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In our new report, “Same Heart. New Beat. How Record Labels Amplify Talent in the Modern Music Marketplace”, we examine how modern record labels have remade themselves to thrive in the era of streaming music. Based on almost 50 interviews with top-level executives at both major and independent record labels and commissioned by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), we dig in to the changes that have taken place in the past decade to make labels an indispensable partner for the most ambitious new, developing, and superstar artists.

You can download the full report here.

We know you probably don’t buy CDs anymore, and that you’re not reading the lyrics from the CD case insert. That doesn’t mean you don’t feel the need to look up the lyrics from time to time, right? Especially those fast-paced rap songs, they can be really tricky to figure out by just listening. But when you go online to do that, have you ever thought about whether these lyrics sites have the right to publish those lyrics and make money off of the ads on the site? Probably not.

On this episode of Musonomics we talk about lyrics licensing and how the changes in the music industry are affecting the hardworking people who wrote those lyrics – the songwriters.

You’ll hear from Darryl Ballantyne, CEO and founder of LyricFind. It’s a company that up to date has licenses with over 4,000 music publishers, to try and make sure that the songwriters and right holders are compensated for their work when the lyrics end up online. How did he come up with the idea to start licensing lyrics and how did the music publishers react?

In the end, the people losing out on unlicensed lyrics being published online are the songwriters, so we also talk to Phil Galdston, whose songs have sold 70 million copies worldwide. What’s his take on the songwriters’ struggle to be able to sustain themselves by just writing songs in the digital era? And if you want to hear a longer version of the interview with Phil Galdston, you can find it here.

As always, you can listen to the new episode on iTunes, or stream it on Soundcloud or YouTube.

Benji Rogers, blockchain technology advocate, who will be feature don the next episode of the Musonomics podcast.
Benji Rogers, blockchain technology advocate, who will be feature don the next episode of the Musonomics podcast.

Music publishing desperately needs some form of public ledger withholding all records of whom is owed what. Blockchain -still- seems to radiate the best potential solution for an efficient transparent automated payment system and a centralized database.

This fervor clearly resonated early June this year at the annual MIDEM conference in Cannes, France. Blockchain has been a sizzling hot topic thanks to momentum generated by two articles written by Benji Rogers, founder of PledgeMusic and the driver of the dot blockchain music project. The topic of using the Blockchain as a solution to the key problems of music publishing has become increasingly popular among music industry executives and artists alike. Performing Rights Organizations (PROs), who are in charge of distributing publishing royalties, haven’t been able to keep up with demanding payment efficiencies facilitated by technology, which has been evolving faster than we can figure out how to make use of it. Yet, Blockchain still remains a batman-esque figure we keep talking about, but who we barely understand.

Blockchain became known for being the underlying technology that allows Bitcoin, a cryptocurrency that is unregulated by a central bank, to exist. For those who don’t know what Blockchain is, I recommend reading this overview of how blockchain works, and how it could be adopted by the music industry.

Most recently, British songwriter and producer Imogen Heap subdued Blockchain’s spotlight after showcasing her venture Mycelia: “ an open database that describes the whole music industry so that everyone involved can be acknowledged and rewarded.” At a first glance, blockchain might sound like an actual quasi-utopian solution for slow or lost payments in music publishing. And it might be, yet all empirical proof stemming from similar previous projects have failed to show positive results, such as the Global Repertoire Database, which was abandoned by its early supporters and shut down in 2014 before it had an opportunity to launch. So, through divergent thinking, I have come up with four vital factors that would need to be addressed for a Blockchain system to stand up to its dreamy epitome and eventually become the next (tech)platform that innovates the business realm of music publishing.

Data Standardization

The basic premise of an automated transparent public ledger is for money to travel from point A to B as swiftly as possible. But for it to work effectively and efficiently, data points (who/what is A and who/what is B, etc.) need to be entered correctly for the system to recognize them and distributing the payments accordingly. If a single letter, comma or dash is misplaced, it could mean a relapse into chaos. Each PRO, publisher, record label or anyone who owns the copyright of a musical work, would have to use the same software to enter the data. An alternative would be an underlying standard system of rules that would have to be integrated into any software that provides a solution for entering and uploading specific metadata traits into the blockchain system.

Mining Incentivisation

Mistakes are human. Entering incorrect data can always happen. That’s why there are specialists who try to fix them so that a system keeps working properly. In the world of Bitcoin (the most popular application of Blockchain), miners are individuals (or groups of people) who, among other duties, issue new bitcoins by solving complex math problems -with the help of specialized software and hardware- in exchange of a fee (commission). This allows for new Bitcoins to enter the market, thus nourishing the system. In the world of publishing, miners would need to be incentivized to clean the data that was entered incorrectly into blockchains, thus being stored in a “black box” of lost revenues. These miners would need to be granted a percentage or one-time fee of each publishing work they help mine and place in a verified chain so that the designated payment could reach the correct rights holder(s).

Blockchain Literacy

 In the United States alone there are hundreds of music publishers who distribute payments to songwriters, producers and artists. And these numbers don’t consider the potential hundred thousands of artists who manage their publishing independently. This means all of them would need to have access to this centralized ledger to input their information. And in order to do so, they would first know what Blockchain is, how it works and why it’s helpful. It might sound trivial, yet explaining the context to its users will allow for this technology to bloom its full potential.

