Transparency and equitable remuneration for rights holders in the digital music industry
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Transcript of Transparency and equitable remuneration for rights holders in the digital music industry
As music consumption continues to shift towards access instead of
ownership, how can the music industry adapt to increase transparency and
advocate for sustainable growth as well as equitable remuneration for all music
rights holders?
Student ID: U1338360 Module Code: HR6004
Transparency and equitable remuneration for rights holders in the digital music industry
BUSINESS SCHOOL – Assessment 3 Feedback Sheet
SECTION A:(to be completed by the student)
Please complete Section A Student Number: U1338360 U1338360Programme:(e.g. Business Management) BA (Hons) Music Industry Management
Module Title: (e.g. Studying for Business)The Business Professional – THEM Projects Seminar
GroupDave Wibberley
Module Code: HR6004 Word Count
4,453
I confirm that no part of this assignment, except where clearly quoted and referenced, has been copied from material belonging to any other person e.g. from a book, handout, another student. I am aware that it is a breach of UEL regulations to copy the work of another without clear acknowledgement and that attempting to do so renders me liable to disciplinary proceedings.
SECTION B: (to be completed by the tutor marking assignment)
Assessment Criteria: Weighting Criteria based Feedback Mark Achieved
Structure & Development of your Thesis - Please ensure that you identify the problem or issue that you are investigating, and discuss underpinning literature
40
Clear analysis of data leading to conclusions and recommendations 40
Evidence of Appropriate Research
10
Referencing Technique5
Presentation and Grammar
5
TOTAL MARKS 100%
Good practice demonstrated:
Aspect to consider for improvement:
Tutor's Name:
Date Received:PROVISIONAL MARK
Student ID: U1338360 2
Table of Contents
Literature Review 4
Abstract 4
Streaming Services Driving Growth in the Digital Music Industry 6
Performance Royalties 6
Synchronisation Licensing 7
Appendix 1. 8
Appendix 2. 8
Case Study – Kobalt: A Digital Music Success Story 9
Safe Harbour Laws 9
The YouTube Value Gap 10
Appendix 3. 10
Absence of Standard Royalty Reporting Format 11
Equity Shares in Streaming Services 11
Sample Usage 12
Global Rights Database 12
Black Boxes 13
Missing Neighbouring Rights Provision for the United States 13
Making Available Right 14
Recommendations & Conclusion 15
References 18
Literature Review Student ID: U1338360 3
The following report draws upon several key industry publications including Fair Music: Transparency and
Payment Flows in the Music Industry by Berklee ICE (2015) which was particularly helpful in order to gain a
broad understanding of the most significant issues that face creators, songwriters, publishers, performers
and record labels within the context of the digital music industry.
Dissecting the Digital Dollar, written by Chris Cooke (of the music business website, Complete Music
Update (CMU)) and published by the Music Managers’ Forum (2015) provided insightful, up to date and
detailed information, especially with regards to the issue of ‘neighbouring rights’ collections.
The insight paper regarding copyright legislation within the United Kingdom and specifically, the Making
Available Right (MA) entitled: It’s Just a Click Away: How Copyright Law is Failing Musicians which was
authored by Jon Webster and Fiona McGugan was especially valuable in understanding how different
methods of consumption determine the compensation due to those who performed on the sound
recording as well as owners of the copyright in the recording.
Additionally, several articles that written by Tim Ingham and to the Music Business Worldwide website and
included very recent figures that were obtained from IFPI were crucial in compiling this report.
