Blog: Music publishing

Read our latest daily deep dives, hot takes, and exciting updates about the entertainment world. Check out the latest insight from your favourite analyst, or search by coverage areas - music, entertainment and fandom, creator economy and social.

Songwriters, we want to hear from you! Raise your voice in MIDiA’s new survey

Cover image for Songwriters, we want to hear from you! Raise your voice in MIDiA’s new survey

Tatiana Cirisano

27 Mar 2025

Audience Insight

Last year, MIDiA’s inaugural songwriter survey uncovered an alarming statistic: 67% of songwriters name “lack of meaningful streaming income” as their biggest challenge. More alarming yet is the fact that this remained the most common challenge for songwriters in our survey across income levels and tenure, even as other challenges – such as breaking through the noise – diminished.

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Music publishing forecasts: strong growth and more to come

Cover image for Music publishing forecasts: strong growth and more to come

Mark Mulligan

15 Aug 2024

Music publishing

publishing forecasts

Following hot on the heels of our future of songwriting report , MIDiA is pleased to announce the release of our latest music publishing forecasts report . Here are some highlights. Thus far, the 2020s have been a good decade for the music publishing industry.

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Songwriters take the stage: a new playbook for a new era

Cover image for Songwriters take the stage: a new playbook for a new era

Tatiana Cirisano

31 Jul 2024

songwriting income

Music publishing

In the 2021 report, “ Rebalancing the song economy ”, MIDiA introduced the idea of songs as mini industries. In the streaming era, songs are constantly revived and reimagined — and so long as you own the publishing, it does not matter if the version that becomes popular is the original, a cover, or an interpolation.

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The rise of the songwriter ‘brand’

Tatiana Cirisano

23 Jul 2024

Music publishing

If you have been drawn into the particular orbit of pop music that includes Olivia Rodrigo, Chappell Roan, and Sabrina Carpenter, you probably know a thing or two about Dan Nigro. Fans have been joining the dots between Nigro and this cluster of emergent pop artists on social media — not only discovering his credits on hits like Chappell’s “Good Luck, Babe!” and Rodrigo’s “Vampire”, but also clocking that he is in the studio with Reneé Rapp and followed Carpenter on Instagram .

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Platoon just quietly raised the bar for songwriter services

Cover image for Platoon just quietly raised the bar for songwriter services

Tatiana Cirisano

11 Jul 2024

Business Strategy

Over the past few months, singer-songwriter RAYE has been using her spotlight to campaign for fairer pay for songwriters — advocating for them to receive royalty points on master recordings, per diems for studio time, and more.

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TikTok’s music master plan is coming into focus

Cover image for TikTok’s music master plan is coming into focus

Tatiana Cirisano

20 Jun 2024

music consumption

Oh how the tables have turned. Just a few months removed from its very public clash with Universal Music Group over music licences, TikTok is reportedly looking to buy up music rights of its own. Not only would this ease TikTok’s reliance on licences, but it would also presumably allow TikTok to prioritise its owned content in the algorithm, and do what music executives have been tearing their hair out trying to for years: reverse-engineer viral moments.

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The countdown begins for audiobooks on Spotify

Cover image for The countdown begins for audiobooks on Spotify

Rutger Rosenborg

23 May 2024

Music publishing

As Spotify rolls out music-like features for audiobooks, the company still finds itself at odds with the music business, courting one publishing industry while ruffling the feathers of another. So far, Spotify’s publisher dilemma is only intensifying, making it all the more interesting that the company is introducing audiobook countdown pages — effectively album pre-saves but for audiobooks — in the midst of it all.

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In generative AI and music, will nice guys finish last?

Cover image for In generative AI and music, will nice guys finish last?

Tatiana Cirisano

22 May 2024

artificial intelligence

Generative AI music company Suno has raised $125 million, one of the biggest music-tech funding rounds in history . Founders say they want to ring in “a future where anyone can make music”, but questions remain over whether Suno and its rival, Udio, have trained their models on copyrighted music without licensing deals.

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Songwriters, we want to hear from you – take our survey!

Cover image for Songwriters, we want to hear from you – take our survey!

Fernanda Balzaretti

13 May 2024

Music publishing

Songwriters are the backbone of the music industry; however, they are rarely in the spotlight. As with the rest of the industry, songwriters have seen their workflows and income sources turned upside down in the streaming and social media eras.

