Josh Gruss, CEO of Round Hill Music, was the keynote interviewee for NY:LON Connect’s publishing strand yesterday. He offered some views on the disparity in digital royalties between recordings and songs.
“I think it should be around 50/50. You don’t have a recording without the song. You also don’t have a concert without the song,” said Gruss, while noting that the decision to leave the US consent decrees system unchanged means this is unlikely to change. “As long as that’s in place you are going to see the composition valued inferiorly, if that’s a word, to the recording.”
Gruss also talked about the priorities of the three major music companies. “All the majors do have a record segment and a publishing segment, and their record segment is a lot larger from a revenue perspective than the publishing segment, and in general the record labels own bigger shares of the recordings than they do of the songs,” he said. “I would say that one needs to look a little bit sceptically at the independent view from the publishing side that the majors have… in the past there have been times where issues come up, publishing-wise, and things are done around that that maybe aren’t completely beneficial to, let’s say, an independent publisher. Because at the end of the day, the majors are thinking with their record hats on.”
Music Ally’s next Learn Live webinar will help you understand what’s required for artists to thrive in new international markets!