Morning Fix: Drake's 'Nothing' Is Year's Second-Highest Debut; Measuring Obamacare's Impact on the Touring Biz; The Free Market Royalty Act's Elegant Solution

"Nothing Was the Same" (Young Money/Cash Money/Republic), the hip-hop star's third full-length release, sold 658,000 copies in its first week (ending Sept. 29), according to Nielsen SoundScan. The only album to sell more copies in a week this year was Justin Timberlake's "The 20/20 Experience," when it bowed at No. 1 with 968,000 following its release in March.  
Billboard.biz

With the so-called Obamacare law taking effect Jan. 1, the live biz is examining the impact on its many part-time employees. The vast majority of employees on tour aren't the responsibility of the artist or the promoter/producer, but rather the vendors contracted to provide sound, lights, staging and other services. 
Billboard.biz

Representative Mel Watt (D-NC-12) has introduced the Free Market Royalty Act (H.R. 3219), one of the most intriguing royalty proposals in years. The bill accomplishes two principal goals: Watt starts the process of getting the government out of the music business by eliminating the compulsory license for digital audio transmissions, and extends the sound recording public performance right to all audio performances.
Billboard.biz

Rep. Mel Watt has introduced legislation that would create a performance right for sound recordings at broadcast radio and create a new revenue stream for record labels and artists. 
Billboard.biz

The German live entertainment market had a dramatic decline in income in 2012 as industry-wide ticket sales fell 16% from four billion euros in 2011 to 3.3 billion euros in 2012 and audience numbers contracted by 9% to 30.1 million according to a study released by market research firm GFK in November.   
Billboard.biz

Spotify has rolled out a new artist marketing program, called Spotlight, that the company will use to support artists over an extended period of time. The first two Spotlight artists are American trio Haim, whose debut album was released Tuesday, and New Zealand singer Lorde, whose song "Royals" is currently #3 on the Billboard Hot 100.  
Billboard.biz

Nielsen, the global provider of metrics and statistics on consumers' cultural consumption best known for its television ratings, has completed its acquisition of Arbitron Inc., the marketing and media research firm best known for its U.S. radio ratings. The deal sees Nielsen acquiring all common stock of Arbitron, priced at $48 per share, in a deal totaling $1.3 billion.  
Billboard.biz

Norwegian YouTube sensation Ylvis signs with the Warner Music Group. A source with knowledge of the negotiations says the label coughed up "huge" money to lock down the duo following its success on YouTube with “The Fox.” Warner Music is promoting the single, helmed by producing team Stargate, to top 40 radio.  
Billboard.biz

Director David O. Russell and music supervisor Sue Jacobs will discuss their work on the highly anticipated film “American Hustle” (trailer below) and last year’s award-winning “Silver Linings Playbook” in a conversation at the Billboard & Hollywood Reporter Film and Television Music Conference.  
Billboard.biz

Online content discovery is a huge opportunity for tech companies, and streaming music platforms are a hothouse of experimentation and dynamism. Unfortunately, the bigger players like Spotify, Pandora, and now Google’s Play Music, have yet to nail the music discovery process. Why is that?
FastCoDesign

A Melbourne-based music label has been caught up in a legal battle in the US after one of its automatically generated copyright warnings demanded a famous copyright lawyer remove his own lecture from YouTube.
Sydney Morning Herald

The federal government shut down is affecting websites too — the Copyright Office site is down. Other agencies have cash to keep going for a few weeks. It’s unclear what will happen after that.
Gigaom

Eight months on, Dotcom has shifted his focus onto another project – music distribution service Baboom – having appointed Vikram Kumar as CEO of Mega. He’s been speaking to Music Ally about the company’s strategy, including why he believes rightsholders are realising that Mega isn’t a haven for copyright infringement.
Music Ally

Accessing creative content fairly legally and simply is what the Hub’s all about: it’s the most comprehensive solution yet for streamlining what can be a difficult process, and with its focus on some of the idiosyncrasies of the digital age we think this is the best solution yet to getting more musicians paid.
Hypebot

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