Yesterday we reported that the government's Department For Business Innovation & Skills was about to publish the findings of its consultation on who should pay for any three-strikes anti-piracy system as set up by the Digital Economy Act.

As previously reported, it was originally suggested the content owners who use the system to target file-sharers should cover 75% of the costs, with said file-sharers' internet service provider covering the other 25%. Although both sides want their share to be lower, the BIS department, who have been consulting all concerned, are expected to stick with the 75/25 proposal.

But we won't know that for certain for at least another week because their report, originally due out today (actually, originally due out last week), now won't be out for at least another week. It's possible the BIS are delaying their report so they can publish at the same time as another consultation on three-strikes being undertaken by media regulator OfCom, which was originally also due out this week but which has been pushed back to later in the month.

German collecting society GEMA failed to get an injunction to force YouTube to take down videos containing one of 75 songs last week.

As much previously reported, the German equivalent of PRS has been in dispute with YouTube over royalty rates for over a year now. After ongoing licensing talks between the collecting society and video site broke down in May, GEMA asked the German courts to issue an injunction to force the Google-owned site to remove any videos containing one of 75 songs owned by publishers represented by the collecting society.

The society argued an injunction was needed now, pending other legal action, on urgency grounds because, given there is currently no licensing agreement between YouTube and GEMA, the writers of the 75 songs in question are losing money every time one of their videos is played.

But, according to Billboard, the Regional Court Of Hamburg, while not passing judgment on GEMA's wider copyright claim, said it was not convinced by the urgency argument so would not issue any interim injunctions. GEMA can, of course, proceed with their other legal action against YouTube, but the 75 songs may continue to be accessed via the video site in the meantime. 

GEMA have a month to appeal the injunction ruling should they wish to.

The government's Department Of Business Innovation & Skills will shortly publish the conclusions of its consultation on who should pick up the tab for running any three-strikes system for combating online piracy.

BIS has been looking into the cost element of the so-called 'graduated response' system as outlined in the Digital Economy Act. When the Act was being discussed earlier this year it was proposed content owners employing the three-strikes system should pick up 75% of the costs while the internet service provider whose customers were being accused of file-sharing should pay the other 25%. Needless to say, both sides wanted their share to be less.

But, according to Music Week, insiders say the BIS's conclusion will be that the 75/25 split, with the content owner picking up the bigger tab, should remain.

The BIS's consultation on the cost issue has run in tandem with the work being done by media regulator OfCom with regards the specifics of how the three-strikes system set up by the DEA should work. It was originally thought OfCom would publish its next report on three-strikes at the same time as the BIS document on costs, though it seems likely the former will now not be ready until later this month.

Universal Music Group's revenues for the first half of 2010 were down 5.4% year on year to 1.9 billion euros, the latest financial report from parent company Vivendi has revealed.

Digital sales were up and the major's merchandising business continued to grow, the report revealed, but a relatively slow release schedule meant overall sales were down - despite the arrival of a new Eminem long player and all that Bieber mania.

The report noted that the next six months should see things pick up partly as a result of new releases from big sellers like Black Eyed Peas, Kanye West, Mariah Carey, Akon, and Maroon 5.

Vivendi, as a whole, though is doing very well thank you very much, mainly due to the good performance of its phone businesses.

The already rather acquisitive BMG Rights Management will get 200 million euros from each of its owners - Bertelsmann and KKR - to spend on yet more acquisitions. So, that's 400 million euros to spend. Which is nice.

The new cash injection was announced at a Bertelsmann press conference, where the former owners of the BMG record company denied rumours they were looking to scale back their stake in the all new BMG music rights company. According to Billboard, the media conglom's CFO Thomas Rabe told reporters: "BMG is performing even more favourably than we had expected. I can truly say that we are highly satisfied with the chart performances of our artists and songwriters, especially in the United States".

Asked about ongoing rumours that BMG and/or its equity group co-owners KKR had their eyes on EMI's music publishing division, Rabe also told Billboard: "If EMI enters the market in whatever form, we will consider such an option. BMG is currently in an expansionary phase and has plentiful equity resources. For this reason, it is always a potential buyer of businesses". So, there you go.

Tesco has said it will start selling CDs in its petrol stations, though initially it will only sell one CD. Well one album, presumably they'll sell more than one copy. Assuming they can find more than one person who wants it who hasn't already got it.

