Category Archives for "Music Industry News"
The last few years have gone better than expected for the recorded music industry, with double digit growth and lots of smiles to go around. With streaming continuing to grow in acceptance, it’s a party that looks to go on for some time, but that’s not what Sony is predicting. Despite the growth in streaming, Sony […]
Continue readingFacebook has threatened to go big into music for quite a while and last week finally made its move. The company announced that its users can now upload and share their videos that contain music by popular artists and now have it legally licensed for the first time. Facebook also announced a new music feature called […]
Continue readingA new report suggests that Spotify is embarking on a new strategy that may ultimately alienate the very partners it needs to stay in business. A recent Billboard article outlined Spotify’s currently unannounced program of offering advances to a select number of indie artists for a direct licensing deal with the service. If you’re an artist or […]
Continue readingVirtually everyone in the music business breathed a sigh of relief when the Music Modernization Act sailed through the House of Representatives recently. Finally it looked like we were making some headway towards changing at least a few outdated copyright laws. When it comes to Washington however, nothing is as easy as it seems as […]
Continue readingSongwriters have always made a good amount of performance royalties from radio airplay, and many still do under the right circumstances (meaning, a big hit). That said, there’s a constant battle between the performance rights organizations (PROs – ASCAP and BMI) and the RMLC (Radio Music Licensing Committee) to raise and lower the rates every […]
Continue readingYou might have noticed that all new music released by record labels always comes on a Friday and wondered why. After all, Friday generally isn’t a great day for communication online (especially via email) as people are especially frantic before the weekend. And if you remember back to before 2015, Tuesday used to be release […]
Continue readingWhen it comes to paid subscribers, Pandora has taken a back seat to all the other major services with only around 6 million. One of the reasons is that the company hasn’t been very creative with its tiers, but that posture may have changed with reports of the company launching a new family plan at […]
Continue readingI wonder how many times YouTube viewers watched an “official” music video from their favorite artist and saw the Vevo logo on the video or in the song’s description. I wonder how many actually thought to themselves, “What the heck is a Vevo?” That, my friends, was the main problem of the major record labels’ […]
Continue readingIf you’ve been using a music aggregator like CD Baby or TunCore to get your music out to a wider audience, it looks like there’s a new alternative available that has a unique twist. Swedish startup Amuse (amuse.io) was founded by a team of industry heavyweights, and they’ve just received $15.5 million in funding to expand […]
Continue readingIn a case of the rich getting richer, Sony Corporation of America has entered into a deal to purchase an additional 60% of EMI Music Publishing. That would give the company 90% of EMI Publishing, with the Michael Jackson estate owning the final 10%. The deal seems to put to rest the idea that music […]
Continue readingIf you were to poll record label execs off-the-record on which music streaming service they like the most in a strictly business-sense, chances are that Apple Music would end up as the clear winner. Why? Apple has steadfastly refused to institute a free ad-driven tier. Even though labels, artists, songwriters and publishers realize revenue from […]
Continue readingAfter much speculation on features and timing, YouTube Music is slated for a soft launch tomorrow. The service will replace its YouTube Red service with with two tiers and a lot of features that users should like. YouTube Music’s tiers will include YouTube Music at the industry standard $9.99 per month that features mostly audio-only […]
Continue readingMusic discovery is the holy grail of the music business, as it develops a new fan base for artists and bands with the exposure. At one point in time, most discovery came mostly from radio, with a little bit of print advertising aimed at both consumers and retailers thrown in. In today’s digital age, radio […]
Continue readingMany artists and industry execs may think that the Billboard charts are less relevant than they’ve ever been, but they’re still used as a measurement of success no matter how you look at it. That’s why it’s long been argued that the way that the charts count streams is insufficient. It appears that’s changing soon […]
Continue readingThe streaming music service Pandora has been in financial difficulty for quite a while now, and it really needs to generate more revenue to stay afloat. One of the things that it tried was to increase the number of ads served up to free users, but it looks like that strategy has backfired. Everyone hates […]
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