The law has been compared to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) that was passed in the US, and has allowed The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) to bring lawsuits against individuals involved with file trading music online. The European Law gives companies the right to conduct raids on entities that they believe have infringed on their intellectual property and copyrights.

European Civil Liberty groups cried foul at the sweeping powers and several amendments were added at the eleventh hour to ease their fears. One, relating directly to file sharing, stated "we recommend actions not be taken against file sharers who download music in good faith for their own personal use." However, like the DMCA, there are many foggy areas which will need to be clarified in the near future.

The Future: After all the controversy over the DMCA, you'd think that the Europeans would be able to come up with a solid copyright law. There's never going to be a statute that's airtight, but after witnessing the gaping holes and gray areas in the DMCA you'd think that they would have been more on target.

../ New York Nightlife Rescued Again

This announcement comes on the heels of The New York Nightlife Association's recent study that stated that the NYC nightlife industry generates $10 Billion dollars worth of economic activity per year. The study also found that the nightlife industry employs over 95,000 people, and that more then 65 million people visited the 800 plus bars and clubs surveyed during the past year.

The Future: Bloomberg is playing this smart. He understands that the City Council wants significant power to go after undesirable clubs, but he also knows that this is an election year and that the nightlife industry brings in significant income into the city's coffers. There will be a law introduced in 2005, but it will not be a 1:00 AM Nightlife License.

../ The Futuremusic Winter Music Conference Report

The first error made a few years back was separating the panels from the hotel location to the conference center, and eradicating the vibrant "pool scene" - where uninhibited and vibrant networking took place. The pool scene was really the soul of the event. For the love of the music, the pool was a place where veterans and newbies could interact directly. Separating the panels and heavily policing entrance to the pool area killed the vibe and scattered the scene into various areas of South Beach.

The second error was their incredibly weak Exhibit Hall. Dance music is technology driven. However, nothing was set up specifically to help the vendors demonstrate their wares in a productive environment. Instead the exhibitors were simply thrown together in a small room that didn't allow the attendees to truly interact with their offerings.

The third error, and this was quite blatant, was their arrogant attitude. Yes, Bill Kelly should be commended for starting the whole enchilada and creating such a dynamic event, however, the attitude of the employees has taken on an unctuous tone that undermines exactly what underground music is all about. For example, even panelists on their seminars are being charged a registration fee to provide content to the WMC's attendees. The message is clear, the organizers are squeezing everyone associated with the conference for their money no matter how much they are giving to make the event a success.

With all the missteps, why is the conference still thriving? The reason is that outsiders have stepped in to fill in the blatant gaps. Remix Magazine sponsors the wonderful Remix Hotel. Set up like a mini NAMM convention for electronic musicians, the magazine turns the spare rooms of the Ritz Plaza into a small convention for the top manufacturers including Native Instruments, Digidesign, Cakewalk, etc. where participants can get in depth demonstrations of all the latest gear. Scott Giaquinta of Deepsky told us that demonstrating gear at the Remix Hotel was "a wonderful way to interact with our fans."

David Prince, who runs the Bible of the conference the Miami Masterlist, saw that the conference was losing its technology edge and started the M3 Summit. Sponsored by Motorola, M3 (Miami, Music, Multimedia), was sophisticated, polished and very well received by veteran Miami attendees. Focusing on fashion and new technology, M3 was a fine meal compared to the fast food of the WMC. For example, Technics chose the M3 to showcase its new CD turntable, eschewing the WMC's dreary exhibit hall. We can only hope that Mr. Prince continues to build and expand upon this great inaugural event.

In 2004 it was the showcase events that dominated the conference. Ultra Music Fest, Hope & 420, Rock The Vote, Delta Heavy, Astralwerks Presents Chemical Brothers, and other Marquee events attracted industry veterans and spring breakers alike. However, some of the smaller parties with outstanding talent are what make Miami so special. Our staffers attended a wide variety of events, here's the breakdown of what rocked and what didn't.

