Billboard’s new Power Players special feature “40 Under 40″ will identify these individuals — offer your nominations online at Billboard.biz HERE.

Individuals in all aspects of the music industry are eligible if they were born after Aug 11, 1972. (The report will be published in the issue dated Aug. 11, 2012).

Individuals recognized in a previous Billboard Power Players report are eligible for consideration.

Individuals who make their living primarily as artists and/or songwriters are not eligible unless they own their recordings or songs and act in a business or executive capacity to market them.

Billboard editors will choose among the nominees by considering their achievements, both within their company and the broader industry, with an emphasis on recent, measurable accomplishment, as described in their nomination.

The deadline for nominations is Friday, May 25, 2012.

For FAQ, more information and the nomination ballot, CLICK HERE.

“We’re delighted to be a nominee for the Libbies’ 21st Century Award. eMusic has been dedicated to the independent music community since inception.  Over the past year, we’ve reaffirmed our relevance in today’s music ecosystem and created a more valuable experience for the “culturally independent” music buyer that our label partners need to reach.  We’re contributing significant market share for many emerging indie artists. It’s an honor to be recognized.” Adam Klein, CEO & President eMusic

“Being part of the A2IM community has played a big role in the Next Big Sound story. From meeting spaces at MIDEM, to industry mixers in cities throughout the US, A2IM members are some of our earliest customers, supporters and friends. It’s an honor to be nominated for a Libera.” Alex White, Next Big Sound

“We’re very pleased to see Mr. Alvin’s synch placement recognized with this special nom.  Dave’s exceptional songwriting talent and performance couldn’t be more perfectly suited and we’re proud for his work to receive such an honor.” Glenn Dicker, Yep Roc

“The Civil Wars and our sensibility music team are completely honored to be recognized by such a lovely group of peers within the independent music community. We’re grateful to share a mutual support and affection with so many other wonderful independent artists and organizations.” Nate Yetton, Owner sensibility music

“We’re honored to be nominated by our peers in the independent community for the first annual A2IM Libera Awards. Truly looking forward to the event and to celebrate all the intrepid indies and their artists. There is a lot to celebrate, and a bounty of great art and creativity happening right now.” Sam Valenti, Founder/Owner Ghostly International

“The recognition of the independent music community means so much to us.   With so many creative independent labels producing so much great music, we’re very honored to receive these nominations.” Glen Barros, Concord Music Group

“It has been an exciting year for Glassnote and our Artists. We are proud and honored to be nominated for the A2IM Libera awards.” Daniel Glass, Glassnote Records

“So many different people came together across the country to bring Emperor X’s musical scavenger hunt to life. It is a testament to a progressive independent industry to be recognized by A2IM and the Libeara Awards.” Mark Lipsitz, Marketing Bar/None

“Six Degrees Records has been flying the indie banner for 15 years now. Lord knows, it hasn’t always been easy- but we’re proud of what we’ve accomplished and of our diverse & eclectic roster and we’re particularly excited to be recognized by our peers with these nominations.” Bob Duskis, Co-Founder Six Degrees Records

“We are honored to be recognized by our colleagues at A2IM.  Our bands and their growing success are a testament to the importance of artist development, which we believe is alive and well in the independent community.” Greg Hammer, Managing Director, Red Bull Records

“Century Media is honored to have so many nominations in the inaugural Libera Awards.  It is a wonderful feeling of accomplishment to be acknowledged by our peers and to be included with so many other great nominees.  The Libbies truly showcase the diversity and strength of the independent music community.” Brian Sharp, Chief Operations Officer, Century Media Records

The webinar took place May 10, 2012 at 10:00am EDT. Watch the Video and the Corresponding Translation of the Judicial Interpretation below.

Topic: Judicial Interpretation on Secondary Liability on the Internet

On April 11, 2012, China’s Supreme People’s Court issued a draft judicial interpretation (JI) entitled, Regulations Concerning the Applicability of Laws in the Adjudication of Civil Disputes Related to Infringement of Rights of Transmission over Information Network, for comments.  The draft JI states that when ISPs abet and assist network users to infringe the rights of others over an information network, they shall be held joint and severally liable.  When they “know or should have known” that their network’s users are infringing,  the ISPs have committed contributory infringement.  Please join us as Sharon Qiao, partner at Lusheng Law Firm in Beijing, discusses the JI and what it may mean for the music industry.

To read the draft JI

The nominees are:

1. Alisa Coleman (ABKCO)

2. Allen Kovac (Eleven Seven)

3. Andrew Kautz (Big Machine Records)

4. Brian McNelis (Lakeshore)

5. Brian Sharp (Century Media)

6. Cathy Bauer (Daptone)

7. Chris Scully (Glassnote)

8. Darius Van Arman (Jagjaguwar)

9. Dennis Murcia (Tropisound)

10. Denny Stilwell (Mack Avenue)

11. Ed Vetri (Wind-up)

12. Geoff Kulawick (True North Records)

13. Jamar Chess (Sunflower Entertainment)

14. Josh Norek (Nacional)

15. Richard Burgess (Smithsonian Folkways)

A2IM expresses our gratitude to the three board members who, due to term limits, must step down at the end of this term:  Portia Sabin (Kill Rock Stars), Glen Barros (Concord Records) & Jim Cooperman (tinyOGRE).  Portia, Glen and Jim, thank you sincerely for your involvement and commitment to this organization. We look forward to your ongoing contributions.

