The WGA has told its members not to work for Constantin Film Development, the powerhouse German production company behind such films as the Resident Evil franchise, Downfall and The Baader Meinhof Complex.
Read More: https://deadline.com/2021/10/writers-guild-constantin-film-dispute-working-rule-8-1234865313/
Amazon Music has officially launched a pitching tool for artists, and in a stark contrast to some competing streaming services’ promotional programs, this tool doesn’t encompass a payola component.
IATSE leaders are urging their members to “stay united” and vote “yes” to ratify the tentative agreement for a new film and TV contract. In the latest message to their members, IATSE president Matthew Loeb and the leaders of Hollywood’s 13 locals covered by the agreement acknowledged that there is opposition to the proposed new deal but said it was “the best agreement possible.” The ratification vote is expected to be held next month.
On the same week that it was reported that Netflix tweaked its search algorithms a year ago to hide French film Cuties and quash a controversy surrounding the movie, it’s now been revealed that Netflix has declared that its algorithms are protected by the First Amendment.
Read More: https://www.nexttv.com/news/netflix-says-its-algorithms-are-protected-under-the-1st-amendment
Earlier this month, we reported on news of a “new music & audio company inside Amazon” being led by former Techstars Music director Jen Hall. Now there may be more details on what’s afoot, as The Verge reported that Amazon is “building a new app, codenamed ‘Project Mic,’ that gives anyone the ability to make and distribute a live radio show, complete with music.”
Read More: https://musically.com/2021/10/27/amazon-user-generated-music-radio/
Like so many kids at the dawn of the new millennium, Michelle Maalouf knew the best place to get music was the internet. The then-teenager’s platform of choice was Kazaa, and her download list was filled with the classics of the day: boy bands, Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, Mariah Carey. “Everyone I knew downloaded music for free,” Maalouf remembers. “Any type of music. I didn’t know that there was anything wrong with it. I thought it was just a way of listening to music and a way to explore.”
Disgraced Hollywood film producer and convicted sex offender Harvey Weinstein cut short the theater run of Oscar sensation Good Will Hunting in 1997 to mess with Robin WIlliams’ career, according to the movie’s executive producer Kevin Smith.
Smith, 51, alleged in his new book ‘Kevin Smith’s Secret Stash’ that Weinstein pulled the indie film from theaters just as it was gaining Oscar buzz, because Williams had negotiated a deal whereby he would rake in more of the profits if the movie grossed over $100 million.
Inefficient cue sheet administration is a huge legacy problem for the music industry, but major steps are being taken to modernise the process for the digital age. Eamonn Forde examines the progress so far.
The MBW Review is where we aim our microscope towards some of the music biz’s biggest recent goings-on. This time, we delve into documents filed by music streaming services with the US Copyright Royalty Board, proposing songwriter royalty rates for the five years between 2023 and 2027. The MBW Review is supported by Instrumental.
The Rust production team released a letter to the crew of the Alec Baldwin feature tonight saying that they’ve “made the decision to wrap the set at least until investigations are complete.”
The note comes as the Santa Fe Sheriff’s Office is conducting a search warrant of the Bonanza Creek Ranch in New Mexico after a discharged prop gun by Baldwin took the life of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins and injured the film’s director Joel Souza in the shoulder on Thursday.
In an unusual–if not historic–move, the Copyright Royalty Board has decided to re-open public comments in the controversial “frozen mechanicals” rate hearing to set the government rate for mechanical royalties paid on physical records and downloads. It is absolutely crucial that the Judges have reopened the comments because it indicates that they are bending over backwards to demonstrate their interest in being fair and deliberative and not allowing themselves to be used to bootstrap an unfair freeze on mechanical royalties. (If you need to catch up, there are many posts on Trichordist about “frozen mechanicals“.)
Last week, National Music Publishers’ Association (NMPA) president and CEO David Israelite claimed that streaming services were demanding “the lowest royalty rates in history” ahead of the Copyright Royalty Board’s mechanical rate determination for 2023 to 2027. Now, DSPs have officially published their rate proposals for the half-decade stretch.
We’re pleased to say that — thanks to our dedicated distribution team — we were able to pay out one of our largest distributions ever. Find out what that means in terms of numbers below:
Read More: https://directors.uk.com/news/foreign-distribution-october-2021
Direct-to-Consumer chief Andy Forssell is, however, closely watching Netflix’s numbers: “we pay attention to the numbers Netflix puts out because that’s the scoreboard for us to matter in that.”
