Songwriters struggle to get paid while the copyright system designed to protect their rights is partially to blame, but why? In this episode of Musonomics, Larry Miller takes a look at how the copyright and royalty payment system is failing a new generation of songwriters.
Continue reading “Songwriters, Consent and the Age of Discontent”
Hot on the heels of Super Tuesday we delve into the world of presidential campaign music and what happens when popular music is misused by campaigns.
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”
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.
November is almost gone, and with it go memories of turkeys, pumpkin pie, and annoying family members. The last week of November was packed with notable industry news, like a German court’s anti-piracy ruling, or The Guardian’s look at Adele, Drake, and the one-album-per-year model. Also in this week’s Monday Reading List, a blog post about new music that sounds old, Nonesuch Records gets a new co-president, and SeatGeek launches a new marketplace.
Continue reading “Monday Reading List”
Professional musicians know that royalty payments and the concept of transparency are mutually exclusive. As we mentioned briefly in our seventh episode , “The Transparency Moment,” the current performance royalty payment system is antiquated and fragmented. Payments can take months to be sent out and usually arrive via paper check. Some payments don’t even reach rights holders because records of who owns what are incomplete or incorrect. Those payments are trapped in what David Byrne called the music industry’s black box. Black box lost revenues are said to be in the millions of dollars, but we might not be locked out of that box forever.
Continue reading “How Bitcoin’s Blockchain Could Fix The Music Industry’s Payment Problem”
Another week, another batch of industry news and long reads for our Monday Reading List. On this week’s list Pandora gets dealt another tough blow, The Economist theorizes on the age of music festival-goers, Bandcamp makes some changes in pay structure, and Music Business Worldwide says what we were all thinking about new streaming service/device the Electric Jukebox. Then, because here at Musonomics, we can’t ignore that hotline when it blings, artist James Turrell confirms that neither he, nor his woes, had anything to do with Drake’s “Hotline Bling” video.
Check out this week’s Monday Reading List after the jump.
Welcome to the first installment of the Musonomics Monday Reading List!
Every Monday we’ll post a list of the previous week’s best reads. Amongst our curated list of the best music industry writing, you might find an explainer on the latest music industry merger, or a Q&A with an artist or an industry player of note — or maybe just a terrific essay penned by a music legend.
No matter what, our picks will always shed light on some unseen part of the industry, bring clarity to a hot-button issue, or provide a new perspective on an old problem.
Check out this week’s Monday Reading List after the jump:
There’s a new episode of Musonomics, and it’s all about transparency in the music industry — or the lack thereof.
Grooveshark, the Florida-based illegal music streaming site, was officially shuttered in April following a lengthy litigation process resulting in a federal court ruling against them for massive, willful copyright infringement. As part of their settlement with the major labels, Grooveshark agreed to cease operations, wipe clean all of the record companies’ copyrighted works, and hand over ownership of the Grooveshark.com domain, mobile app and intellectual property, including all patents and copyrights. It was a terminal blow for Grooveshark.com, but since that site came down a number of clones have popped up across the web