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TikTok highlights the importance of publishing — and lack of songwriter services

Cover image for TikTok highlights the importance of publishing — and lack of songwriter services

Tatiana Cirisano

29 Feb 2024

It is no news flash that the music business has a reputation for undervaluing songwriters. Despite being arguably the most important part of the song, the shift to streaming has been even more disastrous for songwriters’ remuneration than artists.

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What ‘Barbie’, ‘The Idol’, and more say about the future of artists in film

Cover image for What ‘Barbie’, ‘The Idol’, and more say about the future of artists in film

Tatiana Cirisano

8 Jun 2023

Music publishing

2023 is already shaping up to be another big year for music artists in Hollywood. Late last month, Jack Harlow made his acting debut in a Hulu remake of 1992 basketball comedy White Men Can’t Jump . The Weeknd (who is now going by Abel Tesfaye) stars in Max’s controversial new series, The Idol , in which BLACKPINK's Jennie also makes her acting debut.

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UMG, Endel, and the case for labels in the AI space

Cover image for UMG, Endel, and the case for labels in the AI space

Tatiana Cirisano

1 Jun 2023

Universal Music Group

Warner Music Group

The flood of new music created using artificial intelligence (AI) will further erode major label market share, and some label executives’ recent comments about the value of human-made music seem to put those fears in plain sight.

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Should streaming take a cue from TikTok’s revamped creator program?

Cover image for Should streaming take a cue from TikTok’s revamped creator program?

Tatiana Cirisano

23 Feb 2023

Music streaming

A year ago, VidCon co-founder and vlogger Hank Green posted a viral YouTube video lambasting TikTok’s $1 billion Creator Fund, claiming it delivered chump change to videos with millions of views. The issue, he explained, was that the pool of funds was static — so the more that TikTok’s creator base grew, the less everyone made.

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With its Australia experiment, TikTok gives the music industry the ultimate test

Cover image for With its Australia experiment, TikTok gives the music industry the ultimate test

Tatiana Cirisano

9 Feb 2023

independent music

Licensing negotiations between platforms and the music industry come down to one question: which side needs the other more? The more that TikTok needs hit music to attract users, the more leverage the music industry (meaning labels and publishers) gains.

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The record labels’ TikTok opportunity cost

Cover image for The record labels’ TikTok opportunity cost

Tatiana Cirisano

22 Nov 2022

Music streaming

With their short-term music licensing agreements soon to expire, record labels are reportedly pressuring TikTok to sign an ad revenue share agreement, which would see TikTok pay a share of advertising revenue to music rightsholders.

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Looking forward and back: Why song interpolations reflect a new music industry outlook

Cover image for Looking forward and back: Why song interpolations reflect a new music industry outlook

Tatiana Cirisano

2 Dec 2021

Music publishing

If many popular songs from the past year sound familiar, it might be because they are. Song interpolations – when artists copy another song’s underlying melody, often with modified lyrics – are increasingly common, as many of today’s biggest artists spin older hits into new ones.

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Can music rights expand to drive the new music creator economy?

Cover image for Can music rights expand to drive the new music creator economy?

Kriss Thakrar

11 Nov 2021

rights acquisition

Music publishing

music catalogue M+A

The investment that is pouring into music rights has exploded in recent years, hitting $10 billion at the time of writing and set to increase much further. Many rights acquisitions deals have been based on the catalogues of the traditional music industry (writer/publishing and master rights).

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T-Series to IPRS: Signs of a maturing market?

Cover image for T-Series to IPRS: Signs of a maturing market?

Srishti Das

9 Apr 2021

Music streaming

Music publishing

The Indian Performance Rights Society (IPRS) finally controls the majority of publishing market share in India, after the mammoth music label and film production company T-Series registered itself as a member.

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How Music Publishers Are Driving a Full Stack Revolution

Cover image for How Music Publishers Are Driving a Full Stack Revolution

Mark Mulligan

14 Oct 2019

Music publishing catalogues are gaining momentum fast as an asset class for institutional investments, with transactions ranging from large catalogue mergers and acquisitions (M&A) through to investment vehicles for songwriters’ shares such as the Hipgnosis Fund and Royalty Exchange.

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Songwriters Aren’t Getting Paid Enough and Here’s Why

Mark Mulligan

10 Sep 2019

Music Business Worldwide recently ran a story on how Apple has proposed a standard streaming rate for songwriters, with Google and Spotify apparently resistant. Of course, Apple can afford to run Apple Music at a loss and has a strategic imperative for making it more difficult for Spotify to be profitable, so do not assume that Apple’s intentions here are wholly altruistic.

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