The proper legal term for this is “de minimis” use.  Or in the long form latin, “de minimis non curat lex” -meaning the law does not care about trivial things.  This is in fact a common defense to a law suit (much like it’s more overused big brother Fair Use).  This is not a RIGHT… but a DEFENSE.  There is a big difference in these two words.

De Minimis VS  Infringement

photocopying a cartoon and putting it on the fridge = de minimis

photocopying a cartoon and placing it in an advertisement or displaying it publicly even in a very trivial way= infringement

So how does this apply to musical recordings…?  The fact is, the de minimis rule does NOT apply to sound recordings.  As decided by the Sixth Circuit court of appeals in Bridgeport Music Inc. VS Dimension Films.  The use of any part of a sound recording in sampling or otherwise is infringement.  Whether you agree or not, this is in fact the law now.

For more information on this and other topics in copyright infringement check out this page

Bottom line is-  if you are going to use music in any length, way , or form-  Pay the owner of the intellectual property.

If you don’t already read Digital Music News, you should.  This is the brainchild of Industry pundit Paul Resnikoff.  Established in 2004 (I think) this is one of the places I go for my up-to-date music industry info…  Today’s post (excerpted below) is just a taste of the daily fodder.  Also featured daily is a Job Board for all of those looking for a gig.  Overall a pretty great resource and a good excuse to re-post the following:

The 10 Most Disastrous Music Industry Deals

(1) Terra Firma’s acquisition of EMI, $4.7 billion (2007)

Even Guy Hands admits he made a colossal mistake on this one.  One of the last super-leveraged buyouts before the bust, EMI has now become a $4.7 billion-plus toxic mess for Terra Firma.

(2) CBS’ acquisition of Last.fm, $280 million (2007)

Scrobbling is cool and all – and this is still a very cool site – but few would “recommend” this deal today.  Amidst predictable ad monetization challenges, the company has since switched to pay-only in certain European countries, outsourced full-length videos, and bid adieu to the original founders.

(3) Bertelsmann’s investments in Napster, $100 million (2000-onward)

In retrospect, Bertelsmann was the forward-thinking maverick.  But in the moment, that stance created a legal sinkhole for the company, accused of facilitating widespread infringement by keeping the P2P alive.  The in-fighting lasted years before expensive settlements torpedoed Bertelsmann with hundreds of millions in losses.

(4) MP3.com acquisition by Vivendi, $372 million (2001)

Before MySpace was even conceptualized, MP3.com was setting huge records for IPO valuations, label lawsuits, and band profiles.  Problems quickly followed the inflated purchase, and the site was quickly dumped by Vivendi Universal in 2003.

(5) The Robbie Williams 360-Degree Deal, $160 million (2002)

Williams loves being able to walk the streets of Los Angeles without being recognized.  EMI, which structured the pricey deal, is somehow less thrilled by that freedom.

(6) The Sony BMG Joint Venture (2004)

The 50-50 JV was like “tying two sinking rocks together,” according to one executive, and this seemed like a dead weight from the beginning.  Bertelsmann walked away, and the combination was ultimately purchased by partner Sony Music Entertainment by 2008.

(7) WMG’s Investment in Imeem (2009)

“We do not intend to make more digital venture capital investments,” WMG chairman Edgar Bronfman told investors after suffering a $16 million write-off on Imeem in 2009.  MySpace subsequently scooped the property for well under $1 million.

(8) WMG’s Purchase of Bulldog Entertainment, $16 million (2007)

Bulldog Entertainment Group was best known for coordinating tony concerts in the Hamptons.  The company eventually cratered with estimated losses of $30 million.

(9) Any Deal Involving PlaysforSure…

This was a mistake that caused endless suffering, for music service (Yahoo Music, MTV Urge, Wal-Mart), player (Sony, SanDisk, Samsung), and consumer alike.  In fact, even Microsoft bailed on its DRM-heavy solution with the launch of Zune.

(10) Best Buy’s Exclusive on Chinese Democracy…

Some comebacks are better than others, and Best Buy was left carrying a truckload of Guns N’ Roses CDs.  That did little to kill the big box exclusive, however, as plenty of big-name artists have used the concept to shift serious tonnage.