Abstract
The consummate power of the Internet along with the development of digital technologies have
revolutionised the way in which most people consume music. Within today’s music economy, music
creators and rights holders rely upon many millions of micro-transactions occurring every day and each of
these micro-transactions are eventually divided into fractions to be distributed amongst millions of rights
holders around the world. The entire process has fallen under heavy criticism for being largely inefficient
and lacking necessary sophistication. It is estimated that between 20-50% of royalties are not paid to their
rightful owners. (Berklee ICE, 2015:26) It seems obvious that we have more than adequate technology at
our disposal which could be utilised to track, calculate and report on these millions of micro-transactions in
order to fairly and transparently distribute royalties. New licensing structures have emerged within the
last decade to deal with the rise of streaming services, however, much confusion remains within the music
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industry about how streaming services are licensing copyrights, the amounts the services are paying labels
and in what ways these payments are shared amongst the various rights holders. (Chris Cooke, 2016)
In developing new licensing models to enable streaming services to exploit music copyrights, collective
management organisations, record labels and publishers have perfunctorily applied copyright legislation
that was not originally designed to be used in the digital distribution of recordings. (Webster and
McGugan, 2015) Within the context of the access model, it seems royalties will be derived from the
commercial release of songs and recordings through ‘sustained listening’ over prolonged periods of time,
instead of the traditional ‘short-term spike’ of revenue. (Cooke, 2015)
“Downloads and sales of any kind should be thought of as an advance payment on a future of
unlimited listens. Under the sales model, the same amount of revenue is generated whether a user
listens to the song once or 1,000 times. Conversely, streaming is based on a pay-as-you-listen
model, in which payments to rights holders directly correspond to the number of times the song is
listened to over time, such that a very different pool of revenue is generated if a song is listened to
only once compared to 1,000 times. Under this model, a particularly active user of a song could very
well end up generating more revenue for the rights holders than if he or she had simply purchased
the song for a one-time fee, but royalties earned from each performance of the song are far less
than the price of the purchased track” (Berklee ICE, 2015:8).
In 2014, Taylor Swift’s withdrew her entire back catalogue of albums from Spotify and openly criticised the
platform’s compensation model. (Ellis-Petersen, 2014) When Adele’s highly anticipated album was
scheduled for a release in time for Christmas 2015, it was announced that it would not be released on
Spotify or its competitor streaming service, Apple Music. (Smith, 2015) Although streaming services pay
exactly the same percentage of their revenue to individuals and corporations as iTunes (70%), per-stream
royalties are low when compared to royalties received from the sale of music in a physical format or a
digital download. (Berklee ICE, 2015) For those that are unable to match the selling power of megastars
like Taylor Swift or Adele, resisting streaming platforms is no longer a realistic option as audiences are
proving to be well on their way to transitioning from the ownership model to one of access. It seems there
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are plenty of measures that could be taken in order to create an improved tracking and payment system
for creators and rights holders. However, attempts at solving some of the most significant issues have thus
far failed to produce viable solutions. (Cooke, 2014 and Berklee ICE, 2015)
Including live performances, the music industry reported to be worth USD $45 billion to the global
economy. (Berklee ICE, 2015: 2) This essay aims to account for the sectors of the industry that are currently
experiencing growth with a discussion of music’s influence on and significance to our culture and society.
There will also be an exploration of the most significant issues that face music rights holders in the digital
age and an analysis of different recommendations that have been put forward by a number of informed
organisations, in order to more effectively manage, modernise and regulate the new music economy and
progress towards a more sustainable, transparent and efficient global music industry.
Streaming Services Driving Growth in the Digital Music Industry
Evidence suggests that digital music streaming is providing music industry with its largest growth area and
as Appendix 1. illustrates, streaming comprised 19% of global recorded music income in 2015. Revenues
from streaming increased by almost a billion dollars since 2014 and were valued at USD $2.9 billion in
2015. (Ingham, 2016) Creating further competition for market-leader, Spotify; Apple Music and Tidal
entered the digital music streaming market in 2015. (Herstand, 2015)
“Music industry experts predict that streaming subscriptions will grow by 238% from 2013 levels to
reach $8bn in 2019, while download revenues will decline by 39%. They also forecast that streaming
and subscriptions will represent 70% of all digital revenues by 2019” (Gauberti, 2015).
