Music night

Wendy M Grossman

Most corporate annual reports seek to paint a glowing picture of the business’s doings for the previous year. By law they have to disclose anything really unfortunate – financial losses, management malfeasance, a change in the regulatory landscape. Which can cause problems of “too much honesty” for the music business.

The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry was caught in this bind, when writing its Digital Music Report 2010 (PDF) (or see the press release).

•Paint too glowing a picture of the music business, and politicians might conclude no further legislation is needed to bolster the sector.
•Paint too gloomy a picture, and ministers might conclude that this is a lost cause, and better to let dying business models die.

So IFPI’s annual report veers between complaining about “competing in a rigged market” (by which they mean a market in which file-sharing exists) and stressing the popularity of music and the burgeoning success of legally sanctioned services.

Yay, Spotify! Yay, Sky Songs! Yay, iTunes! You would have to be the most curmudgeonly of commentators to point out that none of these are services begun by music companies; they are services begun by others that music companies have been grudgingly persuaded to make deals with.

I say grudgingly; naturally, I was not present at contract negotiations. Perhaps the vivid picture of extreme foot-dragging portrayed in Steve Levy’s The Perfect Thing is wrong; perhaps the music companies were hopping up and down like Easter bunnies in their eagerness to have their product included. If they were, I’d argue that the existence of free file-sharing drove them to it.

Without file-sharing there would very probably be no paid subscription services now; the music industry would still be selling everyone CDs and insisting that this was the consumer’s choice.

The basic numbers showed that song downloads increased by 10 percent – but total revenue including CDs fell by 12 percent in the first half of 2009. The top song download: Lady Gaga’s “Poker Face”.

All this is fair enough – an industry’s gotta eat! – and it’s just possible to read it without becoming unreasonable. And then you hit this gem:

Illegal file-sharing has also had a very significant, and sometimes disastrous, impact on investment in artists and local repertoire.
With their revenues eroded by piracy, music companies have far less to plough back into local artist development. Much has been made of the idea that growing live music revenues can compensate for the fall-off in recorded music sales, but this is, in reality, a myth. Live performance earnings are generally more to the benefit of veteran, established acts, while it is the younger developing acts, without lucrative careers, who do not have the chance to develop their reputation through recorded music sales.

So: digital music is ramping up (mostly through the efforts of non-music industry companies and investors). Investment in local acts and new musicians is down. And overall sales are down. And we’re blaming file-sharing? How about blaming at least the last year or so of declining revenues on the recession? How about blaming bean counters at record companies who see a higher profit margin in selling yet more copies of back catalogue tried-and-tested, pure-profit standards like Frank Sinatra and Elvis Presley than in taking risks on new music?

At some point, won’t everyone have all the copies of the Beatles albums they can possibly use? Er, excuse me, “consume”. (The report has a disturbing tendency to talk about “consuming” music; I don’t think people have the same relationship with music that they do with food. I’d also question IFPI’s whine about live music revenues: all young artists start by playing live gigs, that’s how they learn; radio play gets audiences in; live gigs and radio play sell albums, which help sell live gigs in a virtuous circle, but that’s a topic for another day.)

It is a truth rarely acknowledged that all new artists – and all old artists producing new work – are competing with the accumulated back catalogue of the past decades and centuries.

IFPI of course also warns that TV, book publishing, and all other media are about to suffer the same fate as music. The not-so-subtle underlying message: this is why we must implement ferocious anti-file-sharing measures in the Digital Economy Bill, amendments to which, I’m sure coincidentally, were discussed in committee this week, with more to come next Tuesday, January 26.

But this isn’t true, or not exactly. As a Dutch report on file-sharing (original in Dutch) pointed out last year, file-sharing, which it noted goes hand-in-hand with buying, does not have the same impact on all sectors. People listen to music over and over again; they watch TV shows fewer but still multiple times; if they don’t reread books they do at least often refer back to them; they see most movies only once.

If you want to say that file-sharing displaces sales, which is debatable, then clearly music is the least under threat. If you want to say that file-sharing displaces traditional radio listening, well, I’m with you there. But IFPI does not make that argument.

