Hipgnosis Songs has acquired 100% of Grammy Award-winning songwriter, producer and music executive L.A. Reid's publishing interests and writers share of income in his 162-song catalog. Reid's catalog includes Boyz II Men’s Grammy-winning 'End of the Road', Bobby Brown’s 'Every Little Step', 'Don’t Be Cruel', 'Roni' and 'Rock Wit’Cha', as well as Whitney Houston’s smash 'I’m Your Baby Tonight' and 'Queen of the Night', from 'The Bodyguard'. LA Reid He has also scored hits with the Whispers, Sheena Easton, Karyn White, TLC and Toni Braxton. Hipgnosis Songs' revenues soared in its first full year of business, climbing to $81 million in the 12 month period ended in March 2020 from around $8.9 million in the preceding period, Music Business Worldwide reports. The firm, which has been on an unprecedented acquisition binge of hit songwriter and producer catalogs - between March 2019 and March 2020, the company spent nearly $700 million to acquire 42 catalogs.

"The worry is that the next generation of performers will come only from certain sections of society. It felt as if the chancellor was rebranding the arts sector as some sort of luxurious, decadent hobby, and now it was time for everyone to get their hands dirty – perhaps literally, as we are very short of people to pick fruit" - Tim Burgess of the Charlatans wrote for the Guardian commenting on UK chancellor Rishi Sunak's words that artists should look for other jobs. Burgess reminds the politician that in 2018 alone, the music industry contributed more than £5bn to the UK economy, and it employed 296,000 people.

BMG will eliminate the application of the controlled composition clause which reduces royalty payments for artists that write their own songs, for all releases going forward, regardless of what each artist’s contract says, Music Business Worldwide reports. The control composition has been used to reduce songwriting royalty payments, allowing labels to pay such artists/songwriters only 75% of the statutory mechanical rate, currently 9.1 cents per song; and to limit royalty payments to 10 songs, even if an album has 14 songs. German music company made the move as part of its ongoing review of historic artist and songwriter contracts for anomalies or inequities.

All seven members of BTS have become multi-millionaires after their label Big Hit Entertainment started an IPO. The K-Pop label issued its shares at 135,000 won, or $115 apiece, raising 962.55 million won, or $822 million, and giving Big Hit a market valuation of 4.8 trillion won, or $4.1 billion. Big Hit boss Bang Si-hyuk, who owns 43% of the management label, has become a billionaire. He gave the seven members of BTS, all in their early- to mid-20s, more than 68,000 shares each — that values their stakes at about $8 million apiece. The public offering values Big Hit at $4 billion. BTS fans in South Korea are hoping to buy at least one share in the management label.

Revenues for recorded music in the U.S. increased 5.6% to $5.7 billion in the first half of 2020, TechCrunch reports. Streaming continued to drive the growth as the number of paid subscriptions increased by 24% to more than 72 million on average, growing subscription streaming revenues for first-half 2020 by 14%, over first-half 2019. Streaming music revenues grew 12% to $4.8 billion in the first half of 2020. Physical sales, including vinyl albums and compact discs fell 23%.

MusicAlly invited several experts to discuss the business and cultural differences between China and the rest of the world, in order to give insight to foreign artists trying to make it China, or to prepare artists for changes that come afterward in the rest of the world. Plenty of advice: artist branding must hit different touch-points; building a long-term, diversified approach across multiple businesses is essential; music fans quickly – and in the tens of millions – adopt new technologies, new methods of supporting artists or ways of consuming music; the audience seeks a different experience from artists.

Fender is experiencing a record sales year, with FMIC chief executive Andy Mooney stating that 2020 “will be the biggest year of sales volume in Fender history, record days of double-digit growth, e-commerce sales and beginner gear sales. more guitars in 2020 than any other year", the New York Times reports. Fender’s guitar-instruction app, Fender Play saw its user base increase to 930,000 from 150,000 between late March and late June. Gibson, Taylor, Martin and others also report pandemic sales booms, showing the powers "of six-string therapy”.