Performance Royalties
In 2015, the United Kingdom’s Phonographic Performance Limited (PPL) collected over GBP £197 million
for performer and recording copyright owner members, which represented a 5% increase on the revenues
it collected in the previous year. Improved licensing processes, raised awareness as well as better market
penetration have all been identified as the factors behind the raised figures, with the 10% year-on-year
increase to GBP £84.4 million in revenue generated through public performance of recorded music within
the United Kingdom. Although traditional television viewing audiences are levelling out, the continued
Student ID: U1338360 6
growth of online, catch-up television services and other new media are reportedly contributing to an
increase in licenses collected and distributed back to music rights holders. (ppluk.com, 2016) With respect
to performers, their right to equitable remuneration can not be assigned to another party by contract,
neither can it be waived in any way. Therefore, regardless of an artist’s financial position with a record
label, PPL and ER allow for performers to continue to receive income from the public performance of their
recordings, even if the advances or expenses they have incurred with their labels have not been recouped.
Likewise, labels receive performance royalties as the owners of recordings. The function that PPL performs
has proven to be extremely valuable to both record companies and performers. (Webster and McGugan,
2015)
Synchronisation licensing
Income derived from music synchronisation licensing to use in television programmes, advertising, films
and video games increased by 8.4% and brought close to USD $33 million to the music industry in 2014.
(IFPI, 2015) Streaming, synchronisation and increased performance royalties are all driving forces in the
music industry’s continued growth and as Appendix 2. shows, the value of the digital music industry is
increasing year-on-year, with the most recent figures available to 2014 showing a 0.5% increase in global
digital music revenues since 2013. (IFPI, 2016 cited by Ingham, 2016)
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Appendix 1. Music streaming represented 19% of global recorded music revenue in 2015:
39%
14%
20%
19%
8%
GLOBAL RECORDED MUSIC INCOME, 2015 (%)
Physical
Performance royalties
Downloads
Streaming
Other
(IFPI, 2016 cited by Ingham, 2016)
Appendix 2.
2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 20140
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
4.44.7
5.3
66.4
6.9
GLOBAL DIGITAL REVENUES 2009-2014 (USD $ BILLION)
(IFPI, 2016 cited by Ingham, 2016)
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Case Study - Kobalt: A Digital Music Success Story
Kobalt serves as proof that a combination of excellent ethics and an innovative approach to business can
produce a leading independent music services company which is able to flourish in today’s digital
environment. Kobalt has harnessed the power of technology to provide complete transparency to its roster
of artists and publishers through the implementation of a unique, technologically advanced software portal
which Kobalt licenses to more than 500 independent publishers. (Kobaltmusic.com, 2016) It is likely that
Kobalt’s 40% year-on-year growth is the result of the company’s commitment to providing its clients, with
total transparency through advanced technological innovations, earning the leading independent music
business the trust of many of the biggest songwriters, publishers, artists and labels across the globe.
(Ingham, 2016 and Berklee ICE, 2015)
Kobalt’s three different service offerings include music publishing, label services and neighbouring rights
collection. (Kobaltmusic.com, 2016) Every radio broadcast, Spotify listen; all YouTube views are accounted
for and reported in real time through Kobalt’s online portal (Berklee ICE, 2015: 10) Kobalt’s tracking
software enables faster payment cycles as well as larger pay-outs than many of its competitors.
(Kobaltmusic.com, 2016) In just 15 years, through offering absolute transparency and real-time reporting
to its clients, Kobalt has become the second largest publisher by market share, representing 8,000
songwriters and artists who at any given time control approximately 40% of the Billboard Top 100 chart.
Kobalt does not own equity stakes in streaming services and has allegedly refused any such offers it has
received. Instead, Kobalt focuses on achieving higher streaming rates for clients. (Berklee ICE, 2015)
Safe Harbour Laws
Platforms such as YouTube and SoundCloud are protected by United States and European law, exempting
these services from any form of liability relating to third party copyright infringement. (Cooke, 2015)
Internet Service Providers (ISPs) are afforded a defence through the Electronic Commerce Regulations of
2002. (Bainbridge and Bainbridge, 2008:111) When copyright is infringed upon on platforms such as
SoundCloud and YouTube, the onus falls upon the rights holders to use a ‘take-down-system’ in order to
remove content and this is likely taxing upon resources for most businesses. Some rights holders believe
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that Safe Harbour laws should be revised and clarified so that services such as YouTube and SoundCloud
are held to more account for having knowledge of and continuing to allow their users to upload third party
copyright material. (Cooke, 2015)
The YouTube Value Gap
A significant ‘value gap’ exists between consumption of music through ad-funded platforms, compared
with premium subscription based services and the amount of money that is paid out to music rights
holders with respect to this method of consumption. (Ingham, 2016)
“These ad-funded services contributed $634m to the total pot last year – less than a third of the
revenues handed over by premium services. The $634m figure means that those 900m people, on
average, generated 70 US cents each for labels and artists across the whole of 2015.