Dan Brotman:
"Sunday night was the best for me. I hit Nerve for the Saw Recordings Party with Satoshie Tomiie and Hector Romero, and they tore the place up. After their stellar performance last year, this was a party I was not going to miss. And the boys didn't disappoint. Great tech-house and banging techno filled my head with throbbing basslines as I staggered out around 2am to hit the Ovum Party at Mynt.
Josh Wink was on the decks when I got there and the place was pumping. I positioned myself just to Josh's left so I could watch him work his magic. As prominent as Josh is, I still think he's one of the most underrated DJ's spinning today. His rig consisted of two 1200's, two CDJ-1000mkII's, a PC running Traktor/Final Scratch, an Allen & Heath Xone:92 and Peavey's new Grabber BPM/Delay effects processor (or the Red Sound Cyclops). Josh effortlessly and seamlessly mixed from one medium to another all while working the EQ's, FX's and anything else he could get his fingers on to wring that extra something out of the mix. Just incredible."

Angelina Lynn:
"I enjoyed the Radio1 Party on Friday, but the sound system at Nikki Beach was really sub par this year so I bounced over to Crobar for the Hope & 420 Party. Spotted a lot of friends on the dance floor where we were enveloped in pure sonic bliss from the Phazon sound system. I then jetted over to Space to catch the end of PVD's set, which as always, was phenomenal.
Saturday was really special to me. I hit up Neil Aline's secret Chez party. Neil is a personal favorite of mine and I've been watching his star rise for the last few years, plus he's really cute. The party was amazing especially when Miguel Migs paid a surprise visit.
Sunday was all about the Syntax party. LOVE those guys. Plus, I got to hang out with Tony Hewitt who is just so much fun. Opium Garden is a great Miami spot and the funky, chunky house sounds from the Syntax family are tailor made for this venue.
Masters At Work on Monday. What more do I have to say? Lil' Louie and Mr. Dope just know how to hold it down! Sweaty, sexy, funky house. I left there dripping.
Om Gets Deep on Tuesday was so great. Farina and Kaskade got the crowd bumping early and then Migs got his set off the right way with Futuremusic's Urban Rhythm banging out the tribal beats. Marques Wyatt finished off the revelers who just didn't want to go home at the end.
Wednesday I went to Nikki Beach, but the lame sound system, poor bar service and pathetic layout was more than I could stand. To compound it all, when my girlfriends and I finally got a waiter over to our table to order a pitcher of Mojitos, he offered us two options. $30 cash or $40 credit card for the drinks. Nice scam buddy. This place is clearly mismanaged and needs a complete overhaul. Hopefully this great spot can rebound for next year."

Greg Geller:
"I hate to say this, but I had an absolute blast at Ultra. I got to see all my favorite DJ's, met a ton of cool people and felt that it was definitely worth the price of admission. Aside from suffering the repercussions of eating the "street meat" the next day and watching Tommy Lee butcher his performance, it was just great.
Danny Howells had an incredible set at BED. The door girl there was a complete b*tch, but once I was in, there was no looking back.
Now for the disappointments. Mixology's party at Nikki beach was terrible. Despite the line up, the event was very poorly run and the sound was almost as bad as...
Mansion where I checked out Armand Van Helden's X-Mix event on Wednesday. I was really looking forward to this event. Exclusive set by Felix Da Housecat, Junior Sanchez, and one of my favorite producers, the Witchdoktor himself, Armand Van Helden.
Unfortunately, the sound was absolutely horrendous. Muddy, no definition, a complete mess. How a major venue like Mansion (formally Level) can get away with such a crappy system in this town is beyond me.
The DanceStar event was also a lot of fun for me. The event was very well executed and I encountered no hassles whatsoever. Again, I met a lot of great people, and while it isn't the Grammy's, the organizers at DanceStar should be really proud of themselves. However, nominating that tart Paris Hilton for best celebrity DJ (she even won) was a blatant commercial move and somewhat tarnished the legitimacy of the judging."

