Jackson's fame challenges Murray jury selection (AP)

By ANTHONY McCARTNEY, AP Entertainment Writer Anthony Mccartney, Ap Entertainment Writer – Sat Sep 10, 4:23 pm ET

LOS ANGELES – In life and death, Michael Jackson generated the type of headlines that, just like his songs, stick in people's minds.

Nowhere was that more evident than in a Los Angeles courthouse this week when a judge asked 370 citizens whether any of them were unaware of the case against a doctor charged in the pop superstar's death. Not a single hand was raised.

That didn't surprise the judge, who knew he'd have to go out of this world to find people who hadn't heard of Jackson and the manslaughter case against Dr. Conrad Murray.

"We didn't expect you'd been living under a rock for the past several years, or that you made a pit stop from Mars," Superior Court Judge Michael Pastor told a group Thursday. A day later, when Pastor asked whether anyone didn't know about the case they might serve on, there was tittering.

Potential jurors who were called in an aborted effort to start the trial earlier this year were equally aware of the case. After three days of screening sessions, only one prospect had no knowledge of the case, and that person did not speak English.

It remains to be seen how many of the 145 prospective jurors are actually Jackson fans. The group filled out an exhaustive questionnaire that included questions about whether they ever considered themselves fans, purchased his music or books about him, or saw the posthumous film based on his final rehearsals, "This Is It."

Knowledge of Jackson, and indeed the case against Murray, are not automatic grounds for disqualification from jury service — far from it. But experts and the judge presiding over Murray's trial have said they want people who can put aside what they know and base their decision on the physician's fate solely on what they hear in the courtroom.

"If you've got a jury of 12 people who have never heard of Michael Jackson, I'm not sure they qualify for jury duty," said Stan Goldman, a criminal law professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles.

Thousands of news stories have been published and broadcast about the case since Jackson's death in June 2009, including Murray's arraignment on an involuntary manslaughter charge about seven months later. Authorities contend the Houston-based cardiologist gave the singer a lethal dose of the anesthetic propofol in the bedroom of his rented mansion, but Murray and his attorneys deny any wrongdoing.

Prosecutors plan to argue that Murray's conduct was an extreme deviation from the "standard of care" that doctors are supposed to provide.

Pastor has expressed unwavering optimism in jurors throughout the screening process so far and hopes to be able to pick a jury from the pool of 145 prospective jurors qualified this past week in as little as a day.

Goldman said the process shouldn't be as difficult as in other high-profile cases, where jury selection can take days or weeks.

"It's not your typical celebrity trial," Goldman said. "The guy on trial is not a celebrity — it's just different."

"I don't think this is nearly as difficult as the case in which Michael Jackson himself was on trial," he said, referring to Jackson's 2005 child molestation case, which ended in the singer's acquittal.

Prosecutors and defense attorneys now have roughly two weeks to pore over a detailed 30-page, 113-question survey before prospective jurors are directly questioned. Legal teams often employ jury consultants to help them pick jurors who are likely to be favorable to their side, but it remains unclear whether Murray, who is cash-strapped, will have any consultants.

While there are questions directly related to Murray's case, prospective jurors are also being queried about their views on celebrities as well.

One question seeks a response to the statements, "Celebrities and high-profile people feel they are entitled to act however they please" and "Celebrities and high-profile people think they can bend the rules."

Other questions focus on prospective jurors' own experiences with anesthesia and other medications, whether they have ever been investigated for a crime, and what type of media they consume, including "Dateline" and police procedural shows such as "Law & Order" and "CSI."

Having the answers to such questions has its limitations. Goldman said in all likelihood, prosecutors and Murray's attorneys are going to find themselves having to pick a jury of people that they're not entirely comfortable with.

"The trick here," Goldman said, "is trying to figure out who's fair and who's not."

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AP Special Correspondent Linda Deutsch contributed to this report.

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Anthony McCartney can be reached at http://twitter.com/celebritydocket

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Performance rights groups face challenges and uncertainty (Reuters)

NEW YORK (Billboard) – After decades of occupying one of the most stable corners of the music business, performance rights organizations (PRO) are starting to face uncertainty and competitive challenges.

EMI Music Publishing announced in May that it plans to issue bundled mechanical and performances licenses directly to online services for its EMI April Music catalog, assuming responsibility for functions previously handled by ASCAP. It's a move that other leading music publishers are expected to make.

Greater interest in direct digital licensing among publishers, efforts to establish Pan-European licensing and the creation of a global repertoire database are reshaping the landscape being navigated by ASCAP and its fellow U.S. performing rights organizations BMI and SESAC.

ASCAP CEO John LoFrumento says that decisions by clients to take charge of some digital licensing won't threaten the PRO's business. He points out that EMI's move only affects online music users who aren't currently licensed or do not have licenses in effect with ASCAP and excludes broadcast or broadcast digital rights, cable, satellite and all other offline media. Moreover, he notes that the online dollars represented by EMI's decision could amount to less than one percent of ASCAP's total annual revenue.

