Music

From FT.com January 18, 2012

The internet industry scored a tactical victory this week with Wednesday’s blackout of sites such as Wikipedia and Reddit, and the White House’s decision to oppose parts of two bills intended to curb the file-sharing of films and copyrighted material. “Piracy rules,” tweeted Rupert Murdoch angrily. Read more

Posted in Business, Entertainment, Media, Music, Regulation, Technology, US |

John Gapper EMI’s recorded music business proves to be alive

November 11, 2011 2:30 pm by John Gapper

The Cinderella story of the unexpectedly successful Citigroup auction of EMI – with the business being sold in two halves to Vivendi’s Universal and Sony – is the recorded music division.

The FT reports that Universal is paying about $1.9bn – more than the $1.7bn-$1.8bn that Citigroup, which took over the business from Guy Hands’ Terra Firma, initially hoped to get. That appears to signal some life in recorded music, after all.

The conventional wisdom of recent years has been that, while the music publishing companies that hold the back catalogue rights for well-known music, still had some value, recorded music values were slipping due to mass piracy and the digital revolution. Read more

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Posted in Business, Music |
From FT.com June 15, 2011

Spider-Man at last opened on Tuesday night on Broadway, having already been playing to audiences for six months of “previews” that produced disastrously bad notices, injuries to five actors who fell off the set or crashed from the hanging wires, and the eventual firing of Julie Taymor, its original director. Read more

Posted in Business, Entertainment, Management, Music |

Andrew Hill Sony needs a bit of Ohga and Karajan’s magic

April 26, 2011 5:43 pm by Andrew Hill

Sony’s launch of its first tablet devices is bound to excite unflattering comparisons with revolutionary Sony products of the past – particularly because it falls in the same week as the death of Norio Ohga, the Japanese company’s former chairman and chief executive.

As every retrospective of Ohga’s extraordinary life has pointed out, he was the Sony executive who helped establish and drive the compact disc. By contrast, Sony’s “S1″ and “S2″ (their temporary names, thank goodness), already seem doomed to be mere “iPad rivals”. Read more

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Posted in Business, Manufacturing, Music, Technology |

John Gapper Maestros, mitts and the best laid plans

April 28, 2009 6:48 am by John Gapper

I wrote a piece in the Weekend FT on the vagaries of concert halls and baseball stadiums:

If you build it, they will come. But they will not know what to expect. Read more

Posted in Music, Sports |

John Gapper The Taylor Swift index of Apple’s power

November 14, 2008 10:47 pm by John Gapper

The subject of the pricing of Taylor Swift’s new album as a digital download on Amazon and iTunes continues to intrigue me.

As Felix Salmon notes, the reason for the initial low price of $3.99 on Amazon, versus the $11.99 you have to pay on iTunes, was probably more a matter of Amazon doing some loss-leading to lure people away from its rival than a tribute to the music industry, as I suggested. Read more

Posted in Music |

John Gapper A very cheap album by Taylor Swift

November 11, 2008 9:35 pm by John Gapper

Taylor Swift’s second album Fearless, favourably written-up by Sasha Frere-Jones in The New Yorker among others, came out today. It is already top of the chart of MP3 downloads on Amazon.com.

It is also selling for $3.99. Yes, $3.99, which is less than some Starbucks drinks for a 13-song collection. So why would you not buy it, if you are even mildly interested? Read more

Posted in Music |

John Gapper The music labels can take a punch

July 3, 2008 11:26 am by John Gapper

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My FT column this week is on Amy Winehouse. Well, not exactly. It is more about the music labels and whether they can survive. I conclude that they probably can, but it does not matter too much anyway. You can read it here and comment below. Read more

Posted in Music |
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