BPI SAY THREE-STRIKES CAN BE RUN FOR A BARGAIN BASEMENT £3.5 MILLION
To be honest, I've never been especially convinced by claims by some in the internet service provider community that the cost of running the three-strikes system proposed in the Digital Economy Bill will be £500 million, adding £35 to every net user's annual ISP bill. I mean, how could it possibly cost anywhere near that much? Are these warning letters going to be gold plated? Is Bono going to be hired to press the button that cuts off the file-sharers? He'd probably do it for free, anyway. He'd love that, wouldn't he? Providing the file-sharers weren't African babies, I suppose.

And anyway, it's not like the ISPs are especially reliable. "No Mr Cooke, the fact half the world wide web became inaccessible the very day we 'upgraded' your internet connection is just a massive coincidence, the problem is clearly with your router, I'd speak to your router provider if I was you sir". "Don't worry Chris' sister, we'll look into why your phone line's been down for a fortnight and call you back tomorrow. Or we might wait until you're all dead". "No Chris' dad, the reason your new PC isn't working with the WiFi router we just sold you is nothing to do with the settings put in place by the software we made you install when you were using our USB connector, so we couldn't possibly help you fix that problem, because we're TalkTalk and we are shit. Incredibly shit. Now go fuck yourself, we've got a petition to go organise".

ISPs are unreliable, that's my point. Not that the record industry has an especially good history when it comes to presenting statistics relating to file-sharing, but either way the three-strikes supporting record label trade body the BPI says that suggestions that running the proposed anti-piracy system could top half a billion a year are way off the mark.

Their research, by a tech consultancy call Sweet Consulting, says the costs in year one will be £13.85 million, in year two £9 million, and in year three £3.45 million. If that last figure turned out to be true, and if it were to be saddled on the net providers who passed it on to their customers, it would cost every net provider just 24 pennies a year. Bargain. I'll have two of those three-strikes systems please.

Another bit of research by another pro-three-strikes group, the Creative Coalition Campaign, which counts the BPI as a member, has put forward similar figures. It's research, by NERA Economic Consulting reckons the average annual cost of running three-strikes will be £8.5 million.

Of course some might argue £8.5 million a year is still way too much for an anti-piracy programme that ignores basic judicial protocol and won't really deter the kids from file-sharing anyway. Though I'd be happy to pay 24p a year providing there was the promise of TV-screened press conferences where Bono cuts off the file-sharers' internet connections. With a big pair of scissors.

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INTERESTING STATS GALORE FROM SILVERMAN
OK, so if you want stats that are really interesting, or if you're feeling rather bubbly this morning and want something to end your high, go read this interview with Tom Silverman, the boss of Tommy Boy Entertainment, which has been in the business of making music for nearly three decades now.

As part of the New Music Seminar programme, which Silverman originally ran in the eighties but which was relaunched as a US-wide touring event last year, the Tommy Boy chief has been giving some serious time to considering US record sale stats. And it makes for gloomy reading.

Speaking to the Musician Coaching website, he says that most major label album releases have no hope of breaking even until they shift at least a quarter of a million records, even then releases with particularly high production or marketing budgets will probably be in the red. Silverman says that Soundscan stats for 2008 show only 112 albums sold over 250,000 units in the US that year, of which he estimates up to a half still didn't break even.

Which means the entire record industry (well, the major label sector anyway) is being propped up by the sales of about 60 releases. And only a handful of those are selling serious amounts - like multi-millions - Silverman estimates about five. Give the small number of break even albums, and tiny number of cash cow multi-million sellers, it's no wonder the major record companies are struggling. He concludes: "In the old days, one hit used to pay for 20 stiffs. Now one hit doesn't even pay for one stiff".

Part of the problem, of course, is that the major record companies - despite all the cut backs - still dramatically over-spend on many of their bigger releases, meaning that those albums most likely to pass the quarter of a million sales point actually need to shift between 500,000 and a million to actually break even. Just having a record company involved costs money, of course, which is why the DIY approach of artists self-releasing and cutting out the labels completely is increasingly attractive.

