The biggest music industry news | August 2024
Image credit: Soundtrap
August spelled success for songwriters and artists alike as revenues grew and new opportunities opened up, but AI presents new threats.
SoundCloud launch an artist merch store
SoundCloud have released a new shop that allows artists to promote and sell their merchandise directly through the music platform. Merchandise offers huge earning potential for artists and can help to back up a modest streaming income.
100% of the profits made through the SoundCloud Store will go to the artist. The platform allows artists to design and sell apparel and accessories with ease. The SoundCloud Store is available to Next Pro artists.
Music publishing revenues grow profits for songwriters
MIDiA Research have released their 2024-2031 global music publishing forecast. They predict that music publishing revenues will nearly double in 8 years. Basing their data off of 2023, they celebrate an impressive 12% growth in music publishing revenues last year. Music publishing growth surpassed record label trade revenue, which reached 9.1% for the year.
PUSH.fm opens up new marketing tool to everyone for free
Our partners at PUSH.fm have long been an incredible source of free marketing tools for creators around the world. Now, they’ve made their Competitions feature free for all users.
This tool allows users to set up a contest in which fans need to complete an action to take part and win a chosen prize. Encourage fans to follow your socials or save your new tracks and entice them with something unique.
Spotify’s still number 1, but other platforms are on the rise
Spotify has long ruled the music streaming game and whilst they remain at the top, other platforms are finding success. In August, Kantar revealed that YouTube Music is now the music streaming service being adopted the quickest, outpacing Spotify in growth percentages.
Over in China, their 3 leading streaming services KuGou, Kuwo, and QQ Music are also matching Spotify’s subscriber growth in raw units. The 3 Chinese streamers’ parent Tencent matched Spotify’s growth of 10 million net paying subscribers in the first half of 2024.
Roblox and DistroKid team up, but artists’ receive nothing for their music
Independent music distributor DistroKid has teamed up with the huge gaming platform Roblox. What initially seems like a great opportunity for independent artists is sadly dampened by the fact that artists won’t earn anything from their music being used.
DistroKid reveals: “Music on Roblox is currently not monetized; you are granting rights for Roblox developers to use your music on a gratis basis.” So, Roblox gets to use artists content, but artists don’t get remunerated for it.
Live-music sharing may be coming to Instagram
Remember the good old days of MSN? For those who do, you likely remember the feature that showed what you were listening to in the moment. It was very important for your personality.
Now, Instagram look to be testing a similar feature in collaboration with Spotify. The feature is not yet public but was uncovered by a well-known developer. It would allow users to share what they’re listening to on Spotify as they stream on their Instagram profile.
TIDAL provide songwriters with a new royalty managing tool
TIDAL are making catalogue management easier for artists on their platform. Songwriters and artists can now view their catalogues from TIDAL’s Artist Home. From this new hub songwriters can easily view, claim, and organise their works. This ensures songwriter credits are correct and that they’re receiving their correctly due revenues.
How are Gen Z listening to music?
The youngest adult generation are defined by their connection to technology. Gen Z, which has grown up with the internet, of course consume the majority of their music via streaming. 37% of the time Gen Z spend listening to audio is on music streaming services.
What may surprise you, is that they still spend a lot of time listening to traditional AM/FM radio. 20% of Gen Z’s audio listening time is spent listening to AM/FM radio.
The 1st fully AI streaming service is here
China is the first country to have a music streaming platform solely featuring AI-generated tracks. The music is created to the users’ needs in the moment, based on mood and themes. It presents a potential threat to the music industry, taking away from the livelihood of real artists.