Warner Music Decide Their Future In Free Streaming Services

With Warner Music Group’s CEO Edgar Bronfman’s comments this week about how free streaming music services are “clearly not positive for the industry”, and his stating that in the future Warner will not be embracing such deals, how does this affect WMG’s place in the future music market?

Traditional vs. Digital: Artist Management in 2010

As an observer, something like the yearly MIDEM conference in Cannes is a great way to catch an insight into the current views of those inside the music industry about what is happening right now, and how they see things changing in the future. It is often supported by fantastic panels with often conflicting views. [...]

Meet the Industry twins: 'Record' & 'Music'

Okay, so you can’t turn anywhere online at the moment when looking at the music industry without tripping over coverage and opinion on yesterday’s IFPI Digital Music Report 2010 (I notice the irony in mentioning this as I introduce you to an article of me giving coverage and opinion to the very same topic). While [...]

"Deluxe Packages & The Independent Artist": Multi-tier Releases for the Indie Musician

With the success of multi-level priced releases by artists such as Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails showing that true fans are willing to not only spend money on what is also being offered for free, but that in many cases they are willing to spend far greater amounts of money on extra materials than has [...]

What will 2010 hold for the music industry?

How better to start a new year of articles than with a look ahead to what may come in the next twelve months?
After reading Nick Crocker’s article on Mashable, I’ll admit I was initially critical of it. I felt that it was a very ’safe’ list of predictions:

“Labels will get smart”
“Physical sales will continue to [...]

Apple's Future In A Streaming World

The pace of change in the music industry is faster than it’s ever been – as with many technological advancements, by the time you are aware of, or used to, a new work practice or development, it is already on it’s way out, or is being surpassed by new emerging ones.
The music industry will have [...]

Stream Upselling, Not Selling Upstream…

With the potential shown by current internet darling, Spotify, there lacks a previous revenue potential for labels, and arguably for streaming services. While the key word of advertising hopes to compensate somewhat for lost music sales, whether they be digital or physical, new style streaming services do not allow for middle ground between new solely [...]

The Future Of Music Retail, Part 2: The Digital Marketplace

Following on from the Part 1 discussion of how high street music retail has been affected by the global economic downturn, we now look at the impact this may have on digital music sales.

iTunes, The Majors & The Balance Of Power

With the announcement of the changes to Apple’s iTunes Music, the world has been given an insight into the balance of power shifting back towards the major record labels, and potentially a glimpse of a weakened or panicking Apple.