Per person, that’s around $42 difference compared to premium services” (Ingham, 2015).
Appendix 3. illustrates the vast differences between the number of users of ad-funded services and
premium subscription services, compared with the amount of revenues these two groups of users
generate for the industry. (IFPI, 2016 cited by Ingham, 2016)
Appendix 3. the ad-funded vs premium subscription streaming ‘value gap’
Subscription-Revenues ($m)
Subscription-Users (m)
Ad-funded-Revenues ($m)
Ad-funded-Users (m)
0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500
2000
68
634
900
STREAMING RECORDED INCOME VS CONSUMPTION IN 2015
(IFPI, 2016 cited by Ingham, 2016)
Student ID: U1338360 10
Absence of Standard Royalty Reporting Format
Royalty statements sent out to artists can be difficult to understand and the lack of transparency may work
in the favour of the business providing the report. (Berklee ICE, 2015) Within an increasingly fragmented
market, there is still no standardised format for royalty reporting. (Berklee ICE, 2015) Consequently,
dozens of different services report to rights holders in multiple formats which leads to an overwhelming
lack of efficiency throughout the industry. (Berklee ICE, 2015) Music businesses are processing
‘unprecedented amounts of data’ thanks to streaming platforms’ driving a general increased consumption
of music. (Cooke, 2015:12)
“Major labels and publishers benefit from the currently complex and inaccurate system, and streaming
services have no incentive to invest in transparent reporting and accounting systems, which are expensive”
(Berklee ICE, 2015: 10).
It seems we have access to adequate technology in order to track every stream in real-time, but difficulties
have arisen in finding a solution that will enable sharing of this information further ‘down the line’ (Berklee
ICE, 2015) It can most certainly be argued that the music industry has always historically relied upon the
creative input and cultural richness small, independent music businesses contribute, it seems the
digitisation of the music industry, along with the absence of a lack of standard reporting has made
processing data expensive and difficult for major corporations and collection societies and is therefore
likely to be a tremendous, taxing endeavour for smaller, independent music businesses. (Heath, 2015)
Major Labels’ Equity Shares in Streaming Service Providers
The ‘big three’ major labels own significant stakes in established digital streaming services and other music
start-ups including Spotify and SoundCloud. (O’Malley Greenburg, 2016) The manner in which the labels
first acquired their equity in many of these services has been reported to be through directly licensing their
respective catalogues of recordings at below market value. If and when the labels decide to make their
equity liquid, it is thought to be highly unlikely that labels will share any of these profits with the artists
whose work was commoditised as part of the initial deal. (Berklee ICE, 2015)
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“Forbes estimates that the three labels have amassed positions in digital music startups valued at
almost $3 billion – or around 20% of the $15 billion or so the labels are collectively worth. The
percentage will shoot even higher if and when Spotify goes public” (O’Malley Greenburg, 2016).
