Spotify stock up 8% on report of planned price increase in US, UK, AUSpotify reportedly plans to raise the price of its paid subscription service in multiple markets later this month and in the U.S. later in the year. The news caused Spotify stock to close up 8.15% on Wednesday.....
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3 reasons why… Warner Music Group might be tempted to bid $1.8 billion for BelieveWeighing up the positive differences an acquisition of Believe could make to WMG
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The MLC Reaches Milestone of $2B in Total Royalties Distributed; Files Initial Submission for Periodic Review of DesignationThe Mechanical Licensing Collective (The MLC) announced that its total royalties distributed have now exceeded $2 billion. The MLC reached this significant milestone in just over three years since beginning full operations. 

The MLC also announced that it filed its initial submission to the United States Copyright Office in connection with the first periodic review of the designation of The MLC and Digital Licensee Coordinator (DLC) by the Register of Copyrights.

The Music Modernization Act of 2018 requires the Register to review the designations of The MLC and DLC once every five years. The next step in this process will be a public comment period, during which members of the public can submit their input until May 29, 2024.

As part of its initial submission for the periodic review, The MLC has demonstrated its unwavering commitment to its statutory responsibilities:

-The MLC maintains its status as a nonprofit organization, which is funded entirely by DSPs at no cost to songwriters or music publishers. 

-The MLC has received endorsements from owners of musical copyrights representing the overwhelming majority of the market. 

-The MLC has demonstrated that it possesses the administrative and technological capabilities necessary to carry out all of its responsibilities under the MMA, including enabling more than 50 DSPs to secure the compulsory blanket license, establishing a public database of musical works ownership data that now contains data for more than 35 million songs, conducting extensive outreach and educational activities that have enabled The MLC to enroll more than 38,000 members based throughout the United States and around the world, and building a royalty distribution process that has enabled The MLC to complete 36 on-time monthly royalty distributions and achieve total royalties distributed of more than $2 billion.

-In addition, The MLC has matched over 90% of the mechanical royalties it has received to musical works in its public database, and effectively illuminated the “black box” for digital audio mechanicals by giving members the ability to search all of its data for the remaining unmatched royalties and propose matches of those unmatched royalties to the works they have registered using The MLC’s Matching Tool.

Despite its focus on U.S.-based services, The MLC has made it a priority to find and compensate rightsholders for their U.S. mechanicals globally, establishing connections with over 100 collective management organizations in nearly 130 countries.

The public can file comments on The MLC’s and DLC’s submissions by May 29, 2024, and can reply to other initial public comments by June 28, 2024. The MLC and DLC will have the ability to file replies to the comments by July 29, 2024.  For more information about the periodic review process or to learn how to submit comments, please click here.

Pieter van Rijn named CEO of Downtown Music Holdings’ global services unit Downtown Music, as division ‘completes integration strategy’ with merger of CD Baby operations'This is an extraordinary time for Downtown Music as we enter this next phase as a fully unified operating company,' said van Rijn
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Fan economy: expanded rights are worth $3.5 billion, now what?MIDiA recently, and exclusively, revealed that expanded rights now represent 10% of the recorded music market with revenues of $3.5 billion. These revenues, derived principally from monetising the brand of the artist (merch, sponsorships, branding, live, etc.), represent a shift in strategic focus for the global music business. It is moving from a consumption economy to a fan economy. This is only the start. To truly harness the vast potential of a fan economy, three key things need to be addressed:

Image and likeness: The music industry’s current social media focus might be the UMG / TikTok spat, but the real battle will be over the cultural value of artists on social. As music creators invest increasingly more time into making social content, their images and likenesses are powering social media engagement and revenues. We are at the point where some value exchange needs to be established. Back in 2021, we laid out the case for a creator right (the linked report is free to download) that ensures creators are remunerated whenever they generate value, regardless of whether their music is being performed. With the ascent of generative AI, the concept is needed more than ever. The music business is waking up to the importance of image and likeness. The catalogue deal for Tina Turner included these rights, while Bob Marley’s estate sold his catalogue but retained his image rights because they have used them to create a global Marley branded empire. Likeness rights have a long history, with the first big ‘win’ being actor Crispin Glover settling with Universal Studios in 1990 for infringing his likeness when they altered the appearance of another actor to look like him with prosthetics as George McFly in Back to the Future Part II. This resulted in The Screen Actors Guild prohibiting its members from mimicking other actors. Music needs a George McFly moment. The state of Tennessee protecting artists’ voice and likeness may be a first step.

