News from the recorded music sector!

Independent labels have become the biggest player in the US recorded music market – and their share is growing fast. According to new statistics from Nielsen/Billboard, the independents took 35.4% of the US market by ownership (volume) in the first half of 2015. That was comfortably ahead of Universal (27.6%), Sony (20.9%) and Warner (15.2%), and represented an increase on the 35.1% share the indies claimed across the whole of 2014.

In Japan the RIAJ has yet to yet to announce digital music sales figures but physical sales for the first half of the year are almost exactly the same as 2014: The CD market took 92.123bn Yen (approx $750m) in H1 2015, compared to 92.391bn Yen (approx $750m) posted in the same period a year before. Meanwhile, Japan’s thriving music video market continues to show its strength, actually growing ever-so-slightly from 35.37bn Yen (approx $290m) in H1 2014 to 36.07bn Yen (approx $290m) in the first six months of this year.

The biggest music subscription service on the planet, Amazon Prime has not been licensed by the biggest music company on the planet, Universal - but that hasn't stopped Amazon Prime Music, which officially launched in the UK this week, having a bigger paying customer base than Spotify, Rdio, Deezer and Apple Music combined. But more users ? 

vKontake, the somewhat controversial but leading Russian social networking giant, has signed a 'goodwill agreement' with Sony Music which will seemingly halt the major's legal action against the social network. Sony drop out of an lawsuit filed at the Saint Petersburg and Leningrad Region Arbitration Court, in which Sony Music, Universal Music and Warner Music demanded countermeasures and compensation for the large scale copyright infringement vKontake allegedly facilitates. The other labels remain as litigants. No further details on the content of the deal have been published, but according to reports, VK will upgrade its current music service.


http://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/independent-label-us-market-share-trounces-universal-sony-warner/

http://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/cd-sales-remain-rock-solid-in-japan-but-j-pop-has-a-stranglehold/

Good news for the German, Italian and Swedish recorded music markets

The income of Germany's recorded music market grew 4.4% year-on-year in the first half of 2015. That was mainly driven by a whopping 87% rise in streaming subscription revenues, which easily offset a decline in CD album sales. Download sales also increased.  Germany’s record industry, the world’s third-biggest music territory behind the US and Japan, accrued €686m in the first half of 2015.

The income of Sweden's recorded music market rose 4.2% in the first six months of 2015 - with streaming growing once again to claim 83.9% of revenues. According to new data from IFPI Sweden analysed by MBW, the market's recorded music turnover in Jan-June this year stood at 507.5m SEK (€54.6m), up from 486.9m SEK in H1 2014 (€52.4m).

The income of the Italian recorded music market jumped up 22% in the first half of 2015, according to new figures published by Deloitte. The total revenues of the region stood at €65.55m, compared to €53.61m in H1 2014. A strong release schedule by local pop artists helped lift the total physical market by 22% to €37.3 million. Digital revenues increased 37% to €21.18m, with download sales up by 6% to €10.82m. Streaming, increased its year-on-year H1 income by 37%, up to €17.36m.

http://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/german-record-industry-4-4-streaming-income-jumps-87/

Goldschmidt calls for UK tax breaks for music

Cooking Vinyl boss Martin Goldschmidt has called on the UK government to provide tax breaks for music, in a keynote speech at The Great Escape. Noting that there are tax scheme that help investors, he said these still did not directly benefit the recorded music sector itself saying "why don't we have something that directly benefits the record business, rather than doing so via those private investors and their funds" adding "The obvious move is to have a tax break on recording itself. There's support for R&D in many other industries - the pharmaceuticals industry, for example - and far closer to home we see tax breaks for film, games, theatre, and there's one coming in for orchestras in April 2016. So you've got big tax breaks in the creative industries. But the one for orchestras specifically excluded rock and pop, because they don't want to give money to Coldplay. But if you have 25% tax break on recordings, and 50% of the money had to be spent in the UK, that would have so many benefits. It would definitely benefit record companies, but that's a naïve way to look at it. Most of the records we release are funded by the artist and licensed to us, and they would benefit too" and "it would help the whole recording industry sector, create jobs and then extend benefits to the wider creative industry".

