• At Midem, Google's vice president of content partnership, David Eun, defended the company against music industry criticism. "We don't make money unless our partners make money, so the idea that we would screw a partner on whom we depend is not rational or logical. We're not screwing the labels, and if anything, we need to partner more closely with them." (The Telegraph)

• Bacardi and Groove Armada will use the power of social networks to distribute the latter's latest EP. You know, the two parties have worked together for a few years now. Groove Armada's use of Bacardi as a sponsor helped usher in a new era of label-less business models. But here's the thing: I haven't heard a single Groove Armada song during this period. I have not seen them live. I have not visited their website. They have been, in my eyes, completely invisible save the publicity they get for their Bacardi sponsorship. Maybe it's a mutually beneficial relationship, but I cannot tell. (Billboard.biz)

• A European Union court has ruled that Sony Music can claim the rights to some of Bob Dylan's songs in Germany as long as they had been registered with an EU nation by mid-1995. (Bloomberg)

• Music Ally had thorough coverage of Midem and have listed links to all their coverage. (Music Ally)

• EMI's global matrix gets two marketing additions: Pietro Paravella, in London, and Matthew Tilley, in New York, are the company's new senior vice presidents of global priorities. In addition, a global priorities team is being created for the catalog division. I understand the goal of these positions and these organizational structures, but I have to wonder to what degree they will be flexible enough for the differences between markets -- The US and the UK don't take to the same artists in the same ways even though they're very similar markets. (Music Week)

• The independent London band The Boxer Rebellion will land at or near the top of the UK download chart after it released its self-produced album to iTunes. Because the rules say an album must also have a physical copy, the band is not eligible for the album chart. Note that while the band does not have a label, it does have management, booking agents, a radio promoter and an online marketer. (This Is London)

• The trade value of the French recorded music market dropped 15% in 2008 -- about twice the drop in value experienced in the U.S. Physical sales dropped 20%. (Billboard.biz)

• A Dutch study concludes P2P has a net positive economic effect -- the societal benefits of having access to a vast quantity of media, it seems to be saying, outweighs the economic losses to copyright owners. Including the benefit to society is a valid measure that is not typically included in estimates of P2P's impact on a market. (Ars Technica)