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Music Businesses The Almighty Buck

The Music Industry Had a Fantastic 2017, Driven by Streaming Revenues (fastcompany.com) 80

Posted by msmash from the closer-look dept.
An anonymous reader shares a report: Global recorded music revenues soared by $1.4 billion in 2017 largely due to the increased adoption of music streaming services among consumers, reports the Music Industry Blog. Global recorded music revenues reached $17.4 billion in 2017, putting it just a hair below 2008's $17.7 billion in revenues. That means that most of the decline in recorded music revenues over the past 10 years has now been reversed. Streaming was the largest driver of that growth, accounting for 43% of all revenues. In 2017 streaming revenues surged by 39%, topping out at $7.4 billion.
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The Music Industry Had a Fantastic 2017, Driven by Streaming Revenues More

The Music Industry Had a Fantastic 2017, Driven by Streaming Revenues

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  • Weird (Score:4, Insightful)

    by rdwulfe ( 890032 ) on Monday April 23, 2018 @11:10AM (#56488497)

    They said streaming would be their downfall. Funny how that isn't true, huh?

  • And how much of that went to the artists? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 23, 2018 @11:19AM (#56488555)

    Ask the artists how much of that streaming revenue went to them. There is more than one kind of pirate.

    • Indeed. Pirates with lots of money are called corporations, not pirates.

    • probably a lot more than their share on CD sales.

    • Ask the artists how much of that streaming revenue went to them. There is more than one kind of pirate.

      My sympathy for the artists is becoming more limited as time goes on.

      It's not exactly hard to sell digital music. If you think you can do it without a record company, go for it.

      If you can't, then I guess the record companies are adding some value.

    • From the same source: https://musicindustryblog.word... [wordpress.com]

      If you exclude the "superstars" you know... the people who are already stinking rich, and instead focus on the other 99.9999% of actual musicians then it's (43 + 9.3 + 3.6) / 3.6 = 6.4%

      Pretty low, but I honestly was expecting sub percentage :P basically unless you are a superstar you have no leverage and almost all of the profit goes to the mob unless you deal directly with the consumer or specialise in live music.

    • But why, though?
      The record labels used to provide a complex and valuable service to artists (studios, physical distribution, promotion)
      All of these seem way easier to do for small companies, or even the artists themselves, thanks to the advancements in technology and communications.
      So why are the record labels still skimming so mucho money of the top? Why hasn't a fairer smaller label disrupted the market yet? Why don't more artists self-publish or self-distribute?
    • That's why it should be called "Recording Industry" not "Music Industry". In Canada, RIAA Local 2, a/k/a CRIA, changed it's name to "Music Canada" but only pricks call it that. It'll be CRIA and CRIAA if you want to be funny.

  • Bad news for us (Score:3)

    by DontBeAMoran ( 4843879 ) on Monday April 23, 2018 @11:19AM (#56488557)

    In a few years, will they stop selling music and go streaming-only?

    • How is that a bad thing? If all music is available on demand, it pushes ISPs to roll out high-speed wireless in all areas due to customer demand. Pay your reasonable fee and have access to any music you want at any time. Granted, with the death of Net Neutrality it opens up the possibility of ISPs favoring their own streaming services...but we can at least be hopeful that the market will prevent this in the potential extreme.

      • That's a bad thing because it requires you to pay a fee that will never end for both your music and your connection.

        If I pay 99 cents to get a tune and put it on my iPod shuffle, it's mine forever.

        • Unless you purchase it through a service that could go out of business and you lose your device and/or backups of that media. Spotify is a great example of the best of both worlds. You set up your library, download the songs, and take them wherever you want. For roughly the cost of 2/3 of an album per month, you have access to the entire Spotify library without concern of theft or device/media failure. As long as you have Internet access you can recover your library. Seems like a fair deal and a fair compro
      • So somehow you're okay with living in a world where you never own anything, you only ever 'rent' things? Someone else owns it all, and they're the only ones who have any actual wealth? You PAY, PAY, PAY forever and ever? Think about what you're saying.
        • You've never owned the music. At best, you owned physical media (that were subject to theft, degradation, or destruction) with a license to play the content for yourself only. Additionally, that content was limited to the format in which it was recorded. Through streaming services you have access to the entire library for which the service is licensed, in the most current format, without risk of loss due to theft or physical damage. You can play that content on any supported media device; for example, Pando
          • Yeah be sure to enjoy your 'digital only' copies of things that can be yanked back from you with no notice, I'll continue to enjoy my nice old fashioned physical media that you'd have to break into my house to take from me, along with my paper books and other 'physical' things I own. I think 'streaming' is just another scam and you're all falling for it.

      • .but we can at least be hopeful that the market will prevent this in the potential extreme.

        The market should self-enforce Net Neutrality. The problem is that market forces don't apply in an oligopoly/monopoly situation.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Holi ( 250190 )
        Not everyone has internet access all the time. If I sail past the islands I'd be outta luck then.

    • They never sold the music, you only got the rights to listen to the media you got. Even cassette tapes were subject to US copyright law. Legally, you could not make a copy of it, you could not digitize it. Given that there was no DRM, and the vast majority of copies (pre-digital) were for personal use, the music labels rarely went out on a witch-hunt against people making copies of the vinyl onto cassette so they could listen to it in their car.

      We may have had the illusion of owning the music, but for be

      • I "own" the music in the way that I can do whatever I want as long as it's for myself, i.e. I cannot upload it, use it commercially, etc.

        But I still own it, compared to someone who's paying a monthly fee and can see the music disappear from the library without warning.

  • Artist pay? (Score:4)

    by wangmaster ( 760932 ) on Monday April 23, 2018 @11:24AM (#56488581)

    I wonder what artist pay looks like in this same timeframe. Both mode and median values.

    • I don't know any musicians who are in it for the money. When i was playing professionally, I'd rake in 8 to 14 dollars a night. Enough to buy new strings and eat an early morning breakfast at Dennys. But you do get laid a lot so, there's that.

  • You know they will. They'll still scream and cry and throw temper tantrums about 'piracy' and how much it's cutting into their revenues and how it's 'hurting the artists the most' (which is a lie). Because the recording industry is a prime example of capitalism gone bad.

    • Revenues have gone up and so they will claim that it is therefore their right for revenues to always go up (which is what thay've done in the past) and that anything (technological, cultural, etc) that comes along and disrupts their ever-increasing profiteering should be legislated against. Just watch.

      The music industry is a hive of scum and villainy and a great example of why capitalism should be kept at arms-length from regulation and politicians.

  • Make it available at a reasonable price, and people will pay. I seem to remember a few of us mentioning this occasionally.
  • Imagine how much more they could have made if it hadn't been for all that piracy and illegal filesharing^W^W^W^W money wasted on legal action against their best potential customers.

  • Despite supposed piracy! Interesting!

  • They'll complain that piracy steals so much from their revenue that they are in danger and more aggressive copyright laws are needed.
    Are politicians dumb or complicit ?

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