The Intern, The Artist & The Internet

There was recently a blog posting by an NPR intern stating that she does not buy music.

“What I want is one massive Spotify-like catalog of music that will sync to my phone and various home entertainment devices. With this new universal database, everyone would have convenient access to everything that has ever been recorded, and performance royalties would be distributed based on play counts (hopefully with more money going back to the artist than the present model). All I require is the ability to listen to what I want, when I want and how I want it. Is that too much to ask?”

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More Magic Money From iTunes Match (An Update)

In February, 2012 of this year we posted a blog article about the new money being generated for artists from Apple’s iTunes Match.

In its first three months of existence, it generated over $10,000 for TuneCore Artists, new money created from an innovative new service (you can learn more about iTunes Match here).

Now that a few more months have passed, and Apple has expanded iTunes Match into other countries outside of the U.S., we thought it would be cool to provide an update.

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Rock 'N' Roll Is King? (What Music Is Being Distributed And Bought Around The World)

We thought it would be pretty interesting to run some queries that identified the genres of releases being distributed by TuneCore Artists and then bought globally in the digital music services. We’ve put together a few graphs below to show you what we found…

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Can Artists Get Rich In A Streaming Music Industry?

Now that CD sales have gone the way of Zima, the entire old school industry sits and wrings it hands around how/if it will make money in the new digital industry.

In the meantime, with the removal of the old industry middlemen, the new industry—the artist as record label/songwriter/publisher and performer—is making more money now than at any point in history.

But is the more money being made enough to sustain the world of artists?

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Finally, Publishing Administration for the World’s Songwriters

This is insane.

Before TuneCore launched its songwriter publishing administration service, over 99% of the world’s songwriters had no way to get all the royalties they earned from the use of their songs.

It sounds bizarre, absurd and impossible. After all, what sort of screwed up industry creates a structure that generates musicians hundreds of millions of dollars in royalties, but denies them a way to collect them?

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11 Reasons Why Musicians Should Love Canada

There are a multitude of reasons to love Canada, but there are eleven in particular that musicians should take note of, and they all come from the Canadian performing rights organization, (PRO) SOCAN.

Although not perfect, SOCAN is a shining example of how a performing rights organization should work for songwriters. The rest of the world should sit up, take notice and follow its lead.

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TuneCore And Topspin Integrate, Offer Artists Entire Music Industry Under One Roof

Artists get: services for audience growth, fan communication, direct music & merch sales, global distribution and publishing administration

May 2, 2012 – TuneCore and Topspin, two leaders of the music industry, today announced a late-summer technical integration to provide a complete suite of services under one umbrella.

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Amazon, More Money, More Stores, #1 Albums, Over $100 Million Dollars & Sonic Youth…

So there I was on the subway reading the NY Times, and once again in the Monday Business Section in the “Most Popular” Column was the list of best selling artists/releases, and once again there was a TuneCore Artist nestled between the other major label artists.

This was not supposed to happen (so says the traditional music industry). And it caused me to pause, reflect, and look back on the last year. I realized I missed the forest for the trees, and it’s a hell of a forest.

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13 Different Ways To Make Money From Your Songs

In today’s world your songs can generate money and royalties via the traditional “Physical/Analog” music industry or the new “Digital” music industry. There are in fact 13 different and specifics ways that you as a songwriter can make this money off of your songs.

Note – each income stream and type of royalty is generated off the original recording of a song (i.e. the Beatles version of Paul McCartney’s song “Yesterday”) or off of a cover of the song (i.e. if multiple artists cover the song, the song becomes an “x” factor multiplier for revenue). In the case of “Yesterday,” there are over 25,000 covers.

We’ve broken these income types into two categories:

-Physical/Analog Songwriter Royalties and Revenue
-Digital Songwriter Royalties and Revenue

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What The RIAA Won't Tell You – TuneCore’s Response to the NY Times Op-Ed by RIAA CEO Cary H. Sherman

It’s difficult for me to write a response to the CEO of the RIAA Mr. Sherman’s NY Times Op-Ed piece “What Wikipedia Won’t Tell You” that is not emotional. What should be a black and white conversation about respecting copyright is mired in the fact that the RIAA’s credibility has eroded as quickly as its control of the music industry.

Or said another way, the RIAA has become part of the problem of protecting copyright due to its occasional less than honest approach to things. You just can’t take what the RIAA says at face value as their agenda is not clear—is it to protect copyright or is it to protect the interests of its label members at any cost?

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