In today's CMU Daily: Spotify will increase its prices in five markets later this month, according to sources who have spoken to Bloomberg. Though the price increase is linked to the streaming services’ audiobook offer - subscribers can avoid the price rise by opting for a new subscription tier without audiobook access. Is this Spotify seeking to add a distinct extra subscription fee that can be reserved for paying audiobook publishers? 

One Liners: Pophouse + Kiss deal; Downtown appointment; UD Incubator Programme; Rough Trade Liverpool opening; TuneCore's Studio One integration; TikTok law campaign ads; Charli XCX tour; new music from Chilly Gonzales and Ibibio Sound Machine

Also today: NTIA confirms it is “steadfast in our commitment to ensuring fair wages for workers within the industry”, but says the minimum wage increase means further government support is required; IMPALA expresses concern about a new “value gap” created by TikTok; the music publishers launch a new ‘rights reservations’ portal setting out the copyright obligations of AI companies

Plus: Lei Hope is CMU Approved

Spotify planning another price rise in five markets

Spotify will increase its subscription prices for a second time in five markets this month, according to sources who have spoken to Bloomberg. Although this price increase seems to be very much linked to the streaming service's ambitions in the audiobooks space. Either way, the reports prompted an increase in Spotify's share price, its investors presumably hoping that the price rises will help the company meet its increasingly urgent need to achieve profitability. 

According to Bloomberg, Spotify will increase the price of a premium subscription by $1 and a family plan by $2 in countries including the UK, Australia and Pakistan. The US won't be affected this month, but will see a similar price rise later in the year. However, users will reportedly be able to avoid the price rise by opting for a new subscription plan that excludes free access to audiobooks. 

Spotify has been trying to expand beyond music for years, of course, believing it can get a better profit margin on other content types, including podcasts and audiobooks. However, in the short term, those moves have negatively impacted on profitability. 

That is because the royalty pool into which 65-70% of its subscription revenues go is earmarked for the music industry, meaning it needs to generate alternative and distinct revenue streams for other content types. 

For podcasts that was mainly advertising and sponsorship, while users initially had to pay extra to access audiobooks, on a book-by-book basis. With those revenue streams slow to take off, Spotify had to cover the cost of its expensive deals and acquisitions in the podcasting and audiobooks domain from its 30-35% share of subscription revenue, or other financing. 

Last year Spotify started offering premium subscribers in some markets up to for fifteen hours of audiobook listening a month at no extra cost. 

Given it still needs to pay royalties to the audiobook publishers, Spotify will have had to cover the costs of that offer from its share of subscription money. But, if subscribers start paying an additional pound per month specifically for audiobook access, could that revenue be specifically used for paying audiobook publishers? 

Many in the music industry had been calling on Spotify to increase its baseline 9.99 subscription price for years prior to the uplift to 10.99 that was instigated last year, so that more money could flow into the core royalty pool that is shared with music companies. Given that initial price rise didn't prompt a significant number of subscribers to unsubscribe, it's generally hoped that there will now be semi-regular price increases to at least keep in line with inflation. 

However, if Spotify is also keen to offer a greater range of subscription packages, including some that are specifically connected to and can therefore fund non-music content, that could complicate things. Though it is known that Spotify is also hoping to placate its partners in the music industry by working with them on super-fan products that could generate extra income connected to specific artists and music content. 

Spotify should start announcing details of its new pricing and subscription packages later this month. We’ll see if subscribers are keen to pay extra for audiobook access. At least by making audiobooks separate to a basic subscription, if that all goes horribly wrong, it will be easier for Spotify to cut the audiobooks out entirely.

FKP Scorpio Entertainment // Head of Marketing (London)

FKP Scorpio Entertainment // Ticketing Manager (London)

FKP Scorpio Entertainment // Social Media Manager (London)

The O2 // Box Office Manager (London)

The O2 // Contact Centre Manager (London)

foundation.fm // Account Manager (London)

AXS Europe // Implementation Manager (London)

Double Six Rights Management // Performer Repertoire Lead (London)

AXS Europe // Implementation Project Manager (London)

Domino // Digital Operations Manager (London)

Horizon is CMU's new weekly newsletter - published each Friday - that brings you a hand-picked selection of early-stage career opportunities from across the music industry.

Whether you're looking for your first job in music or you're ready to take a step up, Horizon is here to help you find your dream job faster.

👉 Click through to see the current selection.

ONE LINERS

Kiss, Downtown, Charli XCX, Chilly Gonzales + more

DEALS 

Pophouse has announced a deal to acquire a stack of rights from Kiss, including the band’s share of their recording and song rights and revenues, plus brand and likeness rights. The Swedish company - best known for its involvement in the Abba ‘Voyage’ shows - is already working with Kiss on a similar show based around digital avatars of the band’s members, which were showcased on the final date of Kiss’s farewell tour last year. Pophouse CEO Per Sundin says the company will “safeguard and enrich” the band’s legacy “through future global endeavours, by breathing new life into their characters and personas while also leveraging and elevating the visual world of Kiss”. 

