The News hit yesterday that the UK would not force Internet service providers to pursue file sharers.
As the music industry steps up its fight against piracy, there has been many rumors of legislation in which case these pirates would be tracked down through their Internet provider.

Countries such as France are fighting hard against these pirates. However, David Lammy says that legislation would be far too complex. The BPI, who represent the UK music industry, are gunning towards a “Three strikes, you’re outta here” policy, in which case offenders are sent warning letters. Persistent offenders could be potentially thrown off of their Internet providers. Though some ISP’s, mostly Virgin Media, had sent out initial warning letters, the rest of this policy by BPI has yet to take hold.

Will Canada make another attempt to adopt legislation against downloaders?
Let’s hope never, because DRM has been lifted, and it’s really time for the war against piracy to be over! It hasn’t worked, and it won’t start working now. Let the music be free! Because sharing is the new way for artists to promote their music.

We had our official launch party on Sunday, here are some photos from the event of Bahiyyih’s performance, and company Director Jarome Matthew with staff Lilo, Tiana, Roshena, and Felisha:

Thanks Tobin for the great shots!

Last night we had our official launch party, and it was a lot of fun!

We had a fantastic diverse range of artists who came to hear more about what Pro Soul is doing, and had some great live performances from Bahiyyih, and upcoming artist Haagen who you’ll hear more about in the near future. We also previewed an exciting new video that we’ll be launching online soon, that will explain all about what Pro Soul is doing specifically to assist artists in the new music business and why in 6 minutes or less!

Our photographer took lots of great photos that we’ll post once they’re ready, so keep an eye out for those.

We also said goodbye to Roshena, our VP behind much of what has been happening here at Pro Soul to officially get launched. Without her, none of this would have been possible! Our deepest thanks Roshena, all the best with your music career!

Thanks to all our staff for helping put this event on, Felisha, Lilo, Tiana, and Anne. We greatly appreciate your efforts and dedication as well. Thanks also to Tobin and Tristan for visual support and to everyone who came and supported the Music BC charitable foundation for musicians. You were all part of music history in the making!

About 250-300 people attended the MIDEM seminar on Sunday. The stressed topic was Social Media. In previous years, MIDEM conferences focused on any hot topic affecting the music industry, and this year it was the artist-fan relationship. Social media is more and more being proven to be an effective means to market music and other media to a young and tech-savvy audience.

About 35% of those attending the seminar have not started using social networks as a way to promote themselves, 30% started last year and 35 % started two or more years ago. But a big question brought up in the conference was, are social networks effective in a means to make a profit?  83% of the audience said yes, 17% said no. So what is the most effective way to market oneself on a social network? 43% said artist-branded channels or sites, such as MySpace.

Fans want to be acquainted with an artist, so the artist-branded channels or sites work extremely well, and have worked very well for numerous artists. It was discussed that artists should link up and share with their own friends. This can also deliver good results.

At the end of the conference, the audience was asked if they were more or less likely to use networks for marketing in 2009; 69% said more, 19% said less and 11% said the same.

The basic consensus from the event is that social networking is:

1) cost effective,

2) user friendly,

3) an excellent means to be in touch with the young part of one’s audience, and

4) increasingly becoming more and more of an effective means to get one’s music out there in general.

As for how Pro Soul would answer the questions: we already help our artists effectively utilize many avenues for social networking, and we’ll continue to do so – and more – in 2009.  It is absolutely a vital part in building an audience and effectively monetizing the artist’s music.

At Pro Soul, we’ve always got our feelers out for what’s happening in the music industry.

One of the best ways to do this is by keeping tabs on the happenings at MIDEM, “the world’s music market, where nearly 9,000 international music (labels, publishers, artist managers and many more), digital and mobile professionals gather to do business.)

The 2009 MIDEM conference began yesterday in Cannes, France, and features distinguished speakers sharing their thoughts on key issues affecting the music industry today.  MidemNet, the weekend-long precursor to MIDEM, focused on a topic important to Pro Soul and its artists: monetizing music in the digital age.  Over 1,400 Industry experts discussed new and exciting ideas to address the opportunities and challenges surrounding the development of the artist-fan relationship, particularly on the Internet.

We’ll be bringing you the latest news out of MIDEM, so stay tuned!

Bahiyyih (Ba-hee-ya) is a Vancouver-based artist whose formal exploration of her voice was preceded by many years of constant singing.  She soon picked up the guitar and has been writing emotionally-charged folk/indie/pop ever since.

Under the expert guidance of Pro Soul owner and producer, Jarome Matthew, Bahiyyih is currently working on new material, which her loyal fans are eagerly anticipating.  Though her new website is under construction, you can hear Bahiyyih’s music on her MySpace page.