'The Dance' by Faithless, which was only ever available in physical form via the supermarket giant, will now be stocked in their garages, too. The arrival of the album in the filling stations coincides with the dance sell-out's previously reported advertising tie up with Fiat, which will see the car firm air ads that also flog the band's record (or the band release a video that also flogs the car, depending on how you look at it).

It's not clear if other CDs sold exclusively by Tesco will also be stocked in the supermarket chain's garages. As previously reported, Girl Aloud Nadine Coyle recently entered into an exclusivity deal with the retailer regards her debut solo album.

The Pensions Regulator has been asked to step in and rule on a disagreement between EMI and the trustees of the music major's pension fund.

As previously reported, there is a hole in that fund of anywhere between £115 million and £271 million, and pressure has been mounting on EMI bosses and the firm's owners Terra Firma to find some cash to plug the hole. Cash, of course, is not something EMI has in abundance.

The dispute is seemingly over just how much cash EMI should put into its pensions fund, presumably with the trustees saying "lots" and EMI/Terra Firma chiefs opting for "less". The Pensions Regulator has the power to rule on the matter if the two sides can't reach an agreement and could decide how much EMI has to pay, though at the first stage it is more likely the regulator would try to play an arbitrator role rather than making a ruling.

According to the BBC, EMI bigwigs have indicated that if the regulator was to be too harsh in any ruling it could send the music firm into insolvency, and the Beeb quote an independent pension consultant called John Ralfe who says that, given EMI's current debt woes, if they were forced to pay a particularly large sum of money into their pension fund it could be "the straw that breaks the camel's back".

But still, given Terra Firma have been so keen to tell us of late just how much support they have from their investors for continuing to bail out EMI, presumably those investors could have a whip round to cover any shortfall.

The EMI pension fund only actually provides for 269 people, having been closed to new joiners in 2005.

Fan funding website Pledge Music will launch in Australia on 8 Sep, at the same time founder Benji Rogers speaks at Brisbane music convention BIGSOUND.

Mark Muggeridge of Aussie-based music consultancy Evil Genius Media has been hired to work with artists down under who opt to raise investment via the Pledge platform, and to help them "understand how to get the most from their PledgeMusic campaigns".

Rogers told CMU: "Whilst in Australia recently I was so impressed with how artists down under are taking their music carriers into their own hands and at how forward thinking the music business there seems to be. We really feel that PledgeMusic can be a great option for both signed and unsigned acts in Australia and are ready to lend our support wherever we can".

EMI chief Roger Faxon donned a very fine hat for an interview with Billboard earlier this week to discuss that recent financial report that showed that, while the UK major is still loss-making, it is doing a lot better now than it has for a number of years, despite that horrible multi-billion debt it has with the increasingly unhelpful Citigroup.

Asked for his take on his company's recent performance, Faxon told the US trade magazine: "There is always the press speculation about the debt load and all of those things. But basically everyone should feel comfortable that EMI is operating on four of its six cylinders, so we have two more cylinders to ignite to get the thing to roll where it ought to be and maybe we will get it up to eight cylinders. But it's a good solid story. And in any other industry, it would be sort of 'oh yeah, they are doing okay' but in our industry, it's a pretty remarkable turnaround story".

Asked about why he thought EMI had done a lot better revenues-wise in the last financial year, Faxon focused on projects within the company's recorded music division, the flagging part of the firm that has only recently fallen under his remit. He mused: "We had a lot of really good records in the marketplace. Obviously, we had the Beatles remastered programme, which was very successful. But we had a lot of other really great success. Lady Antebellum burned up the charts, and while Robbie Williams is largely a European phenomenon, he did really well. You had David Guetta and Lily Allen and a great run with Depeche Mode this past year. So, there were a lot of reasons why EMI Music did well".

For legal reasons, we must stress that Roger Faxon was not wearing a hat during this interview. The hat mentioned above was figurative.

EMI publicist Debra Geddes put on a lovely cardigan yesterday to celebrate being promoted to the new role of Senior Director of Artist Publicity at the music major.

It's an interesting sounding job, newly created, in that it will cut across the various record labels within the EMI empire, and might be a sign that the major plans to do publicity work around key artists on a more on-going basis rather than just tied to new album releases, something that is highly sensible in an era where every artists' entire back catalogue is on sale (digitally) all the time. It would be interesting to know if Geddes will work on artists signed to EMI's growing merchandise empire too.

