Music Ally Focus

Private equity funds and firms like Hipgnosis are scooping up music catalogues. And 60% of Hipgnosis’s expensively-purchased catalogue of music is over ten years old, with only 2.5% under 3 years old. Will major publishers and labels be drawn into a bidding war over copyrights, and will new artists suffer as a result?  Music-tech strategist Dan Fowler recently wrote a fascinating article called “The Changing Landscape of Music Publishing” which aimed to figure out what the impact of the big catalogue purchases of Hipgnosis and private equity funds like  Blackstone, KKR, and Apollo would be on major publishers. In this podcast he explains how: Hipgnosis may not be overpaying for rights, and are in fact establishing a new market value,  what it means when staggeringly wealthy firms that are focused on pure financial profit get involved in the music rights industry, what the possibly-worrying impact will be on new music and musicians, how it's only going to get harder for new musicians to make a living from streaming and royalties. Dan Fowler on Twitter: twitter.com/dan_djfnd 👋 Music Ally’s free weekly newsletter, The Knowledge: musically.lnk.to/knowledgepo 🧐 You can find our Q3 report here: musically.com/reports Ⓜ️ Subscribe to Music Ally's industry-standard analysis, reporting and news: musically.com/subscribe Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/musicallybiz Twitter: https://twitter.com/musically Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/musicallyfb

Smartlinking services like Linkfire are now ubiquitous to music fans and industry alike: they have become essential glue that holds all the disparate areas of the business together, sending fans from one place to another, and generating income along the way. We chat to Linkfire CEO Lars Ettrup about this quietly powerful sector, and we ask him if smartlinks are empowering independence for DIY artists, and if they even need a traditional website in an age where the most important URL for them to share is a smartlink. PLUS: Lars announces that Linkfire has just acquired a major competitor. 👋 Music Ally’s free weekly newsletter, The Knowledge: musically.lnk.to/knowledgepo 🧐 You can find our Q3 report here: musically.com/reports Ⓜ️ Subscribe to Music Ally's industry-standard analysis, reporting and news: musically.com/subscribe Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/musicallybiz Twitter: https://twitter.com/musically Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/musicallyfb

Music Ally recently published its Q3 2021 report, which focused on music/tech startups and the future fo the music industry. In the report, we spoke to Chris Howard, serial entrepreuer, and CEO of The Rattle, which operates in London, Los Angeles and New York City. The Rattle stands “as a counter-culture to the traditional music and startup industries,” and what Howard said in our report - in particular his critique of the music industry’s (in)ability to engage with technology – ruffled a few feathers. So obviously, we asked him back to expand on his thoughts. In this podcast, he explains why he said that music tech is "really really really boring" and how artists are going to start viewing themselves as the CEOs of their own small enterprises – which creates many more options and entirely new business models using technology adjacent to the music industry.  Here's our interview with Rishi Patel and John Acquaviva of Plus Eight Equity Partners. 👋 Music Ally’s free weekly newsletter, The Knowledge: musically.lnk.to/knowledgepo 🧐 You can find our Q3 report here: musically.com/reports Ⓜ️ Subscribe to Music Ally's industry-standard analysis, reporting and news: musically.com/subscribe Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/musicallybiz Twitter: https://twitter.com/musically Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/musicallyfb

Special guest Amit Gurbaxani recently wrote an article for us on the Indian All About Music music industry conference, and here, he gives us his expert insight into the Indian music markets. He chatted to Joe Sparrow about three of the key topics, and answered some questions submitted via social media. He spoke about how there is appetite – and money – for international touring acts in India, but not a live venue infrastructure yet; how Indian music is not just about Bollywood and that regional pop is enormous – and can be truly measured for the first time; and much more. It's a fascinating insight into India's multi-faceted music markets. Here are the articles written by Amit that were mentioned in the podcast: How a Canadian Punjabi hip-hop song became Spotify India’s biggest hit: musically.com/2021/08/02/big-bang-reads-how-a-canadian-punjabi-hip-hop-song-became-spotify-indias-biggest-hit Spotlight on India: the rapid growth of regional Indian language music: musically.com/2021/08/02/spotlight-on-india-the-rapid-growth-of-regional-indian-language-music Independent music, not Bollywood, may be India’s global crossover: musically.com/2021/03/08/independent-music-not-bollywood-may-be-indias-global-crossover 👋 Music Ally’s free weekly newsletter, The Knowledge: musically.lnk.to/knowledgepo 🧐 You can find our Q3 report here: musically.com/reports Ⓜ️ Subscribe to Music Ally's industry-standard analysis, reporting and news: musically.com/subscribe Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/musicallybiz Twitter: https://twitter.com/musically Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/musicallyfb

