Want better payouts from YouTube? Then stop accepting lower payouts from YouTube. It’s really that simple. The music industry is often accused of promoting ‘brain drain,’ engaging in constant infighting, offering wild overcompensation for underwhelming results, suing instead of solving business problems, and routinely getting out-strategized by smarter big tech interests. But beyond these enormous, self-imposed handicaps, […]
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David Coleman
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How to Quintuple Your Streaming Royalties In About an Hour
by David Coleman onThis is how you can hack your streaming royalties. Earlier this year, DMN starting asking artists and labels to share their streaming royalty statements, which unearthed a pile of incredible per-stream statistics. That’s part of an ongoing data-sharing project to battle the incredible lack of transparency in the streaming music space (and, please send your […]
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Amazon Attacks Artist-Unfriendly YouTube Where It Hurts…
by David Coleman onWhat’s one way to change YouTube’s f-you attitude? Competition. As the music industry prepares for war against YouTube, another giant is sensing opportunity. Amazon has now launched a YouTube-like video platform that allows content creators to earn revenue through advertising and royalties on uploaded videos, with far greater control and collaboration. Which might be exactly the kind […]
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Turns Out Smartphones are Giant Music Piracy Machines
by David Coleman onSmartphones are slowly supplanting desktops when it comes to almost every form of music piracy. But this is a lot more complicated than just shifting screens. Last week, Digital Music News delved into the quickly shifting terrain of music piracy, one that now involves less torrenting and a lot more stream-ripping from YouTube. It also involves greater amounts of […]
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Welcome to the Next Phase of Streaming Music: Original Video – Digital Music News
by David Coleman onSpotify is rolling out an entire slate of original videos. Is that a big part of the future of streaming music? Today, Spotify announced the addition of 12 new original video series on music and popular culture. The series — which will reportedly last up to 15 minutes each — will be available in the U.S., U.K., Germany […]
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YouTube: Where Music Careers Go to Die…
by David Coleman onAre you stuck on YouTube and don’t know how to get out? Justin Bieber was the first superstar to come out of YouTube, but it almost feels like he was the last. Since Bieber’s ascent, hundreds of thousands of artists have flocked to the platform, often recording endless covers and never crossing over. That sometimes includes artists […]
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YouTube Is the New Pirate Bay, Study Shows…
by David Coleman onEarlier this year, research group MusicWatch shared data with Digital Music News that showed 53 million Americans actively pirating music content. But even more shocking was how they were doing it: instead of torrenting on the Pirate Bay, more and more piracy is now happening on YouTube via stream-ripping, with direct streaming piracy and storage […]
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10 Reasons Why Your Audience Is Getting Bored
by David Coleman onThe greatest bands create great memories and a total escape at their shows. If that’s not happening for you, here are the most common reasons why audiences disengage and what you can do about them. Most artists are earning a huge percentage of revenues from live shows, not recordings or publishing. So why are so […]
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Does Boycotting Spotify Work?
by David Coleman onRihanna’s ANTI album gained a number one spot on Billboards top 100 chart the week after it was released exclusively on Tidal’s streaming service. This was achieved without Spotify or any other streaming service except Tidal. Just 15 hours after ANTI was released on Tidal, the album was downloaded more than 1.4 million times, and by the end […]
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YouTube Is Underpaying Artists and Getting Away With It
by David Coleman onWe need to ”wake up and smell the coffee”… Canadian singer-songwriter Nelly Furtado joins Nikki Sixx, Debby Harry and other musicians who are standing up against YouTube and campaigning for fair payouts. In a recent blog post for The Guardian, Furtado discusses the ongoing issues that artists are having with YouTube and tells the streaming platform […]
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How Google Killed the Music Industry (In 3 Easy Diagrams)
by David Coleman onDiagram #1. If your business is based on recorded music sales, then you know this slide well. But it’s also created a ripple effect throughout the music industry, with artists and labels moving towards touring, merchandise, and other areas to sustain revenues (with mixed results). Diagram #2. Under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), signed […]
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The Top 10 Music Instagram Accounts (Are 90% Women) – Digital Music News
by David Coleman onTop 10 Music Instagram accounts… 1. Selena Gomez – 76.8 million followers (Image by AleeDear, Creative Commons, Attribution 2.0 Generic, cc by 2.0) 2. Taylor Swift – 75.3 million followers (Image by Eva Rinaldi, Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic, cc by-sa 2.0) 3. Ariana Grande – 70 million followers (Image by JustEntertainment, Creative Commons, Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic, cc by-sa […]
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Youtube Makes Changes To Its Heavily-Criticized Content ID System
by David Coleman onYoutube: We know our content ID system is a ‘frustrating experience’…but we are making changes… Yesterday, YouTube announced via its blog that it would be making necessary changes to its Content ID system. The news comes after right holders dubbed the system as ‘flawed’, as it fails to pay them when someone files an incorrect dispute. Prior to […]
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Before You Waste Money on a Lawyer: 5 Legal Steps for Every New Artist
by David Coleman onFirst, a Disclaimer (after all, I ‘m a lawyer). This series of articles and the forms included in them have been created for informational purposes only and do not constitute legal advice. This article and other articles in this series should be used as a guide to understanding the law, not as a substitute […]
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This Is the Contract Songwriters Are Signing With Spotify
by David Coleman onSign this, and you sign away some of your rights. Early last month, Digital Music News broke the story of a broad-reaching agreement between Spotify and music publishers to resolve tens of millions in unpaid royalties. That agreement, forged by major publishing organization NMPA, would involve a one-time, $5 million penalty payment by Spotify as well […]
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Introducing the Unskippable YouTube ‘Bumper Ad’
by David Coleman onYouTube has just announced the addition of another ad. And you will watch it. Yes, it’s another YouTube ad, like there weren’t enough already. But this one is entirely different: YouTube is calling its latest addition a ‘bumper ad,’ which will last six-seconds and can’t be skipped. Google designed these new ads for smartphone users (roughly […]
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Why Those Celebrating Bitcoin’s “Death” Are Missing The Point
by David Coleman onAlthough many are gleefully claiming that the cryptocurrency Bitcoin can now be officially declared as dead, it’s initial failure could simply be a minor setback in the technology’s slow but steady march towards ubiquity. ___________________________________ Guest Post by George Howard on Forbes Mike Hearn, one of the original members of the Bitcoin development team, recently […]
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Alliance Entertainment Becomes Biggest Physical Wholesaler in the U.S.
by David Coleman on5/18/2016 The negotiations between Alliance Entertainment and Anderson Merchandisers, previously reported by Billboard, has produced a purchase agreement whereby Alliance Entertainment will acquire the music assets and business of ANconnect LLC, a subsidiary unit of Anderson. The deal makes Alliance the largest physical wholesaler in the U.S. — and, with Target, one of the two biggest physical music accounts. The […]
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