Many manufacturers chose the WMC to officially launch new products...
Technics made the biggest splash by showcasing their new SL-DZ1200 Direct Drive Digital Turntable. (Futuremusic broke this new product offering to the public back in November.) The new CD/SD player created a major buzz during the conference with its direct-drive platter, ability to play several music formats, cue pads, and built in effects. This super sexy deck was very easy to use and had a great feel. Hard scratching lifted the plastic platter plate when we got our turn to run it through its paces, and the limited ability to manipulate the amount of effects raised eyebrows, but Jim Kiczek, National Marketing Manager, stressed that these were pre-production units, and that the specifications could change before the official bow in April. Retail is $1199.95.

Technics also showcased a companion mixer to the DZ called the SH-MZ1200. The mixer has a four channel play mode for pseudo surround sound in clubs that support a front/rear setup and 12 inputs including digital connections. Other notable features include an optical cross fader and the L/R Split function that allows you to have independent control over the EQ of the Left and Right channels and to send different signals to the Front and Rear outputs for dynamic mixing capabilities. Retail is $899.95.

Also on hand was Technics answer to the extremely popular Sony MDR-V700 DJ headphones. With large 50mm drivers, a robust swivel mechanism and a removable cable, these look like they will give Sony some competition. No price has been set. www.panasonic.com/consumer_electronics/technics_dj/default.asp

Pioneer's Karl Detken was on hand to demonstrate the new DVJ-X1 DVD Turntable. We were absolutely blown away by this new product. The DVJ-X1 is basically a CDJ-1000 mkII tricked out for playing DVD's. However, the potential for DJing not only music by also visuals, is what got our juices flowing. Using the wheel to scratch the music video playing was just the tip of the iceberg with this unique player. Once we got set up our cue points, the fun really began. Cueing the first line of the pre chorus on the music video allowed us to really build audio AND visual tension before we let the full chorus drop. In the hands of the right VDJ in a club setup for this new paradigm is going to yield some extraordinary results. Kudos to Pioneer for really pushing the envelope on the DVJ-X1. Hopefully the new DVJ-X1 is not too ahead of its time. Retail Price is $3999. A special audio/video DJ mixer is currently being developed by Pioneer to take full advantage of the DVJ-X1's unique capabilities.

Pioneer also demonstrated their new DJM-909 mixer with a very cool touch screen for controlling the built in effects and tweaking the mixer's parameters, such as precision manipulation of the cross fader's curve. Price is $1499.00. When asked about future Pioneer products, Karl Dietken was guarded, but did say that the new offerings in development would increase the DJ's capabilities beyond just mixing music. www.pioneerprodj.com

Phonomat, a new company from Canada, debuted their "new deal for the steel wheel." A luxurious slipmat that features a velvet top, a hard felt layer in the middle, a Butter Rug type bottom and reinforced center-hole stitching that's guaranteed not to stretch. The mats are also slightly under sized enabling you to easily grab your record off the platter without taking the slipmat with you - a great feature!

Phonomat's come in Chocolate Brown, Red, Navy Blue and Black with the company's logo embroidered on the velvet top. Custom designs are available upon request. The slipmat that we tested impressed all of our staffers except for one minor problem. Even with the anti-static coating on the top and bottom, we found that the mat's were a little sticky on our decks. We added plastic and a piece of Bounce Fabric softener to the platter and this helped alleviate some of the tackiness, but for $35 per pair, we were expecting flawless operation. When contacted about this issue, Stefan St. Jacques, responded by stating that the amount of slip is "all about personal preference. Some people like less slip while others like more slip! Some DJ's are heavy handed while others have a lighter touch. To immediately address this concern, all Phonomats shipped, from this point forward, will include a set of very slippery, circular anti-static inserts that are to be used between the platter and the Phonomat." Phonomat wil be shipping us a new pair of Phonomats with these new anti-static inserts for addition testing. We'll update you in the near future on how they perform.

