Think about the last time you bought your favorite band’s new CD or downloaded an artist’s single. Chances are it’s been a while. Even in these uncertain times, when our favorite songs serve as a source of comfort – or as background to our work in a home office – few of us actually buy music anymore. Instead, we stream it.
Read More: https://morningconsult.com/opinions/protect-the-creators-of-the-soundtracks-to-our-lives/
YouTube is embroiled in a very public spat with songwriters and music publishers in Denmark, via local collection society Koda.
According to Koda – Denmark’s equivalent of ASCAP/BMI (US) or PRS For Music (UK) – YouTube has threatened to remove “Danish music content” (ie. music written by Danish songwriters) from its service.
Social media platform TikTok has caused anarchy in the music industry – on the one hand, it is pushing music up the charts but on the hand, it has been in a year long disagreements with industry representatives about copyright. However, TikTok has now signed a copyright licensing agreement with US National Music Publishers’ Association (NMPA).
Read More: https://ipkitten.blogspot.com/2020/07/tiktok-signs-copyright-licensing.html?m=1
Mick Jagger, Lionel Richie, Elton John, Sia and other renowned artists have signed onto an open letter calling on politicians to stop playing their music at campaign or political events without their consent.
The letter dated Tuesday was addressed to a number of political organizations, including the Republican National Committee and Democratic National Committee, and was the result of collaborative efforts with the Artist Rights Alliance, a nonprofit aimed at “fighting for songwriters and musicians in the modern music economy.”
The audio-streaming service has nearly 300 million users — up 67 million from last year — but both its ad revenues and premium ARPU have dipped
“I’ve never been more bullish about where we are today,” Daniel Ek, the CEO of Spotify, said to investors on the streaming service’s second-quarter (Q2) earnings call Wednesday morning.
Government announces new £500 million scheme to kickstart film and television production struggling to secure insurance for Covid-related costs
BMI President & CEO Mike O’Neill participated today in an industry workshop organized by Makan Delrahim, Assistant Attorney General for Antitrust, US Department of Justice, to discuss consent decree reform. O’Neill highlighted the four key protections that BMI and ASCAP put forth to facilitate an orderly transition to a free market, including a path to ultimate termination of the decrees. He also highlighted the need to avoid Congressional regulation of performing rights.
Read More: https://www.bmi.com/news/entry/bmi-president-ceo-mike-oneill-champions-consent-decree-reform
The British government has listened to months of industry lobbying and launched an emergency £500M ($646M) film and TV coronavirus production insurance fund, which could open the floodgates to a backlog of shoots worth an estimated £1BN ($1.3BN).
Read More: https://deadline.com/2020/07/uk-government-announces-emergency-film-tv-insurance-fund-1202996757/
Behind every great hit is a great songwriter (or two or more). But the lyricists and composers who write some of the greatest tracks in history can go unsung.
Songwriters Chuck Harmony and Claude Kelly, who perform as Louis York, spoke with the PBS Newshour about how the industry sometimes spotlights the vocal talent, rather than the writing talent.
Read More: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/arts/songwriters-are-often-unsung-artists-here-are-5-you-should-know
There have been plenty of remote quarantine sing-alongs to keep our spirits up during COVID-19, but Rufus Wainwright may just have created the best one — or, at the very least, the largest.
The artist teamed up with the Toronto-based group Choir! Choir! Choir! to lead 1,500 people in a rendition of “Across the Universe,” the classic Beatles song that Wainwright first recorded in 2002.
Read More: https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/rufus-wainwright-across-the-universe-covid-19-1034434/
Actor David Harewood has revealed that he moved to the US because “there just isn’t the industry to support” black actors in the UK.
The British actor, who is best known for roles in Homeland and Supergirl, appeared on The Joe Wicks Podcast where he explained that he had been struggling financially before moving to the US for work.
Several British MPs are demanding a formal investigation into the royalties that music streaming services pay their artists.
Digital Music News was recently tipped off about the potential inquiry via an official release from the Ivors Academy, a UK-based professional association for music writers.
Read More: https://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2020/07/27/streaming-music-royalties-investigation/
With the end of July marking the end of enhanced unemployment benefits, working songwriters and composers are facing another financial hurdle, to the tune of as much as $600 a week in Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation.
Linkin Park have issued a cease and desist notice after Donald Trump retweeted a video featuring one of their songs.
