Finance: Music's Friend or Foe?
YouTube Kicks In Cash, Vinyl's Serious Shortage
TAKEAWAYS
The most salient statements from this week’s news.
1. The Productisation of Music Rights
When pension plans start investing in music entities, artistic risks could be at risk.
Takeaway: The value of a song to the music industry resides in its commercial and cultural performance. A hit is a hit. But that same song’s value as part of a catalogue as a financial asset is also defined by a wider range of factors, including the relative value of music as an asset class compared to other financial asset classes.
2. Universal Music Group and [PIAS] Strike Strategic Global Alliance
Artist lost in the major label machine get support while an indie institution gets the funding it need to compete.
Takeaway: It’s finance versus music. There was a polarization before, of independents and majors, and we’ve decided that we [PIAS] felt closer to [a major music] company than a venture capitalist.
3. YouTube Isn’t the Music Villain Anymore
Four billion dollars will pacify a lot of overarching complaints.
Takeaway: The music industry has a fairly successful track record of picking a public enemy No. 1 — Pandora for awhile, Spotify, YouTube, and more recently apps like TikTok and Twitch — and publicly browbeating it or playing one rich company against another to get more money or something else they wanted.
4. The Pandemic Caused An Explosion In Vinyl Demand – Here’s Why The Music Industry Can’t Meet It
Consumers are coveting the glory days of records. But you can never really get back there.
Takeaway: If manufacturers were able to meet today’s demand, vinyl album sales would be set to surpass their all-time peak of 334 million LPs in 1978, according to the RIAA.