For the complete article and to see others go here.  Also be sure to follow them on Twitter for up to date coverage…

Well, I have never tried to write an album review before.  I happen to have found an album which I feel is totally worthy of a review and while it probably deserves better prose than it will receive in my blog post, I will attempt not to insult the artistic value of this album in the following paragraphs.

Almost a month ago I recall being with a great friend heading to lunch when he said to me- “Did you hear the latest Sting album?” Indeed I had not.  While I am most certainly a fan of pretty much anything Sting does, I had no idea how much I would love this album.  You see, Sting has released an album not on a typical mainstream label like you might expect from the former front-man of the Police, but Deutsche Grammophon a label best known for their fine recordings of Lang Lang, and the Emerson String Quartet playing the likes of Chopin, Mahler, and other pillars of the Classical world.  The content of which is all original songs by Sting arranged for orchestra and small string ensemble.  The backup ensemble includes the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the New York Chamber Ensemble, and even Chris Botti.

The album opens up in your face with a bombastic rendition of “Next To You.”  Personally it knocked me out of my seat, but just when I was about to give up, the disc segue-ways into “Englishman in New York” which is a very tasteful, palatable, up beat rendition.  This leads us gently into my all time favorite, “Every Little Thing She Does is Magic.”  From there on there is little doubt in my mind that this CD will be on permanent rotation in my listening room.  Of course he leaves no stone unturned and in any Sting Classical retrospective, you couldn’t be certain you were finished until you heard a fine rendition of Roxanne which comes around mid-disc.  The disc finishes up with “She’s Too Good for Me” and “The Pirate’s Bride” leaving the listener most satisfied at not only Sting’s performance, but the great arrangements and settings crafted by Rob Mathes, the arranger and producer on the project.

Upon some searching I found a CD review/defense written by Mathes himself which gives greater detail into this disc.  Some excerpts of which are below:

"The story: He (Sting) was invited by both The Philadelphia Orchestra and The
Chicago Symphony Orchestra to put on a concert of his music arranged for
 orchestra. A tour was planned based on the appeal of those concerts.
They were a thrill for him. In his words, "what a joy and honor it is to
 hear songs I often wrote on a guitar alone in a room played by a group
of peerless musicians". All that said, the concerts highlighted the
difficulties of a venture like this. Many music stars do Standards
records and other similarly minded projects to appeal to adults who
attend Symphonic concerts and higher brow Arts events but still love
great Pop music. These projects are occasionally successful but they can
 be artistically dreadful. Is there anything worse than a series of
ballads peppered with cloying Strings?? This was exactly what Sting did
not want to do and in fact his earliest direction to the arrangers was
to "please not give the orchestra endlessly held chords that are
beautiful but are better for putting people to sleep than entertaining
them". 

"Write with adventure and invention", he said. (If you listen
carefully to my arrangement of "Roxanne" or Dave Hartley's arrangement
of "I Hung My Head", you hear intertwining melodic lines in the
orchestra and not just lush chords.) "

"...He did not intend to just make another record of his songs but he really
 was moved and galvanized by the experience of hearing the songs in a
new way. The concerts have gotten terrific reviews and while rehearsing
in London we decided to record some of the material at Abbey Road
Studios, where the rehearsals took place. The recordings I had done in
the late winter came out so well also that we realized there could
possibly be a full record here when added to the Abbey Road stuff. I
kept experimenting in New York and discovered "End Of The Game" and
"Pirate's Bride". I told Sting I could not believe these beautiful songs
 were virtually unknown, "Pirate's Bride" in particular being one of his
 most beautiful ballads. He gave me license to try things including his
idea of evoking a classic British Colliery Brass Band for the remarkable
 "We Work The Black Seam", one of my favorites on the project. The one
thing even the naysayers would have to admit is that we avoided some
terrible sand traps: 

1. The record is not all ballads. "Next To You", "She's Too Good"
and "End Of The Game", among others, feature demanding orchestral
writing and yet take the originals and don't distort them beyond
recognition. 