Music rights management company BMI generated a record $1.311 billion in revenue, a $28 million increase over the previous fiscal year (ended June 30). BMI distributed and administered also a record $1.233 billion to its affiliated songwriters, composers and publishers, 3% or $37 million more than last year, Variety reports. BMI estimates it absorbed a $60 million negative impact to its revenues due to the COVID-9 effect.

Music streaming generated $10.3 billion in revenue in the US in 2019, US households had 87.2 million subscription accounts, which, through family plans and similar packages, covered 99 million people, according to the new report by Digital Media Association (represents Amazon, Apple, Google, Pandora, Spotify, YouTube). American music fans racked up an unprecedented one trillion streams in 2019. The report predicts that U.S. music revenue will finally topple its heights-of-the-CD-empire record of $14.6 billion by 2025. Yahoo reports.

Independent record label and distribution company AWAL says that “hundreds” of its artists now earn more than $100k a year from streaming, and that the number of artists who reached the 6-figure mark has grown by more than 40% in the last year, Music Ally reports. The company also said that “dozens” of its artists earn more than $1m from streaming every year. In march 2018 AWAL’s parent company Kobalt said that hundreds of artists were then earning more than $50k a year. AWAL has 40,000 artist and writer clients.

The Route explains some of the phrases frequently used in music industry:

Routing: The way multiple shows are looped together by an agent or promoter to make geographical sense

Versus Deal: An agent and a promoter make a deal where the band gets a basic fee (called a guarantee) and then gets a percentage (normally 80-85%) of the profit made from ticket sales

PDs: Amount of money an artist gets per day (usually 10 or 20 pounds) to cover daily expenses; food, drink, toothpaste, cigarettes

Rider: An assortment of snacks, water, soft drinks and alcoholic beverages that are requested by a touring band at the venue

Swedish music company Soundtrack Your Brand teamed up with Spotify to create a platform that allows small business owners like bars, restaurants, and retail stores to easily stream music for 30 to 40 dollars a month, Rolling Stone reports. SYB inked unique licensing deals with Sony and Warner, alongside indie music association Merlin, and on Tuesday the company announced a new deal with Universal. The biggest study on background music to date found that 88 percent of businesses play music four or five days a week without a license, and 86 six percent are prepared to pay for an improved service.

TikTok is partnering with UnitedMasters, a music distribution company, to allow artists on the video-sharing platform to distribute their songs directly from the app to streaming services like Apple Music, Spotify, and YouTube, as well as brands like ESPN and the N.B.A. Instead of selling their rights to a label, artists who sign with UnitedMasters keep 90 percent of their royalties, as well as ownership of the master recordings, TechCrunch reports. The deal is aimed at “tomorrow’s stars who will be famous, fiercely independent and wealthy,” said UM's founder Steve Stoute.

TikTok has 85 million American users and it is a hub for creativity of all kinds, especially for musicians, The Forty-Five reports on impact of politics on music. From the hopefuls to the viral hit makers to the bona fide superstars, TikTok has become the best tool for music promotion. If the American ban on TikTok activates the American users would be kicked off the app and US companies would no longer be able to advertise on there. It is now owned by a Chinese company, if their American operations are bought by an American company before September 15, American TikTok users will remain active.

"Gone are the days when a musician could afford to take all the time they need to carve and craft the next ‘Loveless’ or ‘OK Computer’" - NME's Mark Beaumont writes, looking back in anger to Spotify’s CEO Daniel Ek words that “you can’t record music once every three to four years and think that’s going to be enough". But, there is a solution - streaming platforms like Spotify should "work with the labels to reconfigure their increasing profits to ensure that all artists get the fair share they deserve from their streams and can continue making and releasing music as and when they want".

Snapchat has licensed rights from major labels and publishers, which lets customers add music to their posts within Snapchat, creating a way for young people to share songs with friends and a new promotional tool for the music industry, Bloomberg reports. The company has secured the rights to music from several major music companies, including Warner Music Group, Universal Music Publishing Group and Merlin.