The video, posted by the US President’s social media advisor, has been removed.
The band Tweeted: “Linkin Park did not and does not endorse Trump, nor authorize his organization to use any of our music.”
Read More: https://www.bbc.com/news/newsbeat-53469855
Twitter has chosen to remove a campaign-style video shared by Donald Trump after Linkin Park lodged a copyright complaint over its use of their song.
The band confirmed they had ordered a cease and desist notice over the video, which used a cover version of their song “In the End” to promote a populist narrative placing the president against the Washington elite, interspersed with footage of Joe Biden and military jets.
Big artists hoover up huge payouts from Spotify and Apple Music, while others get a pittance. Could a user-centric payment system be the answer?
Read More: https://www.wired.co.uk/article/music-streaming-ucps-spotify
The Music Managers Forum in the UK yesterday published the Third Edition of ‘Dissecting The Digital Dollar’, the book that brings together the five years of research that MMF has undertaken with CMU Insights to help music managers understand the inner workings of the streaming music business.
Read More: https://completemusicupdate.com/article/mmf-launches-third-edition-of-dissecting-the-digital-dollar/
Facebook is reportedly preparing to launch officially licensed music videos.
At the time of this writing, Facebook hadn’t publicly confirmed the rumored introduction of licensed music videos. However, ample details offered by currently-circulating reports lend credibility to the idea of an imminent rollout ahead. A screenshot showcasing what Facebook-hosted music videos may look like is making the rounds presently.
Read More: https://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2020/07/15/facebook-music-videos/
Amazon Music has announced a new developing-artist promotional program, Breakthrough, that will aim to help musicians achieve mainstream popularity.
Amazon Music detailed the comprehensive artist-support resource today, via an official release. Breakthrough will market a rotating selection of artists from “across a wide spectrum of genres” — country, indie, and R&B among them — with the overarching goal of “accelerating them [emerging artists] to the mainstream.” Moreover, the program is set to encompass an array of marketing assets, including optimal Amazon Music playlist placements, “video and audio content,” custom Amazon.com merchandise stores, Amazon-exclusive tracks, amplified Twitch profile support, and “global marketing support.”
Read More: https://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2020/07/15/amazon-music-breakthrough/
The following op-ed was signed by 45 leading European cultural figures.
Performance artist Marina Abramović, singer-songwriters Björk and MØ, dance choreographer Anne-Teresa De Keersmaeker, film directors Agnieszka Holland, Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, electronic music pionneer Jean-Michel Jarre, theatre director Ivo Van Hove, conceptual visual artist Daniel Buren, film music composer Alberto Iglesias and writer Nina George are among the many acclaimed names behind this call.
Read More: https://www.impalamusic.org/content/op-ed-call-invest-all-our-creative-futures
Andrew Lloyd Webber doesn’t want Trump to play music from ‘Cats’ at his rallies.
His team has sent the Trump 2020 campaign a cease-and-desist letter over the song, “Memory.” The message was sent by the composer’s UK-based company, Really Useful Group, according to reports. After ‘Cats’ star Betty Buckley urged the composer to speak out against the use of the song, the message was promptly sent out.
Read More: https://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2020/07/14/andrew-lloyd-webber-trump-cats-music/
Music companies, including Spotify and the three major record companies, urge legislators to support struggling independent concert venues
Read More: https://www.rollingstone.com/pro/news/music-labels-congress-independent-venues-1028628/
The President of South Africa recently exercised his power to return the long considered Copyright Amendment Bill back to Parliament because of reservations about its constitutionality.[1] Specifically, the South African President declared unconstitutional the provisions in the bill that would require contracts with creators to include royalty payments, the reversion of ownership rights back to creators, and the introduction into South Africa of a fair use right and other common exceptions to copyright.
Read More: http://infojustice.org/archives/42499
The Mechanical Licensing Collective’s user portal is set to go live “later this quarter,” according to a new release.
The Mechanical Licensing Collective (MLC) recently announced the timetable for the debut of its much-anticipated portal, along with a pair of new tools. Last July, Digital Music News was first to report that, following a heated and contentious battle, the U.S. Copyright Office had selected the self-named Mechanical Licensing Collective to run the MLC. A coalition created by both leading music publishers and prominent indie publishers, the entity (which received some $62 million in startup capital in November 2019) is tasked with administering mechanical publishing royalties from streaming platforms.
