Ever wondered how Turntable.fm looked after their music licensing, well here is how they do it. Turntable.fm co-founder sat down with Techcrunch to talk about the basics of Turntable and how they are just focused on running their product only in the US.
Previously here at RouteNote we have been pretty critical of the PRS and how they go about their business. However, today the PRS and YouTube have finally announced that they have come to an agreement on licensing.
Google has confirmed that the new deal is a lump sum just like the last one, thus paying an upfront amount but not a per stream minimum. It is about time that the PRS be a little more flexible on their approach to licensing, but I still wonder if Google had access to work out which artists are PRS registered and then based the lump sum around that. Songwriters and composers will be keen to hear the finer details of the deal though, in terms of what tracking will be used to equitably share out the cash.
The deal is backdated to 9th January when the previous deal expired, and runs until June 2012. Neither Google nor PRS for Music is saying how much the upfront payment is, naturally.
YouTube’s director of video partnerships Patrick Walker says that “We are dedicated to establishing and fostering relationships that make YouTube a place where existing fans and new audiences can discover their favourite content – whatever it might be. We are extremely pleased to have reached an agreement with PRS for Music and look forward to the return of premium music videos to YouTube in the UK where they will join a variety of other content to be enjoyed by our British users.”
Bob Kohn, the founder of eMusic (which he has since sold) hosted this session, in which he shamelessly plugged his new enterprise, RoyaltyShare.com. This is a site that deals with splitting the revenue from performances, digital sales and the licensing of music between the parties with an interest in the work. They’re aimed mainly at bigger record labels who have a lot of content to manage and can’t keep up with the millions of small transactions that their catalogue generates through ecommerce.
As well as promoting himself, Kohn discussed the increasingly popular view of music as a service, something like satellite or cable TV, saying that this was his favoured model for the future, and that providers would essentially be competing on user experience and content availability as much as on price. His opinion is that the bigger infrastructures involved in the industry will continue to fall away as the market value of music drops, but that more of the revenue will end up in the hands of the people who make the music, as more direct links between artists and retailers are made, as by CD Baby, Snocap etc.