Still, some progress has been made. Look what IFPI says here, on page 4 in the executive summary right up front: “Recent innovations in the à-la-carte sector include… the rollout of DRM-free downloads internationally.”

Wha-hey! That’s what we told them people wanted five years ago. Maybe five years from now they’ll be writing how file-sharing helps promote artists who, otherwise, would never find an audience because no one would ever hear their work

Piracy in the music industry

Although worldwide digital music sales rose in 2009, piracy is still taking its toll on the recording industry.

In its latest number crunching, international music body IFPI (International Federation of the Phonographic Industry) reports that global digital music revenues reached $4.2 billion, a 12 percent increase in 2009.

The IFPI also reports that more than a quarter of all recorded music revenues came from digital channels and that sales of single track downloads increased by an estimated 10 percent while digital album sales rose approximately 20 percent.

However, total revenue, including CD sales, dropped 12 percent in the first half of 2009, continuing a downward trend that has seen sales drop by 30 percent since 2004.

While the report mentions that there are more legitimate channels for music distribution than ever before, piracy continues to be the recording industry’s worst nightmare. The IFPI estimates illicit downloads make up approximately 95 percent of all music downloaded worldwide.

The IFPI report also spotlights three countries known for their music – France, Spain and Brazil – showing that piracy has damaged each country’s recorded music industry.

According to the organization, Spain, which has the highest number of illegal downloaders, saw sales by local artists in the top 50 fall by about 65 percent between 2004 and 2009. Meanwhile, France experienced a 60 percent decline in local releases.

Brazil’s recording industry also took a major hit as full-priced, major label, local album releases from the five largest music companies dropped 80 percent in 2008 from their 2005 level.

Along with issuing its report, the IFPI praised efforts to increase digital distribution channels and licensing deals with services such as Spotify and MySpace Music, as well as agreements with Internet service providers including Denmark’s TDC and U.K.’s Sky.

But the report also says current ISP licensing deals are not enough and that more ISPs must take an active stance in keeping illicit downloads from traversing their networks.

The organization also cited countries that have passed legislation designed to curb illegal file-sharing, such as “three strike” laws calling for repeat offenders to be disconnected from the ‘Net. In addition to bemoaning music piracy, the IFPI made it clear that it’s not only recording companies that are suffering, but also other entertainment industries, such as film and television.

“In 2009 the mood has crucially changed,” IFPI president / CEO John Kennedy said.

“It is now accepted that this is about the future of a broad base of creative industries that have huge economic importance and employ vast numbers of people. Governments, led by France, South Korea, Taiwan, the U.K. and New Zealand led the way in 2009 by adopting or proposing legislation to tackle piracy. It is vital these efforts are seen through to their conclusion and followed by other governments in 2010.”

Music Rights in Indian Films

Song and dance sequences are still an integral part of Indian films but the industry has been hit badly in the last decade because of digital music piracy. Filmmakers spend cror­es of rupees on film music but end up losing almost all of it.

The losses are attributed to lack of awareness about intellectual property rights and the means to monetise original work.

Veteran music composer Ilaiyaraaja has now woken up to address the issue of copyrights protection. He announced his licensing agreement with Malaysia-based music label Agi Music on Tuesday. The company will henceforth hold rights of all of the music director’s compositions done before the year 2000.

“Movie producers and co­mposers are advised not to use my songs and background scores (includ­ing re­mixes) before 2000, without prior permission and licensing,” the music composer said.

“It is also mandatory for advertisement agencies, TV channels and TV serial producers to take proper license and permission from Agi Music to use my songs in their productions or programmes.

Agi music has the rights to administrate all of my work before 2000, in all areas and platforms including broadcasting. Contrary to Indian practice, these rights do not belong to film producers and consequently no producer has the authority or right to distribute them,” he added.

The legendary music director has over 6,000 compositions in most of the major Indian languages to his credit. Post 2000, he sold the rights of almost all of his songs to film producers.

While the film industry is still battling the problem of protecting copyrights in the traditional media such as TV and radio, new media formats including ringtones, downloads and pen-drive copying have added to its woes.

