Monday, January 28, 2008

Après moi le déluge?

News from MIDEM in Cannes as reported in The Times today. This covers pop, but what happens to our side of things?

Just think, some of those opera singers and conductors might be forced to reduce their fees, shock horror.

With CD sales in free fall and legal downloads yet to fill the gap, the music industry has reluctantly embraced the file-sharing technology that threatened to destroy it. Qtrax, a digital service announced today, promises a catalogue of more than 25 million songs that users can download to keep, free and with no limit on the number of tracks.

The service has been endorsed by the very same record companies - including EMI, Universal Music and Warner Music – that have chased file-sharers through the courts in a doomed attempt to prevent piracy. The gamble is that fans will put up with a limited amount of advertising around the Qtrax website’s jukebox in return for authorised use of almost every song available.

Thoughts, folks?

MEANWHILE, the Arts Council has been forced to say 'er, right, maybe that wasn't our best idea' and is promising a reprieve to some of the groups whose funding it wanted to slash for no immediately obvious reason - this may include the London Mozart Players. We haven't yet seen the name City of London Sinfonia on the list, but are hoping that that is simply an oversight on the part of newspapers that don't know what a chamber orchestra is.

ALSO, from comments received on JDCMB recently, it's obvious that certain people in Philadelphia are still ogling beloved Vladi. He's back here this week, conducting at the RFH on Wednesday. Paws off our maestro!