Grooveshark
:: Posted by Sid Smith on Tue., Oct 18, 2011
There's an insight into the working methods of Grooveshark in the comments section of the Digital Music News. My thanks to Rockette for sending in the following post. He writes "The row about Grooveshark rumbles on at Digital Music News. Most commentators deplore the company’s lack of ethics, and of course there are the usual dismissive comments from Brave-New-Worlders claiming that the only future for the music biz is for all artists to give away their tracks for free.

This recent anonymous post caught my eye:

I work for Grooveshark. Here is some information from the trenches:

We are assigned a predetermined ammount of weekly uploads to the system and get a small extra bonus if we manage to go above that (not easy).The assignments are assumed as direct orders from the top to the bottom, we don’t just volunteer to "enhance" the Grooveshark database.

All search results are monitored and when something is tagged as "not available", it get’s queued up to our lists for upload. You have to visualize the database in two general sections: "known" stuff and "undiscovered/indie/underground". The "known" stuff is taken care internally by uploads. Only for the "undiscovered" stuff are the users involved as explained in some posts above. Practically speaking, there is not much need for users to upload a major label album since we already take care of this on a daily basis.

Are the above legal, or ethical? Of course not. Don’t reply to give me a lecture. I know. But if the labels and their laywers can’t figure out how to stop it, then I don’t feel bad for having a job. It’s tough times.

Why am I disclosing all this? Well, I have been here a while and I don’t like the attitude that the administration has aquired against the artists. They are the enemy. They are the threat. The things that are said internally about them would make you very very angry. Interns are promised getting a foot in the music industry, only to hear these people cursing and bad mouthing the whole industry all day long, to the point where you wonder what would happen if Grooveshark get’s hacked by Anonymous one day and all the emails leak on some torrent or something.

And, to confirm the fears of the members of King Crimson, there is no way in hell you can get your stuff down. They are already tagged since you sent in your first complaint. The administration knows that you can’t afford to sue for infringement.

Judging by the way Grooveshark have conducted themselves in their dealings with Declan Colgan and Robert Fripp, this has the ring of truth. In the old days, the enemy of musicians were what Zappa called "the old cigar-chomping guys"; now it appears there is a new foe, somewhat younger but just as devious and unscrupulous.  As Pete Townshend said, "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss".

Play it Frippy, very Frippy
:: Posted by Sid Smith on Tue., Oct 18, 2011
My thanks to Andrea Tolin for alerting me to this episode from Live At Daryl's House. Andrea writes "during the "Greg Biek" part, the guitar player tells to the keyboard player to slow down, to take his time....and Daryl said 'play it Frippy, very Frippy'".

Bill B In Sweden
:: Posted by Sid Smith on Sun., Oct 16, 2011
Here's a link to a piece about Bill Bruford who is currently speaking about his work in the USA. Bill will also be speaking in Sweden next month and you can find details of the public part of his itinerary over on the news page of his website.

Markus Reuter Talks
:: Posted by Sid Smith on Sat., Oct 15, 2011
Here's an interview with Markus Reuter, who is currently turning a few heads on the 2OAPT tour. For those unfamiliar with Markus' work there's Kopfmensch  a kind of young persons guide to Markus Reuter. Details about each of the tracks is available here.

KC Is An Elite Club
:: Posted by Sid Smith on Sat., Oct 15, 2011
"King Crimson is an elite club", says Belew. "There have only been seven members in the last 30 years.  Having Tony, Pat and myself onstage, three legitimate Crimson players, will make this as close as currently possible to the actual thing." Here's a link to the full interview.

Grooveshark Problems with Truth & Ingestion
:: Posted by Sid Smith on Fri., Oct 14, 2011
Digital Music News have an article featuring the correspondence between various members of the DGM team and Grooveshark. There's an interesting response from Grooveshark's Paul Geller where he says that Grooveshark's original claim to have legitimately licensed KC material (something they told fans who queried KC tracks being made available) was due to "ingestion problems"and that Mr.Geller didn't know "where that mistruth originated".