2. The ballads all have a concept behind them--"Roxanne" came from
Sting's suggestion of the original obsessive Bossa Nova groove, the one
he used on All This Time, the concert DVD recorded on 9/11, "My Ain'
True Love", arranged magnificently by Steven Mercurio, is haunted and
not cloying in the least, evoking a Civil War battlefield beautifully,
and "Pirate's Bride" features haunted Oboe and Jo Lawry's incandescent
voice. One of the strongest songs from the tour ballad wise, "Why Should
 I Cry For You" makes use of the gorgeous Island Of Souls melody, the
melodic germ that propels the whole Soul Cages record. It is available
elsewhere as a bonus cut.

3. The arrangements do not go off on a million tangents nor do they
drown the songs in either syrup (in my opinion) or a million endless
interludes, which is often the case with projects like this."

I think it is quite obvious that Mathes and Sting did not fall into those pitfalls outlined above, but instead present a great, fresh perspective on repertoire that we all know and love.  I think it is so great when an established artist reaches a point where their bad-assness allows them to take on creative artistic projects such as this.  I have a feeling most artists work their whole careers just to be able to go out and create… without worry for charts, singles, etc.  Clearly,  Sting has reached that point, and this alongside his other more creative product of late have given him a great avenue for his creativity.  I give this album a definite two thumbs up and my highest recommendation.

For years, I have found Autotune to be repulsive… in pop music it makes up for singers’ inadequacies and in rap music it creates “music” for those who have no such talent.  This disdain has been only further flamed by artists like T-Pain and Lil Wayne who have built entire careers around this technology (much like Zapp and Roger did on the back of the Talk Box (which at least required the singer to be able to hold a tune)).

Well now it is apparent.  There is a fine use for this technology.  Enter Autotune The News (@autotunethenews on twitter).  I have know about these guys for a while as their antics using news footage of congress, Joe Biden, Barack Obama, and the other list of Washington talking heads have brought about the random office chuckle, but not until now did they get that deep belly laugh… and a bit of entrepreneurial respect.

They recently took a seemingly innocent newscast featuring the near-victims of a home intruder in Alabama and remixed it… furthermore they posted it on iTunes and now it is No. 34 on the download charts!!!!!! That’s right folks… this tune beat Ke$ha’s “Your Love is my Drug” (like that is hard since she sucks).

Well anyways, here is a tale of witty folks with a cool idea making something of it.  Enjoy the videos below… watch them in order to get the full affect.  Also- be sure to follow these guys on Twitter… for more great parodies through the use of technology…

John mentioned a composer he likes named Jason Robert Brown.  I personally had not heard of him, but that rarely means much in the musical world.  After going to Jason’s blog, I find a most fascinating account of his back and forth with an infringer!  Imagine that, rather than suing her… he spoke to her… tried to educate her… (some people are beyond education).  This was a really unique approach to dealing with piracy.  tackling it one person at a time.  Imagine if Metallica had called on a few pirates back in 2002… WOW what a news story that would have been…  anyways I digress.  I continued reading the rest of this back and forth and becomes quickly apparent that she might be beyond education… the point though is he reached out to her and a number of other infringers and simply explained that he makes a living off of his music and politely asked them to stop sharing… and many of them did!!!!   Reading his story also led me to his wife’s blog.  She is fighting the same fight as a composer and from what I can tell has been a bit more outspoken on the subject.  I think this is GREAT.  More composers need to get involved in “the good fight”.  I have said for years but educating the general public is the key to thwarting this habit of stealing our intellectual property.

To do my part, I have done some searching and below is a list of LEGAL / PAID download sites to acquire sheet music.  Do your part.

www.FreehandMusic.com

www.jwpepper.com

www.musicnotes.com

www.load.cd

I am sorry.

I am the worst Blogger ever!  But in my defense, this has been a busy spring.  My next blog post will illuminate you as to what I have been up to… I originally typed this February 17 and forgot to post it… so here it is!!!

I just returned from the Texas Music Educators Association convention (TMEA)-  or to the uninitiated… the “everybody who matters and has anything of value for the world or music education” convention.

All I can say is WOW!  This was my first TMEA even though I am quite the legacy.  My Frandfather was President of TMEA in the 1950s!