Spotify (NYSE: SPOT) has officially unveiled a merch-store partnership with e-commerce platform Shopify (NYSE: SHOP), and the deal will allow artists to feature up to three products on their Spotify profiles.
The Stockholm-based audio-entertainment service and Ottawa-headquartered Shopify formally announced their agreement this morning. Said agreement – which arrives about seven months after Amazon Music unveiled its own artist-merch store – will enable “any artist globally” to link to a Shopify store on Spotify.
The KLF’s music publisher is seeking to block the screening of a documentary about the duo on the basis that tracks which feature in the film have not been licensed. Which is very possibly a legitimate reason for stopping the distribution of ‘Who Killed The KLF?’, though it’s also slightly ironic given the uncleared samples that famously appeared in The KLF’s early releases.
The major music companies will not be fond of this news.
Last month, the UK government responded to a major label-bashing report about the economics of streaming with a notably laissez faire series of recommendations.
These recommendations included a suggestion that the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) should unilaterally decide whether (or not) to conduct a new market study into streaming, and the power of the major record companies.
This guest column was written by David Israelite, president & CEO of the National Music Publishers’ Association, the trade association representing American music publishers and their songwriting partners. Variety welcomes responsible commentary; please send music-related inquiries and submissions to music@variety.com.
The UK’s competition regulator, the Competition & Markets Authority, has this morning announced that it plans to launch a market study into music streaming.
A British motion picture studio is suing a director for allegedly reneging on his promise to shoot the upcoming fourth installment of the “The Expendables” film franchise.
CAA co-chair Richard Lovett said the agency’s battle with Warner Bros. and Walt Disney over client compensation – conflicts that in the past have rarely spilled into view publicly – are part of a broad struggle to define value in a streaming landscape where numbers are scarce.
If you don’t know the history, you may think that songwriters are paid so little because somehow they don’t deserve more. That’s not true. The reason that songwriters are paid so little is that every U.S. mechanical royalty rate we have and have had since 1909 somehow refers back to the 2¢ rate set by Congress in 1909 that did not change until 1978. (And due to America’s long commercial shadow, that base-2¢ valuation is visited on the rest of the world.)
A lawsuit filed against Lil Wayne by his former manager and legal advisor has been dismissed on jurisdiction grounds, although new litigation could as yet be filed in another US state.
Heather Fink has spent her working life on film and TV sets. But years of frustration with the long hours and stagnant pay had made her reach her tipping point. She, like many of the grips, gaffers, editors, designers and other crew members who making a living producing movies and shows, was ready to go on strike at midnight on Sunday. But as the clock ticked, the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, which numbers some 60,000 members, and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers reached an agreement. Fink and her colleagues would not have to hit the picket lines.
EXCLUSIVE: With Hollywood on edge and picket signs at the ready, IATSE and the AMPTP have reached an agreement on a new film and TV contract, averting a threatened nationwide strike.
The new three-year contract, which must now be ratified by the union’s members, comes just hours before the deadline – midnight PT Sunday – imposed by IATSE president Matthew Loeb. The union and the Carol Lombardini-led AMPTP are expected to make the agreement public shortly.
Among those walking back or contextualizing their initial reactions was Adam McKay, who copped to deleting a Tweet congratulating IATSE on their new deal. “I posted it an hour after the news broke and am now aware there were concessions that weren’t so great,” the Oscar-winning filmmaker wrote. “Yet another example of the golden rule: “take a beat before reacting.”
Read More: https://deadline.com/2021/10/hollywood-reacts-as-iatse-strike-is-averted-1234857116/
Late yesterday (October 14), the National Music Publishers’ Association made the claim that a number of digital service owners – including Spotify, Apple, Amazon, and Google – are trying to cut the amount of money they pay songwriters in the US to the “lowest royalty rates in history”.
In an “FAQs” document sent to Local members on Thursday, the union offered guidance around “scabbing,” health care, unemployment benefits and travel if it calls a mass work stoppage in the next few days.
75-year-old singer and actress Cher is officially suing Mary Bono, the fourth wife of Sonny Bono and trustee of the Bono Collection Trust, for allegedly attempting to terminate components of a multifaceted 1978 agreement covering Cher and Sonny’s jointly released music projects.
El Centro-born Cher just recently submitted the complaint to a federal court in her native California, naming Mary Bono as a defendant both individually and as trustee of the aforementioned Bono Collection Trust. According to the straightforward action, Cher and Sonny Bono, who were married in 1967 and released “I Got You Babe” and a number of other well-known tracks, “agreed to an equal division of their community property” after divorcing in 1975.
