Blog: songwriters

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.

The ‘pure’ songwriter is disappearing – and it’s everyone’s problem

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Tatiana Cirisano

19 Jun 2025

The National Music Publishers Association (NMPA) annual meeting is known for making headlines. At last year’s event, CEO David Israelite used his state-of-the-union speech to announce a formal complaint against Spotify’s audiobook bundling, lodged with the Federal Trade Commission.

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

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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 level...

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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

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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 cove...

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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 disc...

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Platoon just quietly raised the bar for songwriter services

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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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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 is at stake in the TikTok-UMG showdown

Cover image for What is at stake in the TikTok-UMG showdown

Tatiana Cirisano

1 Feb 2024

Music streaming

Universal Music Group

Music’s biggest on-again, off-again relationship just took a turn for the ugly, as Universal Music Group is pulling its music off TikTok. We have seen this movie before: Every time the music industry negotiates licenses with social platforms, the battle boils down to a question of who needs the ot...

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

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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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Is live-stream composition the new formula for a hit album?

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Ashleigh Millar

1 Oct 2021

We are no stranger to TikTok and its impact on the music industry, which is changing the structure of the business one viral video at a time. Artists and composers are flocking to the innovative social media app with hopes of finding musical success, similar to that of 24KGoldn and Nathan Evans.

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Streaming’s remuneration model cannot be ‘fixed’

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Mark Mulligan

12 Aug 2020

The #brokenrecord debate continues to build momentum and new models such as user-centric are getting increased attention, including at governmental level in the UK. But as Mat Dryhurst correctly observes , there is a risk of the market falling into streaming fatalism; that the obsession with trying ...

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Artists are Learning How it Feels to be a Songwriter

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Mark Mulligan

8 Jun 2020

The ‘broken record’ streaming debate that continues to rage on is a natural consequence of the instantaneous collapse of live music revenue following lockdown. As soon as it was clear that live was going to be gone for some time , MIDiA predicted that the artist backlash against streaming royalt...

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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 prof...

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Playlist Malfeasance Will Create a Streaming Crisis

Mark Mulligan

9 May 2019

per stream rates

Streaming economics are facing a potential crisis. The problem does not lie in the market itself; after all, in Q1 2019 streaming revenue became more than half of the recorded music business and Spotify hit 100 million subscribers.

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Here’s How Spotify Can Fix Its Songwriter Woes (Hint: It’s All About Pricing)

Cover image for Here’s How Spotify Can Fix Its Songwriter Woes (Hint: It’s All About Pricing)

Mark Mulligan

11 Mar 2019

Copyright Royalty Board

music publishers

Songwriter royalties have always been a pain point for streaming, especially in the US where statutory rates determine much of how songwriters get paid. The current debate over Spotify, Amazon, Pandora and Google challenging the Copyright Royalty Board’s proposed 44% increase illustrates jus...

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