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| RIHANNA, KATY PERRY, BILLY JOEL, 122 OTHER ARTISTS TELL PANDORA: ‘THAT’S NOT HOW PARTNERS WORK TOGETHER’: The battle over webcasting royalties went up a notch Wednesday when 125 artists ranging from Alabama to Zac Brown Band signed an open letter to Internet-radio company Pandora Media over its attempt to change the way the statutory webcasting rates are set. Billboard.biz |
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| JONAS NACHSIN STEPS DOWN AS ROADRUNNER PRESIDENT: After more than 20 years at Roadrunner and 12 as president, Jonas Nachsin is stepping down from that post. Sources said nine people were laid off from the label following the announcement. Roadrunner is expected to continue as a hard-rock brand, but now the question is who will have the stewardship of the label? Billboard.biz |
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See latest videos, charts and news
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| SOUNDEXCHANGE PAYS OUT $122.5 MILLION IN Q3 — ITS LARGEST SUM YET: SoundExchange, the non-profit PRO that collects statutory royalties from platforms streaming sound recordings, continues to grow its payout, hitting $122.5 million in royalty payouts to artists and labels in the third quarter. That figure makes it the largest quarterly payout by the organization since its inception. For the year, the agency has paid out $326.9 million, surpassing the $292 million in royalty payments it made in 2011. Billboard.biz |
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| ONE DIRECTION’S ‘TAKE ME HOME’ HEADED FOR NO. 1 ON NEXT WEEK’S BILLBOARD 200 WITH 500K DEBUT: Industry sources are forecasting that One Direction’s “Take Me Home” could sell more than 500,000 copies in the United States by week’s end on Nov. 18. The SYCO/Columbia album‘s start could be the third-largest sales week of 2012, after Taylor Swift’s 1.2 million bow with “Red” ( now in its third week at No. 1 ) and Mumford & Sons’ 600,000-unit launch with “Babel.” Billboard.biz |
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| ONLINE VIDEO GOING LONG, LIVE AND MOBILE: OOYALA STUDY: Thirty-percent of total video viewing time on tablet devices are spent on content over an hour long, according to a new report from Ooyala, a Silicon Valley company that provides the technical plumbing to power more than 200 million video streams a month. Though it counts only views of its clients’ videos, the report reflects a broader trend toward more long-form videos produced by professional content providers and the proliferation of high-speed internet, tablets and live streaming. Billboard.biz |
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| LATIN GRAMMY WEEK: TEARS, LAUGHTER AT SPECIAL AWARDS CEREMONY: There was laughter, reminiscence and plenty of tears at a Wednesday ceremony to honor the Latin Recording Academy’s Lifetime Achievement and Trustees Award winners, which included Luz Casal, Daniela Romo, Poncho Sánchez and Toquinho. Academy members and press crowded the Ballroom at the Four Seasons Hotel in Las Vegas in what has become an increasingly high-profile event. (Also, read all our predictions for tonight’s Latin Grammy Awards HERE). Billboard.biz |
NINE GROUPS BID ON UMG’S PARLOPHONE: Warner Music and a joint venture led by industry impresario Simon Fuller and Chris Blackwell are among nine groups to have registered interest in buying Parlophone from Vivendi’s Universal Music Group. Among other interested parties: Ronald Perelman’s MacAndrews & Forbes, BMG and Sony Music. Universal also received 12 approaches for non-Parlophone assets, including from former EMI executives such as Lava Records chief Jason Flom. Binding offers are due at the end of January.
Financial Times
SPOTIFY CLOSES FUNDING ROUND WITH INVESTMENTS FROM COCA-COLA AND FIDELITY: As Biz reported Sunday, Spotify is wrapping up a $100 million round of funding with Goldman Sachs that values the music streaming site at $3 billion. Now the NYT , citing unnamed sources, reports that Coke is becoming a minority investor in the music streaming service, contributing about 10 percent of the funding and new investor Fidelity Investments is chipping in about 15 percent of the financing round, with the remaining quarter coming from Spotify’s existing investors. Last month news broke that Coke was in talks to invest in Spotify.
New York Times
UNIVERSAL MUSIC UK CHAIR SAYS STREAMING UP 700%, BREAKTHROUGH ACTS DOWN: David Joseph chairman and chief executive of Universal Music UK and Ireland, is concerned about the success of British Artists. He told the Guardian that while t his year’s there’s been a whopping 700% increase in the amount of music streamed — over 7.5 billion tracks up from 1.1 billion in 2011 — but expressed concern that the UK only had nine breakthrough acts – artists that sell more than 100K albums – this year, down from 19 in 2011.
The Guardian
PSY’S ‘GANGNAM STYLE’ HITS 1BN YOUTUBE VIEWS: PSY’s “Gangnam Style” has hit one billion YouTube views, in a record only achieved previously by the Black Eyed Peas, Linkin Park and Bruno Mars. Since releasing “Gangnam Style” this summer, the Korean artist has broken the record for Most Liked Video on YouTube and, over the past week, saw close to 80 million YouTube views on his official channel. Psy is signed with Scooter Braun’s Schoolboy Records (Read an excerpt of Billboard’s recent PSY cover story here.)
Music Week
CLEVE DUNCAN, THE VOICE OF ‘EARTH ANGEL’, DIES: Cleve Duncan, whose soaring tenor voice as lead singer for the Penguins helped propel the 1954 doo-wop ballad “Earth Angel (Will You Be Mine)” to rock ‘n’ roll immortality, died on Nov. 7 in Los Angeles. Art Laboe, a disc jockey who promoted Penguins concerts and produced one of Mr. Duncan’s records, announced the death on his Web site. “Earth Angel,” which has sold more than 10 million copies, was the Penguins’ only hit. But its rhythmic, wailing plea to an idealized young woman captured the spirit of the just-emerging rock generation. New York Times
