Data

IFPI and WIN, working together on behalf of the global recording industry, have announced that their global repertoire data exchange service (RDx), built and run for Repertoire Data Exchange Limited by PPL, is now “fully operational”. RDx provides a supply chain for performance rights data among record companies and music licensing companies (MLCs) to help improve the accuracy of revenue distribution to rights holders when their music is used.

Source: IFPI and WIN’s new data exchange service RDx now ‘fully operational’

Data-driven startup Songfluencer uses analytics to drive TikTok marketing instead of “randomly handing checks to influencers.” The company has built and continues to perfect software that collects data from TikTok, allowing it, in theory, to quantify the value of influencers on the app and analyze the paths of a host of TikTok hits.

Source: How Do You Predict the Next TikTok Music Hit? With a Ton of Data

The UK-based #BrokenRecord campaign has been agitating on the issue of musicians’ streaming royalties for several months. Now it has published the results of a survey of 2,069 British adults, weighted to be representative of the population, about the topic. It found 77% saying that artists are not paid enough; 76% saying that songwriters are underpaid; 83% saying that most record labels are paid too much.

Source: #BrokenRecord campaign reveals results of streaming survey

While editorial playlist placements on Spotify are notoriously competitive and dealt with exclusively via Spotify for Artists, figuring out how to get an artist’s independent playlist strategy right (e.g. by brands, labels, curators or users) is time-consuming research.

Source: Analyze Spotify playlists to know if they’ll increase your stream count

For some time, Spotify’s daily charts have been an essential measure of music industry success. Now, the company is giving its rankings a music business-friendly refresh, with the the launch of new Weekly Top 50 charts. These new lists include a US Weekly Album Chart, a Global Weekly Album Chart, plus a US Weekly Song Chart and a Global Weekly Song Chart.

Source: Spotify gets serious about its charts, launching weekly Top 50 lists for Albums and Songs

The new report has fresh material on the impact that the Covid-19 pandemic has been having on independent musicians, from their incomes to their creative processes, based on responses from 376 artists. 68.3% of artists surveyed for the study said they have spent more time writing and making music since they went into lockdown, while 56.7% said they have been creating more content for social media.

Source: Amuse / Midia report explores Covid-19 lockdown trends for musicians

CISAC, the International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers, has centralized the assignment and administration of International Standard Musical Work Codes (ISWC). Previously, those codes, which already have been assigned to 52 million song compositions, had been handled by a network of 54 registration agencies in 79 countries.

Source: CISAC Completes Upgrade of Music Coding System

In the past year, fans have bought 5m digital albums, 2m tracks, 1m vinyl albums, 600k CDs, 300k cassettes and 250k t-shirts from Bandcamp for example – yes, there’s clearly some rounding of figures going on there – with more than 40% of buyers paying more than the asking price of items.

Source: Bandcamp’s monthly sales are up by 122% year-on-year

US recorded music body RIAA has revealed in a new report that total recorded music retail revenues in the US for the first six months of this year increased 5.6% to $5.65bn. On a wholesale basis (i.e. the money working its way back to to record labels and artists) H1 revenues grew 5.1% to $3.7bn.

Source: Music streaming revenues on course to grow by over $1bn in the US in 2020, despite everything

The complexity and intrinsic value of artist data create a new frontier for all levels of music companies. The quality of analytical insights combined with innovative concepts for the presentation and interpretation of data are central components of developing a competitive advantage for labels, distributors, and platforms in the quest to attract artists.

Source: Artist Analytics: New Frontier For The Music Industry – Hypebot