Or, more accurately, a ridiculously large amount of photos. According to Welt, the more photos, the longer they stay – and sessions lengths are often directly tied to the amount of pics available.

So how many? One upon a time, an album release typically required 6-9 approved photos. “Now it’s 3-400 hundred for a campaign,” Welt relayed – or at least, that is the amount he’s requesting to maximize fan interest.

This is an industry still struggling to find its best practices, yet the simple snapshot could be an early one. The presence of photos attracts greater engagement across the board – for artists large and small, and regardless of the genre. And, those photos have mileage – according to Welt, 2.5 billion photos are uploaded onto Facebook a month, including artist pics. “This is universal,” Welt said.

But who’s kidding who? In its annual report, EMI parent Maltby Capital expressed a “principal uncertainty” related to loan covenants. That is, the major label is likely to experience more difficulty meeting Citigroup payment deadlines, despite a recent investor injection of 105 million pounds ($164 million).

Suddenly, the sinkhole features widening debt obligations and renewed default risk, hardly the glamour-filled existence Guy Hands must have imagined prior to the $4.7 billion acquisition in 2007.

A statement to Advertising Age first confirmed the deal. “They did grant us digital rights,” an MTV Networks executive remarked. “[I] think they recognize the value of MTV’s VMAs for their artists.”

Early Tuesday morning, another MTV representative offered a slightly different take – with the same general result. “The takedown was specific to music videos and will not impact artist interviews or live performances,” MTV Networks director of Communications Kurt Patat told Digital Music News.

This VMAs appear to be getting separated from the Vevo-driven standoff, simply because of the huge amount of publicity – and sales – that the awards tend to generate. That includes online voting, a process that would hardly make sense without the participation of artists like Kanye West and Drake. The ’2010 MTV Video Music Awards’ will air live from the Nokia Theater in Los Angeles on Sunday, September 12th at 9 pm (Live EST/tape delayed PST).

That became a heated discussion thread last week on Digital Music News, one that also included Topspin competitors like Nimbit.  ”Powerful tools that are difficult to use really aren’t powerful tools,” commented Nimbit director of Marketing Scott Feldman.  ”Whether you need a class, years of marketing/tech experience, or a team around you to use them — it’s still problematic for a large number of musicians caught in the Catch-22 of needing the tools without team/resources available to operate them.”

But Topspin chief Ian Rogers disagreed with the premise of the question.  In comments over the weekend, Rogers defended his platform as being far easier than many think, while reaffirming a targeted audience of sophisticated marketing professionals.  ”Topspin is easy to use,” Rogers flatly stated.

Still, the customer target remains the same – and Topspin is not necessarily something you should try at home.  ”We are choosing a target customer for the software: in our case the professional whose job it is to make people aware of, connect with, and become a paying customer of an artist,” Rogers continued  ”Might this marketer be the artist themselves?  Sure.  But we aren’t thinking about ‘your average artist’ when we’re designing the software, we’re targeting marketing professionals.”

“Without question, the most important dimension is to have something exclusive to offer” on a soundtrack, says Jason Linn, head of WaterTower Music, Warner Bros. Pictures’ inhouse label, and home to the “Sex and the City” and “Valentine’s Day” soundtracks. “Nothing makes us happier than reading through a script and seeing the opportunity for two or three music (slots).”

The past decade has been so dismal many studios no longer release soundtracks, especially for films that emphasize previously released songs readily available on iTunes.

There are some notable exceptions, such as the “High School Musical” and “Glee” franchises, but nowhere has the value of exclusives been more evident than with the trio of “Twilight” releases.

The first “Twilight” soundtrack (2008), featured a number of exclusive tracks by alternative acts. The success of the movie and the companion album (Chop Shop/Atlantic), which has sold 2.6 million copies in the U.S. alone, led to the decision to feature all new music from the likes of Radiohead’s Thom Yorke, Muse and Grizzly Bear on the sequel, 2009′s “New Moon,” and third installment, 2010′s “Eclipse.” Those albums have sold 1.17 million and 395,000, respectively, to date. Anticipation for who would appear on the “Eclipse” soundtrack was so great the announcement became an event, with iTunes time-releasing the news of each act per hour.

“With ‘Eclipse’ and ‘New Moon’ we had the time and interest to have only unreleased songs for the soundtrack,” says music supervisor/Chop Shop founder Alexandra Patsavas. There were hundreds of submissions to choose from, she says.

When it is appropriate (and it often may not be for a period piece), “it’s always a better experience for the music to be introduced the first time you’re experiencing the drama,” Patsavas says. “The music you’re hearing is always going to be linked in the audience member’s mind.”

Bigscreen vampires aren’t the only ones drawing in fans. Elektra released “True Blood — Music From the HBO Original Series Volume II” in May. The collection offered new and exclusive tracks from “True Blood” fan Beck, Robbie Robertson and Lucinda Williams with Elvis Costello.

