Lorry fuel tax protest hits roads

27 Tuesday May 2008

Protests over fuel prices are starting to kick in again, with a number of convoys around the country on a go slow impacting traffic. More details at BBC NEWS. According to the BBC …

Treasury spokesman said the government understood business and families were “feeling the pressure from high fuel prices”.

But they said the “immediate priority” was to encourage oil-producing countries to increase output, that a 2p-per-litre fuel duty increase had been put back from April to October and fuel duty was “still 11% below its 1999 level, in real terms”.

The fact that the prices are 11% less in real terms, is misses the most crucial the point, which is the rate of change that is the problem, and that if fuel prices are to rapidly correct based on that real terms figures is going to really hit inflation.

del.icio.us tags: fuel, prices, lorries, protest

Record results for music royalties in 2007

27 Tuesday May 2008

Posted by mp3monster in Music

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The UK organisations responsible for collecting music royalties have reported here that they have had a record year in collected royalties. Although royalties from physical media sales have dropped by 10% everything else (e.g. public performance, downloads and so on) have been increasing in or near double digit rates giving an overall growth of 3%. The report says …

For the first time, income from broadcasting and online out-performed that of recorded physical product. Online royalties, although still a small proportion of the overall whole (at £10m), grew significantly by 54% year-on-year, largely due to the growth in the legal online music market led by iTunes.

A picture that isn’t too gloomy given the current global economic down turn, although this is only really good news for the artists and composers rather than the record labels themselves.

del.icio.us tags: MCPS, PRS, recording, royalties, music, downloads

Hotel Chelsea NYC, Rock’s Vortex Of ‘Death and Destruction’

27 Tuesday May 2008

Posted by mp3monster in Books, Music, Photography

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Wired.com have got a neat little article here about the Hotel Chelsea in NYC. This notorious venue perhaps most famous as the location where Sid Vicious allegedly killed his girlfriend Nancy Spungen, but also the home for a raft of other sordid stories (and a few less sordid such as Arthur C Clarke’s writing of 2001). The hotel is now the subject to a documentary film and photo essay book.