The Phonomats will be available in many DJ record and pro-audio stores this coming summer, however you can get the jump on your mates by ordering the mats direct: 800.521.2715 www.phonomat.ca

Monster Cable announced several new products specifically for the DJ Market. Monster ProLink DJ cables come in eight different termination configurations and feature 24K gold plated connectors with reinforced molded couplings and 100% foil shielding. Monster claims that their special copper winding provide much improved sonic clarity and fatter bass than ordinary DJ cables. In our preliminary tests, we agreed with their claims and found that the definition with the new Monster Cables was significantly increased in our DJ rig. The cables come in XLR, TRS, 1/4" and RCA connections. www.monstercable.com

Monster also showcased their power management options for delivering clean, stable power to a project studio and/or DJ setup. The top of the line Pro 7000 features microprocessor controlled, balanced power delivery, tri-mode circuitry surge protection, noise reduction and cutting edge line conditioning with twin isolation transformers. Retail is $1499.95. Originally developed for high end home theaters, the new Pro series addresses the DJ Studio market that's been dominated by Furman. Other rack models include the Pro 5100 $699.95, the Pro 3500, $299.95, and the Pro 2500, $199.95. Two floor strip models are also available the Pro 2000 and the Pro 1000, for $199.95 and $149.95 respectfully.

Native Instruments took over the balcony at the Remix Hotel and was demonstrating their dynamic DJ Line which includes Traktor DJ Studio 2, Traktor DJ, and Traktor/Final Scratch. Traktor DJ is their dedicated in-computer DJ mixer and features auto BPM detection, EQ, playlist management, tweaky filters and looping. Traktor DJ Studio 2 adds professional remixing attributes to Traktor DJ's base feature set, allowing the user to turn their computer into a complete mixing and production solution.

Traktor/Final Scratch solidified its position at the top of the digital DJ food chain this year. Stanton made a great strategic move by partnering with NI to co-develop the current version of Final Scratch. Stanton's hardware expertise married to NI's cutting edge software division has yielded the future of DJing. Utilized by Paul Van Dyk, and the aforementioned Josh Wink, Traktor/Final Scratch has allowed many jet setting DJ's to leave their record cases at home while maintaining the credibility of mixing "vinyl." Traktor/Final Scratch is now a rock solid solution for DJ's looking to move into the exciting world of digital mixing.

There's a rumor of a new product targeted for musicians outside of NI's normal electronic music market. Although details are very sketchy at this time, it appears NI will be making a pre-Musik Messe announcement at a private function being held at their offices in Hollywood California on March 30th. We're going to be watching NI closely for the latest information and we'll let you know as soon as this breaks. In the meantime, look for our feature on Native Instruments at the end of the month. For more information on all of Native Instruments DJ products hit: www.nativeinstruments.de/index.php?djline_us

Dance music download sites... OK, so every year at the conference there is an abundance of web based, dance music schemes that we dub the Internet Flavor of the Month. The award this year goes out to the sudden emergence of Dance music download sites. These have materialized like pop up ads at a porn site. Trax2Souce (which has been advertising their vaporware for almost a year with no real product), Beatport, Digidance, DJ Xpress, Digidisco, Global Beats, and the list goes on and on.

Now for the kicker: how are any of these sites going to make money? We've run the numbers and there's just no money in this business. However, when we interviewed several of the companies we got 1999-2000 Internet bubble answers. "It's all about market share right now." or "We're running our business very lean." or "The profits will come." Clearly, some people haven't learned anything. Joe Vangeri Internet bubble survivor from DJ Xpress clearly acknowledges that the 99 cent download model doesn't work. "We're not going to sell individual songs. We're going to sell an entire 12" for $2.79, that way every party has a chance to make money." Mr. Vangeri, of PCDJ fame, has teamed with Tommy Boy's Tom Silverman to develop DJ Xpress. www.djxpress.com

Beatport has emerged as the best of breed with a slick Flash MX interface married with XML to their database. We purchased 5 tracks and each downloaded quickly and smoothly to our test PC. There's no copy protection or Digital Rights Management (DRM) incorporated in the MP3 files we purchased, so our personal use rights were not trampled on. Nice, but does that mean any track purchased from Beatport is ripe for piracy? The answer is no. Beatport's engineers have implemented a digital watermarking technology that burns a user's IP address into the file's metadata. If the track suddenly appears on KaZaA, Beatport or the record label will be able to easily ID the user for prosecution. Beatport also has scaled the pricing for their downloads, $1.49 for new releases, $.99 for catalog tracks and $1.99 for out of print classics.