But Silverman has some depressing stats there also. While the DIY model can clearly work for established artists - and always has done really - Silverman says that the self-release route still doesn't really work for new talent. He reckons that 10,000 album sales is the point at which a band is properly onto something. In 2008 over 1500 albums sold over 10,000 units, but only 227 of those were new bands. Of the 227, only 14 were DIY ventures. Of the rest, about half were released by majors and half by indie labels.

On the up side, Silverman is quite optimistic about the growth of digital, and the impact that is having on wider industry revenues. Of course as digital becomes the dominant revenue stream in the record industry many of the benchmarks Silverman talks about here become irrelevant. In a market where single track sales are more important that album sales, and where licensing income from radio-play and streaming music services is increasingly central to the operation, then you can't really measure viability and success by number of albums shifted.

But what Silverman's stats do show is that while new artists do, in the main, still rely on a label's support to make it, labels are less able to take a punt on risky unproven new talent. Once they could afford 20 flops, but Silverman is saying now they can't afford one. Which is presumably where DIY comes in, new talent need to get themselves somewhere near the 10,000 album point in their career (or some equally tangible but digitally relevant equivalent) on their own, and should then bring in a label to get them to the next level.

Labels, meanwhile, need to find a way to make their operations still more cost efficient, so that more smaller projects go into profit. Interestingly indie labels are generally better at such efficiencies, which possibly means there is a great opportunity for the indie sector in the next stage of the digital era in music.

Whatever, go read the Silverman interview:
musiciancoaching.com/music-business/state-of-the-music-industry-pt-1/
musiciancoaching.com/music-business/state-of-the-industry-pt-2/

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KATE MCGARRIGLE DIES
Folk singer Kate McGarrigle died at her Montreal home on Monday night, aged 63. She had been suffering with clear cell sarcoma, a rare form of cancer, since 2006.

As well as being a very successful musician in her own right, she was also known for being the mother of Rufus and Martha Wainwright, her children with former husband, and fellow musician, Loudon Wainwright III.

McGarrigle performed for more than 30 years with her sister Kate, the duo releasing their debut album in 1976 and going on to record nine more, writing songs in both English and French. Despite being very ill, she performed a three and a half hour show at the Royal Albert Hall just last month. However, fears that she might be succumbing to her illness rose last week when Rufus cancelled his Australian tour, due to begin in February, to be by her side.

Her doctor, Robert Tabah, told The Guardian: "Kate was a remarkable and warm woman, who pursued everything in life with humour and grace. I was amazed by her courage and stamina".

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MPG AWARDS TO CELEBRATE BLACKWELL
Island Records founder and all round music industry icon Chris Blackwell will be handed the Outstanding Contribution To UK Music Award at the CMU-supported Music Producers Guild Awards next month. The award is sponsored by collecting society PPL, which I'm only telling you because we have a quote from their Director Of Communications coming up, and I wouldn't want any of you - not even one of you - to wonder why.

The award comes at the end of the fiftieth anniversary celebrations of Island Records, the London-based label Blackwell founded in 1959, and continued to work with until 1997, even once it had become part of the Polygram empire. Blackwell worked with numerous hit-making artists from all sorts of genres while heading up Island, though, of course, it is his role in the career of Bob Marley that he is often most noted for. He's continued to dabble in music and movie making since leaving Island, in particular via his Palm Pictures venture.

Commenting on the MPG Award, PPL communications chief Jonathan Morrish told CMU: "We are delighted that, for the first time, we are involved as a headline sponsor in the 2010 Music Producers Guild Awards because they provide a welcome opportunity to highlight the creative input and important work, which is often overlooked, that producers bring to the recording process. PPL is also thrilled to sponsor the inaugural Outstanding Contribution Award. Its recipient, Chris Blackwell, is a worthy winner whose work and vision, creativity and empathy, has inspired countless musicians, of all genres, around the world for over half a century".

