It
appears as though an ever increasing
number of bands and artists are
avoiding traditional record label and
instead taking the indie path,
sometimes by choice and sometimes
because of difficulty of signing with
a major label. Whatever the reason,
indie labels are soon set to
contribute to 40% of the global music
economy, with no sign of slowing down.
Look
through your local gig listings and
chances are you’ll find as many
tribute bands and singers as there are
original acts. Their popularity
continues to grow and not just in
smaller venues. Some are able to fill
the largest sites like Wembley Arena
and the O2. There are many examples of
successful tribute bands that have
performed thousands of shows across
the globe, year after year. These acts have
earned their success by replicating
the original band’s music to a very
high standard, as well as providing an
exciting visual performance alongside
the sonic conventions.
In
this second in a multi-part series
exploring some of the less well known
publishing agreements in the music
industry, Justin Jacobson delves into
the nitty gritty of sub-publishing
agreement and what its implications
are for songwriters.
Although
it's a great way for artists to boost
their overall revenue, selling merch
at shows can often be a challenge to
do. Here we look at seven ways to
switch things up and move a few more
shirts at your next show.
How
you market your website makes all the
difference heavy traffic and a digital
ghost town, and just like marketing
your music, requires a carefully
composed strategy with a product that
will leave fans coming back for more.
Sony
Music will use Rhapsody's
"Powered By Napster"
platform to launch the first high
resolution streaming music service in
Japan. The move by Sony Music
Entertainment Japan makes Sony the
first major label to directly
challenge Spotify, Apple Music and
others with their own music streaming
service.
While
artists now live in a time when they
have more freedom than ever to create,
market, and sell their music, the
digital age has brought with it a
unique set of challenges as well. Here
we look at the three biggest obstacles
standing between contemporary
musicians and success.
We
knew our attention spans were short,
and it seems the streaming era is only
making things worse, with new data
revealing that consumers are becoming
increasingly fickle, and skipping more
songs after spending a decreasing
amount of time listening to them.
Every
aspect of the music industry has been
touched by its transition to digital
distribution, and record deals and
recording contracts are no exception.
Here music attorney Mark Quails breaks
down some of the most import questions
about contracts for current day
musicians.
Independent
labels generated $6.9 billion in sales
in 2017, up from $6.2 billion the
previous year, according to a new
report from Worldwide Independent
Network (WIN).
With
the Federal Communication Commission
about to embark on the review it does
every four years of whether its
broadcast ownership rules remain
necessary in the public interest of
competition, the National Association
of Broadcasters is encouraging the
agency to relax, if not eliminate all
together, any restrictions on how many
stations a single owner can have in
one market.
Entering
the recording studio can be fun and
exciting. But it also involves
investing blood, sweat and tears, as
well as, of course, money. So it's a
good idea to make sure you're ready
before committing all that time and
money.
If
you’re like me, you don’t have a
huge budget for music. So
even though going to music college
sounds cool, it’s just not feasible.
Fortunately, there’s a great
alternative: online music
courses. They’re much
cheaper, more accessible, and take
less time to complete. And in light of
this, here are three online courses
that can help boost your music career.
The
Financial Times reported in early
November that Apple and iHeartMedia
were in talks about a possible deal
that could see the tech giant take an
equity stake in the broadcaster or
strike a large marketing partnership
with it. In a follow-up story, the
newspaper speculates that Apple is
interested in the radio giant to
broaden the audience for Beats 1, and
to narrow the audience gap between
Apple Music and streaming audio
competitor Spotify.
In
what could be a game changer for the
music publishing community, Spotify
has opened up its data to music
publishers, providing tools that were
previously only available to record
labels. The music streaming
platform said the Spotify Publishing
Analytics plan is "the first
analytics tool from a music streaming
service built specifically for
publishers, so they can better serve
their songwriters."
There
have been a number of stories released
in the past week covering a fake LA
hard rock band created by a one Jared
Threatin who purchased massive numbers
of followers, views, and Facebook
attendees only to, unsurprisingly,
have the "real" tour go up
in flames.
As
an artist striving for success, you're
doubtless putting in countless hours
of blood, sweat, and tears, but even
working as hard as you do, it's easy
to make career derailing mistakes.
Here we look at five of the most
common ones.
Apple
Music will continue its growth
trajectory, according analysts
at Morgan Stanley. Over
the next five years, Apple Music's 5%
market penetration will expand to
14%of a growing user base of Apple's
products, driving a 28% revenue
growth. Apple Music is predicted
to grow to 164 million users by 2023.
Bot
farms continue to manipulate streaming
stats on Spotify and Soundcloud, a year
after the streamers and music industry
became aware of them, multiple sources
tell Hypebot. The bots, which target
these two services because they offer
free access, are available both
home-brewed and professionally marketed.
As
the music industry closes the door on
2018, some of the promised technologies
of the year, like blockchain and AI, hit
the world of music with more of a fizzle
than a bang, but 2018 did deliver some
indicators for what meta trends will
likely have the most impact as we move
forward into 2019.