Beatport was developed in 18 months and everything on the site was developed in house including their conversion engine that turns a WAV file submitted by a record label into a MP3 or MP4. Beatport will be launching a major promotional tour with a top 10 DJ this summer to get the word out to not only dance music fans, but also to the general consumer market. Beatport's Shawn Sabo believes that "the real money is in the consumer market. Most people attending a Tiesto concert can't buy the tunes that they're hearing in a store. We'll provide that service." Beatport hopes to expand on Apple's iTunes model by utilizing the download store as an onramp to music software applications that they're developing for DJ's. www.beatport.com

2004 is looking to be a pivotal year for the Dance music industry. With digital DJing gaining acceptance in the clubs, new technologies and services are emerging to meet the demand of this new market. The Dance music scene is also getting stronger. Established DJ's and newcomers like Danger Mouse are pushing the envelope on mixing, studio production and remixing. Despite some shortcomings, the Winter Music Conference is only getting better, especially now that M3 and the Remix Hotel has filled in some of the deeper gaps. To everyone who participated in the conference this year, we commend you on a job well done. Until next year...

../ Microsoft Backlash in Europe Benefits RealNetworks

RealNetworks has publicly announced that Telecom Italia Mobile, Wind Infostrada, TeliaSonera and mm02 will implement their Helix Universal Software on their cellular networks. This is a major coup for Real who has been constantly receiving the beat down by Microsoft's aggressive tactics and deep pockets in their media player war. Unlike in the US where Microsoft has been simply slapped on the wrist for their hostile strategy, European officials have demonstrated that they are not going to be so lenient. The deals with RealNetworks send a strong message to Microsoft that the European cellular carriers will not allow the US monopoly to develop a stranglehold on the wireless market, like they have with desktop computing.

One of the carriers, the British concern mm02, is also developing a stand alone media player that will work in conjunction with their cell phones. The new device, when placed next to a cell phone, will download the latest hits off of mm02's servers, and store the file for playback at any time. The device is about the size of a deck of cards and uses AAC Plus compression to store music on removable cards. About 60 songs can be stored on a card. The device communicates with a cell phone through infrared and each song only takes about 4 minutes to download. The cost per song is One Pound, about $1.85. In about 6 months this player technology will be built into most new phones that mm02 plans to offer.

The Future: Due to our second generation networks here in the States there's not much hype on this new download frontier, but make no mistake, this is definitely going to be the Next Big Thing. Downloadable RingTones demonstrated the cell phone user's thirst for downloading music - combine that with iPod fever and you've got a winner!

The New Miami Conference Film By Mike Burns

Watch The Trailer!

../ Apple, The New Microsoft?

The Eminem case focuses on one commercial that ran on MTV in July of 2003 where a young boy sings "Lose Yourself." Eight Mile Style contends that Apple Computer was never granted permission to use the song after negotiation broke down. According to the suit filed on February 20, 2003 in the US District Court of Detroit the suit contends, "Eminem has never nationally endorsed any commercial products...even if he were interested in endorsing a product, any endorsement deal would require a significant amount of money, possibly in excess of $10 million."

The Apple Corps VS. Apple Computer case hinges on an agreement made in 1991 after Corps sued Computer over the Apple trademark. The parties decided that Apple Computer would stick strictly to data and Apple Corps would stick to music. However, now that music has become data, the agreement is pretty much a moot point.

The Future: Although both suits are obviously looking for a nice payout from Apple Computer, the Apple Corps is the most ridiculous, and frankly, the most sad.

   The New Roland V-Synth

   Don't Just Make Music, Genetically Re-engineer it!

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