Agi Music has tied up with Unisys Infosolutions to tackle this challenge and keep track of the company’s content in India. However, officials refused to divulge the financial details of the agreement between the two companies and Ilaiyaraaja .

Sumeet Singh, executive director of Unisys, said that the mobile value-added services provider would enter into agreements with offline stores and online portals to convince them to pay for original content. This method will help to protect copyrights as well as save the businesses of small vendors, he added.

Vendors will have to pay a nominal annual fee to get access to original content from Unisys’ library comprising over three lakh tracks in 41 languages, he said. Over 50,000 such vendors exist in north India alone, Singh added. But, the question still remains — who would ever come forward to pay for content in the name of fair and ethical business practice, especially in the absence of stringent regulations?

Contemporary Music Publisher

LOS ANGELES–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Bug Music Publishing, the largest independent contemporary music publisher in the world, has registered five consecutive quarters of market share growth among the Hot 100 hits following the company’s second-quarter report for 2009.

2nd quarter saw 17 Top 100 charting hits from Pink (“Sober”) to Flo Rida (“Right Round”), Kings of Leon (“Sex of Fire” and “Use Somebody”) to Theory of a Deadman (“Not Meant to Be”), Brad Paisley (“Then”) to the Zac Brown Band (“Toes”), including the rare occurrence of the same song “No Boundaries” by two different artists, the American Idols Adam Lambert and Kris Allen. Recent deals have included the Guild Music and Murrah catalog acquisitions, publishing agreements with Grammy winning producers Tim and Bob and The Veils, as well as the first record release on Bug Music Records, The Features “Some Kind of Salvation,” part of the joint venture record label with the band Kings of Leon (global #1 charting album).

“What an amazing quarter for our writers, who are the best around,” said John Rudolph, CEO of Bug Music. “It was across the board – new writers like Bruno Mars having a #1, Kara DioGuardi having multiple songs in the top 100, Ashley Gorley scoring several #1s in country music, and the Kings of Leon becoming the international kings of rock. It is encouraging in these uncertain times in that our writers are the fuel behind the hits.”

Leading music industry publication Billboard recently released their Q2 publishers rankings and share analysis. Bug Music ranks #6 among Billboard’s Top 10 Publisher Airplay chart holding 4.2% of the U.S. radio airplay chart share, an increase of nearly 70% over Q1. This finding marks the company’s fifth consecutive quarterly market share gain, beginning at the first quarter of 2008. Additionally, Bug Music’s share is up 280% over the same period one year ago. During Q2, the company held shares in more than 10% of the songs in the top 100. In the U.K., Music Week ranked Bug Music #5 in Album share and #6 in Combined Single and Album share for Q2 publishers.

About Bug Music:

Boasting over 250,000 copyrights including the classics “What a Wonderful World,” “Fever” and “Happy Together,” as well as hit songs from such musical luminaries as Johnny Cash, Pete Townshend, Willie Dixon, Muddy Waters, Woody Guthrie, Townes Van Zandt and Stevie Ray Vaughan to contemporary hit makers Three Six Mafia, Ashley Gorley (Carrie Underwood, Trace Atkins), Kara DioGuardi (Pink, Jonas Brothers, Celine Dion), Iggy Pop, Bruno Mars, Ryan Adams, Kings of Leon and Wilco, Bug Music’s reputation, across its eight offices in the US and Europe, as a writer/artist-oriented music company and trusted counsel of legendary estates and current artists is unrivaled. www.bugmusic.com

