The Beatles and Beyond

 In May this year, I was interviewed by students from Northeastern University for their project The Beatles and Beyond. The results are now available on Vimeo.

Music Journalism Insider

 I was recently interviewed by Todd L. Burns for his online newsletter Music Journalism Insider, which covers 'news, job listenings, and interviews from the world of music journalism'. Todd asks me about my career and my book Owning the Masters. The interview is available here. 

Rights Reversion and Contract Adjustment

Over the past year, I have been working with Hyojung Sun of the University of York on a report that was commissioned by the UK's Intellectual Property Office. This research was prompted by recommendations from the DCMS Select Committee's Inquiry into the Economics of Music Streaming that there should be changes to UK copyright law to help benefit music creator revenues. These recommendations concern a reversion right (similar to the termination right in the US) and a right of contract adjustment (similar to adjustment right that is outlined in the European Unions's Digital Single Market Directive). The report was published two weeks ago and is available here in html form and here in pdf form. 

Following the publication of this report, Chris Cooke of Complete Music Update commented that government, rights holders and music creators should now begin a 'formal remuneration conversation'. 

Owning the Masters

My new book, Owning the Masters: A History of Sound Recording Copyright was published by Bloomsbury yesterday. It tells the story of how this form of copyright was developed and claimed by the recording industry, and how recording artists are now claiming this copyright for themselves. The book also looks at how this copyright has been applied to different forms of distributing music - physical products, radio, downloading, streaming - and how it shapes and is being shaped by our digital age. As the blurb says, 'This is an essential subject for an understanding of the economic, artistic and political value of recorded sound'.

Like recorded music, the book comes in a variety of formats: hardback, paperback, eBook. 

Music Creators’ Earnings in the Digital Era

 

For the past year and a half I have been investigating the subject of creators’ earnings, working alongside my excellent colleagues Hyojung Sun, David Hesmondhalgh and Kenny Barr.

 

We have produced two reports, one investigating streaming revenues, while the other looks at the turn to ‘buy-out’ payments in the audio visual market. The reports were commissioned by the IPO, who have published them today (available from this link).

 

The IPO are trailing the first report as ‘ground-breaking research into how creators earn money through streaming’, and a separate report issued by the government yesterday has described it as ‘the most comprehensive study of music creators’ earnings ever completed in the UK’. Music Ally have meanwhile described it as ‘an important study that deserves to be read widely’. Please read!

Mercury Queen

The Conversation has published an article that I’ve written about last night’s Mercury Prize. Their edited version can be accessed this link. The original can be found below.

 

 

Sometimes the result feels obvious. Arlo Parks, the bookies’ favourite, was always likely to win the Mercury Prize for the best British and Irish album of the year. This is not because Collapsed in Sunbeams is the most worthy album musically. Each of the shortlisted records could have made a claim in this respect. Instead, it is because the prize tends to be awarded to artists who capture the zeitgeist. Parks typifies 2021 in a way that escapes the other nominees. Outlining their decision at the award ceremony last night, the judges commended ‘just how much she represents a generation of people and talks about themes that are so timely to now’. Collapsed in Sunbeams provides succour for our pandemic lives, ‘we need Arlo Parks’ music: it’s healing, it’s comforting, it’s uplifting.’

            It would be going too far to suggest that artists create albums with the Mercury Prize in mind, but the award does form part of promotional strategies. Above all else, it is regarded as providing a sales boost. Unlike the Booker Prize for fiction, with which it is often compared, this boost forms part of the media coverage (and part of the prize’s Wikipedia page). The shortlisting of Collapsed in Sunbeams resulted in a sales increase of 16.7%. Another of the nominees, Laura Mvula’s Pink Noise, witnessed a 50% rise.

Yet there is a tension in this prize. It attempts to capture the pulse of the nation, but in many ways the long-playing record is a thing of the past. Some commenters believe that albums reached their peak as an artform half a century ago. In the current century, this format can be viewed as being an irrelevance. Rather than listening to albums in toto, consumers are now more likely to stream individual tracks. In 2019, the British research company, MIDiA found that just 10% of consumers listened to physical albums, and only 10% listened to albums in full on streaming services. The preference, instead, is the algorithms of playlists.  

Artists have responded in kind. Some, such as Calvin Harris, no longer make albums. There is divergence between singles and albums acts. Statistically, singles can be viewed as being more representative of the public. This week’s number one, ‘Bad Habits’ by Ed Sheeran, has been streamed over 400 million times on Spotify alone. In contrast, prior to last night’s award, Collapsed in Sunbeams had just 43,311 UK sales.

            The record business still clings to the idea of the album, nonetheless. The Mercury Prize is organized by the UK’s trade body, the BPI. Rather than accept the dominance of the access mode of listening, the recording industry converts streaming activity into ‘album equivalent sales’. Figures are reported on the basis that 1000 streams across all tracks of an album is equal to the sale of one physical album. Music business analyst Tim Ingham has described this formula as ‘self-evident madness’. It is based on the notion that the two tallies will generate similar royalties. This is economically false: the calculation has been in place for ten years, a period in which the average per-stream rate has halved, while the average price of a physical album has increased. In addition, it provides a false equivalence across different methods of consumption. In reaching the 1000 streams total, there is no need for listeners to experience the music as an album. The figures are instead compiled from their atomized activities.

            The Mercury Prize has been in existence since 1992. Ostensibly, its thirty winners have fulfilled the same function: they have captured the spirit of the times to create the best album of the year. Since the turn to online services, however, the award has undertaken an additional role. It is upholding the idea of the album in the face of technological change. The televised event is even structured like a record. There are twelve shortlisted nominees, matching the average number of tracks on album. They perform their hit tracks in turn, mirroring the pattern of a compilation LP.

            This might feel anachronistic, but it is a worthwhile task. Many artists do still think in terms of collections songs. The album continues to provide a great resource with which to outline a musical vision. The prize also does an effective of job of introducing audiences to these albums and increasing their ‘sales’. Put another way, would any of us prefer a Mercury Prize for the playlist of the year?

The Present and Future of Music Law

On 25 August I took part in the book launch for The Present and Future of Music Law, a collection edited by Tony Rigg, a music industry practitioner, business consultant and educator affiliated with the University of Central Lancashire, and Ann Harrison, a partner at SSB Solicitors Limited and the author of the classic guidebook, Music: The Business.

 

It was a game of two halves. In the first section, Rigg and Harrison discussed the current state of music law with industry experts, including Peter Hook of Joy Division and New Order, music industry executive Silvia Montello, and Sumit Bothra, the director of the management company ATC.

 

The second half featured the contributing authors introducing their chapters in discussion with the editors. I led the way with my chapter, ‘Copyright, Royalties and Industrial Decline’, which opens the book.

 

The launch is available via YouTube (my bit starts around the 50:30 mark):

 

 

The Present and Future of Music Law is a great collection but as an academic publication it has a typically high price. However, for a limited period there is a discount if ordered direct from the publisher, Bloomsbury.