In the last quarter, Spotify hit a high of 299 million monthly active users, up 67 million from last year, 138 million of whom are paying subscribers via Spotify’s premium tier, CNBC reports. Users’ overall podcast consumption has more than doubled, and one-fifth of monthly active users are listening to podcasts. But the company proceeded to report a 21% year-over-year loss in advertising revenue, as well as a 9% year-over-year drop in its premium monthly average revenue per user (ARPU) — and overall in Q2 2020, the company posted a loss of €356 million. Spotify has been consistently hitting new growth milestones while suffering large losses for years. Apart from announcing the business facts, Spotify has expanded their latest feature The Group Session, to allow multiple people to listen to, and control, the same playlist in real time, while being physically apart. It allows up to five people.

African-Australian rapper Sampa the Great released her new video 'Time’s Up', a short song that deals with the way the music industry seeks to exploit Black art without supporting Black artists - “I seen the industry scheme / and it’s a killer”, Sampa says. Directed by Sampa’s longtime collaborator Sanjay De Silva, it culminates with a sequence that features "an impeccably well-timed usage" of the ARIA Award that Sampa won last year.

Spotify will launch in Russia next Wednesday (July 15), which will by Spot's first major global expansion in 16 months, following its launch in India in February 2019, Music Business Worldwide reports. Russia is home to a population of approximately 144m people, including an estimated 95m+ smartphone owners. Russia was the fastest-growing major market globally for the record industry in 2019, with a 50.3% revenue increase year-on-year, generating above $170m last year, making it the world’s 17th biggest music market.

The average gender pay gap as of April 5, 2019 at Sony Music UK was 26.0%, at Warner Music UK it was 31.5%, at Spotify UK it was 9.9%, and at Live Nation UK it was 44.5%, Music Business Worldwide reports. That's bad news, but still, it's less bad than in previous years. In 2017, the average gender pay gap across all three companies was 33.8% – with 29.8% at Universal, 22.7% at Sony and 49% at Warner.

Warner Music, the world's third-biggest record company, is to list on the US Nasdaq today, with an evaluation of $13.3bn. It is the first big-name flotations since the coronavirus pandemic hit the world’s financial markets and the largest initial public offering (IPO) of the year. The coronavirus pandemic has failed to dent the streaming revolution - Warner Music’s streaming revenues have risen 12% in April alone, the New York Times reported. Warner delayed the pricing of its initial public offering on Tuesday to avoid the shares being sold on a day the music industry set aside to support protests against police brutality in the U.S., Financial Times reports. The pricing is scheduled for Wednesday morning. Warner has finally announced the pricing of its initial public offering at $25 per share, Music Week reports.

MIDiA sees five emerging revenue sectors that could collectively be the music industry’s growth driver in the near future:

Contextual experiences -  Instead of bring your own music, the trend will be the context will bring it

The vast majority of the millions of independent artists will spend much more on creator tools than they will ever earn from their music

Virtual events - the sector is in desperate need of commercial structure and product tiering

Monetising fandom - virtual merch, artist badges, premium chat, artist avatars

Vast amount of music-centred social activity on Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat and TikTok has not yet been properly monetised, which makes for a gaping hole of opportunity

On Saturday, June 6th, singer-songwriter Laura Marling will play two live shows at London’s Union Chapel to a limited audience online, who have each paid $12 (for US audience) or £12 (for UK and EU audience). Tickets sold at $12/£12 apiece are enough for an “economically viable” show, and they will generate tens of thousands of dollars for the artist and her team. There's also creative possibilities for filmmakers when they don’t have a crowd to navigate while capturing a live concert, while a beautifully shot and performed concert could potentially become monetized long into the future. Rolling Stone envisages that paid-for livestreamed concerts like Marling’s will prove popular even after the traditional concert industry is back up and running - creating an enduring and meaningful new revenue stream for performers.

