IFPI Global Music Report 2019: Music Sales Rise For Fourth Straight Year to $19 Billion

Global music sales grew for the fourth consecutive year in 2018 with streaming now accounting for almost half of all label revenue, according to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry's (IFPI) "Global Music Report 2019."  Total music sales for the year amounted to $19.1 billion, a 9.7 percent rise on 2017's figures and the highest rate of growth since IFPI started tracking the market in 1997. It is also the highest sales total since 2007 when revenues reached $18.4 billion.

 

Streaming accounted for nearly half of music revenues worldwide in 2018

The scales are about to tip in favor of streaming music becoming the number one driver of global recorded music revenues — a shift that appears to be on track for sometime this year. According to a new industry report, global recorded music revenues jumped 9.7 percent in 2018 to reach $19.1 billion — up from $17.4 billion in 2017. Streaming music revenues, in particular, now account for nearly half (47 percent) of global revenue, thanks to a sizable 32.9 percent jump in paid streaming last year. This brought streaming revenues to $8.9 million in 2018, and puts them on track for a further jump in 2019.

 

“Why we bought a CD factory in 2019”

“There will always be demand for physical media,” states Tony van Veen as he proudly announces the acquisition of the assets of the physical media businesses from AVL Digital Group by the Disc Makers executive team.

The new DIY Media Group is much more than just a CD factory. The company offers today’s content creators—musicians, labels, authors, publishers, and filmmakers—a full suite of high-quality physical media solutions including CDs, DVDs, Blu-Ray discs, vinyl records, USB cards, books, eBooks, and printed garments. “Physical media remains one of the best ways to legitimize an artist and drive artist income in the streaming era,” states van Veen.

 

How To Set Up A Successful Music Marketing Campaign

In this fourth of AWAL's five part Decoded series on how to effectively allocate money in your music career, we dig into the process behind setting up your next music marketing campaign for success, and hear from multiple industry experts about some of the lessons they learned during their time in the business.

 

What Musicians Need To Know About Spotify’s Personalized Editorial Playlists

Spotify has recently been testing the waters with its new personalized editorial playlists, a kind of hybrid between curatorial and strictly algorithmic playlists. Here Chris Robley outlines what artists need to know about this new listening format entering the streaming arena.

 

Artist Management Commissions - What's Fair?

While managers in the music business have always has a lot to do with an artists' success, never have they made or broken an artist more than in the current music economy, and never have they had to work harder - so what is a sustainable business model for managers in the modern music industry that still fairly compensates them?

 

RIAA Continues Its Legal War To Turn ISPs Into The Copyright Police: Sues Charter Communications

The RIAA's war to force internet access providers to become copyright cops has continued to move forward. The RIAA planned this strategy out years ago, in the wake of losing the SOPA fight. Back in 2012 we wrote about an internal plan to try to convince courts that Section 512(i) of the DMCA actually mean that ISPs had to completely kick users off the internet based solely on accusations of infringement. The end goal here is, as always with the RIAA, to get everyone else to try to police the internet.

 

Could Strict Copyright Laws Stifle Creativity And Discourage Originality?

Back in March of 2015, Pharrell Williams claimed that the Blurred Lines copyright lawsuit will stifle creativity. Speaking for the first time since a jury determined that he and Robin Thicke copied Marvin Gaye’s ‘Got to give it up’. He explained: “The verdict handicaps any creator out there who is making something hat might be inspired by something else. If we lose our freedom to be inspired, we’re going to look up one day and the entertainment industry as we know it will be frozen in litigation. This is about protecting the intellectual rights of people who have ideas.”

 

Creating a band website: A complete checklist

Is your band or solo career getting to the point that you want to book more shows? You might need an EPK that’s easy for press to grab information from. Or maybe you just want a space on the web to call your own?

Let’s be honest, your specialty is writing music and performing it, not building a website. You sit down, ready to begin, then feel completely lost about where to start. Does the idea of creating a band website make your eyes glaze over? We’ve made a handy checklist to help you through it. So let’s get started!

 

Dozens of Music Companies File Copyright Suit Against Charter Communications

The internet service provider allegedly failed to "take reasonable measures to curb customers from using its Internet services to infringe on others’ copyrights." More than 50 leading record labels and publishers have filed a lawsuit against Charter Communications, Inc. for contributing and profiting off its internet subscribers' copyright infringement. 

 

Coalition of Publishers and Songwriters Has Experience Needed to Run the New Mechanical Licensing Collective

This week, an industry-leading coalition of songwriters and publishers, led by its representatives -- the National Music Publishers' Association (NMPA), the Nashville Songwriters Association International (NSAI) and the Songwriters of North America (SONA) -- is submitting our plan for creating the Mechanical Licensing Collective (MLC) to the Copyright Office to become the entity envisioned by the MMA.  Our MLC submission sets forth a roadmap to establishing and creating a new licensing entity that can administer and pay mechanical royalties, and fulfill the extensive requirements of the law, by the statutory launch date of January 1, 2021. It's an aggressive timeline that demands comprehensive industry participation.

