US Congressional committee to consider latest radio royalty proposal this week
The Judiciary Committee of the US House Of Representatives will this week discuss the proposed American Music Fairness Act which would introduce a radio royalty for recordings into American copyright law for the first time. “More than 250 bipartisan cosponsors of the Local Radio Freedom Act, including a majority of the House Of Representatives, stand with America’s local broadcasters against this onerous performance fee that would irrevocably damage local radio”, National Association Of Broadcasters CEO Curtis LeGeyt said last week.
The NAB reckons the American Music Fairness Act is an unworkable one-sided proposal that would “upend the relationship between artists and broadcast
radio”.
MUSIC AUDIO STREAMS JUST CROSSED THE 1 TRILLION MARK FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER IN A SINGLE YEAR IN THE US
Music audio streams in the US just crossed the one trillion mark for the first time ever in a single year.
That’s according to US market monitor Luminate (formerly MRC Data / Nielsen Music), which revealed that the 1 trillion mark was crossed in the US on Saturday (November 26).
That 1 trillion figure grew by 11.9 billion compared to 2021, when the full-year tally for music audio streams in the US was 988.1 billion, according to Luminate data.
That 1 trillion figure is also 7x larger than the number of music audio streams achieved in the US in 2015, when 142.9 billion were recorded in the world’s largest recorded music market, according to Luminate data.
To put this year’s one trillion US music audio streams into context, Luminate notes that music listeners have spent roughly 960,000 years streaming music in the market in 2022.
SIRIUSXM EXPLORES JOB CUTS ON SLOWING REVENUE GROWTH (REPORT)
US satellite radio service SiriusXM is planning to reduce its headcount as the company’s revenue growth slows further.
The satellite radio service controlled by billionaire John Malone warned of potential job cuts in a November 28 town hall with employees as the company assesses ways to pare costs and boost efficiency, Bloomberg News reported December 1, citing people familiar with the matter.
“It may indicate the need for staff reductions,” management reportedly said at the time.
Everything You Need To Know About Registering with PRO’s
As a songwriter, you NEED to make sure you’re registered with a Performing Rights Organization like ASCAP, BMI, SESAC,
or GMR. These are the people that make sure you’re getting paid every time your song is played! In this post, we’ll explain everything you need to know. As mentioned,
PRO’s are the ones who make sure you’re getting paid every time your song is played. In the USA, we have three main P.R.O.s to choose from. (You can only choose one). To make sure you receive the royalties you’re rightfully owed, your songs need to be properly registered with either ASCAP, SESAC,BMI,
or GMR . These guys rely on the information you provide to determine who they need to pay and how much, so you have to be sure to provide everything you need the first time
around.
How to start a fan club the right way
Shannon Koehler from The Stone Foxes sits down with Michael Brandvold to discuss their fan club, The Fox Den, and what they’ve learned about running it.
The Stone Foxes launched a subscription-based fan club/community group called The Fox Den when they announced their new album. With The Fox Den, they are curating a special experience for their biggest fans that is meaningful and greater than just pre-ordering a record.
All the music comes to The Fox Den first, weeks before release. They get access to demos, bonus tracks, and more that no one else will get as well as early access to tickets.
Shannon talks about what artists need to think about before they launch a fan club and some of the unexpected hurdles.
TEXAS REGIONAL RADIO MUSIC AWARDS &
FUTURE FACES SHOW
The Texas Regional Radio (T3R) Music Awards Show and Radio Summit Group are proud to announce the Annual Texas Regional Radio Music Awards Show to be held on MARCH 26-27, 2023 in Arlington, Texas . This will be the 13th annual event where many honorable industry folk from all over the United States will attend to witness the noted Texas/Red Dirt artists/entertainers and radio receive recognition for their accomplishments and sacrifices in the Texas/Red Dirt Music Scene. The Texas Regional Radio chart and database will be used to confirm the nominated. Artists who did not chart or debut a single in the qualifying time frame on the Texas Regional Radio Report Chart will not be eligible for awards.
Will the recession change Big Tech’s view on entertainment?
Meta laid off 11,000 employees, Stripe cut 1,000 because it overexpanded during its lockdown boom, Apple froze hiring, and 10,00 layoffs are in the cards for Amazon. Big tech is undergoing a transformation, but how will it affect music and entertainment? There are many reasons why the coming global recession will be unique, but the one that is most relevant to the digital entertainment sector is that it is going to be the first one since modern consumer tech has been truly mainstream. This matters, not just because of the unchartered territory this reflects, but also because tech companies (even the biggest) operate differently than traditional companies, placing much bigger bets on future growth. A strategy that works well in times of plenty, but that is undergoing rapid re-evaluation in the face of an onrushing recession. Big tech firms are reducing headcount, especially in the bets that plan to make profit in the future, but not yet. Most forms of digital entertainment fall in this bracket. Streaming music and video have long been loss leaders for the tech majors, but can that continue in a recession?