Music Ally has just published its Q3 2021 report, which focused on music/tech startups. For the report, we spoke to Rishi Patel and John Acquaviva of music/tech investors Plus Eight Equity about how they see the future of the industry, and they kindly agreed to dig deeper into their thoughts in this podcast. Rishi and John explain to Music Ally's Joe Sparrow how the creator economy is a huge focus for them; how the incumbent music business companies “have a gun to their heads” and will be forced to adapt quickly to rapidly-evolving technology; how realistic uses of NFTs in music will likely be for digitised collector editions of music and merch; and how the “wildcard” is the metaverse – and how that may in turn drive up the value of NFTs. 👋 Music Ally’s free weekly newsletter, The Knowledge: musically.lnk.to/knowledgepo 🧐 You can find our Q3 report here: musically.com/reports Ⓜ️ Subscribe to Music Ally's industry-standard analysis, reporting and news: musically.com/subscribe Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/musicallybiz Twitter: https://twitter.com/musically Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/musicallyfb

In this episode, CTO of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (which represents the interests of the global recording industry)  Richard Gooch joins us to talk about metadata. He says that the idea that “music metadata is broken” is a misconception. He explains the new systems that he says form the infrastructure for a fairer music industry – for everyone from superstars to new artists in existing territories in sub-Saharan Africa, where the IFPI has a particular current focus. He also talks about improvements that could be made, how performing rights reporting can change, and the changes he hopes music metadata will bring. Suffolk Braves Wheelchair Basketball Club's world record: https://youtu.be/OvuBbMBuXh4?t=195 👋 Music Ally’s free weekly newsletter, The Knowledge: musically.lnk.to/knowledgepo Ⓜ️ Subscribe to Music Ally's industry-standard analysis, reporting and news: musically.com/subscribe Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/musicallybiz Twitter: https://twitter.com/musically Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/musicallyfb

TikTok has officially reached the milestone of one billion monthly active users (MAUs). The short-form videos app revealed the news in a short announcement blog post, although it did not give any other stats. In July 2020, TikTok had 689.2 million monthly active users and it only took 14 months to hit the one billion MAUs mark –  which suggests that TikTok has been adding around 22.2 million users a month during that period. Joe and Stu discuss what this means for artists and the music industry – and whether it means music is becoming simply a component of the burgeoning "creator economy". 👋 Music Ally’s free weekly newsletter, The Knowledge: musically.lnk.to/knowledgepo Ⓜ️ Subscribe to Music Ally's industry-standard analysis, reporting and news: musically.com/subscribe Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/musicallybiz Twitter: https://twitter.com/musically Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/musicallyfb

It's all happening in the UK right now: there are some big and meaningful investigations into the music industry going on, which will almost certainly have big repercussions around the world when they conclude. This week, the UK's Intellectual Property Office (IPO) has published a hefty report on music creators' earnings in the digital era. It has a huge amount of data, and aims to inform discussion in the ever-heated debate about artists and streaming royalties. It's a very long report – 224 pages to be exact – so if you feel overwhelmed just thinking about reading it, listen to Stuart Dredge (who has heroically read it all) explain the important bits to Joe Sparrow in this podcast. 👋 Music Ally’s free weekly newsletter, The Knowledge: musically.lnk.to/knowledgepo Ⓜ️ Subscribe to Music Ally's industry-standard analysis, reporting and news: musically.com/subscribe Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/musicallybiz Twitter: https://twitter.com/musically Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/musicallyfb

Some musicians are finding NFTs irresistible, seeing them as a new way to connect with fans, make money – and sell slices of their music rights. It seems very easy to sell a small percentage of, for instance, your master recording copyright – with potentially huge rewards. But, warns this week's special guest, there are many ways you could get caught in a tricky situation that you may not have considered – including anti-money laundering laws, securities laws, international tax issues, and the highly volatile nature of cryptocurrency itself. Adrian Perry is partner and co-chair of Covington & Burling LLP's Music Industry practice, and is eager to help musicians and rights owners understand these hidden legal risks.  He's no NFT-sceptic, and is enthusiastic about the space – so he helped Music Ally's editor Joe Sparrow  understand the associated risks, and how to navigate them.  Here's more info on Adrian: https://www.cov.com/en/professionals/p/adrian-perry 👋 Music Ally’s free weekly newsletter, The Knowledge: musically.lnk.to/knowledgepo Ⓜ️ Subscribe to Music Ally's industry-standard analysis, reporting and news: musically.com/subscribe Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/musicallybiz Twitter: https://twitter.com/musically Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/musicallyfb

Music Ally's Stuart Dredge and Joe Sparrow talk over the shock news that the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has announced that Sony Music’s $430m acquisition of distributor AWAL from Kobalt “raises competition concerns”, and gave the major label a five-day deadline to respond. If those responses do not satisfy the regulator, it will launch a deeper ‘phase two’ investigation of the deal. Stu and Joe discuss why this has happened, what the responses of various connected parties were – and if this, combined with the UK's recent parliamentary inquiry into music streaming, means that major labels are facing an unprecedented period of probing and pressure. (For more context, we analysed this story in depth here.) 👋 Music Ally’s free weekly newsletter, The Knowledge: musically.lnk.to/knowledgepo Ⓜ️ Subscribe to Music Ally's industry-standard analysis, reporting and news: musically.com/subscribe Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/musicallybiz Twitter: https://twitter.com/musically Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/musicallyfb