Reconfiguring streaming: MIDiA has been saying for years now that there is a lot Western streaming can learn from China’s fandom-focused approach to streaming. While Chinese fandom revenues have recently taken a hit due to governmental policy shifts, the underlying premise of making streaming about fandom and expressing identity remains crucial. Artist subscriptions are an obvious next step, making streaming about lean in fandom rather than lean back consumption. We have written about artists subscriptions a lot – recently; more than a decade ago; and in governmental policy submissions. James Blake’s escapes may have soured appetite, but that is, in part, because stand alone subscription apps face an uphill struggle. The most obvious opportunity is to make them part of the core streaming experience. The old internet was ‘build it and they will come’, today’s is ‘go where the audience is’. But there is more to do than artist subscriptions. Giving users profile pages where they can buy and earn fandom badges is probably the most important first step, something pioneered in the West by Audiomack and also seen on apps like Fave and Renaissance. HYBE is prepping Weverse for international expansion, Spotify looks set to make some moves soon, and both Sir Lucian Grainge and Rob Kyncl are leading their respective companies in this direction too.

Nurturing, not harvesting, fandom: There are two dangers inherent in record label superfan strategies: 1) weaned on lean back streaming, superfans might not be super enough, and 2) it is all  too easy to focus on monetising fandom rather than nurturing it. As much as Korean labels like HYBE, SM, and JYP might be industrialising fandom and exploiting fans, they at least understand the importance of building and nurturing fandom (take a look at the chart from JYP’s earnings to understand their fandom approach). Record label expanded rights were up 16% in 2023 and will continue to grow strongly. It is incumbent on record labels to consider fans as a scarce resource to be cultivated, not simply monetised, otherwise the soil will be left exhausted and barren.

Along with non-DSP and vinyl, expanded rights represent part of the modern music industry’s multi-faceted fan strategy and 2023 was arguably the first year of this new music business era. Streaming is not going away. Indeed, it will be part of this future, but the consumption-focused approach of the 2010s is going to be shunted to the side as fandom takes centre stage. Not a moment too soon.

62M tracks are now paid No Royalties, and millions more are being deletedNew rules demanded by the major labels to devalue or delete so-called "junk tracks" are now in full force at Spotify, Amazon Music, Deezer, and several other music streaming services, according to multiple sources.....
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QR Codes are great for marketing music IF you use them the right wayQR codes can be very useful for marketing music, but there are right and wrong ways to use them. Michael Branvold and Jay Gilbert discuss best QR code practices on a new Music Biz Weekly podcast.....
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Classical Highlights for March 2024This month we reviewed classical recordings celebrating the 100th anniversary of George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue, including a banjo version by Béla Fleck and an inventive medley by Michael Feinstein and Jean-Yves Thibaudet (pictured) that mixes Gershwin's songs with the Rhapsody.

Suno is a music AI company aiming to generate $120 billion per year. But is it trained on copyrighted recordings?Ed Newton-Rex discovers that Suno produces music with a striking resemblance to classic copyrights
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Changes to Spotify’s royalty model, including the 1,000 annual streams royalty policy, are officially live as of April 1Changes to the way Spotify calculates recorded royalties go live on the platform as of Monday, April 1
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Sony’s Pro Audio Solutions Enhance Grammy-Nominated Artist’s Sonic WorldAs someone who “swam the path of digital technology in the early days” and was an early adopter of Pro Tools, Richard Tozzoli is no stranger to pro audio. His musical transformation may have originally started in the business world of banking, but he would end up taking a diverse path as a Grammy-nominated composer, mixer and producer. With music on over 1800 TV series in 40 countries, his credits range from the NFL, FIFA World Cup Soccer and the MLB to such shows as Discovery Channel’s Shark Week, as well as programs including Pawn Stars, Swamp People and Forged In Fire. As an engineer/mixer, he’s also worked with a number of artists he grew up listening to, including Ace Frehley, Al DiMeola, Hall & Oates and David Bowie.

