Library of Congress - National Recording Registry

The 2007 recordings are here.

Information about the National Recording Preservation Board is here.

OTCS once did a science report on the Voyager Spacecraft mission. And now, the "Sounds of Earth" gold record sent with the Voyager has made the registry! Though it is still uncertain whether aliens have record players...

Oversaturation of Festival Headliners

A while back, OTCS proposed a novel idea for the future: festival exclusivity.

Perhaps the future isn't so far off. As Rolling Stone notes:

Promoters postponed New Jersey’s Vineland Festival before even putting it on sale, and Coachella in late April was attended by 160,000 fans, according to reports, compared to 180,000 last year. Many of this summer’s major festivals have the same headliners — such as Jack Johnson at Coachella, Bonnaroo, All Points West and Outside Lands — and they may be losing their distinctiveness. “There’s always a saturation point for everything,” says Chuck Morris, the AEG Live promoter who is producing the July 19th-20th Mile High Music Festival in Denver, with Petty and DMB.

If and when you see such a clause, shoot us an e-mail.

Streaming Rate - ASCAP

ASCAP license fee dispute over streaming digital services, rate holding here. USA v. ASCAP, No. 41-1395 (WCC) (S.D.N.Y., White Plains, opinion and order 4/30/08):

"[T]he fee for a blanket license for unlimited performance of all music in the ASCAP repetory for all open periods to December 31, 2009 shall be determined by multiplying the total revenue of the licensed business unit ... less customary deductions for advertising sales commissions and traffic acquisition costs, by a music-use-adjustment fraction whose numerator is the total number of hours music is streamed to users by the licensee ... and whose denominator is the total number of hours of use of the licensee's website ... and applying to the resulting music-use-adjusted revenue a fee rate of 2.5%."

[See conclusion].

State of the Industry

Here is the Nielsen (as in, the SoundScan people) report on the State of the Music Industry (2007-2008).