More about the awards here: www.mpgawards.co.uk

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AUF DER MAUR NOT HAPPY ABOUT NEW HOLE
I'm sure if we look hard enough, we'll find someone pleased about Courtney Love's new version of Hole.

As reported several times now, Love announced last year that her long awaited new solo album would be released under the Hole name, even though none of her former bandmates were involved. One of those former bandmates, guitarist Eric Erlandson, then came out and said that he had a contract barring Love from doing anything Hole-related with his involvement.

Following the announcement of a series of European gigs by Nu-Hole next month, Love suggested that the whole matter had been smoothed over using money and lawyers. Whether that other former bandmate, bassist Melissa Auf der Maur, was party to any of that, it's not certain. Whatever, she's still not happy about it all.

Speaking to Spinner, Auf der Maur said: "I want to make it clear that I have nothing to do with this series of concerts.I'm a little surprised by this turn of events. I am surprised and disappointed that they are going to jeopardise a real Hole reunion, which I think would be great for Hole fans and fun for us, the band. It means so much to me and I'm so proud, having been a part of it".

She continued: "Us as women, the impact that we had on a male-dominated landscape is very important to me and I would protect and nurture it in any way I could.That being said, the person that anyone should be talking to right now is the Hole co-founder, Eric. It really is jeopardising the Hole reunion, which is not impossible, but it will be if this continues".

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JANE'S ADDICTION ATTEMPT TO WORK TOGETHER
The original line-up of Jane's Addiction has begun work on new material this week, their second attempt since reforming in 2008, according to reports. Frontman Perry Farrell apparently wrote on the band's Facebook page last week: "Monday we get together to write new music and craft a future".

As previously reported, the band were brought back together by Nine Inch Nails' Trent Reznor, who took them out on tour and attempted to get the band writing new material again. However, things didn't entirely go to plan. Farrell told The Pulse Of Radio: " I'll be honest with you, we started to record and things got kind of ugly. You know, it's one of those things where the headbutting really came out when we tried to write and people were like, 'Well, I don't like that...' But you know what? I'm very patient, because it's only been, what, eighteen years, so I can't expect things overnight to be perfect".

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LAURA MARLING TO RELEASE TWO ALBUMS IN 2010
Laura Marling has announced that she will release her second album, 'I Speak Because I Can', on 22 Mar, preceded by a single, 'Devil's Spoke' on 15 Mar. She'll also be heading out on a UK tour in April, by which time she should have made good progress on the recording of her third album, which is currently scheduled for release in September. Because you can never be too busy.

Here's the tracklist for 'I Speak Because I Can':

Devil's Spoke
Made By Maid
Rambling Man
Blackberry Stone
Alpha Shallows
Goodbye England
Hope In The Air
What He Wrote
Darkness Descends
I Speak Because I Can

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TONY IOMMI TO PUBLISH AUTOBIOGRAPHY
Black Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi will publish his autobiography, entitled 'Iron Man', later this year, it has been announced. In the US, the book will be distributed by Foundry Literary & Media, whose co-founder Peter McGuigan reportedly paid a six-figure amount at auction for the rights.

McGuigan described the book as: "'Angela's Ashes' meets 'The Ground Beneath Her Feet' meets 'Spinal Tap'".

Ozzy Osbourne, of course, released his autobiography, 'I Am Ozzy', last year, and his early 80s replacement as Black Sabbath's frontman, Ronnie James Dio, is also currently working on his own memoir. Perhaps they could get together and release a box-set of memoirs.

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BORDERLINE TO RELAUNCH
Central London venue The Borderline has been closed for the last few weeks, as it gets a makeover for its 21st year in business. Now the last speaker has been plugged in and the last lick of paint has been, er, licked and it's ready to get back into action.

The grand reopening will take place tomorrow night, with a headline set from Mercury-nominees The Invisible and support from Big Pink and Sunn O))) collaborators Mothlite. Plus, perhaps most excitingly of all, the CMU:DJs will be ensuring that there are no awkward silences. It is a party, after all.