American terrestrial radio performance royalties for sound recordings move a step closer

The latest efforts by the American record industry to force terrestrial radio stations to pay royalties to labels solidified around a new piece of legislation in the Congress:  The Fair Play, Fair Pay Act, is backed by four members of the House Of Representatives: Democrats Jerrold Nadler, John Conyers Jr and Ted Deutch and Republican Marsha Blackburn. While AM/FM radio stations do not pay royalties to labels, online and satellite radio stations do, because the Digital Millennium Copyright Act applied a 'digital performing right' to the sound recording copyright. The New Act would  provide for a general public performance right for all sound recordings that are still within copyright in the USA, including per-1972 recordings which a number of digital operators (including SiriusXM) have argued are outside of federal law. More here.

American record industry revenues down so far this year

The American record industry's half-year report shows that the revenues for the first six months of 2014 were 4.9% down on the same period in 2013. Recording Industry Association Of America's figures show that a 19.1% decline in physical  CD sales and a 10% drop in download to own revenues were not matched by a 25% rise in subscription streaming income and 50% in ad funded streaming income, highlighting the importance of platforms such as Pandora, Spotify and YouTube in the future.

US music industry will grow, fuelled by live

The American music industry is set to grow by about 1% a year through to 2017 according to new predictions from PricewaterhouseCoopers. The predicted growth will be driven by the live sector, with the music rights side of the industry still likely to see some declines overall.

According to the report, PwC analysts say that the US concert business will continue to expand, with a 'compound annual growth rate' of 3%, meaning the sector would be worth in the region of $10 billion a year by 2017. Revenues from digital music will continue to grow despite various signs that the download market may have peaked in the US, and music rights owners could see digital revenues increase 5.1% per year across the board, which would equate to $4.6 billion a year by 2017. There will be an ongoing decline in CD sales, the format now being in "terminal decline", according to the report and physical product would be worth just $1.4 billion by 2017.

Stats from French record industry trade group SNEP showed that recorded music sales were down 6.7% year-on-year for the first quarter of 2013. CD sales were down 7.3% in the quarter, but digital revenues had also dropped, for the first time since such a revenue began, down 5.2%. 

There was some optimistic stats in a new report this week commissioned by Norwegian streaming music firm WiMP, which assessed consumer "willingness to pay" for streaming services such as those operated by WiMP, Deezer and Spotify. The survey, which focused on five Northern European markets, found that on average a third of those surveyed expressed a willingness to pay to access a decent streaming music platform (ranging from 25% in Germany to 48% in Norway), while only a quarter said they'd never consider paying for such a service.

And in the UK Prime Minister David Cameron has hailed the global success of British music as new BPI figures revealed big-selling albums by Adele, Emeli Sandé, Mumford & Sons, One Direction and Ed Sheeran boosted UK artists’ share of album sales globally to 13.3% in 2012, the highest on record.  One Direction smashed records in the USA in 2012, becoming the first UK group to have their debut album enter the US chart at No.1.  Both 1D albums –Up All Night and Take Me Home - made the global year-end top five. Two debut albums, Emeli Sandé’s Our Version Of Events and Ed Sheeran’s +, also featured in the global top 20.  Strong worldwide sales were also achieved by albums from established British acts including Coldplay, Rod Stewart, Led Zeppelin and Muse. In the USA – the world’s most competitive music market – British music  accounted for 13.7% of artist albums sold in 2012, and UK artists increased their share of the French albums market to 18.3% - the highest since 2003. British bands continued to do well at home, taking a 51.9% albums share, with seven of the top ten selling artist albums of 2012 and the entire top three.