How Music is
Listened to in the United States
Despite substantial changes in non-music audio, listeners in the US spend 74% of their average daily audio time listening to music as opposed to podcasts and other spoken-word audio.
A new report from Edison Research reveals just how much Americans listen to music, and it’s more often than you might think. Despite the attention given to the prevalence of audiobooks and podcasts in the press, listeners in the United States spend 74% of their average daily audio time listening to music.
In a way, this might sound obvious — there’s a lot more music out there than podcasts and audiobooks. As Edison Research puts it, “If podcasts go back decades, music libraries go back hundreds of years (we’re looking at you, Bach, Gershwin, and more), and those substantive libraries are available on a variety of audio platforms.”
Interestingly, for listeners aged 13-plus in the US, 32% of their music-listening time is spent with AM/FM radio and radio streams, which makes radio the most-used source to deliver music content.
Core Music Industry Funding Jumped in November Despite a Sizable YTD Decline — Is a Rebound in the Cards for 2025?
Building on October’s growth, core music industry funding increased by double digits during November 2024. Nevertheless, the cumulative value of YTD raises remains well beneath its 2023 counterpart.
These and other worthwhile insights come from DMN Pro’s Music Industry Funding Tracker, a one-stop database compiling rounds from in and directly around the industry. Running with the information provided by that searchable and filterable resource, the music space recorded five raises in November 2024 – the same number delivered by the prior-year month. Unlike November 2023, however, November 2024’s rounds, the largest being Trolley’s $23 million Series B and the smallest being Conduction’s $250,000 in pre-seed capital, didn’t benefit from a $50 million AI raise
What the
Ek? Spotify founder is richer than any musical artist, ever
In case you didn’t already know it, facts and figures put together by Forbes show that Daniel Ek, Spotify’s CEO and founder is currently worth $7.3 billion. That’s richer than their musical top three of Taylor Swift, Rihanna and Jay-Z combined. Richer, therefore, than any music artist in history.
It’s news that'll doubtless put a broad, beaming smile onto the face of any musician. Yes, whether you’re Elvis Presley, your choice of ex-Beatle or just that struggling guy or girl with a guitar looking for a lucky break, raise a [probably empty] glass to the fact that the CEO and founder of Spotify is the guy who’s really taking making money from music.
US Supreme Court seeks federal insight into major labels’ $1bn copyright case against Cox
The US Supreme Court has invited the federal government to provide input on a copyright dispute between major music labels and Cox Communications, one of the US’s largest internet service providers.
The dispute stems from a $1 billion jury verdict originally awarded to more than 50 labels owned by Sony Music Entertainment (the lead plaintiff), as well as Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group.
The labels accused Cox of not doing enough to prevent its subscribers from illegally downloading and distributing copyrighted music through peer-to-peer networks.
US PRO AllTrack launches mechanical royalties collection service
US performing rights organisation AllTrack this week formally launched a new mechanical rights division, meaning independent creators can collect both performance and mechanical royalties via one platform. It’s the first PRO in the US to also represent its members’ mechanical rights. AllTrack, the newest of the five performing rights organisations in the US, has formally launched a mechanical rights division, allowing independent songwriters to collect more royalties via one platform.
That, AllTrack notes, makes it “the first and only PRO in the United States to offer integrated performance and mechanical rights collection services that music creators and publishers can manage through a single platform”.
The organisation’s founder and CEO, Hayden Bower, says that the expansion into mechanical rights “addresses the independent sector’s long-standing need for a simplified royalty collection process”, adding that, “AllTrack members can now receive the compensation they're entitled to faster and more efficiently than ever before”.
Music copyright generated $45.5 billion in 2023
Music copyright brought in $45.5 billion in 2023, according to Will Page, who has collated industry stats to calculate a figure for the entire sector. Though he says the actual figure is probably higher, because not all the industry reports he relies on capture all the revenue. Global music copyright revenues in 2023 were $45.5 billion, 11% up year-on-year, according to economist Will Page, who has just published his annual study that seeks to capture as many of the rights and revenues of the wider music rights industry as possible.
That said, Page admits that the actual value could be higher than that.