The venue, which has played host to bands including Pearl Jam, REM, Bloc Party and Oasis over the years, is now sporting improved air handling, new toilets, a bigger seating area at the rear of the venue, a relocated cloakroom, an additional bar, a second dressing room and a new green room, as well as an upgrade of the PA and lights.

Says MAMA Group Co-Chief Exec Dean James: "I am very pleased we have re-furbished this iconic London venue and together with the work we've done at the Relentless Garage, HMV Forum and HMV Apollo we can now take an artist from 275 people to 5,100 people in probably the best equipped group of venues in London".

Steve Forster, MD for MAMA Group's Live Division, added: "It is very much our intention to make The Borderline the must play venue in Central London for 2010. Lovers of the 'well worn aesthetic' of The Borderline should not be too worried as the plans for the refurb are to keep the whole Soho basement vibe very much in place. Plans for the redevelopment reflect what artists and customers have been saying for some time".

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HIDDEN CAMERAS ANNOUNCE UK TOUR
Our very favourite gay church folk troupe, The Hidden Cameras will be in the UK later this year to promote their new album, 'Origin: Orphan', which is due out on 15 Mar via Arts & Crafts. The band will also release a double-A side single, 'Underage/Origin: Orphan', on 22 Mar.

Tour dates:

17 Mar: Brighton, Audio
18 Mar: London, St Leonard's Church, Shoreditch
19 Mar: Nottingham, Bodega
20 Mar: Glasgow, Stereo
21 Mar: Manchester, Deaf Institute
22 Mar: Cardiff, The Gate
23 Mar: Leeds, Brudenell Club
24 Mar: London, Hoxton Bar & Kitchen

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COACHELLA LINE-UP ANNOUNCED
The line-up for this year's Coachella festival in California has been announced. And the big news for American-style readers is that the Faith No More reunion machine will finally make its way to home shores at the event. Also there in a reunited fashion will be Pavement and Public Image Ltd.

Thom Yorke is also on the bill as Thom Yorke????, which could mean that he's not confirmed and someone signed off on the artwork too soon, or it could mean that he will be playing with his solo band, and that's how he's referring to them these days. The latter is probably more likely. As a name, I like it. In fact, it might be time to change our name to CMU????

Anyway, Yorke was coy about his plans in an interview with Gilles Peterson, which will air on Radio 1 tonight at 2am, though he did say that he would appear at the festival "soon, probably". And it seems he and his band will be in the area at the right time. He said: "The Eraser Band that I got together, we're going to do something, hopefully in April. Just small gigs, and then maybe that's going to lead somewhere as well - there's lots of stuff going on. I like the open air venues, the hot ones - the warm hot places I like very much. There are loads around Santa Barbara that are really nice".

Other acts at the top of the bill will be Jay-Z, LCD Soundsystem, Them Crooked Vultures, Muse, Tiesto, and Gorillaz.

More info at www.coachella.com

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CITY SHOWCASE LAUNCHES IN NEW ZEALAND
London-based creative music festival and convention City Showcase has announced it will launch a sister event in New Zealand in November, which sounds like fun. I wonder how I can blag myself a trip to that?

City Showcase New Zealand will take place in Napier from 25-28 Nov, and like the London event will see new music showcases staged in various venues around the city, including bars, cafes, book shops and fashion stores. The aim is to provide a platform for new music talent, and a panel of music industry judges will view each showcase and pick the best bands to play a finale gig.

Commenting on the new sister event, City Showcase chief Nanette Rigg told CMU: "This is a chance for talented Kiwis to perform for, not only the public, but also the leaders of the New Zealand music industry".

City Showcase London will take place this year from 6-8 May. As previously reported, as well as the usual events in the West End, including seminars and panels at London's Apple Store, there will be additional showcases staged in South East London via a tie up with the Music Tourist Board and Rocklands crew.

