Other news stories. Parts related to Branca is bolded
At Lawyers’ Luncheon, a Chilly Reception for Spotify’s Chief
By BY BEN SISARIO
For the music industry’s movers and shakers, the parties and symposiums leading up to the Grammy Awards on Sunday night are opportunities for schmoozing, back-patting and a bit of business. But for a struggling, shrinking industry there can also be some tension, particularly when it comes to the role of technology.
Daniel Ek, the moon-faced co-founder of Spotify, is for the most part the toast of Grammytown this year, turning up at private cocktail parties and meetings with business dons. On Thursday, his company got a bit of priceless publicity when President Obama’s campaign staff released a Spotify playlist. And on Friday Mr. Ek was the keynote speaker at the Entertainment Law Initiative lunch, the annual gathering of the industry’s most powerful lawyers, presented by the Grammy Foundation at the Beverly Hills Hotel.
But a roomful of lawyers, many of whom represent artists worried about Spotify’s royalty structure — paying fractions of pennies every time a song is streamed, much less than what iTunes pays for one download — was not the most sympathetic audience. Josh Tyrangiel, the editor of Bloomberg Businessweek, who was interviewing Mr. Ek, alluded to this when he began his questioning: “I look forward to next year’s lunch, where the Crips meet the Bloods.”
Mr. Ek defended Spotify as a reliable generator of royalties and — his longtime pitch to the industry — a way to lure customers from the black market of illegal downloads. Spotify, like other subscription services, streams millions of songs to paying users, and also has a free version supported by advertising.
“I want to be a friendly alternative,” he said.
When introduced in the United States last July, Spotify had 1.6 million paying subscribers; by last month it was up to 3 million, and it continues to expand around the world. Mr. Ek said at the lunch that about 70 percent of Spotify’s revenue goes “back to the industry,” and that his company has paid $250 million in royalties since it opened in 2008. (At a press conference two months ago that figure was $150 million.)
Mr. Ek also made a bold prediction, saying that in two years subscription services will pay as much royalties as iTunes does. In 2010, downloads generated $2.2 billion in the United States, according to the Recording Industry Association of America, and the vast majority of that money comes from iTunes.
“What we’re proving now is that this model works,” he said.
The luncheon was held in honor of John Branca, the veteran music lawyer who is an executor of the estate of Michael Jackson. After joking that the shrinking of the music industry has made its lawyers the dinosaurs of the legal profession — “this ceremony has more to do with paleontology than jurisprudence,” he said — Mr. Branca reminisced about representing Jackson, the Beach Boys, Mick Jagger, Aerosmith and others, and he mounted a defense of the role of lawyers in the ever more corporatized world of the music industry.
“While we are experiencing blatant consolidation in the channels of distribution in the music business, where an artist’s manager, promoter, ticketing agency and merchandiser can be all under one corporate umbrella,” Mr. Branca said, alluding to Live Nation Entertainment, which owns Ticketmaster and manages hundreds of artists, “we lawyers remain an independent voice in the life of the artist to protect and where necessary defend that artist.”
He got a standing ovation.
http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2...ncheon-a-chilly-reception-for-spotifys-chief/
----------------------------------------------------
Spotify's Daniel Ek and the music 'dinosaurs'
February 10, 2012 | 3:35 pm
Less than seven months after launching his digital music service in the U.S., Spotify's Daniel Ek found himself rubbing elbows with the upper echelon of the record industry executives who have descended on Los Angeles for this Sunday’s Grammy Awards.
The 28-year-old Swedish entrepreneur with a boyish face that still hints of baby fat on Friday afternoon addressed a ballroom full of power attorneys in Brooks Brothers and Armani suits — essentially schooling them on the brave new world of digital music.
Ek, pictured above on the right, boldly predicted that revenue from streaming services such as Spotify will in two years return as much revenue to the industry as iTunes does today. Since launching its service in 2008, the Stockholm-based company has remunerated more than $200 million, roughly 70% of its revenue, to labels and publishers.
