MIDEM(Net) Blog

MIDEM 2010 live coverage round-up

Time to take stock on what was, by all accounts, a highly productive and optimistic MIDEM 2010. We've rounded up all the live coverage posted during the show, including:

- Live conference reports from our partner Music Ally (their own round-up here)

- Top deal stories from the MIDEM Daily News (full digital editions here)

- Conference sessions in full video, on midem.com (guide below).

- Other exclusive insight content posted during the show (incl. part 3 of our interview with Radiohead's Ed O'Brien).

Keep following us here, on Twitter, and on midem.com for yet more exclusive content. Let's keep the conversation going!

Live posts from Music Ally

Hal Ritson / Amanda Palmer panel
Conversation with Pharrell Williams
Labels and digital services panel
Conversation with Owen Van Natta of MySpace
Pete Wentz and Ning panel
MidemNet Lab Pitch Session
Mobile apps and music panel
Conversation with David Jones of Havas Worldwide
Getty Images / Sulake panel
Spotify / YouTube panel (photo)

MIDEM 2010: it's a wrap! Our most retweeted live posts were...

It's been an astonishingly busy MIDEM on Twitter, with a tidal wave of #MIDEM/#MidemNet comments and our live posts being retweeted like there's no tomorrow. So what better way to sum up the market than to show you the most retweeted @MidemNetBlog live content posts?

The MidemNet apps & music panel (photo) on Sunday was easily the most tweeted-about MIDEM session, thanks to artist Amanda Palmer's tweeting Interscope's Ted Mico's "apps are like babies" quote; and Shazam's David Fisher saying his company drives an incredible 300,000 song downloads a day.

Thankyou for following and stay with us year-round for exclusive content updates, including edited conference videos, online magazines, and more guest blog posts. And a particularly big thank you to Music Ally's Stuart Dredge, our star live blogger.

In the meantime, enjoy MIDEM 2010 at a glance!

• b1kini :: color me astonished #SocialMedia RT @MidemNetBlog: report from #MIDEM - Shazam #App is selling 300,000 songs a DAY via iTunes
  
  
• @amandapalmer: "apps are like babies. easy to concieve and hard to deliver". -ted mico at #midem
  
  
• @MidemNetBlog: Live report on the mobile Apps & Music panel, incl. the '300K tracks a day' Shazam snippet & THAT apps as babies quote! http://bit.ly/7iW91I
  

Live post: DJ Hero Listening Session

Reporting live from the DJ Hero Listening Session, in which Activision's top music execs auditioned MIDEM delegate song submissions to pick one for the next DJ Hero. Left to right: Brandon Young, senior manager, music affairs and Sergio Pimentel, international music & licensing manager, Activision/Blizzard; Ofei Sakyi, Freestyle Games; Tim Riley, VP, music affairs, Activision/Blizzard.

The four game executives listened onstage to the ten (obviously dance-oriented) shortlisted songs and explain their pros and cons. Sakyi, for example, said if a track has certain lyrics it may be hard to lay scratches on top  of it in the game. The jury also picked out tracks' references , with one sounding "a bit too Jay-Z" (Riley)...

The production quality was overall outstanding. The first few tracks had an urban skew, another was more techno... Said Young, it's important for this new franchise to offer a find good mix of mainstream and niche tracks.

The winner was "Dead" by Noone (unsigned), a dubstep track; "something we didn't try in the first game," said Young. "It also adds a difficult level of playability to the game." The act's representatives were not present at the session.

Plus five lucky delegates walked away with copies of the game at the end!

Live post: MIDEM 2010: Back to business

Left to right: moderator Roxanne Frias, Music Export Finland's Paulina Ahokas, Wil Padley of  Bandcentral.com, MIDEM director Dominique Leguern and Activision's Tim Riley.

The mood was resolutely positive at MIDEM's closing press conference today. Show director Dominique Leguern announced the event had attracted 7200 participants; a decrease of 10%. But the focus for Leguern was not on numbers, but on business: she said she had received "great feedback on all activity" throughout the event, notably due to the fact that 28% companies here this year were new to MIDEM.

For the first time, three key clients were present at this traditional end-of-market rendez-vous. MIDEM regular Tim Riley, Activision Blizzard's music affairs VP was particularly impressed by the "instantaneous global reach" the event has provided his business this year.

For Paulina Ahokas, director of Music Export Finland, "really concrete deals were done here. And I was introduced to some great innovations like Tunewiki: I spent half an hour on that when I should have been going to a meeting!"

Albin Serviant: Is The Future of Music…the Album (App)?

Live from Cannes, a new guest post from the head of remix format company MXP4, who notably just spoke on MidemNet's mobile apps panel... As Serviant suggests, "why not engage fans by encouraging more remixes (in the album or single app itself) and then sell those remixes?"

With the advent of online gaming, the gaming industry successfully created a new user experience that in turn reinvented the industry. With the 3D-movie audience experience, the film industry is similarly seeing new life. What user experience can the music industry introduce? While audio streaming and digital downloads are healthy, they’re not yet creating the excitement that drives new levels of fan engagement.