More at www.cityshowcase.co.uk

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CD PRODUCTION SLIDES IN JAPAN TOO
While Japan is one of the few markets where physical music products still dominate, even their physical sales continue to decline. New figures from the Record Industry Association of Japan shows that the production of physical music products in 2009 was 13% down on 2008, with 214.3 million units produced last year. The value of the product was down even more, slipping 16%. According to Billboard, the split between domestic and international CDs was unchanged, the former accounting for 78%, the latter 22%.

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HAVE APPLE GOT A BIG CLOUD-BASED NEW OFFER IN THE PIPELINE?
A rather interesting piece written by the boss of MP3tunes, and original MP3.com founder of course, Michael Robertson, claims that Apple has a rather interesting new development planned.

He is responding to ongoing speculation that Apple has some sort of subscription-system and/or streaming-music-service in the pipeline, speculation that has only grown since the IT firm acquired Lala.com. Many have speculated Apple plan to incorporate the Lala.com streaming music service into the iTunes player, enabling them to tread on Spotify territory (though probably only with a subscription service, Apple are unlikely to move into the ad-funded domain).

However, Robertson says all such speculation is misguided. What Apple have planned is a new service in the same territory as Robertson's own recent ventures: the facility to upload your record collection to a central server on the net - in the 'cloud' to use tedious modern tech speak - and to then access that music from any PC or mobile-connected device. That would include any music previously bought from the iTunes Store, plus any music ripped into iTunes from CD. This, of course, was one of Lala.com's original services, and it is this part of the Lala operation that Apple are interesting in, Robertson claims.

Writing on TechCrunch, Robertston says: "An upcoming major revision of iTunes will copy each user's catalogue to the net making it available from any browser or net connected iPod/touch/tablet. The Lala upload technology will be bundled into a future iTunes upgrade which will automatically be installed for the 100+ million iTunes users with a simple 'an upgrade is available' notification dialog box. After installation iTunes will push in the background their entire media library to their personal mobile iTunes area. Once loaded, users will be able to navigate and play their music, videos and playlists from their personal URL using a browser based iTunes experience".

Apple, of course, are famously tight lipped on these sorts of things, though Robertson's speculations do have a certain logic to them. Of course, an Apple service of this kind would arguably render services like the locker component of MP3tunes.com pretty much redundant, but one assumes Robertson has thought of that.

Elsewhere in Apple news, new stats from tech research types Gartner reckons the burgeoning mobile apps market is now worth $4.2 billion, with 99.4% of apps distributed via Apple's store. Even with the rise of Blackberry, Android and Ovi compliant apps causing a shift in the market, Gartner reckons that Apple will still control 67% of the market this year. They take a 30% cut on the sales of all paid-for apps sold via the iTunes Store.

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NO RADIO AID PLANNED FOR HAITI APPEAL
There isn't an appetite in the commercial radio sector to follow up an idea proposed by a former Capital Radio news man to stage a second Radio Aid event in aid of the relief effort in Haiti. It is almost exactly five years since the commercial radio sector joined up to stage a combined fund-raising effort in aid of the relief mission that following the Asian tsunami on Boxing Day 2005. Former Capital News Editor Justin Kings proposes a second Radio Aid be staged in a column on Radio Today earlier this week. The radio industry website site says it knows the proposals have since been discussed by commercial radio trade body RadioCentre, who ultimately decided against pursing the idea any further.

The website has published an email from Jonathan Richards, the Group News Editor at Capital owners Global Radio, which says: "Whilst we appreciate the sentiment of your Radio Today article the idea is not something we feel is appropriate at this time. All Global Radio brands are proud to be playing a full role in supporting the DEC [Disasters Emergency Committee] appeal, and, in our view this is the correct way to proceed in terms of co-ordinating the fund raising efforts of UK commercial radio stations. Our news bulletins have covered the Haiti story extensively (and continue to do so). In line with other UK commercial radio stations Global brands including LBC 97.3 and 95.8 Capital FM are broadcasting the DEC appeal commercials. As you are probably aware the DEC campaign is already the most successful since their tsunami appeal five years ago".