An enormous thanks to our NYC Chapter Co-Chairs, Lori Hon of Gray V and Stephanie Jo Klein of Tunesat for planning this event!!

1) Listener Town Hall (& musicians/labels are more than welcome!) with Tim Westergren on Sunday 4/29 @ 11am — details are below.

2) Tim at Sync Up Conference on Saturday 4/28 @ Noon

3) Michael Addicott at Sync Up Conference on Saturday 4/28 @ 10am

To RSVP, please email

Asia Mission itinerary:
9/5: Wednesday Early AM- flight from NYC to Seoul
9/6: Thursday- Arrival Seoul 3PM, possible short afternoon orientation
9/7: Friday, South Korea briefing presentations & matchmaking meetings, reception at night
9/8: Saturday free day Seoul
9/9: Sunday early Flight to Shanghai, arrive 10AM (2 hour flight) free day in Shanghai
9/10: Monday-China briefing presentations & matchmaking meetings, reception at night, will be working with our friends at CAVA (the only officially recognized national audio-video industrial society approved by the General Administration of Press and Publication and Ministry of Civil Affairs in the PRC) on getting Beijing people to attend too as well planning a visit to their new facility!
9/11 Tuesday- Flight to Hong Kong, time of flight is TBA, as we may be visiting the new Shanghai music facility on this date.
9/12: Wednesday- Hong Kong briefing presentations & matchmaking meetings, reception at night (we will have buyers who also represent Singapore, Malaysia, etc., working on more)
9/13 Thursday- Flight back to U.S., arrive the same day.

Our local U.S. commerce offices are supporting our mission but we are open to, and have received a number of, trade partner suggestions from our members. Potential partners include:

*Recorded music sales – primarily digital licenses but also shipments of physical CD’s too

*Recorded music via Telco subscription services and other subscription services

*Live/Touring

*Merchandising including clothing and other items (for touring and at retail)

*Licensing of music for branding, TV, radio, games, advertisements, etc.

Please send any trade partner suggestions that you may have to Rich@a2im.org

Finally, rest assured, we are applying for other funding that will cover all A2IM members and other states and hopefully will report back to you on those in the coming months

Official.fm, a provider of tools for artists and record labels, announces the launch of its new platform at the Rethink Music Conference in Boston. Official.fm is dedicated to solving some of the biggest pain points in the management and promotion of music online, and the service is free of charge.

“Based on the valuable feedback we’ve been getting from artists & labels, our team has spent the last ten months working incredibly hard to build a powerful, yet easy-to-use, platform for music professionals,“ says Official.fm CEO Jeremie Abhissira. “We think it is a big step forward, and we have taken the bold decision of making it free.”

The company recently completed a private beta of the new platform, with an exclusive community including Warp Records, Adult Swim imprint Williams Street Records, Ghostly International, Red Bull Records, Fearless Records, Redeye Distribution and many others.

The new platform was utilized to release mixtapes from Rostrum Records’ celebrated rappers Wiz Khalifa and Mac Miller; plus the creation of promotional pages for platinum-selling rock artist AWOLNATION (Red Bull Records), and E-funk duo Soul Clap (Wolf + Lamb).

“Most rappers utilize random file sharing services to release mix tapes. This generates massive amounts of traffic for those sites, which then make good money off of advertising around our content, and most importantly keep all of the valuable download data and analytics to themselves” says Eric Henry, Director of Digital & Online at Rostrum Records. “We felt it was time to move forward and take control of our content. Official.fm offers us an amazing platform to connect with our artists’ communities and build their brands even further through custom designed players and pages, links to their sites, and integration into their social networks. Our artists, Wiz Khalifa and Mac Miller, were both personally thrilled with the way Official.fm launched their new mixtapes, handling the unbelievable amount of traffic with ease.”

The following speaks directly to the needs of artists and labels:

Centralize – Manage multiple artists with a single login. All of your releases/projects are accessible on a single dashboard.

Collaborate – By enabling multiple users to access a single artist’s workspace, you can easily share the workload with your bandmates, marketing team, publicist and more. No more sharing passwords and switching accounts.

Unlimited – No limits on plays or downloads. No barriers between your music and your success.

Customize – Control how your music is being presented. Each track or album uploaded comes with a slick public or private promotional page and embeddable HTML5 players, with the ability to add commerce links.

Publish – Simply drag & drop multiple tracks to upload music to your Official.fm account. Then sync to your YouTube and Soundcloud channels and push the music in one go. No more spending hours uploading the same songs to multiple services.

Share – Once you decide to share, you can do so on any website or device. Fans are one click away from listening to and spreading your music.

Stats – Utilize advanced statistics to know where, who, how and when. Collect e-mail addresses for each download and export them to your mailing list.

