fair music weblog

Hip Hop in Schwizer Dütsch (swiss german)? A tv program that is called Cafe Ristretto? A video plattform on the web that has a fixed schedule? For some days now this is real: The internet technology design studio Neotrivium, which is situated in Zürich, Switzerland, has just launched the internet music tv-station Restorm.

“We want to get swiss bands to publish their own clips”, says Restorm-founder Theo Favetto in an interview for Blick online. Charts don’t have a go at Restorm. Of course they want as well to play videos of known bands, but their main interest is to foster young swiss bands. If necessary they would even help them out with a camerateam to shoot their music clip in a professional manner. That could mean a lot for the artists publicity in the country and abroad. Because up to now when people think of swiss music they probably only come up with Alphorns and Yodeling. And it is quite unlikely that a swiss band that is rapping in Schwizer Dütsch would have a chance on MTV or at one of the Majors.

On 27 and 28 September the Expert Group Meeting on the statistical measure of the diversity of cultural expressions, organized by the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) and the UNESCO Culture Sector, will be held in Montreal, Canada.
The experts will identify methodologies that can help measure the diversity of cultural expressions and study ways to assess and monitor this diversity to meet the requests of the 2005 Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions.
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The online music shop AnywhereCD that has been launched in April this year is closing end of September. The AnywhereCD concept was quite simple, as founder Michael Robertson writes: “(…) create an online store where customers could get the immediacy of digital files along with the permanence and familiarity of a physical CD. For one purchase price they would get the best of both worlds, with no need to take any extra steps just to get a MP3 file to play on their player. Sounds great in theory, but I wasn’t able to pull it off.”
In his blog Michael Robertson explains why his business failed and settles his account with the music business: “I met with all of the major labels (Universal, EMI, Sony, and Warner Music) and they seemed open minded to new ideas. One had a cautious ‘wait and see’ type of attitude. Another wanted millions of dollars up front. One insanely asked me if I would embed the purchaser’s credit card number in the song files they bought.”

Reading Michael Robertson’s blog one understands that AnywhereCD is one more example of the struggle that is currently going on in the music business at the turn from the material/analog to the digital age.

“Kreditkartennummern in Musik-Files” - ORF Futurezone

At the World Forum on Music in Beijing Martin Kretschmer, director of the Centre for Intellectual Property Policy & Management of Bournemouth University, UK presented his study about the earnings of musical artists. He said that there is not much data available on artist’s income and that it would be helpful to have a better and statistically comparable income basis. But what his research showed so far was that artists earn way less then the average citizen and that the top 10% of composers and songwriters account for almost 90% of the total earnings of the profession. A very important statement Kretschmer made on copyright income: “It is often claimed that copyright does ensure income for artists, but that’s plain nonsense.”, Kretschmer made clear. For composers, earnings from copyright royalties account on average for less than a quarter of creative income, for musicians, for about 1%. Copyright law in its current form is a weak and skewed regulatory mechanism for awarding authors and artists, says Kretschmer.

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The song “Return to Innocence”, recorded by the German Group Enigma, was directly mixed from a song recorded years earlier by Kuo Ying-Nan and Kuo Hsin-Chu, known as “Jubilant Drinking Song”. Large portions of “Jubilant Drinking Song” were lifted and copied by Enigma into their hugely popular track. Over fifty percent of “Return to Innocence” contains portions of the “Jubilant Drinking Song”. Although Enigma claimed that it had received permission to copy from a third party, neither that third party nor Enigma had ever received permission from the Kuos. But far worse, Enigma failed to recognize the Kuos as the creators and performers of this work. (more…)

mica – music austria is organizing a panel discussion titled
“fair music – It`s time for a change”.

Time: September 20, 7 pm
Location: net.culture.space, quartier21, Wiener Museumsquartier

Participants:
Peter Rantasa (Director of mica – music austria, inventor of the fair music initiative)
Célia Mara (Musician)
electric indigo (female:pressure)
Sascha Kösch (Chief Editor DE:BUG)
Siegi Lindenmayr (Member of the municipal counsel of Vienna)
Mona Mairitsch (Vice-Secretary-General of the Austrian UNESCO Commission)
Gerald Faschingeder (Vienna University, Director Paulo Freire Institute)
Moderator: Andreas Hirsch

Notification: fairmusic@musicaustria.at