The Music Modernization Act overhaul of music copyright passed the Senate unanimously yesterday, following the House of Representatives previous unanimous vote as well. While this is excellent news for the industry, the bill must now go back to the House for approval since it was changed quite a bit from the original bill, then go to […]
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If you’ve ever wondered why musical metadata is so important you’re about to find out in this excellent conversation with this week’s podcast guest. Drew Waters has gone from high school dropout to PhD all in the name of music. Starting out as a working electric bass player as a teenager, he switched to upright […]
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Amazon Music has introduced a new series of exclusive recordings called “Produced By…” with the first batch coming from Grammy-winning artists that include Al Green, John Prine and Margo Price. The twist is that Amazon doesn’t actually own these recordings, as the original label retains all the rights. The premise of the “Produced By..” series […]
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The music industry constantly beats up YouTube because of its puny royalty stream, but it consistently overlooks another huge service that isn’t paying anything – Twitch. The Amazon-owned platform has 2.2 million broadcasters and 15 million daily active users who are all consuming music, but unfortunately, artists, songwriters, labels and publishers aren’t seeing a dime […]
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As much as artists, managers, labels and publishers rail against YouTube, there’s no denying that it’s been beneficial to the industry in at least two ways. First, it’s the foremost place for new music discovery, and secondly, it provides an additional revenue stream. The major complaint against YouTube has always been about the royalty amount […]
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One of the things that’s most valuable to artists, management and labels is the demographic information of exactly who is listening. In these days of targeted advertising, the more we know about an audience the better we can serve them. While artists really need this info, the fact of the matter is that advertisers might […]
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My guest this week on Episode #230 of my Inner Circle Podcast is Sweetwater’s editorial director Mitch Gallagher, who started his career as a guitarist/vocalist with various rock and country bands while earning a degree in music from Moorhead State University and studying with various classical guitar masters. After making his living as a touring […]
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Back, Bartok, Schubert, Puccini and Wagner wrote their compositions hundreds of years ago before the idea of copyright was even a glint in an intellectual property attorney’s eye, so they’re in the public domain. But are they? It turns out it’s getting tougher and tougher to post the music of the classical greats by a performer […]
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The CD is fading away, not as quickly as was predicted, but the long slow decline is occurring nonetheless. Streaming is the root cause, of course, and the decline of the importance of the album too, but for the most part, our attention is now elsewhere instead of on a round piece of plastic. That […]
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Everyone in the music business is ultimately a brand, and the ones that develop theirs are ultimately the most successful. Artists, bands, musicians, producers, even indie record labels, have a tough time discovering their brand though, and in some cases they don’t know where to start. In the second edition of my Social Media Promotion […]
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At one point in time the Family Plan tier with multiple users on one monthly bill seemed like a great way to get more people on board with music streaming, especially when it was new. This strategy actually turned out to work too well though, as so many users are now on Family Plans that […]
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Michael Laskow started Taxi in 1992 with the idea of helping songwriters, artists, bands, and composers get their music heard initially by record labels, and later by publishers and music supervisors. The company now has members in over 90 countries and features a host of placements with virtually every major television channel and film studio. […]
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If you’re an A-list artist then times are very good for you. According the recent Pollstar mid-year report, the top 50 best selling tours in the first half of 2018 generated a record amount of cash. Those tours brought in $2.21 billion in sales revenue, which is up 12% over last year at the same time. […]
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It’s true that millions of people still go to YouTube primarily for the cute cat and baby videos, but music is still the platform’s #1 attraction and money maker, according to a new study by MIDiA. Music videos are the single most popular video category on YouTube, accounting for 32% of views and 21% of its […]
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Just posting on any platform online just for the sake of having posts probably strategically isn’t a good idea. You want to post something that’s relevant to your music in some way so you can use it at least indirectly as marketing. Luckily, as a musician, you probably have plenty to write about. Here’s an […]
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