With a fully equipped home studio for his distinctive productions, Tozzoli blends traditional recording techniques with cutting-edge technology. Sony’s MDR-MV1 headphones and C-100 condenser microphone were the perfect addition to his line-up.

“Sony truly breaks boundaries for me,” says Tozzoli. “I literally rely on these two pieces of gear every day to get my work done. I use the Sony headphones because not only are they ultra-lightweight and incredibly comfortable, but more importantly, they sound amazing. In fact, I literally look forward to using them each day to mix, compose and edit. They are like having clouds on your head.”

He is also a big fan of changing environments when composing and recording. Working with a powerful mobile rig, he travels to the Virgin Islands yearly, recording for a variety of television shows and pushing the boundaries of the latest pro audio equipment. This year, Sony’s MDR-MV1’s made the trip. “I can recall that experience vividly because it felt so good to put those headphones on and to sit there with the sunrise looking out over the Caribbean and composing to that view.” He says.

The headphones also enhance his creativity and productivity. Because of their accuracy, he’s noted how he can hear tiny details such as reverbs and delays that get lost in a room while using speakers, or with other types of headphones. Tozzoli was so impressed with the MDR-MV1’s that he now has two pairs, to make sure anybody working alongside him hears exactly what he is hearing.

Aside from the headphones, he’s also a big fan of Sony’s microphones, especially the C-100. “I started with the classic Sony C-800G and have used that on several projects, including guitarist Romero and Al DiMeola.  But now I love the C-100 because they not only capture the lows and mids beautifully, but because of the second capsule, they have an amazing high frequency response.” he says. Aside from their clarity, he’s also impressed with their ability to take equalization and compression well, which allows him to push their boundaries in a mix.

“I love the C-100 so much that on a recent project for Discovery Channel’s Shark Week, I had a pair flown to Budapest, Hungary where the Budapest Recording Orchestra was tracking the piece. I ended up using a huge amount of those two mics in the final mix, because they sounded that good. I also used them on the same piece to track Omar Hakim’s drums, using them as overheads, along with some C-80’s for the drums. We were both blown away by the sounds. We’re now mixing the piece in Atmos and Sony 360RA, so stand by for that!” says Tozzoli.

“Sony’s pro audio products really enhance your sonic world,” he adds. “You’re going to play better, you’re going to write better and you’re going to perform better. When it comes to creating music, Sony’s pro audio equipment is a definite must.”

Songwriters: Are you getting paid all the Mechanical Royalties you’re truly owed?Navigating the digital music royalty maze can be challenging. This guide reviews what all songwriters need to know about royalties so that they are correctly compensated.....
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SongTools adds SongFly, an advertising tool built for musiciansMusic and playlist marketing platform SongTools has added SongFly, an advertising tool designed to help artists grow their fanbase on streaming platforms.....
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How to use the same strategies that Major Artists use to Top the ChartsLearn what not-so-secret strategies top artists are using to rise up the charts, so you can see your own ranking rise. from single.xyz How You Can Learn from Top Artists. Continue reading
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Shure and PAMA Launch 4th Annual Mark Brunner Professional Audio ScholarshipThe Professional Audio Manufacturers Alliance (PAMA), in partnership with Shure Incorporated, is accepting applications for the 4th annual Mark Brunner Professional Audio Scholarship, offered to students worldwide who are pursuing an education in professional audio. Brunner, a long-time Shure executive, PAMA founding member, and leading voice in the audio community who passed away in 2020, had an unwavering passion for education and mentorship throughout his career. $2,000 scholarships are targeted to recipients following their passion for audio in an accredited audio program. PAMA and Shure are specifically interested to learn how the applicants plan to share their knowledge with others in a manner consistent with Mark’s legacy. Scholarship applications are open as of April 1, with a submission deadline of May 31.

Mark Brunner

Visit pamalliance.org/scholarship for more information and to submit an application.

The recipients of the first scholarship were Dennis Freeman from Middle Tennessee State University and Emma Brooks from Berklee College of Music. The second scholarship went again to Freeman and Brooks, as well as Benjamin Nix-Bradley of CSU Northridge. The third went to Freeman and Nix-Bradley, as well as Valor Swezey of University of New Haven.

For more information, go to pamalliance.org/scholarship.