Alas a quote from EMI Music UK President Andria Vidler about Geddes' new role revealed little: "Bringing together our artist publicity team under one senior director creates a strong and flexible team that will allow us and our artists to maximise the great publicity skills we have in-house and the opportunities of the rapidly changing media landscape".

For legal reasons, we must stress that Debra Geddes was not wearing a lovely cardigan yesterday. The cardigan mentioned above was figurative.

For legal reasons, we must stress that that doesn't mean Debra Geddes was wearing a horrible cardigan yesterday. We don't actually know what she was wearing, but are confident every item of clothing was marvellous. Especially the shoes.

EMI Music has further expanded its interests in the wonderful world of music merchandising and such like by acquiring London-based online music retail company Digital Stores, perhaps best known for operating the RecordStore.co.uk website, but presumably of more interest to the music major for the third party ecommerce services it provides musicians and brands.

The company will now operate under EMI's merchandising division, joining Europe's second largest retail music and entertainment merchandise distributor LoudClothing, though will remain in its north London HQ for the time being.

No further details of the deal have yet been revealed.

Nadine Coyle is the latest singer to enter into an exclusivity deal with Tesco. Following on from Simply Red and Faithless, the Girl Aloud will make her debut solo album available exclusively via the supermarket giant. Coyle had originally been working with Universal Music on her solo debut, but sources say she opted for a deal with the retail firm instead because they were happy to leave her and her management to sort out the creative side of the venture.

The Mirror quotes a source as follows: "Being able to work on the music that she wants was the main reason for going with Tesco. She's decided who she's wanted to work with from the start. She's in control of every single decision - from the writers, the producers and the collaborators - and wants to produce her dream album. She didn't want to be a puppet for a record company".

Music business insurance specialists Willie Robertson and Bob Taylor have renewed their contracts with the broker firm that bears their name, Robertson Taylor. The company is now owned by another outfit called Oxygen Holdings.

The brokers' MD, John Silcock, told Music Week: "We are delighted that Bob and Willie are continuing in the business as before. Their experience and industry knowledge are unparalleled and there is a huge amount of affection and respect for them from both the music industry and the insurance industry".

Music publisher Chrysalis has revealed that its share of the royalties their songs catalogue earned between April and August was 5.2% up on the same period a year earlier.

An 'interim management statement' from the company dished out namechecks to songwriting talent Fraser T Smith, Nerina Pallot and Ethan Jones, who between them have written for the likes of Taio Cruz, Kylie Minogue and Tom Jones, as helping bring in all that lovely loot.

The publisher's CEO Jeremy Lascelles said this: "I am especially delighted with the two Ivor Novello awards which recognise both a breakthrough act in Bats For Lashes and an established artist, Johnny Marr. Chrysalis continues to outperform the market and to deft wider music industry turmoil".

The top guard at Electric & Musical Industries would like it to be known that everything is going just swell, like, seriously, it's good times: have an extra orange with your lunch because were celebrating big time. Or something like that.

The still relatively new boss of the EMI Group, Roger Faxon, issued a statement yesterday following the publication of that financial report from Maltby Capital, the equity vehicle through which the superhero-like Terra Firma owns the flagging music major.

As previously reported, that document admitted that Terra Firma is likely to have to pump even more money into EMI in 2011 than it has in 2010 in order to ensure the music company does not breach the covenants of its loan agreement with Citigroup; doing so would allow the big bad Citibank to seize control of the London-based major.

But despite the gloomy nature of that admission, Faxon would like it to be known his company is actually doing quite well. And, actually, day-to-day they are. Earnings before tax were up 14% in the last financial year, with operating cashflow up a massive 55%. If it wasn't for the multi-billion dollar loan with a bank their parent company is currently suing it really would be oranges all round at EMI HQ.

Faxon told reporters yesterday: "There is a clear opportunity ahead for EMI as a whole to develop a structure and approach that recognises the realities of the music environment, and that truly delivers success for the creative talent that the company is privileged to represent. The operating performance we delivered in the year under review gives us a strong platform, and I'm looking forward to working with our great staff and artists to develop the business further".

Meanwhile the chief of the aforementioned Maltby Capital, Stephen Alexander, said: "This report shows the very real operational progress that EMI has made in the past three years, in the face of the serious challenges faced by the music industry and the wider economy. The year was characterised by creative and commercial achievement in both divisions. EMI [recorded] Music had particular success with the release of the remastered Beatles catalogue, which has sold more than thirteen million albums to date, as well as strong sales from newer artists such as Katy Perry and Lady Antebellum. EMI Music Publishing has again been named publisher of the year in both the US and the UK, and the business is creating valuable new revenue streams on behalf of its unmatched roster of writers".