The
U.S. Supreme Court is expected to allow
an antitrust lawsuit to move forward
that could force Apple to cut its 30
percent transaction fee it charges
software developers who sell apps
through iTunes and its App Store. The
final ruling could potentially impact
the music and media streaming landscape
as we know it -- and endanger Apple’s
future plans to expand its services
business.
Cassette
tapes are no longer just being sold at
car boot sales. They're new releases,
sold on Amazon, and usually they cost
more than vinyl. The world of Airpods
and Megabooms is not for them. They're
interested in a format that most people
had assumed was dead, whose revival was
either a gimmick or symbolic of a
hipster trend, but not the sign of a
format with a future.
As
best we can tell from the outside
looking in, this chart has the dates for
key events in the critical path to
launch for the Mechanical Licensing
Collective as required by the Music
Modernization Act. We have called
the chart the “Countdown to
Modernity.” Recall that the Register
of Copyrights gets to pick the entity to
operate as the Mechanical Licensing
Collective. The Tennesseean reported
last week that the first fully-formed
candidate to emerge is the American
Music Licensing Collective or the “AMLC”.
(AMLC’s website is
songrights.net.)
As
the rise of the streaming industry
continues to alter the ways in which
listeners consume music, we're starting
to get a better handle on what some of
these changes look like. One change
that's been a benefit to artists is the
revivification of their older work, or
"catalogue" material, with
more listeners reaching back to
"re-discover" older recorded
music.
Enacted
on October 11, the Music Modernization
Act will have vast impact on the music
business and how it is conducted in the
US. Here we look at exactly what sort of
changes this new legislation will bring
about.
The
Dept. of Justice’s Antitrust Division
has been casting a skeptical eye at a
number of media mergers, and that
scrutiny now appears to be extending to
the audio marketplace. Faced with the
possibility the DOJ could reject
SiriusXM Radio’s proposal to buy
Pandora in an all-stock deal valued at
$3.5 billion, the satellite radio
company has instead temporarily
withdrawn its application for review.
For
many artists, marketing is somewhat at
odds with who they are and what they do.
Since music and the act writing songs is
often deeply personal and emotional,
getting into a music marketing strategy
mindset might seem foreign, fake or
forced for some musicians. Tens of
thousands of new songs are being
released each day, and, in many cases,
what determines whether each of these
songs will go on to find an audience or
not depends on how they’re marketed.
Not sure how to market your music?
Here’s 7 music marketing strategies to
get you started:
In
this follow up to a previous series
exploring traditional songwriter and
music publisher relationships, we look
at some less well-known contractual
agreements between these two parties,
including co-publishing, sub-publishing,
and administrative agreements.
In
an effort to improve the methods by which
royalties are calculated, Chris Castle
theorized something known as the
"ethical pool". Here he takes a
deeper dive, taking a look at a new study
on the topic and how it compares more
conventional royalty calculations.
Although
vinyl has been making a significant
comeback in the age of streaming, the CD
has largely been thought of as a relic of
the past. New data suggests, however, that
calling time of death on the CD may have
been premature.
What
is duplicate or “duplicative” content?
It’s when two videos on YouTube are very
similar or even identical.
You
shouldn’t have duplicate videos on your
own channel, and you shouldn’t post
videos to your channel that closely match
another channel’s content. The only
exception here is if you’ve taken an
existing video and provided new
commentary, narrative, high-quality
editing, or some other element that adds
value and significance to the duplicate
video.
Google
execs continue to sneak article thirteen
gripes into many of their communications.
Yesterday YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki even
snuck some article thirteen griping into
an op-ed piece for the Financial Times all
about article thirteen. Super sneaky.
Article thirteen, of course, seeks to
reform the copyright safe harbour, which
says that internet companies cannot be
held liable when their users use their
servers or networks to distribute content
without licence.
A
new streaming music survey in the Nordic
countries offers a look at what may be the
best that Spotify and the music industry
can hope for when it comes to paid
versus free streaming. Since
streaming music was all but invented
there, the Nordic countries of Norway,
Finland, Denmark and Spotify's home
country of Sweden, are considered to be
streaming's most mature market.
As
an artist, building an audience is one of
the hardest and most important things to
do, and it can be difficult to know where
to start. Here we look at helpful
comprehensive beginner's guide to
successfully growing an audience from the
ground up.
The
American Society of Composers, Authors and
Publishers (ASCAP) has filed 12
separate copyright infringement actions
against U.S. bars and restaurants alleging
unauthorized public performance of its
members’ copyrighted musical works.
Among
artists releasing music this days, it's
fairly common to see them sink a lot of
promotional resources into trying to gain
a coveted placement on one of Spotify's
major playlists, the theory being that
such a prominent placement will make a
band's career, but is this really the
case?
Spotify
put yet another new industry-facing
service into beta yesterday. This time
it’s a product that seeks to enhance the
firm’s relationships with those on the
songwriting and publishing side of the
business, which is where some of its most
vocal critics have sat in recent years.
The new service is called Spotify
Publishing Analytics, and sets out to make
it easier for music publishers to monitor
the performance of the songs they control
and the songwriters they work with across
the streaming platform, including on
playlists.
