Do you remember when Tom Gray (founder of the Broken Record campaign) tweeted about how Sony spent 90 million on getting Harry a number 1 album and how other Sony music artists have to pay off Harry’s debt? It's interesting that harries focus on 26 interviews with Louis and not the 90 million dollar debt that Harry placed upon Sony artists. I wouldn't blame Sony artists for not liking Harry. I know Halsey, a former fan of his, doesn't seem to like him at all now, and she's under the same label, so I can imagine how others feel.
I remember that! I think Tom Gray deleted the tweet pretty quickly. Spitting truths that everyone knows.
Johanson: Because of the delicate nature of the bones and the short stature, we felt she was probably a female.
(Subsequent fossil discoveries revealed that males were much bigger than females.)
That night in camp, we were playing the Beatles’ (album).
“Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” and “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds” were playing when one of the camp members said, “Why don’t you call her Lucy?”
It was just serendipity that it happened, but it stuck. It was, in many ways, an attractive name.
People could identify with it. It made those bones a person. It drew you in and made you want to know more.
And she’s been the touchstone (of human origins) for the average person.
CNN: What was Lucy’s significance at the time that she was discovered?
Johanson: She was the oldest, most complete hominin known at that time.
This was terra incognita in the early ‘70s. Very few people had been to this region of Ethiopia, and people began launching their own expeditions and finding even more exciting things in some ways.
But I think that Lucy was the spark. She ignited a new stage in human origins research.
What she did, most importantly, was she broke the 3 million-year time barrier.
The site of Hadar, which is a local name, is very fossil-rich.
And it turned out to produce an enormous number of fossils of her species and gave us a really important benchmark by which all other discoveries that were made in the Afar could be judged.
November 24th, 1974: Donald Johanson and Tom Gray discover the 40% complete Australopithecus afarensis skeleton, nicknamed "Lucy" in the Awash Valley of Ethiopia's Afar Depression.
Paul McCartney and Kate Bush are among the artists who say musicians are being short-changed.
Rock stars including Paul McCartney, Kate Bush, Robert Plant and Stevie Nicks have called on the government to reform the way musicians are paid when their songs are streamed online.
More than 150 artists have written to Prime Minister Boris Johnson calling for new legislation to protect artists.
They point out that "songwriters earn 50% of radio revenues, but only 15% in streaming".
The government has yet to respond.
But the letter comes as MPs prepare a report into the music streaming sector.
The Department of Culture, Media and Sport select committee has been gathering evidence on how the billions of pounds generated by services like Spotify, Apple Music and Amazon Music Unlimited are distributed.
Musician Nadine Shah made headlines after telling the committee she had been forced to move back in with her parents because "earnings from my streaming are not significant enough to keep the wolf away from the door".
Songwriter Fiona Bevan later told MPs she had made just £100 in royalties from a song on Kylie Minogue's number one album, Disco.
The bosses of the three major record labels rejected characterisations of their business model as exploitative or unfair to musicians; and denied that artists were "too scared" to speak out about their earnings for fear of reprisal.
The letter to Boris Johnson was organised by the Musicians' Union, and argued for a change in legislation that would "put the value of music back where it belongs - in the hands of music makers".
Copyright legislation, which came into force almost two decades before the birth of streaming platform Spotify, has "not kept up with the pace of technological change", it argues. As a result, "performers and songwriters do not enjoy the same protections as they do in radio".
For context: When a song is played on the radio, royalties are split evenly between the record label and the artists/songwriters, with a small portion going to session musicians and backing performers.
On streaming services, labels retain the majority of the money - with the artist receiving about 13% on average, and session musicians receiving nothing.
Tuesday's letter claims that "only two words need to change in the 1988 Copyright, Designs and Patents Act… so that today's performers receive a share of revenues, just like they enjoy in radio".
The signatories include rock royalty such as Annie Lennox, Joan Armatrading, Damon Albarn, Marianne Faithful, Roger Daltrey, Sting, Lisa Stansfield and Noel Gallagher.
Crucially, younger artists who rely on streaming services to make a living - including Kano, Mike Skinner, Jessie Ware and Shy FX - have also lent their names to the campaign.
