CMU Digest

CMU Digest 15.10.18: MMA, SoundCloud, ECSA, IFPI, Sky

By | Published on Monday 15 October 2018

The White House

The key stories from the last week in the music business…

America’s Music Modernization Act was signed into law by Donald Trump. The President was joined by a number of mainly ageing male musicians for the occasion, as well as some – though not all – of the industry players who campaigned for and negotiated the major copyright reforms. Now it’s law, the MMA will seek to sort out how mechanical royalties are paid Stateside, fix the pre-1972 quirk on sound recordings, and reform the way the US Copyright Royalty Board and rate courts decide what music users should pay. [READ MORE]

SoundCloud announced it was opening up monetisation options to all musicians. Record labels and music publishers have had licensing deals with the digital firm for a while now, but the option to share in ad and subscription revenue was only available to other DIY creators on an ad-hoc and invite-only basis. The option will be opened up to any musician with a Pro account who has passed a certain number of plays, bringing it more in line with that other big user-upload platform, YouTube. [READ MORE]

The European Composer & Songwriter Alliance called on the European Commission to block Sony’s bid to take full control of the EMI Music Publishing catalogue. It joins pan-European indie label trade group IMPALA and UK songwriter association BASCA in calling for EU regulators to block Sony’s deals. All argue that said deals will damage competition in the music rights market. Sony led a consortium of investors to buy the EMI songs business in 2012 and now wants to buy out those other investors. [READ MORE]

The International Federation Of The Phonographic Industry published its annual Consumer Insight Report. 86% of the people it surveyed were using an on-demand streaming platform of some description to access at least some music. 50% said they’d opt for streaming if only one music consumption platform was available. Though, of course, a significant portion of that on-demand streaming is on YouTube, which pays much lower royalties because of the much talked about safe harbour. [READ MORE]

The Irish record industry confirmed that Sky would introduce a three-strikes anti-piracy system in Ireland. Rival Irish ISPs Eircom and Virgin Media already have a programme via which they send warning letters to suspected copyright infringers. Sky, a newer entrant into the broadband business in Ireland, said it didn’t object to the idea of introducing a similar system, but that the record industry needed a court order instructing it to do so. The record labels got that court order this week. [READ MORE]

The big deals from the last seven days in the music business…
• Sentric and Black Rock launched a new JV [INFO]
• This Is Music allied with Bucks Music [INFO]
• Irving Azoff agreed deal to buy MSG out his JV [INFO]
• DEAG took control of The Classic Company [INFO]
• Moshi Moshi signed Du Blonde [INFO]
• Ninja Tune signed Little Dragon [INFO]



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