TMEA is by all accounts much larger than TBA (Texas Bandmasters Association)- or any other conference I attend on Music Education for that matter.  Overall, despite a lousy economy the attendance was really quite good.  Many of my friends from education land were there and the overall picture I got from the state of budgets (at least in TX) was that most were actually doing alright (take a note California).  If Texans know how to do anything- it is play football and field a marching band- both of which they fund mightily.

TMEA was not only a time for me to catch up with my buddies, but also a great time to meet up with old and new clients to discuss current and future projects.  I decided rather than delivering a list of my clients as a recap, I would make a photo montage of them and spent one afternoon taking photos of their booths, products, etc.  These photos are on our Naxos Music Library facebook page here.  Other clients in attendance were Alfred Music Publishing, Hal Leonard, Ivasi, SmartMusic, Professor Carol, and a few I cant seem to remember.

All In All this was a GREAT conference.  The weather did not cooperate as it rained much of the time we were there and it was quite cold, however we made the best of it by imbibing in great Mexican food and our fair share of Margaritas.  Hopefully next year the weather will be better as this is going on my Educational conference list permanently.

Til next time, Over and Out!

I have been in the process of working on my taxes over the past week or so and I had a bit o an epiphany.  You see, when you are relegated to staying in the States while all of the talking heads of the music industry are in Cannes at Midem, you will find yourself enjoying the time you have by filling it up with things like tallying your own personal music tab from the past year for the purposes of writing some of it off (I am in the MUSIC business after all).

Point being… the buzz this year is all about Subscriptions.  Subscriptions are going to save the music industry.  Well- we knew this-  that is why we created the Naxos Music Library years ago.  Subscriptions are a very important part of our business model.  It is good to hear all of this new buzz-  But with the likes of Bob Lefsetz, Donald Passman, and other touting how this really could be the paradigm shift gives it a whole new value in my mind.  The fact that you cant have a talk about digital music without Spotify coming up tells me that this is a move that is coming sooner than later.

Back to my taxes.  I noticed a really interesting fact as I added up my tally from Amazon, , iTunes,  eMusic, Classics Online, etc.  The really interesting thing is I REALLY did spend more money on subscriptions this year than I did on a la carte purchases.  This is a bit freaky to me as I spend a good deal of dough on music.  But it is true.  eMusic got the lion’s share of my money.  This could be attributed to a number of things.  1st of all, I use eMusic as a discovery tool and as a catalog builder.  I would never set out to buy Starship’s Greatest Hits, Gogol Bordello, or Boston, but eMusic facilitated this for me.  These are what I consider great catalog fillers.  I may not want to put them in queue on my iPod touch, but some time I may wish to hear them again and therefore I bought them…  Move over to my iTunes and Amazon purchase patterns.  The vast majority of music purchased through these outlets last year were singles.  Radio hits.  One Hit Wonders… whathaveyou.  Call it what you want.. the crazy thing is I spent less on these than I did at eMusic.  This tells me that I am either a) wasting too much money on eMusic.. of b) I would rather keep my monthly tab knowing that I can exhaust it on any mundane old albums my heart desires than go looking for those albums to pay for them in real time.  I wonder if the rest of the music buying public would agree with this…?

I dont know if this proves any of the great music business thinkers’ concepts as this still neglects the difference between my eMusic subscription and a Spotify subscription.  But it does make one thing evident.  I WILL spend more money on music by the Album than I will by the single and eMusic’s model of giving me an allowance each month will continue to feed my album fetish.  This is mostly a behavioral thing I suspect- but I still find it incredibly interesting.

Ok- thats all for now- I will try to be a better blogger in 2010.. Thanks

Oh.. and Happy 2010.. here’s a video to celebrate.

Thanks to Youtube, these questions can now be answered in 2:26 .

Enjoy

We decided that we would try to do something about it.  We would establish a blog aggregator.  A “Mashable” for Nashville’s music and technology set.  Hence the brand spanking new blog: Music City Interactive.  This is very young and at this point.. we are still REALLY working out the kinks, but the idea is- we will have multiple bloggers who write on various issues surrounding technology and music contribute via their RSS feeds.  Here in one place- you will be able to find and learn about (hopefully) every facet of the music, social media, technology and where they all intersect.

CHECK IT OUT! More on this later.