The discussion of increasing fan engagement and revenues generally focuses on the distribution and selling of digital tracks. But what about the album experience? No, I’m not talking about simply bundling songs. I’m talking about how we used to buy an LP to sit and engage with the music. Everything about a well-produced album contributed more toward an immersive experience than one single track could provide – from the cover art to the collection of related songs to the liner notes that you read while listening the music. It was a pretty good business.

MIDEM News: Impala announces new financial plan for indies

This and more in the MIDEM daily News, only in Cannes and online soon!

European music companies are launching a financial blueprint for music.

The plan includes football-style compensation and revenue-sharing mechanisms, new accounting standards to value copyright properly, and a range of national and EC investment measures for companies, Impala announced at MIDEM yesterday.

Impala’s Helen Smith (photo) said: “This is a call for action, not only to European and national decision makers but also to the music sector itself. Football and other sports compensate small clubs for two reasons. First, to help them compete because of the huge gap with the big clubs. Second, to reward them for their investment in discovering and developing talent. It’s a perfect model for music.”

IMPALA also looked at other sectors, including film production where effective investment schemes exist at national and EC levels, and is calling on governments to open up these schemes to include music.

MIDEM News: Peermusic launches new venture with Tokio Hotel producer

This and more in the MIDEM daily News, only in Cannes and online soon!

Peermusic Hamburg and Peter Hoffmann (centre), the composer and producer for German group Tokio Hotel, have launched a joint venture, Hopla Reloaded, to break new talent using the 360-degree model.

The Hopla team includes Franz Plasa, who has worked with groups such as Echt und Selig. Among the first eight artists to be produced this year are Mimi Westernhagen and Jenniffer Kae.

Lars Ingwersen (right), managing director of peermusic Germany, said talks are already being held with record companies for the exploitation of the productions.

He added: “We are acting like a small label that exploits broad-based artist rights. This includes advising acts on finance, production, marketing the recorded music, promotion, and live and merchandising deals.”

Hoffmann said: "The experience I gained in my first year of working with peermusic convinced me I have joined a music family that provides a great deal of support, backed up by an impressive network of successful peer publishers.

Ralph Peer, chairman and CEO of the peermusic group, said: "I am proud that, with this joint venture with composer/producer Peter Hoffmann, we will be able to harness new means of discovering and establishing new talents."

Live Post: Gerd Leonhard's social media tips

Media Futurist (and MIDEM(Net) blogger) Gerd Leonhard just spoke to a packed room about how to use social media to promote music. Besides sharing his weapons of choice (photo), here's just some of the  precious advice he gave delegates:

• $500 for an iPhone app is well worth it
• Multitasking? No! Juggling. Gerd's sons do it all the time. "It's about managing the flow"
• Social media is "customer relationship management," far more effective than "spamming them 4 times a month"
• Gerd stopped using email more than a year ago
• "How can you have a conversation if you're not talking?" You have to be "open"
• If you don't have at least a YouTube, Facebook and Twitter buttons on your artist's site, you're missing out
• Twitter users like music. It's that simple!

Live Post: Conversation with David Renzer of UMPG

Stuart Dredge of Music Ally reported on the final session of this morning's MIDEM Publishing Summit, which saw David Renzer of Universal Music Publishing Group interviewed on-stage... Also watch this session in full, only on midem.com!

Moderator Susan Butler kicked things off by looking back to the past, when she interviewed Renzer for Billboard magazine in 2005, about unresolved splits in copyrights (and specifically publishers getting paid for royalties due from internet radio services, ringtones and other services).

A $280 million settlement was reached in September 2008, brokered between the NMPA, RIAA and Harry Fox Agency. Renzer explained that there will be three phases for payment - one covering 2000 to 2006, one covering 2007 and 2008, and a third covering more recent years.

So how will UMPG pay the money that it receives from this deal to other publishers, and to songwriters? Renzer said a market share methodology will be used, based on data provided by the labels on which publishers they've been paying for the years covered. "Even I was shocked by the amount of publishing entities that we're submitting!" he said.

Live Post: Cult of the Amateur author Andrew Keen talks music

Music Ally's Stuart Dredge reports on the MIDEM Publishing Summit this morning, starting with an on-stage interview with author Andrew Keen... Also watch this session in full, only on midem.com!

Andrew Keen? Who he? The author of 'Cult of the Amateur', a book that infamously claimed that the internet is 'killing our culture'. He's also been an internet entrepreneur, founding music website Audiocafe back in 1995.

So, what's his view as an outsider to the music industry, on the impact the internet has had on music culture? Keen says he was watching the music business more closely than any other when writing his book. "Music was first in," he said. "The issues that now all media is addressing, from TV to publishing to newspapers to the film industry, were first pertinent to the music business."

He says he was attending conferences back in 1995 where internet startups and rightsholders were arguing about licensing and business models, in the same way they do today. But Keen's point: "It's very hard to figure out a business model when everything is either free or stolen."