Fixing the music industry

[GregB]

Amy Thomson is Chief Catalog Officer of Hipgnosis Song Management.

 

Here's an interesting article by her (containing a link to the original podcast): https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/podcast/amy-thomson-how-fix-the-music-industry-in-3-easy-steps

 

The take-home elements are more smartly stated than my own recent rambling:

 

• “Why does it take 18 months for revenue from a stream to come back to me, because the PROs are now really controlling all streaming revenue on behalf of the writer?” 
• “You’ve got these incredibly powerful PROs, who are generally a monopoly within their own markets, non-transparently telling me how many deductions there are, not telling me the exchange rate of the currency, and for that they need need 18 months to send me back my money, which was only 15% of the total royalties generated.
• “Then we possibly lose 35% of the publishing revenue for bad matching… and the PROs take a piece of that. What are you talking about? It’s absolute nonsense, and it has to change.”

 

 

 

[john]

Good stuff Greg (thanks for re-discovering @Stewart Schmidt!)

[Glammerocity]

My guess is those steps won't be so easy. As Frederick Douglass said in 1857 and is often paraphrased, "Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will."

 

I read a book once, which I've been unable to find in a search, which went into the contractual wrangles of some artists, specifically Tony Macaulay, Elton John and George Michael, which were precedent legal cases, though with Taylor Swift rerecording all her stuff to regain ownership and control, you have to wonder how much has changed since Tony Macaulay's day.

 

I'm guessing that despite it becoming easier for "do it yourself" publishing with a lawyer on a fee rather than a company and manager on a %, the new technologies have allowed a sort of reset, which it's going to take some legal precedents to sort out. More power to Taylor Swift for taking it on.

Edited November 7, 2022 by Glammerocity