Ipods hold key to your personality

If you want to sound out a new acquaintance or prospective partner, you need look no further than the contents of their iPod, a study has suggested.
Researchers from Cambridge University claim scrolling through a person’s musical library can reveal clues to their identity.
Their study of 250,000 music lovers reveals how many stereotypes about listening habits hold true.
They found jazz lovers are creative, rock fans are rebellious, classical music aficionados are intellectual and pop listeners are sociable.
And by stating a preference for a musical style, many of us appear to use it as a ‘badge’ to tell people about our personality and values.
Dr Jason Rentfrow, a psychologist at Cambridge University, has been studying musical preferences since 2003.
He described iTunes libraries as a type of ‘personality shorthand’ that enable people to make swift judgments about a stranger’s values, social class and even ethnicity.
Dr Rentfrow said: ‘Humans, for a variety of reasons, are motivated to gain a sense of predictability and control in their environment.
‘We want to predict what another person is going to be like from the moment we first meet. Music on iTunes can provide valuable indicators about a person.
‘This research suggests that, even though our assumptions may not be accurate, we get a very strong impression about someone when we ask them what music they like.’
Dr Rentfrow asked subjects to consider rock, pop, electronica, rap, classical and jazz.
The participants were asked to rate fans according to traits such as extroversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism and openness.
They were also asked to rate personal qualities and values on a scale of one to seven, and to assess the likelihood that fans might come from a particular ethnic background and social class.
Researchers found participants agreed in 77 per cent of cases, with particular consensus about the types who like classical music, rock and rap.

Judge approves Michael Jackson merchandising deal

LOS ANGELES: Official Michael Jackson merchandise will soon arrive on store shelves, but the fate of a proposed tour of the King of Pop’s memorabilia remains in limbo after the singer’s mother expressed renewed concerns on Monday.

Attorneys for Katherine Jackson withdrew their objections to an agreement with merchandiser Bravado to bring everything from Jackson trading cards, apparel and cell phone themes to consumers.

But her objections remain a roadblock to a deal that would put some of her son’s prized items on display later this year.

That tour was intended to coincide with the release of a major movie featuring his final rehearsals for a series of London shows.

Burt Levitch, an attorney for Jackson’s mother, Katherine, said her objections were over concerns about her son’s legacy, as well as the split of proceeds from the memorabilia tour with concert promoter AEG Live.

Attorneys for AEG and the current administrators of Jackson’s estate wanted the memorabilia tour approved on Monday, but Superior Court Judge Mitchell Beckloff instead scheduled an evidentiary hearing to determine if the deal represented the best arrangement for Jackson’s estate.

Katherine Jackson and her three grandchildren are set to receive the vast majority of estate of the King of Pop who died on June 25.

An attorney appointed to represent the children’s interests said Monday she thought the deal should be approved.

Kathy Jorrie, an attorney for AEG, said the memorabilia exhibition faces a tight deadline and the company’s interest might wane if the tour is not approved soon.

She said the company was not interested in renegotiating the deal.

AEG wants the memorabilia tour to open at the same time as a movie using footage of Jackson’s final rehearsals.

The deal is expected to generate up to $6 million for the estate, said Howard Weitzman, an attorney for the current administrators of the estate.

Columbia Pictures paid $60 million for the rights to the film based on the Jackson footage, and Jackson’s estate is slated to receive 90 percent of the film’s profits.

One of the concessions Katherine Jackson is apparently seeking is the authority to sign off on the deal. Beckloff said he was inclined to reject that argument.

“She doesn’t own the property,” Beckloff said.

“There’s no reason to make her a signatory to those agreements.”

But Beckloff said he was not sure that he could grant the estate’s administrators approval to enter into the deal without hearing more information.

The judge said he was in a difficult position and was concerned that delays in approving the deal – which was first proposed nearly two weeks ago – are hurting the estate.

“I see the delay as a real problem for the estate,” Beckloff said. – AP

Digital Music Rights

Squabbles over the rates and rights online radio should pay highlights a fundamental problem: the music industry is broken

The music industry has become that annoying dysfunctional family you don’t want to hang out with. Think Everybody Loves Raymond, but not funny.

The latest episode: infighting among online radio stations, artists and labels over royalty rates and who should pay what to whom and for how much.

For two years, Internet radio webcasters negotiated with artists on rates and last month the parties reached a set of agreements that essentially sets royalty rates based on a site’s size.

Across the web, it was declared that Internet radio had been saved. Listeners thought for a split second that perhaps the fractured music business had reached digital détente. And just maybe, fans thought, executives could focus on more important things, like making great music and figuring out how to grow the industry.

But they were wrong. Yes, artists and webcasters have reached a decision. But now online radio operators such as Pandora have declared war on traditional terrestrial radio.

