Category Archives: Music

Never Mind the Bollocks, was Malcolm Mclaren a good negotiator? ...

I first met Malcolm Mclaren in 1991, when I was naïve a young lawyer, newly installed as Head of Business Affairs at RCA. Our Chairman summoned me to tell me that he had just struck a deal with Malcolm to produce a TV drama for Channel 4 called “Ghosts of Oxford Street”. RCA was to [...]

Penny for the Guy? Why Terra Firma should get its Hands on further funding ...

EMI is apparently in a scramble for cash and working on a bonus scheme to persuade investors to inject an extra £120 million. This is to stave off a takeover by its bank, Citigroup. From a negotiating standpoint, however, the odds of raising the money are strongly in its favour. The headlines surrounding EMI’s financial woes do [...]

Live Nation and Ticketmaster merger approved ...

The proposed merger between Live Nation and Ticketmaster has been approved by the Competition authorities in the US and the UK. This creates a giant in the entertainment industry, “Live Nation Entertainment”, with interests spanning ticketing, promotion, venue management, merchandising and artist management. But there has been concern at the impact on ticket prices of having [...]

Why Lady Gaga is the real deal ...

So, Lady Gaga scooped more awards than any other artist at this year’s Brits, prompted yet more gasps over her choice outfit – and no doubt won some hearts for her touching tribute to her friend, the late Alexander McQueen. Amid such hoo-ha it would be easy to forget the scale of her victory over us [...]

Why HMV was destined to take care of Mama ...

So, Mama Group PLC has been up for sale. MAMA Group Plc is the parent company of number of UK-based music and media businesses. It has three divisions – Live Music, Artist Services, and Consumer – and owns, among other things, the Barfly venue chain, the Hammersmith Apollo, and The Fly magazine. Technically there have been [...]

Why only services like Spotify get licensed ...

There are now more than 500 legitimately licensed digital music services around the world from iTunes, to Nokia’s “Comes with Music”, to the hugely popular Spotify. You might be forgiven for thinking that it is easy to get a licence to distribute and make money from selling digital music. Think again: there is real a problem under the surface. The fact is that there is a huge bottleneck in obtaining licences – and generally only large, well-funded licensees are able to secure or pay for licences. An analysis of fundamental negotiating needs, attitudes and bargaining power shows why this is.