Live Nation Entertainment has posted an increase in ticket sales of six percent, and an increase in revenue of 23 percent, for the second quarter of 2011. The quarter saw a profit of $13.3 million, as compared to last year's loss of $32.8 million. In addition to increase attendance, Live Nation also saw an increase in concession spending by patrons.
As musicians prepare to reclaim ownership of their recordings, and record labels prepare to fight them, Representative John Conyers jr. has called for a revision of the United States copyright law.As part of copyright law revisions adopted in 1976 that took effect in 1978, musicians can claim "termination rights," which allow them to reclaim ownership of their work after 35 years. Songs will first become available to be reclaimed in 2013, and musicians have already filed to reclaim ownership. However, major record labels are fighting this, claiming that the songs were "works for hire," and are therefore the property of the record labels. Should musicians win this battle, the record labels stand to loose significant revenue from the reclaimed songs.
Latin jazz musicians Bobby Sanabria, Ben Lapidus, Mark Levine, and Eugene Marlow are suing the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences over elimination of the Latin jazz category from the Grammy Awards. The musicians claim that NARAS breached its contractual obligations to its members, and say that elimination of the category will have a detrimental impact on the musical careers of Latin jazz musicians.
Record numbers of people are cancelling their cable and satellite TV subscriptions. The largest providers lost nearly 200,000 subscribers in the second quarter of 2011, the first quarterly loss in subscribers ever for them.
YouTube has agreed to pay licensing fees for songwriting rights to the National Music Publishers Association. The Association had filed a class-action lawsuit against YouTube, which it will drop in exchange for a portion of the advertising revenue tied to videos that feature licensed music. YouTube already has separate licensing contracts with the four major record labels.
The Florida Orchestra has ended the season with a surplus of $40,000, a huge gain over the previous season's loss of $584,000. The orchestra attributes the positive change to a matching gift challenge, lowered ticket proces which resulted in a 9 percent increase in subscriptions, and a successful experiment with daytime concerts. The orchestra will be releasing its first commercial recording on the Naxos label, and will soon begin a cultural exchange program with Cuba.
Sales of classical music recordings rose 13 percent for the first half of 2011, to 3.8 million albums. The increase is partially attributable to an increase in recordings self-produced by orchestras on their own private labels.