“Beatles being paid directly by iTunes in deal” plus 2

Beatles being paid directly by iTunes in deal
'Rain' celebrates Beatles' music, effect on pop culture
Beatles museum opens in Buenos Aires

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Beatles being paid directly by iTunes in deal

Posted: 12 Jan 2011 08:11 AM PST

NEW YORK (Billboard) - It seems that the EMI/Beatles deal that finally brought the Fab Four's catalogue to iTunes may be more groundbreaking than originally thought.

According to industry sources, iTunes is paying the Beatles' royalties from digital download sales in the United States directly to the band's company, Apple Corps, and is paying the songwriting mechanical royalties directly to Sony/ATV Music Publishing, which controls most of the Beatles' song catalogue.

That suggests the royalty split could be more lucrative for the Beatles than it would be under the typical provisions of a standard artist contract, which treat digital downloads as a retail sale.

Under a standard contract, a label issues an album, licenses the songs from music publishers, collects all wholesale revenue from the retailers and then distributes royalties to the artist and the publisher.

For superstar artists, the royalty typically equals about 20 per cent -25 per cent of retail revenue. So in the case of iTunes' Beatles sales, where tracks are sold to the merchant for about 90 cents and are retailed for $1.29, a standard contract with a typical superstar royalty rate of 20 per cent -25 per cent would pay the Beatles about 18 cents to 22.5 cents per track sale.

But because iTunes is making royalty payments to the Beatles and Sony/ATV, EMI may be treating its deal with the digital retailer as a licensing pact.

Under such deals, the licensee pays mechanical royalties directly to a publisher and revenue from use of a master recording is split evenly between an artist and a label, making it far more lucrative for the artist than a standard artist contract.

An EMI spokesman declined to comment, as did Sony/ATV and representatives at Apple Corps and iTunes. And a high-placed source familiar with the deal insists that it's "absolutely incorrect" that the agreement between EMI and Apple Corps is a licensing deal.

However one describes the EMI-iTunes deal for the Beatles' catalogue, its similarities to a licensing pact put it at the centre of a heated debate over the nature of download sales.

Since the dawn of the digital age, artists, managers and labels have wrangled over whether a digital download purchase should be considered a licensed use of a master recording or a retail sale, much like the sale of a CD. Labels, of course, insist the latter designation is correct and have paid artist royalties accordingly.

But some recording acts, like Cheap Trick and the Allman Brothers, have taken their labels to court claiming that sales of their downloads should be treated as licensing deals. While Cheap Trick ultimately settled with Sony, the Allman Brothers case is still ongoing.

In another closely watched case, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in September voided a jury's decision on the royalty split issue that was favourable to Universal Music Group and against F.B.T., the music company that Eminem was originally signed to before Universal picked up his contract.

F.B.T. maintains that a digital download represents a licensing deal, which requires the higher royalty split. With the case sent back to the original court, UMG has filed a petition for the U.S. Supreme Court to review the lower court's decision.

In addition to a potentially much more lucrative royalty rate, iTunes' direct payment of U.S. royalties to the Beatles and Sony/ATV would give the band greater accounting transparency over their iTunes sales than they would if EMI distributed the royalties.

Other label/superstar contract negotiations have resulted in far costlier give-backs -- for example, acts like AC/DC and Garth Brooks negotiated the return of their master rights.

Still, whether the agreement that put the Beatles on iTunes is a licensing deal or not, it's still significant that the Fab Four and their publisher are being paid directly by iTunes.

U.S. music publishers lament that labels treat an iTunes download as a retail sale, because they want to be paid directly by any U.S. digital retailer selling downloads, rather than by a label.

Likewise, it would be a singular deal, label and publishing sources say, for an artist on a label to be paid directly by the retailer for the sale of the artist's music.

In practically every other known instance, the retailer pays the label, which in turn pays the artist royalty.

'Rain' celebrates Beatles' music, effect on pop culture

Posted: 12 Jan 2011 10:50 PM PST

Article published January 13, 2011
'Rain' celebrates Beatles' music, effect on pop culture
By ROD LOCKWOOD
BLADE STAFF WRITER
It is inarguably the most gaping hole in rock and roll history. Consider this: The Beatles never played a reunion concert. The Beatles also never conducted a traditional tour post mid-60s, so no one ever heard them play the kind of true career-spanning concert typical of bands like the Rolling Stones or The Who. They never sat down and put together a set list that encompassed a catalog so diverse that "I Wanna Hold Your Hand" and "Why Don't We Do It In the Road?" actually could be played back to back by the same band. (Which would be weird, admittedly.) They never came back on stage to play the ultimate encore of "While My Guitar Gently Weeps," "Let It Be," and "Hey Jude." Never happened and never will. All of which makes Rain: A Tribute to the Beatles such a fascinating concept. Coming to the Stranahan Theater on Tuesday and Wednesday, the Broadway show presented by the Theater League imagines a classic Beatles concert of the sort that never happened. Presented in chronological order from the band's first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show in America to its final days, the presentation puts the group's music in a pop culture context thanks to film clips, commercials for products from the '60s, and other multimedia effects. The result is a magical history tour propelled forward by a crack band covering the band's entire career.

