Miami Beach to Host 24th Annual Winter Music Conference

The city of Miami Beach will host the 24th annual Winter Music Conference (WMC) next month. The conference, which is scheduled to take place from March 24th to March 28th at the Miami Beach Resort & Spa, is the biggest networking event for insiders of the music industry worldwide.

Each year, thousands of DJ’s, artists, and music executives from over 70 countries gather to collaborate, network, and share the latest innovations in the music business. The conference includes panels and seminars on topics currently affecting the industry. All members of the music business are represented, from technological innovators, artists, producers, video programmers, distributors, and manufacturers.

WMC is a great opportunity for aspiring artists to break into the industry. The conference will hold demo listening workshops, DJ spin-offs, and other performance events for upcoming DJ’s and artists to showcase their talents to an international audience of music industry professionals.

The conference also provides a global platform for industry members to discuss how technology is changing the way people create, buy, and distribute music as well as the challenges such changes pose to the industry. Seminars will be conducted to debate a range of topics, including copyrighting, publishing, internet retailing, and writing contracts.

WMC will close out this year in grand fashion, with the Ultra Music Festival (UMF). UMF is the largest music festival in the United States and will feature unique musical talents from around the world.

In addition to the information sessions and seminars, WMC is also known for its party scene. Organizers have scheduled events to take place throughout different venues in Miami, one of the world’s renowned party cities. Party people from around the world will get to groove to the mixes and spins of some of the best international DJ’s and music artists as they enjoy Miami’s night scene.

Music lovers who plan to attend can stay at nearby hotels, including the Marco Polo Beach Resort. This Miami Beach hotel is conveniently located on Collins Avenue, a few minutes from WMC headquarters. In addition to its breathtaking views and central location, this three star hotel also offers guests great accommodations, including spacious guest rooms with full service kitchenettes, private balconies, 27” cable television, and free wireless internet. Services and amenities also include a full fitness gym, complete with sauna and steam room; beauty salon; gift shop; daily maid service; and 24 hour valet parking service.

http://www.wintermusicconference.com/

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Industry Moves: Universal Music; Highland Capital; BBE

Amanda Marks

UMGD: Universal Music Group Distribution is doing away with the division between its physical and digital services and promoted three of its executives: Amanda Marks is now EVP (formerly VP) and GM of Universal Music Distribution, Laura Saez is SVP (formerly VP) of sales, UMD and Mitch Rotter is VP of marketing, UMD. The company will start focusing on personalized marketing and sales to help artists better deal with digital and physical music sales.

Jack Haire

Highland Capital Partners: Earlier this week, Time Warner exec Jack Haire joined the venture capital firm as an in-house venture executive focusing on digital media. During his career he was publisher of Time magazine and president of Fortune/Money group. He worked with CNN on the launch of CNNMoney.com and in 2006 became an advisor to CNET. Haire told WSJ.com that a “great [working] experience” with Highland was part of the reason for turning to VC and that in his new role, he’ll be looking at small business or health care companies that have successfully folded social networking into their business models.

BBE: The company formerly known as Broadband Enterprises has named Joe Gallagher EVP of sales. In this new position, Gallagher will take on many of the responsibilities held by Danny Fishman, who will transition to president. A longtime media sales executive, Gallagher was most recently VP of multimedia sales at The Wall Street Journal.

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Neither One

Neither one wants to…then the time comes when there’s nothing else to say. I just continue to love life…

I remember riding in the car with my mom when I was little. I changed the station on the radio to an old soul classic station and my mom changed it back. I knew it was a wonderful song (I don’t remember the title) that she turned from so I asked why she didn’t want to listen to it. She said, “Prema, some songs take you back to memories you may not want to remember.”

I understand her now.

Prema LaNay~still growing…

It’s sad to think, we’re not gonna make it
And it’s gotten to the point where we just can fake it (Ooo)
For some unGodly reason we just won’t let it down (let it down)
I guess neither one of us (neither one of us)
Wants to be the first to say good bye

I keep on wondering (wondering)
What I’m gonna do with out ya (do without you)
And I guess you must be wondering that same thing too (Ooo)
So we go on go on together living our lives (living our lives)
Because neither one of us (neither one of us)
Wants to be the first to say good bye
Oooooh ev’rytime I find the nerve
Everytime I find the nerve to say I’m leavin’ (leavin’)
Oh, memories, those old memories get in my way (my way my way)
Oh (Ooo) Lord knows it’s only me only knows it’s only me
That I’m deceiving
When it comes to say good bye
That’s a simple word that I just cannot say
There can be no way (be no way)
This can have a happy ending (happy ending)
So we just go on (we go on) hurting and pretending
And convincing ourselves to give it just one more try (one more try)
Because neither one of us (Neither one of us)
Wants to be the forst to say
Neither one of us (neither one of us) Wants to be the first to say
Neither one of us (Neither one of us) wants to be the first to say
Fairwell my love, goodbye (goodbye)

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The Gift Economy

There has never been a Mozart of the greeting card industry, nor an Elvis, nor a Springsteen, and nonetheless the U.S. greeting card industry takes in $7.5 billion a year. That’s around the same as what the U.S. recording industry gets from selling CDs and two-thirds of all the revenue from music sales. The greeting card business manages to do this despite the facts that there is no single card that’s a blockbuster hit, that it has no broadcast industry behind it to promote greeting card sales, that you cannot sample its products on YouTube—and maybe, most notably, that its very simple product has to be delivered personally or be sent by plain old postal mail. With a 42-cent stamp, too.