“The value of music is not $15 billion,” an estimate of annual music sales, Ek told an audience of several hundred at the Grammy Foundation’s Entertainment Law Initiative luncheon as they dined on endive dressed in raspberry vinaigrette. “It’s worth much, much more than that.”
Spotify’s service has caught on worldwide with more than 10 million listeners who tune in at least once a month — 3 million of whom pay around $5 to $15 a month to access premium versions.
Though music labels have embraced Spotify's unusual approach — of offering a generous free version that gives users online access to millions of tracks on demand — the company continues to face skepticism from some bands and musicians who fear that streaming music services eat into album sales.
Bands such as Coldplay and the Black Keys, and performers like Mac Miller, have opted to withhold their new albums from streaming services such as Spotify — at least for the first few weeks after the albums’ releases. (This week some of former Beatle Paul McCartney's songs also became unavailable on Spotify, an apparent result of contractual requirements not related specifically to the streaming service.) Ek emphatically disagreed with those decisions.
“There is no cannibalization,” Ek said before a packed audience in the Crystal Ballroom of the Beverly Hills Hotel. “At the end of the day, I want the music industry to be larger than what it is today. And I believe that the two models [streaming and sales] can co-exist side by side."
As if to punctuate a contrast with Ek's youthful approach, John Branca, veteran counselor to the stars, followed him on stage with the following remark that drew chuckles from the crowd:
"It’s a popular belief that the music industry is over, that it’s seen better days. Some would say that we lawyers are the dinosaurs of the legal landscape, that paleontology is a better subject for us and that a better forum for this would be the La Brea Tar Pits."
As a prominent music attorney, Branca's clients have included the Beach Boys, the Doors, the Rolling Stones and Carlos Santana. He is also the executor of the Michael Jackson estate.
Branca summed up the challenge for the music industry, pointing out that many of music's greatest stars created their music "before the digital age."
"How do we present these great artists to a new generation of fans?" Branca said.
One could almost hear Ek replying, "Through Spotify."
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/ent...mmy-keynote-entertainment-law-initiative.html
At Lawyers’ Luncheon, a Chilly Reception for Spotify’s Chief
By BY BEN SISARIO
For the music industry’s movers and shakers, the parties and symposiums leading up to the Grammy Awards on Sunday night are opportunities for schmoozing, back-patting and a bit of business. But for a struggling, shrinking industry there can also be some tension, particularly when it comes to the role of technology.
Daniel Ek, the moon-faced co-founder of Spotify, is for the most part the toast of Grammytown this year, turning up at private cocktail parties and meetings with business dons. On Thursday, his company got a bit of priceless publicity when President Obama’s campaign staff released a Spotify playlist. And on Friday Mr. Ek was the keynote speaker at the Entertainment Law Initiative lunch, the annual gathering of the industry’s most powerful lawyers, presented by the Grammy Foundation at the Beverly Hills Hotel.
But a roomful of lawyers, many of whom represent artists worried about Spotify’s royalty structure — paying fractions of pennies every time a song is streamed, much less than what iTunes pays for one download — was not the most sympathetic audience. Josh Tyrangiel, the editor of Bloomberg Businessweek, who was interviewing Mr. Ek, alluded to this when he began his questioning: “I look forward to next year’s lunch, where the Crips meet the Bloods.”
Mr. Ek defended Spotify as a reliable generator of royalties and — his longtime pitch to the industry — a way to lure customers from the black market of illegal downloads. Spotify, like other subscription services, streams millions of songs to paying users, and also has a free version supported by advertising.
“I want to be a friendly alternative,” he said.
When introduced in the United States last July, Spotify had 1.6 million paying subscribers; by last month it was up to 3 million, and it continues to expand around the world. Mr. Ek said at the lunch that about 70 percent of Spotify’s revenue goes “back to the industry,” and that his company has paid $250 million in royalties since it opened in 2008. (At a press conference two months ago that figure was $150 million.)
