What the Paperchain team has been reading about rights, royalties, data, music tech & blockchain — July 04 2017
The latest update on what is happening in the world of music royalties, music technology and blockchain development.
Delaware House Passes Historic Blockchain Regulation
The state of Delaware has passed amendments to state law that make explicit the right to trade stocks on a blockchain, according to multiple sources familiar with the matter. Crammed in at the last minute before the state House went into recess, the measures were part of a broader series of amendments that legally recognized any number of records being stored on a blockchain. Read more
Bank of Canada Finds Flaws With Current Blockchain Solutions
A study carried out by the Bank of Canada, into the feasibility of using DLT to create new distributed wholesale payment systems, identified potential for DLT-based wholesale payment systems to deliver benefits if they could be linked in to other financial market infrastructure. Read more
Stim Spotify Royalty Payouts Delayed After ‘unmatched Tracks’ Dispute
This is the second time that STIM’s Spotify payouts have been delayed. In September 2016, payments for the first quarter of that year were delayed for two weeks, although that was due to negotiations still being finalised at the time those payouts should have been distributed. Read more
U.K. Collection Society PPL Pays Out More Money Than Ever Before
Driving the growth was an increase in revenues across PPL’s three major income streams: public performance and dubbing, broadcast license fees and international neighboring rights. The latter experienced the highest year-on-year increase, growing 32 percent (16 per cent on a currency neutral basis) to £48 million ($62 million). Read more
Alexa, Where’s My Credit?
The question for moral rights purposes, of course, is not whether the music user sends the names of the authors in the NOI–presumably the copyright owner already knows who wrote the song. The question is whether the music user displays the names of the authors of a song on their service, or better yet, is required to display those names so that the public knows. Read more
Steep Rise in Music Royalties Will Only Benefit Cartels
The tariffs, as developed by the Kenya Copyrights Board (Kecobo) will certainly reignite the hushed debate on the potential abuse of powers by regulatory bodies — especially when they are allowed to arbitrarily impose and collect levies from the public with little or no public participation thereby diming accountability. Read more
Mary Meeker’s 2017 Internet Trends: What Do They Mean For Music?
Across the Pacific, Tencent Music Entertainment Group just signed a landmark licensing deal with Universal Music Group, atop its existing deals with Sony and Warner; its music streaming and download service QQ Music has over 400 million monthly active users, over three times as many as those on Spotify. Alibaba Music extended its licensing deal with BMG, and launched an artist management venture with video site Youku; its parent, Alibaba Digital Media and Entertainment Group, plans to invest over 50 billion yuan ($7.4 billion) in new projects over the next three years. Read more
Now Apple Wants to Reduce Royalty Rate It Pays Record Labels
According to a report from Bloomberg, the Cupertino giant’s long-term licensing deals with the labels for both Apple Music and iTunes are due to expire at the end of this month. As part of the re-negotiations, Apple is apparently asking to bring its label revenue share rate down from 58% closer towards Spotify’s equivalent. Read more
Electronic Music Pioneer & CISAC President Jean-Michel Jarre: ‘We’re Living In A Medieval Dark Digital Age’
“The problem is that the nucleus of these creative industries — the creators and authors — have never got so little. And this is not just a problem for a niche sector of society. It’s a huge problem for every family in the world. For every individual on the planet.” Read more
Originally published at blog.paperchain.io.