“Having exclusive tracks works on so many levels,” says soundtrack supervisor/KCRW DJ Gary Calamar. “For business, you know that’s a great way to direct them to the soundtrack because that’s where they have to get (the Beck song) from. It’s also great for the artist when you commission a song. It’s a fun creative challenge for them to write on assignment like that.”

While many soundtracks, such as “True Blood,” don’t allow individual songs to be sold via iTunes (fans have to purchase the complete soundtrack in an effort to boost album sales), others take a different tact: offering many of the exclusive songs on iTunes as individual downloads.

For the “Sex and the City 2″ collection, WaterTower allowed for two exclusive tracks, Alicia Keys’ remake of Blondie’s “Rapture” and the Jennifer Hudson/Leona Lewis duet, “Love Is Your Color,” to be sold separately on iTunes.

“It’s two different customers,” Linn says. “A superstar single and a soundtrack compilation album featuring other superstars can co-exist. The Keys’ downloads aren’t oversized to where they are cannibalizing (the soundtrack).”

WaterTower (in conjunction with Big Machine) also allowed for Taylor Swift’s “Today Was a Fairytale” and Jewel’s “Stay Here Forever” to be sold as individual downloads as well as part of the “Valentine’s Day” soundtrack.

Such a strategy has also worked well for the wildly popular “Glee,” which has landed three No. 1 albums on the Billboard 200 since its 2009 launch. Gleeks have snapped up more than 4.3 million copies of the five albums released and more than 12.3 million individual song downloads, per Sony Music.

The majority of tracks are available on iTunes as soon as the episode ends, regardless of when the physical CD ships, so fans can strike while the iron is hot.

“From the very beginning, Ryan (Murphy, the show creator) and Fox and Columbia decided that we should make available all of the key musical performances from each episode for immediate download purchase,” says Glen Brunman, soundtrack consultant for Sony’s Columbia Records. “We considered that our responsibility to the show’s audience.”

As fewer overall soundtrack units are sold and artists increasingly value the exposure (and media budget) a movie or TV soundtrack placement affords them, the business deals have changed. While superstar acts can still command as much as seven figures for usage of a vital song to a movie, the studios are generally offering 25% of what they may have paid 15 years ago, a source says. Different rights allow for various usages: A company may have a limited window to sell an individual download, but will have the rights to the song for inclusion in the soundtrack in perpetuity.

Deals are structured between the studio and releasing label, which pays the studio for the rights to the soundtrack, and with the participating artists, with many labels keeping a close eye on the bottom line.

Elektra/Atlantic, which released the soundtrack to “Step Up 3D,” with new songs from Trey Songz and Flo Rida in July, “uses realistic figures and they don’t overpay anybody,” Calamar says. “They make good deals and they’re able to profit from it. They’re very creative all around.”

Current Elektra artists include Cee-Lo and Justice, hardly even concepts when David Geffen was chairing the label in the 70s. Actually, a 19-year-old Holzman started the label in a dorm room back in the 50s with artists like Jean Ritchie.

The site itself is a bit slow-loading at times, but patience produces rewards. This is full of timelines, old album covers, bios, historical nuggets, and lots of musical clips. This is part-website, part museum, and a labor of love. And, since the site is so new, the community is early and small. As of Thursday morning, just 200 history lovers (and fellow Elektra staffers) were registered.

Cisco powered the backend through its Eos platform.

Superfans are probably already experiencing this, though the concept essentially repurposes a feature already in place for iTunes podcasts. Hatched with the help of Vincent Morrisset and Topspin, the concept keeps the fan engaged with streams of related content, included web pages and images. “You can spend hours upon hours listening, reading, clicking around — it’s an incredible way to experience the album,” Topspin topper Ian Rogers described. “Such beautiful music and lyrics coupled with simple yet creative technical presentation.”

And the best part? The band sold this directly from their site at ArcadeFire.com, just one of several different configurations. All of the various versions were shuttled early to pre-orderers, just another component in a highly-successful album launch.

On Tuesday, the industry took another step towards sanity in the form of a global rights database. This is still relatively early, but according to details tipped to Digital Music News by EMI Music Publishing and French society SACEM, the database would traverse both recordings and publishing works. “The initiative aims to lower the administrative barriers to businesses seeking to distribute content online and ensure that creators of music are quickly and efficiently compensated for their work,” a statement from the duo explained.

Actually, the “Global Repertoire Working Group” was first minted in September of 2008 following discussions with EU Commissioner Neelie Kroes. Other members of the consortium include iTunes, Amazon, Nokia, PRS for Music, STIM, and Universal Music Publishing Group. And, the group is still soliciting input and participation through mid-October.

The quest for a central, authoritative global rights database continues…

Sounds great, but what’s the per-artist payout? In a conversation with Digital Music News, CD Baby CEO Tony Van Veen was unable to share the cumulative number of artists receiving payments since inception. But he could confirm a current artist population of 230,000. Judging by the expected artist payout of $40 million, each CD Baby artist will make an average of $174 this year.

That seems to reaffirm a brutal revision of the Long Tail, a part of the distribution curve CD Baby knows well. In fairness, a group of overachievers could be pulling decent payouts, though at present, figures on top earners are not available.