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Music Industry Sees First Big Gains in 20 Years Thanks to Streaming Services
Thanks to subscription-based music streaming services, the music industry is seeing a significant growth for the first time in nearly two decades. According to International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), an industry trade group, the global music sales rose 3.2 percent last year, also surpassing those from all physical music formats. The important tipping point in 2015 saw digital services account for 45 percent of recorded music revenue. According to the report, Spotify, Apple Music and other music streaming services brought in about $2.9 billion in revenue. The findings are in line with Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA)'s estimates from last month. IFPI also noted that music on free streaming services such as YouTube has also grown quickly, creating a panic among record labels and artists alike. Billboard elaborates that aspect: In criticizing ad-supported services, the IFPI joined a growing list of trade bodies and music company executives to criticize YouTube for paying royalties that are relatively low when considering its popularity. The report argues YouTube distorts its negotiations with labels by hiding behind the DMCA "safe harbor" rules that limit the liability of online intermediaries from the infringing actions of their users. The result, the IFPI argues, is YouTube can use an "act first, negotiate later" that "fundamentally distort[s] the negotiation process."
But if youtube send us those damn ads we have to sit through until "skip" comes up, or worse the ones where you have to wait for the whole thing to finish, the least they can do is cough up the money to the labels or individual musicians if self published.
Now they might try putting out music that didn't suck. Seriously, today's twerk-a-licious and computer generated, autotuned stuff makes 1960's bubblegum music and disco look good.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
So, the music industry, which until now absolutely loved the DMCA because they could hide behind the "good-faith" clause, is now upset that someone else is doing the same thing? Go cry me a river, then look up "Law of unintended consequences."
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
The artists who create the material. Like most people who have to actually work for a living, they are too submissive in negotiations, especially now that self publishing is comparatively trivial to past times when physical media was required.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
There has been a long tradition of the music industry (even before it was the recording industry) of fighting any technological innovation since it would disrupt their current business model. Industries that make money by controlling access to other people's creativity are like that.
The music industry convinced itself that its CD era peak revenue period from 1994 to 2000, when a few generations of music lovers were rebuying their entire music collection in the superior CD format, was their "natural revenue level" and any decrease from the anomalous high point was due to "Piracy! Piracy I say!" rather than the inevitable technology-driven business cycle, seen several times before. They then spent the next decade feverishly fighting digital music, the upcoming format that would replace CDs, rather than working on consumer-friendly ways to exploit it, driving their own revenues into a ditch by pissing off the next generation of music consumers with lawsuits and DRM.
Starships were meant to fly, Hands up and touch the sky - Nicky Minaj
So streaming has caught on and people are liking it. It's making money. That means it's now the perfect time to start balkanizing the industry with exclusives to specific services, raise prices, and strangle it before it gets any bigger.
I mean, if the music industry is doing well, they won't be able to bitch and moan and lobby gov't to impose more and more draconic legislation to combat piracy.
Now they'll make sure that their catalogs are spread evenly across five or six different streaming services and keep them all fighting against each other. They don't want a unified front of streaming providers pushing back and demanding a bigger slice of the pie.
The media industry learned its lesson back when Steve Jobs dunked on them with the negotiations for the iTunes Music Store. The fragmentation happened to Netflix, it will happen to Spotify and co.
1. Are the artists actually being compensated properly now?
2. Assuming the answer to #1 is 'yes', is the music industry going to stop whining now?
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
Napster broke the monopoly on music. Up until then you had to buy a whole album for one song. Napster was the market correcting itself. The industry brought it upon themselves. If a kid in a dorm can obsolete your business model in a 3-day coding spree, your business is not viable.
Good-bye