For legal reasons, we must stress that EMI is not frittering away its profits on free oranges for staff members. The oranges mentioned above were figurative.

Although EMI is performing better than it was, it is still not profitable enough to meet the terms of its loan agreement with the big bad Citigroup without further cash assistance from owners Terra Firma, or at least that's the conclusion of Maltby Capital, the vehicle through which the equity group actually owns the music company.

Of course, Terra Firma has already stumped up a bucket of cash to help EMI do just that for much of the next year but, according to the Financial Times, the music firm will need a "far larger injection of fresh equity" in 2011. Although this isn't news that will surprise anyone especially, it won't do anything to cheer up those Terra Firma financial backers who already have cold feet about EMI.

The big Beatles re-release programme and the success of new artists like Katy Perry helped lift EMI's fortunes in the last financial year, while reduced overheads and restructuring costs meant Maltby made a £512 million post-tax loss for the year overall, rather than the £1.57 billion loss made the year before. But the future of EMI is still uncertain.

Ideally Terra Firma needs to renegotiate its music company's mega-billions loan agreement with Citigroup, which is possibly something TF bosses could discuss with the bankers when they meet in court later this year to squabble over whether the bank gave the equity firm bad advice ahead of its purchase of the music major in 2007.

Meanwhile, given Terra Firma chief Guy Hands failed to secure two year's worth of back up funding for EMI from his investors earlier this summer - as he had originally hoped to do - presumably speculation will grow once again next spring that Citigroup is about to take control of EMI and sell it off to Warner Music and rival equity firm KKR.

Music PR firm Anorak are offering a full service media campaign to a label or band as part of a fundraising initiative for the relief effort in Pakistan, where over 20 million people have been affected by the recent flooding.

Labels and bands are encouraged to put £100 into the pot in aid of Oxfam's work in Pakistan. One of the labels and bands that does so will then be picked out of a hat and win a full campaign from Anorak, including press, radio, TV and online work.

A spokesman for Oxfam told CMU yesterday: "Over 20 million people are affected by the floods in Pakistan. The British public have been generous but we still need more funds. Anorak's innovation to offer their services is a clever way of volunteering and fundraising in one go".

To enter the competition go to www.justgiving.com/anorakoxfampakistan/

Ken Livingston last week launched a new policy document, which he's quite embarrassingly called 'Ken4Music', outlining how he'd support London's live music venues if he was to be re-elected as mayor in 2012. Amongst a number of plans to promote and protect live music in the capital are proposals to launch of a new London-wide SxSW-style music festival.

There are, of course, various multi-venue live music festivals in London already, such as The Camden Crawl, Next Big Thing and City Showcase. Mostly these are concentrated in one area of the capital, though City Showcase has taken steps to link up various projects and events across the city, as well as its main showcase and seminar programme in shops up and down Regent Street and Carnaby Street.

In his proposal Ken claims that the 2008 SxSW brought $110 million into the local economy of host city Austin, and suggests that a similar festival could do the same for London, adding to the money live music already generates for the city: in Camden alone it is estimated that around 20% of the night time economy can be attributed to music venues and night clubs.

However, I'm not convinced staging a festival similar to SxSW in London would be as easy as Ken seems to suggest. It works in Austin because the bulk of the activity is based along one single street, making travelling between shows very easy. Connecting the various music hubs of London is not so easy, the logistics of travelling from venue to venue making things tricky and potentially expensive. And ruining that special festival-vibe SxSW enjoys. 

But, hey, let's not rain on Ken's parade straight away. Maybe he's already had a good hard think about how to overcome the obvious problems. I'm sure he's a regular at venues all over London, and knows how difficult it can be to navigate the city on public transport at times, especially late at night.

Launching the policy paper, Livingston said: "London's music scene is as much part of the capital's life blood as the buses and trains that take millions to gigs, concerts and festivals in the capital each year. I want London to host a regular music festival, taking the example of the successful Austin, Texas South By Southwest festival, which generates millions for the local economy and provides a focus for music nationally and internationally. As well as playing host to signed and unsigned acts representing the multitude of music genres heard around the city, the London Music Festival will be a tool for musicians and the people they work with to develop their careers, and bring together people from a wide area to meet and share ideas".

