A petition demanding the ouster of Recording Academy president Neil Portnow surpassed its original goal of 10,000 signatures overnight. By Thursday morning more than 11,650 had signed demanding the long-standing exec exit after his comments that women need to "step up" if they want to end systemic gender discrimination in music.
_______________________________________
Helping to drive the online petition to oust Neil Portnow to within a few hundred of its new goal of 12,0000 signatures were some of the superstar musicians and music industry professionals who have experienced the gender bias Recording Academy president downplayed with his recent comments.
Attention everyone, especially musicians: Step up. And sign the petition to have Neil Portnow, president of the Recording Academy/Grammy's, to step down. We are close to our goal of 10000 votes. Pass along. https://t.co/GGOY95eUhy
Nobody else had to grow a beard to receive a nomination.
Neil Portnow is just biased and doesn’t appreciate good music from females in 2016/2017. https://t.co/5SAXPNpv8a
A New York federal judge dismissed a copyright suit claiming U2 stole a 12-second guitar solo on its 1991 album “Achtung Baby” from a British blues guitarist's instrumental track.
Guitarist Paul Rose, 51, filed his copyright lawsuit in the Southern District of New York in Feb. 2017, claiming that U2’s “The Fly” stole “an elaborate and distinctive guitar solo nearly identical” to the start of his 1989 instrumental “Nae Slappin.”
But U.S. District Judge Denise Cote concluded Tuesday that Rose has “not plausibly pled that the defendants’ work contains a literal or nearly literal copy of the identified portion of the plaintiff’s work.”
Cote determined in her 23-page opinion that the looped audio clips Rose included in his amended complaint “are sufficient to demonstrate that a reasonable juror could not conclude that the two portions of the works are sufficiently close.”
According to Cote, Rose relied on the doctrine of fragmented literal similarity, which says a fragmented piece can infringe on copyright even if the complete piece differs from the original.
But Cote didn’t buy it.
“While both begin with one note held for a few beats, followed by playing three shorter notes down the octave, any possible similarity ends there,” the judge deduced after comparing the two songs.
In addition to accusing U2 of ripping off his guitar solo, Rose’s copyright file also claimed the percussion in the U2 song “accentuates the same points in the bass line” as his own work.
In his opposition brief, Rose asserted that the U2 song had “the same attitude, attack, style and overall approach.”
Cote also remained unconvinced by Rose’s claim that U2’s use of a tambourine as percussion qualified as infringement.
“Although a tambourine is used in both fragments, it is not used in the same way,” she pointed out. “The tambourine in ‘Nae Slappin’ is hit along with the snare; the tambourine in ‘The Fly’ is shaken.”
Rose sought at least $5 million in damages.
A 1992 Rolling Stone review of the Daniel Lanois-produced “Achtung Baby” record noted that The Edge’s textured and heavily-effected guitar playing on “The Fly” featured “grinding riffs that bounce off Adam Clayton’s thick bass line and echo and embellish Larry Mullen Jr.’s drumming.”
Rose recently finished a residency at the Bitter End nightclub in Greenwich Village – New York City’s oldest rock club – where he played in a trio backed by musicians from jazz fusion groups Spyro Gyra and the Pat Metheny Group.
Last Sunday, U2 performed at the 60th Grammy Awards in New York City.
Reps for both U2 and Paul Rose did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
In 2016, rock legends Led Zeppelin prevailed in a similar California copyright suit that claimed it had lifted the opening riff in “Stairway to Heaven” from the finger-picked acoustic theme from “Taurus” by the 60s Los Angeles rock band Spirit.
Despite rising home prices, American housing is actually quite affordable. According to new data, today’s home buyers actually have “historically high levels of house-purchasing power.”
from Mortgage Rates, Mortgage News and Strategy : The Mortgage Reports http://ift.tt/2nr9KFV
Pandora announced an organizational restructuring today that includes layoffs in some departments as part of a $45 million in cost cutting "designed to prioritize its strategic growth initiatives and optimize overall business performance."
_____________________________________________
5% of Pandora's workforce is being cut today as the unprofitable music streamer pledges to cut $45 million in expenses. An SEC filing estimated the severance and benefits cost of the layoffs at between $6.5 and $8.5 million.
"Effective immediately, a combination of eliminated roles and other cost-saving measures are expected to result in combined annualized savings of approximately $45 million to adjusted EBITDA," the company said in a statement. "The savings will be reinvested into growth initiatives including ad-tech, non-music content, device integration and marketing technology, toward which the company will redeploy existing employees and hire for new positions."The redesign will also shift resources to focus on ad-tech and audience development efforts.
"These changes allow us to act faster, invest for growth and extend our leadership as the audio market hits what we believe will soon be a major inflection point,” said Pandora's new CEO Roger Lynch.
Pandora also announced plans to expand its presence and workforce in Atlanta, providing a "significant opportunity to add instrumental talent in a region with lower costs" than at company headquarters in Oakland, CA.
More Pain Ahead
But even in today's announcement Pandora admits that these moves may not be enough. "In addition to creating operating leverage with these organizational changes, Pandora is focused on capturing additional cost efficiencies with tighter business processes, automation, expansion in lower-cost locations and management of content costs – all of which will be incremental to the savings above."