Okay Player sees 10 major changes that are about to happen to the music business:

Artificial Intelligence-driven music-making will surge

Artists will gravitate towards more artist-friendly platforms that provide a stronger link to the fan as well

Closeness between fan and artist may be abandoned for good

Internet will be the medium No. 1 for artists

The music industry needs to figure out new, innovative ways for people to feel and touch music again

New and innovative ways to bring concert experiences to the masses

The sound of music will change, reflecting the realities of quarantine and social distancing

Finding ways to keep music top of mind in forthcoming times of overwhelming choice

The music industry will be in a fight for disposable income for the foreseeable future

New ways of setting up a show - drive-ins, fan-pods, or something similar

Joe Rogan is taking his podcast exclusively to Spotify in a licensing deal worth more than $100 million, in one of the largest such deals in the rapidly growing podcast business. Spotify's aim, presumably, is to become “the largest audio platform in the world”, but what does this deal mean for music in general?. Spotify users will probably spend less time listening to music, but Spotify will probably gain subscribers thanks to podcasts, who will also listen to music. Music Business Worldwide goes into detail what will this deal mean for both record labels and artists, as well as music publishers and songwriters. BIG thinks this means "death to independent podcasting".

Musicians and songwriters in the UK received a record amount of money last year - £810m, a rise of 8.7% compared to the previous year, BBC reports. PRS for Music, the body that makes sure 145,000 songwriters, composers and publishers in the UK are paid when their music is played or performed around the world, is warning, however, that the Covid-19 would result in an "inevitable decline" in 2020 and 2021.

People will leave a comment on SoundCloud, maybe send a message, and do a repost, but that’s a very narrow spectrum of interaction among communities of creatives. Where do people share their work-in-progress music? Where do artists share their excitement about releases of other artists in their community? Where do people ask for feedback and create back-and-forths around creative expression? Instagram - Music / Tech / Future says in an analysis of a shift in user's behavior. A way for SoundCloud to get back into center - AI.

“Morning routines have changed significantly. Every day now looks like the weekend” - Spotify announced in their quarterly report. The change of trends in Spotify usage is mirroring, of course, the change of daily habits of workers who don't commute and listen to music on their way to work anymore, TechCrunch reports. Spotify says that it now has 286 million monthly active users worldwide (an increase of 31 percent) and 130 million subscribers (also up by 31 percent), with revenues in Q1 standing at €1.848 billion (up by 22 percent). Music Business Worldwide has put these numbers into perspective. Spotify’s ARPU – the average revenue paid each month by its Premium subscribers around the world – fell by 7% at constant currency, year-on-year, to €4.42m in Q1 2020. It’s the first time in history that Spotify’s official ARPU has fallen to less than half the €9.99-per-month subs price it launched with, in Europe, in 2008.

Music industry blog Music Business Worldwide talked to Mark Mercuriadis, CEO and founder of Hipgnosis, about its novel business model. The company has spent billion dollars, across approximately 60 deals, to buy 12,000 songs, including those which have powered an array of hits such as Rihanna’s 'Umbrella', Ed Sheeran’s 'Shape Of You', Al Green’s 'Let’s Stay Together', Eurythmics’ 'Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This)' and Beyoncé’s 'Single Ladies'... How did he get that kind of money? - “The important thing to remember in that context is, in order to spend $1bn, you have to have $1bn to spend. And you have to have a thesis that is appealing to investors to want to back you with that sort of money". Over the next two years, Hipgnosis will be at $2.5bn invested, with a catalog of 50,000 songs. Then what? - "in six or seven years they’ll probably be worth two to three times what they’re worth today”.

GQ has a big story about Jason Isbell - alt-country singer-songwriter talks getting and staying sober, his succession of good albums (three at least), going to the studio, being his own publisher. On rehab: "It's always about the process. You're playing the game; you're not playing an opponent. You're doing the work in order to do the work”. Going to the studio: “The last time was really hard because I was very, very focused on what I was doing and also I was feeling pressure and not admitting to myself that I was feeling that pressure because I thought that admitting to myself that I was feeling the pressure would take away part of my advantage against it. And that took a while to figure out”. It's great to own your record company: “When I sell 59,000 copies of that record, I've recouped, and that means that I start getting paid. Last album, I did it in 10 days"; he sees both the label's share and the artist's share of the royalties: “And those are not the same size. Not by a long shot. It's way more for the label. Because that's who owns the masters. The artists, if all you are is an artist, you don't own shit. You're an employee". His new album 'Reunions' is out in May.