Here’s the issue: Even after forging an agreement with the artists, Internet radio webcasters still have to pay two kinds of copyright royalties — a fee to the performers and a fee to the owners of recordings, traditionally known to be the record labels. (Although more and more, singer/songwriter-types make up both categories now.) For years, old-school radio did not have to pay the performance royalty.

A house committee has passed a bill seeking royalty parity for ‘net radio, and it’s being reviewed by the Senate this week. But instead of seeking to eliminate one set of royalties from webcasters, online radio players want their terrestrial counterparts to pay just like they have to. The webcasters figure if traditional radio has to pay both sets of rates, the sheer volume of payments will lead to an overall reduction in the royalties any one operator has to pay.

“We pay much more than (terrestrial) radio,” Pandora founder Tim Westergreen says. “We just wanted to be treated more evenly, so it’ll lead to some reduction in rates.”

Pandora, which has 32 million users, is on track to make $40 million in revenue this year, but the company says half of that will have to go toward performance royalty rate payments. Similarly, Live365, with 10 million registered users, will have to give about 30% of its revenue to pay off performance royalty rates.

Meanwhile, the webcasters are struggling to grow revenue amid a slowdown in advertising spending. To keep its royalty costs down Pandora has capped music streaming per listener to 40 hours a month — users are charged a fee for listening beyond the 40th hour.

Slacker has a “premium” service where users pay $3.99 a month for unlimited song skips, and Last.fm had to start charging €3 per month for most international subscribers. Only CBS (CBS), which acquired Yahoo (YHOO) radio’s LAUNCHcast, offers unlimited music for free. (Listeners must endure banner ads and streaming commercials in between songs.)

And how do artists feel about the royalty rates Internet radio companies have to pay? Depends on which artist you ask.

Singer and songwriter Matt Nathanson says he thinks the value that comes out of the exposure of Internet radio is much more than the actual amount that the artist gets from the performance royalty. On average, last year an artist earns $3,615 a year off of performance royalties, according to SoundExchange.

“It’s a pittance,” he says. But Nathanson, who testified before Congress on behalf of Pandora, is one of the few musicians defending Internet radio. Most artists see the argument as black and white: to be paid or not to be paid.

“Why do artists have to be paid? Because people should get paid for their work — it’s that simple,” says Mary Wilson, one of the original members of The Supremes.

But Nathanson argues that it’s much more complex than that, and that artists could be supporting a cause that could do severe damage to the music industry.

“You start choking this new technology and ruining the music ecosystem, then you f*** everyone over,” Nathanson says.

But like Nathanson says, this battle for royalties goes way back — arguably, as far as 1952 when the Recording Industry Association of America spawned out of a need to represent and organize artists to delegate financial and legal concerns for the then oh-so-cool vinyl records.

But somewhere along the way, RIAA’s representation lost footing. It and record labels began alienating musicians and songwriters with rules and overzealous management. It was a slow tension that brimmed under the surface for decades, but artists, songwriters and fans could not do much — that’s just how the system worked.

But then in the summer of 1999, everything went to hell.

Napster brought a new wave of piracy with teenagers downloading Livin’ La Vida Loca for free, which made the RIAA move quickly to shut down the service and then go after the most prolific pirates in the downloading world. So it’s no surprise that the RIAA and record labels lobbied to Congress in 1998 about making webcasters pay performance rates. It was a push more out of fear than reason.

Fast forward to today. Yes consumers pay for digital music on iTunes, but Apple’s (AAPL) digital music store hasn’t restored the music industry to its glory days. Far from it. (Why do you think artists like Madonna are doing deals with concert promoter Live Nation (LYV)? For big-name performers the real money is made through live shows.)

The question has become: “How do you have a healthy business model and how do you sustain it?” Nathanson says. “I’m not a hippie, but I think there’s a smart way to exist as a business and a fucking stupid way, and the record labels have existed in the stupid way for a long time. Instead of shifting their business model, they’ve just tried harder to get money from other places.”

An RIAA-petitioned study found that the more free sources a person listens to — streaming or not — the consumer’s less likely to actually buy music. “If you have that essential substitution, why would you pay?” says Steven Marks, RIAA’s executive vice president and general counsel. “That’s the result of that kind of behavior. It’s problematic. You’ve got very little coming back to the artist.”