Apple Music Encourages International Standard Name Identifier
(ISNI) Metadata Submissions by Rights Owners
Apple Music has sent word to its label partners and music sector organizations that the company is encouraging the submissions of International Standard Name Identifier (ISNI) metadata by rights owners as part of its standard workflow procedure. The announcement is excellent news for creators and music industry organizations by helping to ensure that musicians, contributors, record labels, and their music will be unambiguously attributed — while making it easier for Apple Music listeners to find that content than before.
ISNI is the global standard number for identifying the millions of contributors to creative works and those involved in their distribution, such as researchers, inventors, writers, artists, visual creators, performers, producers, publishers, and more.
ISNI’s goal is to assign to the names or personas of individuals and organizations involved in their production or distribution a persistent and unique identifying number, resolving the issue of name ambiguity in online search and discovery. Each assigned ISNI across all platforms on the global supply chain can therefore be unambiguously attributed to its creators wherever that work is described.
Facebook Reveals How Little Content Reaches Your Followers
Have you noticed a drop in engagement on Facebook? You’re not alone. The latest transparency report reveals only 10.6% of Facebook followers see posts.
Facebook releases a quarterly ‘Widely Viewed Content’ report that showcases just how bad engagement on Facebook has gotten. The report reveals just 10.6% of a user’s Facebook feed comes from Pages they’ve followed. The 2021 average was 14.9%, which is a 29% decline year-over-year. This helps illustrate Facebook’s declining relevance in reaching audiences who are interested enough to follow you on the platform.
What the report reveals is that Facebook Groups seem to be the more effective way of reaching music fans. Facebook Groups content made up 19.6% of the average US user’s feed–which is up nearly 20% from last year. Facebook Groups can be dedicated to a multitude of topics and feature moderation features that make it easier to interact with a large group of people on local topics.
How to deal with the “controlled compositions”
It looks like the statutory rate for songs on compact discs and vinyl is finally going to get a significant increase starting January 1, 2023 (assuming the Copyright Royalty Board approves the settlement proposed by the major labels and the publishers). We have to acknowledge that there are many independent record companies that have never had to deal with an increase in the mechanical rate–the old 9.1¢ rate has been in effect since 2006. If a label was founded any time after 2006 the issue just hasn’t come up before.
The new rate (which may well change every year of the 2003-2007 rate period due the cost-of-living indexing) will require labels to check their royalty accounting programs to make sure they change the rates as required. It will also become an audit point for artist audits by artist/songwriters or producer audits by producer/songwriters, and of course publisher audits as well.
Streaming services are NOT underpaying artists, concludes new study
Spotify, other streaming music services, and the major record labels are not making excessive profits at the expense of artists, according to a new UK government study. It’s a conclusion that many struggling artists and independent labels will find disheartening.
While the study was of the UK music market, its implications are global.
The year-long investigation by the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority acknowledged the concerns of artists but claimed that government intervention in the market would not help.
The Art of Networking in the Music Industry
Too many of us leave conferences with a hazy memory of faces and a bunch of business cards of people we don’t remember.
You swarm the big-name panellists along with thirty other eager hopefuls, confidently approach the hot-shot speakers, but maybe they won’t accept your card and act completely disinterested in what you’re saying. You meet countless participants, exchange cards and some casually random banter you hardly remember. You followed up with every single person on the cards… but you receive little to no response.
The conference passes over as if it never happened. Life moves on. What did you spend that multi-hundred-dollar ticket for anyway?
Sound familiar?
Spotify Stock Could Come Dangerously Close to Record Low
Spotify Technology SA (NYSE:SPOT) is down 4.5% to trade at $78.69 this afternoon, amid a broader market pullback. The security has fallen 71.1% in the past 12 months, and is just off a Nov. 4, record low of $69.49, despite the $70 level seemingly emerging as support. It looks like Spotify Technology stock could continue tumbling lower on the charts, however, after the equity came within striking distance of a historically bearish
trendline. Digging deeper, the security is running into its 40-day moving average. Per Schaeffer's Senior Quantitative Analyst Rocky White's last study, SPOT has seen five similar signals in the past three years. The stock was lower after each signal one month later in 60% of those cases, averaging a 10.7% drop. A move of similar magnitude would place SPOT just shy of a fresh all-time low.
Twitter is making DMs encrypted and adding video, voice chat, per Elon Musk
Twitter’s new owner, Elon Musk, has been public about his desire to improve how the social network’s direct messages work. In a meeting with employees today, he spelled out exactly what that looks like.
Framed by presentation slides titled “Twitter 2.0” at Twitter’s San Fransisco headquarters on Monday, Musk told employees that the company would encrypt DMs and work to add encrypted video and voice calling between
accounts. “We want to enable users to be able to communicate without being concerned about their privacy, [or] without being concerned about a data breach at Twitter causing all of their DMs to hit the web, or think that maybe someone at Twitter could be spying on their DMs,” Musk said. “That’s obviously not going to be cool and it has happened a few times before.”