And, yes, it’s all FREE.

Click here to access the new platform -­ http://new.official.fm

RESOURCES:
Take the Tour: http://vimeo.com/user8603343/newofficialfm

And if you are looking for something a bit funnier, try this: http://youtu.be/dhc16puu14E

Official.fm Promo Pages & Media Embeds:

Wiz Khalifa
Official.fm public page: http://new.official.fm/playlists/K0B5
Billboard.com:  http://bit.ly/IS75eQ

Mac Miller
Official.fm public page: http://new.official.fm/playlists/1rp7
Website player embed: http://macmillerofficial.com/macadelic/index.html

Killer Mike
Official.fm public page: http://new.official.fm/tracks/vCjY
Pitchfork.com: http://pitchfork.com/reviews/tracks/13384-dont-die/

AWOLNATION
Official.fm public page: http://new.official.fm/tracks/GRCB

Ghostly Records
Official.fm public page: http://new.official.fm/ghostly

Soul Clap
Official.fm public page: http://new.official.fm/playlists/4aPY

ABOUT OFFICIAL.FM:
Official.fm provides tools for artists & labels to help them easily promote and manage their music online. Launched in August 2010, Official.fm is headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland and has offices in New York City, San Francisco, and Paris. The company is funded by private investors.

http://twitter.com/officialfm

http://facebook.com/officialfm

For labels and distributors interested in using the Official.fm platform, please contact
Matt Ford at matt@official.fm.

PRESS INQUIRIES:

Sarah Landy – ’stache media
o: 212.404.0721
e: sarah.landy@stachemedia.com

Tim Tatulli – ’stache media
o: 212.404.0780
e: tim.tatulli@stachemedia.com

DEADLINE FOR NOMINATIONS IS FRIDAY, APRIL 27^th.

Please email jim.mahoney@a2im.org if you would like to be nominated or have a nominee in mind.

ABOUT A2IM’s BOARD

A2IM board of directors’ terms run for three years.  Each board seat is term limited to one full three year term.  Any board member serving a full three year term must sit out one year at the conclusion of her or his term before being eligible to run for election again.  The A2IM board of directors meets in person or by teleconference eleven times a year to review the agenda and progress of the organization, represent the membership at large, and assist in setting the priorities and direction for the organization.  Each board member is encouraged to offer his or her expertise and opinions as well as getting involved in committees and projects supporting the efforts and growth of A2IM.  The A2IM staff keeps the board informed of important developments as they arise and seeks guidance from the board in order to better serve the independent music community.

ABOUT THIS YEAR’S ELECTION

There are the three expiring seats up for election this year.  Those seats are currently held by Portia Sabin (Kill Rock Stars), Glen Barros (Concord Music Group) and Jim Cooperman (tinyOGRE Entertainment).  All three (3) A2IM board seats will be filled by a vote of the full A2IM label membership, 1 voter per label member company, in a secret ballot election (voting to be done on-line) in May.

The newly elected board members will serve terms as per the above to begin on July 4, 2012.

TO APPEAR ON THE A2IM BALLOT

1.     All member companies in good standing are eligible to nominate or field a candidate for nomination.

2.     All nominations must be accompanied by the names of five (5) member companies whose principals support the nomination to be confirmed as candidates for election.  Jim Mahoney can assist you in securing a nominee’s 5 supporting recommendations for nomination.

3.     Forward nominations, including a short description of the nominee, the music label the nominee represents, priority issues the nominee will champion, and five (5) supporting names from five different label members for the nominee to A2IM vice president Jim Mahoney via e-mail at jim.mahoney@a2im.org.  You can, if you choose, nominate yourself or another A2IM member.

4.     Deadline for nominations:  Friday, April 27^th (9pm EST).

5.     A2IM staff will certify nominations by Thursday, May 3rd and election voting details will be circulated to each A2IM label member voter (the primary contact at each label member company).

The agreement, which must still be formally approved by the CRB, maintains a song rate of 9.1 cents for downloads, CDs and other physical formats, 24 cents for ringtones, and the same formulas, with limited changes, used to determine the mechanical rate for different kinds of subscription and free interactive-streaming services.  Read the full story originally published in Billboard.biz by Ed Christman HERE.

Protecting Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) is a priority for A2IM.  As A2IM has previously reported, In July, 2011, A2IM joined forces with other music community creator colleagues and announced our participation in the Copyright Alert Program. The Copyright Alert Program unites the music, film and television communities with the Internet Service Providers to fight content theft and to educate consumers about content theft via the ISP services that individual consumers use.  Upon announcing A2IM’s support of the program, Rich Bengloff, (A2IM President) noted that the Copyright Alert Program is an “historic agreement that will reduce the financial distress being experienced by our independent music label community so that our members and their artists can continue to create and invest in the music they love and, in doing so, help protect thousands of music artists and their musical compositions, across the United States.”

As A2IM continues to work protecting Intellectual Property Rights, we applaud the Obama Administration for continuing to do so too.

Read the: U.S. Commerce Department Press Release

Read the: Full Report