown Music Festival Grows Music Videos

The above music video for Rise Up by the Black Eyed Snakes, directed by Brian Barber is one of the results of the Homegrown Music Festival in Duluth, Minnesota, which challenged 16 local filmmakers to each make a music video for an assortment of songs from local bands. The songs were randomly assigned, and the filmmakers had 51 hours to make a video. Continue reading...

Read More...

Summary only...

Hypetape Searches Blogs for Music, Streams For Free

The new music site Hypetape, takes the search and indexing capability of Hype Machine, and adds it to the playlist creation and interface of Muxtape. The result: an engine that searches through thousands blogs for songs and commentary of the artists you search for, lets you add the tracks to a playlist associated to a Google account, and stream them for free. Read more...

Read More...

Summary only...

Video: The Bad Plus Live On Record Store Day

In celebration of Record Store Day earlier this April, The Bad Plus performed live in their hometown, Minneapolis, Minnesota, at the Electric Fetus. I like how drummer Dave King’s technique cuts the rhythm just enough to make it interesting, and pianist Ethan Iverson gives the band’s jazz fusion his own classical touch.

The store crowded to see the local jazz power-trio perform songs from their new album For All I Care, which they released in February. The album is a collection of covers which added Wendy Lewis’ vocals to their established formation. Watch another video from the same location after the jump, with Lewis singing Nirvana’s Lithium: Continue reading...

Read More...

Summary only...

People’s Music Store Doubles Catalog to 600,000 Songs

Ged Day, the founder of music download service Bleep.com, also created the People’s Music Store, which allows users to create music “stores” for free. Basically, store owners select and review tracks and albums from the site’s licensed catalogue of music, and are rewarded with points every time someone buys something from their store. These points can then be redeemed to buy music. Continue reading...

Read More...

Summary only...