Blog: Music Royalties

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 take the stage: a new playbook for a new era

Tatiana Cirisano

31 Jul 2024

songwriters

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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Why don’t we hear popular music on popular podcasts?

Rutger Rosenborg

29 Feb 2024

Audio

Podcasts

Streaming

There are a number of popular podcasts that dissect popular music. One is called, well, Dissect . Others are Popcast , Song Exploder , and Switched on Pop . Podcasts like these usually play extended sections — if not whole recordings — of popular tracks, but beyond that, it is virtually impossible to find a podcast where you can hear music that is not a commissioned theme song or ‘royalty-free’.

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How to make artist centric artist centric

Mark Mulligan

6 Sep 2023

Streaming Royalties

Music streaming

Music Royalties

Deezer and UMG announced a major (in both senses of the word) shake up of streaming music royalties. This is arguably the biggest streaming market development in years, as it will set the tone for market-wide change.

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Unpacking music royalty investment NFTs

Tatiana Cirisano

26 Jan 2022

Streaming Music

cryptocurrency

NFTs

Last Thursday, a Royal NFT drop allowing fans to purchase a share in the streaming royalties of two Nas songs sold out within minutes. The drop was delayed by a week after high demand crashed Royal’s site, signaling potential for the concept of fans and artists co-owning music rights.

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YouTube Reaches $4bn In Music Industry Rights Payments

Mark Mulligan

6 Dec 2016

music rights

Music Royalties

Online video

YouTube just reported that it has paid $1 billion to ‘the music industry’ over the course of the last 12 months. That takes its cumulative payments (since 2007) up to $4 billion. The year-to-date payments for $900 million are a 22% on the full year payments made in 2015 – the year in which labels started going for YouTube’s jugular because they felt it was not paying its fair share (ie the value grab / value share).

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