APPOINTMENTS 

Downtown Music Holdings has announced that Pieter van Rijn is now CEO of Downtown Music, having previously been President of Downtown Music and CEO of its FUGA business. The new role follows the most recent rejig of the Downtown group, as a result of which all of the company’s businesses now sit under the Downtown Music banner, including distributor CD Baby, which was the last unit to operate as a separate division. So, as well as CD Baby, that also includes Downtown’s publishing, label and neighbouring rights services, plus FUGA, Sheer, Songtrust, Curve, found.ee and Soundrop. Above Downtown Music is Downtown Music Holdings, which consists of various corporate functions. Van Rijn reports into Downtown Music Holdings CEO Andrew Bergman. 

MUSIC EDUCATION 

Talent development organisation UD - based at Talent House in Stratford, East London - has announced the ten artists that will participate in its Incubator Programme, which was piloted in 2023 and is supported by collecting society PPL. Says UD MD Pamela McCormick, “The Incubator programme addresses a clear need in the industry for young musicians making music of black origin and facilitates their transition from educational or vocational training to the commercial market or professional workplace. By identifying and developing their creative skills and business knowledge, we are making them industry-ready and preparing them for a sustainable career in music”. The ten participating artists are: Allyson, Charlotte Dowsson, Izzy Withers, J2, MARACHÉ, Olympia Vitalis, Skee, Skye, TayoLoxs and Zuko Rosemeid. 

MUSIC RETAIL

Music retailer Rough Trade has announced that its new Liverpool store will open on 18 Apr, just in time for Record Store Day on 20 Apr. The new space also has a bar and venue on its first floor which will open fully in May. Says the company’s Head Of Retail, Rich Nemeth, “We are very excited to be coming to Liverpool, a fantastic city with world-famous musical heritage, known for its community. We have recruited a fantastic team, with a vast range of music knowledge, who are all very excited to welcome our customers to the new store. We aim for Rough Trade Liverpool to become a central hub for music fans of Liverpool and to reflect the rich and diverse music scene”.

DISTRIBUTION

Distributor TuneCore has announced a new integration with Studio One, the digital audio workstation from PreSonus. It means users will be able to “set up a TuneCore artist account, verify the metadata for their recordings, and send their music to digital stores and streaming platforms, all from within Studio One”. Says TuneCore CEO Andreea Gleeson, “As part of our ongoing mission to make artists’ lives easier, we are excited to partner with PreSonus to streamline the distribution process for Studio One users”. 

DIGITAL 

Following the news that TikTok is spending over $2 million on an ad campaign opposing the proposed sell-or-be-banned law that is working its way through US Congress, Advancing American Freedom -an organisation founded by former American Vice President Mike Pence -is spending the same amount on an ad campaign supporting the proposals. The House Of Representatives has already passed the law, which would force TikTok’s China-based owner ByteDance to sell the app or face a US ban. It is now being considered by the Senate. Pence told The National Review, “TikTok is the Chinese Communist Party’s way to feed America’s youth their propaganda and collect data on all TikTok users. Last week, TikTok launched a $2 million ad campaign to stop the legislation that would disentangle the app from the CCP, but AAF is fighting back, launching an ad campaign to urge Congress to get the bill passed and signed into law”.  

GIGS & TOURS

Charli XCX has announced details of a number of arena shows in November and December, including in Manchester, London, Birmingham and Glasgow. She releases her new album 'BRAT' on 7 Jun. Fans who pre-order the album before 9 Apr will get early access to tickets on 10 Apr, before they go on general sale on 12 Apr.

RELEASES

Chilly Gonzales has released new single ‘F*ck Wagner’, which considers the timeless question “Should we separate the artist and the work?”, name-checking “monstrous historical and contemporary figures from Wagner to Kanye, whose cultural contributions are nonetheless undeniable”. The release is accompanied by a petition calling on Cologne to change the name of the city’s Richard Wagner Strasse to Tina Turner Strasse. Citing how Wagner “used his platform to encourage anti-semitism”, the petition notes “Un-naming the street is not an act of ‘cancel culture’ but an act of separating the art from the artist. We are not calling to stop the performance of his music. But when we name a street after an avowed antisemite, we are honouring an unworthy man”. Much better to instead honour Turner, an artist who made Cologne her home for nine years. You can sign the petition here. 

Ibibio Sound Machine have shared new track ‘Mama Say’, which comes from their new album ‘Pull The Rope’, which is out on 3 May. Say the band, “This track is simply about honouring women - the main chorus vocal is sung in pidgin and says ‘Mama say make I honour am’, in other words ‘mother says I must honour her’ - it is essentially about empowering and uplifting the women in our lives”.

