Tax havens still attract big-name artists, but how do the big five music markets compare for tax rates?

For many years, the biggest-earning artists have benefited from moving their residence to countries with more-favorable tax rates. The Rolling Stones famously became tax exiles in France in the early 1970s and subsequently released the album “Exile on Main Street” soon after. Are tax rates in the big five music markets still driving the highest-earning artists into exile?

Filed under: Music industry , Music industry, tax

Live music faces up to a challenging 2012

With the organization and promotion of live events differing from country to country, comparisons of how one country’s live music sector is performing against another are not always easy to make. However, the live industry has, in recent years, seen the emergence of a small number of global players, such as Live Nation and CTS Eventim, and their financial details have provided an insight into current and possible future trends.

Filed under: Music industry, Uncategorized , concert, festival, live music, live nation, Music industry

Is the X Factor simply a great entertainment program or is it TV nepotism at its absolute worst?

A simple answer to these questions is yes, on both counts. Large numbers of viewers across the UK tuned in to watch some great TV moments over the course of the last few months culminating in Little Mix being crowned the X Factor winners in front of 10,000 adoring X Factor fans at Wembley. The girl band will no doubt go on to achieve great things, as will runner-up Marcus Collins and probably a few of the other contestants.

But in comparison with previous years, which offered a degree of subtlety in the way viewers were duped into thinking they were just being entertained, this year’s show was explicit in its very blatant advertising of all things X Factor-related. As has been widely reported, the UK broadcasting regulator OFCOM has received complaints that the “established artists” that performed alongside the contestants were signed to Simon Cowell’s record company Syco, which is part of Syco Entertainment, a global joint venture between Cowell and Sony Music Entertainment. Syco TV co-produced the X Factor show.

Filed under: Music industry, Uncategorized , Little Mix, music tv, Simon Cowell, tv, x factor

Consolidation in the music publishing sector is set to shake up Pan-European licensing

The European Commission (EC) is planning to publish draft legislation proposals early next year that will include new rules for the cross-border licensing of digital music. For several years representatives of the EC have expressed a mixture of mild irritation and outright annoyance over the licensing process for digital-music services in Europe. The number of such services has grown rapidly in the region, but several service providers continue to bemoan the time-consuming process involved in securing rights to operate in several countries. New business models specializing in digital-music delivery have brought change to collection societies, but according to some service providers, rights remain fragmented, and some providers have questioned whether the major publishers’ Pan-European initiatives have simply added a new layer of fragmentation and complexity to the licensing process, with Europe’s largest collection societies the only ones seeing any benefit.

Filed under: Collection societies, Intellectual property, Legal, Music industry , CELAS, collection society, Legal, licensing, Music industry, Pan European, royalties

Are blue-chip companies unknowingly supporting pirate music sites?

Pirate-music sites offering free music downloads are being indirectly funded by a wide range of blue-chip companies. A survey conducted by Music & Copyright in the UK has found that all of the companies whose advertising appeared on a selection of pirate sites were unaware of the ads’ presence. Should these companies know where their ads are going?

Filed under: free, Intellectual property, Legal, Music industry, Uncategorized , advertising, collection society, download, Internet, Legal, mp3, Music industry

SoundExchange takes the crown as the world’s biggest performance-rights society

With digital recorded-music sales still several years away from fully compensating for the decline in physical recorded-music sales in almost all developed markets, record companies are continuing to place greater emphasis on revenue streams from other sources. Performance-rights is one of those “other” sources that has seen growth in the majority of countries, even though so many of the music users required to pay performance-rights have suffered because of the aftereffects of the global financial crisis.

In our annual survey of the performance-rights sector, Music & Copyright can reveal that total performance-rights distributions were up 8.9% in 2010, to US$1.59 billion, a big increase on the 0.6% growth in 2009 (see table below).

Filed under: Collection societies, Intellectual property, Music industry , artists, performance rights, performers

Midyear recorded-music sales roundup

Of all the countries that have reported midyear sales figures, it is the US that has provided the most optimism. For the first six months of this year, album-unit sales rose 1% compared with same period of 2010, according to Nielsen SoundScan. This represented the first time that album sales had increased since 2004. Including track-equivalent albums (10 digital tracks equal one album), the growth figure was higher, at 3.7%. Digital-album sales were reported by Nielsen SoundScan to have increased 10% year-on-year, with digital-track sales rising 11%. Recent figures from Nielsen SoundScan, for the year to Aug. 21, published in the trade magazine Billboard, suggest that the situation has improved slightly, with album sales up 2.4% compared with the same period in 2010 and album sales including track equivalents rising 4.8%.

Filed under: Collection societies, download, Music industry

Brands and artists: the delicate balancing act between rights and obligations

Artist endorsements of products and services, as well as company sponsorships of tours and festivals, have been a part of the music industry for many years, and examples of successful alliances between brands and artists are numerous. Although ensuring that all interests are served without limiting artists’ creativity can be a complex process, achieving the right balance between rights and obligations can be beneficial for all concerned. We asked Ailish McKenna, a solicitor with Bray & Krais Solicitors for her take on what restrictions brands can reasonably impose on artists.

The word “partnership” can be used to describe a whole range of relationships in varying settings. In the area of brand endorsements, the word is commonly used to define the nature of the relationship between the brand and the artist chosen to endorse certain goods and services under that brand. Both parties entering into a media partnership have their own interests to serve. The hope and the intention is of course that a mutually beneficial and fruitful alliance will unfold.

Filed under: Intellectual property, Legal, Music industry, Uncategorized , Brands, Legal, Music industry

Spotify embraces the land of the free..sort of

Spotify has finally got its prize. News of a US launch brings to a close a two-year affair, blighted with delays, speculation and a healthy dollop of the now infamous “ongoing negotiations with labels”.

Will it have been worth it? The US is absolutely crucial to Spotify’s long-term plans. There’s no escaping from the fact that the amount of money artists receive per stream from music-streaming sites is incredibly low. This is a particular concern in the US, where labels generate much of their global revenue. But the only way Spotify can grow into a viable financial model, and move towards placating labels and rights-holders, is by amassing a huge number of users. Music streaming will always be a low-margin, high-volume business, and the US helps Spotify towards achieving the latter. With one set of negotiations – no matter how protracted – the service now has access to a population the equivalent size of the EU.

Filed under: Uncategorized

Is NCB the model for future Pan-European licensing?

Last month the Pan-Nordic mechanical-rights-collection society Nordisk Copyright Bureau (NCB) reported a fall in the total amounts collected and distributed to its owner societies for last year. Despite the decline, NCB described 2010 as an important year and one that removed much of the uncertainty over the collection society’s future. Perhaps more important though, is the fact that NCB and its owner societies have shown that collection societies, if left to their own devices, can develop a very workable multiterritory online licensing system.

Filed under: Collection societies , collection society, Legal, licensing, Music industry, Pan European, royalties, STREAMING