Today, more than 98% of music repertoire usage is reported digitally. While the onset of digitization imposed obvious technology costs on PROs, songwriters should have long ago started benefiting from its improved efficiency. Yet, collection fees have continued to rise in terms of actual dollars and we’ve completely forfeited the potential benefits of globalization due to legacy back scratching.
Source: Pay It Again, Sam: We Still Need New Publishing Infrastructure (Guest Op-Ed)
A handful of auctions this month testing the appetite for a type of investment known as NFTs seemed likely to prolong the nascent fad for ownership of works that exist only in the digital world. Missing from those transactions, however, were the blue-chip collectors who typically drive the art market’s sales.
Source: As Auctioneers and Artists Rush Into NFTs, Many Collectors Stay Away
Half a dozen professional writers’ organizations have joined with the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America in forming a joint task to press the Walt Disney Company to ensure it pays all royalties owed to authors. The task force, #DisneyMust Pay, contends that Disney is putting the onus on authors to prove they are owed money, rather than working with authors and author groups to proactively pay authors royalties that are due.
Sony Music Group‘s strong calendar Q1 results were revealed today – including a $1.3bn recorded music revenue haul in the three months to end of March, and an 11% YoY jump in global publishing revenues. Meanwhile, SMG’s recent acquisition drive continues apace under the leadership of its Chairman, Rob Stringer.
Source: Sony says it’s ‘aggressively pursuing’ music acquisitions… and buys a Mexican catalog to prove it
The Google-owned video platform brought in more than $6 billion in advertising revenue in the first quarter of 2021, according to the quarterly earnings report of parent company Alphabet. That is up from $4 billion in the same quarter of last year, a 50 percent year-over-year growth rate.
The old internet of free sharing is dying even if a whole slue of passionate and vocal old-timers – ironically aligned with multi-billion dollar companies – claim it shouldn’t. And for a good reason. Free content is not sustainable. A business should not expect to have access to free raw material and labor forever. It’s call slavery. Without compensation, creators are forced to find other sources of income to live.
Source: The licensable web – Kaptur
The Music Credit Fund (MCF) launches today to help artists and content owners raise funding while retaining the rights to their music. MCF says that it will offer long-term and “competitively priced” loans to music rightsholders, secured solely against intellectual property assets and/or future income streams across all music industry sectors.
Source: New UK investment fund offers loans of $2m-plus to artists, songwriters and music rightsholders
British performance rights organization PRS for Music saw a nearly 20% fall in collections for its members, warning of difficulties ahead. It’s not all bad news, though, as the society saw record payouts of £699.4m ($973.5m) to songwriters, composers, and music publishers. However, collections on behalf of its members fell 19.7% to £650.5m ($905.4m). That’s mostly attributed to a precipitous 79.1% drop in revenue from live music events in 2020.
Source: PRS for Music Reports 20% Downturn In 2020 – Says ‘Difficulties to Come’
Streaming content boomed during the pandemic as homebound consumers turned to screens and smart speakers for entertainment. Spotify executives have cautioned that uncertainty lies ahead, however, as the markets it is relying on for growth endure pandemic spikes and listeners in more established markets emerge from lockdowns.
Source: Spotify Adds Subscribers, Says Joe Rogan Drawing More Users Than Expected
Music, games and pictures all contributed to a doubling of full year net profits at Sony
, the Japanese electronics and entertainment group, despite disruptions caused by the coronavirus. Reporting its financial results for the January to March quarter and 12-month results from April 2020 to March 2021, Sony said that annual sales increased by 9% to JPY9.00 trillion ($83.3 billion).
Source: Sony’s Doubled Profits Driven By Games, Music and Film