| We've covered the music business each day since 21 Jun 2002 Today's email is edition #5179 |
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| | In today's CMU Daily: It’s music stats season and tomorrow the IFPI’s £25,000-a-pop Global Music Report is released. MIDiA has already published its own global recorded music revenues report - and with significant differences in headline numbers likely, we take a look at why that is
One Liners: Tony Bennett, Global Music Junction deals; PPL Giving; Tim Burgess to win Northern Music Award; Radio 1 Big Weekend headliners; Allie X tour dates; new music from Erland Cooper, Desire, Bodega, Efterklang, Keeley Forsyth, Angélica Garcia, One Step Closer, Claire Rousay, Parsnip Also today: People are talking about ‘fake artists’ again after a Swedish newspaper reported on just how well one musician is doing delivering mood music to Spotify under hundreds of different names, plus the US Fourth Circuit Appeals Court declines to reconsider the majors v Cox case.
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| | MIDiA shows $35.1 billion in global recorded music revenues - but what does that number actually mean? | In what’s becoming another hotly anticipated annual stats drop for the music industry - and one which takes place just before IFPI publishes its Global Music Report - London-based analyst firm MIDiA has released its own equally comprehensive look at the global recorded music market. Its analysis shows that global recorded music revenues reached $35.1 billion in 2023, a 9.8% increase from the global total it reported for 2022 of $31.2 billion.
A quick side note - if you’re a nerd, you’ll immediately have done that calculation in your head and realised that 9.8% uplift on $31.2 billion doesn’t come to $35.1 billion. This is because of a slight adjustment to historical figures, “as MIDiA factored in some additional South Korean label revenue that had not previously been captured, particularly expanded rights revenue from these labels”.
Another thing that may well jump out to you, if you’re the type of person who tracks these sorts of numbers, is that the MIDiA figure for 2022, $31.2 billion, is significantly different to IFPI’s 2022 figure of $26.2 billion. So where did MIDiA find an additional $5 billion in 2022? And is this difference in numbers between the MIDiA and IFPI reports likely to be repeated with 2023 data?
In a detailed call with CMU on the day MIDiA published its report, MIDiA MD and music industry analyst Mark Mulligan ran us through some of the key numbers, and helped us understand some of the main differences in methodology between the MIDiA report and IFPI’s similar-but-different numbers. The biggest difference? The way MIDiA deals with “other” revenues.
The majority of record label revenue used to come from physical record sales, then downloads, and now streaming. Key inversion points, according to IFPI’s historic figures, came in 2013/2014 when downloads + streaming overtook physical, and then in 2017/2018 when streaming revenues were greater than physical + downloads. Beyond streams, downloads and physical sales, labels also pull in additional revenues often lumped together in “other”. It is that “other”, says Mulligan, that is really beginning to “pull its weight”.
Critically, for the comparison between the MIDiA and IFPI reports, is the fact that MIDiA’s other includes what Mulligan calls “expanded rights” - the involvement of labels in brand partnerships and merch - which are not accounted for in IFPI’s analysis. It is the rapid growth of expanded rights - which have not traditionally been part of the recorded music business - that is driving an increase in the topline revenue figures that MIDiA reports, and it’s a revenue stream that Mulligan thinks is going to be increasingly important over the next decade.
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| | | | Horizon is CMU's new weekly newsletter - published each Friday - that brings you a hand-picked selection of early-stage career opportunities from across the music industry.
Whether you're looking for your first job in music or you're ready to take a step up, Horizon is here to help you find your dream job faster.
👉 Click through to see the current selection. | |
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| Tony Bennett, Radio 1 Big Weekend, Erland Cooper + more | DEALS
Iconoclast has acquired a collection of Tony Bennett rights from his estate, including name and likeness, artist royalties, and some recordings, publishing and video rights. Sony Music still owns the majority of his recordings catalogue. “Besides his extraordinary talent that radiated for over 60 years, Tony’s legacy is one of character, integrity, kindness and courage”, says Iconoclast founder Olivier Chastan. “We are truly honoured to be the custodians of this incredible and historical legend”.
Warner Music has made a strategic investment in Indian music company Global Music Junction, expanding upon a distribution agreement the two companies entered into in 2021. "This is a significant milestone in the expansion of our presence across India”, says Warner’s President Of Emerging Markets, Alfonso Perez Soto. “Working with the amazing team at GMJ last year not only strengthened our partnership, but enabled us to better support artists from the central regions of India, bringing them the best artistic support that any company can provide, and helping them connect with fans across the country and around the world”.