As previously reported, MTV are planning a benefit concert to air across its networks worldwide, and on numerous US TV networks, this Friday.

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THIS WEEK'S SUB.TV PLAYLIST
Hey look, people, it's the music videos that are playing this week on the Subtv network of video screens in students' unions all around the god darn United Kingdom of Great Britain and whatnot. New additions marked with a *. More info on all things Sub.tv from DavidLloyd@sub.tv.

A List
Alexandra Burke - Broken Heels*
Biffy Clyro - Many Of Horror
Calvin Harris - You Used To Hold Me*
Delphic - Doubt
Editors - You Don't Know Love*
Example - Won't Go Quietly
Iyaz - Replay
Ke$ha - Tik Tok
Lady Gaga - Bad Romance
Lostprophets - Where We Belong
The Saturdays - Ego*
Sidney Samson - Riverside (Let's Go) (feat. Wizard Sleeve)
Simian Mobile Disco - Cruel Intentions (feat. Beth Ditto)
Vampire Weekend - Cousins*
Wiley - Take That
You Me At Six - Underdog*

B List
The Big Pink - Velvet*
Empire Of The Sun - Without You
Fyfe Dangerfield - She Needs Me
Girls Can't Catch - Echo*
Hadouken! - Turn The Lights Out
Hot Chip - One Life Stand*
JLS - One Shot*
Justin Bieber - One Time
Kaskade vs Deadmaus - Move For Me
Kid Sister - Right Hand Hi
Miike Snow - Silvia*
Mika - Blame It On The Girls*
Phoenix - 1901*
The Temper Trap - Fader

Tip List
Daisy Dares You - Number One Enemy (feat. Chipmunk)*
Gucci Mane - Spotlight (feat. Usher)*
Groove Armada - Paper Romance*
I Blame Coco - Caesar (feat. Robyn)*
Kano - More Than One Way*
Lil Jon - Give It All U Got (feat. Kee & Tinchy Stryder)*
Tinie Tempah - Pass Out*

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ENO ON THE DEATH OF RECORDS AND THE RISE OF BONO
Paul Morley recently spoke to Brian Eno for an upcoming BBC 'Arena' documentary. This week the Guardian published some of what was said. There's a lot of it, but obviously all we're really interested in is what he thinks the future is for the record industry, and his opinion of Bono. Well, one is getting smaller and the other is getting bigger.

On records and the recording industry, Eno said: "I think records were just a little bubble through time and those who made a living from them for a while were lucky. There is no reason why anyone should have made so much money from selling records except that everything was right for this period of time. I always knew it would run out sooner or later. It couldn't last, and now it's running out. I don't particularly care that it is and like the way things are going. The record age was just a blip".

He continued: "It was a bit like if you had a source of whale blubber in the 1840s and it could be used as fuel. Before gas came along, if you traded in whale blubber, you were the richest man on Earth. Then gas came along and you'd be stuck with your whale blubber. Sorry mate - history's moving along. Recorded music equals whale blubber. Eventually, something else will replace it".

Bono, he says, does have an ego as big as you think, but most people outside Great Britain don't mind: "Bono commits the crime of rising above your station. To the British, it's the worst thing you can do. Bono is hated for doing something considered unbecoming for a pop star - meddling in things that apparently have nothing to do with him. He has a huge ego, no doubt about it. On the other hand, he has a huge brain and a huge heart. He's just a big kind of person. That's not easy for some to deal with. They don't mind in Italy. They like larger-than-life people there. In most places in the world they don't mind him. Here, they think he must be conning them".

See all that Eno had to say here: www.guardian.co.uk/music/2010/jan/17/brian-eno-interview-paul-morley

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SHANE MACGOWANS HAIR-CARE TIPS #01
In what we hope to make a regular column, Shane MacGown has some hair tips for you. Says The Pogues man: "They sell all those lotions to cure you of baldness... They don't work. There is only one way to cure baldness - you pour Guinness over your head, collect it in a bucket, and drink it in the morning. It's proven to work".

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