Category Archives for "Music Industry News"
June 16, 2017
YouTube And ASCAP Do A Deal
The music business has long been critical of YouTube not only for its 55/45 split (45% going to YouTube), but for the fact that songwriters and publishers frequently go unpaid. This could soon change for songwriters signed to ASCAP as the organization has agreed to a new plan that shares songwriter information with the video […]
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June 14, 2017
Apple Music Up To 27 Million Users
Spotify may be in the lead when it comes to paid streaming subscribers, but Apple Music is closing the gap fast. The company announced last week during its presentation at the World Wide Developers Conference that its streaming service is now up to 27 million users. Spotify still leads the pack with 50 million, but […]
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June 12, 2017
Pandora Fails To Get The Message In Its Deal With Sirius XM
The streaming music service Pandora’s in trouble and it has been for some time. Its user base is shrinking, its losses are increasing, and it’s not able to generate enough revenue, a bad combination if there ever was one. Reports are that the company actually rejected a total acquisition by the satellite radio company Sirius […]
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June 7, 2017
Sony Music Folds RED Distribution Into The Orchard
Sometimes consolidation is a good thing, and that certainly looks like the case with Sony Music folding its RED distribution into its Orchard operation. The move is being made in the name of efficiency, and no jobs will be lost in the transition, which is unusual. This is actually happening on a worldwide basis as […]
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June 5, 2017
Arianna Grande’s Manchester Benefit Concert – It’s The Right Thing To Do
There was a time when music artists led the charge for social awareness, eschewing commercialism in favor of some greater public good. “Selling out,” was about the worst thing you could do during those days, and a quick way to become ostracized not only from fellow musicians, but a large portion of the music consuming public […]
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May 29, 2017
Does Music Piracy Still Exist Even In The Age Of Streaming?
Streaming seems to have wiped out music piracy, but not according to the IFPI. The global recording industry organization claims that piracy is still alive and well but just in another form. While illegal downloads dominated piracy a few years ago, now it’s attributed to stream ripping (illegally saving music while streaming it). Here’s a chart […]
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May 24, 2017
The MP3 Is Not Dead, And I Can Prove It
There’s been a flurry of articles lately about the death of the MP3, and most of them have got the story wrong. The format itself is, in fact, far from dead, and I’m going to prove it to you. First, what is an MP3? It’s a file format that basically takes a very large-sized high-bandwidth […]
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May 23, 2017
Engineer Eric “Mixerman” Sarafin On My Latest Inner Circle Podcast
Engineer Eric Sarafin has had great success with artists like The Pharcyde, Tone Loc, Ben Harper, Lifehouse, Barenaked Ladies, Amy Grant, and Foreigner, among many others. He’s a great engineer/producer, and certainly deserves all the accolades that he’s received for that, but you might know him better for his writing under the name of Mixerman. […]
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May 15, 2017
Is Part Of Universal Music Up For Sale?
Universal Music’s parent company Vivendi recently put a public price tag of $22 billion on the company, which seems odd since it hasn’t valued this asset before. In fact, the only good reason to do so is if Vivendi either wants to sell all or part of Universal or to take the company public to reap […]
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May 10, 2017
Spotify Tries To Bring Back The QR Code
The QR code feels so yesterday. For a year or so you found them everywhere, then they all seemed to disappear at once, at least on a retail level. Spotify thinks that they can be a quick way for sharing music though, and it’s trying to bring them back only in a different form. There’s […]
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May 8, 2017
Warner Music’s New Deal With YouTube Isn’t Great, But It Might Not Matter Anyway
All of the major labels have been out of contract and on a month-to-month basis in their licensing agreements with YouTube for some time now, but the first domino has fallen as Warner Music Group reported that it’s just completed a new deal with the video service. Even though no terms were announced, it’s easy to […]
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May 3, 2017
New Copyright Bill Passes The House
Virtually everyone in the music community has bee screaming for copyright reform, but there has been mostly talk but little movement until now. Copyright Bill H.R. 1695, “The Register of Copyrights Selection and Accountability Act” passed the House of Representatives by 378-48 last week, which many hope is the beginning of larger reforms in the future. […]
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May 1, 2017
Facebook Rights Manager Now Lets Creators Make Money
One of the powers of YouTube is that it allows creators to make money from the platform either by uploading original content, or more powerfully, by monetizing the videos when others use your content. This is all based on the service’s Content ID system that allows tracking of content that lets the rights hold then […]
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April 26, 2017
IFPI Numbers Show How The Music Industry Is Getting Healthy Again
The annual IFPI revue of the music business confirms what all the other studies have shown – that music is truly on the comeback trail. After years of doom and gloom, the industry has seen its first double-digit rise in revenues in nearly 20 years, all thanks to streaming. The skeptics said it would never happen, […]
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April 24, 2017
Neil Young Tries It Again With New Hi-Res Streaming Service
To say that Neil Young’s Pono download service and dedicated audio player was a failure is an understatement. The service was very late to be introduced, and by the time it became available, downloads had been swept aside by streaming. Young also underestimated the consumer market’s attraction to high-resolution, especially when the prices are much higher […]
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