State of the Arts

To prevent a future where cultural output is shaped by economic power alone, this report calls on digital services, rightsholders, regulators, and policymakers to take shared responsibility for ensuring that the streaming ecosystem supports innovation, inclusivity, and sustainable growth .

What isn’t discussed as much — but is happening in parallel with equal if not greater force, is the shift in corporate music-industry power dynamics away from the Western hemisphere, and towards Asia and the Middle East.

More specifically, music-industry capital flows are now inseparable from both Chinese and Saudi money . While these markets may... See more

There is also a slightly subtler impact, noted by labels that we interviewed, on new artists, whereby their growth trajectory has been impacted due to the chilling effect on their ability to monetise the earliest stage of their career, and their access to support and services from platforms. Applying arbitrary thresholds to artists who are just... See more

In a stunning rebuke of traditional GOP deregulatory instincts, the Senate voted 99–1 to kill the measure. For the first time in decades, conservative priorities placed local cultural guardianship over the absolute freedom to innovate. That vote showed just how unsteady the old coalitions have become, and how powerful the populist realignment... See more

There is currently a general lack of transparency around Discovery Mode . At the market level, it’s unclear who is engaging with the programme, whether the major rightsholders are using it or gain similar bene fi ts through other means, and how other interested parties are affected when it is utilised on a track. These concerns are compounded by... See more

Concerns about the commercial data that comes through all these distribution, royalty and other essential services are also growing. Not only does it allow you to snaffle up a rising star, it would be one of the most sophisticated and complete webs of price tracking your rivals imaginable in the music market. And no regulator wants to rely on... See more

Earlier this year, English National Opera were subject a small Twitter storm when somebody realized that the composer biographies on their website included a number of embarrassing errors: that Benjamin Britten—still alive—had written the music to Franco Zeffirelli’s film “Romeo and Juliet,” and that “the apple didn’t fall far from the tree” with... See more