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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Here’s the Music Industry News Roundup for the week ending on May 26th, 2017. There’s a lot of social media news this week, but some on Pandora too (and it’s not too good). Let’s get into it. Pandora is suffering from “fake listener syndrome.” Two-thirds of its listeners do so at home, and they’re frequently not even in […]
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It’s surprising how influential the thumbnail graphic can be when it comes to getting people to click on your video. That’s why it’s much better to choose your own thumbnail image when uploading to YouTube or Vimeo, rather than letting the service pick a random one for you. Here’s an excerpt from my Social Media Promotion […]
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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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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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For those that said that streaming revenue would never replace that from CDs there’s this – According to a study done by Music Business Worldwide, the major labels made around $9000 every minute from streaming in the first quarter of 2017. To put it into perspective, that means $540,000 per hour and $12.5 million every day! If […]
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Here’s the Music Industry News Roundup for the week ending on May 19th, 2017. The big news in the streaming world again this week, and once again, some of it is not good. Let’s get into it. Apple to stop exclusives. After much negative feedback from the industry, it looks like it has backed off. Jimmy Iovine thinks […]
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Many artists are tempted to just rely on a Facebook or Tumblr page as the main online point of contact, but that strategy can have a number of unforeseen problems. Here’s an excerpt from my Social Media Promotion For Musicians book that explains why an artist’s online presence should be more than on social networks. […]
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There may not be as much money in radio as there once was, but the evidence mounts that people in the U.S. are consuming more of it than ever before. Better still, the trend shows no sign of slowing down. According to data from Edison Research, the percentage of Americans 12 years of age or older […]
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Sylvia Massy has an incredible resume that covers Queens Of The Stone Age, Black Crowes, Smashing Pumpkins, Johnny Cash, Prince, Tool, Lenny Kravitz, and many more. But what’s so cool about Sylvia is that she’s absolutely fearless when it comes to experimenting in the studio (check out her “pickle filter” video from a recent post). […]
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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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Here’s the Music Industry News Roundup for the week ending on May 12th, 2017. There’s a lot of news in the streaming world this week, and most of it is not good. It looks like we may see some shaking out in the next year or so, but it could start within the next 30 days. Let’s […]
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If you’re an artist or band it’s very easy to be overwhelmed by all the options online. That’s why you need a solid strategy to make sure you don’t spend more time than is necessary spinning your wheels, and really get the promotional value you want from your online presence. My Social Media Promotion for […]
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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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Bill Smith got a chance to do what most of us just dream about, and that’s assist for some of the engineering luminaries during his days as an assistant at Capitol Studios in Hollywood. But it gets better. For many years Bill was the personal assistant to the great Al Schmitt. There’s nothing like learning […]
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