| The DJ is not an artist, but he is an artist. He's not a promoter, but he is a promoter. He's not a record company man, but he is. And he's also part of the crowd. He's an instigator who brings all these things together. |
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 | | New song, who dis? Tierra Whack at Pharrell's Something in the Water festival, Washington, D.C., June 17, 2022. | | (Paul Morigi/Getty Images) | | |
| quote of the day |
| "The DJ is not an artist, but he is an artist. He's not a promoter, but he is a promoter. He's not a record company man, but he is. And he's also part of the crowd. He's an instigator who brings all these things together." | | - Dom Phillips, 1964 – 2022 | |
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| rantnrave:// |
License to Stream
"[G]reat news for artists, bad news for labels," tweeted TOBI VAIL, who has spent a good deal of her life on both sides of that fence. "[L]abels take note and pay up!," offered KEVIN BRENNAN, a British member of Parliament who's been at the forefront of a movement to increase artists' share of the music streaming pie. Those were among the early responses to DOMINO's settlement with FOUR TET in a closely watched lawsuit over the royalties the former was paying the latter for streams and downloads under a contract signed in 2001, two years before the ITUNES STORE opened.
Domino was paying Four Tet 18%, its standard royalty rate for physical sales (while claiming it was only required to pay 13.5%, a three-quarters rate for new technologies). Four Tet argued the label's agreements with online services were equivalent to licenses, for which labels and artists customarily split revenues 50/50.
The sales v. license debate has been a long-running one, especially for artists who signed their deals before contracts accounted for streaming and download income. EMINEM's earliest producers successfully sued UNIVERSAL more than a decade ago with a similar argument, in a case that was specifically about downloads, not streams. Though it didn't establish a wider legal precedent, the Eminem case prompted more suits from older artists, some of which were settled privately.
FOUR TET, who sued in British court, got nearly all he was asking for in his settlement with Domino, he and his lawyer said Monday—a 50 percent royalty, £57,0000 to cover unpaid past royalties, plus legal costs. "Hopefully," Four Tet tweeted, "I've opened up a constructive dialogue and maybe prompted others to push for a fairer deal on historical contracts."
The out-of-court settlement isn't binding on other artists or labels, but "the public acknowledgement from a large record label on treating streaming income as a licence," Music Week wrote, "could establish a commercial precedent, which would then inevitably be used in arguments for separate legal disputes that centre on streaming royalties." It could also, the magazine suggested, give artists confidence that they'd have the upper hand in a legal fight.
Though Domino is based in the UK, both the label and its artists have a strong presence in the US, which raises the question of how the deal might affect American indie artists and labels, if not major artists and labels, too, in a world where the line between the two has always been blurry. And though modern contracts spell out the digital deal points that were missing in Four Tet's early days, what might future signees—and their lawyers—ask for once they start seeing their older peers getting a much bigger share of the digital pie? Can two unequal standards exist side by side at the same labels and the same streaming services?
Etc Etc Etc
"The farkakte lawsuits, and the business side," and the people who refuse to believe a diva can write a song: MARIAH CAREY's glorious acceptance speech at least week's SONGWRITERS HALL OF FAME induction ceremony. The NEPTUNES, the ISLEY BROTHERS, EURYTHMICS and STEVE MILLER were also welcomed into the hall... The board of the SAN ANTONIO SYMPHONY ended a nearly year-long musician's strike by dissolving the symphony. San Antonio will be the biggest American city without a major orchestra, the New York Times reports... Desperately wanted in Canada: pipe organists... How a church choir inspired the invention of the Post-it note... DANYEL SMITH's picks for the best books about women in music.
Rest in Peace
Acclaimed environmental journalist DOM PHILLIPS, who was murdered while researching a book in the Amazon in western Brazil. Before he moved from his native England to Brazil to research and write about the effects of deforestation for newspapers including the Washington Post and the Guardian—he also covered Brazilian politics and culture—Phillips was a dance music journalist and documentarian who spent several years as editor of Mixmag. He was an avid music fan who was admired as a tireless, generous and sometimes tough chronicler of DJs and dance music in England and around the world in the 1990s. Even then, he had a serious journalistic interest in politics and culture on and beyond the dancefloor, as his Mixmag colleague David Davies remembers: "There was the front cover story of a riot in Trafalgar Square as police fought against the underground rave scene. There were features exposing gang activity, others highlighting racist door policies, undercover drug stories and much more." According to Frank Broughton, co-author of "Last Night a DJ Saved My Life," Phillips "mentored a generation of writers, photographers and nightworld ne'er-do-wells, [and] brought pro journalist standards to the woolly world of dance mags. Among the snare rolls and the fluffy bras, Dom saw the bigger picture"... Rock keyboardist BRETT TUGGLE, who toured with Fleetwood Mac for 20 years. He also played with David Lee Roth and Jimmy Page... Broadway music director/conductor DONALD PIPPIN, whose shows included "A Chorus Line," "La Cage aux Folles" and "Mame"... PETER SCAPING, longtime GM of British label trade organization BPI.
| | - Matty Karas (@troubledoll), curator | |
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 | | Africa is a Country |
| | Punks of the Witwatersrand | | By Chris Webb | | The Rise and Fall of National Wake, South Africa's first multiracial punk band at the height of apartheid, that sang about state violence and political freedoms. | | |
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| what we're into |
 | | Music of the day | | "Break My Soul" | | Beyoncé | | Drake... Bey... One more and we'll officially have a trend. From "Renaissance," out July 29 on Parkwood/Columbia. | | |
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| Music | Media | | | | | | Suggest a link  | | "REDEF is dedicated to my mother, who nurtured and encouraged my interest in everything and slightly regrets the day she taught me to always ask 'why?'" |
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