Read More: https://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2020/07/13/mechanical-licensing-collective-portal/
The Department of Justice will hold a virtual public workshop on July 28th and 29th, 2020, to discuss competition in the licensing of public performance rights in the music industry. The workshop will provide a further venue for industry stakeholders to weigh in on the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP) and Broadcast Music, Inc. (BMI) consent decrees and their implications for antitrust law enforcement and policy as we enter the third decade of the 21st Century and as music distribution continues to evolve through technological innovation.
Dear Vice President Biden,
In this moment when a pandemic, an economic contraction, and protests against racism have combined to trigger national self-reflection, you have an opportunity to lead us forward to a better America, one that comes closer to the nation’s ideals than ever before. I am one of millions of Americans looking to you for new approaches to government and leadership. We are counting on you to reject the old ways that brought us to this point.
Read More: https://www.wired.com/story/opinion-dear-joe-biden-dont-listen-to-silicon-valley/
YouTube has launched a new data dashboard called Analytics for Artists that allows artists to monitor their audience, global reach and performance across the entire YouTube ecosystem in real time.
YouTube describes Analytics for Artists as the “most comprehensive and complete view of [an artist’s] audience, global reach and performance” across the platform and promises that it “will equip artists and their teams with the knowledge they need to make the most informed and strategic release plans”.
The U.K. government is to exempt some leading U.S. actors, such as Tom Cruise, and crew from its 14-day travel quarantine to allow Hollywood blockbusters to resume production.
In case you were wondering what the value of songwriting is to Spotify, I think you can measure it pretty directly by the perks they hand out to their employees. I’m sure creators are glad to provide the value that takes care of these folks–while they scrape for every fraction of a penny in Spotify’s many lawsuits.
Read More: https://artistrightswatch.com/2020/07/05/how-much-is-a-song-worth-to-spotify-employees/
Grammy award-winning composer-performer Maria Schneider has filed a class-action lawsuit against YouTube and parent companies Google and Alphabet. The lawsuit is brought on behalf of independent rights holders that do not have access to the Content ID system (most of us).
Leaders of the Writers Guild of America have unanimously endorsed the successor deal reached with studios on its master contract, triggering a ratification vote among the 15,000 members.
Read More: https://variety.com/2020/film/news/wga-leaders-unanimously-endorse-deal-studios-1234698050/
Liam Gallagher, Dua Lipa and Sir Paul McCartney are among 1,500 artists who have signed an open letter calling for support for the UK’s live music scene.
Ed Sheeran, the Rolling Stones and Coldplay also signed the letter to the culture secretary warning of the impact of Covid-19 on venues and musicians.
Read More: https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-53250718
Last month, Kobalt was dragged into a legal dispute between Spotify and Eight Mile Style, an independent publisher of Eminem songs.
Spotify launched its legal action against the publisher and Kobalt, after Eight Mile Style – with whom Eminem is not actively affiliated – sued Spotify in the US last year, alleging that Spotify lacked licenses for nearly 250 Eminem songs it represents, including hits like Lose Yourself.
The Senate Judiciary Committee unanimously voted Thursday to remove liability protections for online businesses that host child porn, advancing a measure that poses the most significant threat in years to the tech industry’s fiercely guarded legal shield.
Read More: https://www.politico.com/news/2020/07/02/tech-liability-protections-child-porn-348142
ASCAP is now joining rival BMI in warning Donald Trump against playing Rolling Stones music at political rallies. But can they really sue?
The Rolling Stones have been vocal opponents of Trump using their music since at least 2016. The legendary rock n’ roll band threatened legal action against then-candidate Trump – twice. But after Trump played the hit, “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” at his recent Tulsa rally, the Rolling Stones are rattling the cage again.
Read More: https://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2020/07/01/ascap-rolling-stones-trump-warning/
Google and YouTube have managed to create a scam that has gone both largely undetected and largely unpunished for a decade–illicit activity that can be both seen and quantified through the sale of advertising and is also unseen and unquantified through data scraping in the background. (I leave it to you to speculate which is more valuable.)
UPDATE
The Writers Guild of America and the major Hollywood studios have set the broad outline of a new master film and TV contract, quieting concerns about labor strife adding to the industry’s struggle to relaunch production amid the turmoil of the pandemic.
Read More: https://variety.com/2020/biz/news/wga-amptp-negotiations-deal-contract-1234695529/