Although it has widely been reported that Spotify has not made any profits as of yet, the company does
not need to be profitable in order to raise capital to become a publically traded and owned entity and if
this is Spotify’s next move, the “big three” stand to gain in excess of USD $1billion. (O’Malley Greenburg,
2016) Universal Music’s parent company, Vivendi received USD $404 million in 2014 when Beats was
acquired by Apple for USD $3 billion. It is very unlikely that any of these profits will make their way back to
the artists whose work made the initial deal possible. (Berklee ICE, 2015) Deals between Spotify and ‘the
majors’ have resulted in secrecy over per-stream payment rates that were agreed between labels and
Spotify because of non-disclosure agreements that were signed by the companies which apparently
prevents the corporations from revealing streaming rates to artists in royalty statements, adding to the
lack of transparency surrounding these kinds of deals. (Berklee ICE, 2015)
Sample Usage
In many instances, songwriters and publishers do not receive a detailed breakdown of performances of
their copyrights because many performance royalty organisations as well as radio stations base reporting
on sample usage, which seems to be an incredibly old-fashioned method that was developed when
technology was much less advanced. (Berklee ICE, 2015)
Global Rights Database
As the number of licensees has significantly enlarged in recent years, the need for a central database that
is capable of holding information about owners of lyrical and musical copyrights has become increasingly
urgent. (Cooke, 2014) Despite attempts to provide unique identifiers such as the International Standard
Works Code (ISWC), the way in which these codes are being issued and used has presented problems with
one example including ISWC’s not being issued until all songwriters have registered, which results in the
code not being generated sometimes for months or years after the song’s release, making it incredibly
difficult for songwriters to claim royalties that are owed in a timely manner, which can often mean they
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lose out on the revenue altogether. (Willens, 2015) The Global Repertoire Database (GRD) was the most
recent attempt by music publishers to develop a more efficient way of distributing royalties to rights
holders. (Cooke, 2014) The general consensus within the music industry is that an initiative such as the
GRD would solve many of the mistakes, inefficiencies and problems that plague the backend administrative
functions of the industry, however, due to questions over who exactly should be responsible for paying for
ongoing maintenance to what would be an enormous data management system, a number of large
organisations including BMI and ASCAP withdrew from the project and by the time the project was
completely abandoned in 2014, over USD $13 million had been spent on the initiative. (Willens, 2015)
Thanks to years of technological revolution, the world of music ought to be turning smoothly, with
artists, fans and labels everywhere finally able to create, share and sell music with minimum
friction, middlemen or waste. Instead, it remains congested and territorial, with interests around
the globe squabbling over data, royalties and transparency” (Willens, 2015).
Black Boxes
Large amounts of royalty revenue lands in appropriately named ‘black boxes’ and this revenue is rarely
allocated to rightful owners. The issue of the ‘black box’ is largely attributable to problems in identifying
the rights holders and may be due to the industry’s lack of a decentralised system to store music rights
holders’ information. (Berklee ICE, 2015)
Missing Neighbouring Rights Provision for Labels/Performers within the United States
Unfortunately for recording artists and labels within the United States, there is no provision for the
establishment of rights for the public performance of sound recordings. Countries that are signatory to the
Rome Convention for the Protection of Performers, Producers of Phonograms and Broadcasting
Organisations of 1961 are required to enforce the payment of royalties to artists and sound recording
copyright owners if their sound recordings are publically performed. The Rome Convention established
what is commonly referred to as ‘neighbouring rights’. (Cooke, 2015) Within the United States, since the
passing of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (1998), the digital right in a sound recording is recognised
and recording artists and labels will receive performance royalties from public performances of their sound
Student ID: U1338360 13
recordings through digital mediums, such as an online radio station, Pandora; satellite broadcasters
Sirius/XFM and online streaming of terrestrial radio transmissions. (Gauberti, 2015) Despite the collection
of royalties being limited to digital services within the United States, the country is responsible for close to
30% of global neighbouring rights royalty collections. (Gauberti, 2015)
Performers and rights holders’ entitlements to royalties in countries where they aren’t nationals and do
not have direct agreements with collection societies are reliant upon the applications of provisions that are
found within the Rome Convention and the World IP Organization (WIPO) Performances and Phonograms
Treaty (WPPT), which decide whether the performers/labels qualify for ‘full national treatment’ or ‘limited
reciprocity’ and the level of understanding a rights holder has of their entitlements can deeply influence
the extent of the neighbouring rights royalties they are able to collect. (Gauberti, 2015) Some rights
holders have navigated a way around this by ‘relocating’ sound recordings that originated in the U.S. in
order to claim licensing revenues from performances of their recordings in territories that do recognise
neighbouring rights, but it is fair to assume that an overwhelming number of labels and performers are not
paid for exploitation of their neighbouring rights and this revenue is being withheld and is often distributed
to local artists. (Berklee ICE, 2015: 16)
Making Available Right (MA)
As reproduction and distribution rights and concepts surrounding Communication to the Public have all
become less relevant, the Making Available Right (MA) was developed for the digital age is in need of
revisiting due to the interpretation of a particular piece of its wording:
“Performers shall enjoy the exclusive right of authorising the making available to the public of their
performances fixed in phonograms, by wire or wireless means, in such a way that members of the
public may access them from a place and at a time individually chosen by them” (Article 10 of the
WIPO Performer and Phonogram Treaty cited by Webster and McGugan, 2015: 8).