Whether
there was a blue, red or pink wave—or no
wave at all—change is coming to
Washington, and that’s likely to have
implications for several issues close to
the hearts and minds of broadcasters. It
has less to do with political ideology,
however. It’s simply more about which
industry allies or foes will remain in the
halls of Congress.
he
internet has fundamentally altered the way
in which artists market their music,
giving them a chance to reach fans and
grow their base in way not previously
possible. With so many opportunities,
however, there may be some key marketing
strategies you've been missing out on.
Last
week, Apple launched a "Apple-Preferred
Distribution Program," naming just
three music distributors as "Preferred
Plus" partners, and rewarding them with advanced
customer features and analytics not
available to their competitors.
SiriusXM
has a lot to celebrate in its earnings
report for the third quarter of this year:
at $1.5 billion, Sirius’ revenue jumped
six percent over the same period last year,
and set a new record for quarterly revenue
for the company. Driving much of that growth
was a boost of 298,000 additional self-pay
subscribers for the quarter, bringing its
number to 28.5 million self-pay subscribers.
In total, Sirius ended the quarter with
approximately 33.7 million total
subscribers, according to its filings with
the SEC.
There’s
a new courthouse skirmish pitting the
Radio Music License Committee against
Global Music Rights, and this one
isn’t directly related to how much
stations pay GMR for using music in its
repertoire. Instead, GMR is pushing back
against a subpoena it’s been handed as
part of the RMLC’s ongoing rate court
proceeding with Broadcast Music Inc.
(BMI). After they were unable to reach
an agreement on their own, the RMLC and
BMI moved into the federal
rate court process in May, where
a federal judge will decide how much
radio stations pay for the Jan. 2017 to
Dec. 2021 term.
Social
media companies aren’t growing as
quickly as they used to. In some cases,
they aren’t growing at all.
In
the United States, things are even worse
for them: They’re shrinking. Facebook,
Twitter and Snapchat are no longer
adding new users in the United States.
Facebook’s daily user base has been
the same for the past three quarters.
Twitter and Snapchat have both lost
users in the U.S. or North America,
respectively, in back-to-back quarters.
Apple
Inc has held talks with iHeartMedia Inc
to take a stake in the U.S. radio
company, the Financial Times reported on
Thursday, citing people familiar with
the matter. The discussions between the
two companies remain at a preliminary
stage and no deal has been agreed, the
report said, citing sources.
At
long last the comprehensive and sweeping
Music Modernization Act has been signed
into law, affecting industry
professionals everywhere. While the
legislation was certainly surrounded by
its share of controversy, we here look
at some of the upsides to the act.
At
SoundExchange, they are often asked by
recording artists and rights owners
alike about who is responsible for whose
royalties, how they get distributed, and
which royalties SoundExchange doesn't
administer. Here they share the answers
to some of the most frequent questions.
If you don't have a publisher, or if you
are your own publisher, this is some
valuable information for you.
Spotify’s
Daniel Ek is betting big on developing a
‘two sided marketplace’ for music.
With the company’s market cap on a
downward trend despite strong growth
metrics, Ek might find himself having to
play up the disruption narrative more
boldly and more quickly than he’d
planned. Investors are betting on a
Netflix-like disruptor for the music
industry, rather than a junior
distribution partner for the labels. And
this is where it gets messy. So when
Spotify announced it was going to let
artists upload music directly and
thenadded distribution to other
streaming services via DistroKid,the
labels understandably smelt a rat.
While
amassing fans is certainly a key part of
music industry success, cultivating and
sustaining relationships with your
industry peers is also essential to
getting ahead in a tough field. Here we
look at seven ultimate tips on how to
network in the music industry.
A
post on the Spotify For Artists website
declared: “A few months ago, we
unveiled a beta feature … that gives
artists, labels, and teams the ability
to share new music directly with our
editorial team for playlist
consideration. Since the feature became
available in July more than 67,000
artists and labels have submitted music
and now we’re excited to announce our
playlist submission feature is
officially out of beta”.
Starting
Wednesday (Oct. 24), Facebook is
expanding the ability to use songs in
Facebook Stories or News Feed posts. To
add a song to photos and videos, users
can tap on the sticker icon in the
camera view and select the “music”
sticker. After selecting a song, a
sticker is added with the artist and
song name to the post.
The
tool, which allows artists and labels to
submit unreleased music directly to
Spotify’s editorial team for playlist
consideration, is officially launching
after a successful beta run that saw
over 67,000 artists make use of the
feature and more than 10,000 be added to
editorial playlists on the platform.
Thanks
to the exploding popularity of streaming
music services, the music industry has
experienced a ‘revival.’ All
three major labels – Sony Music,
Warner, and Universal – now post
billions each year in digital revenue.
In
addition, more people listen and
subscribe to mainstream streaming music
services on their mobile phones. Spotify
has 83 million subscribers. Apple
Music has 50, give or take, and Amazon
has “tens of millions.”
Soundcloud
is the latest audio streaming
platform to partner with
Instagram, the companies
announced Tuesday, allowing
users to share songs in
Instagram Stories.