One distinctive thing about greeting cards that has kept the industry afloat despite all the marks against it in the digital age is that you do not send a birthday card (or, let’s really hope, a Valentine’s Day card) to yourself. Cards are bought for other people. So, sometimes, is music. And books. And, in the future, movies. That’s something the media industry is just now waking up to.

Since the release of the latest version of iTunes in September, it’s been possible to use iTunes to send a song, or even the digital equivalent of a whole mix tape (remember that not-quite-obsolete art form?) to someone else right from iTunes. Possible, though not exactly intuitive. I didn’t know you could until I was shown by a more iTunes-aware colleague. It involves clicking a little arrow to the right of the song in your collection (so that’s what those are about!), then clicking the “Gift This Music” icon positioned so you are nearly certain that you’re going to buy the whole album, and then a few more clicks to get it done. But the music does get delivered, digitally, and goes right into your recipient’s iTunes library.

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Sources: RIAA cuts up to 25 jobs

As expected, the Recording Industry Association of America, the lobbying group of the four largest music labels, has laid off between 20 and 25 workers, or about 20 percent of the RIAA’s workforce, according to music industry sources.

In addition to the layoffs, the RIAA eliminated some positions through attrition, the sources said. In all, 31 of the company’s 104 employees, or just under 30 percent, were either laid off or quit recently and will not be replaced. The RIAA leadership remains unchanged. My sources say CEO Mitch Bainwol and President Cary Sherman have contracts extending through the end of 2010.

According to two music industry sources, the layoffs happened earlier this month and most occurred at the RIAA’s regional offices.

How To Kill The Music Industry

During The Pirate Bay trial, the music industry placed the blame for the decline in their revenues squarely on the shoulders of file-sharers. Their logic is clearly flawed, but it could sway the verdict if no alternative explanation is presented. So, if piracy isn’t to blame, then what is *actually* killing the music industry?

According to Per Sundin, CEO of Universal Music, the decline in music revenues in the past 8 years can be fully attributed to illegal file sharing. If this were actually true, many of us might even respect his decision to go after pirates as fiercely as the music industry is doing right now. However, the past 8 years have seen a lot more changes in the landscape of home entertainment than Per Sundin would like to admit, and some of those changes have had a massive impact on music profitability — much more so than any amount of piracy.

Let us refresh our memories and take a look at what actually happened during and just before the past 8 years:

Will Spotify change the music biz?

In the last couple of days, I’ve talked to three people about the future of music – the head of digital at the world’s biggest music label, a very wired music consumer, and an executive at a fast growing new streaming service. I asked them all the same thing – will the arrival of that new service Spotify change the music industry?

Unsurprisingly, Roberta Maley from Spotify was convinced that this was a game-changer, not just another me-too service. She did give me some new figures on its growth – 250,000 UK subscribers, 800,000 worldwide, with Sweden and Spain the biggest markets.

But she was less forthcoming about two vital issues for the future of the company – the split between those who listen to the ad-supported service for free and those who pay for an ad-free service, and the possibility that users could listen on the move. Spotify is keen to have a “mixed economy” with new arrivals drawn in by the free service then migrating to the £9.99 per month subscription deal to avoid the ads.

Colleges ready to try blanket music licenses from Choruss

Today’s Digital Music Forum East conference in New York started off with a talk by Jim Griffin, who is working with Warner Music to launch a new project that goes by the name Choruss. Choruss is designed to provide campuses with blanket licenses to music based on the model of current collecting societies. Details on the system have been a bit vague, and Griffin’s talk made it clear why: there will be no single system. Choruss will act as an incubator and testbed in the same way that the Isle of Man hopes its government-sanctioned program will.

Speaking to an audience composed largely of members of the music industry, Griffin wasted no time in hammering home why that business really needed to be experimenting. “Music is awash in Tarzan economics—we’re barely hanging on to the frayed line that keeps us off the jungle floor,” he said, arguing that music needed to find a new vine, and quick. The music industry is still focused on products but, in Griffin’s view, “the market for music products has fallen and can’t get up.”

Info on The Funklordz 7 Yr Anniversary

So thanks Quic for this one.

The Funklordz end up calling me whatever they like…(at least thay say it right)
This will be a big one.

Plaintiffs: Pirate Bay Is ‘No. 1 Source Of Illegal Music’

The head of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry Wednesday described Swedish bit torrent site The Pirate Bay as the “No. 1 source of illegal music.”

According to Billboard Business News, John Kennedy, the IFPI’s chairman and CEO, told Stockholm District Court—where The Pirate Bay is currently in the eighth day of a trial to prosecute it for possible copyright violations—that the music industry has lost 38 percent of its sales since 2001 because of illegal downloading.

Kennedy, formerly president and COO of Universal Music International, said bit torrent has caused “significant damage to the music industry as a whole” and has done so through cutting into legitimate music sales, undermining music companies’ marketing plans and hurting the flow of new music to consumers. He described The Pirate Bay as the chief offender in illegal music downloading since illegal music download forerunners such as Grokster and Kazaa had been successfully prosecuted.