Approved: Lei Hope

Manchester-based Lei Hope unveils his soul-baring new single ‘Sinner’, offering a vulnerable glimpse into his introspection with Christianity, family and faith, and the intertwined nature of these experiences.

With his upcoming EP ‘Matrices’ set for release on 10 May via Heist Or Hit, Hope’s musical style blends vocal harmonies and vibrant synthesisers, creating soft warmth that permeates every note. 

Reflecting on the track, Hope shares, “‘Sinner’ is probably my most personal and honest song on this project. I kind of struggled with both family and faith post-pandemic and living alone in Manchester, but I’d never explicitly written about it until now. To be honest, I never thought that I could be this honest in songs until I heard ‘Stranger In The Alps’ by Phoebe Bridgers. I’m questioning transformations in my life, faith and family whilst not being 100% sure that the change is positive”. 

With Hope driven by a desire to create honest and affectingly human music, that new EP ‘Matrices’ promises to be captivating. With ‘Sinner’ serving as a poignant preview of what’s to come, he is poised to make a lasting impact on the indie music scene.

🎧 Watch the video for ‘Sinner’ here

NTIA clarifies minimum wage statement: “we are steadfast in our commitment to ensuring fair wages for workers within the industry”

After the UK’s Night Time Industries Association issued a statement yesterday interpreted by some to be “punching down” on lower paid workers, the trade organisation’s CEO Michael Kill has clarified to CMU that that was definitely not the intent.  

The NTIA’s latest statement has again called for further government support for the night-time sector, specifically noting the impact of the latest increase in the UK minimum wage which went into effect this week. 

Keen to clarify that the NTIA is not opposed to the wage increase in principle, its CEO Michael Kill told CMU, “The night-time economy and hospitality sector is the largest employer of those under 30 and we are steadfast in our commitment to ensuring fair wages for workers within the industry and recognising them as its greatest asset”. 

However, Kill added, the increase in minimum wage basically offsets the benefit of the extended business rates relief that the UK government announced in its recent spring budget. The UK minimum wage for workers over the age of 21 - aka the ‘national living wage’ - is now £11.44 an hour following a 9.8% increase earlier this week. 

With the increase in wage costs, night-time businesses are still facing significant challenges despite the extension of business rates relief, as other operational costs also increase and the cost of living crisis impacts on customer spend. Hence the NTIA statement calling for further government support. 

Kill told CMU, “In real terms, the increase in the national living wage by the government presents unprecedented challenges for businesses operating within the sector, pushing operational expenses to unprecedented levels at a time of crisis. Particularly for independent enterprises, the surge in costs presents immense hurdles, exacerbating the already daunting landscape they navigate”. 

“While the government’s extension of business rates relief, announced in the spring budget, is acknowledged and appreciated”, he added, “it provides only temporary respite. The relief, barely covering the cost of the national living wage increase for the next twelve months, offers little consolation to the countless businesses grappling with intensified financial pressures”. 

“It is a poignant irony that, while business support is extended in one hand, it is swiftly retracted through increased wage obligations”, he continued. “This imbalance not only threatens the very essence of our vibrant nightlife sector, but the jobs and wellbeing of the workforce we are trying to protect, posing a formidable challenge to its sustainability”.

“We call for a continued dialogue and collaboration between the government, industry stakeholders and policymakers to address the balance, and to acknowledge the injustice and move towards providing further support to businesses to allow them to survive under the current cost challenges”.

IMPALA says “huge value gap” when it comes to TikTok

Pan-European indie label trade group IMPALA has said that it shares Universal Music’s concerns about music being undervalued by services like TikTok, calling on the social media firm to “collaborate with the independent music community to achieve fair licensing terms”. It has also called for Spotify, Deezer and Apple Music to deal with the “unintended negative consequences” of changes they recently made to their respective royalty models. 

Honing in on TikTok and other social media platforms that use music, Mark Kitcatt, CEO of Everlasting Records and Chair of IMPALA’s Streaming Group, says, “There is an urgent need to secure fair revenues from these vital services. In line with this, IMPALA supports UMG’s stance on TikTok in relation to valuing music properly”. 

He then pushes back at social media companies seeking to use the promotional value of their platforms to justify paying less to the music industry, stating “We reject arguments equating the use of music on TikTok to promotion. There is a huge value gap that must be addressed but, beyond that, an exciting opportunity to explore new ways of generating and sharing revenues”. 

Better Noise Music CEO Dan Waite, who chairs IMPALA’s Digital Committee, adds: “TikTok is at a pivotal moment in terms of renewing their licensing deals where they can show that they value music fairly on their platform. It’s a use of music that needs to be remunerated like any other”.