FUNDING
UK record industry collecting society PPL has announced the launch of PPL Giving, a new initiative to provide £1 million in grants to music organisations annually. The first 26 recipients are B:Music, Baby People, The Benedetti Foundation, The BRIT School, The British Association For Performing Arts Medicine, Curve Theatre, Donmar Warehouse, Drake Music Scotland, East London Arts & Music, Generator, Heart N Soul, Inside Track, Jazz Re:freshed, Lady Of The House, Last Night A DJ Saved My Life Foundation, MMF Accelerator Fund, Moving On Music, Music Local, Music Minds Matter, NQ Legacy, South Asian Arts UK, Tomorrow’s Warriors, United Development, World Heart Beat Music Academy, Youth Music, and the Young Urban Arts Foundation.
AWARDS
Tim Burgess is to receive the Northern Music Award at Nordoff And Robbins’ inaugural Northern Music Awards next month. “It’s incredible to be recognised with the inaugural Northern Music Award”, he says. “Music is important on so many levels and I’m a firm believer in the unique way that it can connect people”. The ceremony will take place at Manchester’s Albert Hall on 23 Apr.
GIGS & FESTIVALS
Coldplay, Raye and Chase & Status will headline this year’s Radio 1 Big Weekend. The event will take place at Stockwood Park in Luton on 24-26 May. Find out more here.
Allie X has announced live shows in the UK and Ireland in May, including a performance at Koko in London on 28 May. Tickets are on sale now.
RELEASES
Erland Cooper has announced that he will release new album ‘Carve The Runes Then Be Content With Silence’ on 20 Sep. Three years ago, he buried the sole recording of the LP on Orkney. You’ll be able to find out if that was a good idea or not when it is given its world premiere at the Barbican in London on 8 Jun.
Desire has shared new single ‘Darkside’. Her third album ‘Games People Play’ will be out later this year.
Bodega have released new single ‘Cultural Consumer III’. Their new album ‘Our Brand Could Be Yr Life’ is out on 12 Apr.
Efterklang have released new single ‘Getting Reminders’ featuring Beirut’s Zach Condon. The release coincides with the premiere of new documentary ‘Efterklang: The Makedonium Band’ at the CPH:DOX Film Festival. The band will also be playing the Barbican in London on 5 Oct.
Pallbearer have released new single ‘Where The Light Fades’. Their new album ‘Mind Burns Alive’ is out on 17 May.
Keeley Forsyth has released new single ‘Turning’ featuring Colin Stetson. Her third album ‘The Hollow’ is out on 10 May.
Angélica Garcia has announced that she will release her latest album ‘Gemelo’ on 7 Jun. Out now is new single ‘Color De Dolor’.
One Step Closer have released new single ‘Giant’s Despair’. Their new album ‘All You Embrace’ is out on 17 May.
Claire Rousay will release new album ‘Sentiment’ on 17 Apr. Out now is new single ‘It Could Be Anything’.
Parsnip have released new single ‘Turn To Love’. Their new album ‘Behold’ is out on 26 Apr.
| Read online | | Mood music maker scores fifteen billion streams, and prompts yet another 'fake artists' debate | Artists making music targeted at Spotify's hugely popular mood music playlists are back in the spotlight after a report in Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter revealed that one such artist has now scored over fifteen billion streams. That has resulted in another frenzy of 'fake artist' chatter, because these musicians usually employ various pseudonyms when pushing their tracks to the streaming services.
It is true that Johan Röhr - the subject of the DN report - has employed more pseudonyms than most. The newspaper says that he has released more than 2700 tracks under 656 different artist names and 50 different composer aliases. With his catalogue getting frequent placements on at least 144 official Spotify playlists, DN says Röhr's music has scored over fifteen billion streams, which will have generated millions in royalties.
DN reckons that Röhr - "a 47 year old composer living in the Stockholm area" - is Sweden's "most played artist" on the streaming service. Avicii has slightly more streams overall, but Röhr has more listeners per month. On a global basis, he is, it says, "one of the 100 most streamed artists on Spotify of all time", beating Michael Jackson, Metallica and Mariah Carey, and achieving more than twice the number of plays as fellow Swedes Abba.
The debate around 'fake artists' is sometimes presented as a problem for the music industry akin to stream manipulation and streaming fraud, but it's actually something totally different. Basically, savvy musicians have spotted a gap in the market - super popular playlists that need a specific kind of music that few artists and labels are releasing. The DN report simply demonstrates how big the opportunity in that gap really is.
There is also sometimes a suggestion that one musician employing so many alternative names is somehow dishonest. But - while not on the scale of Röhr - artists releasing different music under different names isn't new, especially where a musician regularly writes music of different genres.
Prince Rogers Nelson, for example, was not only the artist known as Prince, and the artist known as The Artist (Formerly Known As Prince), but also the artist known as Jamie Starr, The Starr Company, Joey Coco, Alexander Nevermind and Christopher.
There is, however, a connection between the music made by Röhr and the recent debate around functional audio.
After the majors started calling for a rejig of the streaming business model last year, part of that conversation centred on audio that people use as background noise, or to aid with relaxation or sleep. The functional nature of that content can result in high levels of usage, which means - under the conventional model - it is allocated a decent slice of the monthly royalty pool.
