Music Industry News

Sculptor Cork Marcheschi Creates Art Tatum Memorial

Source: Michael Ricci
February 27, 2010

After winning a competition, public sculptor Cork Marcheschi creates the Art Tatum Celebration Column in Toledo, Ohio, in honor of that city's jazz genius Art Tatum, a beautifully-illuminated 30 foot sculpture of a piano keyboard with a twist. The Art Tatum Celebration Column in Toledo, Ohio, the most expensive piece of public art ever installed in that city, was dedicated on September 11, 2009. The column was conceived, designed and built by Cork Marcheschi, a San Francisco public artist and ...

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Singer Anita Baker Avoids Jail in Royalty Dispute

Source: All About Jazz
February 27, 2010

Grammy-winning singer Anita Baker reaches deal in music royalty dispute, avoids jail

Anita Baker and her attorneys have worked out an agreement that will help determine how much the Grammy-winning singer's ex-husband is owed in music royalties as part of a divorce settlement. Baker was ordered to a Detroit court Friday after the 52-year-old R&B singer missed a deadline Wednesday to sign related documents and declined again to sign them Thursday. The judge threatened to jail Baker if she didn't ...

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67% Say Concert Tickets Are Too Expensive

Source: All About Jazz
February 27, 2010

As artists big and small begin to announce their spring and summer concert schedules, a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 67% of adults who attend at least one professional music concert a year say tickets in general are too expensive.

Just 14% disagree, and another 20% are not sure. Seventy-five percent (75%) of Americans who go to the movies at least once a month think that movie tickets are too expensive, too. But when adults nationwide are ...

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Former Teen Cheerleader Dinged $27,750 for Infringing 37 Songs

Source: All About Jazz
February 27, 2010

Harper must pay the RIAA $27,750 for file sharing that began when she was 14. A federal appeals court is ordering a university student to pay the Recording Industry Association of America $27,750 $750 a track for file sharing 37 songs when she was a high school cheerleader. The decision Thursday by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reverses a Texas federal judge who had ordered defendant Whitney Harper to pay $7,400 or $200 per song. The lower court ...

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Street on Cape Cod Renamed for Patti Page

Source: All About Jazz
February 26, 2010

Patti Page Way named on 'Old Cape Cod'

Thanks to the lyrics of her 1950s hit song, Patti Page knew about Cape Cods winding roads before she even visited the area. In a ceremony today, one of those roads was named after her. Naturally, I was honored, said Page, 82, by phone. I was really thrilled that they were going to do this for me here. Page recorded Old Cape Cod in 1957. Although she had not yet been to ...

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Managing Your Digital Remains

Source: All About Jazz
February 26, 2010

Hamlet, that lucky stiff, only had to worry about being or not being what a nice, binary Denmark he lived in. We modern mopes, on the other hand, must consider not only our too, too solid flesh but also our online infinitude. From banking to book-buying, from Facebook pages to busty Warcraft avatars to scrupulously Tumblrd bucket lists, we leave our silicon snakeskins scattered from here to tim.buk.tu. In a sense, its the realization of William Gibsons Neuromancer fantasy: Weve ...

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Music Biz Back to Playing the Blues

Source: Michael Ricci
February 26, 2010

Since the days of Napster (version 1.0), the music industry has been mired in a funk. But then legitimate digital music services came along to help salvage sales, and the industry rejoiced. Now comes a return of bad news. Last year saw a 21% drop in the number of people in the U.S. buying music -- both digital and physical -- compared with 2007, according to figures released Thursday by NPD Group, a market research firm. The NPD numbers echo ...

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Of Course On-Demand Music Replaces Sales - It's Supposed To

Source: All About Jazz
February 26, 2010

At the Digital Music Forum East in snowy New York, executives gathered to hear new data comparing what happens to music sales when people use interactive radio services such as Pandora as opposed to subscribing to unlimited streaming services such as Rhapsody and Spotify. The Pandora-like radio model has a promotional effect on music sales, increasing them 41 percent, according to NPDs data. Meanwhile, streaming services that let users hear just about any song they want, such as Spotify, cause ...

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