While sharing Universal’s concerns, the indie community - unlike the major - is not yet embarking on an all out war with TikTok. Although, at the same time, it’s clearly felt that further public pressure is needed in order to get better deals out of the social media company as its licensing agreements come up for renewal. 

For its part, TikTok responded to IMPALA’s statement by saying, “We value the relationships and the licensing agreements we have with the independent music community across Europe. TikTok has always been a licensed service and we’re proud of the successes that independent artists and businesses have found through our platform”.

In terms of the recent changes made by Spotify, Deezer and Apple, the indie community is not necessarily so aligned with Universal. Those changes were made, in part at least, in response to pressure from the mega major, and are therefore supported by Universal bosses. 

The changes mean that, when the three streaming services allocate revenues to tracks each month based on consumption share, not all tracks and plays are treated equally. New rules are applied that benefit certain artists and labels, and especially superstars and majors. 

Not all those changes are opposed by the indie community, though the lack of consultation by the streaming services has been criticised. In December last year, IMPALA set out a number of questions about Spotify’s changes and suggested a number of possible tweaks. 

In today’s statement, IMPALA calls for “any changes in how revenue is allocated to be properly assessed by services in terms of the impact they create over the whole market, in line with IMPALA’s own proposals”. That includes the changes already made, but also any future changes too. And, as for future changes, IMPALA adds, “We call on streaming services to consult and discuss this with their independent licensing partners before the decision is made”.

Setlist Podcast: Make big shows fund grassroots music, politicians told

In this week's Setlist Podcast: Chris Cooke and Andy Malt discuss UK Parliament's Culture, Media & Sport Select Committee's hearing on the grassroots live music crisis, the Nirvana logo legal battle's return to court, and more. 

🎧 Click here to listen - or search for 'Setlist Podcast'

ICMP launches rights reservations portal setting out the legal and moral obligations of AI companies

The International Confederation Of Music Publishers has launched a new online portal where music publishers and collecting societies can log their ‘rights reservations’. These are basically statements via which copyright owners formally opt-out of text and data mining exceptions that exist in some copyright systems and which many AI companies rely on when using unlicensed content to train generative AI models. 

The new portal, ICMP Director General John Phelan says, “is a digital resource for music companies worldwide to reaffirm that artificial intelligence must respect real rights. There is no legal, commercial or moral excuse for using the world’s music without respecting copyright. As an industry, we remind AI companies - of all sizes, everywhere - to work with us and do all they must to secure a truly legal, secure and innovative AI marketplace”. 

The music industry is adamant that any AI company using existing recordings or songs to train a model must first get permission from the relevant copyright owners. 

However, many AI companies argue that they do not need permission because AI training is covered by some kind of exception in copyright law. Either a specific exception covering commercial text or data mining - such as in the EU, Singapore or Japan - or the more general concept of ‘fair use’, in the US in particular, but also Israel. 

In the main, the music industry would argue that neither the data mining exceptions nor fair use actually apply in this context, the exact legal arguments depending on which copyright system you’re talking about. However, European law also provides an opt-out - or, technically speaking, a ‘right to reserve’ - which, when employed by a rightsholder, removes any ambiguities over whether or not the data mining exception applies. Because it does not. 

In the words of the 2019 EU Copyright Directive, the European data mining exception “shall apply on condition that the use of works ... has not been expressly reserved by their rightholders in an appropriate manner, such as machine-readable means in the case of content made publicly available online”.

Various rightsholders in the music industry have already reserved their rights in this way, with French collecting society SACEM making a big statement to that effect last year. The new ICMP portal will allow rightsholders to log their rights reservations in one place, making it easier for AI companies to see what rights have been reserved.

A declaration on the portal states the music industry’s core position - that permission must be sought and exceptions generally don’t apply - before adding that, additionally, “all rights in the works” of participating rightsholders “are expressly reserved in relation to relevant text and data mining provisions and copyright exceptions, including but not limited to article four of the 2019 EU Copyright Directive, the United States Code ‘fair use’ exemptions, the 2020 Copyright Act Of Japan, the 2021 Copyright Act of Singapore and the 2007 Copyright Act of Israel”. 

It then says, “There is no legal or moral excuse for the unlicensed access and exploitation of creators’ works for AI training, use or output. Respect for laws and rights will ensure rapid but responsible innovation, continued investment and a sustainable future for AI tech and creative sectors worldwide”. 

All three major music publishers have logged their rights reservations with the portal, as have a bunch of independent publishers including Kobalt, Concord, Peermusic and Reservoir. The portal also makes available a CSV file listing all the participating publishers, to facilitate easy recognition by web crawlers and other automated content recognition technology. 

You can access the portal at www.rightsandai.com.