This renewed call comes on the back of a report last week by The World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO), which said this is a “systemic problem [that] cries out for a systemic solution” and concluded that streaming should start to pay more like radio.
Source: Rolling Stones, Tom Jones, Emeli Sandé, Pet Shop Boys and more join call for PM to ‘fix streaming’
New York-based music rights company Reservoir has acquired legendary US record label and music publishing company Tommy Boy Music LLC in a deal valued at approximately $100m. Founded in New York in 1981 by Tom Silverman, Tommy Boy helped launch the careers of Queen Latifah, Afrika Bambaataa, Digital Underground, Coolio, De La Soul, House of Pain and Naughty By Nature, among others.
A new income-producing NFT offers a cut of all future mechanical, public performance and sync royalties for Lil Dicky’s “Save Dat Money.” Spearheaded by Royalty Exchange, the world’s largest platform for buying and selling royalties, the first-ever music publishing NFT allows investors to buy music catalogs and songs using the Ethereum cryptocurrency, bringing “real” value to the NFT marketplace.
Even after the 2018 passage of the Music Modernization Act, the industry is beholden to laws written long before the advent of digital entertainment. On the tech side, the tools PROs use to track royalties are no match for those used by the streaming giants. And the industry tends to balk at the idea of change, in large part because the players at the top don’t want to tamper with the mechanisms that got them there.
Source: Most Content Creators Are Still Underpaid — It Doesn’t Have to Be That Way (Guest Column)
In a fresh newsletter sent to the music industry, YouTube’s Global Head of Music Lyor Cohen confirmed that YouTube paid artists, songwriters, and rights-holders over $4 billion in the last 12 months – money derived from both YouTube ads and YouTube Music / YouTube Premium subscriptions. Additionally, Cohen says that YouTube added more paid ‘members’ in Q1 21 than in any other quarter since launch.
Source: YouTube says it paid the music industry over $4bn in the last 12 months
Amazon apparently did this deal to beef up its content offerings so that its content menu would be more in line, size-wise, with its subscriber base. So, why is achieving “content tonnage” important in the big leagues of subscription streaming? Because even though a streaming service such as Amazon Prime, Netflix or Disney+ might seem as if they have more than enough content, the truth is, there is never really enough. The solution is to always be adding more.
Source: TVBlog: Trying To Make Sense Of Amazon’s Big MGM Content Buy
Speaking at Sony Corporation‘s Investor Relations (IR) day May 27, Sony Music chairman Rob Stringer confirmed the $1.4 billion figure while also discussing Sony’s investment activities and the wider music market. Grilled by an investor about what Sony Music Group plans on spending its cash on going forward – and where geographically it plans on investing – Stringer responded “everything and anywhere”.
Chinese games and tech firm NetEase has unveiled plans to spin off its music streaming business NetEase Cloud Music into a company that would have its own listing on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. It had 180 million monthly users at the end of 2020, making it the number two online music player in China.
Source: China’s NetEase to Spin Off Music Streaming Division
Royalty Exchange, a marketplace where music artists can offer shares of future royalties in exchange for immediate funding from investors, has opened its business to YouTube creators. Prankster CJ So Cool, who has 8.7 million subscribers and nets an average of around 30 million views per month, is the first YouTuber to make an offering on the platform.
Source: YouTuber CJ So Cool Is Auctioning 35% Of His Future Royalties For At Least $850,000 – Tubefilter
Fan funding platform, Corite – co-founded by Universal Music Sweden alumni Mattias Tengblad (CEO) and Emil Angervall (COO) – has inked a partnership with L.A-based HITCO Entertainment. HITCO, run by L.A Reid and Charles Goldstuck, has acquired a minority stake in Corite and will help the company launch in the US.