David Coleman

Read enough articles, and you’ll think songwriting is in the throes of decline and decay.  In Nashville, the number of songwriters has been decimated since 2000, according to one tally, and even hit songs are producing paltry payouts (according to another).  Composition licenses are also at the root of a major legal actions involving Spotify, Rhapsody, Xbox […]

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Tidal subscribers are surging at unprecedented rate… In fact, since Kanye’s album dropped exclusively on Tidal in February, the platform has doubled its subscriber number.  Now, it’s added at least another one million thanks to a Beyonce exclusive.  All of which means Tidal has nearly tripled in size in about three months. That’s a 200% […]

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How many streams does it take to get into the Spotify top 200? Charting on Spotify can change things for an artist, and potentially alter an entire career.  But most artists (and even labels) have no idea what it takes to climb into the coveted top 200 ranking.  Now, there are some concrete stats: according […]

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Back in November last year, DMN reported the unveiling of the new ‘Hi-Res MUSIC’ logo for digital download services. Now the RIAA have announced that the Hi-Res music logo is going to be available to music streaming services as well.  “The expansion of the Hi-Res MUSIC definition to encompass streaming technologies reflects the continued evolution of the marketplace to […]

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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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This 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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What’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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Smartphones 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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Spotify 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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Are 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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Earlier 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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The 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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Rihanna’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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We 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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Diagram #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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Top 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: 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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  First, 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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