Category Archives for "Music Industry News"
February 7, 2018
Believe It Or Not, Apple Music Is About To Surpass Spotify In The US
When we look at streaming subscriber numbers, it always looks as if Spotify is in a commanding lead with over 70 million paid users as compared to Apple Music’s 36 million. But as we’ve seen so many times before, statistics can be deceiving. According to an article in the Wall Street Journal (subscription required to […]
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February 5, 2018
YouTube Introduces Official Artist Channels
Up until now, official artists video channels were part of the record label-owned Vevo, much to the chagrin of Google-owned YouTube, but now the platform is fighting back by launching its own version of artist channels. Starting this week all unofficial channels will be consolidated into one YouTube artist destination. Vevo stands for “Video EVOlution” and […]
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February 2, 2018
NOI LOOKUP May Make It Easier To Get Paid From Spotify
Spotify has been in running battles with songwriters and publishers for the last year over the fact that the platform was playing music without complete copyright information, and therefore without a license. This has resulted in several lawsuits against the streaming giant, with more threatened. A new free service launched recently by SXWorks, a subsidiary of […]
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January 31, 2018
Songwriters Getting A 44% Boost In Pay From Streaming
While payouts averaging $0.005 to $0.007 to artists from streaming seems pretty minimal, it’s even worse for songwriters, who generally only see about a tenth of that revenue. That’s why the recent ruling by the Copyright Royalty Board’s (CRB) that awards songwriters a 44% increase is so important. While still just a fraction of what […]
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January 29, 2018
Legendary Producer Quincy Jones Wants To Create Music Stock Index Fund
One way to invest in the stock market reasonably safely is by investing in an index fund, which is a type of mutual fund with a portfolio constructed to match or track a market index, such as the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index (S&P 500). Advantages of an index fund include broad market exposure combined with very low operating expenses, so it becomes sort of […]
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January 26, 2018
YouTube To Assign ISNI ID Numbers To Creators
YouTube has decided to begin assigning ID numbers to creators using the International Standard Name Identifier (ISNI) initiative, which may be enough to other distributors to begin adopting the system as well. The platform will share ISNIs with its label and publishing partners in an effort to promote the standard. ISNI is the ISO-certified global standard number […]
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January 24, 2018
Georgia’s Music Industry Gets A 15% Tax Incentive
Some states want to lure film and television business to shoot in their cities by offering a tax incentive, but Georgia is concentrating on the music business. On January 1st, the new Music Investment Act went into effect offering 15% of tax relief for tours and music projects created in the state. House Bill 155 gives […]
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January 22, 2018
Join Me For The AES Conference At NAMM
If you’re going to the Winter NAMM show in Anaheim this week, check out the AES conference that happens concurrently on the 4th floor of the Hilton Hotel. I’ve put together the studio-related sessions for the conference that includes a great list of speakers, including Andrew Scheps, Jack Joseph Puig, Sylvia Massey, Richard Chycki, Michael […]
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January 19, 2018
32 Radio Stations Closed Last Year
The FCC just released their totals of licensed broadcast stations for last year and some figures jumped out. There were 32 radio stations that closed last year – 30 AM and 2 FM. Once upon a time having a broadcast license of any kind was a like having a permit to print money, but no […]
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January 15, 2018
5 Over-The-Top Album Packaging Ideas
Anyone that used to or still buys vinyl albums knows that packaging is a big deal. Interesting packaging has led to more sales than the record industry might admit just based on a cool looking graphic and some great liner notes. That said, sometimes an artist goes the extra mile to present an album packaged […]
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January 11, 2018
Is The MP3 Era Coming To An End?
Reports are that Apple is moving up its timetable for killing the MP3 download from its iTunes Store to later this year. Originally the company was planning on next year for end-of-life, but have accelerated the schedule thanks to quickly declining sales and the unprecedented growth of music streaming. There has been no official announcement […]
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January 10, 2018
With Jimmy Iovine Leaving, A Look Back At What Apple Got For Its $3 Billion Purchase Of Beats
Reports from all over the Internet suggest that Jimmy Iovine will be leaving Apple shortly after the stock he received in the company’s 2014 acquisition of his previous enterprise, Beats Electronics, vests in August. There’s been no denial or even suggestion that the story isn’t true, so it prompts a retrospective question – What exactly […]
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January 8, 2018
A Look At Music Consumption Trends In 2017
As we enter into the new year, it’s sometimes useful to look back at the previous year to discover what the trends were. Nielsen Music posted it’s music consumption figures for 2017 and a number of things became pretty evident when you really looked a the data. 1. Total music consumption was up by 12.5 percent […]
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January 5, 2018
Atlantic Records Finds A New Way Not To Pay Producers
Being a producer has gotten a lot less lucrative these days thanks to streaming. Most producer deals are built around physical sales, which as we all know, are becoming pretty much a thing a of past except in a very few cases. Sure you get paid on streaming mechanicals, but the revenue is a far […]
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January 4, 2018
Wixen Music Publishing Is Suing Spotify For $1.6 Billion
Spotify’s legal team is going to be kept pretty busy for a while defending the company against a $1.6 billion (yes, with a B) lawsuit brought by the Wixen Music Publishing. The company licenses music from about 200 artists, including superstars Tom Petty, Neil Young, The Beach Boys, Donald Fagen, Stevie Nicks, Missy Elliott, and Janis […]
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