User-generated content could be worth around $6 billion to the music industry over the next two years. That’s according to a new white paper published by London-based MIDiA Research, in partnership with Audible Magic, entitled The Rising Power of UGC, which examines “the rising power of UGC and the untapped opportunity to monetise the growth in UGC consumer behaviours and new platforms”.
Source: Music-related user generated content could be worth $6bn over the next two years (report)
Global music publishing grew to €8.96 billion ($10.04 billion) in 2019, up 8.4% from the year prior among CISAC members, the international collection society trade group announced Wednesday. But a big pandemic drop Is coming for 2020 and 2021, CISAC chair of the board Marcelo Castello Branco has warned.
Audible, the Amazon-owned audiobook company, is further expanding into podcasts with the addition of approximately 100,000 of podcasts, totaling 5 million episodes to its service. The shows will be offered for free streaming to Audible members and non-subscribers alike, Audible says.
Streaming generates only 1/6 as much revenue per streaming home as pay TV generates per pay TV home for two reasons: on average, streaming homes are only subscribing to ~2 services; and half of all streaming time is ad-free. Even under optimistic assumptions about increased streaming subscription take rates and ad monetization, it is hard to see how streaming will come close.
Swedish Independent music distribution and artist services company Amuse is expanding its data-driven royalty advance service, Fast Forward. Amuse, which offers completely free music distribution for independent artists to services such as Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube Music and others, launched Fast Forward in February last year to pay eligible self-releasing artists advances on future royalties.
Source: Amuse expands AI-driven royalty advances of up to $300,000 to independent artists’ collaborators
An RIAA takedown request, which removed the YouTube-DL repository from GitHub, has ticked off developers and GitHub’s CEO. Numerous people responded by copying and republishing the contested code, including in some quite clever ways. Meanwhile, GitHub’s CEO is “annoyed” as well, offering help to get the repo reinstated.
Source: RIAA’s YouTube-DL Takedown Ticks Off Developers and GitHub’s CEO * TorrentFreak
A company operating a YouTube-ripping platform has sued the RIAA for sending “abusive” DMCA anti-circumvention notices to Google. According to the complaint and contrary to the RIAA’s claims, the Yout service does not “descramble, decrypt, avoid, bypass, remove, deactivate, or impair” YouTube’s rolling cipher technology.
Source: RIAA Sued By YouTube-Ripping Site Over DMCA Anti-Circumvention Notices * TorrentFreak
A group of musicians has launched a new campaign, called Justice At Spotify, to try to gain support for a series of changes they would like to see the world’s largest streaming service make. Along with a mission statement and a petition that at press time has been signed by more than 6,000 people.
Source: ‘Justice At Spotify’ Campaign Calls for Increased Royalty Rates, More Transparency
Source: Lawmakers Want to Protect Local Newspapers From Google, Facebook
If the concert business is indeed having its “Napster moment” right now, one wonders if the music companies making the most cash mid-pandemic – a.k.a the major rightsholders – will be tempted to more heavily invest in the live space, which has born the brunt of Covid-19’s unforgiving impact.
Source: BMG on its expansion into live music: ‘This is the opposite of a 360 deal.’