Make sure you scroll down to the comments section as well and feel free to make your own thoughts heard.

Baidu - Bad News For Artists?
:: Posted by Sid Smith on Fri., Oct 14, 2011
It may be old news to you but eyebrows were raised at DGM Towers upon discovering that the major record labels have entered into a deal to stream content with China’s major search engine, Baidu. "Baidu will pay a fee to the labels for each time a song is downloaded or played in a stream. It will also share revenue from online ads if that revenue exceeds a certain amount, as well as provide promotional support for the labels. The companies declined to disclose financial details of the agreement."

We Asked Grooveshark What They Pay Artists. And This Is What They Said...
:: Posted by Sid Smith on Thu., Oct 13, 2011
My thanks to SSImuse for sending in this article published in Digital Music News.

It’s one simple question. But getting Grooveshark to answer it was a complicated affair - and ultimately, one that produced a very complicated answer.           

Attempt #1: Email

Digital Music News (to Grooveshark SVP Paul Geller): How much does Grooveshark pay artists, labels, or other rightsholders per on-demand stream? On any song?

[two attempts, no answer]

Attempt #2: @ Digital Music Forum West

Friday, Q&A session immediately following a presentation by Grooveshark SVP Paul Geller.

Digital Music News (Paul Resnikoff): "Right now Grooveshark has money coming in.  I’m curious to know on a granular basis - on a per on-demand stream basis - what is the rights holder receiving?  What is the artist getting, what is the label getting - per stream, per actual song?"

Geller (from stage): "So all of the contracts that we’re doing now are rev-share based, except for those with the PROs.  The PROs get their statutory rates, and so do the publishers for interactive.  And, the rest of them is just a pro-rata share.  So I think that’s the common way to go about it now, I think that’s the only way that you can subsist on this type of money.  And that’s why I think that we have to be creative about how to get more money into this ecosystem, because I don’t think anyone sees those numbers and is really inspired by them, I think people look at them and say ’well this is a soft landing for the music industry,’ it’s ’hopefully we don’t have to lay off too many people.’  And that’s why I think that Grooveshark is out there trying to be creative about how to infuse the industry with more money in ways that I don’t think are commonplace right now."

Digital Music News: "But if I’m an artist coming onto Grooveshark, what should I expect?  What kind of check should I expect if I get - let’s say - 100 plays?"  

Geller: "I think there are plenty of independent artists out there that can expect to be paid a good amount of money, if they’ve gone it alone or gone without a label and they’ve promoted themselves in a way that is effective and you know - they’re big.  So if you’re looking for a per-stream rate number..."

Digital Music News: "Yeah, something, some number."

Geller: "Well I can’t give you a number because it’s really hypothetical.  But I can tell you this, though: moving forward, we’re going to be completely transparant about how people are paid.  And you can log in as an artist, you can see how many streams you’re getting.  And that artist payment system is going to be completely on-demand, so when we roll out this direct-to-artist payment system, you’re not going to need a label.  You don’t need a big label to claim your money, that’s not what we’re trying to do.  This is an open platform where anyone in the world can distribute their music anywhere in the world.  And I think the licensing question is a question - it’s complicated.  We’re aggressive about licensing and when we go directly to the artist, the artist has complete control.  You have complete control over what you put on Grooveshark and what you don’t."

Crimson Fairy Book
:: Posted by Sid Smith on Thu., Oct 13, 2011
My thanks to jhessel who, referring to Boz Burrell's Crim-quote, writes "It must be true about the airy-fairy sh-t"

Michael Giles Goes Pop (Matters)
:: Posted by Sid Smith on Wed., Oct 12, 2011
The latest album from the Michael Giles MAD band In The Moment (featuring special guest, Keith Tippett), has been given the thumbs-aloft over at PopMatters