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— “Wowza, still dealing with energy unleashed by panel yesterday,” wrote Cisco’s Dan Scheinman at his Twitter profile. “I generally think that it is easy to bash, hard to create value.” Scheinman was talking about his panel at the SF Music Tech conference earlier this week. He is senior VP and GM of Cisco Media Solutions Group, the division behind the Eos platform being used by Warner Music Group. Judging from reports from the conference, major labels may not have felt welcome at the event (see below). (@dscheinm)
— Posts at TechCrunch and SF Weekly’s All Shook Down blog offers an indication of the bashing Scheinm was talking about. The TechDirt post, which refers to Scheinm as “someone at Cisco,” conveniently ignores the fact that success – long-term, sustainable success – away from major labels is very difficult. But it’s worth reading because it’s a good barometer of the sentiment of the conference. “In the past, the only way to be successful in the music business was to go through the major label gatekeepers. These days, almost no one believes that any more. In fact, many have realized that the path to success often means getting as far away from the majors as possible. Even if what Warner was doing was interesting (and, honestly, what was presented was full of buzzwords and hype, but little that seemed particularly innovative) just the fact that no one even seems to care says a lot about what people think of the major labels these days.”
— Solicitor General Elena Kagan, President Obama’s nomination to fill the Supreme Court seat being vacated by Justice Stephens, has confirmed she represented the RIAA while working in private practice. (It’s on page 193 of her Supreme Court questionnaire.) While some in the music industry may be wary of Kagan because of her ties to Harvard’s Berkman Center – and Berkman’s legal defense of convicted file sharer Joel Tenenbaum – they may find solace in her efforts to protect the first amendment rights of 2 Live Crew. Kagan drafted the friend-of-the-court brief in the successful 1992 appeal of the famous obscenity conviction against the rap group in a Florida lower court. (Copyrights & Campaigns)
— One of the quietest news items of the last week is the expiration of the New York state law that dropped the ban on ticket scalping. TicketNews had a post on Monday of last week on the political negotiations before the law was set to lapse. The New York Times followed by an article on Thursday, and the New York Daily News had one on Friday. But little else has been said of the subject even though technically the resale of tickets in the state of New York has been illegal for four full days. Without an extension passed by the State Assembly, the law expired on Sunday. That law, signed in 2007 and given a one-year extension last year, removed caps on resale prices and prevented venues and sports teams from punishing consumers who resold their tickets. The hold-up in getting an extension centers on paperless ticketing. Governor Patterson wants to require ticketing companies to offer a paper option, a move that would allow the consumer freedom when reselling a ticket. State Senator Craig Johnson wants a one-year extension to the current law without mention of a paper option. Ticketmaster and Madison Square Garden Entertainment don’t want a requirement for a paper ticket option because they want to control the reselling of their paperless tickets on its TicketExchange platform – and own its secondary market, in effect. (TicketNews, New York Times, New York Daily News)