 

Songwriting Workflow: What One Month Of Daily Releases Taught Me

What's it like to release a new composition every day for a month? Composer Martin Fowler recently took on this challenge (and then some), working to release new music everyday for an entire month. Here he documents his experience, and what he learned from it.

 

Spending Music Money Smart

It’s tempting to point fingers when things go wrong. Where there’s cash or credit involved, there’s room to scapegoat — not having enough, misusing what’s available, losing opportunities to get more, you know the drill. It’s easy to write off slower-than-expected trajectories as the natural result of insufficient funding. In most brains, understandably, more is better.

 

The Value Consistant Branding In Music

As an artist, cultivating and communicating and image to your fans is important for success, but just as important to that success is consistently maintaining said image, so that consumers know who you are and what it is that you create.

 

How To Prepare For A Post-Album Music Industry

The album is not dead, but it is fading away; and stats shared by MIDiA analyst Keith Jopling confirm the trend. Adults that claim to listen to whole albums monthly, stands at just 16% according to Q4 ‘18 data from MIDiA, a drop from 22% in the previous quarter.

 

Skip Rates: Why The First 30 Seconds Matter More Than Ever

With the album on the wane and attention spans shorter than ever, the first 30 seconds of of a song matter more than.  Not only do they need to capture the listener's attention, but in streaming, they determine if the songwriter is going to get paid at all. 

 

The Importance Of Artwork In Your Music

With the rise fo streaming the prominence of album artwork has, quite literally, been greatly reduced. That said, it's a mistake for artists to discount the incredible importance of album art when it comes to releasing and promoting your music.

 

Big question: Could Google buy Universal Music Group?

It would have been the most talked-about story to hit the music business in decades.

Three years ago, the world found out that Google had made a play to buy 50% of Sony/ATV Music Publishing from the Jackson Estate. The stake, which eventually went to Sony Corporation in a $750 million deal, would have seen Google – now Alphabet, the world’s fourth largest company – acquire ownership of over two million copyrights, including a deluge of hits going back decades.

 

Spotify vs. songwriters: Sony/ATV’s Martin Bandier and Warner/Chappell’s Carianne Marshall urge composers to fight royalty rate challenge

Outgoing Sony/ATV boss Martin Bandier, who reportedly earned a personal fortune in the region of $100m from Sony’s recent acquisition of EMI Music Publishing, believes Spotify isn’t sharing enough of its revenue with songwriters.

In a new letter to Sony/ATV’s songwriters, Bandier has slammed an appeal from Spotify, Amazon, Google and Pandora against new statutory streaming rates announced by the US Copyright Royalty Board last year.

These appeals are intended to reverse the CRB’s decision, which would see streaming royalties paid to songwriters and publishers in the States rise by at least 44% by 2022.

 

Music Publishers Issue 'Fact Check' Of Spotify Blog Post 'Attempting To Deceive' Songwriters

Spotify has released a blog post laying out their decision to join Amazon, Pandora and Google in appealing a US Copyright Board decision that would raise streaming payments to songwriters by 44%, over time. Now, David Israelite of the National Music Publishers Association (NMPA) has issued point-by-point "fact check" of Spotify's claims.

 

Streaming Revenue Impressive, But Can It Ever Make Up For Lost Physical Sales?

With streaming revenue showing a massive increase in comparison to previous years, the major three record labels are rejoicing at their annual haul. A big part of this income still draws from physical sales however, and as these old-school revenue streams continue to thin to a trickle, will streaming be able to fully compensate?

 

Streaming, Artists Without Labels Are Driving Music Industry Growth [Mark Mulligan]

Three key factors shaped the music industry over the last year, according to Mark Mulligan of MIDiA: continued growth, streaming and artists direct (artists without labels).These findings are highlights of the MIDiA Research report: Recorded Music Market 2018: Stream Engine.

 

Local Radio Freedom Act' Is Actually Anti-Creator, Anti-Property-Rights [Richard James Burgess]

The National Association of Broadcasters and its horde of well paid lobbyists are now working to coerce congress into cosponsoring a bill dubbed the Local Radio Freedom Act, an ironic title given the bill's far more sinister anti-creator, anti-property rights content. Here A2IM CEO Richard James Burgess explains why both parties should lambast the bill.

 

Apple Music the only major streaming service not appealing royalty increase for songwriters

Spotify, Google, Pandora, and Amazon are all coming together to appeal a recent U.S. Copyright Royalty Board ruling that would see songwriter royalty payouts increase by 44 percent. Apple, meanwhile, is seemingly the only major streaming service not planning to appeal.