But he denies the RIAA is trying to kill Internet radio. “That’s a very 1999 criticism,” Marks retorts. “We’re experimenting in every possible way with new services and new ideas.”

Music lovers are surely hoping some of those experiments pan out.

Music industry may seek salvation in ‘all you can eat’ downloads

Things have moved on a little since the days when the greatest threat to the music industry was teenagers furtively slipping blank tapes into ghetto blasters to snatch the odd song from the radiowaves.

Today’s young people, a new report suggests, are every bit as passionate about music as their predecessors. But their love of a good tune is matched only by their proficiency at obtaining it illegally and their reluctance to pay for it.

According to UK Music, the umbrella body that represents the British music business and which commissioned the research, the industry needs to fundamentally rethink the way it deals with young music lovers – ideally by offering them as much music as they can download for a fixed fee.

Its survey underlines the home computer’s unassailable position as the portal to all things musical, with 68% of 14- to 24-year-olds listening to music on their computer every day, and the average hard drive containing 8,159 tracks – the equivalent of 17 full days of music.

With 61% admitting to downloading music through peer-to-peer networks or torrent trackers, 86% owning up to copying CDs for friends and 75% saying they have sent music by email, Bluetooth, Skype or MSN, young people’s attitude to the law is refreshingly clear.

As one respondent put it: “It was my parent’s computer, so if anyone was going to get in trouble, it wasn’t going to be me. Excellent.”

Feargal Sharkey, former lead singer of the Undertones and now chief executive of UK Music, is phlegmatic about young people’s behaviour.

“Have they got the message that there is a thing called copyright and there is a philosophy of copyright? Yup. They get it. They just don’t care,” he says.

“What they’re quite clearly trying to explain to us at the minute is that we can get it for free and we’re not going to get caught.”

Sharkey, however, can discern an opportunity within the crisis. The research, carried out by the University of Hertfordshire, reveals that an overwhelming majority of 14- 24-year-olds would be interested in signing up to an MP3 download service that would allow them to get as much music as they wanted for a fixed fee.

Of those currently using P2P networks 85% would welcome such a service, with 57% saying that it would stop them filesharing illegally and 77% of them claiming they would still buy CDs.

“If they’re prepared to work with us if we give them an all-you-can-eat download service, well then, as an industry we may then well have to step up to the plate and try to provide them with that kind of service,” says Sharkey.

There is evidence that the business is already moving in that direction. In June, the cable company Virgin Media announced the launch of an unlimited download service in partnership with the world’s largest music company, Universal, which will allow subscribers to stream and download as many tracks as they want for £10-£15 a month.

Although the survey found huge enthusiasm for streaming music, such as on Spotify or YouTube, 78% of respondents said they would not be prepared to pay for a streaming service.

Despite their occasionally contradictory attitudes to dipping into their own pockets for it, almost all of the 1,808 young people surveyed said that music was a passion. A total of 90% said they would miss music more than anything else were they to find themselves inexplicably exiled to a desert island. The internet came second (61%) and mobile phones third (31%).

One of the report’s most arresting findings was that 56% felt that the manufacturers of MP3 players, mobile phones and other recordable devices should pay a fee to the artists whose music their products enable to be copied.

Apparently oblivious to the role of free will in the copying process, one respondent noted: “You feel like they’re doing the service – the artists, the people in the recording studio and all the people involved should be getting paid for what they do.”

Sharkey agrees that it is all too often the artists who lose out when teenagers get their music for free.

“There was a young artist who wrote this incredibly passionate, insightful piece … he was just trying to get people to understand that all he actually wanted to do was make the music he loved and take it out to the world without having to live in poverty in the process,” he says.

“I think that’s the bit we need to make some people sensitive to.”

Soaring Michael Jackson album sales

Jacko’s untimely departure led to (five days of) off the wall sales for the entertainment group.

The recent demise of pop legend Michael Jackson may have left millions sobbing into their back copies of Smash Hits; but others have been laughing all the way to the bank. Music publishing company Chrysalis, which published some of Michael Jackson’s best-known hits, including Rock With You, Thriller and Off the Wall, received a big boost in sales when Jackson died in June. The company has just reported a year-on-year rise of 1.2% in ‘net publisher’s share’, a music industry measure of revenues (after taking payments to artists and management into account).

