Finance

SVODs have for years ignored beyond-family password sharing, viewing it as a variation on sampling that ultimately pays off in sufficient conversions. But facing intensifying competition and near saturation in the U.S. market, Netflix has recently begun testing methods to deter unauthorized password sharing, including some offers that include a 30-day trial.

Source: Video Insider: Password Sharing ‘Costs’ Streamers $25B Per Year In Potential Revenue, $6B for Netflix: Analyst

From June through Friday, some 29,800 NFTs involving musicians have generated $42.5 million in primary sales, with an average per-unit transaction value of $1,427, according to a database compiled by music-technology researcher Cherie Hu. So far, most buyers are crypto-savvy speculators helping send prices soaring. The music business is hoping the market will develop for real fan participation—at fan-accessible valuations.

Source: Musicians Turn to NFTs to Make Up for Lost Revenue

Authors have made it abundantly clear that they fear the fallout if the deal goes ahead. When it was first announced last November, the Authors Guild in the US was quick to register its objections. The acquisition would “creat[e] a huge imbalance in the US publishing industry”, it warned, calling on the US justice department to step in.

Source: Authors fear the worst if Penguin owner takes over Simon & Schuster

Investors are pouring millions of dollars into land. But these lush fields and rolling hills only exist within videogames. Just as physical land appeals to pension funds and family offices, digital real estate is luring both investors and dedicated gamers, said Craig Russo, the co-founder of Polyient Games, an investment fund and startup incubator focused on the intersection of gaming and so-called nonfungible tokens.

Source: NFTs Are Spurring a Digital Land Grab—in Videogame Worlds

As more and more artists have learned in the nearly 15 years since Spotify first launched, the way that it pays out streaming royalties is very, very complex, based on a dizzying number of factors that add up differently for each artist. On Thursday morning, the company made a welcome step toward demystifying that process by unveiling “Loud and Clear,” a relatively straightforward explanation of the way its payment system and related factors work.

Source: Spotify Unveils ‘Loud and Clear,’ a Detailed Guide to Its Royalty Payment System

A number of artists yesterday afternoon gathered outside Spotify offices across the U.S. and Europe to protest the company’s royalty rates. The Union of Musicians and Allied Workers (UMAW) – which, in late October of 2020, rolled out a petition calling on Spotify to pay one cent per stream – organized the multi-city protest, dubbed “Justice at Spotify Day of Action.”

Source: Musicians Protest Per-Stream Royalty Rate Outside Spotify Offices

For decades, corporate concentration and the rise of streaming music platforms has shifted power to tech giants, and to a conglomerate that, through the staggering failures of US monopoly regulation, has come to dominate terrestrial and satellite radio, concert promotion, ticketing, artist management, and venue ownership, essentially every revenue-generating slice of the industry.

Source: Big Music Needs to Be Broken Up to Save the Industry

This Thursday (March 18), UK artist Big Zuu is selling 75% of the rights to a song on his forthcoming album, divided up into several different chunks and wrapped up into NFTs. Another Ditto-affiliated act, Taylor Bennett – brother of Chancelor ‘Chance The Rapper’ Bennett – is selling 75% of the rights to an upcoming recording, also through separate NFTs.

Source: NFTs for copyrights: Why non-fungible tokens could transform who gets paid from music rights, and how

The interview kicked off with CEO Geoff Taylor expressing broad support for the parliamentary inquiry into streaming economics’ impact – “a positive opportunity for some of these much-debated issues to get aired, and to hear viewpoints from right across the industry” – but also expressing his fear that the recommendations of the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) committee which is holding it may include “policy interventions that won’t work, or could be counterintuitive or do more harm than good”..

Source: BPI boss talks artists, labels, streaming and equitable remuneration

Livestreaming went from niche to mainstream in 2020, bringing in $610 Million from over 115 million fans, according to new research from MusicWatch. An estimated 115 million people watched a livestream in the fourth quarter 2020 on platforms ranging from the popular site Twitch to Mandolin, one of the new music-focused streamers to have sprouted during the pandemic.

Source: US Livestreams Earned $610M in 2020: Study