Palestinians step up campaign for Gaza "Arab Idol" star

A banner depicting Mohammed Assaf, a contestant in the TV talent show 'Arab Idol', hangs from poles in the West Bank city of Ramallah May 13, 2013.

Credit: Reuters/Mohamad Torokman

By Nidal al-Mughrabi

GAZA | Thu Jun 20, 2013 6:39am EDT

GAZA (Reuters) - Palestinian fans and big business are rallying behind a 22-year-old singer from the Gaza Strip in a final push to vote him the next "Arab Idol" in a TV talent contest choosing a winner in Beirut on Saturday.

Mohammed Assaf is the first Palestinian to qualify for "Arab Idol", the Middle East's version of "American Idol", in which contestants perform for judges and voting viewers.

His potent mix of good looks and emotional lyrics about ancestral Palestinian lands have helped to turn the young man from Gaza's Khan Younis refugee camp into a star and symbol of unity for Palestinians plagued by deep internal divisions.

Voting in the pan-Arab competition is done through text messages. To encourage support for Assaf, one of three finalists, two Palestinian cellular telephone companies have cut their rates for ballots cast for him.

The Bank of Palestine is throwing money into the campaign, promising to match up to 350,000 texted votes - each one costs 1.50 shekels ($.40) - for Assaf. It has placed billboards with his picture at major intersections in Gaza and the West Bank.

"Vote and the Bank of Palestine votes with you," says a radio and television commercial broadcast in the Palestinian territories, where Assaf's songs blare constantly from vehicles.

President Mahmoud Abbas has spoken to Assaf by phone and instructed Palestinian embassies abroad to urge expatriates to vote for him, calling the singer "the pride of the Palestinian and Arab nation".

Abbas's main Palestinian rival, the Islamist group Hamas that rules Gaza, frowns on non-Islamic songs and the kind of Western-style glitz on full display in TV talent shows.

But Hamas has tacitly endorsed Assaf, who has performed with a traditional black-and-white Palestinian scarf around his shoulders, saying he is free to sing in the Gaza Strip and noting that he comes from a respected family.

Egyptian Ahmed Jamal and a Syrian woman, Farah Youssef, are also finalists in the contest broadcast by the Saudi-owned MBC Group.

To keep the votes for Assaf coming, the Palestinian cellular operator Jawwal is offering cash prizes of up to $10,000 for customers who text in the highest number of ballots.

Some cafes in the West Bank city of Ramallah are offering to text a vote for every cup of coffee that customers order.

"By voting for Assaf, we are voting for Palestine, for us," read a typical entry on his Facebook fan pages.

Huge celebrations are likely on the streets of the West Bank and Gaza if he wins.

(Editing by Jeffrey Heller/Mark Heinrich)

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Legendary country singer Slim Whitman dead at 90

By Patricia Reaney and Tim Ghianni

NEW YORK/NASHVILLE | Wed Jun 19, 2013 2:42pm EDT

NEW YORK/NASHVILLE (Reuters) - Legendary country singer and songwriter Slim Whitman, known for his smooth falsetto and high-pitched yodeling talent, died in Florida on Wednesday at the age of 90, his son-in-law said.

Roy Beagle, who is married to Whitman's daughter Sharon, said the singer-songwriter who was born Ottis Dewey Whitman Jr. was admitted to hospital on Tuesday.

"He died last night at the Orange Park hospital at about 12:45 this morning of heart failure," Beagle told Reuters. "We had a 90th birthday party for him in January and he looked good, but he had been in failing health since then."

Whitman, who was self-taught on the guitar and had a string of hits including "Rose Marie," "Indian Love Call" and "Secret Love," recorded dozens of albums and sold millions of records during his career, which began in the late 1940s.

Whitman was working in a shipyard in Florida when he was discovered by Colonel Tom Parker, who later became Elvis Presley's manager. He signed his first recording contract with RCA records in 1948.

The singer and Elvis toured together in the 1950s.

Whitman released "Love Song of the Waterfall" in the early 1950s, which more than two decades later was on the soundtrack of the film "Close Encounters of the Third Kind".

It was followed by "Indian Love Call," his first million seller. A few years later, in 1955, he joined the Grand Ole Opry.

His other hits include "Danny Boy," "Red River Valley" and "Have I Told You Lately That I Love You."

INTERNATIONAL FAME

Although Whitman was once known as "America's Favorite Folksinger," he was more popular in Europe than in the United States, particularly in Britain where he did many tours.

"I have sold 120 million records," Whitman said in an interview last year. "Half of those could be in Europe."

On his birthday last year the singer said he received a greeting from Africa.

"We toured everywhere, Australia, New Zealand. I had a six-week tour of Africa," he added. "All that started with England."

His long-time friend, Grand Ole Opry star George Hamilton IV, credits Whitman for the rise of country music internationally.