Mr. Ek also made a bold prediction, saying that in two years subscription services will pay as much royalties as iTunes does. In 2010, downloads generated $2.2 billion in the United States, according to the Recording Industry Association of America, and the vast majority of that money comes from iTunes.
“What we’re proving now is that this model works,” he said.
The luncheon was held in honor of John Branca, the veteran music lawyer who is an executor of the estate of Michael Jackson. After joking that the shrinking of the music industry has made its lawyers the dinosaurs of the legal profession — “this ceremony has more to do with paleontology than jurisprudence,” he said — Mr. Branca reminisced about representing Jackson, the Beach Boys, Mick Jagger, Aerosmith and others, and he mounted a defense of the role of lawyers in the ever more corporatized world of the music industry.
“While we are experiencing blatant consolidation in the channels of distribution in the music business, where an artist’s manager, promoter, ticketing agency and merchandiser can be all under one corporate umbrella,” Mr. Branca said, alluding to Live Nation Entertainment, which owns Ticketmaster and manages hundreds of artists, “we lawyers remain an independent voice in the life of the artist to protect and where necessary defend that artist.”
He got a standing ovation.
http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2...ncheon-a-chilly-reception-for-spotifys-chief/
----------------------------------------------------
Spotify's Daniel Ek and the music 'dinosaurs'
February 10, 2012 | 3:35 pm
Less than seven months after launching his digital music service in the U.S., Spotify's Daniel Ek found himself rubbing elbows with the upper echelon of the record industry executives who have descended on Los Angeles for this Sunday’s Grammy Awards.
The 28-year-old Swedish entrepreneur with a boyish face that still hints of baby fat on Friday afternoon addressed a ballroom full of power attorneys in Brooks Brothers and Armani suits — essentially schooling them on the brave new world of digital music.
Ek, pictured above on the right, boldly predicted that revenue from streaming services such as Spotify will in two years return as much revenue to the industry as iTunes does today. Since launching its service in 2008, the Stockholm-based company has remunerated more than $200 million, roughly 70% of its revenue, to labels and publishers.
“The value of music is not $15 billion,” an estimate of annual music sales, Ek told an audience of several hundred at the Grammy Foundation’s Entertainment Law Initiative luncheon as they dined on endive dressed in raspberry vinaigrette. “It’s worth much, much more than that.”
Spotify’s service has caught on worldwide with more than 10 million listeners who tune in at least once a month — 3 million of whom pay around $5 to $15 a month to access premium versions.
Though music labels have embraced Spotify's unusual approach — of offering a generous free version that gives users online access to millions of tracks on demand — the company continues to face skepticism from some bands and musicians who fear that streaming music services eat into album sales.
Bands such as Coldplay and the Black Keys, and performers like Mac Miller, have opted to withhold their new albums from streaming services such as Spotify — at least for the first few weeks after the albums’ releases. (This week some of former Beatle Paul McCartney's songs also became unavailable on Spotify, an apparent result of contractual requirements not related specifically to the streaming service.) Ek emphatically disagreed with those decisions.
“There is no cannibalization,” Ek said before a packed audience in the Crystal Ballroom of the Beverly Hills Hotel. “At the end of the day, I want the music industry to be larger than what it is today. And I believe that the two models [streaming and sales] can co-exist side by side."
As if to punctuate a contrast with Ek's youthful approach, John Branca, veteran counselor to the stars, followed him on stage with the following remark that drew chuckles from the crowd:
"It’s a popular belief that the music industry is over, that it’s seen better days. Some would say that we lawyers are the dinosaurs of the legal landscape, that paleontology is a better subject for us and that a better forum for this would be the La Brea Tar Pits."
As a prominent music attorney, Branca's clients have included the Beach Boys, the Doors, the Rolling Stones and Carlos Santana. He is also the executor of the Michael Jackson estate.
Branca summed up the challenge for the music industry, pointing out that many of music's greatest stars created their music "before the digital age."
"How do we present these great artists to a new generation of fans?" Branca said.
One could almost hear Ek replying, "Through Spotify."
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/ent...mmy-keynote-entertainment-law-initiative.html
