Atlantic Screen Composers (ASC) will go to the Cannes Film Festival 2011 armed with a huge investment fund, ready to inject much needed finance into film music. Set up in January 2011 to produce and finance music scores, it has funded 5 films and two animation series to date and projects that it will fund between 40 and 60 feature films during the forthcoming year, ASC will invest between $30,000 and $350,000 in individual productions in return for music publishing rights.

ASC is a fund associated and managed by the two founders of Atlantic Screen Music, former Pathe Entertainment FD Simon Fawcett and Tim Hollier, who built the world’s biggest independent film music publisher Filmtrax PLC.
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There are very strong forces currently attacking the PROs in Europe. Although many musicians now regret the death of collective licensing in the US, some parties are pushing for it in Europe. Are the UK and Europe moving towards a US model? Are we seeing a dismantling of the PRS for Music monopoly in the UK?
Are the record labels themselves helping the dismantling of collective licensing? What is the true role vs. stated position of the publishers? What would the consequences be for the creation and exploitation of music in Europe.

These questions – and hopefully more – will be debated at a major conference organised by Music 4.5 in central London on June 9, 2011. For details, visit Music 4.5.

Music licensing is a tricky subject at the best of times. For start-ups, it can be a nightmare. March 9 2011 is the date for a workshop focused on providing up-to-date practical music and content licensing guidelines to tech startups and agencies. The workshop will examine different kinds of deals ranging from streaming music, online campaigns, apps, video and games involving both music and content in various combinations. It will also discuss the new developments within the regulatory landscape to be aware of and their implications.

Two in-depth case studies of how it has worked for Last.fm and PureSolo will be presented and discussed. Read the rest of this entry…

An article in the Harvard Crimson pointed to a project run by Berklee and the movie studio Paramount. The studio has undertaken a massive programme to tag a database of old soundtracks from the 20s onwards, with the goal of making them available for licensing. There are mountains of music out there that cannot practically be used, as they cannot be searched. By tagging old soundtracks, supervisors will be able to locate and cue music from a very rich library that includes scores from films such as Star Trek, Forrest Gump, Chinatown, Mission Impossible, Love Story, and Airplane from composers such as Elmer Berstein, Danny Elfman, Philip Glass, Jerry Goldsmith, Ennio Morricone and others.

The idea is certainly good from a logical point of view, and one I recently put to a popular TV series. Why let good music lie dormant when it could be earning money? But a question that bothers me is who will be earning? Was not lots of this music composed “for hire”?

Continue reading on Examiner.com: Berklee students open doors to Paramount’s archives – Boston Movie News | Examiner.com and The Crimson.

For MIDEM 2011 (January 22-26), CISAC, the International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers, has invited a number of industry experts to Cannes to share practical advice on music licensing during two panel discussions: MidemNet’s “Music Licensing Crash Test” (Jan 22) and the CISAC hosted MIDEM session “Digital Services & Authors’ Societies — Building Efficient Partnerships” (Jan 24). CISAC will also unveil its highly anticipated annual Global Economic Survey of royalty collections for authors’ rights during the week.
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News that will surely interest music supervisors is that Harmonix Music Systems, makers of the “Rock Band” music video game franchise has been bought back with the support of an investment firm. Viacom Inc. announced that it has sold the company  to Harmonix-SBE Holdings LLC, an affiliate of Columbus Nova, LLC. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

A comment on the company site states, “We’re excited to be returning to our roots as an independent and privately owned studio. As for what it means for fans, the DLC schedule marches on for Rock Band, we will continue our support of previously released titles, and we’re hard at work on some unannounced projects.”

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