For calculating the total revenues figure, Pages relies on a combination of data from IFPI (recorded music), CISAC (song royalties collected by collecting societies) and Music & Copyright (music publisher direct income), before removing ‘double counting’ that happens by bringing together those figures. All of which illustrates why - to truly understand the global music copyright business - we need stats that are truly global.
AM/FM maintains dashboard ubiquity, but not monopoly
In-car technology research company Quu has released its 2024 In-Vehicle Visuals Report, examining radio’s place in top-selling new U.S. vehicles. It is also the inaugural year for this study. Staunchly pro-radio Quu states “With so much listening happening in cars, we must identify our strengths and weaknesses.”The strength is represented by 100% representation of FM radio in the top 100 best-selling American vehicles, and 98% AM presence.
Sirius XM claims 92%, while the two leading phone interfaces, Android Auto and Apple CarPlay, claim 98% each.
How to tell if a playlist is botted
If your music’s getting botted, your music could get booted.
Yes, tracks and playlists with inflated streams (also known as streaming fraud) run the risk of being removed from platforms like Spotify and Apple Music.
And you run this risk whether or not you knowingly engage in bad behavior.
For instance, if you enlist a promotion company who inflates your streams, or if your song ends up on a botted playlist, you could see your track, your catalog, your entire user account, or your artist profile deleted from the very platforms you rely on to share your music with the world. “How do I avoid getting my tracks removed?” “Is this playlist going to help or hurt me?”You only have so many minutes in your day. If you’re pitching your music to playlists, you want that time to be worth the effort. So there are a number of things you can check beforehand to see if a playlist is legit or suspicious.
Some of these things are publicly and instantly viewable, and some of them require you to access certain data through a service like Chartmetric or artist.tools — or at the very least, to do some deeper analysis on your own.
US Copyright Office boss says she’s “kept up” at night by the speed at which AI is developing
The US Copyright Office recently undertook a consultation on copyright and AI. In an update to Senators, the Office revealed that both AI companies and copyright owners think current US copyright law is fit for purpose. They just radically disagree on how those laws should be interpreted. Both the tech sector and the copyright industries in the US currently believe that the country’s current laws are adequate for dealing with the copyright challenges posed by generative AI. However, they have very different opinions on how those current laws should be applied.
As a result, US Congress will likely be asked to reform copyright law at some point, and identifying the right reforms will be a challenge.
While both tech companies and copyright owners believe the fair use doctrine is fit for purpose in the context of AI, they totally disagree on whether or not AI training is fair use. While any
judgments in the lower courts will be appealed, likely all the way up to the US Supreme Court, once there is a sense on which way the lower courts are going on this, lobbyists from either the AI sector or the copyright industries will likely start calling for legal reform.
(Just WONDERFUL!!! Technology has provided a new way to
handcuff everyone for anything. Soon an attorney will
be needed for everything, and the attorney will need an
attorney, and that attorney will need an attorney, and we
are all in a big mess! THANK YOU TECNHOLOGY!)
AllTrack — America’s Fifth PRO — Announces Mechanical Rights Division, Declaring It a First For a US Performance Rights Organization
AllTrack, billed as a digital-era performing rights organization (PRO) with a focus on the independent music sector, has announced the launch of a mechanical rights division. According to the company, the move makes AllTrack the first PRO in the United States to offer integrated performance and mechanical rights collection services that music creators and publishers can manage through a single platform. While performance royalties offer compensation for rightsholders when their songs are ‘performed’ (either live or via an on-demand play), mechanical royalties are also part of the payout. These days, mechanical royalties are generated when music is streamed on demand, used in digital applications, downloaded, reproduced into physical products such as CDs and vinyl records, or utilized in various other means protected under copyright law.
New Short Documentary On Making Of Willie Nelson’s New Album Out Now
Rooted in Time: Willie, Micah and the Making of Last Least on the Tree, a new short film documenting the creation of Willie Nelson‘s latest studio album, is out now.
The short documentary by filmmaker Jeremy Steinberger pairs intimate scenes of Willie and his son Micah recording with meditative reflections on making the album and its themes, and delves into the deep emotional and musical bond between father and son. The film’s closeness is captured by Jeremy’s mother, Randi Malkin Steinberger, who documented many studio moments as the album was recorded at Hen House Studios operated by her husband Harlan Steinberger. Since 2001, Hen House has been a creative home for the album’s producer, Micah.