Neutral Business Model

Just like anything else in life, a Blockchain platform would require maintenance to keep running smoothly. This could mean debugging, code fixes and any necessary firmware updates, etc. To maintain such a system that benefits numerous corporations and individuals alike, there would need to be a neutral business model set in place that would work for public benefit. A small percentage fee shaved-off from every transaction could be a solution, yet concrete numbers depend on the real costs building and maintaining such a system would incur into.

 

Where would this leave current PRO’s? ASCAP, HFA or any similar Public Rights Organization would have the potential to develop and administer such a system, yet their current business model would lose relevance. This could create tension between the archaic royalty payment distribution system in place right now and Blockchain.

There are currently two interesting initiatives, which intend to solve this problem, that we can’t lose sight of. One is the Open Music Initiative by Berklee College of Music and MIT, who also target to build a “shared way of identifying ownership.” As Panos Panay, founder of the Berklee Institute for Creative Entrepreneurship said “There’s hardly a day when you pick up the newspaper and you’re not reading about yet another lawsuit that is happening in the industry,” he said, “or yet another situation where takedown notices are being sent, because there’s unauthorized use of music on a particular streaming service.” The second one is the Dot Blockchain Music Project, which aims to create a new media format that will, as its website states: “ will provide for the benefit of all musicians, composers and people in the music and related industries, primarily through open source protocol, licenses and leveraging blockchain technology methods.”

It won’t be long until the Blockchain is better understood, or a similar technology appears, and more independent companies or individuals begin coming up with solutions that will disrupt music publishing just like Napster spearheaded the decline of recorded music in the early 2000s. That’s why our next Musonomics episode unpacks what the Blockchain is, who the key players are, and why it’s become the most talked-about new initiative in the music industry.

by Alonso Villagomez

Other sources:

http://qz.com/620454/imogen-heap-wants-to-use-blockchain-technology-to-revolutionize-the-music-industry/
http://www.wbur.org/artery/2016/06/13/berklee-mit-music-rights-database

Girl Talk

Remixes and mashups will not be subject to compulsory licenses anytime soon according to recommendations presented in a white paper released last month by the Department of Commerce (DoC). The white paper is the result of a 2-year study published by the Internet Task Force created to deal with our “Remix Culture.” The remix culture, as Lawrence Lessig states in his book Remix: Making Art and Commerce Thrive in the Hybrid Economy, utilizes multimedia as its language to communicate. It allows the consumer to quote content from various sources to create something from existing content that can be considered “new.” For example, sampling, taking short snippets from different songs to create a new song that can sound completely different from its original sources — a practice widely used in hip hop and electronic music. Remixing and sampling have become vital techniques and art forms in a new-look media landscape.

Continue reading “No Compulsory Licensing for Remixes, Determines DoC Internet Task Force”

Daniel Ek

Spotify has been known since its launch in 2006 as a music streaming service, but with a move into video content, the streaming giant looks to be broadening its entertainment offerings.

In a new partnership with Disney, ABCNews, NBC, Viacom, TED, and Vice, and others, Spotify has added video content to its library. Daniel Ek, Spotify CEO, originally made the announcement back on May 20th, but the update went live on iOS and Android in recent weeks.
Continue reading “Spotify Adds In-App Video Content”

Crash The Super Bowl

Since 2006, Doritos and APM Music, the largest production music platform in the US, have run the Super Bowl ad contest, “Crash The Super Bowl.” The partnership engages online followers by offering fans and budding ad-writers the chance to create a Doritos ad spot — using APM music — and have their spot aired during football’s biggest game. Contestants choose from 21 APM tracks to feature in their commercial. The top three finalists, selected by online voters with input from advertising executives, have a chance to win $1,000,000 if their ad charts at number one in the USA Today polls.

Over the nine years that the contest has run, thousands have submitted their commercials to Doritos in hopes of seeing their ad during the big game, resulting in lucrative music licensing deals for APM and its music publishing and songwriting partners. But how did APM get drafted into such a lasting and successful deal with Doritos, a unit of Pepsico?
Continue reading “Doritos and APM Music “Crash The Super Bowl Contest” Marks 10th and Final Year”

Monday Reading List

It’s Monday again, and that means another batch of important information to catch up on. On this week’s Monday Reading List, Billboard.biz explains new changes to webcasting rates, Spotify considers allowing artists to withhold music from the free platform, Tesco starts selling vinyl in the UK, Paul Pacifico tells Music Business Worldwide why artists must be at the center of a new music business, and rumors swirl that the Beatles catalogue may finally be available on streaming services very soon.
Continue reading “Monday Reading List”

Monday Reading List

On today’s Monday Reading List: Music Business Worldwide tells us why this week will be so important for the industry, Taylor Swift and Apple join forces (again), a new study suggests that streaming might actually help record sales, and the RZA considers stealing back the Wu-Tang album that recently sold for millions.

Continue reading “Monday Reading List”

It’s Monday, and that means it’s time for another Musonomics Monday Reading List. This week, we check in on the Grammy nominations, Bloomberg explains why Spotify is so desperate to cling to their freemium model, Facebook launches a concert ticket service, Adele feels “eh” on streaming, and Music Business Worldwide releases their shortlist of candidates for the MBW Young Executive 2015 Award.
Continue reading “Monday Reading List”

PM-jaunt

In the 1990’s, the concept of a functioning virtual reality (VR) system was still in many ways a science fiction fantasy — but that is no longer the case. Multiple developers, most notably Google and Oculus Rift (acquired last year by Facebook), have made VR into a real thing that could be as common as smartphones over the next decade — and VR could prove a valuable new tool for the music industry.

Continue reading “How Virtual Reality Could Change The Music Industry”