Under pressure from the majors, Deezer has started removing third party functional audio like white noise and bird song, while Spotify has downgraded it, so each play now only counts as a fraction of a play.
Targeting white noise and bird song in this way is easy enough, but what about mood music which is also arguably functional audio? Segmenting and downgrading mood music is much trickier, because who decides which tracks are functional and which are 'proper' music?
DN's article also talks about Spotify prioritising certain tracks in its playlists because the people behind those tracks have agreed to accept a lower royalty rate.
That could be as a result of Spotify's Discovery Mode service - where artists and labels agree to a lower royalty on a track-by-track basis in return for prioritisation in the algorithm - or simply because a specific label has agreed to lower rates more generally.
Spotify declined to comment on the specifics of its deal with Röhr's label Overtone Studios - part of production music outfit Epidemic Sound, which has a history of crunching data from digital platforms to identify underserved categories of music, and then getting musicians to create music of that type.
However, with the majors boasting that they can get their artists better average per-stream payments because their prestigious catalogues enable them to negotiate better rates, why shouldn't an independent focused on mood music agree to a lower rate in return for getting more playlist placements, and therefore more plays and more money overall?
The Discovery Mode scheme has been controversial, with some people comparing it to payola, where people secretly pay radio stations to playlist their music. Although you could see it as the streaming equivalent of a label offering a retailer a discount for its CDs to be stocked by the door or next to the checkout.
Whatever the rights and wrongs around functional audio, and royalty discounts for algorithm and playlist kickbacks, it seems pointless to get angry about Röhr spotting a gap in the market, creating music to fill it and earning handsomely for his efforts. Even if doing so required 706 alter-egos. | Read online | |
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| Setlist Podcast: US politicians want TikTok to sell up or be banned | In this week's Setlist Podcast: Chris Cooke and Andy Malt discuss proposals voted through the US House of Representatives this week to force TikTok owner ByteDance to sell the video-sharing app or face a ban in country, and the UK Labour Party's pledge to introduce a cap on ticket resale prices if it wins the next election.
🎧 Click here to listen - or search for 'Setlist' wherever you normally listen
| | Fourth Circuit court declines to rehear billion dollar Cox copyright case | The Fourth Circuit Appeals Court in the US has declined to rehear the big copyright legal battle between internet service provider Cox Communications and the major record companies. This means a lower court now needs to review the billion dollar damages previously awarded to the music companies.
After using 347 words to list all the major label subsidiaries that are technically plaintiffs in this case, plus the organisations that submitted amicus briefs in support of either Cox or the labels, the Fourth Circuit appeal judges stated their actual judgement in just 36 words.
They declared: "The court denies the petition for rehearing en banc, and the petition for rehearing and rehearing en banc. No judge requested a poll under Fed R App P 35 on the petition for rehearing en banc".
Given the disparity between the word count for the list of parties and the actual judgement, you'd think they could have written 'federal rule of appellate procedure 35' out in full.
Rule 35 says that, where a party in a case requests a rehearing en banc - meaning the case would be heard by a larger panel of judges - that request will be honoured if supported by "a majority of the circuit judges who are in regular active service".
However, "a vote need not be taken to determine whether the case will be heard or reheard en banc unless a judge calls for a vote". And in this case, nobody did.
Last month the Fourth Circuit overturned the billion dollar judgement against Cox from 2019. The case centred on whether or not the ISP should be held liable for its customers' infringement of the majors' copyrights, on the basis that it didn't do enough to deal with repeat infringers that had been identified by the music companies.
In the 2019 judgement, it was concluded that Cox was liable for both contributory infringement - having contributed to its users' illegal distribution of music - and vicarious infringement - on the basis it profited from that illegal distribution. The appeal judges (in a judgement that ran to 7800 words, in case you wondered) confirmed the liability for contributory infringement, but said the case for vicarious infringement had not been proven.
That means the damages bill needs to be recalculated. Although the major record companies presented an argument for why - despite the altered judgement - the billion dollar damages should stand. To that end, they wanted the Fourth Circuit to review the case, possibly en banc, in the hope the appeal judges would agree.
Cox, meanwhile, wanted an en banc hearing to completely overturn the copyright infringement judgement against it. The company argued that the precedent set in this case means that - if it receives more than one copyright complaint in relation to an internet connection - it is now obliged to "throw every person in that home or business off the internet, disconnecting the guilty and innocent alike from their schools, their livelihoods, their nanny cams, their news, and everything else they do online".
The ISP's arguments were backed up by an amicus brief supported by organisations like the Internet Association and Electronic Frontier Foundation, while the majors had the National Music Publishers Association and Songwriters Of North America support their position in another amicus brief submission. But none of that persuaded even one Fourth Circuit judge to give the case more consideration.
So now the matter returns to the lower court, unless either side is in the mood for some Supreme Court funtimes.
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