✖ A necessary legal fight: collective rights management and allocation in the 21st Century
And: OnlyFans creative fund; the future will be livestreamed; ecommerce tactics for musicians; Covid-safe backstages; Warner invests in Overwolf; the mask that allows you to sing
Copyright has always lagged behind technology. Now that streaming is the dominant force in recorded music and UGC is becoming an ever greater source of income it’s time that the business of rights collection and allocation catches up with the tech. Read more on how we need transparency, efficiency, and independent operators in this space moving forward.
✍️ Today’s newsletter is written by Maarten Walraven.
TECH
📷 ecommerce will boom in the near future and companies like Snap are stepping into that market with a new acquisition. Since ecommerce will grow on social platforms, music will have to take note and potentially even learn from the tactics employed by ecommerce brands.
🕹️ Overwolf is an important part of the section of the gaming industry that’s based on user-generated content. Warner Music Group is part of their latest funding round. This follows from their investment in Roblox and other gaming-related companies. There are hints to a future further entanglement here, even more so when you consider Liberty Technology Venture Capital is also part of the round.
❣️ If you still think OnlyFans is just for porn stars and amateurs, you’ll do well to check into the creator fund they’ve just launched which focuses specifically on music artists. They appear to have a couple of locally specific initiatives.
🧬 Next up on the Clubhouse cloning list: Discord. Looks like they’ll call it a Stage Channel.
🥢 NFTs, NFTs, NFTs. What’s new? A3 Artists Agency launched an NFT Task Force. Crypto.com hired a music industry veteran to head up a new NFT marketplace. Or simply walk around this spatial audio-video gallery to check out some of the drops.
CORONA
🎥 Timbaland and Swizz Beatz firmly believe that the future will be livestreamed.
🏟️ There’s been a lot of experimentation around making sure that venues, festivals, etc. can create Covid-safe environments for audiences. In Australia, a new initiative aims to do the same for those working backstage: artists, staff, vendors, etc.
☑️ There’s an ambitious roadmap for reopening in the UK. It’ll be good to keep an eye on the next set of tests in Liverpool, which aim to help a return to live with no social distancing measures. Key element is an app called You Check.
🥜 While the festival Bonnaroo is still scheduled for September, albeit with no line-up announced yet, the organisers also have plans for a concert series starting in May. This will come with restrictions, such as limited capacity, tickets sold in groups of four, attendees occupying 8’ x 8’ pods arranged six feet apart, masks required for fans outside of pods and for all staff.
🤿 In the last newsletter you learned about a mask you can plant. Today, I present the mask that allows you to sing.
Music
I’ve been working on a playlist with a broad range of indie classical music. This includes the music of indie-rockers-turned-composers like Bryce Dessner, the crossover work by artists like saxophonist Jess Gillam playing Thom Yorke, and the compositions by the likes of Julia Wolfe and Nico Muhly, who embody the same ethos that once defined indie rock.