Though YouTube is a hotbed for video podcasts, the Google-owned platform hasn’t cracked straight-up audio shows just yet. YouTube podcasting head Kai Chuk announced Thursday that podcasts will be added to YouTube Music soon. “We will soon start to bring both audio and video-first podcasts to YouTube Music for users in the U.S., making podcasts more discoverable and accessible, with more regions to come,” a YouTube spokesperson said.
Marketplace
After buying BandCamp, Epic Games pushes indie artists to millions of Fortnite players in curated radio station
Activeplayer.io estimates that Fortnite had approximately 390 million registered users in Q1 of 2021 and that there were an average of 229 million average monthly players over the last 30 days. Using the music of those independent acts to soundtrack gameplay for a highly engaged audience serves as a valuable promotional tool for those artists.
Filling music streaming’s Disney+-shaped hole
Disney+ was part of the ‘big bang moment’ of transformative change in the video streaming market. Meanwhile, the music streaming market basically stayed the same. This may have been tolerable during its time of plenty, but now, with global music streaming revenue growth looking set to have dropped to 7% for 2022, the lack of change leaves music streaming vulnerable in a time of scarcity.
Self-Publishing Is Thriving, According to Bowker Report
The number of new self-published titles that have both ISBNs and BISAC codes was 2,298,004 in 2021, a decline from the two previous years, but still well above the 1,551,391 titles registered with Bowker in 2018. In 2021, there were 2,300,336 new self-published titles with only ISBNs, a 15% decline from 2020. The number of self-published ISBNs issued topped one million for the first time in 2017 and had a huge spike in 2019, which Bowker attributed to a large order from a major self-publishing platform.
Source: Self-Publishing Is Thriving, According to Bowker Report
One-Third of U.S. Music Listeners Don’t Pay for Streaming: Report
Despite continued subscribership growth for Spotify, Apple, and others, a little over one-third of U.S.-based music listeners opted not to pay for streaming during 2021 and 2022, according to a newly released report. The report, published by Activate Consulting, shows that 35 percent of music listeners (defined as United States residents “aged 18+ who spend any time listening to music”) didn’t “own a paid music subscription” as of 2022, up one percent from 2021.
Source: One-Third of U.S. Music Listeners Don’t Pay for Streaming: Report
OpenSea Halts Trading on Rihanna Music NFTs
The NFT collection—which grants holders of these NFTs a percentage of future streaming royalties from the master recording—quickly sold out last week, generating $63,000 in revenue. But just two days later, a day before Rihanna’s Super Bowl appearance, AnotherBlock CEO Michel “bigmich” Traore reported in the project’s Discord server that users could no longer trade the NFTs on OpenSea, by far the largest NFT trading platform by volume.
Source: OpenSea Halts Trading on Rihanna Music NFTs – Decrypt
Australian music body ARIA criticizes TikTok over music test
TikTok limiting users from using certain commercial tracks in its app in Australia as a ‘test’ was guaranteed to go down badly with labels. Now Australian industry body ARIA has voiced its unhappiness. “After exploiting artists’ content and relationships with fans to build the platform, TikTok now seeks to rationalise cutting artists’ compensation by staging a ‘test’ of music’s role in content discovery,” said CEO Annabelle Herd in a statement yesterday.
Source: Australian music body ARIA criticises TikTok over music test – Music Ally
Blur Advises NFT Creators to Block OpenSea in Royalties Battle
Open war has finally erupted between leading NFT marketplaces. On Wednesday, upstart NFT marketplace Blur announced that it will enforce full creator royalties for any collection that blocks trading on dominant NFT trading platform OpenSea—a marked escalation of hostility towards the rising company’s chief rival. In a blog post, Blur’s leadership framed this policy change as a purely defensive survival tactic, forced by OpenSea’s own non-competitive practices.
Source: Blur Advises NFT Creators to Block OpenSea in Royalties Battle – Decrypt
OpenSea Drops Fees, Cuts Creator Royalty Protections as Rival Blur Rises
In the face of rising competition from upstart rival Blur, leading NFT marketplace OpenSea announced today that it will temporarily eliminate its 2.5% fee on sales, as well as cut down creator royalty protections as it attempts to weather a rapidly changing market. OpenSea tweeted that it will only enforce a 0.5% mandatory creator royalty fee on NFT trades for projects that don’t have an on-chain enforcement method,
Source: OpenSea Drops Fees, Cuts Creator Royalty Protections as Rival Blur Rises – Decrypt
Behind The Wave Of Library Content Removals & Its Impact On The Creative Community
The library content slim-down is probably not over yet; speculation is that Disney could be next. Just last week, CEO Bob Iger said Disney is targeting $5.5 billion in cost savings, including $3 billion in non-sports related content. Netflix may get into the act, too. So far, the streamer has been removing titles when license agreements expire as was the case with the news yesterday that Netflix will be bidding farewell to the 20th TV/Disney-produced Arrested Development. Otherwise, there has been no mass cleaning of library content.