"If you're a Beatles fan, it will blow you away and if you're not a Beatles fan, you will be when you leave."

That's Mark Lewis, the man who created Rain decades ago. Starting as a southern California cover band called Reign, the production morphed into a band named Rain and transformed into a world-class Beatles cover band. The show just finished a successful run on Broadway that turned a nice little profit, according to news reports. The Broadway shows will continue this spring after a short break. Two sets of musicians perform the roles of John Lennon, George Harrison, Paul McCartney, and Ringo Starr on tour and on Broadway. Lewis said the effort is complex from a musician's point of view, but fun. The Beatles had a knack for writing songs that were simultaneously simple and complex, he said. "Part of their magic is that anybody that's a musician or a guitar player could play a Beatles song, but almost nobody could play a Beatles songs correctly," he said. "It's just amazing, the intricacies and the sophistication of their vocal harmonies, their musical arrangements. And trying to copy a solo and doing it right gives you a new respect for the musicianship in the band." For example, other than Billy Preston on their later works, the band never had a formal keyboard player. But imagine if they had to take those sonically rich, complex songs on the road and emulate what they produced in the studio. "They didn't really concern themselves with how anyone would duplicate 'A Day in the Life' or 'Strawberry Fields Forever' live," he said. Which explains why a keyboard player is a natural requirement for Rain. "If you listen to the Beatles' music what you'll find is that not only does it have a lot of piano parts and organ parts, but tons of orchestration, sound effects, synthesizers, piccolo, trumpet solos, clarinet, you name it, it's on there." As expected, Lewis, who originally played keyboards in Rain and now manages the band, is a passionate fan of the group, extolling the virtues of their music and the group's seminal role in the evolution of rock and pop music. "If you look at the artists before the Beatles what you find is that an album was basically a bunch of songs that sounded the same and their hit record," he said. "And the thing the Beatles did is they put out an album and all the songs [on it] were great. That was almost unheard of." And his own favorite period of the band? "The part that starts at the beginning and continues to the end." Rain: A Tribute to the Beatles will be performed at 8 p.m. Tuesday and Wednesday at the Stranahan Theater, 4645 Heatherdowns Blvd. The two-hour show is presented in a pair of one-hour segments with a 15-minute intermission. Tickets are $29.25, $49.25, and $53.25 and can be ordered at ticketmaster.com, purchased at the Stranahan box office, or by calling 800-745-3000. Contact Rod Lockwood at rlockwood@theblade.com or 419-724-6159.

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Beatles museum opens in Buenos Aires

Posted: 08 Jan 2011 12:54 AM PST

A visitor looks at the exhibits on display at the Beatles Museum in the eastern German city of Halle on April 3.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

The museum's creator has been collecting memorabilia since he was age 10
His collection earns him a Guinness World Record in 2001
He says the museum is the first Beatles museum in Latin America
The complex housing the museum also includes a replica of the bar where The Beatles played

Buenos Aires, Argentina (CNN) -- Decades after The Beatles first surged onto the international music stage, fans in Argentina are flocking to a new museum dedicated to the 'Fab Four' that opened in the country's capital this week.

Museum creator Rodolfo Vazquez said he started his private collection after someone gave him the group's "Rubber Soul" record when he was 10 years old.

"I listened to 'In My Life' and I fell in love with The Beatles for all my life," he said.

"What I did was collect things, collect and collect like any fan, of football, stamps, action figures, whatever -- the little bit that I could get because in Buenos Aires there wasn't a lot of material," Vazquez said.

By 2001, Vazquez secured a Guinness World Record for the "largest collection of Beatles memorabilia." At the time, he had 5,612 items in the attic of his Buenos Aires home. The collection now contains more than 8,500 items, according to Vazquez.

Remembering John Lennon: The interviews

Vazquez said he bought some of the material with his own money, but acquired most of it through exchanges with fans around the world.

Now, for an entrance fee of about $2.50, other aficionados can catch a glimpse of the collection, which Vazquez says is the first Beatles museum in Latin America.

"We're visiting from Uruguay. We came and we saw that it was opening and we decided to come," visitor Rodrigo Guerra said. "It's very nice. It has everything."

In addition to memorabilia on display, the complex where the museum is located also includes a thematic restaurant and a replica of the Liverpool bar where the legendary band got its start.

The museum, which opened Monday, was still drawing a steady stream of people Friday -- many of them members of a younger generation that never saw the group perform live. Several wore Beatles T-shirts. One sported a "Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band" tattoo.

"When the band played, I hadn't been born, so I'm looking for what my parents lived through," student Jimena Dieviataia said.

The Beatles

Thursday, January 13, 2011

“Beatles being paid directly by iTunes in deal” plus 2

“Beatles being paid directly by iTunes in deal” plus 2

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