Tag Archives: Business

The most interesting aspect of the turmoil that has beset the broadcast media, its corporate masters, the FCC, and the public in the wake of the Janet Jackson Super Bowl slip has been the philosophical arguments either for or against media content regulation. Many have taken an absolute or near-absolute …

McDonald’s is the latest non-music company (Pepsi, Starbucks) to use free music as a marketing tool: McDonald’s is partnering with Sony’s Connect download service to offer free digital music to its patrons. Through the international Big Mac Meal Tracks promotion, McDonald’s customers who buy a Big Mac Extra Value Meal …

Clear Channel has settled with a Denver concert promoter who alleged CC radio stations wouldn’t play songs by artists not playing CC-promoted concerts: Clear Channel Communications Inc. has settled a lawsuit with a Denver promoter who sued the No. 1 radio chain over charges it threatened to keep artists off …

The new Warner Music Group is dumping about half its roster of artists in order to cut costs. For the artists being cut, this more or less sucks, but it may benefit those artists who remain as each will (in theory) get more attention: More than a thousand employees got …

Exceptional rabblerousing speech by Rob Light of Creative Artists Agency, delivered at 2004 Concert Industry Consortium: TURBULENT TIMES: Where are the answers? ….Every new technology since the beginning of the last century has caused that generation to scream “the sky is falling.” The silent film business was a wonderful new …

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, which goes into effect on November 15, was passed in the wake of the Enron accounting scandal. Interestingly, it will have profound ramifications for the recording industry according to an essay by Richard Menta: The Sarbanes-Oxley act was designed to protect investors by improving the …

Like the Energizer Bunny, the record labels just keep plugging away pushing here, prodding there, doing all they think they can get away with to limit the freedom of consumers, especially the digital freedom of consumers. The latest tactic: restrict the number of times blank CDs can be copied: Tools …

Speaking of self-lasceration, this guy has been writing about it for 15 years, and it couldn’t have been much more explicit than in “Hurt”: I wear my crown of shit On my liar’s chair Full of broken thoughts I cannot repair Beneath the stain of time The feeling disappears You …

Fascinating study with all kinds of math and shit about the effect of file sharing on the music biz: Abstract: Music is an information good, and more specifically, an experience good, whose true value is realized only after its consumption. At its fundamental form, artists create (or produce) the music …

RIAA spanks another granny: A Fayetteville grandmother is facing off with the recording industry. The Recording Industry Association of America said she illegally downloaded and shared copyrighted songs. About a month ago, Barbara Johnson tried to log onto AOL and found she was cut off. She called the company. “They …