"We see the efficiency of licensing in bundles," LoFrumento says. "We feel very strongly that is something that will be the next step in this business environment. This will result in a new business model over the next few years."

U.S. PROs continue to enjoy relative financial stability. For instance, ASCAP's annual revenue fell 6% in 2010 to $935 million, but that was down from a record-high $995 million in the prior year. Still, moves toward direct licensing could potentially erode PRO revenue. But Richard Conlon, BMI senior VP of corporate strategy, communications and new media, says the PROs will weather these challenges, though he acknowledges that the business is in flux.

"The core construct of BMI will be very different in five or 10 years as we start to virtualize and as the dynamics of the global footprints start to change the global nature of copyright," Conlon says.

In a statement, SESAC president/COO Pat Collins says that PROs have already contended with technological changes for years.

"More music is being consumed today than ever before," Collins says, adding that the Internet has "brought efficiencies to the tracking, identifying and payment processes that were unthinkable 10 years ago. These developing technological advances will allow SESAC to achieve even more robust licensing on behalf of the copyright owner, thus increasing royalty distributions."

In a trend that's bound to be discussed again at the World Copyright Summit in Brussels June 6-8, publishers and collection societies across the Atlantic are contending with a shift to Pan-European licensing.

To meet a mandate by the European Commission to provide one-stop licensing for digital music providers that want to do business in multiple European countries, Universal Music Publishing Group and Sony/ATV Music Publishing have each formed a joint venture vehicle with a European collection society to handle all of their Anglo-American repertoire, while EMI has formed a JV with two societies.

Warner/Chappell Music's Pan-European Digital Licensing initiative is working with seven European societies so far to provide digital music users a choice of which society they want to work with. Each time one of these vehicles handles licensing for a digital music service, it eliminates opportunities previously handled by each country's own collection society.

Moreover, some industry observers suggest that the Pan-European licensing vehicles concept could soon evolve into global licensing mechanisms for the digital marketplace.

As they establish bundled, all-in digital licensing for both mechanical and performance rights, publishers must be careful not to undermine standard royalty rates, Conlon says. "When bundling you are doing so to make it easier to license, but you have to make sure not to squeeze out some value."

Meanwhile, efforts to create a global repertoire database could enable direct licensing, which would further affect local societies' revenue collections. But others dismiss that possibility, saying that a global database would ensure a more efficient marketplace -- for example, ensuring songwriting claims don't add up to more than 100 percent, a very common problem, while allowing collection societies to continue to compete on services.

In the meantime, the ability of digital music users to track and report in greater detail will also spur change. The emerging digital market is already providing "more transparency and accountability," says Conlon, who notes the PROs do well in worlds of complexity that are also becoming more fractionalized.

"We scale well and are totally exponential," he says. "We are dealing with and translating the long tail ... handling billions of performances every quarter. We are optimized to handle what will be an increasingly fragmented medium and marketplace."

But improved accounting systems have enabled "some to consider going direct" to rights-holders like publishers, Music Reports Inc. founder/chairman Ron Gertz says. "They will trade the convenience of to do a la carte licensing."

That dynamic will be matched by major music publishers looking to increase profits in difficult times by doing direct licensing deals in easily trackable media like those offered by digital music providers. The bundling of rights and direct deals are among the market forces that will increase competition among collection societies.

If publishers pull back licensing rights from PROs, how will those organizations compensate for that lost revenue? Some industry executives are predicting mergers will take place among collection societies around the world, creating regional licensing hubs. But others speculate that some societies may move to grant multiterritory rights for their exclusive repertoire.

Meanwhile, music publishing executives predict that current trends will lead to a consolidation of backroom functions among rival PROs. In fact, ASCAP's LoFrumento is advocating that scenario.

Collection societies "use the same database and we have the same information on the members' share; we all use similar systems," he says. "The idea of multiple back offices with multiple personnel doesn't bode well for us. As the music industry faces the future, we have to look at the functions that we are not competing on and combine them. We need to start a dialogue with other societies."

In the meantime, ASCAP just finished development of a new back-office distribution system, which will provide members with 24/7 access to the organization's database as well as increased transparency.

Another issue expected to drive the evolution of PROs is the growth in the number of registered songwriters, who are demanding more services.

Regardless of what happens in the digital market, PROs will always have general performance licensing to fall back on because monitoring song plays at bars, clubs and stores requires boots on the ground to track.

But here, too, they face challenges, as was illustrated last year when two federal courts approximately halved the negotiated annual blanket fee that music service providers like Muzak and DMX pay BMI and ASCAP for every apparel store, beauty salon and health club for which they program music.

(Editing by Chris Michaud)

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