Since the troubled pop star’s passing, fans have clamoured to purchase his old albums and singles, resulting in them soaring into the charts in both the US and the UK. And that wasn’t the only good news for Chrysalis: its financial performance was also bolstered by sales of albums from newer acts, including Beth Ditto’s Gossip and Mercury award-nominated bands Bat for Lashes and the Horrors.

On the face of it, you’d think rising revenues would be welcome news for any company in the music business (especially in the current climate). But Chrysalis insists that it won’t be breaking out the Cristal, since it will still lose out in the long run. As its FD Andy Mollett was quick to point out, Jackson’s planned London 02 marathon would have been a massive money spinner for all concerned – not least Chrysalis, which was anticipating elevated record sales as a result. ‘In the long run, it’s bad news for us,’ he said. As Bubbles would no doubt agree.

However, there’s no need for Chrysalis to start panicking just yet. Frankly, we suspect they’ll sell a lot more records following his death than they would have done as a result of his tour. And besides, as any Jackson fan worth their salt will know, the controversial singer died on June 25; but the Chrysalis financial results only factor in sales up until June 30. So this was just five days of extra sales. Since Jackson is still topping the UK charts six weeks on, we suspect proceeds from the pop star’s records are going to be lining publishers’ pockets for a while yet.

40th anniversary of Woodstock this weekend will mark a happy occasion

Those who still can may recall love freely given, heads sprouting with muddy but flowing locks and the notes of Jimi Hendrix’s electric rendition of the “Star Spangled Banner”. But for the rock-and-roll industry itself, the anniversary elicits more mixed sentiments.

That’s because the music business currently finds itself in a sort of Alice in Wonderland version of the reality that emerged after the 1969 music festival. The three-day concert, which attracted more than 350,000 people, was initially a financial disaster for its organisers. But it proved highly profitable for a music company and a film distributer.

oday, the economics of rock and roll are reversed. Yes, recorded music groups like EMI, Warner Music and Sony still ply their trade: signing aspiring artists, convincing radio stations to play their tunes and then selling them in stores or through the internet. But the spoils are increasingly accruing to those who handle the mechanics of concert tours and festivals like the one that took place four decades ago this weekend.

A ticket to all three days of the Woodstock festival – held on Max Yasgur’s farm in Bethel, New York – cost $18 in advance, about $106 in today’s money. That’s less than half the price of admission to Bonnaroo, the jam-band festival held every June in Tennessee. Moreover, today’s festivals attract sponsors such as Heineken beer and Whole Foods supermarkets, which are looking to hawk their wares to an affluent hip clientele.

Back then, only a tenth of Woodstock’s groupies actually paid to get in and almost half of them got refunds because they were unable to reach the venue after the roads were closed. After all the litter was picked up from farm, Woodstock Ventures found itself in debt to the tune of $1.6m.

And here’s where the music industry, then entering its heyday, swooped in for the kill. Michael Wadleigh had shot a documentary for just around $100,000. He sold distribution rights to Warner Brothers, with the promoters collecting a $1m flat fee plus a small percentage in the back end. The film’s worldwide box office receipts were more than $50m, earning Warner $16.4m in rentals, plus the 1970 Oscar for best documentary.

And then there was Woodstock, the album. Atlantic Records, now a subsidiary of Warner Music, released the first three-record compilation in 1970. It sold more than two million copies. A sequel released in 1971 instantly went platinum.

Concert-goers no longer clamour for slickly-produced documentations of their musical experiences. Why would they? Those who don’t want to record concerts on their cellular phones or their handheld Flip video cameras can find multiple versions of most events uploaded and broadcast for free on YouTube.

The shift has conspired to push more of the financial pie to the concert itself, a fact not lost on the industry. It explains why, for example, US companies Ticketmaster and LiveNation are trying to merge, hoping to create a vertically integrated promoter, ticketing service and artist management group. And why the deal has amassed heavy opposition from legislators, rivals and even artists including Bruce Springsteen. So much for peace, love and rock and roll.