The significance lies in the MA mentioning: ‘from a place and at a time individually chosen by them’
(Webster and McGugan, 2015: 8) which is in reference to consumption that is considered to be on-
demand; consequently, the manner in which a consumer chooses to access a recording and whether their
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engagement with the recording is classified as on-demand versus listening to a broadcast that is not
considered to be on-demand, have become crucial factors in determining whether or not featured artists
who performed on the recording are paid, as per their right to equitable remuneration. The method of
consumption also determines if the copyright owner of the recording (usually a record label) receives
either 50% for consumption that is not considered to be on-demand, with payments shared between
featured and non-featured artists and in the United Kingdom, administered and paid to artists by PPL.
When consumption is on demand, it will be subject to the MA right and the record label will pass on
payment to the featured artist as per the artist’s recording agreement, but there will not be any further
payment made by the label to non-featured artists, beyond their original session fee, if there was one. It
seems apparent that this piece of legislation could be updated so that digital consumption is less
complicated and remuneration is more reasonable with regards to non-featured artists. (Webster and
McGugan, 2015)
Recommendations & Conclusion
In addition to advocating for a revision to the phrase within the MA which aids in the prevention of non-
featured performers from receiving any royalty from use of their work that is considered to be on-demand,
further recommendations have been put forward with the view to improve transparency for rights holders
operating within the digital music space. Perhaps one of the most interesting suggestions is to conduct a
thorough investigation into the potential utilisation of blockchain technology (and perhaps
cryptocurrencies) to more effectively track and pay creators, performers and copyright owners for use of
their work, online. (Berklee, 2015)
In addition to this suggestion of employing advanced technologies already in use in other areas, Cooke,
(2014) points out the importance of the development of a GRD which could benefit many stakeholders
within the music industry, but perhaps songwriters and publishers would be particularly well served by a
GRD, as not only would the implementation of an effective GRD aid in the distribution of performance
royalties, it would undoubtedly assist prospective licensees to identify owners of copyrights to the music
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and/or lyrics in a piece of music, which could likely result in boosted synchronisation licensing revenue for
authors. (Cooke, 2014).
It also seems obvious that creators and rights owners could benefit enormously from the United States
adapting copyright legislation to recognise ‘neighbouring rights’ so that licenses could be collected and
distributed from not only digital plays, but also use of recordings by terrestrial radio stations. Public
performance income has proven to be an immeasurably valuable source of revenue for artists and record
labels within the United Kingdom and will undoubtedly benefit performers and labels within the United
States, but a full performance right must be instated for sound recordings in the United States and this will
involve lobbying to create new legislation. (Berklee ICE, 2015)
Aside from the enormous monetary contribution the music industry makes to the global economy, music is
also immeasurably influential upon our cultures and the societies in which we live. (Hesmondhalgh, 2013)
Humans likely experience senses, emotions and memories that are triggered by hearing a certain piece of
music. (Van Dijck, 2006 in Hesmondhalgh, 2013)
“Music, and its sibling cultural practice dance, more than any other kinds of communication, seem
linked to sociality and community” (Hesmondhalgh, 2013: 84).