You might want to sit down for this one, songwriters.
Music streaming service owners including Spotify, Apple, Amazon, Pandora and Google have all filed documents with the US Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) this week to tell them what they think they should pay songwriters for the five years between 2023 and 2027.
On 7 October, the International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers (CISAC), the Society of Audiovisual Authors (SAA) and Writers & Directors Worldwide (W&DW) co-hosted a virtual panel entitled “Lights and Action on Authors’ Royalties”. The talk, moderated by CISAC’s regional director for Africa, Samuel Sangwa, saw screenwriters and directors come together to highlight the lack of fair rights for audiovisual authors and support actions to guarantee their right to earn royalties.
Read More: https://cineuropa.org/en/newsdetail/411847
Richard Finch – a founder member of KC & The Sunshine Band who co-wrote some of the group’s biggest hits – has sued EMI Longitude Music, part of Sony Music Publishing, in a bid to force the termination right under US Copyright law in relation to a stack of songs including ‘That’s The Way I Like It’.
The Ninth Circuit appeals court in the US has declined to overturn a judgement in a lower court that dismissed a song-theft claim against The Weeknd by British songwriters Brian Clover, Scott McCulloch and Billy Smith. The Weeknd – real name Abel Tesfaye – was accused of ripping off the trio’s song ‘I Need To Love’ on his 2016 track ‘A Lonely Night’.
IATSE and the AMPTP have ended their fifth day of do-or-die contract talks and will resume bargaining for a new film and TV pact on Monday. But if a deal is to be reached, and a strike averted, it will have to be made soon. On Friday, Matt Loeb, the union’s president, said that either way, “It’s a matter of days, not weeks.” The two sides have been bargaining, on and off, since mid-May.
In a word: Stagflation. Maybe. In more words, classic stagflation occurs when supply side shocks lead to the costs of goods increasing while the real economy declines. We certainly have had and continue to have supply side shocks and it’s hard to tell what the real economy is doing because of distortion. Due to the COVID pandemic, the global economy has been hit with a cascading series of supply side shocks. For example, one shock is due to supply chain disruptions which look something like this:
Chris Brown and Drake ripped off an earlier track when they wrote their 2019 collaborative song ‘No Guidance’, according to singer Braindon Cooper and producer Timothy Valentine. Not only that, but ‘No Guidance’ includes a sneaky lyric alluding to the audacious song-theft, it’s alleged.
Read More: https://completemusicupdate.com/article/chris-brown-and-drake-accused-of-song-theft-on-no-guidance/
It’s typical for Hollywood’s labor unions to support for each other during labor disputes, but the support for IATSE during its current contract dispute with film and TV producers goes beyond the usual labor solidarity. That’s because the below-the-line workers’ union could be setting a standard for all future Hollywood contracts in the streaming era.
The IATSE, the union for production crew members working on movies, TV, and live stage events (you’ve absolutely seen the group’s logo, even if you’ve never considered what its members do), just voted in overwhelming support of a strike authorization today after ongoing talks with the AMPTP (an association that represents the TV networks, movie studios, and production companies when they deal with unions like the IATSE or SAG-AFTRA or the WGA).
Read More: https://www.avclub.com/heres-how-the-iatses-strike-vote-over-unfair-wages-and-1847796408
In the 1930s and ’40s, five major Hollywood studios dominated the film industry and tried to lock up distribution and exhibition channels as well by taking over movie theaters across the country. Courts and regulators saw that allowing studios so much power up and down the film supply chain posed grave threats to the integrity of the industry and to viewer choice.
Spotify is cracking down on fake streams with promises to withhold royalties and remove content.
Fake streams are plays of music by bots, hijacked accounts, or other inauthentic listening methods. It’s become such a problem that J Cole rapped about it in the 2018 song, “A Lot.”
“Getting they plays from machines /
I can see behind the smoke and mirrors /
N**gas ain’t really big as they seem.”
With the streaming revolution breathing new life into a once-moribund music industry collapsing under plummeting CD sales and rampant piracy, the world’s biggest record companies – Universal Music, Sony Music and Warner Music – have got their financial mojo back.
Speaking in the context of the ongoing streaming rates for musicians and writers, Ulvaeus said the industry placed little value on songwriters thanks to the low returns streaming brings.
Speaking to Music Week, he added: “If there are 15 of them [songwriters] and one stream pays $000.something, they have to drive a taxi,” he said, joking that songwriting “teams” that are prevalent in the industry now would earn little in the way of royalties.