He added: "I believe the Mayor of London must be passionate in backing live music and today I'm setting out some new ideas that will ensure that long term future of live music in the capital. I want the protection of live music venues to be part of the Mayor's strategy and I am setting out details today of how that would be delivered".

Livingston also brought in a number of musicians to support his plans, including Dave Okumu of The Invisible, Saint Etienne's Bob Stanley, and Emmy The Great.

Okumu said: "As a musician living and working in London, I am deeply conscious of what a significant role live music plays in enriching the cultural life of this city. Yet the last few years have born witness to a disturbing trend whereby venues are struggling to sustain themselves and are often toiling away under threat of closure. This is completely at odds with people's thirst for, and appreciation of, live music. There has been a conspicuous absence of policy which directly and positively impacts the sustainability and growth of live music in the capital. I therefore advocate any shift towards genuine and practical support for live music".

Stanley added: "This is a really great initiative from Ken. A European-based musical festival inspired by South by Southwest is what we need in London. I'd really love to see it happen".

And finally, Emmy The Great said: "The launch of Ken's music manifesto reaffirms my decision to travel sixteen hours to and from recording in Glasgow just to vote for Ken in 2008. As a Londoner, I always trusted that he had the best interests of me and my city in mind, and now I know he also has the best interests of the vital and struggling music industry in mind as well. Music is a vital source of economic and cultural strength for London. It's cheering to see, in this age of cuts, a potential mayor who recognises the tangible benefits to society of creativity, and seeks practical, workable solutions to foster it".

We haven't yet got a quote from Feargal Sharkey, but I'm going to guess he likes this, too.

To be fair, and despite us fulfilling our duty to be a little bit sceptical of Ken's grand plan, the former (and wannabe future) major's proposals aren't all bad, and more support for live music from the mayor wouldn't be a bad thing. And he makes some interesting proposals regarding swinging planning and development laws a bit more in favour of venues.

Though he says little on some of the bigger problems facing smaller venues (some of which he'd have no control over anyway), and together the whole thing does read a bit like a bunch of vague ideas have been thrown together in the knowledge that any grand plan won't have to be properly thought about for at least a couple of years.

Read the full policy document: www.kenlivingstone.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/Ken4Music1.pdf

50 Cent's G-Unit label has signed a new marketing and distribution deal with EMI Label Services, it has been announced.

The first release under the new deal will be Lloyd Banks' third solo album 'HFM 2' in November. Banks told AllHipHop.com: "It's refreshing to see the EMI staff excited about my project, they have the passion and energy I haven't seen in while", while Mike Harris, Executive Vice President and General Manager for EMI Label Services said: "We are delighted to join forces with G-Unit and artists who are truly marquee names in hip-hop. G-Unit is a huge force".

Fiddy's contract with Universal/Interscope came to an end earlier this year, and he has since been in discussions with a number of labels (including Interscope). It's not clear if he plans to move to EMI with G-Unit, though last month the rapper dismissed claims by EMI urban promotions man Craig Davis that he was about to move to EMI's Capitol, telling the G-Unit radio show: "That guy, I don't know what his name is, the guy that [said that], he's an idiot. Okay? And there's no deal done. He's an idiot - he's running his mouth. Out of nowhere he just comes out, you can tell he's a little drunk or some shit. [I am staying with] Interscope, all the success that I've had has been with Interscope".

Laura Ballance, the co-founder of Arcade Fire's US label, Merge Records, has accused Amazon of "devaluing music" after the etailer decided to sell the download version of the band's new album, 'The Suburbs', for just $3.99.

'The Suburbs' went straight to number one in the US, shifting 156,000 copies in its first week, 97,000 of which were downloads.

Speaking to the LA Times about Amazon's discount, balance said: "Unfortunately, that's not up to us. Devaluing music is something that concerns me greatly. But it's hard to draw a hard line on it. At this point, people can download music for free if they really want to. If you're trying to get people to buy music, people who wouldn't otherwise, maybe that's the way to do it. Just to make it so cheap that it tips the scale. It's tricky. I find the resistance I had five years ago to music getting cheap is being broken down over the years by relentless pressure. People want to pay less".

As for the fact that Merge has just managed to get its first number one album in the indie label's 21 year history, Ballance isn't particularly excited. She said: "The whole chart thing is kind of like sports. The need to have a ranking is kind of meaningless. I'm more like, 'It did good? That's great'".

'The Suburbs', of course, went to number one in the UK as well. Amazon UK also sold the album at a discounted price of £3.99 during its first week of release.