The music industry is weighted against artists, with even successful pop stars seeing “pitiful returns” from streaming, a committee of MPs has said. They are calling for a “complete reset” of the market, with musicians given a “fair share” of the £736.5 million that UK record labels earn from streaming. In a report, they said royalties should be split 50/50, instead of the current rate, where artists receive about 16%.
Source: MPs call for complete reset of music streaming to ensure fair pay for artists
On Monday, Chinese anti-trust regulators were reported to have penalized U.S.-listed Tencent Music Entertainment for its build-up of a dominant position in online music. Among the penalties are fines for the company’s failure to properly report the acquisition of two smaller operations in 2016, and a commitment to end exclusive deals with music labels.
According to Vivendi’s annual financial report, UMG spent some €2.54 billion ($2.87 billion) on catalog acquisitions and artist advances last year. That figure was up 71% on the €1.48 billion UMG spent on the category in 2019. UMG then recouped €1.02 billion from those advances within the 2020 calendar year, resulting in that €1.52 billion ($1.71 billion) net expenditure.
US-based investment firm Shamrock Capital is best known in music for buying blockbuster entertainment copyrights (including Taylor Swift’s first six albums, which it acquired for around $300 million in November). Now, it’s offering music rights-owners an alternative to selling up.
That figure is slightly higher than the £150 million ($210m) Hipgnosis targeted with its announcement of the share placing in June. Why? Because the raise was over-subscribed, thanks to what Hipgnosis says was “significant demand from existing and new investors”. The over-subscribed offer of new shares significantly boost warchest of acquisitive UK-listed firm.
The issues surrounding MDRCs — minimum delivery release commitments — rose to the broader industry’s attention over the past year, due largely to songwriters’ advocacy groups beating the drum about them. But although these clauses are not included in new deals as often as they once were, extracting them from long-standing deals will take time.
Sales of non-fungible token collectibles throughout January through May 2021 were massive. But a new report suggests sales in every single category is drying up. In fact, sales of NFTs seem to have peaked in May, when $102 million were sold in a single day. Data analyzed by Protos shows that only $19.4 million in NFT sales have been processed in the past week.