Eminem label loses court battle over digital royalties
September 7, 2010 Filed under Uncategorized
(The Guardian)
Universal Music ordered to pay rapper’s former production company 50% of revenue from downloads
Shady deal … Eminem’s label ordered to pay digital royalties to production company.
An appeals court has ruled against Eminem’s label, ordering Universal Music to pay royalties to the rapper’s former production company. In a precedent that could be worth billions of pounds to the recording industry, the US 9th circuit court of appeals declared FBT Productions was entitled to 50% of Universal’s revenue from digital sales.
FBT Productions signed Eminem to an exclusive record deal in 1995, before he was famous; when Eminem went to Universal, FBT was entitled to a 12% royalty on “records sold”. But in the pre-iTunes era, the digital royalty rate wasn’t made clear. FBT argued digital sales are not “records sold” but constitute a licensing of master recordings – entitling them to 50% of net receipts. A court rejected this argument in March 2009, but this decision has now been overruled. According to the appeals court, the contracts were “unambiguous”. The case has now been sent back to the lower court for further proceedings.
FBT’s case against Universal is worth several million pounds in royalties and damages, but the impact could be even larger. Twenty years ago, lawyers could not have imagined innovations such as the iTunes Music Store, and in certain contracts, it’s unclear which royalty rates apply. While Universal Music insists the FBT case “sets no legal precedent” and concerns “the language of one specific recording agreement”, these sorts of ambiguities could be present in thousands of legacy contracts. If the courts interpret this language in certain ways, the costs could add up quickly.
Universal Music has already announced it will file for a new hearing.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2010/sep/06/eminem-label-loses-court-battle
Eminem scores second week at Number One with ‘Recovery’
July 5, 2010 Filed under Uncategorized
(NME)
Katy Perry also holds on to the top spot in UK singles chart
Eminem and Katy Perry have topped the UK album and singles chart for the second week running.
The rapper’s new LP ‘Recovery’ fought off stiff competition from Scissor Sisters third album ‘Nightwork’ which is the highest new entry at Number Two.
As predicted earlier this week, a number of artists also benefitted in sales from appearances at last weekend’s Glastonbury festival with headliners Gorillaz seeing their latest album ‘Plastic Beach’ climbing from 24 to 12, Muse’s album ‘The Resistance’ jumping from 62 to 13, and Stevie Wonder’s ‘The Definitive Collection’ jumping from 57 to 16, according to the Official Charts Company.
In the singles chart Perry’s ‘California Gurls’ featuring Snoop Dogg outsold her nearest rival B.o.B’s ‘Airplanes’ featuring Hayley Williams.
Elsewhere, Plan B is in at 36 with new single ‘Prayin’.
The UK Top 10 singles are:
1. Katy Perry – ‘California Gurls’ (feat. Snoop Dogg)
2. B.o.B – ‘Airplanes’ (feat. Hayley Williams)
3. Kylie Minogue – ‘All The Lovers’
4. Enrique Iglesias – ‘I Like It’ (feat. Pitbull)
5. K’Naan – ‘Wavin’ Flag’
6. Eminem – ‘I Love The Way You Lie’ (feat. Rihanna)
7. Lady Gaga – ‘Alejandro’
8. Example – ‘Kickstarts’
9. Kelly Rowland – ‘Commander’ (feat. David Guetta)
10. Eminem – ‘Not Afraid’
The UK Top 10 albums are:
1. Eminem – ‘Recovery’
2. Scissor Sisters – ‘Nightwork’
3. Alicia Keys – ‘The Element Of Freedom’
4. Plan B – ‘The Defamation Of Strickland Banks’
5. Oasis – ‘Time Flies… Singles 1994-2009′
6. Black Eyed Peas – ‘The End’
7. Lady Gaga – ‘The Fame’
8. Mumford & Sons – ‘Sigh No More’
9. Example – ‘Won’t Go Quietly’
10. David Guetta – ‘One Love’
http://www.nme.com/news/eminem/51838
Eminem and Muse to headline T In The Park festival 2010
February 24, 2010 Filed under Uncategorized
(NME)
Biffy Clyro, Jay-Z, Empire Of The Sun also for Scottish bash
Eminem and Muse are set to play headline slots at this year’s T In The Park festival, it has been announced.
Jay-Z, Biffy Clyro, Empire Of The Sun, The Cribs, Florence And The Machine, The Courteeners and La Roux have also been added to the bill for the Scottish bash.
Further notable names for the event, which takes place on July 9-11 in Balado near Kinross, include The Coral, Dizzee Rascal, Vampire Weekend and The Prodigy. Kasabian had previously been announced as the other headlining band.
Tickets for T In The Park go on sale at 9am (GMT) on Friday (February 26).
To check the availability of T In The Park tickets and get all the latest listings, go to NME.COM/TICKETS now, or call 0871 230 1094.
See the new issue of NME, out tomorrow (24), for an interview with festival chief Geoff Ellis about who Eminem may be bringing with him to the festival.
The T In The Park line-up so far is:
30 Seconds To Mars
Black Eyed Peas
Biffy Clyro
Black Mountain
Broken Social Scene
Calvin Harris
Carl Cox
David Guetta
Dirty Projectors
Dizzee Rascal
Ellie Goulding
Empire of the Sun
Erol Alkan
Faithless
Fake Blood
Florence And The Machine
Four Tet
Goldfrapp
Gossip
Jay-Z
John Mayer
Kasabian
La Roux
Mayer Hawthorne and The County
Newton Faulkner
Paolo Nutini
Plastikman
Rise Against
Skunk Anansie
Slam
Stereophonics
The Cribs
The Coral
The Courteeners
The Proclaimers
The Prodigy
The Stranglers
The Temper Trap
The View
Two Door Cinema Club
Vampire Weekend
Wolfmother
http://www.nme.com/news/eminem/49876
Eminem is America’s bestselling act of the decade
December 10, 2009 Filed under Uncategorized
Comments Off
(The Guardian)
By Sean Michaels
The last decade was the Eminem show – the rapper sold more than 32m albums in the US during the noughties, outselling the Beatles, ‘NSync and Britney Spears
Eminem looks thrilled to have stormed the decade.
