The Adele effect hits major-record-company market shares in 2011

Music & Copyright’s annual survey of the recorded-music and music-publishing industries has revealed that Universal Music Group (UMG) remained the world’s biggest record company and Universal Music Publishing Group (UMPG) the largest music-publishing company in 2011. The positioning of each of the four major record-label and music-publishing companies was unchanged last year. Although this lack of change could suggest that 2011 offered up “more of the same” in the recorded-music and music-publishing sectors, such an assumption would be wide of the mark.

Filed under: download, Intellectual property, Music industry, Uncategorized, download, emi, market share, Music industry, sony music, universal music, warner music

Demystifying Pan-European digital music rights – new report

The number of digital-music services in Europe is growing every year and consumers across the continent are being presented with an array of different ways to listen to music. Digital-music delivery and consumption has undergone a rapid transition. However, such has been the speed of the sector’s evolution, new business models specializing in digital-music delivery across Europe have forced those organizations charged with issuing licenses to rethink the way they operate.

Music publishers and collection-societies in Europe have taken to the task in different ways (see below table for major music publisher initiative details). But, in contrast to a few years ago, when digital-music services were required to negotiate countless licensing deals, agreements between music publishers and collection-societies have reduced the necessity for endless rounds of licensing negotiations.

Filed under: Collection societies, Intellectual property, Music industry, Uncategorized, CELAS, collection society, gema, Music industry, Pan European, performance rights, publishing

Artists and composers swim against the tide in the battle of rights

Last month the European Composer & Songwriter Alliance (ECSA) held a press conference at the Silken Berlaymont Hotel in Brussels to brief news reporters about a stance it was taking against European broadcasters on behalf of music composers. ECSA accused Europe’s leading broadcasters of forcing composers to give up their rights in return for TV commissions. Big names in broadcasting, such as RTL, ITV, BskyB, TF1, ZDF and Rai, were all accused of operating a system called coercive commissioning – in return for awarding a composer with a commission, the composer must assign all rights in the music to the broadcaster or TV production company. Put simply, no rights, no commission.

Filed under: Intellectual property, Legal, Music industry, Uncategorized, ECSA, Music industry, performance, performance rights

Why the case against ReDigi should go to a full trial for the good of the music industry

Earlier this month, US District Judge Richard Sullivan ruled against EMI’s Capitol Records’ request for a preliminary injunction against the digital-music reseller ReDigi. Capitol had wanted the service closed down but Judge Sullivan denied the record company’s demand and insisted that the service should stay online and the case go to trial. The judge’s action has been widely reported as a victory for ReDigi and to some extent it is. Not every day can a start-up company say it has fended off one of the world’s biggest record companies. But in the longer term, having the case go to a full trial can only be a good thing for the music industry. Should Judge Sullivan have ruled without a trial that ReDigi was infringing copyright then the issue of legality would rumble on and proponents of digital resale would simply claim they have been trodden on by a big corporation wanting to protect its business.

Filed under: download, Intellectual property, Legal, Music industry, capitol records, Music industry, redigi

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

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

Question – is now the right time for the European Commission to legislate on Pan-European digital music licensing?

The issue of Pan-European licensing and how best it can be achieved is a hot topic. Earlier this week, in an interview with the UK trade magazine Music Week, Pandora founder Tim Westergren said that a centralized licensing structure was needed for the service to return to Europe. Westergren is not alone in his criticism of the licensing in Europe as plenty of other digital music services have bemoaned the complexity of the licensing structure in the region. But is the situation as bad as they all claim? The big music publishers have all set up “hubs” to streamline the licensing process and the Pan-Nordic mechanical-rights-collection society Nordisk Copyright Bureau has shown that multiterritory licensing can be achieved without legislation from Europe.

With this in mind, Music & Copyright would like your opinion on the issue. Please answer the below question and by all means add any comments. The results of the poll will be published in the next issue on July 13.

Music & Copyright is published by Informa Telecoms & Media.

Filed under: download, Intellectual property, Legal, Music industry

MIDEM and the music industry in 2011

MIDEM is now over for another year and representatives from all sectors of the music industry are busy digesting the comings and goings of the event. Some conference themes followed on from where they left off last year, whilst others debated new business models that rose to prominence during 2010. There were numerous cases of the traditional music industry bumping heads with supporters of these new business models. But at a number of conferences and panel sessions, there seemed to be a better understanding of some of the issues and concerns on all sides as well as a greater willingness from most of the participants to go that bit further to get their heads around each other’s issues, which in previous years, had been a source of major division. There were of course still plenty of areas of disagreement but on the whole all parties exchanged handshakes rather than insults.

Filed under: Collection societies, download, Intellectual property, Music industry, Music subscriptions, download, MIDEM, music, Music subscriptions, royalties