"He was the key, pivotal figure in spreading country music internationally, long before the rest of us," Hamilton said in an interview after learning of Whitman's death.

"He was just a wonderful, gracious Southern gentleman and a dear friend. We toured together several times over there and our paths continued crossing at the Wembley Festival," he said, referring to the International Festival of Country Music at Wembley Arena.

Hamilton said he regretted that Whitman had not been inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame.

Whitman gained new fans in the late 1970s and 1980s when a TV album featuring 20 of his songs was released and for his late-night commercials featuring his yodeling vocals. The commercials inspired the late talk show host Johnny Carson to style one of his "Tonight Show" sketch characters after Whitman.

In 1996 Whitman was featured in the soundtrack for the science fiction film "Mars Attacks," and more than a decade later in 2010 released his last album, "Twilight on the Trail."

Despite his international fame, Beagle said Whitman was the happiest living a low-key life in Florida.

"He really enjoyed the farm and fishing more than anything else," he said.

In addition to his daughter, Sharon, Whitman is survived by his son, Byron, two grandchildren and one great-grandchild.

(Editing by Cynthia Johnston; and Jackie Frank)

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Justin Bieber hits photographer in Los Angeles car scrape

Singer Justin Bieber (C) arrives late for the premiere of the film ''After Earth'' in New York May 29, 2013.

Credit: Reuters/Carlo Allegri

LOS ANGELES | Tue Jun 18, 2013 1:17pm EDT

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Teen pop star Justin Bieber struck a photographer with his Ferrari sports car while driving away from a comedy club in Los Angeles on Monday night, but the accident was not considered a hit-and-run, police said.

Video taken outside the Laugh Factory comedy club showed Bieber behind the wheel of his white Ferrari, surrounded by photographers as he was pulling away.

Celebrity website TMZ said Bieber motioned the photographers to clear out of the way but apparently pinned one between his Ferrari and a parked car as he pulled out. He then drove away.

"It was not a hit-and-run," Los Angeles Police Department spokesman Bruce Borihanh said on Tuesday. "The investigation is ongoing."

He said the photographer's injuries were not life-threatening.

A representative for Bieber declined to comment.

Bieber is under investigation in a separate driving incident in May after his neighbors complained that he had been speeding through his gated Los Angeles-area community.

The Canadian singer has been the subject of a series of headline-grabbing incidents over the past year. German authorities seized a capuchin monkey Bieber had kept as a pet after he was unable to provide proper documentation for the animal at Munich airport. And in London, the singer scuffled with a photographer outside a hotel during a European tour.

(Reporting by Ian Simpson and Eric Kelsey; Editing by Scott Malone and Grant McCool)

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Check Out Spotify's Swanky New San Francisco Digs...

If streaming is the future, then Spotify is the company spending hundreds of millions to own that future.  At present, Spotify has at least 18 different offices sprinkled throughout the globe, which doesn't include this swanky spot in San Francisco.     

The company just signed a lease for three entire floors above the historic Warfield Theatre, for a total of 35,000 square feet.  "Spotify is innovating how we listen to music, and I am thrilled to welcome them as the 11th technology company to choose a central Market location," San Francisco mayor Ed Lee stated.

The location moves the Spotify San Francisco team from a smaller, South of Market (SoMA) spot.  The Warfield obviously fits, though part of the motivation for Spotify was a payroll tax benefit specific to the area.  And, talk about perks: the 988 Market Street spot is easily accessible by multiple forms of transportation, and the Warfield awaits every employee and executive at night.

Meanwhile, Spotify is hiring like crazy, though most of the US-based positions are for New York.  Earlier, Spotify was rumored to be closing on a pricey penthouse office on Sixth Avenue, though the company remains at 76 Ninth Ave for the time being.

Top two images snapped by BWChicago; Warhols image by Jeff Marquis.  All licensed under Creative Commons 2.0.

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Experts Agree: The DMCA Takedown System Is a Joke, and Must be Scrapped...

In the past couple of days, the DMCA takedown system has come under attack both from the RIAA and anti-copyright campaigner Derek Khanna. No doubt this has been brought on by the Congressional review of the DMCA that is getting underway.   

Which means, both sides - tech and content - have big problems with this 'system'. The RIAA's EVP of anti-piracy initiatives, Brad Buckles, claims the fact that the organisation has now sent its 20 millionth copyright takedown to Google proves that the system is not fit for purpose.  Meanwhile, Khanna claims the DMCA "restricts entire classes of technology and hampers innovative products and services from being offered to the public."    

The headline for Khanna's Washington Post blog was: "Let artists, innovators and the public define our copyright system."  I"m a member of all three categories (I'd argue that all music creators are, indeed, innovators), so I'd like to offer my services by explaining exactly why this law is broken:

It simply gives those who don't want to bother getting a license for the content they use to build their lucrative businesses a veil to hide behind.

