The old, often legitimate accusation against labels was that they sold entire albums with only one good song or two. Now there’s an incentive for a song to have only 30 seconds of good stuff. It’s already happening: Chris Brown’s hit “Forever” is wrapped around a jingle for chewing gum. — John Pareles, NYT
Canadian studio and film production executives might want to think about lobbying for provincial and federal tax incentives to mirror those now being touted by Michigan state.
A little-known tax break for music producers that could help put Motown back on the music map has been available for two years in Michigan – but no one has taken advantage of it.
The state offers tax credits of up to 42% for the production of music CDs and music videos. The break was designed to lure big-name artists to record in Michigan, which already is home to Eminem, Kid Rock and Bob Segar.
The incentive is tucked away in a package of tax breaks for the movie industry, and state officials have put most of their efforts into growing the local film business instead of promoting the music break, the Detroit Free Press reported Sunday.
Wondering where Ludacris got his charm from? Just ask his “Baby” collaborator Justin Bieber. Luda tells Sirius XM’s Cosmo Radio that the 16-year-old singing sensation helped him out with the ladies. “I get all my womanly advice from Justin,” he joked. Bieber echoed the sentiments: “I’ve taught Ludacris everything he knows about girls.”
Specialty music business Fluid Music Canada (TSX: FMN) wants to list its shares on the AIM market of the London Stock Exchange, expecting its shares to start trading in London on 14 April 2010.
Fluid Music Canada sells its background music and messaging service to its customers and its specialty music compilations through its retail partners. Fluid’s extensive music library includes over 1.8M user-generated music tracks.
The firm provides background music and sells speciality music through supermarkets and other mass market retailers. The latter business was acquired near the end of last year and is called Somerset Music.
The company has a market cap of C$89.81M. Shares in the company have climbed from C$1.40 to the current $1.71 over the past six months.
JibJab co-founders Evan and Gregg Spiridellis talk with CinemaTech editor Scott Kirsner about starting a studio (in 1999) to make entertaining content for the Web…getting users engaged…merging art and technology…and experimenting with different business models (including advertising and subscriptions) to find one that works.
NDP MP Charlie Angus, a former musician in the punk rock band L’Étranger with Andrew Cash, and later in the more folk-oriented Grievous Angels, has formally introduced a bill meant to ease the legal uncertainty around format shifting, Nate Anderson writes in Arts Technica today. He proposes a trade: Canada’s levy on items like blank CDs gets expanded to devices like iPods, and in return people can legally transfer their own music to devices like iPods.
Of the 2,000 bands at the annual South by Southwest Music and Media Conference this week in Austin, Tex., more than 500 are from outside the United States, Chad Batka writes in today’s New York Times. To help make their way through the byzantine process of obtaining an American visa, about 200 of them have sent their paperwork, their prayers and $600 to Tamizdat which operates out of one tiny office on the Lower East Side of Manhattan.
I had the opportunity to attend the first annual Digital Strategies Conference as part of Canadian Music Week, in the capacity of both journalist and entrepreneur. I almost feel like I’m writing in another era when I’m submitting a report on an event that happened days ago, but I hope you’ll cut me a bit of slack. After all, this is the new “prosumer” frontier, where content consumers are often content creators and many of us need to wear a variety of hats. With that in mind, the two-sided hat I wore to Canadian Music Week, journalist on one side and entrepreneur on the other, has actually felt perfectly natural. For this late journalistic submission then, I plead entrepreneurial privilege.
It’s St. Patrick’s Day and we thought we’d spare you the usual blarney and celebrate the occasion with the bard performing in Dublin a distant 44 years ago.
