ISSUE 376 | 14 OCTOBER 2015 Contents 06 Beyond Music – thereport Twitter’s growing pains 07 Pinboard: Stats, deals, startups and more 09 Country profile: Chile Writing wrongs Music publishing’s biggest challenges laid bare 2 ISSUE 376 14.10.15 COVER FEATURE Music publishing’s biggest challenges Writing wrongs laid bare Recorded music and live tend to dominate the discussions around the music industry – one on the horns of navigating the transition from physical to digital and the other having enjoyed a long period of growth as online has yet to significantly disrupt its business. Within this, publishing can sometimes feel like an overlooked part of the equation. With that in mind, we spoke to those both in and around music publishing about what is helping them accelerate into the fast lane as well as what is grinding their gears. From metadata as both a payment and a discovery channel to wider licensing and regulatory issues, the coming year will be a bumpy one. iscovery through both metadata and LYRICS: FROM MAYHEM TO subtitles – or legal lyric translations – for 11 lyrics; streamlined royalty reporting THE ULTIMATE METADATA years,” he says. “Through that process and and payments; and the moving “With lyrics, it used to be a Wild West through working with LyricFind on licensing target of revenue displacement. scenario,” says Will Mills, chief revenue officer international indie publishers for legal lyrics DBased on detailed conversations music:)ally at LyricFind, on the early websites offering for the past five, I’ve had the opportunity has had with key companies in and around (often user-generated) lyrics. These lyrical and the challenges to experience the music publishing, these are the three biggest transcriptions were almost always unlicensed stasis and also the positive changes in the themes gripping the sector in 2015 and the and also they were very often wrong. publishing and performing rights businesses things it needs to sort out before 2016. With over 400 publishers signed up globally. It’s been extremely interesting and There is a sense of progress being made and deals in place with around 100 clients there is news somewhere almost every day. but also a gnawing realisation that what – including Amazon, Deezer, Shazam, Some of it’s even good news.” a stopgap until the full promo video is shot were once open goals are now shrinking and SoundHound and MetroLyrics – LyricFind A decade ago, lyrics online really and edited together) while music services like the publishing sector as a whole needs to do is not only moving to tidy up this space but amounted to a sprawling mass of Deezer and Spotify are offering synchronised something – fast – before they close forever. also to create new revenue and marketing transcription sites, often replicating each lyrics on their players to not only enhance Here we work through the topics opportunities for publishers. other’s woefully transliterated song lyrics. the user experience but also to increase the dominating the publishing debate and explain Robert Singerman, global business They were often unlicensed so there was little amount of time a user plays music. what – if anything – is being done to capitalise development at DotMusic, has been active quality control. Since then, sites like Genius “Static lyrics feel like an older technology,” on them as well as pinpoint the areas that within the lyrics space for over a decade (formerly Rap Genius) have come along to says Mills of the changing demands that report require urgent attention before what was and is highly enthused about what the not only re-run lyrics but also dissect them. services now have of lyric services. Beyond once brimming with potential sours into a publishing industry can and should do On top of this, lyrics videos are often the first serving as a way to boost listener dwell time, missed opportunity. here. “I’ve been working on giving music way a new pop single is released (often as he says they also have a growing commercial the 3 ISSUE 376 services, labels, publishers, PROs – look bad 14.10.15 COVER FEATURE at the precise point when they really should be doing a lot more to improve how they are function. “Synchronised lyrics are really viewed as acting here. important for ad-supported services as they increase the session time of the user and their engagement,” he says. “That has a material impact on ad CPMs.” He gives the example of this at work in tracks that mention brands, consumer products and even places. With these key words identifiable and taggable within a song, specific ads can be targeted at the listeners “@Spotify thanks for the £100 for this of the track. In basic terms, if a song mentions quarter just gone, one more month and I clubbing in Ibiza, ads for flights, hotels and might be able to afford your premium service,” clubs on the island can be sold around the Synchronised lyrics are really important for she tweeted on 22nd September, piling on the listeners to the song. “All of that is powerful sarcasm. “Lucky me!” for big data plays,” says Mills. “We like to think ad-supported services as they increase the session Picked up on by numerous media outlets of lyrics at the ultimate metadata.” time of the user and their engagement. That has a and held up as yet another example of artists To stress the importance of having material impact on ad CPMs” getting a raw deal from streaming services, clean lyrics, Mills also argues that they this was a PR disaster that could have easily are increasingly important in search and Will Mills, LyricFind been avoided, says the anonymous publisher. discovery terms. “We [LyricFind] serve many “The infrastructure that artists and billions of lyric impressions every year just input the metadata, publishers sometimes agreed that if you get played you should get publishers rely on is the reason that people through our API,” he says. “I would say [lyrics use this to their advantage by saying that, if paid. In reality, it’s just not working.” like Spotify are getting bad press,” they say. are] the biggest music discovery channel out something is not matched, they must own What is the best and quickest way to “Take La Roux’s tweets about this. She was there digitally.” it – or they must own some of it. I wouldn’t fix this? “It’s difficult to put your finger on looking at Spotify where she has millions of want to be an indie songwriter or publisher the solution,” they say. “If you think about plays and that will be worth more than £100 THE MESS OF METADATA AND today. [Their share will be claimed by the collection societies, they are membership [after splits]. If you are getting paid 18 months MICRO-TRANSACTIONS bigger publishers until it is sorted out.] That is organisations and they only run with after a stream and streams are a growing a problem.” their members’ money. The members are object, it is really difficult to say you have While Mills talks about lyrics as “the ultimate One publisher, speaking off the record, continually pushing for lower overheads millions of plays but only got £100. The way it metadata” and a way to get better and more says that incomplete and basic song – which means you have fewer people currently is, you’ll not be able to find it in the targeted ad results, the broader issue of metadata is causing a huge logjam in internally to sort things out. You are also ecosystem.” having clean and detailed metadata is still a payment systems, with the smallest players running on systems that Antony Bebawi, huge problem for the digital music industry and writers suffering the most. are 25 years old.” European EVP of digital as a whole and the publishing business in “Instead of suing people for unpaid They give the recent & society relations particular. royalties and working out after the fact how example of La Roux at Sony/ATV Music “Data is a huge issue,” says Gregor Pryor, you pay it out, we should be really pushing tweeting about her Publishing, takes partner at legal firm Reed Smith, adding all of the big DSPs to provide us with data so streaming payments exception at the point that incorrect data can be open to abuse. that from day one everyone can be paid,” they as a consequence of about slow payments, report “The problem in the supply chain is that the say. “There is a massive amount of injustice this royalty processing suggesting this has publishers are not as involved as they could at the moment in terms of how people are tardiness that makes been improving be. If a file gets delivered by the label that has paid and who is paid. With digital, it should be everyone in the chain – markedly in recent the 4 ISSUE 376 The problem is the lack of good metadata on digital course, hugely important), Chris Garrett, 14.10.15 COVER FEATURE services – and this is probably one of our biggest co-founder and product director at licensing company Beatroot, feels that the industry has challenges” – Antony Bebawi, Sony/ATV Music years. “We have managed to squash the also unwittingly handed the keys of discovery lag period because, in the beginning, it was over to music services. ridiculous,” he says. “The amount of data missing is clean At a cost of “The industry is like a bowl of spaghetti coming in and hitting society systems was data.” £8m, the collapse – it’s a total mess,” he says. “There is no real unprecedented from their point of view.