Considering that the RIAA is a US-based organisation that simply deals with major label recordings, clearly the total of takedown notices filed is much bigger than 20 million – and for independent music creators, such as myself, the DMCA is a complete joke.

I once spent a week, several hours a day, trying to get just one song taken down from Grooveshark, before I gave up (you can read about my experience here).  The links seemed to multiply the more I tried.

There were examples of at least ten other songs of mine on the site but, as I prefer to spend my time actually making music to spending hours copying and pasting long lists of URLs into endless emails for several hours a day, I couldn't be asked to tackle those – especially after seeing how little effect it had.

It's also worth considering that the DMCA is a US act – it's not some sort of universal act that applies globally – and I'm based, and was accessing Grooveshark, from the UK.

Of course Grooveshark is only one of thousands of sites hiding behind the DMCA. When I told a representative for the EU Commission about my experience, a few months later, he concluded, "So what you need is a legal framework where musicians, such as yourself, can defend their rights without going broke." 

My music is available on numerous legal sites, both for downloading and streaming – sometimes even for free – and if Spotify is able to ensure that all the music it offers is paid for through structured licenses, why shouldn’t sites such as Grooveshark be, as well?

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Why Digital Music News 'Playa Hates' On Pandora...

If you don't have a problem with Tim Westergren making a million dollars a month while emailing artists to support his crusade to lower royalties, then maybe you need to look at the situation differently.  This isn't 'playa hating,' rather, it's questioning why the playing field is so uneven and distorted to begin with.   

Indeed, Westegren 'started at the bottom' and now he's here: Pandora has the most listeners and listening hours of anyone online, and accounts for nearly 8 percent of all radio listening in the United States.  Those are very significant accomplishments, and to hear Westergren tell the story of when he was at 'the bottom' is inspirational.  But it's now becoming obvious that Pandora's numbers - by design - are coming at the expense of not only profits, but artist welfare as well.  

Big numbers are mainly interesting to Wall Street, investors, and few top Pandora executives who are becoming obscenely wealthy. It makes it difficult for Apple to push Pandora off the deck; it squeezes out up-and-coming competitors like Slacker and iHeartRadio.  But this all seems to be creating a perverse disincentive against actually make money and creating a viable business, unless it involves markedly slashing artist royalty rates.

There are other ways to do this.  Since the beginning, Pandora has always argued that royalty rates are the problem, not an inherently flawed business model.  But a series of events over the past week are now substantially challenging that assumption, and potentially changing the discourse on Capitol Hill.  Because it may not be that Pandora can't solve their monetary problems on their own, but rather that they don't want to.

There's now mounting evidence of this.  It all started when Pandora, for reasons related to royalty expenses, resumed listening caps for power users.  But instead of ditching 'Netflix style,' a very substantial percentage of listeners actually stuck around.  It looked like this.

Now, there's more research confirming that forcing listeners to pay generates significant revenue.  In fact, that simple cap put Pandora at the top of this app revenue ranking (excluding games).

So, more revenues means a better model, which means less need to lower royalties, right?  Not exactly: in a recent financial call, Pandora CEO Joe Kennedy indicated that 'Pandora One' premium tiers would be used sparingly, as a mere addition to the mainline, free service. 

All of which makes it really hard not to be cynical here, especially as executives like Tim Westergren continue to curry favor with confused artists.  Because maybe a viable, workable model involves smaller listener levels but elevated revenues, while maintaining artist royalty rates.  But that's not a version that Pandora likes, or wants you to believe is possible.  

And that's why they're getting hated on.

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Roughly 60 Percent of All Daft Punk Album Sales Came from iTunes...

It was streaming on iTunes before it was streaming on Spotify.  And part of the reason is that iTunes was collecting paid album download pre-orders, and selling a ton of them.

According to stats now being shared with Digital Music News, iTunes accounted for roughly 60 percent of all first-week sales of Daft Punk's latest, Random Access Memories.  Overall, first-week sales topped 337,000 units in the US alone, according to stats published by Nielsen Soundscan.

But that's just the top level.  Subsequent information from label executives tied to the project reveal that overall album downloads topped 221,000 units.  That's an aggregated figure that also includes Amazon MP3 and the Daft Punk site, though one executive assured us that iTunes 'easily' pulled more than 90 percent of those sales.

Surprisingly, CDs accounted for nearly 100,000 of the sales, with vinyl a modest 5-6 percent, according to the top-level data shared.

Apple doesn't disclose exact sales data, but does share the information back with labels.  According to a report issued several months ago by NPD Group, iTunes now accounts for 63 percent of all digital music downloads.

So what's next?  Daft Punk broke streaming records on Spotify, but that only pays so much.  The broader question is whether other artists will now follow Daft Punk's lead with pre-release, streaming exclusives on iTunes (with pre-orders prominently placed).  And, greater windowing on streaming services to maximize first-week sales.    

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