Trends News

Top 20 Countries with the Most Illegal Music Downloads

Source: HypeBot
September 19, 2012

As the piracy saga continues with the “six strikes“ initiative coming soon to the United States and news that BMG is looking to cash in on $20 settlements with alleged file sharers, it's worth taking a look at just how big illegal file sharing really is these days. According to data collected by the monitoring firm Musicmetric, it's still pretty rampant, especially in the United States - which has more total files shared than anywhere else in the world by ...

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Global Digital Music Market Expected to Grow 15% Annually

Source: HypeBot
August 30, 2012

According to the global analyst firm Ovum, the global digital music market is expected to grow at 15% annually, reaching nearly $22.5 billion by 2017. Subscription services are said to be in large part responsible for the growing revenues, predicted to show a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 46%, stemming from bundling partnerships with service providers. Ovum also expects to see high digital music growth in most regions across the globe, with exceptions being North America and Europe, where ...

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Throwback: Beck Encourages Digital Fans to Engage with Analog Music

Source: HypeBot
August 15, 2012

Last week, Beck announced that his new album wouldn't be released as a digital download, nor as a CD or a vinyl. Rather, the album Beck Hansen's Song Reader will be released in December entirely as individual pieces of sheet music by the publishing house McSweeney's. While the idea of releasing songs as sheet music is anything but a new idea, it is an incredibly novel way to embrace today's participatory culture, while also bringing people back to the old ...

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Streaming Contibutes 25% to Warner Music Group's Digital Bottom Line

Source: HypeBot
August 10, 2012

It's no secret that streaming services like Spotify and Pandora account for relatively little of an artist's revenue stream. In fact, yesterday we showed you how Zoe Keating earned a mere $300 from Spotify during a five month period, compared to $45,000 from iTunes sales in the same time-frame. However, streaming services do seem to be doing well for labels - namely Warner Music Group. The company has said that streaming services contributed to 25% of the digital revenue that ...

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70 Percent of All Music Piracy Happens Offline...

Source: Digital Music News
July 28, 2012

The FBI can't raid this problem, you can hardly track it! In fact, most music fans would hardly call it piracy, yet offline sharing actually eclipses online sharing when it comes to the acquisition of music.

The slide comes from an RIAA presentation leaked to Torrentfreak, with researcher NPD Group breaking out the categories. And it shows that most swapping happens offline, with swapped hard drives and burning and ripping of others' collections key culprits. All of ...

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More Proof That Newer Artists Have It Harder...

Source: Digital Music News
July 21, 2012

or the first time this year, older albums started outselling newer albums, across CD, vinyl, and download formats. But this is a trend that's been happening for a while, and reflects a devaluation that is hurting newer artists the most.

The reason is that albums simply put more money in the pockets of artists (and their labels), alongside other higher revenue generators like concert tours. Which means that if you're selling box sets and packing reunion tours, you're probably rich. ...

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Uh-Oh: Music Financing is Down 37 Percent on the Year...

Source: Digital Music News
July 20, 2012

Don't call it a bubble-pop! But music-focused financing is down a lofty 37 percent on the year, according to the latest tallies. The year-to-date count (as of July 19th) now stands at $256 million even, a number that includes a monstrous, $50 million round for Soundcloud in January and an even more massive, $135 million round for Sonos in June.

And, there could be another 'mini-bubble' in the works. Indeed, June has been one of the biggest in recent memory ...

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For the First Time, Records of the Past Are Outselling New Ones

Source: HypeBot
July 19, 2012

For the first time since Nielsen Soundscan began keeping track of album sales in 1991, old records have outsold new ones, with the first six months of 2012 seeing album sales of 76.6 million “catalog" records (albums released more than 18 months ago) compared to 73.9 million current albums. Topping the catalog sales charts are Guns N' Roses' Greatest Hits and four Whitney Houston records (as a result of her untimely passing).  So is nostalgia in higher demand than fresh ...

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