Furthermore, it is apparent that music is able to provide a sense of community through the development
of subcultures that celebrate different styles of music, or music from a particular artist or band and
activities that these subcultures engage in have been associated with promoting feelings of strong human
connection and togetherness; whether it be through attending a concert or connecting with other fans on
social media or a forum, online. (Cavicchi, 1998 in Hesmondhalgh, 2013) As a form of communication with
an importance that permeates deeply within our cultures and our consciences, it should perhaps become a
priority for us to reinvent and innovate where necessary to develop an improved, more transparent, tightly
regulated and sustainable music industry. It seems that revisions to applicable copyright and safe harbour
laws should perhaps be the starting point, followed with the development of a global repertoire database,
which could be funded privately by the largest music companies that can reasonably expect to benefit
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from its development the most, for example, the venture could be funded by the ‘big three’ music
companies, collectively. (Berklee ICE, 2015)
It also seems logical to expect that the United States should consider recognising the complete copyright
within a sound recording to enable performers and labels to collect performance royalties in exchange for
the exploitation of their ‘neighbouring rights’ within the United States, and outside of it. (Berklee ICE,
2015) Finally, it is important to note that although the consumption of music is shifting further and further
towards access rather than ownership, with millions of micro-transactions to account for, report on and
distribute; independent businesses like Kobalt are proving that it is entirely possible to run a successful
business in today’s digital music economy. It seems the key to Kobalt’s success has been ‘carving out a
niche’ by diligently collecting every available revenue stream while reporting in real-time, thus providing
absolute transparency to clients. (Berklee ICE, 2015 and Webster and McGugan, 2015) Hopefully through
improvements to legislation, adoption of modern technology and better organisation in general,
transparency and sustainability for all rights holders within the digital music industry will be just around
the corner.
Word count: 4,453
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References
Bainbridge, D. and Bainbridge, D. (2008). Introduction to information technology law. Harlow, England: Pearson Longman.
Berklee ICE, (2015). Fair Music: Transparency and Payment Flows in the Music Industry. [online] Boston, Massachusetts: Rethink Music/Berklee ICE. Available at: https://www.berklee.edu/sites/default/files/Fair%20Music%20-%20Transparency%20and%20Payment%20Flows%20in%20the%20Music%20Industry.pdf [Accessed 1 Nov. 2015].
Cooke, C. (2014). PRS confirms Global Repertoire Database “cannot” move forward, pledges to find “alternative ways” | Complete Music Update. [online] Completemusicupdate.com. Available at: http://www.completemusicupdate.com/article/prs-confirms-global-repertoire-database-cannot-move-forward-pledges-to-find-alternative-ways/ [Accessed 1 Jan. 2016].
Cooke, C. (2015). Dissecting the Digital Dollar. London: Music Managers Forum.Ellis-Petersen, H. (2014). Taylor Swift takes a stand over Spotify music royalties. [online] the Guardian. Available at: http://www.theguardian.com/music/2014/nov/04/taylor-swift-spotify-streaming-album-sales-snub [Accessed 16 Apr. 2016].
Gauberti, A. (2015). Neighbouring Rights in the Digital Era. Intellectual Property Magazine, pp.17,18.
Heath, A. (2015). [Blog] Music Business Worldwide. Available at: http://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/vital-music-biz-interdependence-is-crumbling-in-the-age-of-monopsony/ [Accessed 1 Jan. 2016].
Herstand, A. (2015). Apple, Spotify, Tidal All Miss The Point. This Is The Future Of Recorded Music - Digital Music News. [online] Digital Music News. Available at: http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2015/04/14/apple-spotify-tidal-all-miss-the-point-this-is-the-future-of-recorded-music/ [Accessed 3 May 2016].
Hesmondhalgh, D. (2013). Why Music Matters. Wiley.
IFPI, (2015). IFPI Digital Music Report 2015: Charting the Path to Sustainable Growth. [online] London: IFPI. Available at: http://www.ifpi.org/digital-music-report.php [Accessed 1 Nov. 2015].
Ingham, T. (2016). Streaming is more than a wave - it's now the sea in which the music biz swims - Music Business Worldwide. [online] Music Business Worldwide. Available at: http://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/streaming-is-more-than-a-wave-its-now-the-sea-in-which-the-music-biz-swims/ [Accessed 17 Apr. 2016].
Ingham, T. (2016). The guy who makes sure you talk about Kobalt just got promoted - Music Business Worldwide. [online] Music Business Worldwide. Available at:
Student ID: U1338360 18
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Student ID: U1338360 19