Though the 2010s may belong to Susan Boyle and Lady Gaga, the 2000s belonged to Eminem, at least in the United States. The irreverent, newly sober rapper has been named America’s bestselling act of the last 10 years.
In the end, it was a battle between Slim Shady and the Beatles. Though the Fab Four’s greatest hits compilation, One, was the decade’s bestselling record, Eminem had two albums in the top 10 – 2000’s The Marshall Mathers LP at No 4 and 2002’s The Eminem Show at No 5. Between these and his other releases, Eminem has sold about 32.2m albums since Y2K – compared with the mop-tops’ meagre 30m, according to Nielsen SoundScan.
Eminem was the only act to have two albums in the decade’s top 10. The other heavy hitters include Justin Timberlake’s former boy-band, ‘NSync, Britney Spears, R&B singer Usher, rockers Linkin Park and Creed, and the debut by chanteuse Norah Jones.
Strangely, few of these acts dominanted American radio. Instead, the decade’s most-broadcast tunes were mostly grim, gravely modern rock songs. Nickelback’s How You Remind Me took the top spot, with 1.2m spins since 2001, while acts such as Lifehouse and Three Doors Down were runners-up.
More than anywhere else, the impact of the internet can be seen on the singles charts, filled with tracks from the last three years. While sales of CD singles dwindled in the early 2000s, the success of digital services like iTunes led to a new boom. Low, released by rapper Flo Rida in 2007, was the decade’s most successful digital song, selling 5.2m copies. Lady Gaga, Jason Mraz, the Black Eyed Peas and Soulja Boy all appear in the top 10 – with Coldplay’s Viva La Vida poking its head in at No 8.
The top-selling albums of the decade in the US, according to Nielsen SoundScan:
1. The Beatles – 1,11,499,000
2. ‘NSync, No Strings Attached – 11,112,000
3. Norah Jones, Come Away With Me – 10, 546,000
4. Eminem, The Marshall Mathers LP – 10,204,000
5. Eminem, The Eminem Show – 9,799,000
6. Usher, Confessions – 9,712,000
7. Linkin Park, Hybrid Theory – 9,663,000
8. Creed, Human Clay – 9,491,000
9. Britney Spears, Oops! … I Did It Again – 9,185,000
10. Nelly, Country Grammar – 8,461,000
America’s top-selling digital songs of the decade, according to Nielsen SoundScan:
1. Flo Rida feat. T-Pain – Low, 5,214,000
2. Lady Gaga feat. Colby O’Donis – Just Dance, 4,690,000
3. Jason Mraz, I’m Yours – 4,619,000
4. Timbaland feat. One Republic, Apologize – 4,439,000
5. The Black Eyed Peas, Boom Boom Pow – 4,349,000
6. Soulja Boy Tell’em, Crank That – 4,315,000
7. Lady Gaga, Poker Face – 4,200,000
8. Coldplay, Viva La Vida – 4,140,000
9. Taylor Swift, Love Story – 4,005,000
10. Katy Perry, Hot N Cold – 3,945,000
The biggest white rapper is back
April 9, 2009 Filed under Uncategorized
With Dr. Dre and 50 Cents, Eminem have released his new singnle “Crack a Bottle”.
(The Guardian)Guess who’s back? Back again? Well, given that pretty much every time he returns he announces it with a single saying “Guess who’s back?”, it is probably Eminem.
We Made You – the first official single from the rapper’s forthcoming Relapse album – has now appeared online, complete with the obligatory opening lyric: “Guess who? Did you miss me?” And to be honest, a lot of us have missed him. It’s been almost five years since Eminem’s last proper album, Encore.
Since then he has had a spell in rehab, released an autobiography and endured the pain of losing a close friend (fellow rapper Proof was shot dead in 2006). His reclusive and eccentric behaviour has seen him labelled by some critics as hip-hop’s very own Howard Hughes: long periods of silence have been interspersed with news that he had remarried Kim, the woman he had often threatened to murder on record (their second divorce followed a few months later), or that his weight had ballooned thanks to a sleeping pill addiction. Parallels were even drawn with Elvis during his final, mid-70s Vegas period.
But with all this going on, Eminem has not spent a lot of time doing what he does best: making music. The bad news, then, is that We Made You is not Eminem doing what he does best, either. Instead, it is merely him doing what he’s done before. Many times before. There is clearly a huge personal story to be told on this record, but Eminem doesn’t seem keen on telling it. Instead we get the references to prescription drugs, the dissing of female celebrities (Amy Winehouse, Samantha Ronson and Sarah Palin to name just three) and some infantile sound effects (a fart noise – tee hee!).
Perhaps the most frustrating part of all this is that we know Eminem is a master of autobiographical writing. Past songs, such as Who Knew, used the grim details of his childhood to shine a spotlight on bigger issues, such as school shootings and censorship. Elsewhere, Stan built on the rapper’s experience of fame – so often a stumbling block for bored and bloated artists – to create an emotional big-hitter.
So will the rest of the album (not to mention Relapse 2, scheduled for later this year) follow We Made You into an irrelevant world of cartoon juvenilia? Or is this – along with the similarly disappointing album track Crack a Bottle, which leaked late last year – merely a red herring on an album that’s moved with the times? Let’s hope a line near the end doesn’t hold the answer: “You think that’s bad? You should hear the rest of my album.”
